Synopsis of Dinner Out
Written by Daniel
The opening scene involves a whiffle ball, a bat, a picture frame, a vase. I think you get the moral, whiffle ball in the house is fun.
"The thing about playing at Stevie Kenarban's house is that he has everyone of my favorite video games, from when I was four." The thing is Stevie Kenarban's parents are just as messed up as Malcolm's. Kitty, Stevie's mom, makes her son's stutter look inevitable with an annoying fear of life. But she's not all bad, she invites Lois, well the family, to dinner at a fancy restaurant.
We expect everything to go horribly wrong. Take Dewey for instance, harvesting tips from all the tables does not make you popular with the wait staff. Hal, he gets Abe Kenarban drunk enough to eat sticks of butter. But when it comes to family relations with the world it's all about Lois, and after a rocky start she finds that Kitty shares her bad taste in movies. Until... Kitty hints that she's invited them to dinner to 'check them out'
"She's a very demanding woman, and I haven't seen her for a long time. I want things to go well." I'm taking an aside from Lois. Spangler has a guest, which means Francis needs to plan a party. At an all boys school, you have to find girls. Apparently there is a ready supply just outside the gates. Spangler doesn't suspect a thing.
"I yell at you, you yell at me, that's what you do!" Lois' biggest problem with Kitty is her mousiness. At one point she stops yelling.
Let's pause here for a moment of silence. Please.
Then, she licks her finger and sticks it in unprotesting Kitty's ear. At this point she knows she must help this woman, not criticize her.
A side story I've been leaving out intervenes at this point. See Reese and Malcolm have this game where if one fools the other into looking at their hand below the waist, the other gets to hit the one looking. Simple, mindless, keeps 'em occupied for days. Stevie wants to play, but he is miserable at it. Throughout much of the show we see his wheelchair roll by. Think physics, or pool, it's all about the same thing. Eventually he whimpers and leaves. Reese will definitely not be a politician, as we all know a politician must win no at all costs. Reese feels guilty. Reese runs after him. Reese looks at him. Stevie has his hand below his waist. Reese gets a pounding.
The kiddie table is not too far from Kitty and Lois. Now this is entirely expected, Lois yells at Reese. She doesn't know what he did, but she knows Reese. Kitty yells at Stevie.
"It won't be long before they're in the air ducts." At the Marlin Academy the local girls are partying a little too much for the boys. You'd think dancing with guns a blazing might be attractive to some men at a military school, perhaps even Horton. We don't see Horton after the opening scenes until the end, when he's found naked and whimpering in their "nesting site." But this is one fire, well several, that must burn out naturally, the local girls' fathers are all politically connected. Look for the Oliver Stone movie.
We cut back to the family, Stevie is still hitting Reese, Kitty is yelling at Abe. The family is being thrown out, or maybe it's the Kenarbans being thrown out. I'll let Malcolm sum it up, "Whoa! Interesting dinner, Stevie beat the crap out of Reese, his dad got drunk, and his mom's gone totally psycho. Oh my god, we're contagious!"
Back to episode info