Malcolm in the Middle

Malcolm and Reese’s attempt to hitch their way to the annual Burning Man festival, turns into a family vacation when Hal and Lois get in on it, and they rent a RV from Hal’s boss. On the festival, everyone seems to enjoy except Hal and Dewey; Hal is scared with the Burning Man attendants who mistake his bourgeois lifestyle as an ironical persiflage of society, while Dewey has to do all the chores around the RV. Meanwhile, Reese fits in with the festival, and Malcolm gets in a relationship with a healer (Rosanna Arquette). Lois ends up having a blast, and Reese relents to "burn the man down", not accepting that the festival has ended, and he accidentally torches the RV. Afterwards, Hal and Dewey are forced to work "dirty jobs" to repay the RV, Malcolm ends up depressed, while Lois and Reese agree in secret to go on the next year festival.

Hal finds out that the family has been without health insurance for six months and tries to safeguard the house until Monday (when the insurance is put back into effect), and his over protection of the house and the boys (who planned a disaster scheme of their own) ends up when he accidentally breaks his leg, which brings him in tears. He then goes to great lengths to try to keep Lois from finding this out. Meanwhile, Lois tries to fish out a snitch at the Lucky Aide store, going overnights to catch him.

An angry Reese threatens Stevie, who dreads a retaliation; Dewey gets hooked on cigarettes, thanks to ex-smoker Hal’s many stashes around the house. Lois tries to get little Jamie to talk by telling him her modern life and her high school years. When the time comes for Reese and Stevie to fight, Reese tries to make it fair by turning his legs limp in ice water, but Stevie has done just the opposite, and steals a robot exoskeleton from a college project he is into, beating him up badly. In the end, Dewey is grounded, Stevie is kicked out from the project for unauthorized use of equipment, and Hal has to find all of his stashes, or, as Malcolm says, "Lois will make him eat them", and he finishes with bringing a new bedpan for the incapacitated Reese.

Hal freaks out when Malcolm gives him the details of a grisly mass murder that occurred in the house years ago. Lois gets stuck working on Halloween and catches a shoplifter as everyone else at Lucky Aide throws a wild party. Reese and Dewey lose track of Jamie as they flee from an old man after egging his house, while Lois gets arrested for kidnapping when she picks up the wrong child. Meanwhile, Jamie returns to the house and eats too much candy in the shaft, and he accidentally scares Hal and Malcolm, which causes Malcolm to jump out of the window.

Jessica (Hayden Panettiere) moves in on a temporary basis and teaches Malcolm how to manipulate others, but when he uses her tricks on Lois he feels something he has never felt before, empathy. Meanwhile, after he harvests some fresh honey, Hal fights back against a bee who is out for revenge for killing the rest of his hive. Reese attempts to mail himself to China in a crate after his Chinese pen-pal refused to give him fireworks and Dewey has him convinced that he has been in there for months.

Malcolm’s in love with a hot and secretly brainy teen named Vicki (Sarah Wright) who fears ruining her image by seeing him publicly. Soon, he learns the truth from Jessica and eventually starts a relationship with her. Reese is kicked out of the house for refusing to get a job, but Lois lets him live back in to take care of him. However, Reese decides to get a job after having a nightmare that he will have to take care of Lois 24/7. Meanwhile, Hal is in a heated conflict with the owner of the miniature golf because he won’t give Dewey a free game (even though the ball was stuck). In turn, he teaches his father a lesson by locking him up in one of the displays because he never listened to him when he told him he was ok with not getting a free game.

A power outage caused by Jamie’s balloon disrupts Lois and Hal’s anniversary and reveals Malcolm’s trysts with young European women, while Reese tries to cook Kobe beef for Hal and Francis tries to steal a fish he and Hal caught years ago, and Dewey is upset he won’t pick dinner. The entire sequence of events is revealed through several replays from different points of view, which all start from the outage.

Reese’s old army buddy, Abby (Larisa Oleynik) visits and she has feelings for Lois. Reese takes it the totally wrong way, believing he has a shot at her, after Malcolm suggests this to Reese.

Malcolm and Reese end up in the same class since Reese failed the previous year. Mr. Herkabe, who may lose his award for the school’s highest GPA to Malcolm, gleefully humiliates Reese every day until he agrees to start failing his classes. Malcolm gets his revenge on Herkabe by telling the principal, Mr. Hodges (Steve Vinovich), his teacher’s secret. He immediately revokes Mr. Herkabe’s GPA award as his punishment for flunking Gym and returns it to Edna Thornby. End result: Herkabe has to retake gym and endures humiliation with Reese tossing dodgeballs at him. Meanwhile, Jamie’s new babysitter (Kathryn Joosten) drives Lois crazy with her nonstop talking. This episode features Hopsin, before he was a well known rapper.

Malcolm begins to fuss about his high school yearbook photo. Meanwhile, he also receives a $10,000 education reward unknown for him, and when Hal and Lois find out, they want to spend it on themselves. After Dewey learns of this, he’s in.

Dewey, Lois and Hal go out of town to a piano competition. Without Lois around, Grandma Ida makes Reese get married to Ida’s helper, Raduca (Rheagan Wallace), but only if he defeats Malcolm in three challenges. When Lois, Dewey and Hal return, they find out that Reese has run with Raduca to Las Vegas to get married, much to Ida’s dismay.

