Lois Battles Jamie is the eighth episode of season six of Malcolm in the Middle.
Synopsis[]
Lois is having so much trouble trying to fight with Jamie, that she's actually losing her confidence and succumbing to him. Meanwhile, Reese also feels as though he's losing his touch, and wants to pull off one crazy, out of this world stunt before he completely fades away.
Plot[]
Lois begins to think she is losing her touch when Jamie seems too much for her to handle. After Jaime refuses to eat his peas, hits Lois in the face with a jewelry box, and pushes over the cupboard and almost kills her, she finally breaks. Hal is concerned because of this and tries to help her out. Lois believes that she has finally lost control of this family.
Meanwhile, the boys bring home the diving board as Dewey states moving the board he needs to empty the blood out of his shoes again. Reese tries to think up the craziest possible stunt to pull with it. When asked why he is so obsessed with this, he reveals that he is losing his crazy ways since he is almost an adult and gaining an inner conscience. They hear Lois pull up and attempt to hide the diving board. She is so distracted with Jamie's behavior at Gymboree she ignores it completely. Lois tells Jamie he cannot pinch, poke, bite, spit, eyeball gouge or intentionally throw up on other babies as she takes him out of his car seat. She tells the boys Jamie received a lifetime ban from Gymboree. While Lois leaves enraged, the boys are astounded that she didn’t even notice the diving board. Reese claims that it’s a sign that they were meant to have the board and that they can think of something really great to do with it, they just have to be patient.
The boys attempt to brainstorm what to do with the diving board and they think too far out of the box. Dewey comes up with taking it ice skating because the rink has good hot dogs, Reese claims those hot dogs are inferior to the ones sold at the train station, Dewey questions why a diving board would want to go to a train station, with Reese assuming it might want to visit a relative. Malcolm stops them and the only way to find an idea is to get back in the box.
In the kitchen, Lois ties Jamie to his highchair with a blanket to secure him while he is being fed. Unfortunately as soon as Lois opens the fridge to get his peas he has once again escaped. Finally fed up with Jamie’s behaviour, she drags a lollipop around the house on a string to draw Jamie out but he is two steps ahead of her by tricking her with a doll as a decoy before tipping over the kitchen cupboard in an attempt to murder her. Lois rolls out of the way just in time but she is now terrified by how Jamie has become homicidal towards her.
That night, Malcolm and Dewey are ordered to clean the kitchen from the destroyed cupboard. Dewey gripes over how unfair Lois is towards them. Malcolm claims that they should give Jamie some credit and points out that he came the closest any of the boys ever got to killing her and now he has hit her where it hurts the hardest and thus breaking her. Dewey questions whether Jamie really was spawned by Satan, Malcolm claims if he was they would have a much nicer house. Reese brings Jamie outside to the board and praises him for being the chosen one because he hasn't been inspired for a long time and asks him to show him the perfect thing to do with the diving board.
When Hal gives Lois a bath to soothe her trauma, he realizes that Lois is losing her confidence. She thought that throughout the years she had been getting stronger but now realizes dealing with Jamie has just made her weaker. She states that the situation is like termites eating away at paint on a house, that’s all she is. Lois concludes that Jamie has broken her and he wins. Hal says Lois can't quit and leave him in charge of the house since his responsibilities are to kill spiders, pack snacks for road trips and mark the boy’s heights on the door. Lois asks him what she can do after this. No matter how hard she tries to discipline Jamie, he always finds ways to break her by turning her tactics against her. Hal decides he needs to turn this situation around and bring back the confidence she had.
The next day, Hal brings Francis home in order for him to explain to Lois how was she able to have confidence as a mother. He refuses to relive the past because of how traumatic it was over losing his teddy bear. Lois begs Francis to try again and he reluctantly does. After being yelled at by Hal who is frustrated over her not being strict enough, she finally snaps. Francis attempts to light his teddy bear Mr. Fuzzles on fire with a match and lighter fluid, after seeing this Lois takes control by putting Mr. Fuzzles into the fire place and tells Francis about the danger of fire and how it can kill him and that she loves him and won't let him do dangerous things by burning Mr. Fuzzles along with her hand in order to gain authority over him. Realizing that she's not one to mess with, he goes back to his high chair and put the slider on it. Lois thanks Francis as she attempts to exert control over Jamie by using the same fire tactics on him and presumably burning her hand again. Francis cries out in misery mourning the loss of his beloved stuffed animal as he eats his way through a mountain of chocolate bars to comfort himself.
Malcolm and Dewey decide to help him out as it is the last chance of the crazy Reese. They devise a plan for Reese to land into a wading pool while having fireworks strapped to himself and he is the featured page on GiantJackass.com. Unfortunately, the rotten old diving board cannot hold his weight and collapses, injuring him in the process. This leaves Reese buried under the rubble as the fireworks go off. As he screams out in pain, Dewey asks Malcolm if he should get the hose, but he claims Reese would want them to wait.
In the end and after regaining her confidence, Jamie finally complies to his mother and eats his peas. Hal comes in and tells Lois that skin from Hal's ass can be used for skin graft for her hand and they can start next week. Reese comes in injured from his stunt and pours an energy soda into Jamie’s sippy cup. When Lois questions him, Reese tells them how much Jamie loves them and how he has been giving Jaime 3-4 cans of energy soda every day, which is causing him to go berserk. Reese tells her how only half a can usually makes him go nuts before leaving the kitchen. Lois angrily glares at Reese now knowing that he was the one responsible for Jamie’s misbehaviour and intends to punish him for the deed. His punishment is left unspecified.
Cast[]
- Jane Kaczmarek as Lois
- Bryan Cranston as Hal
- Christopher Masterson as Francis
- Justin Berfield as Reese
- Erik Per Sullivan as Dewey
- Frankie Muniz as Malcolm
Guest Stars[]
Cameos[]
- Evan Reece as Baby Francis
- Owen Reece as Baby Francis
Trivia[]
- This episode has a flashback to when Hal and Lois were raising Francis as an only child in their old apartment home. This same setting was seen in the episode Flashback.
- This episode reveals the cause of Francis' later bad behavior, including not being concerned for Lois while she was at the hospital: Lois burned his teddy bear while reprimanding him for playing with fire. That didn’t change Francis bad behavior , it made him worse. Why Lois failed as a mother when she became a tyrant.
- The song that plays during Francis' first flashback is "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears.
- In the title, Jamie's name is misspelled as "Jaime".
- This episode shows Lois having an epiphany over being a bad mother for the 3rd time.
- Jamie receives a lifetime ban from Gymboree which coincides with the lifetime bans his brothers and the parents accumulated in Water Park, Dinner Out, Evacuation, Forwards Backwards and Buseys Run Away.
- To date, Francis is the only Wilkerson to never be banned anywhere. Hal, Lois, Malcolm, Reese, Dewey and Jamie have all been banned