Lois' Makeover is the tenth episode of the third season of Malcolm in the Middle, which was broadcast on January 27, 2002.
Plot[]
Lois is mortified upon learning that she ranks poorly in the appearance reviews by a critic of the Lucky Aide secret-shoppers performance and is asked to dress up her appearance. Meanwhile, Hal’s undefeated streak playing basketball against his sons is in jeopardy once Malcolm and Reese realize Dewey is much better at basketball than they realized. Francis gets a side job as a rat exterminator but faces his big challenge with Rosemarie.
Synopsis[]
In the opening scene, in the kitchen Hal asks Lois what's for dinner and she tells him it's leftover parfait much to his disdain. Malcolm claims that leftover parfait is even worse than it sounds, explaining that once a week Lois cleans out the fridge and anything that doesn't actually have something growing on it gets thrown into the casserole and served for dinner. Reese asks Dewey if they had spaghetti or Chinese food on Thursday, but he says they didn't have either of them. Hal attempts to dig but Lois reminds him there's no digging and she plates some up for everyone. As Malcolm looks at the dish, he realizes the unthinkable has finally happened and that the fifth level of the leftover parfait is last weeks old leftover parfait.
At Lucky Aide, Mr. Fisher hands out secret shopper evaluations to all the employees and he will be meeting with everyone individually that week to discuss how they can make improvements. Craig is mortified at the idea of spies judging their work and wonders if cavity searches on the loading dock will be next. Lois sees it as no big deal since companies do this all the time. Craig still finds it unfair how he’s expected to work hard without even knowing if he’s being watched. However, after reading her performance review Lois is mortified when she learns that she performs poorly and that the secret shopper said that she was slovenly, and her personal hygiene was questionable. Craig agrees with Lois that the reviews should be thought of as no big deal while reading his review and his secret shopper called him apathetic, lazy and overweight. Craig wonders what planet they’re from before crinkling up the form and taking a five-minute break.
Hal and the boys are playing basketball as Malcolm informs the audience that they’ve been playing basketball with their dad since they were old enough to walk. Dewey calls out to Reese that he’s open before Hal scores another basket and gloats about it. Malcolm says that their dad’s win record is 342: 0 and they’re starting to get a little discouraged by it. While huddling for their final play, Dewey begs to be given the ball, but Malcolm chooses another play. The play fails and Hal wins again. After Hal leaves, Malcolm sees Dewey shooting baskets by himself and points it out to Reese who doesn’t understand the significance of it before Malcolm spells out to him that all of his shots are going in which has never happened before and realizes that Dewey will be their secret weapon to finally beat their dad.
In Alaska, Francis' roommate Artie demands to know who has been poking through his underwear drawer and has eaten all of his jerky in his locker. Eric points out that the teeth marks on the bag indicate that it is the teeth of a rat. Very shortly, a rat appears in their cabin, even though rats do not exist in Alaska; Francis in fear stands up on a chair, and he crushes the rat when the legs break, Artie, Pete, and Eric are amazed by this.
At Lucky Aide, Craig acts as helpful as possible to a customer. Lois tells her manager she was probably evaluated the day Dewey tried to make breakfast which explains her bad appearance. Her manager says there are ways they can help Lois, and he sends her to the store’s beautician.
The boys practice their new basketball strategy where Malcolm and Reese fake a pass to each other before actually throwing to Dewey for him to shoot and score. They can’t wait to try the strategy against their dad, and they expect him to cry when he loses.
Lois bemoans the fact that she’s being asked to wear makeup when she has three boys and works 38 hours a week and doesn’t think she should look like a supermodel when she has to ring up a customer for rash ointment. The beautician tells Lois not to be afraid of change and gives her a makeover. Lois comes home distraught over her new makeover consisting of a new hairstyle and wearing makeup which she thought was humiliating. But when Hal sees her, he’s so overcome by lust by her appearance that he has wild sex with her with their bedroom looking like a storm went through it from the aftermath.
Later, a logger hears about Francis' kill on a rat and asks him to clear out one in his cabin. Francis initially tells him no, but Eric has Francis accept the offer telling him that he has the gift, and that rat season will make their lives miserable with their regular work.
The boys play against Hal again and they initiate their new strategy of faking passes before passing to Dewey who scores a basket. Hal feigns happiness at Dewey being able to shoot now but begins getting nervous. After Dewey scores another basket, Hal feels threatened and begins to intentionally foul the boys so that he can win. After Hal wins, the boys call him out for fouling them on every play, but Hal dismisses their complaints saying that he already taught them the value of being a good sportsman when you lose.
Francis finds a hole in the wall where the rat is coming in and asks for a cookie or something to lure it out. They lure it out with a cracker and Francis kills the rat by aiming a shoe at it, only to hit the mirror above it instead causing it to fall and decapitate the rat.
At Lucky Aide, male employees begin to act nicer to Lois after she got her makeover like giving her a free latte and carrying boxes for her.
At the lodge Francis walks in, and a logger named Buzz asks him how it went. Francis tells Buzz he doesn’t want to bore him with technical details but informs him that Cabin 15 is now rodent-free. Very soon Francis becomes the logging camp's rat catcher nicknamed "Rat Boy". Suddenly, a blind, elderly nomad claims that he has only caught a bunch of tiny rats, and that the real challenge is Rosemarie, the rat queen, who the nomad claims is "biggest, ugliest, meanest rat North of Kotzebue”. Francis tells him to start building a very small coffin because he is going after her.
The boys practice a new strategy of passing constantly since their dad can’t cover all three of them at once. Hal comes out and praises the boys for their efforts and tries to show off his fadeaway jump shot before tripping and twisting his ankle. He asks the boys to help him up, but they’re skeptical about his injury and reluctantly help him up.
