My Name Is Inmate 28301-016
Updated 2008-04-18 19:21:51
Remember last season? When Earl took the fall for pregnant Joy so she wouldn't have to go to prison? Well, now Earl has been sentenced to two years in the lockup. And instead of "Earl," he now goes by "Prisoner 28301-016." The graphics people even mock up a show logo with that number in place of the word Earl. Nice.
Earl VOs that he was terrified of prison, but grateful that he had his friend Ralph to watch his back. We see Earl waking up in the bottom bunk in a jail cell with a poster of, I think, Dolly Parton on the wall. You see, my TV broke the other night and so I'm watching this on my old 19-inch TV, and I feel like I can barely see anything. At least now I have an excuse to get a cool flat-screen HDTV like a grownup. Anyway, Earl goes to wake Ralph up and discovers a fake body with a watermelon for a head, along with a note explaining that Ralph escaped from prison. Earl looks around the cell and discovers a giant Shawshank Redemption -style hole in the wall behind the Dolly Parton poster. As he peers inside, the guards think he's trying to escape, and an alarm sounds. Oops.
Earl is shoved into gen pop (a giant barracks-type room filled with single beds) and muses that instead of "sharing a cell with [his] childhood friend, [he's] joining a two-year slumber party with murderers and rapists." Earl VO gives us an overview of the prison daily routine. First, wake up and make sure "your two most important things" are still there (Earl checks his junk and his 'stache). Then it's time for breakfast (gross). Then you try to keep from getting bored. Earl comes upon two inmates (one of whom is Vinnie "Big Pussy" Pastore ) playing "Guess what number I'm thinking of." Then it's time for bed, when you're alone with your thoughts. As soon as the lights go out, many of the inmates start sobbing.
Earl explains that the only excitement comes when one prisoner tries to kill another. One dude whacks another dude in the head, and an alarm sounds for lockdown. The beds get stripped, and the prisoners get strip-searched. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because the attacker was still holding the block of wood weapon in his hand, but maybe the guards are bored, too.
So overall, Earl hates prison, except for visiting day. Randy, Catalina, and Crab Man sit at a table with Earl. Earl asks after Joy and is told she didn't come because she couldn't find the perfect gift, and she didn't want to come empty-handed.
Cut to Joy trying to assemble a stained-glass portrait of Earl. She's not satisfied with her work, even though she stole the glass from a church window, because she doesn't think it captures Earl's "angelic essence." Joy snaps at Darnell because he's not a hero like Earl. Back at visiting day, Crab Man explains that Joy can't come to visit until people stop looking for the stained-glass thief. Didn't Joy just narrowly escape prison? Should she be committing crimes again so soon? I guess fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and Joy's gotta break the law.
Randy has prepared some questions on index cards. He starts off by asking Earl where they hide the toothpaste. Earl explains the mysteries of the medicine cabinet, and then visiting time is over. Randy is disappointed that he didn't get to ask how to set the alarm clock, or what their apartment number is, and Earl realizes that Randy can't really make it on his own. Molly Hatchet's "Flirtin' With Disaster" starts up as Earl VOs that he couldn't worry about Randy's survival, because he was worried about his own. Being the new guy, people wanted to test him. Earl heard that he should earn respect by punching the biggest guy in the yard. Earl stands and starts running towards the biggest guy, but chickens out and converts to a drive-by wave at the last minute.
Earl VO explains that prison was organized like his dad's sock drawer, "by color." Earl decides to join the white supremacists, even if it means unlearning everything he learned from After-School Specials. He breaks the ice by asking, "Hey, who else thinks the Civil War ain't over, it's just halftime?" This gets him in, but he doesn't want to shave his head, because "hate's in your heart, not your hair."
That doesn't go over, so Earl disengages and decides to join up with the old-timers, because they've obviously learned how to survive in prison. Earl approaches a group of oldsters and is invited to take a seat. The oldsters play a version of Fuck, Marry, Kill, except it asks who would you take for a milkshake, who would you take to the drive-in, and who would you kill. The choices are Judy Garland, Greta Garbo, and Mae West. Earl doesn't want to play, because he finds it creepy to talk about dead people that way -- except the oldsters didn't know the women were dead. A big guy comes up and tries to steal some food, and Earl realizes that the oldsters let him into their gang for protection. Earl assesses the sitch and punches the oldster in he face, handing the food to the big guy. Probably the right call.
