Malcolm in the Middle s07e03 Episode Script

While Betty kept the fat man occupied, I ducked down the hallway to his office.
If I found his phone records, they would prove that he was the one who called the police station on the night of the murder.
All I knew was, the next person through that door would be the man who killed my partner.
"Hello, McKendrick," I heard from behind me.
I spun around, but standing there was A stupid housewife who wouldn't let her son buy nunchaks even though they're totally safe.
Reese! Malcolm in the Middle Forom.
com, Life-is-Unfair.
tk & Malcolm-France.
com All right, Reese, you're busted.
Of all the stupid Come on, front and center.
Now, don't blame yourself.
Dewey, you were smoking? Do you have any idea what a dangerous, disgusting addiction that is? It took me years to quit! Do you want to end up breathing through a hole in your neck? Do you think that's cool? You can breathe through a hole in your neck? What do you think your mother's gonna say about this? You can't tell Mom! She'll kill me! Well, you should've thought of that earlier.
Where would you even get cigarettes anyway? There's, like, 20 cartons hidden in your shop vac.
Oh, my God.
That is my stash from ten years ago.
Lois would kill me if All right, Dewey, under the circumstances, I am giving you your one free pass.
-Free pass? -That's right.
I have given each of your brothers one free pass, one time that I didn't tell your mother about something they did.
All right, Francis, this is your one free pass! Okay, Reese, but this is your one! Okay, Malcolm, this is your one! Please make this my one free pass.
All right.
We've got some paperwork to sign.
Chair.
Book.
Window.
Mama.
Come on, Jamie, you can talk, just one word.
Hal, has Jamie said anything in front of you yet? Whatever he said, he's a liar, Lois! He hasn't seen anything.
What are you talking about? What are you talking about? I'm worried about Jamie.
He's However old he is, and he hasn't said a word yet.
I thought that's what we liked about him.
You know, it's probably his filthy ears.
I bet he's all plugged up with wax and he can't hear anything.
I don't think so.
Relax, honey.
Kids go at their own pace.
Heck, in sixth grade, I had a full beard, and I still couldn't tie my shoes properly.
Ah.
There you are.
Stevie, you ran off without your backup inhaler.
Thanks Dad.
-Did Stevie tell you his big news? -No.
What's going on? Stevie's been accepted as a research subject at the Norvet Biomedical Institute.
Dr.
Norvet himself picked him for the motor-neuropathy program.
It's nothing.
Nothing? Come on, Stevie.
This is the most exciting thing that's happened to us since they put your stomach on the inside.
Who knows? This Christmas might just be our first ski vacation.
Dad Tomorrow after school we'll go look at snowboards.
-Dad -I said just look.
My desk! Reese! What's your problem? He's my problem.
I get to come home to my own room and put my own stuff on my own desk.
There's such a thing as manners, Stevie.
When you're a guest in someone's house Real classy, Reese.
Go ahead, hit him.
It's not fair! He's hit me plenty of times.
He makes fun of me, he treats me like crap, and just because he's in that chair he gets away with it! I blame society.
Sorry, Stevie.
Good.
Malcolm, get your dirty socks off this table or I'll feed them to you for dinner! Like I'd taste a difference.
I'm gonna do it anyway.
What? I'm gonna beat you up anyway.
This Friday after school, we're gonna go somewhere private and I'm gonna beat you so bad your wheelchair's gonna need a wheelchair.
I want you to think about that for a few days.
Picture it.
Dream about it, like I'm doing.
Even if you tell on me, I will find some way to make this happen.
So you might as well have some dignity and keep your mouth shut.
Your ass might not know I'm kicking it, but I will.
Here you go.
All right, Jamie.
The doctor said there's no physical reason you can't talk, so that is exactly what you are going to do.
Talk.
He said the best way to get you started is for me to talk to you constantly about everything happening around you so that you live in a more verbal world.
That means Mommy's going to narrate everything she's doing like right now when she's going over here to make you a snack.
Then it'll be time to do the laundry, and after that she gets to make dinner for the whole family.
Who will wolf it down in ten seconds and leave her to do the dishes by herself before she gets to make the boys' lunches for school the next day.
Then she'll get ready for bed after everybody else.
And discover that the bathroom is a swampy, hairy mess, and Mommy gets to spend her last waking minutes with a sponge and a can of cleanser.
Then it'll be time to wake up in the morning and she'll do it all over again.
Day after day, week after week, for the next 30 years until Mommy dies.
And with Mommy's luck, even that won't be the end of it Dewey! Get out here right now.
You're smoking again after we talked about this last week? You know what that does to you.
I'm cutting back.
Cutting back? How many cigarettes are you smoking? Under two packs a day.
What?! How is that even possible? I got rid of the cartons in the garage.
Well, you didn't get rid of the ones hidden in the crawlspace.
Or the rain gutters, or under the ivy.
