My Name Is Earl/Characters

Earl Hickey

• Accidental Marriage: Is tricked into marrying Joy after her girlfriends serve him "upside-down martinis".
• Afraid of Needles
• Anti-Hero
• The Atoner
• Badass Mustache
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Lampshaded in an episode where he neglects his list in favor of spending time with a beautiful woman and Laser-Guided Karma causes trouble for both of them
• Carpet of Virility
• Closer to Earth: A rare subversion. He is far more sensible than his ex-wife Joy
• Deadpan Snarker
• Dogged Nice Guy
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: The birthday party episode. It turned out to be a prank, and his friends really did give him props for the wrongs he'd righted thus far.
• Good Feels Good: "Do good things and good things happen."
• Gotta Catch Em All: His list of misdeeds
• Hair of the Dog: "Some people might think that getting so drunk you end up marrying a woman who's six months pregnant is a good reason to stop drinking. Personally, I think it's a good reason to keep drinking."
• Heel Face Turn
• Kavorka Man
• Idiot Hero
• Lazy Husband: was this when he was married to Joy
• My God, What Have I Done?
• Only Sane Man
• Porn Stache
• Really Gets Around
• Shotgun Wedding: When he married Joy, she was pregnant the child was later found to be his.
  • Also, he briefly married a friend's elderly mother after he admitted he slept with her while drunk, to appease the man's wrath.
• This Loser Is You
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: When married to Joy and later to Billie. Also inverted when he married a friend's elderly mother to make up for sleeping with her while drunk
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Has a fear of taking his shirt off in public due to being teased for having hairy nipples in Junior High

Joy Darville-Turner

• Abuse Is Okay When Its Female On Male: Surprisingly subverted, although she is quite verbally abusive to Earl, the episode where she's on trial has all these instances brought back against her. Though Earl takes the bullet for her regardless.
• Action Girl
• Anti-Hero: Type IV
• Berserk Button: Harming her children either physically or emotionally
• Blondes Are Evil
• Clingy Jealous Girl
• Dumb Blonde
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath
• Hidden Heart of Gold
• Informed Attractiveness: Rather average-looking, but sometimes said to be one of the most attractive women in Camden County.
  • To be fair, Joy looks like a Beauty Queen compared to women like Patty the Daytime Hooker
• Mama Bear
• Megaton Punch
• Moral Myopia
• Hair-Trigger Temper
• It's All About Me
• Jerkass: Cheats on Earl, verbally abuses and even hits him, leaves him for a mutual friend while he's hospitalized, and tries to kill him to get his lottery winnings
• Jerk Sue: Despite all her crimes, she is still liked. Justified in that she becomes nicer as the series progresses and Earl has done far worse things so would be less willing to judge her or anyone else
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Can be nice (and even helpful) sometimes. Subverted, though, in that usually only if something's in it for her.
• Mama Bear: God help you if you hurt her kids
• Really Gets Around
• Rose-Haired Girl: As a 10-year-old, she was known as Pinky, because she dyed her hair pink and had her Sacred First Kiss with Randy
• Shotgun Wedding: Tricks Earl into marrying her in Vegas while she was pregnant with an unknown man's (later found to be Earl's) child.
• Tsundere Type-A example
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife Was the hot wife when she was married to Earl
• Your Cheating Heart: Results in a Chocolate Baby, and later the end of Earl and Joy's (rather dysfunctional from the start) marriage.

Darnell "Crabman" Turner

• Almighty Janitor
• Badass Bookworm
• Black Best Friend: To Earl despite the affair and stealing Joy.
• Blessed Are the Cheesemakers
• Characterization Marches On: In the early episodes, he appeared to be as vacuous and ignorant as Joy and the others. This was before the writers revealed his past and the fact that he is actually very intelligent
• Dissonant Serenity
• Easily Forgiven: Earl doesn't seem too bothered about him stealing Joy nor is Darnell particularly annoyed about Earl sleeping with her
• Erudite Stoner
• Everyone Calls Him Crabman
• Henpecked Husband
• Laser Guided Tykebomb: Was trained from childhood to be a government assassin by his father, which led to his being placed in Witness Protection after he retired.
• Nice Guy: Subverted, though, because he slept with a friend's wife
• Noodle Incident: He had a sister named Pam who was killed by honesty, according to Joy.
• The Smart Guy
• Team Dad
• Witness Protection

Randy Hickey

• The Big Guy
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Department of Redundancy Department
• Dumbass Has a Point: Occasionally says something smart
• Dumb Is Good
• Dumb Muscle: Strong enough to rip a phone chord out of a wall with little effort
• Fat Idiot
• Kavorka Man
• The Lancer
• The Load: The times Randy is actually useful is outnumbered by the times whatever trouble Earl finds himself in can be directly attributed to Randy. Then there's the times where he just makes things worse, which is every single time it's possible.
• Man Child
• Perma-Stubble
• Why Did It Have To Be Cats

