After the long hiatus, My Name Is Earl finally returns with an hour long second-half-of-the-season premiere. Following suit with the beginning of the season, it again had various guest stars, not only featuring Alyssa Milano as Earl's love interest, but also giving us Carrie Aizley and Paris Hilton.

We open with the NBC President taking time to give us a quick recap of what happened prior to the writer's strike, taking care to poke fun at the writers with some jabs undoubtedly scripted by the writers themselves.

In case you too are in need of a refresher, in the last episode, Earl was released from prison and quickly tried to start where he had left off - taking care of his list. Unfortunately, his heart wasn't in it this time around and he reverted back to his criminal tendencies, forcing an intervention from his friends. Unconvinced, Earl takes off to the street only to be hit by a car, mimicking his first appearance. Soon, we learn that the person who hit him was his crush, Billie, played by Alyssa Milano. Quickly, however, she is also struck by an oncoming car.

The new episode starts with the would-be couple unconscious in the street. Earl is still narrating, though, thinking about his childhood. His parents used to fight all the time, so Earl found escape in TV sitcoms about happier families. As a sort of defense mechanism to the accident, Earl dreams about what his life would be like if he were in his own TV sitcom. He pictures himself married to Billie in a sitcom household with a laugh track and everything.

Back in the real world, Randy has found the unconscious Earl in the middle of the road. Unfortunately, there is apparently only one ambulance in the town, and the paramedics have opted to save the much hotter Billie. Looking out for his brother, Randy throws Earl in the back of the ambulance and steals it, determined to take him to the hospital on his own.

On his way, he runs into the rest of the gang so he picks them up as well. After Darnell, Joy and Catalina all try their best to revive the still unconscious Earl, he ends up rolling out of the back due to a combination of the gang's misguided efforts. Almost immediately, Earl's stretcher is struck by a semi truck and taken away. This forces the gang to change their plans and track down the owner of the semi truck.

Meanwhile, Earl continues to dream about his fairytale life in his own sitcom. Now including all his friends, he dreams about slapstick situations involving Joy, Darnell, Catalina and Randy all overstaying their welcome in he and Billie's home.

Back in the real world, the guys find Earl being held captive by the truck driver, played by Carrie Aizley, who is using him as her own love toy. Joy tricks her and give them the opportunity to steal Earl and take him to the hospital. He and Billie get there at the same time but the doctor has bad news: Earl is in a coma and they don't know when he'll come out. Darnell suggests they try different stimuli, so they try coaxing him out with bacon and Joy's breasts but neither work. Earl's still unconscious, stuck in his perfect sitcom world. Paris Hilton is now there as well, hanging out in the background waiting to drop her "that's hot" catchphrase. Finally, Randy has an idea.

Randy brings up his idea to the guys: use this faith healer kid they had all met a few years earlier who, for some reason, hasn't aged a day since Earl's criminal years. So they go to the kid's house only to discover that he has given up faith healing after finding out that his last two subjects were the criminals Joy and Earl. Randy succeeds in convincing the kid that Earl is a good guy when he shows him his list. He even offers to put the faith healing kid on it, promising Earl will make things right once he gets better. The kid still needs convincing that healing the cruel and unpleasant Joy was a good idea.

In order to sell Joy as a good person, Darnell cooks up a plan to forge a film portraying Joy in good situations. Filming her in front of a blue tarp, he uses his genius intellect to superimpose her into various good deeds from cleaning oil spills, to helping flood victims, to feeding JFK lines in his speeches. The kid's convinced and volunteers to help the comatose Earl.

At the hospital, the kid tries to faith heal Earl and fails. It turns out that the whole faith-healing bit was just an elaborate scam put forth by his father to make money. Even though he should be upset, the kid is relieved that he doesn't have any special powers and is free to live his life as a normal child. He even instructs Randy to scratch his name off Earl's list.

After everyone leaves, Randy is heartbroken, talking to Earl as he slips further and further away. Even in his TV dream, Earl is leaving his friends for a new job far away. Talking to Earl, Randy scratches the kid's name off Earl's list only to find his brother's heart rate improve. Apparently Randy has found the key, and it is now up to him to finish Earl's list so that karma will bring his sleeping brother back to life.

So that's where we are. Earl's out and now it's Randy's turn to take the initiative in getting his life back in order. Frankly, this whole turn was sort of predictable, but it was still pleasant. It will be nice to see how the whole cast does without their faithful leader.


-George Freitag, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
(Image courtesy of NBC)