There's thousands of cigarettes hidden all over the place.
How could you spend all that money and not even smoke them? I could have gone to private school.
Keep it down.
Look, Dewey, I'm sorry, but I had such a hard time quitting.
The only way I could do it without freaking out was knowing they were there.
-I know it sounds crazy.
-I'll tell you what's crazy.
Being hooked on these stupid things even though I hate the way they taste and smell.
Well, those are really stale.
You're not getting the fresh, rich flavor Never mind! The point is, you can beat this.
We'll do it together.
Listen, you know how much I love coffee, right? Yeah, I've seen you drink it in the shower.
Exactly.
I must drink three pots a day, easy.
Well, I'm willing to give it up for you, cold turkey, if you give up smoking.
-Really? -Absolutely.
That way we're both suffering.
We both know what the other's going through and we can support each other.
You and me, Dewey.
We'll be a team.
That sounds great, Dad.
Just let me have one more to get it out of my system.
We can start -Dewey.
-All right.
Come on, Stevie, pay attention.
You just had Hitler invade Malibu.
Sorry.
What's up with you lately? Hi, guys.
Hey, Reese, how'd it go with the principal? Fantastic.
I love when they get old and they start just phoning it in.
He's actually willing to believe this is from obsessive hand washing.
Reese took out Scotty Riselli today.
It was brutal.
You should have seen it.
He hit him so hard, a few times he actually lifted him up in the air.
And the blood was, I mean, there's always blood, but Scotty was like one of those big sprinklers, you know? And once he went down, Reese went to work on him.
Did you know he had dental tools? Hey, I get Africa.
Can I ask you something? Sure.
Do you find my personality abrasive? What? Do you think I'm needlessly antagonistic? I don't know.
Probably.
What do you care? I don't want anyone to hate me.
It's Lisa Filmore, isn't it? Who? I saw you checking her out.
You like the big stuff, huh? Nice.
Little jiggly-wiggly, little wabbal-abbal-abbal-abbal You're a jerk.
I'm just being supportive.
I'm sorry.
Come on.
Let's just finish the game.
Can't.
Today's our first meeting at the Norvet Institute.
Okay, wait.
There's something good about your personality.
You completely humor your dad with all his idiotic plans for you to walk, no matter how pointless and stupid it is to try.
You're never, like, "Dad, wake up.
" "I'm never getting out of this wheelchair.
I'm going to be a cripple till the day I die.
" I mean, you know it, but you don't throw it in his face.
That's a really nice quality.
There, better? And so I spend all this time every morning on my hair, trying to get it just so, although I know no one else notices.
It's such a stupid vanity thing.
I don't know why I'm so neurotic about my hair.
You know, it's just ridiculous if you think about it.
Wish I could let it go, but it's like I just can't help myself.
Slow down.
You haven't had breakfast yet.
Well, if you got me the nicotine gum like I asked, then You okay? Oh, that? That's nothing, Lois.
That's just puberty.
You know, when a boy's lungs drop.
This is how it hits all the men in my family.
Hacking cough, dark circles under the eyes, yellowing fingers.
So, there I am, 13 years old, flat-chested as I can be, everyone around me is sprouting, and I'm feeling just horrible about myself.
And why? No reason at all.
I'm getting straight A's, I'm running the food drive, I'm all-county on the gymnastics team, and none of this means anything to me because I'm so fixated on my bustline.
And so like an idiot, I started stuffing my bra with toilet paper.
Even after all these years, I remember every morning in the bathroom, shoving these things down my shirt and feeling like such an awkward, ugly, little girl.
Thank you.
Of course in second-period Spanish I had to sit next to the snooty Janice Montgomery with her tangerine nail polish, which I was dying to try, but of course she wouldn't let me because I had drugstore shoes.
Hey, Mom.
Look at these stains.
You boys are in so much trouble.
No more pillowcases for a month.
Okay Fixing something? Dad.
Hi.
I'm so disappointed in you, son.
We had an agreement.
What was that? What was what? All right, we both have a problem.
This is so degrading.
On the way home from school, I almost pulled a cigarette butt out of the gutter.
I French-kissed your mother this morning just to lick the coffee off her teeth.
But we can do this.
We just need to find a way to divert our minds when the pangs get too bad.
Hal, what are you doing? What's it look like I'm doing? Can't a father have a friendly game of catch with his son?! We're having fun! I had that dream again last night.
Cheerleading tryouts.
Like it wasn't bad enough it happened, I have to relive it for the rest of my life.
I was so excited to think that I might be a Cougar, and finally feel like I belonged.
The routine was nothing, I'd done that stuff in gymnastics for years.
And still, I practiced that routine for weeks making sure that it was perfect.
The day of the tryouts, I borrowed my sister's good sweater, spent about an hour on my hair, stuffed my bra, even shoved a little extra in there for luck.
