Malcolm in the Middle

The family is banned from the water park because of breaking too many violations, including sneaking alcohol into the park, but get stuck in a traffic jam caused by a car wreck right in front of them on their way home. Hal has an existential crisis when he realizes how easily it could’ve been their car that was hit by the truck. Lois can’t accept the fact that there’s nothing she can do to speed up the process so they can get back on the road, causing her to have a mental breakdown. Meanwhile, Reese and some kids battle an ice cream man who refuses to give them treats. Malcolm spends the time with a girl and is crushed when he finds out she lives in Canada. She gives him her phone number, but at the last moment, a dog eats the paper with the number, much to Malcolm’s dismay. At the military academy, Francis bets fellow cadets that he can eat 100 candy Quacks and gets sick in the process. Meanwhile, Dewey has an adventure going home.

When Francis comes home for a post-Halloween visit, he helps his brothers get back into the spirit by building a giant slingshot on the roof of their house to terrorize the neighborhood, but are defeated when Krelboynes turn the tables on them. Hal and Lois track down a joyrider in a blue 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle who won’t stop speeding down their street and taunts Lois, and they end up stealing his car. Driving it around, they seem to have an epiphany about their youth and have fun driving around, even thinking about leaving the kids and depart to Mexico, but, coming to their senses, they drown the car in a lake and return home.

Reese, Malcolm, and Dewey are given money to buy birthday presents for Lois, but they spend most of it on candy. Lois runs away from home and goes to a batting cage. Hal and the boys throw together a makeshift party for her at the batting cages, where they end up getting into a fight with a bunch of clowns. Francis, who had come home for Lois’ birthday, convinces an African woman to ditch her bus tour and see America with him instead.

The family has a dinner date with the Kenarbans, who start to pick up the bad habits of Malcolm and his family: Abe gets drunk with Hal, Stevie punches Reese, and Kitty makes a scene by yelling at Stevie in front of everyone. With Spangler’s mother visiting, the academy is free for the cadets, and so Francis invites a group of local girls to a party at Marlin Academy, which they promptly destroy. Francis goes to Spangler to tell him about the party, and together they try to limit the damage.

Malcolm and his family vacation at a casino on an Indian reservation. Hal is banned from the gambling area after using Malcolm to count cards for him at a blackjack table. Unable to gamble, Hal looks for another form of recreation and takes Malcolm and Reese on a hike through the desert, where they accidentally wander onto an artillery range owned by the Army, and they end up in a military base. Lois wins a day at the spa and shares it with Dewey since Hal is gone. Francis ditches school thinking he would have the house to himself while his family was gone, only to run into Craig, who has also snuck into the house uninvited.

Hal and Lois go out of town to a convention, where Hal keeps picking fights with a coworker who stole a great idea he had years ago. Back at home, the boys compete for the attention of a sexy babysitter (Melody Perkins), Francis’s friend (who doesn’t know that she is gorgeous since she was obese while he was going to school with her) who finds Dewey too adorable and barely notices the other two, and still has big feelings for Francis.

Lois and Craig get caught up in a robbery at the Lucky Aide, where Craig finally admits his feelings for Lois. Hal brings home an old armoire to give Lois as an anniversary gift, but it turns out to be full of bats. They manage to get rid of all the bats, but not without trashing the house in the process. Francis tries to cheer up a recently dumped fellow cadet by taking him to a strip club, then an illegal cockfight, where they run into a mishap with the locals.

Malcolm fakes an emotional breakdown in order to get out of the Krelboyne class’ Medieval Week. Hal and Lois clean out a packed closet and find that it is actually a second bathroom with a functional toilet. They decide to keep the secret and repack it so the boys won’t find out. Dewey reveals a hidden talent for table skittles, but his talent seems to disappear as soon as Hal tries to show it off on a convention. Meanwhile, Francis starts laundry duty at military school. He is good at it, but then becomes greedy and starts a business and blackmail. The other cadets soon gets back at Francis for it.

Malcolm gets a role in a high school play and starts blowing off his friends to spend more time with his new high school friends. Caroline Miller (Catherine Lloyd Burns), the Krelboyne teacher, gives birth in the school parking lot when the Krelboynes’ model rocket launch goes awry. Hal and Dewey create a LEGO city. At the play, the constant exposure to the high-school gossip causes Malcolm to forget his lines.

