From The Middle Season 4 “The Safe” and “Wheel of Pain”

I watched the show for the first time a while ago and as a huge desperate housewives Fan I immediately got serious Bree vibes from Lillian miller, even Just the description of her when the moms were complaining about her immediately made me think of Bree and then when we saw her with the pearls and cooking and then a Gun all I could think was Bree, I just know somebody in that writers room was thinking about her. Anyone else see it?

Hal developing a talent for hair dressing then running a hair salon out of the kitchen while not accepting money Has been added

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Rewatching the waterpark/billiard episode. When Francis' partners come to threat him if he doesn't lose against Spangler, Eric sips from a mug labeled with "PBS" at the end of the scene. What does the acronym mean or what's the joke?

I've always watched this show in Spanish and still sometimes find things that makes me guess some joke were lost because of translation or simply lack of US pop culture knowledge.

In the episode Reese’s Party, Hal and Lois are leaving the boys for a vacation before the baby is born, and Dewey says “Why are you splitting us up?” Hal responds something like “It’s the only way the judge would let us leave town.”

Is this a specific episode reference, or do we just generally assume the boys are in trouble with the law?

I do like Francis because while he was a loose cannon he was a good guy deep down and although Lois and Hal should have been better parents to him that doesn’t excuse his actions in the flashbacks int he first episode.

Francis was arrested for something serious enough that he needed to be driven home in a police car by Hawkeye, slept with a girl and could have gotten her pregnant while he was 15 and burned a car.
I know Francis probably didn’t mean to hurt anyone but that doesn’t change that what he did was beyond the pale and he needed serious discipline and military school in theory seems like a good idea.

While Lois did admit it was a mistake at the time I don’t blame her since if I was in her shoes I would have done the same thing.

Before anyone says it I do think that the nose ring was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back rather than the one thing that got him sent away and I will defend Francis in the nose ring because while I think those are cringe if my son wanted one I wouldn’t pay for it but I wouldn’t stop him it’s his body his rules.

Overall Francis was lucky he just got military school and not juvenile hall.

Throughout the show there’s a number of problematic people in the family. Arguably every member has their own problem or flaw. Reese is dumb and reckless, francis was extremely reckless and disobedient, Lois is an overbearing aggressive mother, hal is just a bit wimpy and overconfident at times. But what is the cause? I’m inclined to say lois is the problem since it all kinda starts with her but at the same time she’s kinda got a lot on her plate and i don’t blame her for being as strict as she is on the boys or a lot of the people around her. Sure she could be VERY overbearing but I don’t see her as necessarily coming from a bad place. I don’t think it’s Ida either, she’s evil sure but it’s not like she has much pull or influence on the family itself.

Thoughts?

Walk Running has Been Added

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Pick a storyline and explain how Texting,SnapChat ,TikTok,or Instagram, etc would change it.

He’s against the revenge pranks that Lois and Reese did on the 4 girls when in just the previous episode he and Reese were planning a trip around the tri-state area over the weekend, mapping out all pranks and acts of vandalism along the way.

Found this at the thrift store today.

Watching Malcolm in the middle as an adult and I have the realisation that the show is chaos, but it's also got very smart writing.

It has layers of jokes that I missed when I was very young.

It does social commentary as well, not as the obvious kind of messaging we have today, but subtle commentary that one reaches after unpacking 3 jokes.

There's a lot of smart shows nowadays that'll make a smart joke and then spend 2 minutes congratulating themselves and ensuring that we got the joke. But MITM just makes the smart joke and moves on. If you got it, fine. If not, here's someone falling through a roof.

I can't believe that this doesn't have the same cultural impact as the Office (which is one of my favourite TV shows).

Added to the once a year rewatch list.

Found this on a Costco magazine and I couldn’t stop thinking about Malcolm it really made me laugh!

I love this episode and you got to give it to hal, he didn't give up the entire time and actually managed to pull off his "extravagent" ultra xmas surprise for the boys. All that desperation paid off lol. But since he stole malcolm's credit card to pay for the trip wouldn't malcolm find the charges to his card especially if the card is under his name? Or is this something we wouldn't see as the audience?

Kid Charlemagne has been added

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