Line #1 Awesome/MalcolmInTheMiddle


1	* In the Pilot, Malcolm actually stands up to Dave Spath and stands his ground when the latter starts to fight him. Due to dodging Spath ends up hitting ''Stevie'' lightly on the chin, [[EvenEvilHasStandards which even shocks Spath's flunkies for "hitting a cripple"]]. Stevie then gets a look in his eye [[WoundedGazelleGambit and falls over in his wheelchair, pretending to moan in pain]]. Cue Spath's power reign over the school destroyed.
2	* "Red Dress": Francis shows ''why'' he's the big brother; when Lois confronts him for undermining her authority, he asks her why she sent him to military school then and that she's being stupid for [[HonorBeforeReason spending her anniversary]] [[SkewedPriorities obsessing over a dress]]. Using ReversePsychology, he convinces her to let the matter go and forgive his little brothers. Only he can mess with the three.
3	* "Home Alone 4"
4	** Malcolm's attempts to get Francis to behave go south. Then he finally comes clean that Lois said he may be able to come home if he takes care of his brothers well. Francis points out that making the choice over how one weekend goes would be arbitrary. Malcolm retorts that it's like Lois to do that.
5	** The boys successfully clean up the trashed house in a matter of hours. Malcolm even notes it's ''too'' clean.
6	* In "Sleepover", Francis runs afoul of a cult at his school, Poquito Cabeza, when he calls them out on bullying students. Cue them kidnapping him, only for him to be NervesOfSteel and TooKinkyToTorture. He convinces them to use ''Lois'' as their inspiration because her emotional abuse of him made him hardened enough to handle anything and it ''works''.
7	* "Krelboyne Picnic"
8	** Reese getting his ass handed to him when he tries to hunt the Krelboynes down. One of them has a big brother who is a GeniusBruiser.
9	** After his attempt to sabotage the fair goes horribly wrong -- it means Carolyn is in danger of being fired and Stevie doesn't get to do his trick -- Malcolm goes up on stage to perform his math skills, calculating any and all complicated equations the audience could throw at him, no matter how complicated, on the spot, instantly, without a moment's hesitation. Even the trick question "What's the capital of Iceland?" didn't make him hesitate.
10	** Lois refusing to let Doreen boss her around and causing the other women to turn on her with a simple question and then being completely unintimidated when Doreen threatens to blacklist her from any future school committee or PTA meeting.
11	* In "Lois VS Evil", Lois finally has enough of being abused by the cruel assistant manager when he fires her for Dewey stealing from the shop, and will only hire her back if she signs a confession, takes a dock in pay for the amount of the merchandise Dewey took and does graveyard shifts for the next couple months. She compares herself to him and the wrong things he's done, like putting his name on sale's reports she wrote, keeping marijuana in his desk, and sleeping with their boss's wife; she points out how she thinks it's wrong to tattle on him to anyone about such things, anyone else would do so in less than a heartbeat, and that's what makes her so much better than him. Cue the other employees secretly listening in and hearing everything, with the implication that Craig brought them in to make sure Lois had support. When Lois leaves, the other employees make the assistant manager aware they heard everything and fully intend to rat him out, causing him to quit.
12	* Lois gets an shocking one in a flashback to when Francis was a toddler. She is on the phone with the pediatrician and on the verge of tears because no matter what she does she just cannot keep Francis from getting into trouble. Behind her, Francis manages to escape from his high chair and rustle up a box of matches and some lighter fluid. Just as he starts to strike the matches, Lois turns around, and we see the first instance of the 'Lois Face'. She calmly hangs up the phone and walks over to take the matches from Francis, along with his teddy bear, and then walks over to the fireplace. She sticks the bear in the fireplace and a horrified young Francis watches it burn, while Lois explains that fire is dangerous and will hurt him. Then she goes on to promise that she will do anything and everything in her power to keep him safe, even if it makes him hate her, because that is how much she loves him. Two smoldering, melted, plastic eyes fall onto the floor. Francis scrambles back into his high chair. Lois gets up and goes to bandage her hand.
13	* When Lois' car starts to stall while she's tracking down Francis for ditching military school, she gets it running again just by bellowing the word '''"MOOOOOVE!!"''' That's right, even nonsentient objects know better than to screw with Lois.
14	* After years of matching wits with Malcolm and beating him every single time, Jessica's expert manipulation is at last [[HoistByHisOwnPetard used against her]] after she teaches Malcolm how to employ her technique on his mother and it backfires. What makes it all the sweeter is that Malcolm wasn't even trying to ruin her plan -- he ''finally'' got the better of her and it was [[AchievementInIgnorance completely unintentional]]!
15	* 'Health Scare' - After months of being abused by Lavernia, Francis challenges Lavernia and she takes his challenge. Francis is forced to fight by his "friends" but refuses to hit back Lavernia. [[BerserkButton Once Lavernia tells Francis to go home with his mommy]], Francis punches her back and two punches later [[DoubleKnockout he knocks her out at the same time she does it to him]]. Francis had already taken a beating for multiple minutes, meaning that if he didn't hold back he would have absolutely trashed her.
16	-->'''Lavernia:''' You're going down, college boy!\
17	'''Francis:''' [[BringIt Bring it on]], you toad!
