Quit Your Snitchin'
Updated 2008-10-24 09:45:19
This episode opens how every episode used to end: with Earl and Randy sharing a bed in the hotel. Randy wakes up and tells Earl it's two days until his birthday and wonders if Earl got him a present yet. He also tells Earl he is old enough to finally go by his proper name, Randolph. Earl informs him that his name is Randall, and Randy's upset. He doesn't even think Randall's a real name, but he knows Randolph is because of Randolph Hitler (sic). He thinks Randall sounds so strange that his mom and dad might as well have named him "Pork Chop Hickey." As you might expect, it turns out Randy likes this name and would like Earl to start calling him that, but Earl refuses. There's a pause, and then Randy says, "Good morning, Earl." I found that confusing. Like, were we supposed to think he was sleep-talking that whole time and just woke up? Or does Randy just wake up talking and then realize he forgot to say "Good morning"? And what's the point of that, writing-wise? Just to confuse me? If so, well played, Earl writers. Earl sighs "Good morning, Randy."
Earl has put a lot of thought into Randy's gift and is giving it to him two days early because it's too big to hide in a closet. It's a car. But not just any car. It's a Ranchero , which is far superior to Earl's own El Camino. We know this thanks to Catalina and then Earl telling us how great it is. (If you knew this on your own, you know far too much about cars with pickup beds and should be ashamed.) Catalina reminds Earl that for her birthday he gave her a "Happy Bat Mitzvah" mug, but that was just because he thought it said "Happy Birthday" in Spanish. We learn that Earl's crossing number 213 off his list this week. Is that the highest we've ever gone on the list? Maybe it's a recent addition? Anyway, the list item is "Never let Randy have anything better than me." Flashback montage: They stole some coats, and Earl gave Randy a ladies' fur shoulder wrap and kept the leather jacket for himself. This totally works, because all Earl has to do is tell Randy the shoulder wrap is for guys and Randy's all smiles. (This is presumably before last week's valuable life lesson .) Then Earl takes the girl in a neck brace who's not saving herself for marriage and gives Randy the girl who is saving herself and wants to talk about the Lord. Finally, they move in to the hotel and Randy gets the side of the bed with the bloodstain. And this is not just any bloodstain. It's HUGE, like someone was killed. In fact, I wouldn't even sleep on Earl's side of that bed.
In the present, Earl and Catalina walk into the Crab Shack so Earl can give Randy his gift. But Randy's trying to catch a dead crab using a crane claw from a tank full of murky water and dead crabs, since it's the Crab Shack's "catch your own lunch day." Darnell says it's not his fault that the crabs are dead; the lights heat up the water -- the good news is you can eat the crab right away since they're cooking in there. Earl tells Randy he has a birthday gift for him, even though it's early and Randy gets the most delighted smile in the world. They walk out to the parking lot, but the car's gone. So Randy's like, "A parking space? What made you think of that?" Earl says it's because he knows Randy's always jealous of handicapped people because they get their own spots. Only Randy would see disability as luck, since you get your own parking spot. Anyway, nicely improvised, Earl. I'm impressed. And I think silent Catalina, standing there looking on like she does so well, is probably also impressed. I wouldn't know, though, because she cannot exceed her limit of two lines of dialogue per episode, so all she can do is stand there and look hot and agreeable. Earl voiceovers that he is surprised someone would steal it, because in Camden County crooks don't steal from other crooks. We flashback to Clint Howard hitting Earl with a rock and stealing his wallet, but returning it once he realizes it's Earl's. Earl calls him Creepy Rodney (to his face), and Creepy Rodney apologizes.
Back in the present, Earl asks Joy who might have stolen a car. She tells an irrelevant story about how the guy who stole the Brat is not stealing cars anymore, since she beat him up with the razor scooter she had to ride while it was stolen. Earl agrees the story's pointless and tells her to tell him who is stealing cars, please. [ Hey, she just eliminated who I would think would be the prime suspect! - Z ] She's fishing during this conversation (part of catch your own lunch day), and pours alcohol in the tank to dumb down the fish, who have been outsmarting her. Because it's so hard to corner a fish in a 10-gallon fish tank. After asking for some details about the car, Joy tells Earl that Clyde and Bedbug stole the car, and Darnell spoils Earl thinking Joy has mystery-solving skills by saying Clyde and Bedbug were in the Crab Shack earlier saying they'd stolen the car.