After being beaten by a girl in a wrestling match, Reese relinquishes his role as the school bully, which allows people to start picking on Malcolm, but returns when people entered the off-limit zone (Picking on Stevie, who is wheel-chair bound). Francis tries to come home from military school for his birthday to avoid a brutal birthday hazing ritual of having his whole body shaved.

Malcolm must help an old woman (Florence Stanley) in the neighborhood with whatever she wants of him because he broke her arm. He takes care for her and actually gets friendly with her, until one day, she passes out from alcohol. He invites his friends over and joyride in her car, but they pass next to Lois, panicking Malcolm. The old woman covers for Malcolm, for a small price he has to pay. Francis’ friend Richie is sent to the military academy. Meanwhile, Reese tries to convince (and force) Dewey to use a regular backpack instead of a purse.

Malcolm’s class has a new student named Cynthia (Tania Raymonde), and it quickly becomes clear that she has a crush on him. Malcolm doesn’t know how to react about this, panicking about a new love, and ends up throwing a brick through her window in the middle of the night. She is mad at first but ends up forgiving him.

New neighbors move in next to Malcolm’s family, and the two families soon hate each other (except the father, who quickly becomes best friends with Hal). One of the neighbors starts rumors that Malcolm is a Peeping Tom, leading Malcolm to seek revenge by framing him for theft. Malcolm and Reese accidentally catch the neighbor family’s mother cheating on her husband, forcing them to move. Meanwhile, Commandant Spangler gets drunk on the day that Oliver North visits Marlin Academy and Francis must save the day.

Hal quits his job after a disastrous career day at Dewey’s school, and spends his free time to a huge painting in a garage (which is never shown on-screen). He drives himself crazy adding more and more layers to the painting until he goes crazy about it. Francis reluctantly works at the Lucky Aide over spring break when they need extra people to take inventory. Malcolm questions his future profession after an aptitude test reveals that he could do any job on the planet.

Lois’ parents Victor (Robert Loggia) and Ida (Cloris Leachman) come for a visit and don’t seem to approve of anyone in the family except Reese. Hal buys a new refrigerator thinking Victor is going to reimburse him for it, but Victor changes his mind. Victor also gives Reese a case of his old weapons, but Reese pulls the pin and breaks the handle off a live grenade, so Malcolm throws it in the new fridge to keep it from destroying the house, blowing up the fridge in the process. Meanwhile, Francis is sick from a bad sushi while he and the cadets are in New Orleans for Mardi Gras.

Lois is cited for reckless driving, and arrested due to several outstanding parking tickets earned by Francis. She orders Francis to pay off the fines he has accumulated in her name, which leads Francis to try a dangerous stunt for money. Lois disputes the reckless driving citation, believing the officer has a personal grudge against her because she made him pay for an iced-tea he was buying. The boys find that Lois was wrong but can’t tell her because she will scream and ground them. But when security camera footage shows evidence to the contrary, Lois has an emotional meltdown over being wrong for the first time in her life. Craig finds a security camera from a different angle showing that Lois wasn’t at fault after all. However, Hal and the boys destroyed the tape, so she will continue to believe she was wrong and forces Craig to remain silent, or else they will make his life living hell.

Malcolm is hospitalized with side pains and is diagnosed with appendicitis. He is scheduled for surgery until he manages to prove the diagnosis wrong and must suffer the consequences when his parents find out. The rest of the family obsesses over a board game called March and Conquer (a fictional version of Risk), which they usually don’t play since Malcolm always beats them all in a few moves. Francis and the cadets go on a hunger strike after Commandant Spangler takes away their television.

Reese discovers his talent for cooking when he is forced to take a culinary class as punishment for a prank. In the class’ cooking contest, Reese is found to have cheated by putting foul-tasting, raw ingredients (such as salt, pepper, or castor oil) in the other contestants’ foods, even though he was the favorite to win. Hal punishes him by forbidding him to cook for a month, which makes Reese cry. At Marlin Academy, Francis keeps blowing off his share of a major school project that his friend Eric is also half-responsible for. Meanwhile, Cynthia organizes a "Be My Friend" party for everyone at the school, but Malcolm is worried that she’s setting herself up disappointment and tries to stop her.

Malcolm tutors Reese to improve his lousy grades and avoid him getting sent to the school’s remedial class, but he keeps getting Fs, no matter how much he studies. Desperate, Malcolm secretly takes Reese’s big test, and when it earns another F, he realizes that the teacher has a grudge on Reese for his bullying and wants him the school’s remedial class. Francis leaves the family and lives in the basement of his friend Richie’s house because Lois kicked him out for refusing to re-shingle the roof due to Hal’s fear of heights. At the dinner with the family, the teacher gives Lois and Hal the paperwork to reassign Reese to the remedial class. Just before they can sign it, however, Malcolm busts the teacher, but he also reveals his scheme. Lois blackmails the teacher into cooperation and also to help fix the roof, which he accepts after seeing Francis in the rain, screaming and begging to be let in.

