Reese Joins the Army: Part 2 is the 22nd episode of Season 5 and the 107th episode overall of Malcolm in the Middle. It aired on May 23, 2004.
Synopsis[]
Reese injects the violence that he and his brothers used to have for each other into his work for the army, making him one of the best soldiers in the army. Meanwhile, Hal is testifying before court, being blamed for some extreme crimes that his CIA group has caused. Lois is also sinking deeper into insanity and makes a bunch of milk jug pigs instead of saving Hal.
Plot[]
In the pre-credit sequence, we get a summary of the previous episode.
Hal is in front of the public library, pretending to be from the bomb squad, defusing the device in his backpack, which is really a transmitter for his electronic ankle bracelet. An officer announces to Hal that he’s not alone as they’ve called every available police officer in the Tri-County area. He then asks if he needs any equipment as they have needle nose pliers on hand, but Hal says they all need to stay away as the bomb is picking up a lot of vibrations. A member from the real bomb squad named Lieutenant Sortino shows up to help but Hal informs him they have a level five explosive with a gravity timer and a percussion fuse, confusing him as he asks what squad he’s with. Hal says he’s with Millbrook and he was off duty returning a book to the library and if they’re finished playing 20 questions, he has lives to save. Lieutenant Sortino tells him he’s going to call his supervisor to straighten things out. Upon realizing the officers will learn the truth shortly he announces that he’s going to detach the coaxial. Suddenly, he shouts that he cut the wrong wire, and the bomb is about to explode. He counts down to one, when all the police officers hide behind their shields, brace for impact and avert their eyes. Nothing happens and when the officers open their eyes, they see that Hal has run away.
Back at the house Francis scrapes macaroni off of a picture of Abraham Lincoln Dewey made into a pot for dinner and they don’t need grocery money if they’re creative. Dennis the defense attorney wishes he had better news for Hal, but the prosecution has thirty eyewitnesses that can all avoid going to prison themselves by pointing the finger at him. He asks about his mystery informant who only has six months to live and doesn’t want to die with a guilty conscience and how he’s promised to exonerate him, and he isn’t imaginary. Malcolm claims that house felony case is pretty much been taking Central priority around the house lately. Hal’s trial starts tomorrow, they still have no idea where Reese is, and Lois suffered from a breakdown but is slowly working her way back thanks to her new hobby: making pigs from empty laundry soap bottles. Piama tells her that things will be alright and they’re going to find Reese. However, she continues to worry them by giving in to her insanity more. This makes Malcolm further regret chasing Reese away by stealing Beth from him. He believes if Reese had been home, he'd help the family snap Lois out of her insanity and convince her to help Hal.
Meanwhile, at the army camp, Sgt. Hendrix boasts to his colleagues about Reese's blind obedience with no more thought than a bug and it's restoring his faith in the future of the United States Army. Sgt. Hendrix tells Reese that in a few days they’ll begin a series of field training exercises including a battle simulation and wants Reese to be his second in command since he will obey his orders like a brainless zombie robot. Reese says he’d be honored and agrees to go help him make bets and march into an electric fence.
In court, an impressive number of people testify against Hal, all of them doing this to avoid prison time for themselves. Hal believes his luck has changed when Gordon Walker is called to testify who was the informant Hal met at the library. But Walker also points the finger at Hal and incriminates him even more. (He later explains that he isn't dying after all due to an X-ray mix up, and so he doesn't want to go to prison.)
During the war games, Reese and the red team perform remarkably; One member is hit and decides to die in the shade. Reese follows his sergeants' directions exactly. A flour bomb goes off and a member of the red team is immobilized due to his allergy to wheat products, a member of the red team tells Reese that he will swell up like a balloon. A vehicle from blue team approaches and Reese intercepts the truck by jumping in front of it. Unfortunately, he breaks his walkie talkie that way, and bereft of instructions, he doesn't know what to do next and gets caught by the blue team.
In court, the prosecutor lists all the evidence against Hal, and the dates on which he did the illegal acts. Dennis has fallen asleep, and Hal tries to wake him up, he informs him he’s awake and is trying to get him grounds for an appeal.
