Vote For This And I Promise To Do Something Crazy At The Emmys
Updated 2008-09-26 09:51:39
Earl arrives at his mom and dad's after getting a call from his dad that they can come and pick up all their old stuff. Turns out they have to buy it back at their parents' yard sale. That is so Earl's dad. $64.73 is the price he's asking for all of it. It's basically a basket of trash, and one puppet that is giving me Franklin flashbacks, which are always a good thing. Turns out it's Randy's puppet, Milo, who always tells the truth. He immediately says, "Hi, Earl. Remember that time you got real drunk and pooped in bed?" Okay, so toilet humor or not, this could be a hilarious plot device (although, doesn't Randy sort of tell the truth all the time anyway?). Turns out Earl never really liked Milo. What a shock!
Joy finds a game at the yard sale where you roll a ball into different holes that say "Genius," "C student," "Dumbass," etc. Joy used to play it all the time and was called "the ball genius," a name that took on a new meaning in seventh grade. Um, show? It is 8:30. Kids are still watching. Possibly even seventh-graders. Anyway, Joy wants it, but Mr. Hickey is charging $3.25, to which Joy responds, "What?! Might I remind you that I am the mother of what you thought for a brief second was your grandson?" Carl: "Four dollars." Beau Bridges really is awesome in this role. I'm not going to say it's the best thing he's ever done, but I can't remember the last time he entertained me like he does with this character.
Anyway, Joy pockets the game. Darnell asks her what she's doing, and she assures him she's not stealing it; just holding on so that no one else buys it, and soon the Hickeys will beg her to buy it. She walks off and proudly says, "Ball genius!" Darnell's like, "Is this really what I signed on for?" Yeah, sorry, dude. You kind of did.
Randy (with Milo sprawled over his shoulder) has a more serious dilemma: trying to decide between the fun lawn darts or their "more practical" baby teeth. The lawn darts are this episode's prop to trigger Earl's List memory. (I love how he's sort of like a Rorschach test with this List; what item will Earl see this week that will draw him back to the list? Will it be the baby teeth? Milo the puppet? Nope. It's lawn darts.)
Back in the 1980s, Kathy and Clark Clark (really) were the Hickeys' neighbors and best friends. Clark Clark is trying to tell everyone else about MTV, but he's like, "Have you seen the short film on this music television video channel?" Ah, the '80s: People were so dumb then. He's talking about "We Are the World" , if you're wondering. He even gets teary about how they're all "harmonizing for humanity." Yeah, Mr. Clark? We have Angelina Jolie and Bono to do our humanitarian work now. We are so much better than the '80s.
Earl and Randy oversee Clark Clark crying, and they find it so funny that they do everything they can to make him cry again. They throw broken eggs onto a nest-looking pile of sticks and feathers on his doorstep (mean!). As Johnny Cash sings, "Cry, Cry, Cry" , Clark Clark cries "Poor birdies." Then Earl and Randy find a place at the mall that makes fake newspapers and deliver one to him that says, "Baby Suicides At An All Time High." Johnny Cash continues as Clark Clark sobs, "Why are babies killing themselves?" What a good question. Why would babies do that? Clark Clark is so emotional, he puts his house on the market. The Hickeys are confused, until Milo tells them that Earl and Randy tortured Mr. Clark and made him cry. Back in the present, Earl and Randy -- with Milo revealing Randy's masturbatory habits -- head off to find the Clarks.
Meanwhile, our one-eyed mailman plays Joy's "Ball genius" game with his glass eye instead of a marble. The mailman wants to buy it, but Joy says she had her eye on it way before he had his actual eye actually on it. So, they start bartering for it and Joy ends up paying $45 (even though Darnell told her some of that money is for their kids' asthma medicine; she is such a good mother). And she's keeping the glass eye since it was on the game when they were bidding on it.
Earl and Randy have no trouble finding Clark Clark in the phone book. It's not a common name, I guess. Clark Clark says he appreciates Earl and Randy coming over, but they aren't the reason he moved. He has never said why he moved, but it's time for him to reveal this secret he's lived with for far too long. "We moved because your mother and I had an affair." Okay, little show that's supposed to be happy and silly and fun, I did NOT see that coming.
Earl goes to confront his mother who offers him cookies. He says what he'd like more than cookies is to know why she had sex with Mr. Clark. And there go the cookies. Come on, Earl, you have to tell her to set down the plate of cookies before springing something like this on her. There's no reason to ruin a perfectly good plate of snickerdoodles, after all. And poor Randy wanted the snickerdoodles more than the knowledge, so now his day's ruined. And since I am in love with the name Clark Clark I have to transcribe what comes next, verbatim:
Kay: Who told you about me and Clark Clark?
Earl: Clark Clark.
Kay: Clark Clark! Damn you, Clark Clark.
Turns out Clark Clark and Kay kept each other company when Carl was working and Mrs. Clark was in self-defense class. They just hung out playing cards until they had too many wine coolers, and had sex. She regrets it and breaks it off the next day. We then get to see the whole scenario again when the boys felt guilty and Milo confessed but from Kay's perspective. It's pretty much the same except for her fear at being discovered, and her guilt over breaking Clark Clark's heart heart.