In this Sliding Doors-style story, the viewer simultaneously sees what happens when the boys go bowling with Hal and what happens when they go bowling with Lois. In both versions, Malcolm and Reese go to bowl, while Dewey stays at home because he is punished for killing the neighbor’s parakeet, as a subplot, with one of the parents guarding him. In the both versions, when Hal/Lois return home from the bowling alley, they say to each other that next time, they are taking them. Tony Danza and Alex McKenna guest stars.

Francis bribes Malcolm and Reese with just one extra ticket to a wrestling match, forcing them to humiliate themselves and do all his chores, trying to outdo each other for the one ticket. The boys turn on each other when they realize that the other one can’t go to the wrestling match if they are grounded. However, Francis betrays them both by taking a girl to a wrestling match and they get their revenge, by emptying his wallet, calling the police and reporting the family car is stolen by Francis, and then they tie up themselves in the trunk, leaving Francis humiliated in front of his girl and also getting him arrested. Meanwhile, Dewey is hired to watch Craig’s cat for the weekend, but he loses the cat and his parents make things worse. Craig moves in with the family after they burn his house down. In the end, Lois punishes Reese and Malcolm for getting Francis arrested by forcing them to serve Craig.

Craig drives the family insane while living with them. The boys buy a used moped and fix it up, only to have Lois confiscate it. Reese takes the bike out anyway and crashes it, twisting and breaking his leg. Malcolm thinks fast and tricks Craig into believing he had run over his leg. Even though Lois eventually finds out about Reese riding the bike against her admonition, she lets the boys get away with it because they helped get Craig out of the house. Hal visits Francis at Marlin Academy’s father/son day and is disappointed when he learns that Francis apparently has not changed, but is later proud when Francis is the only cadet who stands up to Commandant Spangler.

Reese and Malcolm plan with Stevie to sneak onto the carnival fair that is in town, with Reese and Malcolm telling the parents to spend the night with Stevie and Stevie doing the vice versa with his parents. However, Dewey spies on them and wants in on the deal or else he will tell Lois, and even after blackmailing him into make his life living hell (breaking every toy and giving him wedgies every day until he moves out), they have to agree with him so they can all go in together. They all sneak off to the county fair together, but they arrive as the fair is closing and end up being locked in and chased by a security guard, a mishap thanks to Dewey having to pee and waiting two hours for the bus. Hal and Lois were going to spend the entire evening having sex until Stevie’s parents showed up and they all discovered that their sons had lied. They search various places around town to find them, with Francis’s help.

Hal and Dewey accidentally drop an old couch on the railroad tracks while driving it to the dump, and the town ends up being evacuated into the school gym after a train containing toxic waste derails. While Hal tries to make up to society, Malcolm was late coming home from school and gets grounded, so Lois forces him to stay on his designated cot in the gym. Dewey convinces other people that he is an orphan in order to get what he wants, and Reese starts running a black market when he realizes that everyone there is in need of basic supplies. At the end, Reese’s black market is discovered, Dewey reveals his scheme to Hal in front of the crowd, and Lois spanks Malcolm when he stands up to her. The Army forces Hal, Dewey, Lois and Reese to spend the night on the bench outside without moving from it, with Malcolm enjoying his freedom. Eric takes Francis out on a blind double, but Francis’ date turns out to be twelve. However, Francis has a better time with the girl than Eric has with his own date.

While Hal worries and argues with Lois over the possibility of her being pregnant again since she is two weeks late with her period, the two look back at the memories of their children’s births, from Francis being born while Hal and Lois got married, Reese born early because Lois pushed him out because he kicked too hard, Malcolm born on the front yard because Lois had to go to the hospital and Francis locked her out of the car because he thought he would get a shot, to Dewey’s birth on the backyard while it was raining because young Malcolm accidentally made chlorine gas and the house had to air out and the car keys were inside the gassy house. During Dewey’s birth, Hal was forced by Lois to tell her why he loves her. Later, Dewey, who has been listening to his parents, is happy that they are not arguing anymore, because he thought they would get a divorce. Lois is revealed not to be pregnant.