History Recap / MalcolmInTheMiddleS2E01TrafficJam

* LaserGuidedKarma: Lois gets fed up at not being able to control the situation and completely blows up when she sees a dog Locked in a car. She breaks the window, less to free the dog and more to feel in control again. Her reward? The dog attacks her.

* ShootTheShaggyDog: Hal spends the entire episode trying to find purpose in life after the accident made him contemplate the uncertainty of death, and he finally notices a bird with a plastic six-pack ring stuck around its throat. He frees the bird only to have the dog Lois let out its car earlier eat it mid-flight.

* BigEater: Half the cadets are betting Francis can't possibly eat 100 Quacks in one seat. He is visibly struggling halfway through.

* PyrrhicVictory: Francis succeeds in managing to consume 100 Quacks, but once he finishes he finds that all of the other cadets don't really care, as they instantly move on to arguing about how many sit-ups a person can do without causing injury. Francis is left alone on the floor with a massively upset stomach.
* RageBreakingPoint: One of the Highway Patrol officers has to deal with Lois who is adamant that she needs to get home as soon as possible, and she even insults him in one instance. When Lois finally snaps as the road workers are moving to slowly for her taste, she tries high-jacking a crane, and the cop tries to calmly talk her into climbing down. When Lois angrily screams eh doesn't like being patronized, the cop decides he's had enough and tells Lois that she's just another ControlFreak he deals with on a daily basis (See below).

* SequelEpisode: To the season one finale, "Water Park".
* ShaggyDogStory: For Lois, Malcolm, Reese, and especially Hal (see the ShootTheShaggyDog entry). Lois fumes throughout the entire ordeal about her inability to control the situation, and smashes a car window to free a dog whose owners abandoned it, only for the dog to end up being hostile and attacking her. Malcolm, meanwhile, spends the day enjoying his time with Jessica, another girl caught in the jam, but finds that she's Canadian, and therefore he has almost no chance of ever seeing her again. She attempts to give him her phone number, but the same dog Lois let free snatches the paper out of her hands. Reese gets off the easiest, having been able to enjoy a few ice cream bars that he helped steal from a stuck vendor, but is forced to drop most of the boxes when the same dog chases him down. Though at least in his case it's unlikely he would have been able to take them home without them either melting or being stopped by Lois and Hal.

-->'''Lois:''' Don't you dare patronize me.
-->'''Highway Patrolman:''' Okay, you don't want to be patronized? I'll be blunt. You're a ControlFreak. I see them all the time. But guess what? This is a traffic jam. It is out of your control.

-->''(Lois jumps out of the crane and furiously storms off)''

* ShaggyDogStory: For Lois, Malcolm, and especially Hal (see the ShootTheShaggyDog entry). Lois fumes throughout the entire ordeal about her inability to control the situation, and smashes a car window to free a dog whose owners abandoned it, only for the dog to end up being hostile and attacking her. Malcolm, meanwhile, spends the day enjoying his time with Jessica, another girl caught in the jam, but finds that she's Canadian, and therefore he has almost no chance of ever seeing her again. She attempts to give him her phone number, but the same dog Lois let free snatches the paper out of her hands.

* PityTheKidnapper: Subverted. The kindly woman who first picked up Dewey to take him back home is driven to [[CigaretteOfAnxiety buy smokes for the first time in twenty years]] in order to deal with his constant aggrevations. However, he manages to make quick friends with the man who held up the convenience store the woman stopped at.

* PityTheKidnapper: Subverted. The kindly woman who first picked up Dewey to take him back home is driven to [[CigeretteOfAnxiety buy smokes for the first time in twenty years]] in order to deal with his constant aggrevations. However, he manages to make quick friends with the man who held up the convenience store the woman stopped at.

* BolivianFireDrill: Jessica manages to talk her way into being let near the accident site by shouting "Hey, Daddy!" to the onsite investigator, who awkwardly waves back out of politeness. She later shows Malcolm that this works with just about every adult.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Lois' attempt to free the dog from dying of heat stroke in its car was a noble effort, but the hostile animal ends up ironically being the cause for all the other Shaggy Dog moments throughout the episode.

* ShootTheShaggyDog: After Hal spends the entire episode trying to find purpose in life after the accident made he contemplate the uncertainty of death, he finally notices a bird with a plastic six-pack ring stuck around its throat. He frees the bird only to have the dog Lois let out its car earlier eat it mid-flight.

* ShootTheShaggyDog: After spending the entire episode trying to find purpose in life after the accident made him contemplate the uncertainty of death, he finally notices a bird with a plastic six-pack ring stuck around its throat. He frees the bird only to have the dog Lois let out its car earlier eat it mid-flight.

* ControlFreak: The road worker hits the nail when he gives Lois a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about Lois venting because she can't have control on the traffic jam situation. She doesn't deny it, but is visibly angered.

!This work contains examples of:

-->'''Cadets''': Sixty-three! ''(grossed out faces)'' Sixty-two... Sixty-one... ''(they cheer again'' Sixty-two!!