Malcolm in the Middle s05e05 Episode Script

1
Come on, we can't. We'll
wake up the baby.
That is what old
reliable is for.
Besides, babies at this age
don't remember anything.
Life is unfair. ♪
What is wrong with you?
You two ruin everything.
Look what you've
done to this shirt.
You saw the price
tag, and you knew
I'd just bought it.
This has become a daily event.
She actually pays more
attention to them than to us.
Maybe that's not a bad thing.
Do you think I can afford to
keep on buying new clothes?
Oh, honey, come on. Hey.
Enough is enough.
Look, I want you to go out and
buy a new washer and dryer.
You know we can't afford that.
Look, I wasn't going
to say anything yet,
but you know all those
crappy stock options
I've been getting
instead of bonuses?
Well, I think they're finally
going to be worth something.
There have been people flying
back and forth to New York
and all these
closed-door meetings.
I think that merger is
finally going through.
Oh, Hal, that would
be wonderful.
Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad.
Don't want to be late
for school today.
I'm handing in my diorama.
No, no, no!
16 weeks of Intermediate
Psychology,
and you can't classify
a simple test case?
I thought at least your ears
were functional, Kenarban.
I know castration
complex when I see it.
I'm trying to get you to go
beyond convenient labels.
To quote Blake,
"To generalize is to be a fool."
Idiot. Excuse me?
Blake wrote, "To generalize
is to be an idiot."
Thank you, Malcolm.
Tomorrow, people, I want
progress reports on
your term projects.
I have to talk to Herkabe for a second.
Will you wait up?
Got gym.
Have to change
my tires.
Mr. Herkabe, you still haven't
given me my term project.
I've been asking you
every day for a month.
Malcolm, you make it
sound like I'm trying
to sabotage your impeccable
grade-point average.
Please just give me something
so I can get started. All
right, tell you what.
Why don't you come by
my office at lunch
and I'll give you
your assignment.
Your office?
Why is everybody so
afraid of my office?
A reminder, class
officer ballots
can be picked up at the
registrar's office.
JV basketball practice
will again be held in
the auxiliary gym.
Oh, and Patty Lin committed
a Code Nine in the library
and is hereby suspended.
I trust the stick of
gum was worth it.
Ah, Malcolm. You have waited
very patiently for
your term project,
and today your
patience pays off.
Here.
What's this?
You are holding a video
surveillance camera.
The lens is in the logo, and
the video is transmitted
via wireless signal to this
digital tape recorder.
What am I supposed
to do with it?
You are going to
secretly conduct
an in-depth case study
of a deviant mind,
the most deviant mind that
we have at our disposal.
A mind incapable
of differentiating
between right and
wrong, a diseased
You're talking about my brother.
Yes.
And you want me to
secretly videotape him?
Around you, he'll relax,
let his guard down,
begin to talk about himself.
These disciplinary files reveal
nothing of the real Reese.
What you're asking me to do
is creepy on about a
hundred different levels.
You have one week.
The newspaper is here.
The newspaper is here.
The newspaper is here.
You know those come
out every day, right?
No, no, today is the day
our review appears in
the Lifestyle section.
Charles Cutler himself came out.
He only does the biggies.
Francis, you read
it-- I'm too nervous.
"A visit to the Grotto
raises many questions,
"foremost among them,
"how could a kind and loving God
grant these monsters
a hotel license?"
"From the swinish cretins
"posing as staff members
up to and including
"cuisine that would
embarrass an orphanage,
"the Grotto is quite simply
the worst hotel in the
history of the world."
I'm sorry. I was so nervous,
I wasn't even listening.
Start again.
Hey, have you seen
Dewey anywhere?
I want to try
something out on him.
No. So, uh, how are you?
Huh?
I'm just curious how
you're feeling.
How the hell should I know?
Well, are you happy?
Are you sad?
Like, when you laugh,
you're feeling that
something's funny.
Like when I tripped Arthur Hall
and his retainer went
flying out of his mouth
into a pile of dog crap?
That was awesome.
So you think it's funny
when other people get hurt?
I think it's funny
when you shut up.
Okay. Okay.
Hey, they laugh at me.
People laugh at you?
Yeah, people laugh at me.
But not for long.
So, what you're saying is,
when people laugh
at you, it hurts,
and then you want to
make them hurt, too?
No. What I'm saying is,
if you want to talk like
a girl, go find a girl--
and take this with you.
See? It is funny. MALCOLM: Ow.
The 4400 has
the dual-speed rinse cycle?
Mm-hmm. No. No, I placed
my order four days ago.
I just like talking about it.
Hi, Dewey. How was school?
Good. Great.
I was definitely there.
