My Name is Earl and what it's all about

It's about redemption. It's also about doing the right thing.

My Name is Earl finished it's third season on Thursday night. I was an instant fan of the show when it premiered. It was very funny, quirky, and filled with eccentric characters, all of which neatly hid its warm, fuzzy center. Through a car accident involving a $100,000 lottery ticket, Earl adopted as his guiding principle the popular misconception of Karma that good things happen to you if you do good things.

During the first season, Earl did just that. He helped out the people he had wronged in his life and his life got better. And lest you think that this sounds all "Touched by an Angel" and "Highway to Heaven"-ish, the stories involved things like helping an old classmate he had tormented to admit he was gay and Earl revealing to an old girlfriend that he had faked his death. Michael Landon would never go there.

It seemed for a while that the show had jumped the shark during the second season (so much so that I blogged about it). But the show redeemed itself wonderfully in the second season finale when Earl chose to go to prison in place of his pregnant ex-wife.

Much of the third season took place in prison as Earl continued to help people. Then, through a variety of setbacks, Earl ended up in a coma for much of the rest of the season. Wonderfully, his friends and family stepped in to help people on Earl's list. As the season ended, all was well with Earl. He was back to helping others.

One of the things I like about the show is it's deep commitment to morality. This isn't the self-centered, prudish morality that so inflicts America today, a morality focused on sexual issues and little else. The show demonstrates a morality which doesn't condemn others for victimless "sins". The people Earl helps are strippers, gays, petty criminals, and others who are often condemned by America's "morality police". Earl doesn't help them by accusing them of "sin". He doesn't introduce them to his imaginary friend. He doesn't change their lifestyles or natures and thus make them "better". He treats them with kindness, compassion and respect. He makes right what he once had made wrong and their lives improve.

Earl's belief in Karma has some similarity to modern Christian belief in that Earl often thinks he will be rewarded by Karma when he does something good, just as most Christians believe in the "reward" of heaven. But the producers are more sophisticated than Earl. Whenever Earl expresses the idea that he has done something for his own reward, something goes wrong until he realizes that Karma doesn't reward him for good deeds. In the end, Earl does what he does for no reward; he is selfless. The fact that his life improves is a natural consequence of his selflessness. No god required. No distracting focus on sexuality, victimless behavior, or other touchstones of modern American "morality".

That's a morality I can get behind.