18	* 'Lois' Makeover' - Lois spends an episode being called 'slovenly' by her bosses and pressured to wear more makeup at work, leaving her looking increasingly ridiculous. As she leaves for home near the end of the episode, a man comes up to her and asks, hesitantly, if he can "help" her. He then asks what it will cost him, and if using his car would be cheaper.
19	-->"You think I'm a hooker! ...THANK you! Come with me. (cut to her chewing out her boss) A PROSTITUTE! This guy was convinced I was a PROSTITUTE! You know, ever since I got your stupid report, I have been feeling like everything I ever believed in was wrong. Well, I think this little incident gives both of us some much-needed clarity. I'm going to go home now, I'm going to wash my face, and when I come in to work tomorrow I'm going to do the same extraordinarily good job I've been doing all these years. I'm going to do it in my 99-cent mascara and, if the mood strikes me, a hair clip. And that's it. And if that's not good enough for you, so be it."
20	** Oh, and there's one final touch after she leaves:
21	--->"...[[TheReveal Well, Steve, are you going to tell my sister or should I?]]"
22	* The family returns early from a family vacation only to learn that '''''the entire block has a party''''' while they are on their annual vacation out of spite for being the "worst family on the block". As it goes on, the family instead joins in on the celebration, and during it:
23	** Malcolm ends up helping a neighbor load things up in a car, only for the real neighbors to appear when he drives off and chastise Malcolm for helping a burglar robbing them. Malcolm ends up breaking down into tears because he just wanted to be nice to someone and be ''liked'' in return. When a police officer arrives and hears about the robbery, he asks the neighbors what was taken and they just vaguely say some things. Malcolm pipes up that he knows exactly what was taken and [[PhotographicMemory lists every item]], including high-definition printers, ink-stripping materials, etc. and finds out that his neighbors were ''forging banknotes and stock certificates in their garage'', leading them to get arrested.
24	** Reese and Dewey successfully extort all of the block kids' money, by a scheme of allowing the kids to pay 20 dollars per few minutes to beat on Reese as a chance of payback for all of the bullying he's done to them over the years. Though Reese slips up and is beaten up, he is successfully a few grand richer for it.
25	** Hal and Lois join into the annual kielbasa eating competition, and they outdo the competitors by their slow eating pacing. Concerning the two of them, there is only one last kielbasa to eat- and it ends with them sharing it into a kiss, proving the entire neighborhood wrong that, a DysfunctionalFamily they may be, but the family is NOT the worst family on the block.
26	** As LaserGuidedKarma, the kiss has the entire hate-unified neighborhood turn against each other for built up grievances they've long overlooked in favor of venting it out on the family. Not only does this totally ruin their day, and possibly ends all future spite-driven block parties, but showcases with the entire episode that the entire neighborhood were neither that better or were worse than the family they've long spited. In the wake of the abandoned block, the family is free to do with the many untouched spoils in the neighborhood that they don't even have to pay for.
27	* "Company Picnic: Part 2" - Francis sabotages his own team in a hockey match, in order to win a bet. The other team is composed of cheating muscular women that won't hesitate to hurt Francis team without provocation. The game is on the last seconds, both teams have 10 points. One member of the women team takes control of the puck and aims for Francis' face. [[HeroicSacrifice Eric (Francis' best friend) ends up taking the shot]] [[GroinAttack IN THE GROIN.]] And he didn't have a shell. Inspired by this and his team non-stop support throughout the match, Francis chooses to win the game, consequences be damned. The game has devolved into a full brawl. What follows is one of the most epic sequences in the series. With less than 15 seconds in the clock, Francis runs towards the puck and the opponent's goal. Thanks to his previous sabotage, all his equipment ends up literally breaking apart and he eventually falls too, only centimeters away from the puck. Everything seems lost when his opponent rises her stick, but Francis takes advantage of the opening and throws the puck towards the opponent's goal, 5 seconds before the game ends. And he wins.
28	* The main plot of "Pearl Harbor" is definitely this. At first it seems silly that Hal is competing with a neighbor who always outdoes him in Christmas decorations every year. Hal instead decides to decorate the house in honor of Pearl Harbor day, since December 7th is not that far from Christmas. His neighbor, being the {{Jerkass}} he is, decides to construct a better decoration for Pearl Harbor. Hal and Dewey decide to clean out the bait shops and put worms all over the decorations. The next morning, the neighbor wakes up to dozens of blackbirds emerging like the Japanese fighters and in his yard to get to the worms.
29	* Stevie got his in "Dinner Out". He, Malcolm and Reese play the circle game, and Reese constantly tricks Stevie in a number of clever ways, resulting in Stevie being punched repeatedly. After a while, Stevie appears to concede defeat, and goes off crying. Reese, feeling guilty, follows him... only to look through a display aquarium and see Stevie on the other side, making the sign. He then punches Reese so hard he knocks him FLYING, and when he pretends to offer to help him up, he shows Reese the sign AGAIN. Then, with a cry of [[PreAsskickingOneLiner "Reap... the whirlwind!"]] he grabs Reese by the shirt and punches him repeatedly. Game set.
30	-->'''Stevie:''' ''Crying on... Command... Got me... A cable modem!''
31	* [[EvilMatriarch Grandma Ida's]] crowning moment also happens to double as the only decent thing she has ever done in her entire life. When she realizes that Dewey is about to be hit by a truck, without even stopping to think about it, she clamps her cigarette in her teeth and runs to push him out of the way, losing a leg in the process. [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic While some truly awesome reggae plays.]]
