Reese, having enlisted in the Army, parachutes into Afghanistan and immediately deserts, disguising himself as an Afghani woman. Lois convinces an Army officer to give up Reese's location and sells the family car to buy a plane ticket, intent on rescuing her son. Malcolm tries to assuage his guilt over Reese's enlistment by volunteering at a local veterans' hospitals, but can't resist tampering with the patients' meds, causing a riot of war-like proportions. Dewey suggests a random act of violence to commemorate their missing older brother, and Reese returns, having been found by his mother, to find Malcolm and Dewey dropping dirty diaper bombs an an arts fair. More...

Dewey's classmates, "The Buseys," revolt after Dewey leaves the Special Needs class. Convinced they will not survive school without him, the gang takes refuge in a tree in Dewey's yard, hiding out until he promises to return to their class. Meanwhile, an out-of-work Hal becomes the leader of a group of brainless bodybuilders; and Malcolm and Reese get in – surprise! – trouble, this time for feeding Lois false information. More...

Hal has a war with the garbage man and ends up with a lawn covered in trash (Dewey makes a trash fort). He turns to Reese for help, but after a disaster involving a stolen garbage truck and an uprooted fire hydrant, Hal ends up wining and dining the garbage man to get his trash taken away. Malcolm is now Lois's supervisor at Lucky Aide, and they battle over a racist standee ad. More...

Malcolm and Reese are frustrated that they can't seem to get rid of their frizzy-haired neighbor, Jessica, and they see Jessica's influence on their mother when Lois announces that she's taking the whole family to see the musical "Mamma Mia!" Malcolm confronts Jessica, who claims that she only suggested it because Reese is gay. Unbeknownst to Malcolm, Jessica has simultaneously convinced Reese that Malcolm is gay. Tip-toeing around this revelation, the boys are painfully polite to each other, until they discover that Jessica tricked them. They plot to turn their mother against Jessica, but Lois has, of course, been one step ahead of them the entire time. Hal, tired of competing with a neighbor who always outdoes his Christmas decorations, decides to create his own "holiday" to decorate his house for... Pearl Harbor Day! When the neighbor manages to outdo him once again, Hal and Dewey scatter his decorations with worms, attracting a flock of birds that makes the actual bombing of Pearl Harbor look peaceful. Dewey has to write a report about how one of his parents is his hero, and he has trouble deciding which parent to write about. More...

When Stevie's mother Kitty returns, she asks Lois for help getting her estranged husband Abe back. Lois tells Kitty that leaving her husband and child, along with the promiscuous acts that followed, is unforgivable and "creepy." Abe demands that Lois apologize to Kitty for calling her creepy, but Lois refuses and causes a feud with the Kenarbens. Meanwhile, Francis comes home and puts Dewey through the torturous "Brotherhood Initiation." More...

Christmas is on a tight budget until Lois wrecks her car fighting with a woman in a parking lot, and then Christmas becomes home-made gifts only. Hal is horrified when the boys' gifts are amazing, and all he has is crap that he threw together. Unable to show his family what he made, Hal instead takes them on a bogus car trip, not knowing where it will end but hoping for a miracle. Francis is home with his wife for Christmas, and Hal begs his oldest son for money, but Francis admits that he was fired from his job at the ranch and hasn't told Piama yet. Malcolm feels alienated by his brothers, and learns that he isn't everyone's favorite. Dewey busts Malcolm with a credit card receipt for buying the gift that he said he made. Hal steals Malcolm's credit card and takes the whole family on a ski vacation. Francis has been pretending to be happy so Piama won't know something is wrong, and Piama, seeing how happy Francis is while not at the ranch, tells him that he should quit his job, which he happily agrees to. More...

Distraught over what to get Lois for their 20th anniversary, Hal begins sleepwalking. Seizing the opportunity, Reese realizes that Hal is programmable, and turns his father into his own "sleeping robot." Reese sabotages Hal's gifts for Lois, not wanting to lose his fun new toy, but when he realizes his father really needs help, he tells Lois about his new secret so that Lois can tell Hal what she wants for their anniversary. Malcolm begins playing guitar, even though Lois says that he won't be any good at it. Dewey masterminds the election for school president after two of his wacky classmates are nominated as a joke, but even Dewey couldn't predict how one of his classmates would actually win the hearts of the school. More...

After Jamie literally almost kills here, Lois gives up in her constant fight against her latest toddler. Hal, horrified that he might have to take over as Jamie's authority figure, calls Francis to come visit and remind Lois of how she became the hard-ass mother that she is today. Francis reluctantly recalls the horrors of his youth until Lois is reinvigorated by the love she has for her children, and the reason she is such a harsh disclipinarian. In the meantime, Reese, Malcolm and Dewey find an old diving board, and bring it home, but they are stumped by what incredible stunt they can actually do with it. Reese fears that he's getting too old for stupid stunts, so Malcolm and Dewey come up with a great last one for him that goes horribly and spectacularly wrong. Lois finds out that Reese has been giving Jamie energy drinks.

Reese brings Malcolm in on his blackmail/gambling scheme, and the two brothers make a fair amount of money. Malcolm falls in love with an old 1960s muscle car, and buys the heap of junk and becomes obsessed with it. Malcolm starting ignoring his friends and family, and it isn't until the car almost kills him and Stevie saves his life that Malcolm is willing to give up on it. After Hal gives Lois a great hair cut, all of Lois's co-workers from Lucky Aide start coming to him for hair cuts. Lois finds out that Craig is sleeping with their boss's wife, and tries to convince him to break it off.

The boys vandalize a suggestive billboard and then turn it into a women's rights protest.

