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 television’s most beloved dysfunctional families, but this time out they get to hash out some of their emotional baggage.
In a pivotal scene in the final episode, Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) and his mother, Lois (Jane Kaczmarek), finally get into a serious conversation about how Malcolm grew up, and the pressure he felt after being told his parents expected him to become president of the United States.
“I love that scene, because Malcolm has put so much pressure on himself and he’s avoided talking about it, kind of the elephant in the room,” Muniz tells Variety. “So when he’s confronted in the bathroom, he really gets to unleash and say, ‘This hurt me. The way you guys parented me, and the pressure you put on me, it really affected me as a person.’”
Of course, it wouldn’t be “Malcolm in the Middle” if the scene was played totally straight. Craig (David Higgins) charges into the bathroom at one point while experiencing, shall we say, digestive issues and locks himself in one of the stalls, proceeding to make some very disturbing sounds.
“It was probably one of the most difficult things I did, because Craig was in the next stall making those noises,” Kaczmarek says. “I said ‘He’s not really going to be doing that? Can’t you just lay those in when we after we shoot the scene?’ They said, ‘No, they have to be now, because you have to know the timing of it. I thought it was impossible. You cannot possibly have a serious conversation with someone while that’s going on in the next stall. That was the genius of that scene, because it cut any sentimentality of this mother and son finally realizing what the score was and that they loved each other.”
Muniz went on to say that Malcolm finally that his parents did what they did during his childhood out of love rather than malice.
“He realizes in that moment that because they did that, because they put that pressure on him, it made him be the success that he is, as a father, as a boyfriend, as a business owner,” Muniz says. “He has success, and it was because of that pressure.”
“Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” is now streaming on Hulu.
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