32	* Hal gets a nice moment in "Reese Joins the Army (Part 2)" after getting framed as the mastermind behind his company's massive money laundering operation (an operation involving almost every employee ''except'' Hal). During Hal's trial, Malcolm discovers a major flaw in the prosecution's story: every date the prosecution witnesses claimed to have seen Hal doing something illegal fell on a Friday. Hal -- who has ''never'' appeared at work on a Friday ''in 15 years'' -- uses mementos of his Fridays off stored in his "memory box" to completely destroy the case against him.
33	** Reese has one in the same episode. While participating in some war games, Reese's squad ends up captured -- but Reese uses the knowledge he picked up through years of defying Lois and fighting with his brothers to untie himself and create a diversion. Reese gets the guards to unlock the cage to check on the "dying" captive, then locks the guards up, steals the opposing team's tank, and caps it off by timing TheReveal (driving slowly up to the command tent and poking the turret through the side, before using two trucks to pull the tent apart) with his commander surrendering. Not only does Reese force the presumed victor to surrender, he also gives the order to fire the main turret (filed with cake batter) [[ForTheLulz for the hell of it]].
34	* After Commandant Spangler finds out Francis has started throwing their weekly pool games, he demands a real match. This challenge puts Francis in a bad place: the other cadets, believing that Spangler will take his frustration out on them if he loses (as he had done so at least once in the past), threaten to beat Francis up if he wins, but Spangler threatens to cancel everyone's privileges if Francis doesn't give his best. The two of them eventually end up having a competition to see who can play the ''worse'' game of 8-ball; the pair use all kinds of trick shots to sink the cue ball at the same time as the 8. By the end of the entertaining exhibition, [[TakeAThirdOption the cadets lose count on who lost more -- or even if either of them did]].
35	** Francis also has the first episode where he joins the German-run dude ranch. The ranch's other employee tells him the owners are idiots and they can both slack off if they watch each others' backs, "what do you say?" At the beginning of the series Francis definitely would have taken him up on it, but after going through a lot of {{Character Development}} in the previous year his response is "I say you're fired."
36	* Hal deals with the in-laws who brought a ''live grenade'' into the house and demolished a new fridge (the final straw in the grief they brought to the family) in his own charming way. Watch the scene closely and you can almost see Bryan Cranston turn into [[Series/BreakingBad Heisenberg]]:
37	-->'''Grampa Victor:''' Because of what just happened, you want us to loan you $3,000?\
38	'''Hal:''' Please. I know you're uncomfortable loaning to family, so let me be clear. (gets up, leans in) With one phone call, I could have your asses thrown in jail for child endangerment. So, this money I'm asking for is not a loan. ''[[BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord It's blackmail.]]''
39	* When Malcolm's mother confronts a {{Jerkass}} RA after [[MyBelovedSmother she insisted on sleeping over at Malcolm's university interview]], the RA [[BreakThemByTalking breaks her]] by pointing out Lois' control freak nature, and that she is obviously and pathetically trying to live vicariously through her middle child, Malcolm.
40	** What follows is a transcript of said moment of awesomeness:
41	--->''(Leland, the Resident Adviser of the dormitory, confronting Lois)''\
42	'''Leland:''' I happen to be a control freak. If you get me fired, I can just find another job where I can be a control freak. Kinko's is hiring a night manager. Either way, I've already written negative evaluation emails of these kids to the Office of Admissions. All I have to do is hit 'send.'\
43	'''Kid:''' She overloaded a wall socket, too!\
44	''(The kids abandon Lois)''\
45	'''Leland:''' And now you. Any freshman psych major can see it's obvious life didn't pan out the way you thought it would. So now, to make up for it, you have to run your kid's life.\
46	'''Malcolm:''' ''(to the audience)'' I don't know who to root for!\
47	'''Leland:''' Simple truth is, you're just too afraid to let go of the one thing in your life that may be a success. But hey, you don't have to take my word for it. Why don't we just ask the other mothers here and see what they think? ''(Looks around the hallway)'' Oh, that's right, there are no other mothers here! ''(Backs into his room)'' You just cost this floor their electricity privileges. ''(He shuts the door, and all the lights go out)''
48	** Also out of slight guilt, Malcolm decides to retaliate by kicking Leland's door stating "I want some candy!" at the cost of ever going to that school. That's a huge sacrifice. As a bonus, his kicking in the door also revealed that [[LaserGuidedKarma Leland had a contraband hot plate in his dorm]].
49	* The Reese vs. Stevie episode qualifies. Reese looks like a complete jerk when he says he'll beat up Stevie -- until he reveals that he ''paralyzed his own legs'' so he could fight fair. Then Stevie shows up in the mech suit...and ''breaks down the garage door'', ready to beat him up.
50	-->'''Stevie:''' You're...(inhale)...MINE!
51	** For a schoolyard bully, Reese has a code of honor; he considers Stevie off-limits. He won't ignore Stevie, but he'll also make sure nobody else messes with Stevie.
52	* "I'm not your little boy anymore. I'm your little man." The kid's mother looked disturbingly attracted at that point. (Elaboration: Dabney, Malcolm's most pathetic friend, worked out his pent up mommy issues at a paintball gallery by retaliating against bully who had been tormenting him earlier.)