Catalina

• Ascended Extra
• Bilingual Bonus: Her "insults" in Spanish to Joy are actually Breaking the Fourth Wall to Spanish-speaking viewers, usually thanking them for watching.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: After Randy confesses his love for her she tries to figure out a way to make him loose that feeling, Joy convinces her to sleep with him while being as disgusting as possible. This ends up backfiring when she realizes how good he is in bed but he ends up being disgusted with the smell and looses all feelings for her. Ouch.
• The Chick: Subverted, as she's usually not as whiny as typical Chicks.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Has witnessed multiple Kidnappings and even once killed someone
• Fetish Fuel
• The Illegal: She came to america in a box.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Starts out as this
• Meido: Works as a hotel maid
• Ms. Fanservice
• Naive Everygirl
• Noodle Incident: Apparently killed her mother during a fight. "It was either her or me."
  • Later averted when we see in a back-story that the two of them fought to see who would go to America and who would wind up dying to give a kidney to the smuggler's sister.
• Self-Made Orphan: See Noodle Incident
• Spicy Latina
• Stripperific Justified, as she is, in fact, a stripper in addition to working as a hotel maid
• Team Mom
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Often this with regards to Relationships

Patty The Daytime Hooker

• Anything That Moves
• Affirmative Action Girl
• Badass Bookworm
• Catholic School Girls Rule: Went to Catholic school, and transformed her uniform into the fetishized version. Tries to invoke the trope again 20-30 years later during a drag race. It does not work.
• Eighties Hair: Actually, her entire getup looks like she never quite left The Eighties.
• Fan Disservice
• Fridge Logic: She scored 1500 on her SAT exams, holds a Master's Degree, did a stint in the Peace Corps, and speaks fluent Bengali...and yet, she's a prostitute. How she was reduced to selling her body with all that going for her is never explained.
  • Of course it is. It's Camden. That's reason enough.
  • Maybe she just likes her job? It's not like every person who goes into prostitution necessarily does it out of desperation.
• Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Specializes in catering to Camden's kinkier tastes.
• Hidden Depths: Is noticeably smarter and more experienced than many other Characters
• Hollywood Homely
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Is very kind, and always willing to help out Earl.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Was very pretty when young
• Kavorka Woman Has slept with practically every straight or bisexual man in Camden County, even though she looks to be well into her 40's or 50's, and is very open about being a prostitute.
• My Girl Is a Slut
• Really Gets Around
• Sixth Ranger
• Streetwalker

Donny Jones

• The Atoner
• Ax Crazy
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas
• Eye Scream: Has bulging, somewhat disturbing "Crazy Eyes"
• Heel Faith Turn: Became a devout Christian while in prison for a crime Earl committed
• Hair-Trigger Temper
• Momma's Boy
• Put on a Bus: Just vanished halfway through the first season.
• Tattooed Crook: Inverted, as he although he got the tattoos while in prison, they are symbols of his Heel Faith Turn

Kenny James

• All of the Other Reindeer
• Camp Gay
• Club Kid: Becomes this after Earl helps him break out of his shell
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?
• Het Is Ew: In later episodes
• Hollywood Nerd
• Keet
• Nerd Glasses
• Shrinking Violet
• Smart Guy: Often the Brains involved in Earl's operations
• Unlucky Everydude

Didi

• Ax Crazy
• Agony of the Feet: Makes Earl hop on one leg all day as punishment for abandoning her and not returning her prosthesis.
• Fiery Redhead
• Informed Flaw: The only one that seems to have a problem with the fact that she only has one real leg is Earl.
  • This was quite a bit before Earl's Heel Face Turn however
• Meta Casting: The actress that plays her actually does only have one leg.
• Yandere: YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME!!! (While blasting a shotgun at Earl). In all fairness he did steal her car and ditch her after sex, but it's not like she couldn't have let the police deal with it.

Billie Cunningham

• Clingy Jealous Girl
• Control Freak
• Expy Deconstructed: She wants to get on the right path, but has very different ideas than Earl about what constitutes making things up to people. And she even goes so far as to undo what Earl has done when she feels she isn't getting enough attention from him.
• Face Heel Turn: When she met the guy she was with before marrying Earl, she was a good person. Her boyfriend, however, introduced her to stealing (which gave her a rush), and she became his partner in crime.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Earl is married to Pheobe Halliwell
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: At least in the beginning, before becoming a complete Jerkass, and finally becoming a genuinely nice person.
• Heel Faith Turn: Joins an Amish-like settlement when hiding out on their land, and finds inner peace and becomes a better person.
• High Heel Face Turn: Wants to follow in Earl's footsteps after hearing about his list and breaking up with her boyfriend.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When Earl is focused on the list instead of sex with her, she goes and undoes everything Earl has already crossed off the list.
• Wanting Is Better Than Having: Earl finds out the hard way that being married to Billie is nothing like The Fifties Dom Com he pictured while in a coma.
• Tsundere: Type B, before turning into a Yandere
• Unholy Matrimony: Was this to the guy she was with before meeting Earl.