Reese's Party is the 18th episode of season 4 and 81st episode overall on Malcolm in the Middle. It was directed by Levi Isaacks and written by Andy Bobrow.
Plot[]
Reese decides to throw a party while Lois and Hal take a weekend break, on the same night Malcolm has arranged a date with Kathy. All is fine until Donnie's gang of hoodlums turns the party into a crystal meth operation that even Francis can't handle and they take Craig hostage.
Summary[]
Hal and a very pregnant Lois decide they need a break after fielding complaints from the boys about each other as Lois is due to give birth very soon. Lois and Hal decide to take a weekend vacation. As they're leaving, Lois asks Craig if he remembered the plan and Craig recites Reese is to visit Ida in Whitehorse, Malcolm is to stay with Stevie's house for the weekend, and he’ll take care of Dewey for the weekend. When Dewey asks why they’re being separated like this, Hal responds it’s the only way the judge will allow them to leave town.
Reese is seen on the bus, bidding Malcolm and Dewey a taunting farewell as he's going to be spending time with Ida in Whitehorse. Malcolm tells Reese to think about his situation. The bus ride is 26 hours one way and 26 hours back. He mentions that Hal and Lois gave Reese two sets of clean clothes in his bag, another bag full of food and that neither parent has called Ida to inform her that he's coming over. Reese is horrified when he realizes he’s going to spend the weekend riding on the bus. As the bus pulls away, Malcolm and Dewey bids Reese farewell in the same taunting manner.
Hal and Lois's weekend gets off to a bad start when they're so late arriving at the hotel due to her needing to stop to use the bathroom constantly that the hotel gives their room away. They’re given a smaller room instead. Lois has to sit down and interrupts a man proposing to his girlfriend and Lois’s appearance gives the man second thoughts.
At Craig's apartment, things are initially awkward between Dewey and Craig as Dewey doesn’t want to do Craig’s activities but wants to play Fort instead. That confuses Craig and Dewey asks if he played Fort with his friends when he was a kid which Craig is hostile towards the fact, he didn’t have friends as a kid.
Reese makes his escape through the bus window while at a rest stop and returns home to throw a party. Malcolm is supposed to stay with Stevie at his house but also returns home for a dinner date with popular (and promiscuous) Kathy McCulsky. Malcolm tells Reese to cancel his party because he has a dinner date set up and Reese has seen too many teen party movies to know that a giant party when the parents are gone is a terrible idea. Reese thinks he found an answer by having his party on a Friday night instead of Saturday which gives him one extra day to clean up the house. Reese tells Malcolm he’ll avoid the front hallway closet for him and Kathy to use.
They're moved to a smaller room than they paid for, and she begins to complain about it. Hal asks Lois to give it a rest and try to enjoy herself. Lois has to pee and complains the tub isn’t heart shaped. Hal wishes she would stop complaining and Lois says she won’t complain like this anymore after 3 weeks and Hal accidentally says they don’t know that. Lois comes out horrified at the implication because Hal should have gotten a vasectomy and realizes he never did and lied to her. Hal says he never wanted one and that there are other methods of birth control with Lois reminding him that nearly all of their kids came from some type of birth control failing. Lois tells Hal he was never that guy with Hal replying that every guy is that guy in this situation.
Craig and Dewey play Battleship using blanket forts and Walkie Talkies. Dewey lands a hit on Craig’s Patrol boat and Craig nearly cheats by moving the boat to a different location but decides against it and confirms the hit.
Reese is hanging up party flyers and runs into a bunch of dangerous looking guys led by Donnie and makes the mistake of mentioning that the house will be adult free for two days. Donnie turns up with his entire gang who set up a meth lab in the family's garage and quickly makes it clear to Malcolm and Reese that he's taking over the house for the next couple of days and if they disturb him or talk to anyone about this, he’ll cause them serious physical harm.
Due to their argument, Lois spends the rest of her night staying in the room and eating both dinners alone. Hal spends his night complaining at the hotel’s bar to the guests from earlier that were close to getting engaged about what a vasectomy entails which causes them to want another drink.