53	* Another great one is when Hal is [[ItMakesSenseInContext forced into slave labor by Craig for yelling at him]]. He rallies Craig's oppressed night shift workers to revolt against him. All set to Music/PhilCollins' "Sussudio", music which was banned by Craig. They push bottles of baby powder blinding the security guard, and force his arm into an electronic blood pressure cuff and unplugging it while it swells up, trapping him.
54	* Seems like everyone gets one except Dewey. Well, how about this? There's the episode where he makes a full-sized pipe organ out of things he found around the house, and plays "Orpheus in the Underworld" on it.
55	** Don't forget the time when he bought the piano behind his parents back just because he wanted to play the piano. He could have bought fatty foods or random toys, but he opted for the piano instead.
56	** When Dewey hits those bullies with his purse... and it turns out he ''had a brick in it''. This manages to impress Reese, who had spent that entire episode trying to get Dewey to not have said purse.
57	** Also, Dewey's offered the opportunity to get retested so he can move from the Busey class back to the normal class (where he wanted to be). Instead, he rips off his shirt, rolls on the ground, and generally freaks out, so he can stay with the Buseys who need his help because they're being neglected/ignored/underestimated/[[ItMakesSenseInContext used as]] [[BreadMilkEggsSquick slave labor]] by the teachers.
58	** There was also the episode where Hal and the boys are at [[ItMakesSenseInContext a wedding fair]], and all episode long Dewey is going around talking to random people for some reason. At the end of the episode, you find he's commandeered pretty much ''everyone working there'' into helping his massive guilt-trip to Hal that he and Lois are going to induce labour on Jamie on Dewey's birthday, which Hal completely forgot about.
59	* When the Krelboynes have to compete in a Knowledge Bowl-esque competition, Malcolm finds out that everyone else, on ''every'' team, will cheat to win in order to improve their college applications. Even though Malcolm initially wants to opt out of the entire thing and go home, he winds up staying and takes down everyone: he tells the Krelboynes that if they plan to cheat, they should go all-out. First he helps the Krelboynes steal the answers to the questions, then he distributes copies of the answers to the other teams. Malcolm's plan results in every team trying to out-cheat each other by answering before the quiz masters can finish asking questions. Malcolm sits out on the sidelines with a stricken Herkabe and watches with a smile on his face as ''everybody'' goes down in flames.
60	* In an episode where Reese is being pursued by a whole lot of police cars in a driver's ed car, he decides to end his predicament with class. So he turns into the Driver's Ed course, and does it PERFECTLY (down to doing a perfect parallel park). He then gets out of the car, makes his female co-student promise to tell everyone he got a peek under her bra, and is then tackled by about 20 police officers.
61	** This is also after massive character development throughout the episode, where he and the co-student had an honest heart to heart about why Reese is such a troublemaker, prompting him to end the chase.
62	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYng9T8EpS0 The Komodo 3000 firework in action.]]
63	* Another awesome moment was when Reese decides to become a nice person. Cue all the wannabe bullies fighting for his position. Reese reclaims his title of school bully by beating up the wannabe bullies and restoring order to the school with cheer from the other students.
64	* The boys get sweet revenge on their Hal's side of the family for treating Lois like crap during a family reunion (with a little help from their little cousins). After Hal's family upsets Lois to the point where she hides out in her guest room and cries, the two main attackers, Hal's sisters, come along and ask if she'll help them, where they hear her crying and blame her for causing drama. Everyone's eating and next thing you know, out come all four of Lois' kids in a golf cart, [[TranquilFury perfectly calm]], bursting through the "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" sign. Once their cousins unlock the table legs, the boys crash into the table and knock it down, run over all the plates and the cake, then pick up the tablecloth and drag everything on it behind them. Malcolm then turns the golf cart to knock over an easily-broken 'statue', then the brothers drive into the swimming pool, drag everything into it, and calmly go down with their ship as if nothing at all had happened. They spent the majority of the episode trying to kiss their rich grandfather's ass in hopes of getting into his will, but by ruining the party, they essentially decided "fuck it" to a ton of money to defend Lois, of all people -- and they didn't even stop to think about it. (This is also the one of the few times that all of the brothers work together for a single cause.)
65	** This works just as much as a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment\|s}} as it is one of Awesome -- and it also leads into Lois treating her daughter-in-law Piama with a lot more courtesy and respect (a small [=CMoA=] of its own).
66	*** Hal, for his part, is trying to do his best to read the boys the riot act for their stunt, but it's clear that even he's impressed by the plan while Lois is clearly touched that all her family would go to such lengths and is smiling like she won Mother of the Year.
67	** Becomes even more awesome in hindsight as Hal's father lost all his money before dying, meaning that there was no inheritance to be gained.
68	** Special mention to the fact that the boys all see the slight and, without exchanging words with each other, turn and walk out to take action. Piama clearly understands that there's some unspoken plan and asks what they are planning to do. Francis straight up tells her, "We don't know. We never know." It's a testament to the HiddenDepths of the family that the plan was executed flawlessly without any actual planning.
69	* Lois took part in a competition for a new car, where everyone participating had to touch the car and keep the contact. The last person to still be touching the car ends up winning it. Over time, people let go and leave, leaving Lois and only a handful of people around. One young woman is smooching her boyfriend goodbye, since he's leaving to help his female friend move. Lois says she remembers those days and what they meant, making it clear that she thinks the boyfriend is cheating on her. The woman ends up leaving. It finally comes down to Lois and another woman, who refuses to take the allowed bathroom break, saying she can stay and not need to use the facilities all day long. Lois takes her up on the offer, leading to a stand-off. Cue Lois eventually returning with the car, and the whole family is happy.