Dewey goes into his parents' bedroom which is flooded with bleach bottle pigs, and he asks his mom if she’s coming out for dinner. Lois buried in the sea of pigs tells him she’s taking Penelope’s temperature believing she caught Ambrosia’s cold. He questions if Penelope is the foreign correspondent or the candy striper, but Lois tells him she’s just a homemaker, but a big candy company is interested in her taffy recipe.
At dinner, Malcolm asks for the potatoes and Hal tells him he can have whatever he wants if he’s willing to work for it. Depressed by his bleak future, Hal gives the boys some life lessons that evening such as when they write an angry letter to hold onto it for a few days since you might feel differently the next morning and never invest in a friend’s restaurant. He even teaches Dewey how to shave, which concerns Francis and Malcolm, but he feigns happily agreeing as his dad tells him when he tips a valet to fold up his dollar tightly so by the time he’s finished unfolding it he’ll already be halfway down the block.
Outside in the backyard's porch, Malcolm brings his dad some coffee as he sobs but claims he’s singing. Hal has a heart-to-heart talk with Malcolm over his poor parenting abilities. He admits that it is ironic that he got in trouble by his boss for a job he never really liked and how he wanted to quit ten years ago when they began deducting pay for sick days or wished he just quit a year ago when they made them vacuum out their own cubicles and if he did they would’ve found another patsy and he wouldn’t be in the mess he’s in and admits they should’ve just fired him for how incompetent he was. Hal hated it so much that he never even went to work on Fridays for fifteen years and skipped out to go on his own activities which he really enjoyed. He admits that if he ends up going to jail, he's proud of Malcolm for remaining calm and keeping it together even after all the Wilkersons been through and asks him to promise he’ll learn from his mistakes and that he should never settle which he agrees. Hal then leaves to have sex with Lois one last time, with Malcolm stating how he likely wasn't going to get any sleep that night anyway.
Francis comes outside with Dewey covered in shaving cuts and has a heart-to-heart talk with Malcolm about the situation. Thinking that their dad going to jail is a foregone conclusion, Francis proposes having Malcolm forge their dad’s signature on a document declaring Lois mentally incompetent. That way, when their dad goes to jail, Malcolm would get emancipated, and Francis would take custody of Dewey and Jamie to prevent the boys from being split up in the Foster Care system. Dewey makes an off-handed comment about how he thought it would be Lois going to jail and their dad would go to the Loony Bin. Malcolm reminds Francis that he can only forge Lois's signature and only Reese can forge Hal's signature. Francis is annoyed saying that both Reese and Malcolm should have known how to forge both signatures and they forgot his lesson about building redundancy in the system. Hearing that, Malcolm has an epiphany and needs to talk to their dad immediately. But when he remembers what his dad is doing, he decides to wait twenty minutes.
Reese gets interrogated by the blue team. He answers every question with "I don’t know, ask the sergeant". But after a while, the blue team member finds that rather annoying since although it’s not a real war, he’s got an extra day’s leave riding on the outcome of the battle and his girlfriend is in model school. He orders Reese to talk, or he will make his life a living hell. Upon realizing following orders doesn't always work, Reese switches his brain back on. The blue team recruit says he can act as crazy as he wants because he’s got nothing but time and that no one is coming to rescue him. But after mentioning that his mom’s not coming to wipe his nose and change his diaper, Reese realizes that his problem can be solved in much the same way he handles Lois. He holds his breath until he faints.
The men from the blue team bring him to the cage where Reese's colleagues are kept. The recruits reveal they're in prison, but Reese disagrees and begins to untie himself. He explains that they're not in prison but grounded and there is always a way to get out of being grounded. He suggests that they should just do what any grounded teenager might try like pry up some floorboards or set your bed on fire. Reese emphasizes that the solution requires a diversion, and that the little guy gets screwed, as soon as he sees the smallest of the colleagues, he forces him to eat at least three pounds of dirt and that it’s not fatal, it only looks like it. When one of the colleagues reminds Reese of their predicament again, he has untied himself and mentions that he never had brothers who tied him up and left him in a dumpster on trash day. After eating the dirt, the smallest colleague starts to vomit profusely, this distracts the guards long enough for Reese and the others to escape the cage and overpower them. He and his team lock the two guards inside the prison and suggests that they hike up their pants since he’ll be vomiting for another half hour.
