kar·ma n. 1. The total effect of a person’s actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person’s existence, regarded as determining the person’s destiny.
According to Earl Hickey, the slightly dim, but gentle country boy of NBC’s My Name Is Earl, karma was invented by the “brilliant” talk show host, Carson Daly. After watching an episode of Carson’s talk show in which Earl learns that successful people reap success by being good to others, Earl decides to change his ways and, in doing so, begins making a list of all the bad things that he’s ever done to another human being.
Unfortunately for Earl, but fortunately for us, the list is a long one. The premise of My Name Is Earl is simple. Each episode follows Earl as he ticks off another thing on his list by righting a previous wrong. What we get in the process is one of the freshest, most innovative comedies on television in years. Earl Hickey, brilliantly portrayed by Jason Lee (Dogma, Stealing Harvard), is joined by his own band of merry men (and women) that pull the show together.
His brother, Randy (Ethan Suplee), is Earl’s simple minded partner in crime. Though his mental state isn’t much above that of a pubescent boy, it’s Randy’s help that allows Earl to tick one item after another off his list. Earl and Randy are joined by a number of other insane characters including Catalina (Nadine Velazquez), the maid that works at the motel in which Earl and Randy live, Joy (Jamie Pressly), Earl’s selfish and superficial ex-wife, and Darnell (Eddie Steeples), a.k.a. Crabman, Joy’s now husband and bus boy at the local Crab Shack, the local haunt for the citizens of Camden County.
While each story ends with a heartfelt ending that reinstates Earl’s journey toward total Karmic renewal, it’s the comedy and pure insanity of the hi-jinks within each episode that truly makes this series one of a kind. With this half-hour comedy, NBC is reshaping the sitcom along with a number of other fresh and hilarious comedic offerings including The Office and Scrubs, and is bringing back plot-based television in an era almost totally overtaken with reality shows and reality show spin-offs.
My Name Is Earl airs on NBC on Thursdays, 9 p.m. Eastern.