Joy Darville

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Joy Darville
First appearance	Pilot
Statistics
Gender	Female
Age	30s
Family	Connie Darville (mother) Buzz Darville (father) (unnamed half-brother)
Spouse	Earl Hickey (divorced) Darnell Turner
Children	Dodge, Earl Jr.
Portrayed by	Jaime Pressly
Created by	Greg Garcia

Joy Darville is a fictional character from the TV series My Name Is Earl. She is the ex-wife of the show's protagonist Earl Hickey. She is played by Jaime Pressly, who was nominated for an Emmy for the role in 2006.

[edit] Biography

In 1999, Joy was pregnant and single. She didn't remember much about the father except that he drove a Ford (and therefore named her baby Dodge). She met Earl Hickey at the Crabshack, and seeing him as a good potential husband, she and her friends got him drunk, and drove him to Las Vegas where they married before Earl sobered up. Earl had a girlfriend named Jesse at the time and after she discovered them, a confrontation ended with Joy knocking out Jesse's front teeth.

At some point, Joy began having an affair with Darnell Turner, who worked at the Crabshack, and eventually became pregnant with his child. Although Earl was obviously not the father, the baby was named Earl Jr.

In 2005, when Earl was recovering in the hospital from being hit by a car, Joy divorced him and had Darnell move in with her.

Several early episodes showed Joy as a menace to Earl and his quest to gain good karma by completing his list since she believed she was entitled to half his lottery money and was always trying to get it. She even went so far as to attempt to kill Earl with a crossbow, then a handgun after finding a video will Earl made when they were still married in which he left everything he had to her. She only stopped this when he told he'd changed the will.

She still would find ways to torment Earl at first, however, such as painting "U R an ASS" (sic) on his car, and planning her wedding to Darnell on Earl's birthday and inviting everyone but Earl. Earl (after several beers) decided he didn't want to keep bickering with his ex-wife, saying he wanted to be "the Bruce to her Demi". Unfortunately during his drunken attempt to extend an olive branch at her wedding, he accidentally kicked a soccer ball at her face.

At first, she wasn't interested in Earl's attempts to plan a new wedding, but soon became involved. Unfortunately, working closely led to Earl and Joy sleeping together days before the wedding, which was nearly derailed when Darnell found out, though Earl managed to set things right.

Joy has been portrayed as quite tough, is the first woman in her family to reach her 30's with all her original teeth, and Earl described her as 'a bad example' when talking to a young boy about women. She also was able to beat a fully trained bounty hunter (Earl's ex-girlfriend Jesse) into submission and knock her two front teeth out (big shiny gold ones) again.

Recently, her image on the show has softened considerably. She still steals shamelessly as Earl used to, makes fun of Earl's list, and often bickers with Earl's friend Catalina Aruca but she's been shown to genuinely love Darnell and her kids. She fully appreciates the people around her, even Earl, (though she often hides it behind a front of self-centeredness and calling people "dummy"). She also confessed to Earl that their drunken marriage was arranged by Joy and her friends, rather than an accident.

More recently, Joy's stealing finally caught up with her after she stole a truck full of merchandise (and, as she later found out, a store employee) after they refused to give her a refund on a TV entertainment center she returned. After she was caught, Joy faced a serious prison sentence because this was her third strike. She managed to find a lawyer to take her case (though the lawyer nearly didn't after Joy made fun of her for being deaf).

Joy operates a nail parlor in her home. She is also a very good fighter, a fact she puts down to "watchin' a lot of Springer".

My Name Is Earl

Karma • The List • Episodes

Characters

Earl Hickey • Randy Hickey • Joy Darville • Catalina Aruca • Darnell Turner • Minor characters