Mono: Opinion and Analysis

reese35

New member
I have to say, this is one of those episodes that make you say... "Kick-ASS"!

The cold opener was funny. Reese steps on something, "Damn it!", hops home, steps to Dewey, "Damn it!" The fact that it came from Dewey made it all the more funny.

The Hal plot was pretty good. The 'neighbors' setting Hal up with that woman Ellie was good. I mean, Ellie starts falling in love with Hal and he don't know it. But Hal, or should I say Cranston's, impersonations impressed me.

The Reese/Dewey/Jamie plot was pretty good too. Dewey makes Jamie work for him, Reese wants a deal, whch lead to Reese learning - yes, LEARNING - good manners and treating people with respect. Enough to make you say, "Take me home, Lord, I've seen it all!":p

But the funniest plot I saw was with Lois and Malcolm. Sure it's boring for the first couple minutes, but when they bond by way of the shopping network, recite that infomercial for the Pizzazzler, start talking "Pizzazzlese", even Pizzazle the room and themselves, you'll REALLY find yourself saying, "Take me home, Lord, I have DEFINITELY seen it all!":p But as we find out secrets about themselves, one wonders if this really is the beginning of the end of MitM:Bohoo:. But enough about that. Anyway, near the end, after Lois razzing on Malcolm about leaving the fridge door open, turning into another bitchfest, we don't need to check the speakers and the screens to see that they're back to their own selves.

Personally, this was, in the words of Dewey Wilkerson, "bad-ass"... and a good start of the countdown to the final episode of MitM.

Hal - ***1/2
D-R-J - ***1/5
Mal-Lola - ****
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
To me, this "new" episode was sort of a repeat. The ideas felt used already. Hal's plot reminded me of Block Party, and Reese and Malcolm's of Jessica Stays Over.

Those are my inital ideas, and I don't want to forget them, but I'm falling asleep right now, so I'll elaborate tomorrrow. :D
 

Wildcat

Retired Moderator
I didn’t have very high hopes for this episode, but I found myself surprised. I ended up really enjoying it. I can see where one might say the ideas in this episode were very similar to those in past episodes. We find Hal making friends with the neighbors again and Lois and Malcolm bonding again, but even so I still found it quite entertaining. While the ideas may have been similar, they were done in a completely different fashion from what we’ve seen before. I laughed out loud several times, which is something I haven’t been doing too much of this season.

I really enjoyed the Malcolm/Lois bonding plot because it’s something that we don’t get to see very often. We got a taste of it in Jessica Stays Over, but I think that they explored the idea even further in this episode. The look on Malcolm’s face was priceless when he found out that he would have share a bed with his mom for two weeks. He started out thinking that it was going to be absolute torture, but he ended finding an unlikely “friend” before it was over. Of course, all bets were off when things went back to normal. The whole “pizazzler” theme was funny because it was a play on how those infomercials can suck you in and make you think that you need stuff that you have absolutely no use for. I thought it was hilarious how one minute they wanted to change the channel, then the next they were reciting the pizazzler tag line. Seeing Lois and Malcolm get all excited about using the product to the point that they even formed their own little language around it was entertaining as well, even if things did get a little...uh…weird towards the end.

Dewey’s, Reese’s and Jamie’s plot was pretty good, but nothing really special. I enjoyed it simply for the fact that I love Dewey/Reese storylines (which we’ve been seeing a lot of this season.) It’s funny to see them interact with each because their different personalities are so extreme that they compliment each other. Dewey tries to teach Reese about respect and manners only for Reese to realize that even though people will do more things for him when he’s nice, he’s simply not happy unless he’s bullying someone around. Just as well, we saw what happens to Reese when he’s forced to use good manners in College Recruiters and that’s just not who he is.

Hal’s plot about making new friends with the neighbors was good, but my least favorite overall. I liked the little twist that they threw in with Ellie. The idea that Ellie could go through the course of an entire relationship and Hal not even realize what’s going on was amusing. It was pretty good how Hal would do things that made Ellie think that he really liked her, when in reality his motives were completely different (like giving her the flowers so he can clean up the broken vase.) I especially liked the end when he stood up for Lois after the truth of how everyone felt about her came out even though it meant that all the fun he was having would have to end.
 

