Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair.
“Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” brings back one of TV’s most beloved dysfunctional families, but this time they’ll be hashing out some of their emotional baggage.
In a key scene in the final episode, Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) and his mother Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) finally have a serious conversation about how Malcolm was raised and the pressure he felt when his parents told him they expected him to become President of the United States.
“I love that scene. Malcolm was putting so much pressure on himself and he was avoiding talking about it. It was like the elephant in the room,” Muniz told Variety. “So when I confront him in the bathroom, he really says, ‘This hurt me. The way you guys were raised and the pressure you guys put on me really affected me as a person.'”
Of course, if this scene were played completely straight, it wouldn’t be “Malcolm in the Middle.” Craig (David Higgins) storms into the bathroom when he is having digestive problems and locks himself in one of the stalls, where he continues to make very disturbing noises.
“This was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done because Craig was making noise in the stall next door,” Kaczmarek says. “I said, ‘Are you sure he’s not going to do that? Can you leave it in after you shoot the scene?’ They said, ‘No, it has to be now, because we need to know the timing.’ I thought that was impossible. You can’t have a serious conversation with someone while the next stall is having a serious conversation. That was the genius of this scene. Because it cut out the sentimentality of this mother and son finally realizing what the score was and that they loved each other. ”
Muniz went on to say that in the end, Malcolm did what his parents did as a child out of love, not malice.
“In that moment, he realized that because they did it, because they put pressure on him, he was able to succeed as a father, as a lover, as a business owner,” Muniz says. “He’s successful because of that pressure.”
“Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” is available on Hulu.