Earl heads to Clyde and Bedbug's and, sure enough, the Ranchero is there. Before Earl has a chance to confront them about the car, they make fun of him for "finding Jesus, or his grocery list or something" and then letting "some black dude" steal his woman. Um, Clyde and Bedbug? Have you met Joy? I believe Earl has been thanking Jesus and his grocery list every day for Darnell coming along and taking her off his hands. Earl tells them he'd like his Ranchero back, please, but they won't let him have it, since he is no longer a criminal. They only give stolen goods back to criminals, not victims or civilians (which makes very little sense, seeing as how a victim or civilian would be more likely to go to the cops). Earl tries to get tough, but Clyde's Rottweiler, W, gets tougher. Earl and Clyde go to Mr. Wallace to try to settle this; Mr. Wallace is Camden's version of a mob boss (he carries an oxygen tank and works as a crossing guard, which tells you how different Camden is than The Sopranos ). Mr. Wallace sides with Clyde -- that Earl's no longer one of them -- so Earl ends up buying the Ranchero back for $1,500. I'm thinking it can't be worth much more than that, so he probably could have bought a different one for that price. Earl heads back to the Crab Shack to give Randy his present... again. Because Earl is not bright enough to learn from past mistakes, he leaves the car unlocked and unguarded, and by the time he brings Randy back out, the car is once again missing. So Randy thinks Earl gave him another parking space -- and, frankly, he seems to be getting a little sick of it.
Earl's complaining to Joy, and she basically sides with the bad guys, making the argument -- if I follow it correctly, which is difficult with Joy Logic -- that since the old Earl would have stolen a bus and driven it through Clyde and Bedbug's kitchen, the new Earl deserves to be treated this way for not doing that. In other words: Because you are not mean to them, they should be mean to you. Trying to make sense of it is too much work for me, honestly. Darnell adds to the logic puzzle by telling Earl if he were the old Earl, he wouldn't have to drive the bus through their kitchen, because they wouldn't have stolen his car in the first place. Joy calls Earl's list "stupid-ass" and I would like to point out that she is the one who looks pretty "stupid-ass" with a shiny red and gold butterfly hair piece sitting at the top of her up-do, flanked by two large cotton balls. Earl's thinking about going to the police, but Joy tells him he cannot snitch, because the order of people in the world starts with "regular people" (by this she means Camdenites, so ... not really "regular") and ends with snitches. In between, in order, are: fat people, cops, al-Qaeda, and stuff you squeeze out of a zit. Darnel is surprised Joy's moved fat people above al-Qaeda and stuff inside a zit. Joy explains she watched something on TV about thyroids that made her feel sympathy for them.
Earl sits down at a bus stop by the police station and talks himself -- and many people waiting for the bus, and even a pigeon -- into thinking snitching is a good idea. Next thing we know he's talking to Officer Hoyne about the car getting stolen. Earl would like to snitch off the record, so he's not really snitching. But even Officer Hoyne calls him a snitch. At the police station, that isn't considered a bad thing, though; it means you get a gift from the snitch goody drawer. Earl tells on Clyde and Bedbug, and then leaves the police station feeling bad about snitching. He feels even worse when he gets back to his hotel room to find it vandalized, with "SNITCH" spray-painted all over the wall -- and one "SNITH," because you wouldn't expect Camden criminals to spell it right every time. I mean, it's not like they could have looked over and seen all of the ones that were spelled correctly or anything. Officer Hoyne shows up at the hotel room and tells Earl he agrees with him that this probably has something to do with him snitching. Excellent police work, Hoyne! Catalina, who's trying to clean up after the vandals, finds a present in the bathroom sink from a very large dog or a very small man (she might not get a lot of dialogue, but at least she gets gems like these...), but this mystery isn't solved since Clyde has one of each. Earl wants to know how the vandals knew he snitched, and Hoyne admits he did it; he bragged to another cop while said cop was questioning a suspect, and then helped the suspect text Earl's name to someone. Yet it took him until Earl asked how they knew to realize what he'd done. Because he is a terrible cop, in case you hadn't noticed. You might not have, because it's not like this episode is hitting us over the head with his stupidity or anything. Earl calls Hoyne stupid to his face, but then offers to take him to Clyde's so he can arrest him; before they leave, Hoyne realizes he forgot his gun.
