What did Lois do before working at the Lucky Aid?

yardgames

Retired Administrator
For crusing boxes outside the designated box-crushing area. :D

And thanks for clearing up Lois' dreams for us.
 

tony_montana

Semper Fidelis
Lol, that get's me everytime...the designated box crushing area.:D
Another good question we can add to this is what Lois COULD have done before working at Lucky Aide? Could she have been a teacher(she strikes me as the English teacher type)? Is Lois smart enough to do anything(I believe she is because I believe Malcolm got his geniusness from Lois)?
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
Good question. Lois definitely isn't dumb, but there was something that happened that's sort of left up to the viewer to infer between college and meeting/cleaning up/marrying Hal and having kids. Something must happen to Hal to to make him go from being tatooed drinking bastard (for lack of a better word) to relatively good job-holding and financially healthy husband.
 

PBUNDY

New member
I definately agree that Malcolm got his geniusness from Lois. What do you guys think of Hal's intelligence? Do you think he's actually stupid, like Reese or do you think on some level he's smart?
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
I think he's very smart on some level...perhaps he's afraid to show it because Lois has always been the dominant figure in his adult life, and he never really had a proper childhood--never received enough attention from his parents. So he tries to make his adult life, in some respects, a better childhood.
 

Nico21

New member
I don't think Hal is an idiot, but he is not as smart as Malcolm neitheir.
He could have been like Francis when he was young: he used to do a lot of bad stuff (which is often reminded in the series), but Lois completely changed his life.
(During season 7 the same thing happens to Francis, after having married Piama, he becomes more responsible, he finds a job and stops making stupid things. But he still has bad relationships with Lois, like Hal had with his father: they can't have a serious conversation together).


Although they have much things in common, I don't think Malcolm's geniusness comes from Lois neither. She is only a supermarket employee, far from her expectations for Malcolm ! If she had been more qualified, I think she would have a job with a better wage !


I think the answer to this question "where do you think that came from ?" (asked by Hal when Lois told Malcolm had an IQ of 165) is in the episode "therapy": Malcolm doesn't understand why he is in this family !
 

Wildcat

Retired Moderator
Nice ideas eveyone! I'm pulling a TJ and catching up on missed posts. :D Like most of you, I don't think Lois had a significant job before the lucky aid. Maybe she did some small stuff in college--grocery store clerk or something like that, but I don't believe she ever actually had a professional 'carreer.' They met in college and she got pregnant with Francis before they were married, so I don't think she ever finished college. Francis was obviously an accident--I think they were planning to get married after they both finished college and be situated in good carreers before having children, but Francis messed up those plans. So she probably quit college and quit whatever job she might have been doing at the time so she could stay home and take care him. I think Hal's salery would have been enough to support them when before there were so many of them.

I don't think Hal is really stupid, but he does have a lot in common with Reese as far as being childish and immature. But there have been times when he's had some good ideas too, liked when he helped the Krelboynes build that robot in the Bots and the Bees, or the baseball thrower for Lois in Lois Strikes Back. I think he's just still a kid at heart, which is why he does the silly little things he does. It good though because he and Lois balance each other out well--Lois usually serious and overbearing while Hal likes to have fun and is nowhere near as strict. It would be bad for the boys either way if they had 2 parents like Lois or 2 parents like Hal.
 

tony_montana

Semper Fidelis
Reading Christina's post, I started to think about it, and I believe Francis was far apart from Lois and Hal(well, mainly Lois) because he found out he was just an "accident" and that probably made him mad. What do you guys think?
...geez, now I feel really bad for Francis....:(
 

simon_4420

New member
I think Lois hasn't really done much IMO since leaving College. I don't think she needed to work when she met Hal and had Francis as Hal could surport them both on his wages, but after the others were born Hal was moved to a different office at work (as we saw from Flashback) and made less money so Lois started to work when pregnant with Malcolm/Dewey (I'm sure in one episode she say's that she was working while heavily pregnant). This would kind of make sense as to why she is working at Lucky Aide as she would of had no experience of work since college. And in a season one episode Lois mentioned that the hours were flexible at Lucky Aide.

I would have to say that IMO they have no money even though both Hal and Lois work pretty much full-time, is the BOYS! Think about how much damage they have caused over the years, most of it Hal and Lois would have had to foot the bill:p
 

Nico21

New member
Lois said she worked while pregnant with Reese and Malcolm in the episode where she becomes fat, just before Jamie's birth.
She also said that she couldn't pretend to some helps because she doesn't have a full time job (this may be in season 7).

But I agree with you, Lois didn't need to work before Malcolm's birth, because Hal's wages were sufficient for them to live.


Concerning Francis, he looks like the idea I have about Hal's childhood.
As I said in my previous post, they seem to have about the same behaviour while growing up.

