Original Airdate: September 25, 2008
The fourth season of My Name is Earl wisely starts out by ignoring all of the convoluted plot developments of last year—including Earl’s long stint in jail, his coma, his marriage to Billie (Alyssa Milano), their subsequent divorce and Billie’s gift of her insurance money to Earl—to just focus on what the show does best: Earl righting the past wrongs on his list. He’s prompted this week by Joy’s latest scam: crafting homemade Make-a-Wish Foundation T-shirts for her kids so they can get free admission to the local carnival.
Earl remembers the time when he ruined an actual Make-a-Wish kid’s wish, drunkenly riding off on a pony that was supposed to carry a little boy named Buddy in the town parade. Earl and Randy assume that Buddy has passed on, so they head to his mom’s house to make amends with her. But it turns out that Buddy is still alive and well and played by snarky guest star Seth Green. He doesn’t seem too broken up about missing out on the pony ride, but he decides to enlist Earl and Randy in making another one of his wishes come true: Buddy wants to direct and star in his very own movie, an action epic about a giant-squid attack. He decides that Earl will produce it for him.
Naturally, half of Camden ends up cast in the movie, including Joy, Catalina, Randy, Kenny and Patty the Daytime Hooker. They’re all terrible actors, except for Randy, who plays the president of the United States and has some sort of idiot-savant acting genius, which he demonstrates by doing impressions of a number of memorable cinematic catchphrases. Buddy turns out to be quite the demanding little auteur, constantly running off to his trailer when things don’t go his way, and everyone but Earl ends up quitting before filming is done.
Buddy vows to finish the movie with the footage he’s got, though, and pretty soon a star-studded premiere (complete with local celebrity Tim Stack) is set for the Crab Shack. Despite their frustrations with filming, all of the actors come out for the event, but Buddy himself is missing. It turns out that he kept storming off to his trailer because he wasn’t exactly as cancer-free as everyone thought, and Buddy’s mom tells Earl that Buddy passed away after finishing the movie.
But it’s a roaring success anyway; everyone loves Buddy’s action flick about the killer squid, and his dedication inspires Darnell to take up painting, Joy to take up fashion design, Catalina to take up improv comedy and Earl to return to his long-lost interest in the xylophone. Even though, like Buddy, they all have more enthusiasm than talent (well, except for Darnell, who is good at everything).