Joy has finally created something she thinks is worthy of Earl: a felt quilt where each patch represents a scene from his life. In one block, felt Earl is lying in bed with chicken pox while felt Joy is off banging felt Darnell. After an awkward silence, Joy decides that Earl hates her gift, and she berates him for holding his sacrifice over her head. On a roll, she also asks Earl to get his "stupid yeti" brother to quit calling her every twenty minutes to ask the time, adding that Randy lost his job. Randy complains that he doesn't know how to set his clock, and he asks to borrow money for the vending machine. Earl points out that Randy has access to the bank account, but Randy says the bank closes at five and his clock always says it's midnight. Oh, RANDY. Joy tosses some change across the room to get rid of Randy, and tells Earl that Randy won't survive without him. Flash to Earl in the prison yard and Randy sitting in a lawn chair outside the fence, eating cereal. Back in the visiting room, Earl suggests that Randy move in with Joy, and then Earl and Joy will be even. Joy reluctantly agrees. She pretends to throw more change for Randy, and like a dog, he keeps looking for it, even though the change is still in Joy's hand. Joy realizes that Randy might be entertaining.
Earl is back to trying to figure out how to stay safe. One day in the prison yard, Earl gets hit by a flying soda can. He turns to find his friend Sonny. In flashback, we learn that Earl used to play a game called beer can tag with Sonny, where they would take turns hitting each other with flying beer cans. You know, as you do. Turns out that Sonny hit a cop with a beer can, wrestled the cop's gun away, and then drove around in the cop car with the cop in the trunk. Earl wonders how he never saw Sonny until now, and Sonny says that he's learned to hide. Sonny shows Earl the tricks of the trade while we listen to "Move It On Over" by George Thorogood: Hide behind fat guys. Hide in the shower. Eat your lunch in five seconds.
Back at Joy and Darnell's place, Darnell explains to Randy how to set the alarm clock, and then he says good night so that he and Joy can go "balance the checkbook." Randy protests that Earl used to talk to him until he fell asleep, but Darnell wants to "transfer some funds." Joy tells him to go "sharpen his pencil" and she'll be right in. Randy settles in on the couch and orders Joy to talk about "seahorses in space...no, time travel."
Back in prison, Big Pussy walks up and offers Earl a candy bar, but Sonny prevents Earl from taking it and forces him to walk away. Later, under the bleachers (in prison?), Sonny explains that Earl needs to stay invisible. By taking the candy bar, Earl will owe Big Pussy something in the future. Sonny thinks owing favors is the worst thing that can happen to you in prison. Really? The worst? Because I've watched Oz . Earl spots a dude he knows named Glenn Shipley. Flashback to Glenn Shipley as a young boy, wearing a Camden Scout uniform, with "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones on the soundtrack. Young Earl convinces Glenn to climb through a window and unlock the door to an empty house so Earl can burglarize it. Except there's a dog inside. Young Earl beats feet while Young Glenn gets torn up by the vicious dog. Back in the present, Sonny comments that it seems like Glenn should be on The List. Earl says that he is, but Earl's decided to forgo The List while in prison, to avoid drawing attention to himself. Sonny sneaks over and points Earl out to Glenn, who gets tackled by the guards before he can get to Earl, triggering a lockdown. Glenn continues to yell out threats to Earl until he is thrown in "the hot box," a cell in the middle of the prison yard.
Earl later asks why Sonny ratted him out. Turns out that Sonny owed Glenn a favor (a Zagnut bar), and was trying to repay it. Sonny sneaks off again, causing Earl to kick a chair in frustration. The chair rolls into the guards' table, knocking over their Jenga tower, so Earl gets thrown in the hotbox. With Glenn. Oops. Luckily, there is a fence between them. Unfortunately, there's a dirt floor, and Glenn is trying to dig under the fence. Earl decides to let Glenn tire himself out.
Meanwhile, Joy prevents Randy from walking out into traffic. We see a flashback of Joy's time with Randy so far. She stopped him from sticking his finger in a bug zapper, and moments later stopped him from sticking his tongue in. When Randy didn't know what to order for dinner, because he usually just gets whatever Earl gets, Catalina busted out "Little Earl," a sock puppet with a mustache. Back on the street corner, Joy realizes she has to keep her promise to Earl, so she helps Randy across the street.
Glenn finally runs out of stream and sits back. Earl asks what happened during their aborted burglary back in the day, so let's go to the flashback and find out, shall we? Seems that Young Glenn was arrested, which started a life of crime, and it's all Earl's fault. Earl wonders if he could do something to make them even. Glenn wants Earl to make him a shiv. Earl VOs that normally, he doesn't like to break rules to cross items off The List, but he's in prison now, and has to do what it takes to survive. So he agrees.
Joy and Darnell try to sleep while Randy calls out for Joy from the other room so that he can ask if Riptide will be on tonight. Joy informs him that it hasn't been on for twenty years, which leads to Randy musing on BJ And The Bear . Boy, I had a crush on that Greg Evigan. Joy hauls her hugely pregnant self out of bed to handle things. She tells Randy that she's figured out that Randy isn't just dumb, he's broken. She compares him to a Daddy Longlegs with no legs, or a "spider ball." Joy has decided that Randy is a burden to Earl, and he'll continue being a burden in two years when Earl gets released from prison. Joy promises to help Randy grow up, and she's going to start by preventing his night talking by duct taping his mouth shut. Except now Randy can't breathe, due to his deviated septum, so Joy takes a pen tube and stabs a hole in the tape on Randy's mouth. In the dark, Randy pants through a tube, the sound of which makes me so claustrophobic that I have to go outside for a minute and breathe in the fresh air.
