The revival series Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair is now streaming on Disney Plus, 20 years after the original show ended. For those needing a refresher, the 2006 finale set up several key plot points that the new episodes revisit.
The finale opened with Malcolm, Reese and Dewey on the sofa watching their father Hal electrocute himself while trying to fix the broken television. That scene foreshadows what Reese is later seen doing in the revival. The main storyline followed Malcolm and Reese as they prepared to graduate from high school together, despite having very different academic records.
Reese was being forced to move out, having landed a job as assistant janitor at the school. He planned to create a mess that would take more than 30 days to clean up, hoping to avoid losing the position due to union rules. Meanwhile, Malcolm was set to attend Harvard University, with campus jobs arranged and an alternative high-paying job rejected because his mother Lois insisted he finish his education.
On the way to the graduation ceremony, Reese's oil barrel of filth exploded, covering the family. Lois then revealed her hopes for Malcolm to eventually become President, a plan that Hal and Francis said they had always known about. Hal even suggested that a life of luxury was 'that's Dewey', which proves accurate in the revival.
Three months later, Jamie and Dewey were hiding in a closet, Reese had settled into living with Craig, and Francis was still pretending to be unemployed while holding a stable office job. Hal claimed everything had worked out as planned, just before Lois showed him a positive pregnancy test, prompting a scream. Reese later framed his boss for installing peepholes in the girls' locker room and took over his job. Malcolm, meanwhile, was working as a janitor at Harvard while also attending classes.
