My Name Is Earl

Randy's actor Ethan Suplee took to the Slick & Thick Podcast to elaborate. "My Name Is Earl was picked up for another season. [...] We were a hit. And the [NBC] network called and said, 'We want to license the show for another year.' And the [Fox] studio said, 'Well, we want more money. We want to renegotiate our deal with you.' And the network basically did not respond for two weeks. And then the studio called back and said, 'We'll take your deal,' and the network said, 'Too late.'"

"Earl Jr’s Dad was going to be someone famous. Like Dave Chappelle or Lil John. Someone that came to town on tour and Joy slept with. But when we got canceled, we never got the chance to figure it out. I was worried about doing a cliffhanger but I asked NBC if it was safe to do one at the end of the season, and they told me it was. I guess it wasn’t."

In the Reddit AMA, Garcia continued to reveal that the show's true finale had in fact been planned, making the disappointment of what happened all the more frustrating. "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." This is consistent with the show's set-up from as early as the first season. In Season 1's "Stole Beer From a Golfer," Earl recognizes that by focusing on his list, he's been taking Randy's help for granted, so adds "Neglected Randy" to his list. He even says in his voice-over that he never plans on crossing it off, intending to continuously prioritize his brother more in his day-to-day.

Garcia said the finale would begin with Earl getting stuck on a really hard list item, frustrated that he would never finish crossing everything off his list. "Somebody shows up at our motel door," added Suplee recently, "finds us at the bar, and starts to make amends to Earl for something." Earl would then question where the man got such an idea and "goes back and finds all these people who have lists, who are out there trying to do good, and it all comes back to him. He was the beginning of this." Garcia concluded, "Earl eventually realizes that his list started a chain reaction of people with lists 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." In Suplee's own words of longing, "That would have been an awesome, awesome episode."