70	* "Tiki Lounge" has several. When Lois and Hal realize they don't talk enough, Hal forces the boys to build a tiki lounge in their garage, then tells them that they're the reason his relationship with Lois has fallen apart. Hal banishes the boys from the lounge, forces Malcolm to take over his mom's shift at work, and tasks Reese and Dewey with watching Jamie so he and Lois can have some time alone with each other. Later in the episode, Malcolm swallows his pride and gets over himself (yes, that [[InsufferableGenius Malcolm]]) -- and, though he doesn't know it, he also teaches Lois to get over herself as well, which helps her end her argument with Hal.
71	** Not only does Malcolm swallow his pride, but does so after his attempt to humiliate the Booster Club backfires. At first the other members are mortified by their personal effects being up for auction by him, but once they see how much money it's raising for charity, they all start falling over themselves to volunteer even ''more'' humiliation. [[WinWinEnding Pretty much everybody wins out for once.]]
72	* When Malcolm fails to defeat Herkabe's Krelboyne ranking system by convincing all the students to deliberately fail, he realizes something important: he can't beat the system, but he can sure as hell break it. By working harder than the other students to get to the top of the ranking system and stay there, Malcolm's genius sends the other geniuses into mental breakdowns as they try to keep up with him. To cap off his scheme, Malcolm makes sure all of the breakdowns happen just as the principal gives Herkabe his first-week evaluation. Herkabe can only look on in dismay as a group of supposedly-genius students strip down to their underwear, run around like maniacs, roll around in mud as if they were pigs, and babble incoherently about feeling worthless.
73	* The boys vs. the clowns at the batting cages on Lois' birthday. After a clown pokes fun at Lois, all the boys (Francis and Hal included) get in a brawl with a gang of clowns to defend her honor... all set to Kenny Rogers' [[SoundtrackDissonance "You Decorated My Life"]].
74	* The episode "Lois Strikes Back". Four girls play a cruel trick on Reese[[note]](sending him letters from a secret admirer but ending up leaving a pig on the doorstep instead, then hanging up a picture of them both with the caption "Prom King and Queen")[[/note]] that leaves him catatonic; the school principal does ''nothing'' to punish the girls, as he believes karma came back to bite Reese for his history of bullying and troublemaking and finds it hilarious, so Lois takes matters into her own hands.
75	** The first girl, Kristen, prizes her long hair, so Lois puts a huge load of gum inside her scooter helmet. Kristen doesn't realize this until she tries to remove it after riding to school and finds that her hair is now coated with the massive amount of gum, which results in her getting a TraumaticHaircut with a hedge trimmer by the school janitor.
76	** The second girl, Diane, has a pretty big collection of dolls and stuffed animals, so Lois decapitates all of them, mutilates the heads, and then stashes them in Diane’s locker, where they fall out after the locker's opened. Upon recognizing them, Diane becomes so devastated and broken by the destruction of her collection, that she ends up into a near-catatonic state similar to Reese (according to Malcolm, who realizes that Lois is behind the revenge plots, she had to be wrapped in a blanket and escorted to the nurse's office).
77	** The third girl, Heidi, has her parents receive a call from Lois pretending to be a hotel receptionist; she says that Heidi had made a reservation there with her boyfriend Scott, then planted a bag full of condoms, lingerie, and sex toys near a window in the girl's house to further frame her. Upon discovering the bag, Heidi's parents prevent her from going to prom and force her to end her relationship with Scott, much to her dismay and anger.
78	** The best, however, is saved for last. Reese snaps out of his catatonic state after Lois tells him about the things she did to the three girls; they eventually decide to get their revenge on Paula, the last of the four girls, together (despite Malcolm protesting their actions). With the help of a pitching machine Hal built earlier in the episode, Lois and Reese bombard Paula and her date with a storm of paint-filled balloons as they were leaving for the prom, ruining her dress and thoroughly humiliating her, with the added humiliation that her own date uses her as a meat shield. All in all, it showed that -- despite being a hardass -- [[MamaBear Lois would do]] ''[[MamaBear anything]]'' [[MamaBear for her kids, no matter how unruly they can be sometimes]].
79	* When a kid at Dewey's school nominates two kids from Dewey's sped class, Hansen and Zoe, for student body president as a joke, Hansen decides to throw the election by intentionally giving himself a seizure before delivering his speech. When it's time to give his speech, he goes into a violent fit of [[{{ClusterFBomb}} expletives]]. Instead of sabotaging the election for him, however, it causes the whole school to chant his name.
80	** A minor one which doubled as a RunningGag had Dewey nominate the kid responsible for Hansen and Zoe running, because, as Dewey puts it, what could be worse than losing against someone like them? Dewey then spends the rest of the episode nonchalantly doing everything he can to make sure the kid will not receive a single vote as vengeance, until the kid is an utter basket case and basically begging people to vote for him. The message: do not mess with the kids in Dewey's class, or he will destroy you.