In the living room, as Hal lies on the couch with his ankle wrapped up the boys come in. Dewey asks how his leg is, and he says it’s feeling a little better. Reese states how interesting it is that he just so happened to hurt his leg. Hal wonders what they’re getting at, and Malcolm says that some people are willing to go to pretty drastic lengths just to avoid being beaten by their kids. Hal is upset thinking that he did this intentionally just to get out of playing basketball and decides to play them right now and even though his ankle is hurt, he’ll still mop the floor with them. Reese says it’s okay and he should rest, Malcolm says they can wait as Dewey knows that his ankle has to heal sometime.
At Lucky Aide, Craig brings out a thermos for a customer ensuring that he got the slightly darker blue one she requested and how he moved a couple dozen bags of charcoal briquettes and got a few spider bites digging for it but that doesn’t matter as long as she, the customer goes home satisfied. After she leaves without thanking him an old woman asks him where they keep their dog toys. Craig points them out behind her, but she says those are leashes. Craig points out that the dog toys are just three inches to the right, and she requests a little hot dog toy on the top shelf. Craig gets one for her on a lower shelf, but she reminds him that isn’t what she asked for since the hot dog has mustard on it and her dog Peekaboo doesn’t eat mustard. Craig now losing his patience states that the one on the top shelf has mustard on it too and that it’s not even real mustard. The lady questions if he’s going to give her what she asked for or not, realizing he can’t argue any further he climbs up to get the hot dog toy off the top shelf. Once he does so, the lady complains that the hot dog has mustard on it which causes Craig to snap as that’s what he just explained to her and orders her to take it home and make her dog like it, this leads to them throwing dog toys at him and he each other.
Another employee named Tom tells Lois he can’t cover her for closing the store tonight because his brother got hockey tickets. Lois is frustrated because she rearranged her schedule beforehand and she already covered him last week, but he refuses. Lois begrudgingly decides to use her appearance to flirt with Tom to get him to agree to go to the hockey game later so that he can close the store for her.
Hal comes home using a baseball bat for a cane and spots a basketball. He takes the ball and does some moves before shooting, proving that he was faking his injury all along. Hal realized Dewey watched everything from inside the garage and Dewey tells him to get his sneakers.
Francis gets sent underneath the floors of the main lodge via a trap door and crawls to where Rosemarie resides in. Pete asks him if he can have his pillow if he dies, but Francis states he already promised it to Artie. He soon finds rat droppings and broken mousetraps before finding a baby rat and learns that the reason why she has a mean, carnivorous attitude is because she is a mother. Francis doesn’t want to kill a baby, regardless of whether or not it’s vermin. The baby rat retreats behind a piece of rotting wood, Francis crawls towards it to pry it off but then is ambushed by a litter of hundreds of baby rats crawling all over him screaming in fear as his scream echoes throughout Alaska.
Back in the schoolyard, the boys are playing against Hal and are up by one basket and have the lead despite Hal’s fouls. Hal manages to get the ball from Reese after pulling his shorts down and makes a shot tying the game with the next basket winning. Huddling up, Malcolm says they have to do “the play” which they’ve only practiced once, and Reese and Dewey are too scared to do but Malcolm assures them it will work as long as they believe. Hal has the ball as Dewey gets on top of Malcolm who gets on top of Reese, forming a human ladder. Hal charges at them and tries to jump over them, but Reese punches his dad in the crotch so hard that Hal keels over in pain. Reese takes the ball who passes it to Malcolm who passes it to Dewey to score the basket. Dewey says to his father “The future is now, old man” as the boys walk away triumphantly while Hal is still on the ground in pain.
Before clocking out from work, Mr. Fisher says he has seen a marked improvement in Lois and tells her there is an opening in customer service that will give her a slight raise while also having no late-night shifts. Lois is happy about the offer until Mr. Fisher tells her that she has to look even more feminine than how she already looks which befuddles her. Lois tells him she’ll tell him her decision tomorrow.
In the parking lot a customer mistakes Lois for a prostitute, but Lois thanks him and brings him to her boss. Lois tells Mr. Fisher the customer thought she was a prostitute and unloads about how the secret shopper report made her question her beliefs that hard work doesn’t matter as much as good looks. But the customer mistaking her for a hooker gave her the clarity she needed and says that she is going to wash her face when she gets home and the only makeup, she’ll be wearing tomorrow is 99 cent mascara and a hair clip if she feels like it and that should be good enough for Mr. Fisher. After Lois leaves, Mr. Fisher asks the customer, who is actually his brother-in-law Steve, which one of them is going to tell his sister about what happened.
The next day, Lois is picking up dirty laundry all over the house and puts on a baseball cap backwards. Hal sees this and his animalistic lust for Lois is activated again.
Cast[]
- Jane Kaczmarek as Lois
- Bryan Cranston as Hal
- Christopher Kennedy Masterson as Francis
- Justin Berfield as Reese
- Erik Per Sullivan as Dewey
- Frankie Muniz as Malcolm
Recurring[]
Cameos[]
- Stephen Tobolowsy as Mr. Fisher
- Jack Donner as Old Man
Trivia[]
- In the Hulu version of this episode, the song that plays while the boys do "the play" in their basketball game against Hal, is not the original song that aired with this episode. The song that originally aired with this episode was "Bring It On" by Handsome Devil. It was announced by Fox Home Entertainment in a statement in 2016 that the reason the show has not released on DVD past Season 1 is due to copyright issues. This is likely the same reason this song was replaced on the streaming platform.
Goofs[]
- In the first game of basketball the position of the Sun/shadows changes significantly between Hal's two basket (when viewed from behind the basket).
- In Hal's second (and the final) game of basketball with the boys, the court is in full sunshine and full shade in different shots.