Later on, inside the blue teams tent a commander tells Sgt. McManus, leader of the blue team that the red team is about to fold now that two squads are captured, and the remaining squads are all pinned down. Reese and the red team infiltrate the tent as Reese says they need to sneak the keys out of McManus’ purse.
The next day with Malcolm's encouragement, Hal gives his testimony in court. He tries stalling for time until the Judge has enough of it. Dennis asks Hal what kind of employee he was. Hal admits he was marginal at best and compares it to a nature show he saw about a wasp injecting a caterpillar full of larvae and the caterpillar stays alive for weeks completely aware that it is being eaten alive from the inside and how he spent years envying that caterpillar because at least he got to be on TV. Hal honestly states that he hated his job and was a crappy employee. Jamie whines but Piama calms him down while Lois cradles one of her bottle pigs in a blanket. Dennis states countless eyewitnesses paint him as a man at the center of an ingenious conspiracy and if he has any way of refuting those claims. He explains that he didn’t until his genius son pointed out that all the dates of the illegal activities were on Fridays. When asked why that’s relevant, Hal confesses that he hadn't gone to work on that day for 15 years. He can prove that he was absent those days by showing tickets and photographs of all his Friday trips in his memory box including going to Bavaria Land, community college production of "The Nutcracker", getting his driver's license for Grand Prix Go-Karts, a pilgrim village, newspaper clippings of him having a panic attack at a haunted house which caused it to shut down, and being chosen to be a trainer at Ocean Land. With all the new evidence, the prosecution’s case collapses, and Hal is acquitted on all charges. Hal and the boys are overjoyed, and Dennis congratulates him before apologizing for his outburst but states that the court system would be less confusing if they said “innocent” instead of “not guilty”. Hal goes to embrace Lois, but Lois regained her sanity after hearing about Hal skipping work every Friday. She berates him for lying to her after all the sacrifices she made for the family by working double shifts, driving carpool and cleaning the house while Hal was out feeding Shamu. Hal tells her the orca he fed was actually Keiko II who is smaller but will get you just as wet in the front row and suggests they see the show sometime.
Hendrix of the red team meets his counterpart of the blue team to surrender. The sergeant of the blue team, McManus, reminds him of their deal and he must appear in patent leather high heels and a bustier. However, both men are surprised by the arrival of a tank cannon behind Sgt. McManus. Then Reese orders the men in the armored cars to rip the tent apart. He is revealed to be in the tank, so the red team won after all. Hendrix is impressed as Reese orders Sgt. McManus to surrender right now or else he will be covered in flour which he secretly stolen from the mess hall's kitchen and there’s enough flour in the tank to bake 500 cakes. He reluctantly surrenders and must endure humiliation. But ultimately Reese decides to fire the tank anyway.
Everything is back to normal at Malcolm's house as they’re throwing away all of the pigs. Apart from the fact that both Lois and Hal are out of a job, now that Hal’s bosses are in prison for white collar crimes and for framing Hal for them, that they are $20,000 in debt and that they have no idea where Reese is. But then a letter from Reese arrives. Lois is upset to learn that he has joined the Army and is further upset with Malcolm's behavior. In Reese's letter, he explains that he's alright and he wanted to wait until he was a success before writing to them. He explains has graduated first in his at the army training post and made his drill sergeant proud and for this he has earned himself some kind of reward.
In the final scene we see Reese in an army plane, on his way to Afghanistan. McManus is seen telling the soldiers to expect both hostile and friendly fire and the longer they remember their training means the longer they’ll survive. Reese asks how long until they land, but McManus informs him that decision is up to him giving him a parachute ordering him to pull the green cord before the light green cord. Reese realizes too late he's in over his head as the words "To be continued..." end the episode.
