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As Joy approaches her due date, it causes Earl to reflect on the last time he was around when she was having a baby. At least this time, he is fairly confident that the baby is his. Of course, that time he thought that it was his too. Only time would tell that it wasn't the case.

When the date neared, Earl's parents were overjoyed - an odd condition, because they are usually somewhat reserved in their opinions of their son. Disappointed might be an even better word. But with the arrival of their first natural-born grandson (you will recall that Joy already brought one), they were like new people, arriving at the hospital in their "world's best" t-shirts.

And so it was that Earl proudly pointed them to another child, for he didn't want them to see that his child wasn't white. As luck would have it, another mother chose that moment to come into the maternity ward and start nursing his child, and he couldn't readily explain that one away, so his father knew fairly quickly that his son was indeed "the black one", and the proud moment was lost.

But luck for Earl, his dad does have some good qualities. While Earl contemplated throwing away his marriage, and leaving Joy to take care of not one, but two kids that weren't his, his dad took matters into his own hands, and illustrated to Earl that it just didn't work that way. That once you sign up for something, you need to stick it out. I'm not entirely sure I agree in this particular case, but he chose to teach his son a lesson that he needed to learn.

I'm also not sure I agree that he taught it in the right way. You see, Earl's dad started throwing the hamsters out the window of an upper-level bedroom, forcing Earl to catch them, showing him the power of a caring parent. And that apparently turned things around. It was actually really pretty odd.

I have to say that I liked it better when Earl was doing things off of his list, something that he's managed to get almost entirely away from in recent episodes. I'm wondering if this is the future direction of the show, or if they've run out of things to talk about. It'll be interesting to see how things go, what with the second season winding up (if it hasn't already).