If Boys Were Girls is the 10th episode of Season 4 and the 73rd episode overall on Malcolm in the Middle. It was directed by Ken Kwapis. The writing teleplay is by Nahnatchka Kahn and the story by Alexandra Kaczenski.
Plot[]
Exasperated with the unruly boys, a pregnant Lois dreams of what life would be like if she had daughters instead. Though, it starts off nice and pleasant, the imaginary Mallory, Renee and Daisy would have been as much of a handful as her sons.
Summary[]
After discovering from the last episode that she was pregnant again, Lois struggles with the morning sickness while Hal helps her. Hal also raises the question that Valentine's Day is approaching soon and is displeased that Lois isn't giving him any indication of what she wants for a gift. Lois states she doesn't remember the morning sickness lasting so long how says that she is much older now, just like himself and everyone else. Lois notices that her feet have become so swollen she will be needing clown shoes and cannot believe she's going through another pregnancy. Hal raises the question of if she'd rather have a girl or another boy. Just before Lois could answer, a crash is heard, Hal leaves to get the vacuum. Lois comes into the boys bedroom where there's a fight between Malcolm and Reese over a pen. She yells at the two older boys for the senseless fighting, pointing out they have a whole drawer full of plenty of pens and that they shouldn't have to fight over them. Dewey yells at them for breaking his Space Fighter toy, but Malcolm and Reese ignore him. He retaliates by shoving both of them to the bed. While the boys fight, Lois realizes the consequences of having to raise another brawling, misbehaving and disrespectful son. She starts imagining that they were girls named Mallory, Renee, and Daisy. Mallory asks Renee to not touch the pen. Renee thinks she's just being silly because she just wants to use it to do homework with and Daisy encourages her to tell the truth. Mallory reveals that there was a boy in her class who had a crush on her and chewed the top of the pen before dropping it on the floor. Renee apologizes for her insensitivity and hates being born dumb because her head would be useless without her great hair. Mallory tells her that she doesn't have to be a genius because she's sweet and thoughtful and it's what counts. She, Renee and Daisy reconcile, but the fantasy is broken when Malcolm decks Reese. Hal is in shock that Malcolm can take Reese but Lois is furious and yells at the boys again for misbehaving again. She points out that she can't have one moment of peace with their fighting and chastises Malcolm for assaulting his brother and Reese for taunting Malcolm claiming he was begging for him to hurt him.
Sometime later while preparing to go shopping, Francis calls Lois for a favor because he has a $20 bet that one of his Mad TV Magazines says either Stagnum PI or Magnum PU. She doesn't have time to deal with him and hangs up. In the car, the boys ask Lois why they need to go shopping for clothes, Lois points out that the boys always ruin everything they own and doesn't want them reusing old clothes. She also mentions that new clothes don't appear in their drawers. Dewey points out that his does and Lois is wrong. While honking the horn for Hal to hurry up, Reese points out that she could always measure the boys instead of making them go shopping with her. He mentions that he's a medium and loves blue. Malcolm agrees, mentioning that Lois is just wasting her time in taking them shopping to the mall which they don't care about, for clothes they don't want to wear, for money she doesn't want to spend and to look nice for everyone who hates their guts. He points out it's Saturday, all they want to do is stay home and watch cartoons. Annoyed with the boys' complaints, Lois switches back into her fantasy world where Mallory, Renee and Daisy are well behaved. They're just as excited to go shopping as she is. Renee asks if Lois can go with her to the jewelry section at Hannigan's to look at earrings. Daisy points out that she had asked Lois earlier if she can help look at tops. Mallory comes up with a great idea to make their shopping experiences more enjoyable. She suggests that Renee and Daisy takes the first floor at Hannigan's and she can go shopping with Lois on the next floor up to buy clothes. They can meet up at the pretzel place every 45 minutes to figure out what they want to get and possibly have manicures and pedicures. Lois asks the girls to calm down because they shop 5x a week and would've thought they'd be bored right now. Mallory, Renee and Daisy happily behave themselves and she is happy in her own world. They are seen hurrying Hal to get in the car and take them shopping. Lois's fantasy is broken again when the real Hal comes in the car annoyed by the boys' misbehavior. He snaps at Malcolm, Reese and Dewey and tells them they're going shopping whether they like it or not. The angry boys continues to complain against going before Hal drives off and continue to drive Lois nuts.
