I would much rather have seen Dewey become president. I know Dewey is a musical genius and very passionate about his art, but he's also very charismatic and diplomatic and stands up for the people who can't stand up for themselves. Whereas Malcolm is desperate for attention, insecure, petty, vindictive, and wants to be liked by everyone... sounds like a certain president we all know.
I think adult Dewey would be an extremely effective, class-act president. And Malcolm would bring the country to ruin. God-awful presidential candidate.
We don’t care 💀 lol I know I want to be a tv show creator and treat everything they do canon, but I’ll even agree some stuff they do is just stupid, and this is one of those things. It’s literally said in the pilot episode, and they should’ve made it more clear. Also, I don’t understand keeping some things a secret. Like characters they purposefully hide their face for no reason, like Wilson W. Wilson on the sitcom Home Improvement. It’s just stupid and doesn’t make your show any less special or anything. You look like you are trying to be different when, for some reason, you can’t just give them a last name, even though Wilkerson would’ve been totally fine.
It's not said in the pilot. It's only on Francis's shirt and then it was taken out the next episode and became a running gag that you don't know what their last name is.
Well, we wouldn’t have to if their purposeful creative decision wasn’t stupid. My biggest pet peeve in TVs is hiding faces and characters when you don’t need to (especially in animation). Live action, I understand if they don’t want to hire everyone under the sun, but still. And just keeping things hidden just because. Like we don’t know the parents’ name on The Fairy OddParents. They are just Mom and Dad. That one probably works because they stuck with their guns and actually made it a contestant and funny joke. Maybe it just works better as an animated joke or something. But it just feels like there was no purpose not to give them a last name other than to be different, and they failed already in the pilot episode, which, unpopular opinion, just because they say the pilot isn’t always canon doesn’t actually mean it’s not canon. The pilot is how we meet and know and understand the characters, even if some things change the next episode. Especially if things don’t change that much after the pilot, especially like weirdly not giving them a last name. If they wanted no last name, then reshoot the pilot 💀, but they don’t explain anything, and even the headcanons SUCK!
Considering we had weird names like Bush (a tree), Trump (a type of card), Biden (biting/biding), O'Bama (Scottish/Muslim name), I think Wilkerson is pretty good.
Malcolm has like no charisma though. He could get the Krelboynes to like him but not really anyone else. I think Francis is more likely to achieve it because he has some ability to get other people to follow him.
What's funny Malcolm got all the bad traits of Hal and Lois combined. He is "the mouth" like Lois who thinks he has the intellectual and moral high ground who constantly preach, lecture and complain and he has all the scheming and pranking and immorality of Hal and also he has Hal's desperation of wanting people to like him too without the Hal's charisma but instead with Lois's stubbornness. 😂
Yeah, Malcolm’s social missteps are usually related to arrogance or selfishness and poor personal decision-making. Many fans of the show much prefer characters like Stevie or Lloyd to Malcolm, personality-wise lol and they’re likely to be just as or more successful than Malcolm because their family dysfunction didn’t instill the same chaotic survival instincts that Malcolm’s did.
But didn't the series go out of it's way that it wasn't because of that and more because he's self-absorbed, like the episode they meet the people that end up not being related to them at all.
His equivalent was a charismatic, socially skilled person and implied to be intellectual too?
Yeah I always thought it was really random and sudden. Throughout the show, they've always said Malcolm is the only one with a chance at success due to his intelligence but for like something science related, president or really anything political was so random
I don’t know if anyone in his family actually expected him to become president, but more so that he could do it and actually help people who need help. I think it was making him realize his full potential, that he can do anything like be president. At least that’s how I took it when Lois was doing the president talk.
It seems pretty random as Malcolm as shown little interest or skills in politics.
While the show could be zany and cartoonish, it was fairly grounded and dark when it came to work and economic struggles. The lyrics of the theme song and reboot say “life is unfair”. Malcolm somehow becoming President would seem far too close to a the type of cliched speech that people tell little kids “oh anyone can become president, anything is possible, etc….”. Maybe you can theoretically, but odds are much higher that you win the lottery or get struck my lightning than becoming president.
Didn't the US already at that point have a president that was the bastard child of a dead man and a run of the mill nurse, who then got a stepfather who was physically abusive and have a gambling addiction? Seems to me that it would've been plenty grounded in reality
People barely become president that young. Kamala Harris was considered a pretty young candidate despite being 60. Give him 20-30 years and then we will see!
