My Name is Earl Recap: Number One
Everyone knows that Earl won the lottery and then he got hit by a car and lost the lottery ticket, so he decided to turn his life over to karma, which is when he made his list of everything he'd ever done, and start crossing off items that he needed to do to make it up to the people he had wronged.
In this episode, he lets Crabman decide what item to cross off next, and wouldn't you know it - the Crabman picks perhaps the hardest item of all, Number One. It just so happens that Number One is the stealing of $10 from someone at the convenience store, just before Earl won the lottery. As karma would have it, that person then couldn't buy the lottery ticket that Earl did, meaning that person should have won the lottery that Earl did!
But as karma would have it, once Earl gives all the money he has back to the person, it affects them even worse, and in the end they get hit by a bus (which happens to be carrying Earl), landing them in the hospital, and we hear the whole story.
Once Earl was hit by the car, losing the ticket, the man who lost the $10 (and thus the lottery) took the ticket and ran, instead of helping Earl. Later on, he was hit by the same car, which meant he lost the ticket too. The ticket floated around town, and all the way back to Earl, which started him on his trip with karma. But the man was convinced that he didn't need the money, so it came back to Earl and he got to cross off Number One. Whew.
Comments
This episode was especially moving to me. Okay, it brought me to tears. I wonder if the writers know how much serious spiriual truth and wisdom lurks underneath the guise of this comedy.
In a leap of faith in Karma, Earl gives all his money to the man he stole the $10 from, much to the alarm of Randy. One could argue that Randy should get a job and support himself, but in the story it has been established that Randy's job is helping Earl.
Because of this, Randy's worry about their finances is legitimate, and proven true as the story moves on and they lose everything, right down to their car.
We see a moment of clarity in Randy's character when this situation and his hunger makes him explode on Earl for trusting Karma to such an extreme. We cannot condemn Randy's response and lack of faith. This makes Earl a Moses figure, with all the pain that involves.
This is how a spiritual path goes. There comes a point when your friends and family give up on you and/or try to talk you out of your faith, and in that pain you have decide whether to give it up or keep trusting.
Posted by: Lonnie | August 30, 2006 4:48 PM