And Hal doesn't really have a feeling of rejection from his family (his parents), but he has a problem with his father, with who he can't talk seriously (remember ep 3 of season 4).

I think there are many things in common between the 2 characters, and they seem quite close in the series (to my mind, Francis looks closer to Hal than Reese does).
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
I have a couple of contributions to make to this thread.

First of all, Hal is alienated by his father, who he never had a relationship with, except for when he said he was reading the paper, drinking coffee, and talking to Hal all at the same time. The rest of his family still treats Hal ok, but have always disagreed with his choice of wife, so they almost never see each other due to the tension caused by the family's hatred for Lois.

Hal and Francis are A LOT closer than Hal and his father. One of the brilliant strengths of the series is how the parent's--especially Hal's--love for their kids is conveyed. One particular scene in Hal's Birthday puts me in tears everytime:

Francis: "It was just so quick, you know? If you know you're with the right person, why not go for it? Why not get married?"
Hal: "I would have come, Francis?"
Francis: "What?"
Hal: "I would have come to your wedding. If I was invited, I would have come."
Francis: "I'm sorry."

And complete silence.
 

tony_montana

Semper Fidelis
You get emotional wayyy too easy.:D
But still, that's a pretty sad scene. At least Hal and Francis made up for it with the big motorcycle trip.:)
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
You know what other scene always puts me in tears, that I just watched this morning as a matter of fact, is the diaper-dropping at the end of Reese Comes Home. Dewey and Malcolm think their brother is dead, and then he shows up and they all hug each other--that is perhaps the saddest happy scene in all of MITM! :)
 

PBUNDY

New member
Another scene that I thought was really sad was when Malcolm was giving his valedictory speech at the end of Graduation. Maybe it just got to me because I graduated from high school two weeks after the finale aired. I don't know. Bryan looked so sad sitting in the audience listening to the speech and Jane looked like she was going to break down at any minute. You could tell she was fighting back tears.
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
That was probably one of the most emotional scenes for the cast because it was one of their last scenes. I really enjoyed that scene, definitely, but I think if they hadn't been so rushed they could have made that scene a bit more sentimental with some clips and a little more of the speech. I don't think that would have been too touchy-feely right after Lois' "great expectations" speech.
 

Ryebeach

Moderator
yardgames said:
You know what other scene always puts me in tears, that I just watched this morning as a matter of fact, is the diaper-dropping at the end of Reese Comes Home. Dewey and Malcolm think their brother is dead, and then he shows up and they all hug each other--that is perhaps the saddest happy scene in all of MITM! :)
To me, that's also the most emotional scene in the series. In rare times do the characters truly say how they feel to each other. They say it to themselves sometimes and Malcolm is always sharing his feelings with the camera but towards each other, almost everything goes unsaid. In this one brief yet amazing scene, Dewey and Malcolm are honest with each other about how they feel about Reese and how it will never be the same without him. In those few moments, the audience sees that no matter how many fights they get into, how many arguments and acts of one upmanship they attempt to prove, in the end, they're brothers and this scene shows us how important that is both when they think Reese is dead and when he shows up there. :)
 

tony_montana

Semper Fidelis
Graduation was a great episode because not only was it emotional, it was just plain funny.:) Like at the graduation scene itself, I love how they lightened the mood by having Hal and Francis talk about their cubicle jobs and getting the joke emails(did you get the one about the two Irish guys?).:D
Dammit, I love MITM.
 

Wildcat

Retired Moderator
Ryebeach said:
To me, that's also the most emotional scene in the series. In rare times do the characters truly say how they feel to each other. They say it to themselves sometimes and Malcolm is always sharing his feelings with the camera but towards each other, almost everything goes unsaid. In this one brief yet amazing scene, Dewey and Malcolm are honest with each other about how they feel about Reese and how it will never be the same without him. In those few moments, the audience sees that no matter how many fights they get into, how many arguments and acts of one upmanship they attempt to prove, in the end, they're brothers and this scene shows us how important that is both when they think Reese is dead and when he shows up there. :)

That's also one of my favorite scenes of the entire series. If I had to choose, I would say that's probably the most serious and emotional scene of the series. Malcolm's speech in graduation was emotional too, but like yardgames said, it really would have been more touching if it were longer with prehaps some clips to go along with it.

Another scene that I find emotional (but not nearly as much as the one from Reese Joins the Army) is the one at the end of Reese vs. Stevie where Reese is telling Malcolm that he's upset because Malcolm is spending all his time with Stevie and not with his brothers when he only has a few months left before starting college. Again, it's one of the few times when we they actually put into words how much they really care for each other.
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
But Reese is still ashamed of expressing himself in Reese vs. Stevie. In Hal's Christmas Gift, we learned about how much of a sin it is to express emotions in the Wilkerson household. What's special about Reese Comes Home is that the boys have no regard for their rule of no emotion.
 
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