The two brothers find themselves forced to serve their unwanted guests as they take over the whole house. Donnie comes in wanting them to dump a 50-gallon barrel of “stuff” that they shouldn’t inhale and draw attention to themselves when moving it. Malcolm tries to tell him no but is intimidated into agreeing to do it. The doorbell rings which raise concerns and Malcolm remembers Kathy. Kathy turns up for her date with Malcolm and Malcolm tries to explain the other guys as his cousins who spontaneously appeared. Kathy then shows much more preference to Dave.
Dewey invites Craig to play some games with him and the two end up bonding and having a lot of fun. When playing hide and seek, Dewey finds Craig behind the curtains which causes Craig to cry because nobody ever found him before (because they didn’t want to play with him). Dewey realizes the implication and assures Craig it’s just because he’s a good hider.
Lois calls in to room service to request a second mattress since she doesn’t want to sleep with Hal. The attendant says that this is the first time he’s gotten a request for a second mattress since he started working there 30 years ago. The attendant then leaves to another room to fill the bathtub with rose petals to Lois’ anger.
Reese is covered in makeshift goalie armor of coach cushions and pans as Donnie’s crew hit golf balls at him in a twisted game before Donnie summons them to help out. Reese tells Malcolm things are going great until Malcolm tells him this is a hostage situation, and Reese is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Malcolm is distressed at how Kathy is doing thinking she’s traumatized unaware that she’s making out with Dave right behind him. Malcolm decides they need help dealing with these low life criminals.
At the house, Malcolm and Reese enlist the help of Francis from the ranch to deal with Donnie. Francis plans to lure them out and hit them with a shovel until he sees Donnie. It turns out Francis and Donnie go way back, but Francis is unable to reason with Donnie to leave. Francis tries to blackmail Donnie into leaving by threatening to tell the cops a bunch of things Donnie did which backfires because all the things' Francis blamed Donnie for were things Francis actually did. Francis then walks away having made no progress.
Come Sunday, Hal and Lois are in separate beds and miserable and decide to leave early after eating the afterglow breakfast.
Craig brings Dewey to the house to collect some games only to see the gang sleeping all over the house as Malcolm, Reese, and Francis try to warn Craig to no avail. Craig tries to order the gang to leave immediately, but the gang tortures Craig with a vacuum cleaner and forcibly induct him into the gang. The brothers think they're out of options to deal with them and are ready to just wait in Craig's apartment for Lois and Hal to return. However, Dewey refuses to abandon Craig to the gang despite Francis’ warning. Malcolm says there’s nothing they can do, but after seeing Craig tortured, Dewey says he knows what to do.
Nearing checkout for their hotel room, Lois and Hal steal a bunch of the room’s items. Both of them are still on edge and feel worse than before the trip began. With just a few minutes left, Lois asks Hal to do one nice thing for her that weekend since they won’t get another chance for 18 years and rubs her feet. Hal’s request is that Lois not force him to get a vasectomy, and she accepts. While rubbing her feet, Hal and Lois are overcome with animal lust and end up having wild sex on the bed which ruins the room and eventually running over their checkout time by two hours. The concierge orders them out of the room, only for Lois to throw her hemorrhoid pillow at the door, as if telling him that they'll leave when they're ready.
Dewey opens the makeshift meth lab by pulling on the garage door for his confrontation with Donnie and his gang of hoodlums. He demands that they leave their house immediately but the gang (including Craig as a reluctant member) refuses and don’t take Dewey seriously. Dewey remains undaunted because he reveals that he called their moms and told on them. Donnie thinks Dewey's lying and mocks him, but he's terrified when he hears his mother, Wanda's shrill voice yelling out his name and that Dewey wasn’t bluffing. Wanda confronts Donnie and gives him a piece of her mind of how ashamed she is of him. When he reminds her that he's an adult now, she continues railing on him for his terrible life choices and that nobody is covering his shift at the Suit Outlet. Dave starts laughing at Donnie knowing he's getting in a lot of trouble. However, Dave’s smile quickly disappears when he hears his own mother, Amanda, yelling at him to stop laughing at once because he's not getting out of his punishment either and all of his stepfathers will hear about what he was doing. Wanda yells at Donnie to get inside her car ASAP so they can go home. Donnie and Dave are forced to leave, and Craig is later freed. With the gang leaders now out of their garage, Dewey tells his brothers he forgot how fun it was to tell on other people.