They show up at Clyde's and Hoyne realizes he forgot his badge, but he asks for the stolen Ranchero. They claim not to have it, and there's nothing else Hoyne can do. Earl tells Hoyne off for letting Clyde and Bedbug know he snitched, so they could hide the evidence. Clyde and Bedbug laugh, causing Earl to realize he needs to turn back to crime to fix this. He plans to steal Clyde and Bedbug's lowrider and trade it back for his Ranchero. Earl heads to the Crab Shack to find help stealing the car, but everyone there has heard he snitched, so no one's going to help him. Darnell even asks Earl to drink somewhere else for a while, after one of M. Wallace's hired goons hurls a sharpened pool cue at him. Luckily, Earl knows Randy will help him no matter what, so he gets everything ready and then goes to Randy. By everything, I mean peanut butter crackers with smashed-up sleeping pills for W. He doesn't lead with this information in telling Randy what they'll be doing, though, so by the time he gets to the part about the sleeping pills, Randy's already eaten the yummy peanut butter crackers, and he passes out. I'd normally be annoyed at Randy for this, but who can resist peanut butter crackers?
Earl heads to Clyde's alone and gives W beer until he passes out. That's only one of his problems, though: When he tries to hotwire the lowrider, he has forgotten how to do it, and just ends up making it bounce like crazy and setting off the alarm. As it's jumping around, he jumps out the window to flee. He tries to steal W in a garbage can so that he'll have something to trade for his car, but he gets stopped by Officer Hoyne, who apparently is trying to be a better cop by staking out Clyde's. So he arrests Earl. But he tells Earl he'll take information about someone else in exchange for letting him go. He offers Earl the goodies in the drawer, and Earl suddenly realizes all the people who have been judging him for snitching have coincidentally been using stuff that you can find in the drawer. So he realizes he's not the only snitch, and decides to set off a game of snitching dominoes to prove it. He starts by telling Officer Hoyne that Creepy Rodney has been mugging people who are coming out of the library. Creepy Rodney, in turn, rats out Joy, who shoplifts. Joy ends up telling Hoyne that Jasper's selling Chinese babies. Jasper tries to pretend they're his babies (he says their names are Yao Ming, General Tsao and Hitachi), but instead ends up ratting out Clyde and Bedbug. Those guys rat out Mr. Wallace, who's even a snitch himself. As each criminal/snitch comes out, Earl's waiting outside so they know he knows they snitched. When Mr. Wallace comes out last, Earl asks for his Ranchero back, please. (We never learn who Mr. Wallace snitched on, but since there's no one higher up in Camden crime, I'm hoping it was Tony Soprano.)
The next morning, Earl gives Randy the Ranchero, which Catalina is standing in front of, presenting, just like Vanna White. Randy thinks Catalina is the gift, and awesomely (and disappointedly) says, "I already had her. ... Not great." She gets pissed, and tells him the gift is the car, "jerk!" Randy can't believe it, since the car's better than Earl's. Earl says that's the point, but if it makes Randy uncomfortable, he's happy to trade. I'm guessing Randy said no, because next thing we see is them driving off into the sunset, as Randy says, "Thanks again, Earl" and Earl replies, "You're welcome, Pork Chop." Now that's the real gift: being willing to call Randy Pork Chop for his birthday takes way more effort from Earl than buying a stupid car (it was Billie's money , after all). It's totally appropriate these two would ride off into the sunset together -- that's probably how the entire series should end someday, too. Maybe not in anything as fancy as a Ranchero, but together, at least. For eternity. End-of-episode promo: Darnell wants you to read Randy's blog. I love that it's called "Hmmmm..."
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DeAnn is a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon. You can contact her at twopmodmars@gmail.com .