81	* In ''Baby Part 1'', Lois, Francis, and Piama conspire to get Ida out of the house before the baby is born by using her racism against her. Essentially, Lois flaunts all their black friends (Hal's poker buddies) to a horrified and speechless Ida, making it quite clear they can come by the house any time they want. The clincher is when one actually hits on her ("''[[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments ...I looove that wagon you draggin'!]]''"), causing her to run out of the room screaming her head off. Of course, this gets subverted moments later when Lois' water breaks just as Ida was about to leave.
82	* In "Tutoring Reese", Malcolm is forced to tutor Reese due to the latter’s poor grades, but he believes his teacher, Mr. Woodward, is out to get him. Once Malcolm is convinced that Reese is telling the truth, he takes the test for him and he still gets a poor grade. Then, in his attempt to convince his parents that Reese really is telling the truth, he accidentally reveals that he took the test for Reese. Lois initially directs her anger at Malcolm for cheating, then at Reese for letting Malcolm cheat for him, and then she realizes the implications of all of that and redirects her anger at Mr. Woodward for giving something Malcolm wrote an F. Now realizing that Reese was actually right about his teacher being out to get him, she vows to have him fired for abusing his power like he has. Mr. Woodward then makes the argument that Malcolm will be expelled for cheating if Lois goes to the principal about it and expresses disbelief that Lois would sacrifice Malcolm’s future for Reese - Lois then counters by saying she’d do it in a heartbeat, because Malcolm is going to be fine regardless, even if he has to go to junior college or work his way up from a blue collar job first, while Reese is the one who needs all the help he can get. At first, Mr. Woodward doesn't believe that she, or any mother for that matter, could be that callous to her own son... until Francis, after being kicked out of the house earlier in the episode for refusing to fix the roof and spending the rest of it living in horrible conditions in his friend Richie's basement, turns up begging to be let in. Mr. Woodward immediately changes his tune, and Lois winds up putting him to work on fixing the roof with Malcolm, Reese and Francis in exchange for not getting him fired.
83	** And what convinces Malcolm that Reese is telling the truth? He gets Reese to the point of being able to achieve a passing grade on his own.
84	* During the episode where Dewey stops helping his classmates in order to teach them to handle problems by themselves, they wind up taking their teacher, the principal, and two janitors hostage. When Dewey (with Francis' help) finally decides to do something, they learn that the principal has been selling the lanyards the class has been making all week, when one of the Buseys notices that Francis is wearing one on his key chain. Francis explains he bought it at a truck stop. Dewey compromises with the principal by saying no one needs to know that [[MoralEventHorizon he's been exploiting mentally ill children for slave labor]] so long as he keeps his mouth shut about the hostage situation. They get the agreement of the teacher and the janitors, but the janitors ask for "five minutes alone" with the teacher and principal.
85	* Francis' [[CallingTheOldManOut final words]] to Lois before he moves to Alaska. Not quoting him, but to sum up what he said, "The future is mine, and you're not my mother anymore!"
86	* How do the boys beat a cheating Hal at basketball? By standing on each other's shoulders to make a tower, then punching him in the groin when he tries a jump shot.
87	-->'''Dewey:''' The future is now, old man.
88	* Does the episode "Evacuation" count, considering it's one of the only times Malcolm crushes over Lois?
89	** To recap, Lois grounded Malcolm for a stupid reason, then when they're forced to leave their house, Lois states that the grounding still stands and Malcolm is not allowed to leave his cot. After being humiliated by Lois one too many times, he stands up to her and she retaliates by spanking him in front of everyone in the gym (even if it was just a tap). As a result, she's forced to stay outside with Hal, Reese, and Dewey (who got in trouble for causing similar incident). To top it off, when they ask Malcolm for help since they need blankets, he uses Lois' ExactWords saying he's not allowed to leave his cot. Who are we kidding? Malcolm didn't just get the best of Lois, he got the best of his entire family who makes his life hell!
90	** Credit to the National Guard: when Reese, Hal, and Dewey nearly cause a riot, they manage to calm down an angry mob in an OffscreenMomentOfAwesome, escort the three outside, and put them in a painted box as punishment. We don't see the details, but one says rather rudely to Hal that if it weren't for his military code, he would be swinging his fists at the man for causing the disaster rather than watching him. Cue another guard dragging Lois outside when it turns out the people watching her discipline Malcolm reported her for child abuse. She tries to argue that she has the right to discipline her child, and ''he tells her to shut up''. As he puts it, her bringing her personal issues to the shelter makes her a troublemaker in the eyes of the military and she's lucky she's not getting arrested. All Lois can do is stay in the box and shiver as it gets cold.
91	* After a teacher forces Malcolm to embarrass Reese via secret video surveillance (which ends up spreading through the whole school), Malcolm fights back the only way he can: he barricades himself into the school radio room á la ''Literature/HarrisonBergeron'', grabs everyone’s permanent records, and announces everyone's embarrassing secrets over the intercom to humiliate everyone as an "apology" for humiliating Reese. Three weeks later after Malcolm serves his suspension for the stunt, everyone appears hesitant to so much as speak to one another -- except for Reese, who gleefully walks around and talks about everyone's secrets to their faces.