Earl says she has to tell Dad. She refuses on the grounds of him not being an angel, either, what with the Hooters receipt she once found. Earl says that no one knows what it's like to be cheated on more than him, and "Dad deserves to know!" That line is, of course, Carl's cue to walk in and say, "Deserves to know what?" Milo starts, "Oh, Carl, wait until you hear this: Apparently, your wife..." and then Randy awesomely rips Milo's head off. There's little time for laughs, though, because Carl demands to know what the puppet was talking about. Earl turns to Kay, who says, "Carl, do you remember 1985?" Cut to Carl walking out the front door with a suitcase screaming, "My wife's a whore! All neighbors are welcome. Line forms at the garage."
Carl ends up in Earl's hotel with him. Carl is appropriately angry at all he's put up with. Earl sympathizes, "I hear you. You steal for them. Fight for them. They still hand you a different-colored baby from a different-colored father. Bitches." And then he adds that Clark Clark is lucky Carl doesn't kick his ass. But Carl says Clark Clark's luck just ran out and he's going to wish he went across the street and banged Mrs. Henderson. Earl's in for the fight, but he has to throw in that he, in fact, did bang Mrs. Henderson.
They pull up to Clark Clark's and get out. Carl tells Earl to keep doing what he was doing in the car, at which point Earl begins singing every word of Eye of the Tiger. Kathy answers the door, and says Clark is doing a puzzle in the sunroom. Earl keeps singing, and when Clark walks up, the real Eye of the Tiger music starts and Carl decks Clark Clark. He tumbles to the ground, but Carl quickly follows, when Kathy punches him, screaming, "What the hell is wrong with you? He's half your size!" Earl keeps on singing, now inspiring Kathy more than Carl, as she continues to beat the crap out of him. Earl picks up a rock and throws it at her, and gives chase. Man, those were some good self-defense classes.
Carl and Earl sit on the curb. Earl thinks it must feel good to punch Clark Clark, but Carl says it doesn't feel good because Kay is who he really wants revenge on. He says he isn't going to fight her. He needs to get laid. As he walks off on his mission, Earl throws up in the street. Because apparently knowing Patty's "working girl" stories he can handle, but not knowing his dad might have sex.
Joy keeps playing the game with the eye, but Darnell promises the mailman he'll get it back if he can. Randy and his mom are sitting at the Crab Shack, and she's telling him way too much about how bad Carl is in bed. Randy throws his beer against the wall and says, "Oops. I'm going to get us more drinks." He goes to bar, and Joy asks him what's bothering him. He tells her what happened, and she crashes into Kay's bathroom stall, all: "Fee Fum Fie Fo, I smell the stink of a stank-ass ho." Those were her words, not mine. And Jaime Pressly can deliver that line if anyone can (and, trust me, no one else can). She's got a bone to pick since Kay apparently called her a "cheating piece of trash" back in the day. She also thinks they could have been friends if she'd known they both can't be satisfied by Hickey men. At that, Kay kicks her in the face. With her heel.
Kay says she's nothing like Joy because for Joy, cheating was a lifestyle. Joy looks in the mirror and has a big cut on her forehead. She screams, "Darnell, get me a rag. Somebody kicked me in the face in the bathroom again!"
Carl is picking up on a bank teller. She actually seems to be hitting on him, to tell the truth. But when he asks her to dinner, she apologizes for sending the wrong message. She was just trying to be nice; it's just customer service. Poor Carl. She's not interested in having sex with him. And she's not even that much of a prize. So, he closes his bank account. Then heads to the pharmacy and hits on the pharmacist, who slaps him across the face. Then they head to the diner, where he says the waitress also flirts with him. He makes Earl stay in the car, because he thinks having his son with him creeped the other women out. He runs out to get condoms, and then the waitress comes out. It's Patty. And yet Earl does not throw up at the thought of her and his dad together. I don't understand the guy's stomach weaknesses apparently.
Meanwhile, Carl's buying condoms from the pharmacist who rejected him. She says, "I thought you needed the largest kind we had," and he says, "Just ring it up, pecker tease." Can you really say that on TV? I don't think you can. Someone call the FCC. Actually, on second thought, please don't. But have I mentioned there might be children watching?
Earl tries to discourage Patty from sleeping with his dad, who comes back right then with candy. She refuses them because of nuts, and some of her clients are allergic so she has to keep her mouth peanut free. Carl can't believe she's a hooker.
Back at the hotel, Carl breaks down. Earl cannot believe it. After all, he was taught from a young age that Hickey men don't cry. Earl goes through all sorts of times when he might have cried (his mom died, he cut off his finger tip) but didn't. So this moment when it's okay for him to cry finally allows Earl to cry too. It's a real bonding moment. The floor ends up scattered with Kleenex and they make really bad metaphors about what this crying moment feels like. They spend all night talking and crying, until they feel better. (If only it were that easy, right?) Carl goes home to Kay. This is a sitcom after all. Randy burns up Milo. And Earl forgives Joy, who doesn't seem to care, but then immediately hits the genius hole and then gives the eye back to the mailman.