TRAPPED-GUEST STAR MIGUEL VARONI--Earl (Jason Lee) attends a class in prison that focuses on creative writing. After the teacher gave them an assignment to write a story, Earl realized that writing was a lot harder than he expected. Earl informs Randy (Ethan Suplee) about the assignment and Randy loves the idea of creating his own make-believe world. Catalina, who’s two jobs usually prevent her from writing, lives out her soap opera story, that she wrote on dollar bills, about falling in love with a man named Javier (Miguel Varoni). Soon enough, the whole gang is able to write his or her own creative story and Earl is stuck with a blank piece of paper. In the end, Earl discovers that sometimes the best story does not require the most imagination. Jaime Pressly, Eddie Steeples, and Nadine Velazquez also star.

Where did they find that H.R. Pufnstuf costume???? It didn't even have any moth holes in it.

tonights episode was bad. that is all........

You are right. I laughed so hard I had rum coming out of my nose. I hate that.

I just watched this weeks show and thought this show was real weak!!! It couldn't keep my interest. Hopefully next weeks show will stay more true to Earl's list.

Worst earl ever. What are the writers on these daze????

That was a very strange episode!

I'm done with it. Relegated to "Scrubs" land. Nothing but down hill even faster from here, garunteed.

They should have Joy do things on Earl's list!!! That would stay to what Earl was doing with Karma!!! It would be funny watching Joy try to help people on his list while he is serving his sentence for her. Maybe the someone on the list would be in the prison system or govenor office and get Earl released or pardoned!!! Maybe Randy or Crabman could do somethings on his list. This show was so far off what Earl was doing!!!!!!!!! Maybe last season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Name is Earl had a really good season last year, but the writers must be on strike this year. This episode was pathetic!

Actually, I enjoyed the episode. I thought it was creative and innovative, and really helped you get inside the head of each of the characters.

I found the show VERY entertaining. The song to the music video about the crabs was probalby something a vegetarian can appreciate. (I eat meat)
Catalina and Joy looked SO HOT but I liked looking at Catalina in that red dress more, and the nicely built dancer in the skirt and tights. I replayed the dancing in the red dresses several times. It was HOT! My wife will erase this episode no doubt. (too sexy!)

I enjoyed this episode. Seeing what each one would come up with if they had to write their own story, I thought, was hilarious. Especially Randy's. Good God, an H.R. Puf N' Stuf character in his posse? Too frickin' funny!

Then Crabman with his music video, "Respect the Meat." That was just as good, IMHO, as the "Free Earl" one.

I don't think this show is going downhill at all. They needed to do something new and unique. I think if they'd of kept it with Earl just doing all of his good Karma things, that is when people would of complained and said "What else NEW is going to happen?" Trust me, that's always how it goes.

Just keep the faith, people. Don't be so quick to run to the exit. Give this new format a chance!

I wasn't crazy about this episode, but to be fair, I was busy surfing The Office messageboard while I was watching. I will probably watch this again on line, but I guess I just didn't get the point of the episode. Not much in terms of plot development, but I guess you don't always need that.

I will reserve further comment for now.

Worst Earl episode of all time. This season has been a little disappointing overall, with Earl abandoning his list altogether after episode one, but nothing compares to the total mess of this episode's script. What were they thinking? I think they must be trying to get a larger audience for the show by making it more outrageous, but they are just making it stupid. I wonder whether the actors felt ridiculous reading their lines this week.

NBC, writers, powers that be, please, PLEASE take Earl back to basics. Have him work on his list. Take a break from the formula now and then, fine, but keep producing the show you created and stop trying to turn it into something it's not - another bad, unfunny sitcom that aims for absurd humor and lands on insulting levels of stupidity. You owe me 22 minutes of my life back. Add it to Earl's list, and let him get back to it as a way to make it up to me.

Anyone saying this episode is bad has no sense of rumor. I mean this episode was having me die of laughter. and when earl tryed to use his imagination and thought of the gymnist that was really annoying was funny!

I didn't get to watch the show last night so I had to suffer the stuttery jitteriness of watching it online. Even so, it was hilarious! It reminded me of Scrubs and Northern Exposure in their prime. Yes, I'm not crazy about the present respite from the list, but I can appreciate the creativity of a divergent episode like this.

