My Name Is Earl Episode 1.18 Dad's Car

Joy celebrated Mother's Day by letting Darnell take the kids away for the week so she could have some peace and quiet and forget about being a mom.

When Earl was younger, he stole Mother's Day chore coupons from Kenny and gave them to his mother as his own. Earl realized that he didn't really do anything for his mother, even when she redeemed the coupons. So he set out to give his mom a real Mother's Day by letting her redeem the coupons from him, which included gardening and cooking her breakfast in bed. Earl and Randy set out to complete all the chores in the coupon book.

Earl also came to terms with the fact that he'd constantly disappointed his father, who hated him. His mother wanted to see Earl do one nice thing for his father and to make that her Mother's Day gift.

Earl recalled being 11 years old and challenging Billy Reed to a drag strip race with his father's Mustang. The winner of the race got to have the loser's car. A young Earl lost his Dad's Mustang to Billy because he didn't know how to take the car out of first gear. Earl covered by telling his father he accidentally drove it into the lake.

Earl decided to win back his father's Mustang from Billy Reed. But Billy Reed decided there was only one way to get the Mustang back and that was to race Earl's El Camino. It was a challenge that Earl was up for.

Earl won! He finally got his father's prized Mustang back. After he returned it, Earl learned that his father had planned on giving Earl the Mustang for his 16th birthday. Earl had inadvertently ended up on his own list!

Earl decided to cross himself off his list by fixing up his new Mustang.

Meanwhile, Joy realized how much she missed being a mom, so she enlisted the help of an unlikely source, Randy. Since Randy is such an innocent kid at heart, Joy used him as an interim child, playing with him and taking care of him. It made her even more eager for Darnell to return home with the kids.

Earl realized that while fixing up his car, he also got some bonding time with his distant dad. They talked about a lot of things other than the car. It wasn't just about fixing up the car; it was about spending time with his dad. Earl decided to leave the car at his dad's garage. He saw it as a way his father could always be reminded of the bonding time they had together.