Malcolm and Reese attempt to hitchhike their way to the annual Burning Man festival but are caught by Hal and Lois. Malcolm makes the event sound so interesting that they decide to turn the trip into a family vacation. At the festival, everyone heads out to participate except Hal and Dewey; Hal is scared of the Burning Man attendants who mistake his bourgeois lifestyle for performance art, while Dewey has to do all the chores around the RV. Reese and Lois fit in well at the festival, while Malco
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. His over-protection of the house and the boys ends when he accidentally breaks his leg. He then goes to great lengths to keep Lois from finding out. In the meantime, Lois tries to fish out a union snitch at the Lucky Aide store. Note: In 2021, a clip from this episode was shown in the WandaVision episode "Previously On". Also in
An angry Reese threatens Stevie, who dreads a retaliation. Dewey becomes addicted to cigarettes, thanks to ex-smoker Hal's many stashes around the house, so he tries to help Dewey quit by giving up coffee in solidarity with him. Lois tries to make Jamie talk by telling him about her high school years, which turns into Lois dealing with the emotional and mental abuse she went through with her mother.
Hal freaks out when Malcolm gives him the details of a grisly mass murder that occurred in the house years ago. Lois is 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 angry elderly neighbor named Mr. Sheldon after egging his house, while Lois gets arrested for abducting a child when she picks up a random woman's child dressed in Jamie's costume.
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, Hal battles a bee who is out for revenge for killing the rest of his hive, and Reese mails himself to China to get the fireworks and nunchucks that his Chinese penpal won't give him, but Dewey decides it would be funnier to leave Reese in the garage and make it sound like he's being shipped to
Malcolm dates a hot, popular, and secretly brainy girl named Vicki (Sarah Mason) who fears ruining her image by seeing him publicly. Meanwhile, Reese is kicked out of the house for refusing to get a job, and Hal is in a heated conflict with Phelps (Harold Sylvester), the owner of a miniature golf course because he will not give Dewey a free game.
In this non-linear episode, a power outage caused by Jamie's balloon disrupts Lois and Hal's anniversary and reveals Malcolm's trysts with young European women. Reese tries to cook Kobe beef for Hal, Francis tries to steal a fish he and Hal caught years ago, and Dewey is upset that he cannot pick dinner.
Abby Tucker (Larisa Oleynik), a girl Reese befriended in the Army, visits the family house, and Reese assumes she has feelings for him, only to discover that she's a lesbian with a crush on Lois. Meanwhile, Lois finds renewed energy with orthotic inserts for her shoes, Hal fears she will not look to him for support anymore and plots to destroy the inserts. Malcolm owes Dewey $10 and gives him a box of junk to pay it off. When one of the comics inside turns out to be rare and valuable, Dewey forc
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 Malcolm agrees to start failing his classes. However, Malcolm tells the school's principal, Mr. Hodges (Steve Vinovich) that Herkabe skipped Gym in the last semester his senior year (creating his own A.P. class in its place) and lied about taking the course for years upon Herkabe casually mentionin
Lois and Hal receive Malcolm's college grant check for $10,000 and decide that the family needs it more than he does. Meanwhile, Malcolm does battle with a yearbook photographer who keeps taking bad pictures of him.
Dewey, Lois and Hal go out of town to St. Louis for a piano competition and, as punishment for coming back home after curfew, Lois has Grandma Ida watch Malcolm and Reese. They end up missing their plane, and while waiting, Hal finds a man's membership card to a prestigious airport club and gets roped into an international situation. Grandma Ida makes Reese marry Ida's helper, Raduca (Rheagan Wallace), but only if he defeats Malcolm in three challenges. When Lois, Dewey and Hal return, they find
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. Meanwhile, Reese tries to help Raduca get her U.S. citizenship, but doesn't notice that Raduca is cheating on Reese with a man he foolishly thinks is her brother, while Dewey stays over with Francis and learns just how down-and-out he is as an unemployed mooch.
Lois discovers she has mono after a visit to the doctor. Upon giving it to Malcolm, they are both forced to quarantine for two weeks in the same room, where an unlikely bond forms between them. Hal is invited to all of his neighbors' parties. Although happy at first, Hal is horrified when he learns just how much they hate Lois and celebrate the days she won't be attending any of them. Dewey makes Jamie his slave, and he teaches Reese to be nice to Jamie. After their recovery, Malcolm and Lois re
Hal gets a devastating phone call that his father has died, but because he never knew his father well, he does not shed a tear. In an attempt to overcompensate with his sons, Hal buys the boys copious gifts and lets them miss school repeatedly. Abe thinks that a phone call from Leonard Nimoy will cheer up Hal, but George Takei arrives instead. Just before Hal signs his name to purchase an expensive car for Malcolm, the pen he is using reminds him of his father, and he breaks down in cathartic te
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 pretended to be an alcoholic so he can tell the other, actual alcoholics about how Lois was a bad mom to him. Meanwhile, Malcolm and Reese find the spare key to Hal's car and plan to spend the evening terrorizing the neighborhood, but when they refuse to drive Dewey to the arcade, he swallows the key.
Reese falls into a catatonic state when he gets pranked by four mean girls: Paula (Amy Davidson), Heidi (Danielle Savre), Kristin (Christel Khalil) and Diane (Emma Stone). When Mr. Hodges won't do anything about it (since Reese is such a bad student that he finds it funny and thinks Reese deserves it), Lois goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. Meanwhile, Hal creates a pitching machine out of garage junk, which ends up being used as a paint balloon catapult for the last of the four mean girls.
Hal's friend Trey tells him to come to his dental office when he cracks a tooth during a poker game. Their friendship is jeopardized when Hal is faced with a $2,000 bill, despite believing the work would be free. Reese teaches Lois how to ride a bike. Malcolm and Dewey's favorite pastime becomes sleeping after they find a brand-new mattress.
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 (Lynsey Bartilson), the unattractive but more 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. Although Hal is initially furious, he discovers the bomb shelter actually has a luxurious living space from the Cold War er
When Stevie goes to the hospital, Malcolm tries making up every excuse he can think of not to go because he can't face the truth about his illness. Meanwhile, Hal gets highly competitive about his new remote-controlled boat when a ten-year-old keeps knocking it over. Lois thinks Dewey is sabotaging her after she forgets to get him baking soda for a school project, and Reese's new job as a telemarketer turns into a life-or-death situation when he has to deal with a suicidal man on the other line.
Reese meets a cute vegetarian named Carrie (Tara Lipinski) when he goes back to work at the meat plant. Although they initially argue about their choice of diet, Reese tries to prove himself to Carrie by releasing a herd of cows meant to be slaughtered into the city streets, where they are crushed by oncoming traffic. Malcolm tries to fool Craig in order to attend a rock concert. Hal makes a grittily realistic version of The Game of Life to beat Dewey, under the guise of teaching his son a lesso
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 students to form an anti-prom they call "Morp", but some of the more popular students invite the Morp guests to attend the regular senior prom, abandoning the still-defiant Malcolm. Dewey discovers there are no childhood pictures of him, so he concocts an elaborate scavenger hunt to punish Hal and Lois
As Malcolm struggles with writing his valedictorian speech and must decide between going to Harvard and accepting a dream job, Hal consults with organized crime to raise the last $5,000 he needs to send Malcolm to college. Meanwhile, Reese moves in with Craig and becomes an assistant janitor at the high school. Dewey threatens to blackmail Francis so the boys can get his help destroying evidence of their fake X-ray of Lois having cancer to distract her from their bad report cards from years ago.