And when I got down to the gym, I found out I had to go first, in front of the whole squad and everyone else who was trying out.
So I just pretended to be braver than I was.
I smiled real big, and I went out there and I started my routine.
I did a round-off, a cartwheel, a kip-up, it was going great, I was so happy.
I landed my back-flip dead solid perfect.
I threw up my arms, and instead of everybody cheering everybody was laughing.
And I looked down, and there was a 30-foot-long trail of toilet paper along the tumbling mat.
Everything I worked for, everything I wanted so desperately ruined because of my vanity.
And you know what the worst part is? I didn't even learn anything.
Deep down, I'm still just as shallow as I was then.
All that fussing and primping and time I wasted to shut out laughter that stopped 30 years ago.
It's disgusting.
If I had any guts I would just cut off my hair right now.
You know, just face it down, and beat it! You gonna get that? I can't.
Malcolm.
It's Abe.
Where's your brother? Reese? I don't know, probably pounding the snot out of someone.
It's Stevie! -You've got to stop it! -What? What are you talking about? Stevie and I were in the middle of our session at the Norvet Institute, and then he said he had to go fight Reese, and just took off! -I'm terrified that -Oh, no.
Reese, what are you doing? Something I should've done years ago.
I've been numbing my legs in ice for an hour now.
What? I can't feel a thing down there.
See? Nothing.
First three times I did that it hurt like hell.
Nobody's gonna say this wasn't a fair fight.
When Stevie gets here, I'm gonna flop over to him like a fish, yank him out of his chair, and smash his face in, gimp-to-gimp.
Reese, you're insane! Am I? They thought Einstein was crazy until he started kicking ass.
Hey.
Where's Mom? She's locked in her room with Jamie.
She's been there for hours.
Oh.
Listen, I'm sorry I snapped at you.
I was just agitated, but I'm feeling better now.
Hey, I really think we're over the hump.
We're still a team, okay? Good boy.
What are you doing?! What? Oh, this.
It's nothing.
It's keeping me calm.
But we're quitting! No, I'm quitting coffee.
You're quitting cigarettes.
That's cheating! You do not get to do this.
Actually, Dewey, I get to do whatever I want, because I am a grown-up.
All right, if that's how you want it.
Dewey! What are you doing? Dewey! Don't you dare! The smooth, wonderful taste of betrayal! Oh, yeah? Well, I'm in flavor country, baby! This is good.
This is growth.
Just do it.
Don't be such a chicken.
It's the only way to stop hearing it.
All those kids laughing, my mother coming to the nurse's office telling me to stop blubbering, she wouldn't have to stuff my bra if I wasn't too lazy to grow them myself.
Oh, my God.
It was my mother.
She was the one stuffing my bra.
Oh, my God.
She was the one making me feel so horrible and inadequate.
Not me.
This wasn't about vanity, Jamie.
This is about an abusive old bat trying to make her kid into something that she wasn't.
Well, I am not going to be that kind of mother.
If you don't feel like talking yet, then you don't have to talk.
I'm going to love you exactly the way you are.
Shut up! Mm.
Rich, roasted goodness! Suddenly I'm at a French cafe.
Well, I'm with two girls in a speedboat, sucking down a smooth blend of fine tobaccos.
Hal! Dewey's drinking coffee! I think crippling my legs made my arms stronger.
Like how blind guys have bigger noses.
This is gonna be great.
Reese, you can't do this.
Stevie's our friend.
Hey, he's not my friend.
He's your friend.
He treats me like crap.
He insults me and disrespects me and you let him.
What? You always take his side.
You always do everything his way, even though we're brothers.
Wait.
Are you jealous? No, I'm pissed.
You and Stevie are going to be friends your whole life, but once you go away to college and you're not stuck with us, we're never gonna see you again.
But even so, you're spending the rest of the time left with Stevie instead of Do I have to tell you I love you? No.
Good.
Dude, like you said, we're brothers.
It doesn't matter if I don't want to be here, I'm stuck here.
No matter where I go or what I do, we're always going to be forced together.
Christmas, birthdays We're going to be forced to be around each other for the rest of our lives.
Really? What was that? I don't know.
You're mine! Good news, Stevie.
I forgive you.
Come on, Stevie! I can't walk.
This isn't fair! Don't reduce yourself to my level! You're better than this! God, I'm too late! Stevie, please stop! Think of the lawsuit! You know these people will do anything to get our money! The Norvet Institute kicked Stevie out of their program for unauthorized use of their equipment.
And Reese will be okay, but he's not allowed out of bed until he stops seeing four of everything.
Mom's making Dad find every last one of his old cigarettes.
She's going to make him eat any she finds tomorrow morning, so he's pretty motivated.
The amazing thing is I'm the only one that got off scott-free.
Malcolm, go change Reese's bedpan.
Hey.
He's my brother.