Everything in the house is back in order, Francis is back at the Grotto Ranch and the boys have cleaned up the house. Hal and Lois return hours later but doesn't question Malcolm's story when he mentions how well behaved, he, and Dewey were while they were gone in separation. Craig appears with Reese claiming he just picked him up from the bus stop and Reese brought back bananas from Canada. Once the boys and Craig are out of earshot, Hal and Lois immediately discern that something obviously happened in their absence though decide they don’t want to find out.
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
Guest stars[]
- Danielle Panabaker as Kathy McCulsky
- Nick Weschler as Donnie
- Dominic Colon as Dave
Recurring[]
- David Anthony Higgins as Craig
Cameos[]
- Candace T. Cain as Big Wanda (Donnie's mom, uncredited)
- Jim Jackman as Bus Driver
- Michael Schoolcraft as Hotel Clerk
- Christie Lynn Smith as Angela
- Gail Borges as Amanda
- Billy Brown as Andy (credited as Bill Lee Brown)
- Chris Freeman as Squatter 1
- Randolph Jones as Squatter 2
- Kevin Thomas as Squatter 3 (credited as Kevin "Repo" Thomas)
- Alexander Cardinal as Squatter 4 (uncredited)
- Lawrence Calvin as Suicidal (uncredited)
Trivia[]
- When Reese talks about potentially having to turn back the odometer, it's a possible reference to popular teen party movies such as Risky Business and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
- When Francis's friends take over the garage, it is apparent that they are importing a meth lab. Bryan Cranston would later star in Breaking Bad where he would spend most of his time in a meth lab as drug lord, Walter White.
- The street number given on Reese's party invitation (12334 Maple Rd) is the actual street number of the house that served as the shooting location at 12334 Cantura Street
- Dominic Colon, who plays Dave in this episode, will later have a main role of Manny Spamboni on the PBS Kids GO show The Electric Company.
- Malcolm should've reminded Reese of the last time Francis babysat them in Home Alone 4, when he invited his lowlife pals to hang out. The trio threw a huge party, trashed the house and the police were called to arrest them.
- This is the 2nd time that Hal and Lois knew the boys did something wrong but chose the denial route. The first time was in Christmas.
- This episode revealed that each of the kid's births were part of Lois and Hal's methods of not having more kids:
- Francis was the result of rhythm method.
- Reese was the result of diaphragm method.
- Malcolm was the result of a condom method.
- Dewey and Jamie were the result of an abstinence method.
Quotes[]
- Wanda: DONNIE!
- [Donnie is taken by surprise when his mother, Wanda, appears before him next to Dewey]
- Donnie: Mom, what... what are you doing here?
- Wanda: Trying to hide how ashamed I am at your behavior and wondering where I went wrong.
- Donnie: Mom, come on.
- Wanda: Your father and I tried to give you the best life possible, and this is how we're paid back.
- Donnie: Mom, you don't own me. I make my own decisions.
- Wanda: These are the decisions you make. This is the life you choose. Who's covering your shift at the Suit Outlet?
- Dave: [smug] Dude, you are so busted!!!!
- [Dave starts laughing shortly until his mother, Amanda, arrives. Francis, Reese and Malcolm are smug watching the whole thing]
- Amanda: Don't you be so smug, David Alan Ferguson. Believe me, every one of your stepfathers will hear about this.
- Wanda: You say good-bye to your friends, and you get in the car, RIGHT NOW!!!
- [Donnie and Dave leaves with their mothers. The gang is so embarrassed and bail out of the garage fearing their own mothers will appear.]
- Dewey: I forgot it feels good to tell.
- [Francis, Reese and Malcolm are grateful to Dewey for his actions in telling on Donnie and his gang to their mothers.]
Errors[]
- In the cold opening as Hal is chasing his sandwich, he is shown to be on his back as if he were repairing the car. In the next shot, he is still under the car on his stomach.