NeCoHo

Retired Mod
I loved the cold opener, first off, Classic Reese coming back there.

And indeed, a classic Reese comes pack throughout the entire episode. "you can't have a slave, you're my slave" You can't get much more Reese that that! :D

And Hal is becoming much more dense as the season, and series progresses, was he so dense as to not realize when someone likes him, heck, I'm a trumpet player(pretty much as dense as you can get), and even I notice when a girl likes me.

The new concept of being nice and Reese was really funny. I really enjoyed watching Reese actually get what he wanted (a soda)

But something that has been buging me, unless the pizzazaler had over night delivery, they would have never covered the room with rhinestones in a fortnight.(a fortnight is 14 days)

Overall, I think it was a pretty good episode. I would say 3.5/5
 

xDarkDovex

New member
Mono. >;o!

Did anyone see it? I saw it! It was a good episode, even with them being older in it. I think Dewey's voice has changed. >;o!
 

Malcoholic

New member
The high point for me was the visual spectacle of Malcolm and Lois in their "Pizzazzled" dreamscape, an amazing feat of set designing. The story itself showed them undergoing a radical change in personality as a result of being temporarily removed from their normal roles as parent and child; they go from being antagonists to being pals. The idea is that one's personality is not just an innate trait, but involves a good deal of role-playing that is dictated by one's situation in life:
Lois: "Plenty of days I come home tired from work. The last thing I want to do is be Lois."
Malcolm: "I guess I do the same thing. Sometimes when I come home from school, I don't feel like arguing with you, but it's like that's my job."
There's an ironic tie-in to Hal's story: just as the neighbors are calling Lois a "pill," she's turned, temporarily, into a fun gal.

I'm inclined to view Hal's cluelessness about the neighbor divorcee's advances as stemming not from dumbness but from having such an extreme attachment to Lois that the thought of infidelity never crosses his mind--it's Valentine's Day, so the more romantic interpretation feels right!

The little side story about the true spirit of bullying amounted to easy paychecks for Justin and Erik, but Jamie did a lot of acting, or whatever a two-year-old does that looks like acting. The joke hinges on a typical MITM ironic twist: it goes from Dewey giving Reese lessons on how to be nice, to Reese giving Jamie lessons on how to be a bully. It also has some of the funnier lines:
Dewey: "Now pat him on the shoulder ... It's like a slap, but slower."
And this perverse piece of values clarification from Reese:
"Wow! I just realized I lost sight of what's really important! It's not that I like having a slave getting me things. It's that I like to have a slave so I can watch him suffer while he's getting me things!"
 

Dabney

Deutscher Moderator
In my opinion this was a really good episode. The cold opener was indeed totally funny and reminded me of the season 1 and 2 Reese.
The Hal plot was really cool. Hal having an affair without noticing it. Typical Hal story. Amazing!
The DeweyReeseJamie plot was fantastic, too, mostly because Jamie played such a big role in it and I like Jamie a lot. And we again get to see Dewey being nice and close to Jamie.
The Malcolm plot was so amusing. Again he thought he would have developed a deep relationship to Lois, but when they get back to normal life he finds out that he was wrong. Poor Malcolm, but funny for us.
Great episode!
 

simon_4420

New member
I really liked this episode, It felt like Malcolm in the Middle again! The last two, although good didn't have that much of a MITM feel. I thought all the storylines were great!:D They all worked well together, but the Lois and Malcolm one was definatly my favourite with the shopping chanel and the pizzazalers, lol.
It was great to see Jamie doing some more acting:D . There was one thing that I thought was odd... Why would Dewey and Reese spread a rumour about their own brother kissing their mother around school??, Just seemed odd to me, although it was pretty funny!
 
D

Deleted member 1693

Guest
Oh, man... This episode reminds me of the days when my brother and I couldn't find anything to watch at my grandma's (she doesn't have cable...). We always turned to the magic channel... the lucky 18. Half the time, there are really corny Korean dramas, and the other half are infomercials. We would watch every minute of them. Sometimes we would make fun of it, other times we would just learn about the product. But we were hooked.
 
D

Deleted member 1693

Guest
I couldn't stand them before, either. But when you're as braindead bored as we were, you just have to see something.
 
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