Consider that the stories were written from the point of view of the characters, which have their flaws, and those flaws become part of their stories, which makes them funnier. Considering Randy's child-like mindset ("The doctor said you were borderline artistic"), his story made perfectly good sense mimicking a lot of action shows. I loved the use of H.R. Puffinstuff because that show's been referenced a couple of times in the past. They even filmed the driving scene the same crappy way as they did for most of those Sid & Marty Krofft shows. BTW, I think that HRP suit was a sad remake because the mouth didn't move like the original. The only thing I didn't like was Randy breaking Joy's neck. Even though Joy is always down on Randy, that didn't work because it doesn't fit Randy's innocence.

Joy's story sounded exactly like what she would tell her kids. The animation (I mean really, how else could they have done it?) resembled the style of those Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" cartoons. I don't know if Eddie Steeples actually sang his part but he was excellent. I loved the crab song, of course I keep kosher. Catalina's story, OMG, it was a perfect homage to those spanish soaps! Did you notice that Darnell was the only one who didn't speak with an accent? Being the sort of straight man of the show, that fits Darnell.

Earl's story, which we really didn't see, brought it all home in the sense of being the moral of the episode. He said that while others have elaborate fantasies away from regular life, his fantasy is regular life, and he has grown to appreciate it and misses it. In the end, I think this episode fits the spirit of the show.

You might want to check out the Tech Support thread for help with the video playback.
Hope this helps!

Earl freakin ROCKED this week, I don't care what any of you say!!!! I want 'Respect the Meat' downloadable in MP3 format so I can put it on my iPod!!! And it wasn't about being a vegetarian, it was saying eat the meat, but respect where the meat came from. Loved it, everybody did an AWESOME job in that skit!! Now one of my all-time favorite episodes!!

Three words:

Worst. Episode. Ever.

I LOVE My Name Is Earl, but this episode was like a bad flashback of SNL in the 80's. WOW, I hope they NEVER do that again.

This episode was probably the worst one ever. Has Earl already jumped the shark? Hopefully the next few are better.

There have been some very great episodes. "Creative writing" was to me creative and fun (except for the neck breaking part, I didn't get that at all!) and so fast moving.

I was thinking Emmy until I saw so many people who didn't care for it . I think it worked. Everyone one was pretty much in character from the characters point of view. Which was cool.

How many people, like me, did it bring to the NBC site for the first time? Definitely much better than some of the episodes that were a bit boring. I will watch it again.

I too felt that the episode was uneven but I truly enjoyed Respect the Meat and Catalina. Darnell has a pretty good voice. I'm glad they put it on the main website so folks could watch it again.

Character Development = 0
Plot Development = 0
List Items = 0

It was almost as if the writers were sent home before the producers realized they had one more episode to make. I appreciate the idea of the episode, but it was very poorly supported. Here's a workable idea: Somone is in charge of Earl's money while he's in the pokey. The group think about what they would do if they had what's left of his money. This sets up the same kind of character-by-character fantasy segments, but isn't based on the totally out-of-character urge to write. Seriously, Randy writing a multiple-page story. I'm not seeing it.

The cast did pretty well with their segments, but the whole thing based on a prison creative writing class was laughable in the bad way. At least the Cops episode brought the list in at the end. I was almost certain at the end that Earl would start writing a new list, or re-creating his old list. Nope. No list. No plot. No character development. Not a good Earl.

One good moment in a dismal episode: Earl sitting at a table across from a shirtless inmate with a bandage on his back. A small continuity item, but still nice. The pen is mightier than the sword or shiv, apparently.

Wow. That's what I was going to say. Take out that moment of homicidal violence, and you have a perfect episode.

I was in the "Worst Episode Ever" camp until the very end of this episode, when I realized the point of it all... but it was a little absurd. I think the writers back have backed themselves into a corner w/ this whole prison idea, but I'll be curious to see what comes next...

You know what else has "jumped the shark"??? The decade old saying "jump the shark" that hit the Howard Stern show in the late 90's.

Amen to that...This whole season is the worst ever.