Earl is finally let out of the hotbox, and he goes on Shiv Quest '07. The prison has a display case showing all the different kinds of shivs, of course, with signs reminding the inmates not to break the glass, or make any of the items displayed. Earl decides to make his shiv out of the arm from a pair of glasses and call it "The Peeper Reaper."
Glenn gets released from the hotbox, so Earl heads over and gives him the shiv. Glenn admires it for a moment, and then turns and stabs Earl in the shoulder, triggering yet another lockdown. In the infirmary, the doctor pulls the shiv out and tells Earl to let the guards know if his arm turns black. Earl VO explains that he realized that he had to do his list item right, or karma wouldn't let him be invisible, and also that prison health care sucks. Sonny is sitting nearby, and he comments that Glenn has the worst luck, because every year when he's up for parole, someone pisses him off and he breaks one of the big seven things that can keep you locked up: "Stabbing, burning, biting, strangling, eye-gouging, scalping, and taking a poop in the urinal."
Earl VOs that he wanted to find out why Glenn didn't want to get out of prison, so he goes to see Glenn in the hotbox as "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones starts up. It's scaring me a little bit that I'm able to name all of the soundtrack songs without looking them up. Glenn slams Earl's head against the wall a few times, but Earl manages to get Glenn to stop for a minute so he can explain The List. Glenn admits that he's purposely screwing up his parole because "life on the outside ain't so good for [him] no more." Flashback to Glenn pretending to be a bad-ass so that he can fit in with the kids in juvie. And then people started judging him on how he looked, so even when he tried to do good and honest things, people treated him like a criminal, so he just decided to go with it. Earl thinks it's his fault that Glenn is afraid to get out, so he wants to help Glenn live on the outside again. Glenn explains that he wants the last two Camden Scout badges so he can get his Honor Sash. Earl agrees to do it, and Glenn says he needs Archeology (digging in the yard) and Natural Sciences (bug collection), which means they'll have to make deals with the gangs in charge of certain sections of the prison to complete the tasks involved.
Earl first approaches the albino gang in the prison yard. They're all standing around with towels over their heads to protect them from the sun. Earl says he needs to help Glenn dig in the yard so he can get his Archeology badge. The albinos ask for eight umbrellas in return.
Meanwhile, Joy is trying to teach Randy to think for himself as "Teach Your Children" plays in the background. Randy puts his finger in the bug zapper while Darnell plays Atari 2600. Later, Randy tries to stick a fork in a toaster, so Joy hits him in the head with a giant rubber band. Then, Randy tries to take some clothes out of the gutter, so Joy hits him again. Then, Randy can't decide what to order, so Joy snaps him again. Finally, Randy goes to wander into traffic but stops himself. Joy congratulates him on learning something, and says now they just have to get him to stop carrying Earl's shirt around "like a giant-headed hillbilly Linus."
And REO Speedwagon starts up with "Keep On Rollin'." It's like this show is being scored by my iPod, I am kind of embarrassed to admit. Earl goes into the prison kitchen and manages to get some spoons for digging by promising one of the white supremacist guys that he can be alone in the prison for an entire day. Earl asks a crazy-looking artist dude for some paintbrushes, in return for taking care of the dude's imaginary dog Simon. Earl adds that with each favor, he was becoming less invisible in the prison. He manages to get some maggots from a prisoner in return for cleaning the dead flesh out of his back wound (a job the maggots were doing previously).
Earl finally has everything they need. Glenn and Earl uncover some teeth in the prison yard for the Archeology badge. They collect lice, hookworms, maggots, and roaches for the Natural Sciences badge. For the final step, Earl stands up on a table in the cafeteria and asks if anyone in there happens to be a Scoutmaster. Multiple prisoners raise their hands.
So Glenn gets his last two badges, his Honor Sash, and parole. Glenn walks out of prison wearing his uniform. Earl VOs that Glenn was still judged on how he looked, since he wears his scouting uniform everywhere. But he learned that it didn't matter what other people think of him; it only matters what he thinks of himself. And that's...one to grow on.
After Glenn is gone, Earl meets up with the prisoner to whom he promised a day alone. The prisoner is happy with Glenn being gone, and calls it even. Earl also returns crazy dude's imaginary dog. Earl walks through the bunkroom and nods to his various bunkmates, realizing that the only way to get through prison is to be himself: Earl.
In the tag, Randy finally gives up Earl's shirt and starts making decisions on his own. And his first decision is to steal a car so that he can go to prison and be with Earl again.