Goodbye, Alyssa

Pretty odd and mostly unsatisfying finale for My Name Is Earl.

The show had a great premise--Earl has a list of bad things he's done and each week he rights an old wrong. It allows for a new plot without any further ado.

But I guess creator Greg Garcia wanted to mix things up, so this year he sent Earl to jail. It wasn't necessary, but the episodes weren't bad, as Earl did good deeds while incarcerated.

Then Earl got out, found his true love, Billie, got hit by a car and went into a coma. This twist wasn't as successful. While his friends tried to help him, and do good deeds from the list, he was stuck in an imaginary sitcom with an imaginery Billie (who, by the way, was also in a coma).

Next, he and Billie recover and, after a few problems are sorted out, get married. This was the worst idea yet. This isn't a domestic sitcom. So we had to wait around to see how they'd resolved the situation.

The final hour was pretty weird, and not in a good way. We saw Billie go from termagant to human agent of karma to psychotic to ascetic for no particularly good reason. At least when the series returns next year she'll be out of the picture.