At the mall, Hal tries to figure out what kind of present Lois wants for Valentine's Day because she won't tell him because he knows what she likes. Hal reiterates that she has always told him and for the last five Valentine's Day’s Lois has asked for: a lawnmower, bath salts, earrings, a hibachi, and a porcelain cat, and there is no pattern between those gifts. Lois absolves to let Hal think it out by himself, and she tells him her feet are killing her. Lois takes the boys to the food court before the sale, leaving Hal to shop by himself. Hal tells her off by hoping she doesn't complain when she gets a pair of puppy oven mitts wondering if she would actually like them or not.
Hal tries to measure Lois’s head for a hat, but she doesn't want one. In the mall's food court, she orders only a salad for herself and three chili burgers for the boys. While sitting down, Dewey is playing with his BIONICLE toys reenacting Reese's busted lip at Malcolm's hands. Soon Lois shows up and the boys take the chili burgers from the tray and ravenously eat them. Going from back and forth with her fantasy, Lois is having a salad lunch with her angelic daughters, however in this fantasy world Hal is obese, weak-willed, a secret smoker and easily manipulated by his daughters.
With the real Hal, he tries to get Lois a bra by groping mannequins, but when a saleswoman tells him not to do the same to her, Hal thanks her for the warning and leaves for another store. Later, he finally sees a foot spa and wishes to buy it for her and meets another customer who is buying a third one for his downstairs bathroom, Hal tells him to enjoy. But he soon learns the man bought the last one and the one in the window is a display model with just the outer shell. He then catches up to the man and offers to give him more money for it. He refuses and reassures Hal if he keeps looking, he'll find something. Hal then tries to resort to stealing it from him by running up the down escalator, and hides behind an exit door, but finds himself with the wrong bag every time.
At Hannigan's, a sale is going on and Lois is once again struggling to tell the boys to try on new clothes. However, they refuse because they still think it's a waste of time to look nice for people that hate them. While in the store, Reese meets a social worker named Karen and tries to lie to her about his bruise claiming he slept on it funny. However, she catches Lois threatening him to try on new clothes without anymore whining or else. Karen has seen enough and is convinced that Lois is abusive to her children. She decided that wants answers from Lois for her poor parenting. Malcolm and Dewey try to convince Lois to leave but she is aware of their schemes and they aren't going to suddenly have term papers due or develop stomach cramps. Lois finds the boys in line for the changing rooms and they are wasting time, Malcolm angers her by declaring that he and his brothers don't need new clothes and can live off the Lost and Found at school since he believes they have better selections than what Lois has in mind. She switches back into her fantasy world and that her daughters found some good sales. Mallory has a nice red sundress marked down to $30 from $200 and they're both happy. Renee appears with Daisy and mentions that they snuck under the tables to find some nice sales that the people who work at Hannigan's were planning to put out for tomorrow. Lois is impressed by the girls' efforts to buy new clothes for the school year, unlike in her real life where the boys are giving her a hard time by complaining against it. They soon notice Jason, a boy that Mallory has a crush on is looking for her. Noticing this, Lois tells her that she won't be insulted at all if she wanted to go with him for some ice cream. Mallory passes on it and tells her they'll be treating her instead. She, Renee and Daisy all decide on helping Lois pick clothes that will look great on her.