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[]
Recurring[]
- Emy Coligado as Piama
- Steve Rankin as Sgt. Hendrix
Cameos[]
- Paul Gleeson as Mystery Man/FBI Agent Gordon Walker
- Jan Deveraux as Hal's former co-worker 1
- Noel Conlon as Hal's former co-worker 2
- PJ O'Connor as Hal's former co-worker 3
- Michael Chieffo as Dennis
- Michael Milohan as Sgt. McManus
- Judith Moreland as Prosecutor
Trivia[]
- Kenneth Mars, (the actor who plays Otto Mannkusser), provides the voice of the Narrator during the "Previously on Malcolm in the Middle" segment for this episode, but his role was uncredited;
- The instrumental that plays over the part one recap is a cover of the iconic riff to the 1973 Heavy Metal song "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple; the song that plays during the war games scene is Spiderbait's cover of the folk song "Black Betty";
- This episode, along with Christmas Trees, was submitted for an Emmy, but neither episode was nominated;
- The document that Francis procures for Malcolm to forge Hal's signature is implied to be custody papers concerning the welfare of Dewey and Jamie. Meaning if Hal winds up in jail, Lois will be declared mentally incompetent and likely be sent to an assisted living facility, Malcolm will finally be emancipated, while Francis and Piama will take custody of Dewey and Jamie;
- The trips that Hal goes on every time he missed work on Fridays to disprove the prosecution's case are Bavaria Land, Go-Karts, Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, Ocean Land (an obvious parody of Sea World), and a few others;
- This episode marks the 5th time that a cold opener episode has deviated from the normal cold opener routine, in which it has a significant role in the plot. The first time was in Water Park. The 2nd time was in Emancipation. The 3rd time is in Humilithon. The 4th time in Day Care The later episodes that will follow are Reese Comes Home and College Recruiters;
- The last episode where Francis is a main cast member, starting next season he would be reduced to a recurring character. He would not appear in the next season until the episode Kitty's Back.
Quotes[]
- Reese: You're gonna have to eat some dirt, about three pounds of it. Don't worry, it's not fatal, it only looks it.
- Hal: I haven't worked on a Friday for the past 15 years.
- Dennis: He hasn't worked on Fridays for 15 years.
- Hal: (to the judge) That's not going to be on the record, is it.
- Dennis: Is there any evidence to back up this wild assertion.
- Hal: Well yeah. Once I knew what I was looking for, I realized I have almost all I need in my memory box.
- Dennis: (goes to the first Friday date) The prosecution maintains you gave the Board of Directors a set of cookbooks on August 9th.
- Hal: (procures a picture him on a roller coaster) Yes, that's when I went to Bavaria Land.
- [Dennis posts the first picture on board, shocking the prosecution]
- Dennis: And when you were supposed to be hiding money offshore on December 6th.
- Hal: I went to the Nutcracker. Pretty good for a community college production.
- [Dennis posts a ticket of the Nutcracker. He later posts a driver's license at Grand Prix Go-Karts.]
- Dennis: February 21st.
- Hal: My Driver's License at Grand Prix Go Karts.
- Dennis: (posting another picture of Hal at wooden cuffed with an Asian female co-worker) June 27th!
- Hal: Pilgrim Village.
- Dennis: (posting a newspaper clipping from an incident from Disneyland's Haunted Mansion) July 11th.
- [Everyone in the jury snickers]
- Hal: There was a ghost in my car. Right in my car.
- [Dennis posts a picture of Hal at Ocean Land feeding a killer whale named Keiko II.]
- Dennis: And finally, August 22nd.
- Hal: Well, I was chosen to be a junior trainer at Ocean Land. He did all the work I just stood there.
- [The prosecutor is embarrassed over her case being broken.]
- Lois: You didn't work on Fridays?!
- Hal: (nervous) Ummmm......
- Lois: After all the sacrifices I made for the family. For 15 years, I worked double shifts, drove carpool, cleaned the house, WHILE YOU WERE FEEDING SHAMU!
- Hal: It's Keiko II. He's smaller, but you will get just as wet in the front row. It's a good show. We should see it sometime!
- (Lois advances to Hal, intending to kill him for lying to her for not working on Fridays for the past 15 years.)
- Officer: Remember, pull the green cord before the light green cord!