Eight times five-- 40.
What are you?
Hello?
Hi, honey. What have you heard?
You're kidding.
Well, who was at the meeting?
Everybody.
People have been
running in and out
of the boardroom all day.
No, I've just been
playing Tetris.
Oop. Here he comes.
Hal.
Mr. Fortinberry.
Could you pull my
jacket up over my head?
Sure.
Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.
It's unbelievable.
The whole company is
under investigation.
They used the pension fund
to buy a recording studio
for the CEO's girlfriend.
Oh, Hal, this is horrible.
Okay, okay. Don't
worry about this.
We're going to figure
this out somehow.
Hello, Gene, it's Lois.
Order 387669289-1--
I'm afraid I have to cancel.
Great.
The Flagstaff Elks
just canceled their
convention here.
Who can blame them?
That review was horrible.
Hey, Otto.
How's it going? We going to
get out of the robe today?
Innkeeper of the Year?
Hmm.
It is the lie of the century.
Otto, what are you doing?
You worked hard for that award.
What was that, Francis?
I couldn't hear you
over the crackle of my failure.
I have dreams where I sing.
Really high, like that
Saturday Night Fever guy.
Okay.
Well, you were sort of asking
me about, you know, stuff.
I thought you wanted to know.
I do want to know.
Is your head cold?
Mine is.
No. It's okay.
So, you were singing
in this dream?
Yeah.
And there were all these
clouds around me.
You like clouds?
Yeah, I like clouds.
I call them sky kittens.
This is so weird.
I've never told any
of this to anyone.
It's like you're
another wishing hole.
What's a wishing hole?
You don't have a wishing hole?
No.
Oh, man, you got to get one.
Mine's in a tree on
Jefferson Street.
You can ask your wishing
hole for anything.
It never calls you
stupid or perv.
My hole always keeps
my wishes safe.
It's like a bank for wishes.
It's extraordinary footage.
Yeah, but I only got it
by doing something
totally dishonest.
I'm not doing this anymore.
What? Why would you stop now
when you could go
so much deeper?
He took me to his wishing hole.
Malcolm,
he wants to talk to you.
Be his friend.
He trusted me, and
I exploited him.
That's called being
a good interviewer.
It's called being a liar.
He's my brother.
I'm not giving you
another assignment.
Fine. I'll just make up the
class in summer school.
But I quit.
There are 50 kinds
of negative
trans
ference.
Starting with
Well done, Stevie.
I think we can all just fill
in the blanks from there.
Now, we have just enough time
for one more presentation.
And our friend Malcolm
is going to amaze us with
a fascinating update
of the Milgram Experiment.
Milgram Experiment?
Oh, something you
don't know, Malcolm.
The Milgram Experiment
was a lesson in the
power of authority.
A subject was asked by
a man in a lab coat
to administer an electric
shock to a third party.
Milgram proved that
people will blindly
follow an authority figure
even if it means harming
an innocent stranger.
What are you doing?
In our version,
the stranger will be replaced
by a close family member.
And the electric shock
will be replaced
by devastating emotional trauma.
Let's watch.
Yeah, I like clouds.
I call them sky kittens.
It's troubling, isn't it?
How willing someone is to
sell out his own brother,
knowing full well that
it's exactly that kind
of juicy gossip
that would compel
each of you to run into the quad
and spread this throughout
the school like wildfire.
Hey, that is not
Malcolm, I am teaching.
It's called being a liar.
He's my brother.
And I exploited him.
A liar. He's my brother.
And I exploited him.
And I exploited him.
You never said you
were taping me.
I never said I was taping him.
I wish Malcolm and I
will be friends forever.
Breathtaking, isn't it?
Now, none of us can know
if we would do that to a
loved one just because
a man in a proverbial
lab coat asked us to.
All we can know for certain
is that Malcolm did.
Tomorrow, Katy reports
on post-traumatic stress
disorder in fruit flies.
Hey! You made me look
like a total jerk!
You tricked me!
Tricked you? Oh, how could I,
a humble school administrator
making low five figures,
be any match for the great
and powerful Malcolm?
Never underestimate
your adversary!
You may consider yourself my
moral and intellectual superior,
but this has clearly
proven you are neither.
We played the game and I won.
Well, it looks as
if neither of us
is going anywhere for a while.
Perhaps I said some things
that you may have
taken the wrong way.
Anyway, I bought you something.
Name-brand fabric softener.
Oh, look at this.
Our chief financial
officer had his dog
on the board of directors.
I had to cc him on every memo.
Mom, Dad,
I have a question about school.
Let's say you're
making a lot of money.
I mean, so much money
that the idea of going
to school is
You have to go to school.