Soon after Dewey tells Malcolm since Malcolm decked him, Reese is as good as dead on the inside and no longer the alpha male. He tells Malcolm now that he's in charge he gets half his candy, full control of the remote and a nice warm towel whenever he has a shower since Dewey can't do his homework, Malcolm claims Reese will be fine before they head for the change rooms. An old lady cuts in line in front of Malcolm and Dewey but they hold their ground since they've been waiting for half an hour but he is quickly pinned by her walker. Soon Reese shows up and is back to normal. He goes back to one of his favorite past times: bullying the elderly by taunting her which get them into serious trouble. Soon enough Lois is cited by Karen, who works for Child Services, confronts her about her outburst earlier, she assumes she is an abusive parent, asking her to come in for an evaluation and asks when the last time Reese saw his father. Lois tells her that she's wrong about her boys until a security guard comes in with the boys in tow for attacking the old woman who they claim she is lying. Soon Hal shows up, telling her the family must leave at once because the police were called in by the security guards for stealing another patron's shopping bag. Reese knocks over the security guard onto Karen as Hal and the boys force Lois to run out of the mall, while Karen is further convinced of both her and Hal's abusive nature.
Going back into her fantasy world one last time, Lois, Mallory, Renee and Daisy are enjoying themselves trying out new clothes. Karen notices how happy she is and praises her for being a good parent to her daughters. She soon tells Lois about the horrible families that she must deal with on a daily basis. However, Lois soon discovers the negative side to having girls when she learns that each of them inherited her real life sons' negative traits. Renee is a bully like Reese, but is more capable of psychological warfare. She's a promiscuous bad girl and is revealed to be pregnant by Jason from Daisy. Mallory is furious because she had a crush on him for a while. Renee defends herself by claiming she did this to spite her younger sister for using her hair brush without her permission. Lois is horrified when she learns that Mallory took after Malcolm and is a spoiled, self-absorbed and egotistical brat who is on a clandestine diet. Daisy is a master manipulator in taking advantage of her own sisters and like Dewey, enjoys getting them in trouble. Lois is further horrified and tells the girls they were supposed to be easy. However, Mallory tells her off saying that she's the one that's easy. Daisy agrees and mentions that unlike Hal, they can take advantage of her because they know how overbearing and controlling she is. As girls, she and her sisters know Lois' tactics and utilize them against her. Her fantasy becomes a real nightmare when her eldest daughter, Frances, appears before her. Like the real life Francis, she dropped out of college and married a trailer park husband named Pablo (a male counterpart to Piama). Frances also mentions that she has been working as a stripper at a Hooters, blames Lois for ruining her marriages for not liking any of her husbands and Hal for his inaction against her. Lois pleads to the girls asking them to behave themselves but the girls just get annoyed and gang up on her. They proceed to blame her for every one of their own problems in the same way the boys have done during the episode. She snaps out of her fantasy world for the last time, having realized that girls are just as difficult to raise as boys, but in different ways; while boys are destructive and rude, girls are manipulative and cruel. She is soon back to running with Hal and the boys and Hal tells her it’s just another 300 past Señor Jellybeans, but Lois informs him that there’s no escape no matter what as they all run out of the mall.
At home the next day, Hal brings in his Valentine's day gift and he knows she’ll love it because it’s not for her. Lois is pleased with his gift: a new yellow garment for the baby, which he finally settles on. The boys are well-behaved for once and have thoughtfully bought Lois a heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine's Day, Dewey tells her that they saved her the coconut ones because they know they’re her favorites. Lois is happy with both gifts and thanks them as they all run off for some basketball practice. Once the family is out of earshot, Lois looks down at her belly and, despite everything, states that she hopes the new baby is a girl.
Cast[]
- Jane Kaczmerek as Lois
- Bryan Cranston as Hal
- Christopher Kennedy Masterson as Francis/Frances
- Justin Berfield as Reese
- Erik Per Sullivan as Dewey
- Frankie Muniz as Malcolm
Guest Stars[]
- Lisa Foiles as Mallory
- Mimi Paley as Renee
- Jennette McCurdy as Daisy
Trivia[]
- The "Blue's Clues Game: Think & Play The Blue's Clues Way" is on the boys' dresser.
- In the food court Dewey uses Lego BIONICLE figures to reenact Malcolm decking Reese.
- This episode won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Camera Picture Editing for a comedy series.
- This episode features gender bent versions of the four (current) Wilkerson boys.