A broke Francis gets talked into getting a real job by Dewey. Back home, Hal takes over the college recruiters, which Malcolm refuses to meet with, and treats each one as a suitor. However, Hal’s plans are ruined when Malcolm chooses to go to Harvard. Reese and Raduca’s marriage ends when Lois and Reese catch Raduca cheating with her other lover, Bela.

Lois discovers she has mono after a visit to the doctor. She then ends up giving it to Malcolm after her maternal instincts begin. As a result, both Lois and Malcolm are forced to spend two weeks together in the same room. Meanwhile, Hal is invited to all of his neighbors’ parties after they know Lois will not be attending any of them. Dewey makes Jamie his slave, and he teaches Reese to be nice to Jamie.

Hal gets a devastating phone call that his father has died, but because he never knew his father well and the way he and the rest of his relatives mistreat Lois, he does not shed a tear. In an attempt to overcompensate with his sons (And that his sons will love him forever), Hal takes the boys shopping and lets them miss school. While Reese and Dewey takes full advantage of it, Malcolm realizes it’s wrong and it isn’t long until Lois steps in. Hal’s buddy Abe thinks that a phone call from Leonard Nimoy, a cast member of Star Trek: The Original Series will cheer him up. Instead, George Takei calls up.

Lois and Hal visit Francis to help him celebrate one year of sobriety, but when they attend his A.A. meeting, they find out that he never really was an alcoholic; he blamed his psychological problems on nonexistent drinking, which he has blamed Lois for. Meanwhile, Dewey finds the spare key to Hal’s car, but when Malcolm and Reese refuse to drive him to the arcade, it takes them more than 12 steps to find it – in his stomach.

When four popular high school girls play an evil prank on Reese by pretending he has a secret admirer and then dropping a pig off at his front door, he falls into a huge depression. After Lois tries to negotiate with the principal (who responds that Reese deserved it), she forces Reese to tell her who the girls are so she can get revenge for him with a series of destructive pranks.

Hal’s friend Trey tells him to come to his dental office when he cracks a tooth during a poker game, but their friendship goes into jeopardy when Hal’s faced with a $2,000 bill and causes a fight between them. Meanwhile, Reese teaches Lois how to ride a bike. Malcolm and Dewey find sleeping as their new favorite pastime after finding a new mattress in the street (which literally fell from the sky).

Malcolm joins a local dance class to meet a cute girl, but after discovering she is a poor dancer, he realizes that he must accept Danielle, the unattractive, but most talented partner in order to win the competition. While trying to bury their father’s broken trophy, Reese and Dewey discover an underground bomb shelter in the backyard and lock Hal in it, while Lois tries to win a new truck at the shopping mall. Hal soon discovers the bomb shelter is paradise, and Lois plays mind games for the truck.

When Stevie goes to the hospital, Malcolm tries making up every excuse he can think of to not go because he can’t face the truth about his illness. Meanwhile, Hal gets highly competitive about his new remote control boat when a ten year old keeps knocking it over. He manages to break the ten year old’s boat, but the child starts crying and Hal is beaten up by some people watching from the field. Lois thinks Dewey is trying to drive her insane (Because she made Dewey get an F on his volcano because she didn’t buy baking soda after he kept asking her), and Reese’s new job as a telemarketer takes a bizarre turn.

Reese meets a cute vegetarian named Carrie (Tara Lipinski) when he goes back to work at the meat plant. He goes along with her politics talk at first, but she catches him with a pork chop. Feeling guilty for lying and his carnivorous compulsions, he sets free all the cows at the meat plant. Meanwhile, Malcolm tries to fool Craig in order to attend a rock concert, only to end up making Craig miserable. Craig decides to make a trip around the world on a motorcycle, only to get trampled by the freed cows, then make one final attempt to be with Lois, and she manages to pacify Craig enough for him to go back to his life.

For the senior prom, Reese gets paid to take Janine, a studious girl in class, but only after she gives him a makeover and sends him to finishing school. Malcolm aligns himself with the unpopular kids to form an anti-prom they call "Morp". Dewey discovers there aren’t any childhood pictures of him, so he concocts an elaborate scavenger hunt to punish Hal and Lois and throw a party for Jamie.

In the series finale, Malcolm struggles with his valedictorian speech, Hal finds out that the family may not have enough money to send Malcolm to college. Meanwhile Reese is moving in with Craig, and since they’re both leaving they decide (along with Dewey) that Jamie should have the childhood they never got, one free of threats. As such, they destroy their "nuclear option," evidence of the worst thing they ever did: fake an X-ray of Lois having cancer to sneak away with bad report cards, and a way to destroy each other if someone had nothing to lose. Francis finds the 9-to-5 job of his dreams but won’t let Lois know, Reese tries to be a permanent janitor, enlisting Ida’s help. Malcolm is offered a dream job in lieu of college, however Lois (determined that Malcolm will get a full education) turns down the offer for him. Furious, Malcolm demands to know why and Lois explains that she and the family expect him to become president, but it’s important he struggles enough so that he understands what people like them go through. Malcolm, amazed at just how much the family expects of him, agrees. Three months later Malcolm is working his way through college, Reese and Francis are happy in their new jobs (although Francis still refuses to tell Lois), Dewey feels closer than ever to Jamie as the two cause havoc around the house and Lois discovers she’s pregnant again.