My Name is Earl Review

Earl Hickey, famous in Camden County for petty theft and bullying, is the main character in the 2005 sitcom My Name Is Earl. In the first episode, Earl recaps the past few years of his life up until the day that he won $100,000 in the lottery. Celebrating his massive win, he runs into the street cheering and is immediately hit by a car which causes him to lose his winning ticket to the wind. 

This experience gave Earl a revelation while watching a talk show in the hospital. Do bad things and bad things will happen. Do good things and good things will happen. Karma. While some of the jokes may not hold up today, the content of the show has a good lesson. 

Earl uses his new knowledge of Karma to right the wrongs in his life up until now by making a list consisting of all of the people who he’s wronged and what he did to them. Throughout the series, Earl changes himself for the better in the way that he treats people and sees the world.

I think we can all learn from Earl. The sitcom served as an unlikely messenger of the idea that even a person who has made a series of bad choices can turn their life around, whether it’s through their discovery of Karma, or by any other means. Being a good person to anyone around you can pay off and who knows? Maybe you’ll see positive changes in your own life because of it.