- Both Frances and Renee are revealed to be pregnant, and Daisy is a manipulative bully.
- This episode is considered the most popular Malcolm in the Middle episode, alongside Bowling.
- This is the first Valentine's Day themed episode.
- The mall scenes were filmed at Westfield Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks, California.[1]
- The concept of this episode was developed by an 11-year old.
- A Pokémon t-shirt could be seen in Hannigan’s.
- Christopher Kennedy Masterson, who plays Francis, is the only actor to plays his female counterpart in this episode by dressing in drag, while the other three boys got different actresses to play their female roles.
- He is also the only character who kept his name as a girl because Francis is a unisex name. However the spelling, Frances, is a girl's name.
- Originally, Sarah Wright was supposed to play Frances and her portrayal was supposed to be a lot worse than Masterson's. She blames Lois not only for chasing away her boyfriends, but also her failed marriages, tried to kill her on numerous of occasions, works as a hooker and is also pregnant by her latest husband, Pablo. She would later play Vicki in Secret Boyfriend.
- Malcolm said an alike Fight Club movie quote "You're dragging us to a place that we don't like, to buy clothes we don't care about, for money you don't want to spend, to look nice for people who hate our guts."
- Although "Reese" is a unisex name, the name of his female counterpart changes to Renee.
- Renee is revealed to be pregnant in this episode. This means that even though Reese stayed a virgin throughout the entire series (reaching the age of 19), his female counterpart lost her innocence while she was a teenager (at the age of 15).
- Frances was married to an old man who lived in a trailer park named Pablo. Although he looked nothing like her, Pablo is probably the male counterpart of Piama because of their similar sounding names and with them playing the exact same roles in the lives of their Spouses.
- Originally Pablo was to be played by J.D. Pardo. While supportive of Frances, he was much more aggressive and insulting to Lois.
- It's revealed that Frances blames Lois for ruining her life by chasing her boyfriends away and her failed marriages. This is a nod Francis who had been blaming her for ruining his life. However, Frances has also blamed Hal as well, but not in the same manner as Lois and is only angry with him for having not stopped her.
- In this episode there is a brief allusion that Reese has color blindness problems, when Reese is saying that he doesn't want the pink shirt, that he don't wear pink, Lois only says that the shirt is red, but Reese is still arguing, so Lois just ignores him, and annoyed, only says that she will go to get another, moving away from the place and without both be aware of Reese's problem.
- Reese could be lying about this because he doesn't want to relive his humiliating experience of wearing one of Lois's dresses which ironically is pink in Dewey's Dog.
- Renee doesn't seem to have this problem in her fantasy, although she is angry that Lois is making her choose.
- This episode reveals that Lois' favorite kind of chocolate is coconut.
- Lois imagining Hal in such a negative light in her fantasies is possibly a nod to how she views herself physically in reality and possibly considers herself unattractive (maybe due to her pregnancy at the time) and is secretly depressed over the fact that she is the only female in her family (The events of this episode show she strongly desires having a daughter and has shown displeasure being outnumbered by the boys). The episode "Malcolm's Job" even shows that Lois is a secret smoker when she is at work, a nod to Hal in her fantasies smoking as well. However, Lois is nowhere near as obedient to her boys in reality and is the one who dominates them.
- Lois maintains her domineering personality in her fantasy verse. However unlike the boys who get scared quickly when she is mad at them, the girls shows the opposite to that. Since they know Lois's tactics very well, they can take advantage of her by blaming her for every one of their problems. In turn, the girls can break her spirit and make her subservient to their own needs.
- While being obese, Hal is nowhere near protective of the girls like Lois is to them. He retains the goofy, fun-loving father he is. It's also implied that the girls love Hal more than Lois due to her controlling ways.
- Out of her sons, only Francis and Jamie have been able to break Lois' spirit when they were younger. They were able to beat her on their own by being out of control and wild.
- Although Reese was able to beat Lois and leave her at a loss of words in disciplining him by acting indifferent, he still does get beaten by being banned from the kitchen by Hal.
