Synopsis of Bowling
Written by TK
Situation 1
Lois takes the older boys bowling while Hal stays at home with Dewey who is being punished for a parakeet accident. Dewey tricks Hal into reading to him and then falling asleep. After Hal is safely tucked in bed, Dewey cooks marshmallows over the stove, orders a video, and gives his father's credit cards away for a pizza.
Once at the bowling alley, Lois realizes that the bowling party is unsupervised, so she takes it upon herself to be the chaperone. She humiliates Malcolm with her loud encouragement of his bowling to the point where he can't help but bowl gutter ball after gutter ball. Meanwhile, Reese impresses a pretty blonde named Beth. He keeps trying to tell her a joke about walking on the beach, but his mother keeps interrupting him. When Malcolm tries to stand up to Lois and ends up making an even bigger ass of himself, Reese laughs and taunts him the loudest, and Beth is disgusted with him. As the boys are getting ready to go, Beth goes over to talk to Malcolm and they end up sharing a kiss.
Situation 2
Hal takes the older boys bowling while Lois stays at home with Dewey who is being punished for a parakeet accident. Dewey tries every trick he can think of on Lois, who doesn't fall for any of them. Finally, Lois is mystified when she finds Dewey simply lying quietly in bed. She decides to let him watch a little TV because he's been so good, and then second guesses herself and thinks that maybe this is a whole new trick of Dewey's. She goes back and forth on this, and then finally decides to let Dewey watch a little TV, but something he won't like, like C-SPAN.
Once at the bowling alley, Hal sends his sons off to have a good time and gets his own lane at the other end of the place. Reese goes over to talk to a cute blonde named Beth, but immediately turns her off by telling her a joke about walking on the beach which involves spitting soda into her hair. After Beth puts herself back together, she decides that Malcolm, who has been bowling strikes, is the much better brother to talk to. Reese watches them together and is jealous, so he throws a bowling ball at them. The ball completely misses them and hits a large man at another lane who spends the rest of the evening chasing Reese around. Malcolm and Beth go behind the lanes where the pin-setting machines are to "be alone."
Meanwhile, Hal has been bowling strikes all night. As he gets closer and closer to bowling a perfect game and getting his name on a plaque outside the men's room, he gets more and more superstitious. He has to swish soda in his mouth before every bowl, his fly has to be down for every bowl, a certain guy has to be in the lane next to him for every bowl, he has to say gedzundheit (spelling?) before every bowl, he has to scratch the back of his right leg with his left foot before every bowl....
Just as Hal is about to bowl his last strike for a perfect game and Malcolm is about to kiss Beth, Malcolm's jacket gets stuck in the pin-setting machinery and pulls him away from his kiss, depositing him on his father's pins just before the ball reaches them.
The large man after Reese finally finds him in the auto-picture booth and is able to get pictures of himself kicking the Reese's ass.
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