92	** Said teacher (SmugSnake and {{Jerkass}} extraordinaire Mr. Herkabe) pulls a similar stunt in his last appearance by humiliating Reese in an attempt to blackmail Malcolm; Malcolm is on track to taking Herkabe's achievement of being the record-holder of the school's highest GPA, and Herkabe forces Malcolm to purposely tank his grades and let his teacher keep his crowning achievement in exchange for stopping humiliating and demoralizing Reese. However, Herkabe makes a ''big'' mistake: in his gloating, he casually confesses to Malcolm that during his senior year, he had cheated his way out of taking physical education and lied about it for years in order to protect his GPA award. Malcolm tattles to the principal of this, and to his utter humiliation, Herkabe's academic achievement is publicly revoked and returned to the previous record-holder before him: Edna Thornby, a blind and clubfooted woman who actually managed to pass gym class in spite of her disabilities. Herkabe decides to retake the class even though he is an adult now in order to reclaim his award, but Reese shows up and pelts him with dodgeballs. Malcolm walks away satisfied as Herkabe feebly tries to use his smart mouth to [[BreakThemByTalking break him by talking]] while Reese and the other students in the background gleefully and repeatedly bounce dodgeballs off him hard enough to rebound against the gymnasium's vaulted ceiling.
93	* Craig stops a comic book store owner from scamming Hal. He may be a dorky weirdo everywhere else, but under that roof, Craig's ''a level 45 Dungeon Master!''
94	* Lois' car fight in ''Hal's Christmas Gift'' is one of the funniest and greatest things on television. Lois just lets out the inner rage she's been holding in for years in a car that she ''[[TakingYouWithMe willingly totals another car with]]''. Her confused summary and subsequent KarmaHoudini is doubly so. When Reese and Malcolm try to hold it over Lois' head she says this before they can open their mouths:
95	-->'''Lois:''' This is my one. My ''one'' to your ''eleven thousand.''
96	* Francis and Otto beating the absolute hell out of an obnoxious and abusive restaurant and hotel critic who was giving the Grotto a horrendously unfair review after he makes horribly racist statements towards Piama and her relationship with Francis. [[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing They are then showered with gratitude from all the other hotels and restaurants in the state who'd previously been lambasted by the critic.]]
97	* Piama's first appearance on the show comes with a double Awesome/Heartwarming moment, when she grows angry at Lois criticizing Francis and throws a bucket of water in her face:
98	-->'''Piama:''' Stop talking about him like that! Francis is my heart!
99	* When Ida forces Malcolm and Reese to go against each other in three events to determine which of them will become a man. After Reese wins the first two, the two boys are sitting at a table with two holes and a few seemingly random set pieces on it. Ida rattles off some lines that sound like symbolic nonsense, then goes to watch them. Malcolm proceeds to decipher her lines in seconds, tricks Reese into getting stuck in the table, and wins the event.
100	** There's another Awesome moment right after Malcolm is declared winner. Reese does not want to give up on the girl Ida had [[ArrangedMarriage promised]] to the winner and gives a rather heartwarming speech to her. The girl decides to go for Reese anyways and tells Ida off, stating how she is an American girl now. She has an iPod. She wears a thong. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking She shaves her armpits]]!
101	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo2wesIV0HY Candyman]]. as performed by Francis (who has a surprisingly good singing voice), and the other cadets.
102	* Dewey's musical talent is always SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic. When he writes an opera based on a fight Hal and Lois are having, he visualizes their shouting as singing, and that progresses into a truly amazing finale with full costumes and backup singers.
103	* When Hal and Lois went away for the weekend, the boys tried to have a house party, only for it to lead into their garage being taken over by a drug dealers led by Francis' old friend Donnie. After every other attempt at getting Donnie and the others to leave fails, Dewey reveals that he went and told the mothers of everyone in the gang about what they were doing. Donnie laughs at this... until his mom appears before us, tells him to knock it off and that it's time to go home. One of his partners starts laughing at Donnie, and then ''his'' mom shows up, followed by an army of mothers ordering their sons to stop what they're doing and come home.
104	* In "Lois Vs. Evil" Lois is fired after Dewey steals a bottle of perfume and in order to get her job back she has to sign a written apology, she refuses to sign and gives her {{Jerkass}} BadBoss Mr. Pinter an epic TheReasonYouSuckSpeech and tells her that any of the other employees would've sold him out if they knew all of his secrets, and it turns out the other employees overheard the conversation, so he ends up quitting.
105	** Oh, she signs it, alright:
106	--->'''Mr. Pinter:''' "This isn't a signature!"\
107	'''Lois:''' "No, it's more of a suggestion; 'the horse you rode in on' is optional."
108	* Malcolm has had it with everyone thinking he's a loser, so he plans to drive his mother's car into his father's car in the middle school parking lot, thinking it’ll earn him a badass reputation. Cynthia is trying and failing to stop him, telling him that it doesn't matter what people think. But it's not working. So rather than have him ruin his life, she says, loudly: "If you do this, I'm not going to have sex with you again." Cue his instant Sex-God reputation, and her "slut" reputation. Malcolm gets out of the car.
109	* "Monkey": After spending the entire episode trying to prove he's a badass after failing to the stop the burglar, Hal manages to save Craig from the AxCrazy monkey by trapping it under a trash can. To put this in perspective, the monkey was about to stab Craig ''with a knife''.
110	-->'''Hal:''' [[ShoutOut Take that! You damn dirty helper monkey!]]
111	* In "Mrs. Tri-County", Lois is entered in a beauty pageant as a joke. To the surprise of both her family and the audience, she dominates the entire pageant. In the question round when given a particularly tough question, she gives an honest yet touching answer that wins the judges over. In the talent portion she shows an exceptional talent in [[MundaneMadeAwesome whistling]]. Even her opponents sabotaging her one round to the point she considered quitting wasn't enough, and she goes on to win the whole thing.
