Buried Treasure (My Name Is Earl)

"Buried Treasure (My Name Is Earl)"

"Buried Treasure" is an episode of the American sitcom My Name Is Earl.

Synopsis

Earl returns to Joy’s trailer park to complete number 52 on his list, “Dig up and return buried treasure”. Earl recalls how he first came across treasure in the first place and it all began when he was married to Joy and was into stealing stuff for money. Earl, Joy, and Randy ended up at the library looking for valuables, and removed a large case of silverware.

After finding out that the silverware they stole (which was once owned by a famous Civil War general named Phillip C. Graber) is $2000, but that it is clearly marked and therefore cannot be pawned, the three decide to bury it like treasure. Soon afterwards, Earl decides to write a ransom note to the library, intending to use the money to buy a motorcycle. Watching the drop point--a trash bin on a busy sidewalk--from some bushes, he sees Randy walk by, Joy passing in her car, and finally the librarian dropping off the ransom money, as stipulated. As Earl considers retrieving the bag, a homeless man opens it, has his face dyed blue by an exploding dye pack, and is promptly arrested, leading Earl to abandon the ransom scheme. Strangely, A Bush nearby begins burning, leading Earl to believe that someone knows it was him.

In the present day, Earl tries to dig up the silverware, but he can't find it. Randy reveals in voiceover that he is responsible for the buried treasure's absence. Word had gotten out that Randy and Earl were in possession of some expensive stolen silverware. A Russian con artist had approached Randy at the Crab Shack hoping to get Randy to reveal where the silverware is hidden. Randy had agreed to sell the silverware to the con artist, who took it and left the country. The con artist told Randy that an accomplice would be waiting at the sidewalk where Earls's Drop point was. This, however, led Randy to a run-in with a gay man, a strange response from the librarian ("I'm just doing what the note said!") and he also advised the Homeless man that "That lady just dropped a bag of chicken in the bin and it looked pretty full". Unbeknownst to Randy, this is the package that contained the dye pack.

Also Unbeknownst to Randy, the con man hadn't actually conned him out of anything: Joy reveals that she had already dug up the silverware and replaced it with junk cutlery. Attempting to melt down the silver using a blow torch only results in badly tarnished and blackened utensils, which the pawnshop again refuses. She decided to re-bury the treasure at the spot where she and Darnell conceived Earl Jr. On the way there, she throws a cigarette butt out of the car, making Earls' bush burn.

Darnell confesses in voiceover that Joy's "safety net", as she thinks of the silverware, is no longer where she thinks it is. When his fish died, he decided to bury it at a spot special to him--the place that Earl Jr. had been conceived. While digging "Mr. Fish"'s grave, he had uncovered the blackened silverware that Joy had re-buried. Darnell returned the silverware to the library, where the librarian--not recognizing it as the stolen set--reluctantly put it on display.

Earl returns to the library to make a cash donation in order to cross the stolen silverware off his list. Seeing the tarnished silverware in the library display case, he and Randy realize that it had somehow already been returned. Earl is able to cross the library off his list.

The List

Main article: The List (My Name Is Earl)

Item	Number	Source	Status
Stole spoons from library	52	2.13	Completed when Earl found that the spoons had been returned to the library.

Trivia

• This episode is told from five different narration points, each including a spoof of the introduction. These include "My Name is Randy", "My Name is Joy", "My Name is Crabman", and "My Name is Dotty" (told by the librarian).
• Darnell claims that he graduated from college at the age of 14, but is unable to tell anyone this due to his involvement in the Witness Protection Program. He also claims to be a virtuoso cellist, and to be able to identify 254 kinds of cheese in a blind taste test.
• Nadine Velazquez (Catalina) does not appear in this episode.
• This marks the first time Joy and Darnell (as well as Dotty the librarian) have narrated part of an episode. It's not the first time Randy has, however, as he briefly narrated the end of the DVD-exclusive mini-episode Bad Karma. That episode isn't considered canon, however.

Songs

#	Song Title	Artist
1	"Rocky Mountain Way"	Joe Walsh
2	"Ball and Chain"	Social Distortion
3	"Breathe"	Faith Hill
4	"Lively Up Yourself"	Bob Marley

External links

• Buried Treasure at TV.com