Reese's Party Season 04, Episode 18 Previous Next Clip Show #2 Future Malcolm 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.

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. However, Dewey ends up solving the situation by telling on the gang to their mothers who quickly show up to pick up their children and give them a piece of their minds. Meanwhile, Hal and Lois are having a miserable time at their honeymoon. When they come home, Hal and Lois finds everything normal.

Hal and a very pregnant Lois decide they need to get away for a long weekend. Refusing to hire a babysitter, they decide that the three boys need to be separated in order to avoid having to field another of the neighbors' complaints about them. As they're leaving, Lois mentions that Craig will take care of Dewey for the weekend, Reese is to visit Ida in Whitehorse, and Malcolm is to stay with Stevie's house for the weekend. When the two older brothers complain, she silences them by reminding them of their previous misbehavior from their former babysitters and the neighbors' complaints. Hal mentions that he and Lois doesn't want to field any complaints about the boys while they're gone. Thus, they're being separated for the weekend to avoid having their vacation ruined and having to come back home to deal with them again.

As Reese taunts Malcolm and Dewey and says his farewell, the two remind him that he has two sets of clean clothes in his bag, another bag full of food and that neither Hal and Lois has called Ida to inform her that he's coming over. He is horrified and gets the idea that 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.

Hal and Lois's weekend gets off to a bad start when they're so late arriving at the hotel due to Lois needing to stop to use the bathroom constantly that the hotel gives their room away. They're moved to a smaller room than they paid for, when Hal accidentally reveals he never got a vasectomy. This causes a separation between them during their vacation. Lois shouts at him for having lied to her all those years and the unwanted children they have. She wanted to stop having children after the stress she was dealing with the troublesome Francis and Reese. Hal mentioned he didn't want a vasectomy and wants to try other contraception options. Lois reminds him that every single other method of contraception resulted in a baby and evicts him out of the room and spends the rest of her night staying in the room and eating dinner alone. Hal spends his night complaining to the rest of the (uninterested) guests about Lois.

At Craig's apartment, things are initially awkward between Dewey and Craig but then Dewey invites Craig to play some games with him and the two end up bonding and having a lot of fun. Reese makes his escape through the bus window while it's moving 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. The two boys see each other and yell at one another. Reese refuses to cancel the party 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. The two brothers find themselves forced to served their unwanted guests, and when Kathy turns up for her date with Malcolm she much prefers Donnie and ends up making out with him and joining the gang, much to Malcolm's dismay

At the house, Malcolm and Reese enlists the help of Francis from the ranch to deal with Donnie. It turns out Francis and Donnie go way back, but Francis is unable to reason with or blackmail Donnie into leaving. Craig brings Dewey to the house to collect some stuff, only for the gang to begin torturing him and forcibly inducts 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 and comes to the rescue. When Francis tries to warn against standing up to Donnie, Dewey points out that he, Reese and Malcolm has underestimated him in the past. He has one weapon that can bring the gang down to their knees. Dewey decides that Donnie and his buddies need a big, heavy dose of parental control. He sneaks out of the house, finds a telephone and secretly calls their mothers right away.

Come Sunday, Hal and Lois are miserable and decide to leave early while still not talking to each other. With just a few minutes left, Lois asks Hal to do one nice thing for her that weekend and rub her feet. Doing so, Hal and Lois are overcome with animal lust and end up having wild sex on the bed, eventually running over their checkout time by two hours.

Sure enough, Dewey opens the makeshift meth lab by pulling on the garage door for his confrontation with Donnie and his gang of hoodlums. He immediately demands that they release Craig and leave their house right away. The gang adamantly refuses thinking it's a trick, but he remains undaunted because he reveals that he called their parents and told on them. Donnie thinks Dewey's joking, but he's in the shock of his life when he hears his mother, Wanda's shrill voice yelling out his name. He wasn't joking as she shows up to confront Donnie and gives him a piece of her mind. When he tries to ask Wanda to leave because she's embarrassing him and reminds her that he's an adult, she continues railing on him. She points out that he skipped out of work from the Suit Outlet and wasted the years that she and his father sacrificed to give him what he wanted, only to be embarrassed by his life choices in squatting in a garage, creating a meth lab and dealing drugs. Dave and the gang members start laughing at Donnie knowing he's getting in a lot of trouble. However, Dave quickly hears his mother, Amanda, yelling at him to stop laughing at once because he's not getting out of his punishment either. She mentions that not only that his father will hear about him and his buddies, but also his many stepfathers. Soon the other gang members' mothers shows up at the house to pick them up and give the group a piece of their minds. Francis, Reese and Malcolm are smug seeing the gang getting their comeuppance from their mothers. Wanda, Amanda and the gang's mothers ends it by telling Donnie and his friends to get inside the car ASAP so they can go home. The group are permanently expelled from the Wilkerson's garage and Craig is freed. Francis, Reese and Malcolm all express their gratitude towards Dewey, since his telling on Donnie and his gang of hoodlums to their mothers actually saved them from risking punishment with their own parents, Hal and Lois, if they should find out what happened.

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 returns hours later, but doesn't question Malcolm's story when he mentions how well behaved he, Reese and Dewey were while they were gone in separation. Once the boys and Craig are out of earshot, Hal and Lois that something obviously happened in their absence though decide they can't be bothered to find out.

Jane Kaczmerek 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 [ edit | edit source ]

David Anthony Higgins as Craig

Danielle Panabaker as Kathy McCulsky

Nick Weschler as Donnie

Dominic Colon as Dave

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)

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

and Originally Todd Gieberhain and Parker Mills were supposed to return as Francis' former lowlife pals, Richie and Circus. They were intended to give him some trouble when he confronted the two and their gang for turning the family garage into a meth lab. They were supposed to have their mothers show up in front of them and give them a piece of their minds.

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 (2008) where he would spend most of his time in a meth lab as drug lord, Walter White

This episode marks the first time Lois learned that Hal lied to her about getting a vasectomy, which resulted in the unwanted sons that she never wanted to have. She didn't want to have any more children after dealing with Francis and Reese.

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 kids birth 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 the unborn child was the result of a abstinence method.