112	* Any time Reese comes up with a brilliant idea:
113	** In one cold open, Reese & Dewey accidentally break a window with a baseball. Reese plants a rock with a threatening note attached in the baseball's place, and Hal & Lois completely buy it.
114	** In "Traffic Jam", a {{Jerkass}} ice cream man refuses to sell ice cream to Reese and some other kids despite the HeatWave. Reese tries to open the back with a crowbar only to be stopped by a huge guy. The ice cream man gloats, and turns around to find all his ice cream stolen. Cue Reese distributing the ice cream to his accomplices including [[GoodAllAlong the huge guy]].
115	* The second Halloween episode, where Reese and Dewey accidentally egg an old guy, and he proceeds to spend the entire night chasing after them with his walker. Eventually he manages to trick them into getting stuck in a mattress, and throws eggs at them in revenge.
116	* In "Halloween Aproximately" the boys at Francis' behest decide to celebrate Halloween, even a week late, by making the biggest prank ever: a giant slingshot on their house roof, which they use to terrorize the neighbourhood by throwing eggs and other types of ammo at them. However they make the fatal mistake of using it on the Krelboynes, who completely turn the tide on them by building their own gigantic slingshot, which they use not only to neutralize the boys' own slingshot, using their intelligence to aim with extreme precision as commented by Francis, but also to trap them on the roof by knocking the ladder down and then bombarding them with random ammo for hours as payback.
117	* In "Kitty's Back", after Kitty abandoned Abe and Stevie, left them alone while she traveled, got drunk, smuggled drugs ,slept with multiple men and even got an STD named after her, she comes back stalking her family. Trying to work up the courage to ask them to take her back before asking Lois to do it for her in private. Lois calmly says "There's not a chance in the world I would ever do that for you.", delivering a verbal no holds barred beatdown on Kitty for hurting Abe and Stevie and expecting an apology would make it better. One of the best parts about this is she never raises her voice above a polite but firm tone. When she does "forgive" her, it's obvious she isn't really but cares more about Abe and Stevie, and that's who she is doing this for. Even when she beats down Kitty, she says "I would never forgive you for what you did to that sweet man and boy", referring to them, which is also heartwarming she sees them that way.
118	* In "Hal Grieves", Lois has an awesome moment of parenting. Hal goes overboard with generosity towards his kids to deal with his suppressed emotions after hearing about the death of his father, who he had a complicated relationship with. Lois isn't seen for most of the episode, until the ending. As Hal is about to sign a lease to buy Malcolm an outrageously expensive car, a hand reaches out and stop him from signing. It's Lois, who gives him a hug, and mouths to Malcolm he's in big trouble. Lois is the only one dealing with the situation in a mature way, showing care for her husband, and it's a awesome moment of parenting. She's essentially saying to Malcolm without any words, and just a movement of her mouth, don't ever think of pulling anything like this ever again.
119	* At first, it looks like Reese's complete and utter LackOfEmpathy is going to prevent him from getting any real comeuppance when he sabotages the food of others ForTheEvulz in ''Reese Cooks''. But then his parents realize they can punish him by prevent him from his new passion for cooking, and Reese totally crumbles in horror.
120	* In one of Reese's most deplorable moments, he emotionally manipulates his way into Cynthia's heart just because of her new...[[ShesAllGrownUp "assets".]] When Malcolm tries to reveal him, Reese almost gets away with it and makes him look like the bad guy...until Malcolm asks him one question; What's her name? Reese's arrogance ''rockets away'' as his sheer shallowness undoes his scheme and when Cynthia realizes Malcolm was telling the truth, she brutalizes Reese as Malcolm leaves him to his fate.
121	* In AA, After Dewey finds the spare key to the car but Reese and Malcolm refuse to drive him to the arcade, they try to take the key off him. Reese and Malcolm realize that Dewey has become immune to their torture methods. They then start treating him nicely until Dewey reveals that he swallowed the key. Turns out he lied and drives off with the car while Reese and Malcolm try to find the keys in his poo.
122	* By Season 7, Dewey is almost as smart as Malcolm and has been shown to easily outsmart Malcolm on multiple occasions.
123	* In "Minibike," when Hal goes to visit Francis at the MilitarySchool for a Father-Son event, Hal sees the other boys get award after award for behavior and academics, while Francis didn't earn anything, and after a conversation with Spangler that concluded with him telling Hal that Francis does nothing but cause trouble, Hal tells Francis how embarrassed he is of him, because while he and Lois have been trying to get him to become a better person, Francis does whatever he wants with no regards to whatever happens to anyone else. As the boys are saying goodbye to their fathers, Spangler starts to yell at one young man, whose shirt got untucked while hugging his father goodbye, for being out of uniform, Francis sticks up for him, and Spangler then insists that's a demonstration of how Francis just loves to disobey authority and cause mayhem, and Spangler then goes on to lists several examples of DisproportionateRetribution in which Francis used non-violent resistance to oppose Spangler's punishments on the other boys. After Spangler walks away, Hal hugs Francis to demonstrate how proud he is of his son always trying to the right thing, even if it means sometimes breaking the rules.

Context Awesome / MalcolmInTheMiddle