Rating: 3.4/6

Dewey writes an opera based on Hal's refusal to sleep in a new bed. Jamie has a through-the-window romance with a little girl across the street and gets his heart broken. Malcolm and Reese try the sport of extreme boarding (street luge), and Malcolm works hard to beat a rich jerk that keeps making him crash... until he realizes that dude is Stevie.

Hal is named executor of his neighbor's living will and must decide whether to keep him on life support or pull the plug. In attempting to make the decision, Hal discovers he is incapable of making decisions on his own because he always defers to Lois. Hal literally becomes paralyzed — from the waist up — with fear over deciding what to do. Meanwhile, Craig asks Malcolm, Reese and Dewey to teach him how to fight dirty since a bully from his childhood is coming to town. What the boys don't realize is that the bully is Craig's own father.

Rating: 3.2/5

When Hal and Lois realize how little time they spend together, Hal turns the garage into a private Tiki Lounge, where he and Lois can retreat. During this uninterrupted time together, Hal and Lois discover shocking secrets about one another. Meanwhile, Mr. Herkabe cons Malcolm into joining the Booster Club. Malcolm decides to auction off embarrassing stunts for each Booster member to perform, but much to his surprise, he actually ends up raising a lot of money for the school.

Rating: 3.5/6

During Grandma's unwelcome visit with the family, she loses her leg while saving Dewey from a moving truck. Consumed with guilt, Dewey is determined to find his Grandmother's leg and give it the proper burial. Francis, on the other hand, begrudgingly becomes the caretaker for his stubborn, cranky grandmother. Meanwhile, Frankie and Reese are given a new idea for a prank that forces them to stay awake days at a time to avoid the embarrassment of having their faces glued to the floor.

Rating: 3.3/5

Hal forbids Dewey from having his classmate Chad over for a sleepover, but Dewey goes behind Hal's back and gets Lois to agree to it. Chad quickly starts sorting everying in the house, including chopping up pieces of clothing to sort it by color. Dewey is horrified at his friend's behavior, but Hal manages to distract Chad with a set of encyclopedias. Lois goes hunting for the liftetime warranty for a busted blender. Luckily, Chad's mad sorting turns up the warranty, but also turns up a nude picture that Hal once took of Lois. Malcolm and Reese realize that they're the most unpopular kids at school. They almost manage to look inside themselves and figure out why, but then they fall back on the answer that the other kids are just jealous of them. When they hear that their schoolmates are going to an abandoned house for the night, they go there to scare them, but they are mortified when they find out it's not a haunted house, but a make-out spot.

When Francis and Piama choose to celebrate Francis's 21st birthday at the house, Hal is reminded of a promise he made to his son as a young child, involving a motorcycle trip that Lois quickly forbids. Hal and Francis have no choice but to sneak off for their wild adventure, leaving their women behind. Confessions between the two are made over a 21-year-old bottle of scotch that Hal had been saving for this special moment. Meanwhile Malcolm, Dewey and Reese are held captive in their own home by a bully who has no idea what he's doing.

Rating: 2.8/5

Malcolm discovers a man, Norm, living in the Lucky Aide. He agrees to keep Norm's secret as long as he provides Malcolm with tidbits on his new crush, a fellow Lucky Aide employee. Meanwhile, when Reese takes a job as an exterminator, he quickly learns that to drum up business he must infest the neighbors' lawns, and chooses caterpillars as his weapon. But instead of spreading the caterpillars, he has a change of heart and begins to nurture them, ultimately leading to his own menagerie of butterflies. Dan Butler as Norm.

Rating: 3.1/6

Malcolm thinks that enrolling in a music appreciation course will give him an easy A, but he's rudely awakened when he receives an F on his first assignment. To salvage his grade-point average he turns to Dewey for some much-needed tutoring. Meanwhile, after Lois hadn't received a call from her mother in weeks, she discovers that Ida has made some new friends at a community center that suits her perfectly. Lois's visit to the center turns disastrous when she's forced to make a special festive dessert – leave it to Ida's dance to mend their rift. During Lois's absence, Hal and Reese find something in common, or so they thought who has no idea what he's doing.

Rating: 3.0/6

Lois busts Dewey seeing another mom, and feels betrayed. Lois calls the other mom and forbids Dewey from ever seeing her again. To prove his loyalty to his own mother, Dewey gets a huge tattoo across his entire chest that says "Lois is my mom." Reese starts hanging out with a pack of wild dogs. Hal is forced by his job to attend a weekend motivational seminar, but ends up running it instead.

After Lois and Hal are reminded of the tight budget they must uphold, Hal discovers one of his sons has been dialing a 900 number. His attempt to explain the error to the hotline's billing department turns awry after he forgets to hang up the phone, incurring an astronomical $800 charge. Meanwhile, Reese takes a job at a research clinic that pays him to pop experimental pills and Malcolm reluctantly takes on a horrifying new position at the Lucky Aide as a costumed Uncle Sam on stilts who has no idea what he's doing.

Rating: 4.0/7

When Hal decides to attend his first annual Neighborhood Association meeting with Malcolm, he is strongly encouraged to take on the role of President. Being his dad's right-hand man, Malcolm sees a perfect opportunity to add some excitement to the community, while Hal's agenda is a little bit different. Meanwhile, Francis takes on a new job as a camp activities coordinator and turns to Dewey for his input on some creative new games. While Dewey revels in his afternoon of fun, his fed-up classmates take their teacher, principal and janitor hostage.

Rating: 3.1/6

Unbeknownst to Lois, the boys enter her in the Mrs. Tri-County Pageant as a joke. When they overhear the other contestants remarking that Lois doesn't have a chance of winning, they plot to help their mother take the crown. Meanwhile, Malcolm is blackmailed into delivering love notes to a contestant for Mr. Herkabe, and Reese discovers that, according to the Mrs. Tri-County Pageant manual's scientific formula, he is beautiful. More...