Before we get into this week's My Name is Earl, which featured Jon Heder, let's recap what's happened in the season so far. We started off with Earl in prison after admitting to a crime he didn't commit in order to protect his ex-wife and the unborn baby she was carrying. Once inside, he struck a deal with the warden to work off his time through various tasks, lost all of certificates and, eventually, just escaped. In escaping, however, he was officially pardoned for his crimes, where he promptly gave up his list and was struck by a car. After spending weeks in a coma, leaving his brother, Randy, to finish his karma list for him, he wakes up from a lifetime-long dream where he married his dream girl, Billie (Alyssa Milano), decides to seek her out, finds her and promptly marries her. So basically he went from an inmate to a disillusioned criminal to a coma patient to a married man in one season. That's quite a jump from the first three seasons of Earl merely scratching another item off his list each episode.

So that leaves us with Earl's first day as a married man. Unfortunately for Earl, married life isn't quite the same as his sitcom fantasy and quickly finds himself annoyed by Billie's various every day habits. One thing he is happy about, however, is that Billie has decided to make her own list and do it with him. Luckily for both of them, they find a mutual item on both their lists.

A few years earlier, there was a local bagger at the grocery store named Joel, played by Jon Heder, who went to a bagging competition. Unfortunately for the young man, when word got out that he was going to be out of town for the competition, virtually everyone in the town took it upon themselves to rob his home. Both Earl and Billie were participants in the town-wide robbery, so they decided to return what they stole in order to make things right. They soon find out that after he was robbed, Joel became so infuriated with some graffiti in his home that he punched the wall, breaking his left hand and preventing him from competing in bagging competitions for the rest of his life. Though Billie feels that her karma has been justified, Earl still feels like he should do more, and continues to look for a way to put the would-be-champion's life right again.

Soon he finds the answer after discovering that he has all the qualities of championship bagger. Joel takes it upon himself to train Earl as his protege and Earl quickly climbs the ranks in the bagging championship before getting to the finals. Just before the big match, however, Earl gets into an argument with his new wife, believing that she isn't taking her list seriously enough. He makes the unfortunate mistake of poking at her with his finger to which she reflexively grabs it and breaks it.

Now, himself, unable to compete in the competition, he passes on the bad news to his hopeful mentor. Quickly, however, they discover that the rules in the bagging competition allow them to compete together as one bagger as long as only two hands are used. Each using their lone, good hand, they overtake the current champion and win the day. Billie congratulates her husband and claims to try harder on her list in the future. At first Earl is happy, but his happiness quickly evaporates when she tells him of one of the things she wants him to change about himself; his moustache.

This whole season has sort of had the feeling of watching a marathon runner take the lead early in the race. You are excited that he's winning; but you can't help but worry that he's going to wear himself out. To me it seems that each of these little sections throughout the year could have easily been a season by themselves. I honestly could have gotten behind a whole season of Earl in a coma, leaving Randy, Joy, Darnell and Catalina to finish his list for him. And as excited as I was at the prospect of having AlyssaMilano as a series regular, it worries me that they were married so quickly since it seems to hint towards an exit in the season finale. Still, each week has been a success so far, and I would love it if they somehow managed to keep the new quick pace in the storyline for the remainder of the show. It still sort of makes me nervous, though. I guess all that I'm saying is that, not unlike real life, it would have been nice if Earl hadn't rushed into marriage so quickly.

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