Episode Report Card DeAnn Welker: D | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Father Hash Brown
By DeAnn Welker | Season 4 | Episode 24 | Aired on 04.23.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.You know how you can tell when a season of this show has gone on too long? Well, for one thing, we reach the 24th episode of the season. But, for another, Catalina is a major player in an episode. Seriously. The writers really must have been desperate for a storyline. And the storyline involving Catalina only makes that point even further, as Joy gets drunk at a church carnival, drunk drives a lawn mower into Catalina, and then locks her in a shed to keep her from telling the cops so she doesn't get her third strike. After Catalina's been in there a couple days, Joy enlists Darnell's help, thinking he'll be the reasonable one. Instead, he says they have to kill Catalina, which isn't a problem for him, because he's killed people he's liked a lot more than her. He sharpens his knife, and goes in for the kill -- which I keep thinking will be some scam he's playing on Joy to get her to relent -- until Joy knocks him out with a shovel. She saves Catalina, so Catalina won't tell the cops. Because now she knows Joy loves her, despite the racist jokes. Yeah, I'm not sure stopping a murder means she loves her, but whatever. This show is ridiculous.
In the other, slightly less ridiculous storyline, Earl runs into a reverend and realizes it's the same reverend whose organ he and Randy stole (when they thought selling organs on the black market applied to the kind you play in church). Turns out the reverend used to be a bad guy, too, and soon enough Earl realizes he should be on his list several more times. Something about stealing his tools, knocking him over in an outhouse, and sleeping with his wife. Earl continues to trust karma and makes one final confession: He shot out the reverend's tail light. Which is why the cops pulled him over and put him in jail the night his entire gang was killed. In other words, God wants the reverend to thank Earl, not to turn back into "Hash Brown" (his former gang name; apparently he was in a gang for breakfast foods). It's all totally sappy and silly and overdone. I think it would have been smarter to quit while they were ahead, which they actually were at various times this season. But not anymore.
Watch the episode here, then discuss this episode in our forums. And see why vlogger Sean Crespo thinks Earl is a terrible monster in No Prior Knowledge!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Earl and Randy are at a church carnival, because they always try to make it to church when they have cheap food and games. Joy and Darnell are there, too, and she's drunk. Catalina's there, and she's won all sort of prizes, which really pisses Joy off. Darnell says it's time to go, but she's not driving since she's had 25 Dixie cups of wine. He won't give her the keys, so she says she hates him and is walking. Earl says these are the days he's glad Darnell stole her. Randy's glad every day. Are there actually days when Earl's not glad about that, because I don't think it shows.
Earl explains Joy first lost her shoe on the way home, and then her mind. She steals a riding lawn mower and drunk-drives it right into Catalina, who falls onto the hood. Joy thinks she killed her: "Oh, snap." She beelines (if a bee were drunk) to an abandoned shed. She runs Catalina into a wall with the mower, and it wakes Catalina. She's so glad Catalina's not dead, so instead of leaving her in this shed and burning it up, it can now be a funny story they tell people. Catalina thinks the police will think it's real funny. Joy says she has two kids and two strikes, so can't go to jail. Catalina screams, and Joy tells her no one will hear her except for her while she's walking away. I find drunk Joy so annoying, it makes me want to scream. Catalina says the psychic was right: She is going to die in a shed, pinned to the wall by a lawn mower. I wonder if someone actually thought that was funny in the writing process? Because it really isn't. [I think they more likely saw Stuck and thought, "Hey, that was pretty funny! Wouldn't it be funnier if Joy did it?" - Zach]
At the carnival, Randy and Earl are going to leave, but then they see a familiar guy, who happens to be number 35 on Earl's list. We flash back to the time Earl and Randy heard about selling organs on the black market, so they stole an organ from a church (under the guise of picking it up for routine maintenance). The reverend was the guy who looks familiar. Despite Randy's protests, Earl insists they go talk to him. Because he trusts what karma's telling him.
They approach the reverend, and Earl confesses about stealing the organ, and about the list and turning his life around. The reverend says they're not that different. He used to be called "Hash Brown," because he would grind people's face up like hash browns if they looked at him wrong. We get a flashback of him using a machine gun to threaten someone for not inviting his niece to their birthday party. The reverend prays, thanking God for bring Earl here. Earl tells him he can get the organ back. He hears it survived the Camden circus fire in perfect condition.