Synopsis of Lois's Birthday
Written by Daniel
"We shoveled your walkway" and so Reese makes us question again
whether he will grow up to be a great mobster or a great president.
According to Malcolm, "There is a lot of good things about the
weekends, no school, cartoons; but the best thing about weekends
is having a neighbor like Mrs. Jenson." Money and the candy for free,
what else could a 12 year old want. Maybe Jessica, but real Canadian
girlfriends are hard to come by.
Lois is feeling under appreciated. She gives the boys ten dollars each
and hints strongly that she wants a $25 foot massager. This surprises
them since they usually just make her presents, like a potato bank.
What Lois gets is a eyeglass repair kit, throat lozenges and a dirt
bike magazine. The boys get twenty dollars of candy. It doesn't help
that when Hal gets home he accidentally yells, "I forgot your mom's
birthday!"
If you saw Halloween Approximately you know Francis is home. He still
manages to carry his own interleaving story line. The first scene shows
him hitting on a rapt school girl. "You really haven't seen America until
you've seen the small towns, met the people, strayed away to my friend
Richie's Keg party." But we soon learn from Amaani, that the rapt one speaks
no English. Amaani is an "African Goddess" that the general has sent off
to America to keep her out of trouble, we learn this as Francis nervously
walks her home. When he tells her that his house is real and not like all
those plastic national monuments she tells him, "You can relax already.
I got off the bus" then she promptly jumps him.
They don't get very far as things are erupting in the house. Hal
tries to steal Craig's present, then Lois walks past them both and heads
for the car, throwing Francis and Amaani out.
"We made our own mom run away" such is Malcolm's realization that they
hurt Lois. Reese begins making a list of new women for Hal to date,
his criteria are straightforward, "She can cook, and her daughters are
nymphos."
The featured music this week hits the spot, Tracy Bonham's "Behind
every good woman [is a trail of men.]" plays as Lois hits her anger
away at the batting cage. This is where Francis finds her. When they
all get there they know they've gotta be at their best. They have a
clown and Timmy's cake in no time. Lois lambastes them for not realizing
she needed a little help coping. In an otherwise ho-hum episode the
writers deliver a real gem here in Hal's monologue response,
"Oh geez Honey, that's never gonna happen, we're not smart enough. . .
The only thing we are ever going to be able to offer you is our total
obedience."
Then the real fun begins, the clown fight! Ok sure it doesn't carry
forward the plot, but it does develop the characters. Which is what
we really care about in Malcolm in the Middle.
And we get to see Dewey bite a clown.
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