Earl is involved in a row (6)
I believe the answer is:
serial
'in a row' is the definition.
'earl is involved' is the wordplay.
'involved' indicates an anagram (involved can mean confusing or complex).
'earl'+'is'='earlis'
'earlis' with letters rearranged gives 'SERIAL'.
(Other definitions for serial that I've seen before include "Of continuous nature - maybe a killer" , "Story made up of consecutive parts" , "In regular succession without gaps" , "Episodic story from Israel" , "show" .)