My Name Is Earlaired for four seasons on NBC before it was cancelled, and the creator has revealed how he would have ended the series if it had continued on to a natural end. The series ended with a bit of a cliffhanger, but Greg Garcia did have a plan in mind for how to wrap things up.
In a Reddit AMA, he revealed how he would have ended the comedy series if he had been able to close it out. He said:
“I had always had an ending to Earl and I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to see it happen. You’ve got a show about a guy with a list so not seeing him finish it is a bummer. But the truth is, he wasn’t ever going to finish the list. The basic idea of the ending was that while he was stuck on a really hard list item he was going to start to get frustrated that he was never going to finish it. Then he runs into someone who had a list of their own and Earl was on it. They needed to make up for something bad they had done to Earl. He asks them where they got the idea of making a list and they tell him that someone came to them with a list and that person got the idea from someone else. Earl eventually realizes that his list started a chain reaction of people with list and that he’s finally put more good into the world than bad. So at that point he was going to tear up his list and go live his life. Walk into the sunset a free man. With good karma.”
Garcia also revealed that he had asked the network if it was okay for him to end the season on a cliffhanger. The network told him to go ahead, and it was only after that NBC decided to cancel the series. Garcia might have written a different season four finale if he had known the network was going to cancel the series.
In addition, Garcia also planned to reveal who Earl Jr’s father was before the show ended. The writers were thinking that it would be someone famous who’d been in town for just one night. The writers didn’t get to decide who that would be, but the baby daddy was intended to be revealed before the series ended.
Were you a fan of My Name is Earl? Did Garcia’s reveal give you closure for this series? Tell us what you think.
I love My Name is Earl. It is a shame they took it off air and there are so many ridiculously stupid shows on air! That’s the world today though… rather watch some reality TV show of people’s everyday life just because they are rich instead of a good show like My Name is Earl! Which in my opinion, heck, come film my life…. second class working mother … be better than most of the reality shows we have on now! Most of the reality stars are known for porn or something I would never want my kids to know… Read more »
we need to HELP THIS GET BACK LETS KICK STARTER THIS WE CAN MAKE THE MONEY!!!!
was a great show .. and no it did not i know it was cancelled but i think they should do one final episode just the last episode reveling earl jrs dad and the complete end of the series but it will not happen . that on final episode would make the series.
My Name is earl is my favorite show it sucks that they ended it, it was a great show R.I.P.My Name Is Earl
My husband and I loved this show when it was first aired. I recently started subscribing to Netflix and watched all four season over again. I would love to see this show come back on! Either on NBC or Netflix, or on any channel that will pick it up. I really loved the story line and the unique characters. I actually miss the characters now that the episodes have run out.
I think this is one of the shows that Netflix should pick up and carry on with like they have some other past shows. I really liked this weird bunch of characters and thought the show was really entertaining.
I think that my name is earl should come back on because it was an amazing show and I loved it so much that I watched the show 2 times in a row its Amazing so if you could put the 5th season on I would really appriceate that thank you for making this show.
This show was so good! Gutted when it got dropped, and the ending Garcia says above sounds a very good one. Shame we never got a fifth season to wrap things up
I want to se season 5 of
My name is earl
I would still like to see the show. Thank you for giving us a brief for the finale, but it would be so much better to see it all unfold on a tv series or a movie. I still feel cheated out of some great entertainment. Please consider finding a way to give us the rest of “My name is Earl”.
My Name is Earl should make a season 5 and just put it on Netflix even if NBC doesn’t air it. Who’s with me?!
I agree
I’m with you 100%. I have seriously thought of starting up a Web site dedicated solely to campaign for bringing the show back. From what I remember, when a network canceled a program that the people loved, the people would stand together until the network listened. There is tremendous power in numbers and unity. The producers and writers had the carpet pulled out from under them and never had the opportunity to wrap up anything at all which left a lot left to be desired for the fans. For that reason alone there should be at least a partial season… Read more »
If you started a campaign, Rick, I would definitely join.
I’m with you on that.
Such a great show. We started watching it in Netflix and bummed it’s over.
That’s why I’m in here now
Is there anyway to get a petition going for Netflix to pick up the show… I think that would be awesome!
This is from 3 years ago.
It’s from two years ago. We still get a lot of comments from people wondering how the show would have ended so decided to share the information in a post.
Happens all the time on Last man standing.
I always loved the show but I don’t know if it had anything to do with it but I personally know of several people who dropped the show after some political ads/statements by some of the actors. When are actors going to learn to keep their politics out of people’s entertainment.
To answer the question about closure, yes it did, thanks for this article. I miss the show