- Despite Lois realizing that having four daughters wouldn't be any better for her than having four sons, she still wished that her next child would end up being a girl.
- It's also the first time, Lois realizes that having sons are slightly better than having daughters. With sons, she can be the stern disciplinarian she is to them. With daughters, Lois will likely lose against them because they know how overbearing and controlling she is.
- Despite being a free spirit, Mallory has shown that she shares Malcolm's intellect along with his negative traits in being a self-absorbed and egotistical brat.
- The difference between the two is that Mallory uses her intellect normally and deviously. Malcolm uses his to cause pain to others and blames them for his miserable life. Only on a rarity, he does use it normally.
- Another difference is that Malcolm has shown that he does think about the consequences of his actions and has apologized for them. On the other hand, Mallory doesn't think about the consequences of her behavior in causing others pain and hasn't apologized for them.
- Child Protective Services conducts several assessments on the safety of a child to determine whether abuse or negligence has been committed. In the case of the Wilkerson family, if Karen were to learn of the negligent and the abusive history of Lois and Hal with Malcolm, Reese, and Dewey, then an allegation of child abuse would be reported by her, resulting it to be passed on to law enforcement. Next, CPS can remove the boys permanently from Lois and Hal; therefore, they would no longer have any rights or responsibilities towards them. Next, Malcolm and Reese would become legally emancipated through a court proceeding, as for Dewey he would be placed under protective custody, and then be transferred to CPS which would place him with a relative (ex. Lois' sister Susan), suitable other (ex. Francis and Piama), or in foster care.
- Although it's likely that Dewey will end up living with Francis and Piama due to them being the closest relatives he has.
- Jennette McCurdy plays Daisy in this episode. She plays Penelope in the episode Buseys Take a Hostage.
- She mentions this episode in her memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died.
Errors[]
- When Reese is saying he doesn't want the pink shirt, he is wearing a plaid shirt in the back view, but not in the front view.
- When Daisy is sad about the hole in her sweater, Renee is about to wipe her mouth with her napkin, but in the next shot, she is
Quotes[]
- Mallory: And if we go to the shoe store before we look for jeans, we can get yogurt in between.
- [Lois opens her eyes to see Renee, Mallory and Daisy excited to go shopping.]
- Renee: Mom, will you help me pick out earrings?
- Daisy: No, she's going to help me pick out tops.
- Mallory: You know what we should do. You two ( Renee and Daisy) take the first floor and we'll ( her and Lois) take the 2nd floor, and we'll meet every 45 minutes at the pretzel place and see what else we need to get; and then...
- Lois: Girls. Girls, calm down. (Mallory, Renee and Daisy happily behaves) We do this, like, five times a week. You think you'd be bored by now.
- Hal: [slams the car door] All right, that's enough! Now we are going shopping and that is it!
- [Reese, Malcolm and Dewey continues protesting against shopping and stressing Lois out]
- [Lois switches back to her fantasy world where she faces Mallory, Renee and Daisy at Hannigans.]
- Mallory: Mom. Mom, there you are. (holds a red sundress) It's a $200 dress they marked down to 30. Om my God, this is like a dream.
- [Lois is impressed by the girls' efforts in her fantasy verse.]
- Renee: Mom, you would not believe this. I had Daisy sneak under the cabinets under the sales table. We found all this stuff they were planning to put out for tomorrow.
- Daisy: Yeah, we got all the clothes we need for the whole year.
- Lois: Good work, girls. Uh-oh, look who's here.
- [Jason peeks inside seemingly looking for Mallory. Lois noticed this and faces her]
- Lois You know I wouldn't be insulted if you wanted to go for an ice cream with him.
- [Back in Lois' fantasy verse, she and the girls are enjoying shopping. Karen appears and notices Lois very happy.]
- Karen: You must be very happy. You won't believe some of the families I have to deal with.
- Reese: [Appearing in the old woman's walker and causing her to be intimidated] You looking for a dance partner. You think you can do whatever you want. That people can't say or do anything to you because you're…frail.