The boys send an application for Mrs. Tri-County, a beauty pageant for women over 40, making Lois compete and Hal becoming a severe coach to her. Meanwhile, Reese finds out that his face features makes him beautiful (in midle-aged women standards), and Malcolm once again gets blackmailed by Professor Herkabe, who is one of the judges of the contest.
This work contains examples of:
- Alpha Bitch: While all the contestants are the same type of catty, double-faced, overgrown Barbies, Donna takes the cake. She has been participating in pageants since she was a teen, throws condescending remarks at Lois, and proudly admits that she managed to hire a high-rate model coach by withholding sex from her husband by faking a yeast infection until he caved.
- Be Yourself: Despite all odds, Lois wins the competition being her brutally honest self.
- Beauty Contest: Mrs. Tri-County is a beauty pageant for women over 40.
- Brutal Honesty: Lois wins the first round by being bluntly honest about the question "How has motherhood kept you young?".Lois: I'm sorry, but I have a problem with the question. Motherhood definitely does a lot of things, but the one thing it does not do is keep you young. Oh, my God. It ages you horribly. Youth is about having choices, but once you are a mother, you have no choices. You're stuck loving your children. You get grey hair loving them. You lose sleep loving them. You lose out on all those other things that you always thought you would do. But even with all of that, the amazing thing is, you're okay with it. It's like some wonderful... curse.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty:
- Hal becomes this by demanding Lois to be perfect for the contest. Once Lois lets him know how he has made her feel, Hal apologizes and explains that he was obsessed with showing how perfect Lois is to everyone.
- Nina, Donna's coach, is one of the best model coaches in the market, and she had to bargain with her husband to let her hire Nina. Promptly, Nina had her sit straight at all times and answer always with "Yes/No, Nina!"
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Reese's subplot has him obsessing over his looks, after he reads in a pageant book that his facial features are perfect... for a 40 year old woman. He gets very disappointed after a very high standing model coach would only take him in 20 years if he ever decided to change genders.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Even though the boys submitted the pageant application as a joke and wanted to back out, they became determined to help Lois win after they saw competing members openly insult her.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: When Lois finds out that the boys submitted an application for her to compete in a beauty pageant, instead of seeing through the prank, she actually feels it like a chance to see how it's like to participate, since during her youth, her sister Susan was the one competing, while Lois had to be her assistant/slave, to the point the photographer even used her as a stool to take a good angle of Susan.
- Karma Houdini: Mr. Herkabe gets away with blackmailing Malcolm into being his unwitting slave during the contest, and ruining a marriage by having an affair with one of the contestants.
- Nominated as a Prank: Reese, Malcolm and Dewey fill out a form they got from the mall for Mrs. Tri-County, answering all the questions ironically while making fun of Lois. Then Reese mails it, to Malcolm and Dewey's shock. Fortunately for them, Lois didn't see it as a prank and actually thought the boys were doing something nice for her, but Hal is understandably furious at them.
- Season Finale: This episode is the finale for Season 6.
- Talent Contest: The final round of Mrs. Tri-County involved this, and Lois wins the competition with her talent: Whistling entire songs in all ranges.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: Lois wants to leave after the other finalists pull a stunt to make her look bad in front of the judges. Hal explains to her that the only reason the other women tried to sabotage her is because they're actually afraid of her, since Lois was the most likely to win.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: This is one of the few episodes where the family has a genuine good ending. Lois wins the contest, gets a gift basket full of coupons, and the family is celebrates with a big dinner... except for Reese, who is still sulking after being rejected as a model.
- Villainous Breakdown: After Lois wows the judges with her unconventional answer to their question, Donna tries to copy her by criticizing her own question but ends up imploding since it's not coming from honesty.
