While Lois is in labor, the house is hectic, and Hal, desperate to get home, has crashed the car on the way out of the expo.

An academic competition faces the Krelboynes in an event Malcolm derides. Especially when he learns his teacher has a cheating plan. Also: a commitment to a formal dance ruffles Reese,…

High school’s first day vexes Malcolm, who acquires an unfortunate nickname; and Hal, a parental “volunteer” running afoul of authority.

Malcolm and his Krelboyne classmates enlist the help of Hal for a school project, which involves a robot, and an enormous swarm of bees. Lois visits Francis at his school…

A spiffy cheerleader attracts slovenly Reese, who cleans up his act—best as he can—to woo her. He even joins her rah-rah squad. Dewey tries to convince Lois and Hal to…

The whole family attends a Krelboyne family picnic, and Malcolm dreads his performance in the event’s Academic Circus will make him look like a freak. Disasters abound as stage acts…

A cooking class energizes Reese; a planned party irks Malcolm, whose brutal honesty hurts the hostess, Krelboyne Cynthia.

Dewey starts carrying a purse to school. Francis’s friend Richie joins him at military school. Malcolm becomes a slave to an old woman in the neighborhood.

Malcolm’s humiliation as a Krelboyne drives him crazy, so he fakes his way into seeing the school’s shrink, with whom the con continues.

Francis visits the week after Halloween and helps his brothers in a trick that involves a giant slingshot with icky ammo. Hal tries to catch a mysterious hot-rodder.

Back in the general school population, the Krelboyne whiz kids wind up in cliques with jocks, skateboarders and brooding “Goths.”

The return of the smart and sassy Cynthia rattles Malcolm, who’s astonished by her physical maturation. And so is drooling Reese.

In an effort to contribute to society and to make her boys useful at the same time, Lois “volunteers” Malcolm, Reese and Dewey for charity work at a local church….

Malcolm has a new light in his life: a perky classmate named Sara (whose face, in a quirky touch, is never shown). But, according to Malcolm , she’s “”good-looking and…