Earl tries to cross of number four off his list “Blew dad’s chance to be elected mayor”. Four years earlier, Carl Hickey ran for mayor to redirect a proposed airplane traffic route over his house and away from the wealthy part of town. Earl unfortunately ruins any chances of his father winning when caught in on tape assaulting a police officer. Earl must now help his father get elected and mend his relationship with his father.
Recap:
It begins with hearing Earl talking to himself that he is not too eager to Cross Number 86 off his list, which is: ‘Stealing a Car from a ‘One-legged Girl’ Well but he overcomes his fear and goes to her house. He tries to explain, she curses at him and then her no-legged, but fitted with prosthetic legs, boyfriend runs after him, and as we know the Hickey Boys aren’t that fast, so he catches up with him and beats him with a sign which he takes as a hint from “Karma” that he should be somewhere else that day. He thinks about that while getting beaten with a sign which says “Marty Park for Mayor”. Which brings him to Number 4 on his list: “Blew Dad’s Chance to get elected Mayor.” For this you have to know that Earls father always complained about things and never did anything about it. But when they put the airplane route right above his neighborhood he decided to run for Mayor. In the course of that you see Earl and his brother always getting into trouble, first as children and then as young adults and their father always bailing them out of jail. But then he stopped bailing Earl out. But his opponent used the bad sons, more so Earl than Randy against him and thereby causing him to lose the election. They didn’t talk since then. Well, so much for the past. Now, trying to make things right, Earl signs him up to run for Mayor again. And even finds new voters to register. But when, due to Randy’s fault, the Voter Registrations are flying out of the Car and due to a misunderstanding with the Police while trying to pick up the voter registrations Earl lands himself in Jail. All this is caught on Tape and this tape is later used by his opponent which causes Earl’s Dad to lose again. Well this is the first episode with an open end, because Earl can’t cross his Dad off the List. But at the end of the episode Dad comes to Jail and when they get out of the Station, his Dad (excellent performance by Beau Bridges) says: “I expect you to pay me back that bail money” and Earl is happy because his Father hasn’t bailed him out in over 6 Years. Then at the very end of the episode it seems they will be a family again, first you hear a short monologue by Earl, and you think like “It’s not gonna work”, but then you see their parents at home again (which you did a couple of times during this episode) and Dad says: “You know I ran into John Sheppard down at the Street and he said that Earl came by and paid for a Window that he broke 15 years ago” Mom answers “Really?” and Dad goes “Ya”. Then an airplane flies over the house again, messing all the picture frames hanging on the wall, as it happened so many times in this episode. But after this short conversation you get the feeling that there will be some closure, but it’s gonna take a lot of effort on Earls Side. After this you see Earl and his brother going too sleep, but Earls brother has an important question for Earl, which is, if he could be any animal in the world which would he be? Earl answers him that he’d be a dog because they are allowed to be inside and they are also allowed to sit on the couch. Then there is a short thing about cats but I don’t wanna get into that. Randy, by the way, wanted to be a Monkey but decided that Earl made a good point about point about the couch. So, what’s gonna happen to Earl and his parents?