But what if you're
already making,
like, $400 or $500 a week?
Yeah, Dewey,
you start making
$400 or $500 a week,
you can quit school.
Okay.
This is an official apology.
I'm a terrible person
and I'm sorry.
What I did was horrible
even by our standards.
And let's face it,
we've set the bar pretty low.
Look, I'm begging you.
Tell me what I can do
to fix it, anything.
Just, just say it
and I'll do it.
Sure.
Fly backwards around the
Earth like Superman
and turn back time
to before I thought
we liked each other.
I still can't believe
you convinced the newspaper
to give us another review.
Honey, you of all people know
how persuasive I can be.
You cried.
Like a baby.
He is here!
Everyone, act normal!
Welcome to the Grotto.
Ah, the Grotto.
Upon entering, one wonders
which of the five senses
is most brutally violated.
Did you have a nice drive up?
Sight and smell immediately
burst into the lead
as the obsequious innkeeper
offers his sweaty slab of a hand
like a bear taught
to be friendly
in hopes of a sugar cube.
Mr. Cutler, if you would
just give us a chance
And the pleading vultures
immediately begin to circle.
Their outlet mall attire
creating such a vortex
of misery that one loses
the strength to even ask
for a parking validation.
I'll take that for you, sir.
In a pathetic nod to diversity,
they trot out the token
native employee.
Uh, that's my wife.
Not content to merely
ruin the vacations
of a single generation,
some of the employees
decide to mate and breed.
The mind reels, the thought
of an endless stream
of baboon-like hoteliers spewed
out of the loins of the
Otto, I'm sorry. I don't
know what happened.
It was like someone
else was punching him.
Yeah, it was me.
Here's some of his hair
if you need to put it
on ice or something.
One recalls fiercer
butt-kickings
meted out on a
preschool playground.
The wounds are superficial,
the bruising patterns
unpersuasive.
And never before has one seen
such a grotesque ceiling.
And frankly, blue is not your
Hey, there's Mr. Curtis!
See, he's using Pete the
muffin guy as a human shield.
Come on.
There's just a pair
of socks in there.
What are you doing?
Oh, my God!
Look at all this money.
Hal, when did you
hide this in here?
I don't remember.
It must have been years ago.
Is this my Jet Ski fund?
No, no. We used that to get the
remote control out of Reese.
There's got to be like
a thousand dollars!
$1,473.
Who cares what it's from!
Thank God it's here!
You're a part of
this moment, son.
Here, buy yourself a
pack of baseball cards.
Ow!
Why'd you do that?
Why you do that?!
Fight, fight, fight!
Fight, fight, fight!
Animals.
Hello, North High students.
This is Malcolm.
You all know the horrible thing
I did to my brother Reese.
And I'd like to
publicly apologize
for turning him into
a laughingstock.
I should never have
exposed his secrets.
And I can't turn back time.
I can, however, level
the playing field.
I have been having
impure thoughts
about Shirley the lunch lady.
Last month, I caught a glimpse
of her cleavage
and I've been fantasizing
about her ever since.
And now that I've admitted that,
I'm just as big a
laughingstock as he is.
Unfortunately, that
doesn't protect him
from the rest of the school.
So I'm forced to bring
everyone down to our level.
Let's take a look at everyone's
permanent records.
First up,
David Abernathy.
He wasn't on a construction
crew this summer.
He was in theater camp.
Cheryl Adams
is excused from gym this week
because her herpes
is flaring up.
Charlie Agnew wets his bed
every night during finals.
Leslie Albert forged her
parents' signatures
to get a nose job.
Well, Mr. Zyzyx, I'd say
we have a half an hour
to erase everything
on your hard drive.
James Allen
James Allen, he
likes to eat his
What's all this?
Did you see the paper!
It is wonderful!
He actually gave
us a good review?
There is no review.
They bumped it for a much
more interesting story.
"Crazed local attacks reviewer"?
But what's with all the flowers?
They are thank-yous from
restaurants and hotels
and art galleries.
Charles Cutler is the most
hated man in the state.
And look at these
room reservations.
Other hotels have sent
us their overflow.
We are booked solid through May.
I can't believe this guy.
He actually reviewed
the hospital.
Oh, yeah, it sounds terrible.
I'm never going there.
If you overload it, you'll
burn out the motor.
You're only supposed
to use two caps of
Aw, just let me do it.
Well, I served my three
weeks suspension,
and I got to say things
have really changed.
I think I might have created
the most polite high
school in America.
For the most part.
Hey, plagiarizer.
Hey, pukes-after-she-eats.
Hey, dad-had-a-breakdown-
'cause-mom-went-lesbian.
He actually has an amazing
memory for this kind of stuff.