Traffic Jam is the first episode of the second season of Malcolm in the Middle.
Returning from the water park, the family get stuck in a traffic jam, where Malcolm meets a cute girl, Reese and other children declare war on an ice cream truck, Hal tries to decipher the Universe signs, and Lois is trying to make the traffic jam move faster. Meanwhile, Francis bets with his friends that he is capable of eating 100 Quacks. And Dewey keeps having his own road trip.
This episode contains examples of:
- Bavarian Fire Drill: 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.
- Bland-Name Product: Candy Quacks are a version of Peeps.
- Big Eater: Half the cadets are betting Francis can't possibly eat 100 Quacks in one seat. He is visibly struggling halfway through, but finally makes it to 100.
- Control Freak: The road worker hits the nail when he gives Lois a "The Reason You Suck" Speech about Lois venting because she can't have control over the traffic jam situation. She doesn't deny it but is visibly angered.
- Laser-Guided Karma: 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.
- Pity the Kidnapper: Subverted. The kindly woman who first picked up Dewey to take him back home is driven to buy smokes for the first time in twenty years in order to deal with his constant aggravations. However, he manages to make quick friends with the man who held up the convenience store the woman stopped at.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Francis succeeds in managing to consume 100 Quacks... but his feelings of victory are short-lived, as within moments the other cadets move on from being inspired by him 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 and his clothing disgustingly covered in Quack vomit.
- Rage Breaking Point: 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 too 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 Control Freak he deals with on a daily basis (See below).
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: As Lois is trying to highjack the crane to move the wrecks herself:Road Crew: (laughing) Try the Green one!Highway Patrolman: Come on out of there, ma'am.Lois: You order them to move this thing!Highway Patrolman: Let's just get you out of the crane, and then we'll have a little talk.Lois: Don't you dare patronize me!!Highway Patrolman: Okay, you don't want to be patronized? I'll be blunt. You're a Control Freak! I see them all the time. But guess what? This is a traffic jam. It is out of your control.Lois: Yeah, but I...Highway Patrolman: You can't boss it around. You can't yell at it and expect it to listen.Lois: I have been...Highway Patrolman: It will end when it ends! You just have to live with it. There's absolutely nothing you can do about it.(Lois pushes the cop aside, jumps out of the crane, and furiously storms off)
- Sequel Episode: To the season one finale, "Water Park".
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: For Lois, Malcolm, Reese, and especially Hal (see the Shoot the Shaggy Dog 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.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: 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 pigeon 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.
- Shout-Out: Francis' B plot about eating 100 Quacks on a dare is one to Cool Hand Luke, where the title character takes a bet to eat 50 hard-boiled eggs.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: 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 of all the other Shaggy Dog moments throughout the episode.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Around the 63 mark, the camera shifts from Francis to the other cadets making the count.Cadets: Sixty-three! (grossed out faces) Sixty-two... Sixty-one... (they cheer again) Sixty-two!