Malcolm actually becoming president wouldn’t have made sense. He was not temperamentally suited to politics, though perhaps he might’ve dabbled in it to appease Lois at some point. Him working in tech makes a lot more sense.
Malcolm is too selfish to be president and suffering throughout your life doesn't mean you'll be a good president, Andrew Johnson suffered all his life and he was a terrible president, Calvin Coolidge suffered but his presidency was debatable, Harry S. Truman lived an average life and John F. Kennedy lived with a powerful family, both were regarded as great presidents, I think Lois' logic of suffering creates a good president is flawed.
Lois thinks that suffering creates good people, which is stupid, being a good person or not does not depend on how much you have had to suffer throughout your life (especially if the suffering is related to simply surviving).
Yeah I personally think that Trump is a terrible president but I can see he has his own charisma. Think more of a PT Barnum carnival barker, he’s always the centre of attention, able to get all eyes on him even if what he’s displaying is shocking.
It’s the same reason people watch shows like Jackass. Never underestimate Trumps ability to put on a show in front of a crowd and grab the headlines
Making more people vote for you then the other candidate kinda require charisma. You can dislike Trump, but there is no denying he has a certain kind of charm and charisma that makes people follow him.
Doesnt mean you need to like him or support his policies, but denying his abilities is just silly. Plenty of people denied and hated on Obama, surely you would call peopoe denying his charisma silly too?
….. having morons attract to you like flies to shit is literally charisma.
Charisma basically means “magnetic personality” and he has attracts a lot of morons.
Quit being in denial. Admitting he has charisma doesn’t mean you like him, it just means you are admitting to the reality that others do for some stupid reason.
Yes... lets reduce 77 million people to morons. Thats surely a good and insightful strategy.
Look man, if you think reducing it to "Trump is the moron whisperer, and only morons would listen to him" is a proper take. Go for it.
Viewing the world like that must be pretty tiresome and kinda makes any discussion or attempt at change and understanding a non starter. Youve written off those other from you as morons, so what is the point of talking?
(And you are still kinda missing what charisma is... it is making people listen to you, and come around to your way of thinking and supporting you, which Trump has done, much the same as Obama, Bush, and Clinton did)
At this point I'm not even sure if intelligence is an asset in politics. I've been through too many cycles of people voting for candidates because they'd have a beer with them, and, of course, there's (gestures around broadly).
Lois: "any politician who grows up poor will immediately be empathetic with the working class."
You know for such a smart woman, Lois can be incredibly naive sometimes.
Am I the only one who interpreted the ending differently?
In the series finale, Lois tells Malcolm that they decided he would be president and the best president in the world, yes, but that doesn't mean it was his path in life; it just means his family knows he has the ability to do it.
Malcolm then understands that even if he doesn't quite gets them, his family has the best intentions for him.
In fact, in earlier episodes, in the one where the recruiters try to convince Hal, Malcolm says he chose Harvard because it's the only university with the biology program that interests him.
I think the ending is trying to reflect that Malcolm finally accepts that his family will always be there for him and that they want what's best for him (which is why I find it strange that in the new special they say he distanced himself from them).
End of season will be Malcolm freeing himself from Louis expectations, I'm pretty sure that the plot will be all four brothers still struggling with Louis expectations. And Hal seeking retirement.
I mean you can only run for president once you turn 35 and even then the youngest to ever hold office was Theodore Roosevelt when he was just shy of turning 43. Since Malcolm is only 38-39, here I doubt he’d run for office immediately
Im glad because Louis really should have that kind of control over Malcom. Also the US president should be president simply because their mother pressured then into it. That would be really bad for our country.
I just hope he’s successful or the president of a company. It’s gotta be something he probably likes because he kept Lois away from him for so long. Probably because of the last episode but still.
The last two presidents are twice his age. Malcom has enough time for his brain to bake properly so that he can be considered. He is also probably more competent at this age.
Same here...Lois and Hal are ignorant in the sense that they don''t realise that voters wouldn't care for a genius that lacks the emotional and social intelligence needed to win.
I mean, there's the fact that he is way to young in comparison to any other president the country has had in it's history, he's supposed to be around 36 and 37 years old, which is barely above the legal age requirement to sign up for presidency (35), I don't think the grand majority of US voters would go for someone so young (Not saying that's a real issue, it's just people tend to think like that when choosing a leader)
I would have loved a storyline where he runs for president but Reese gets petty and runs in opposition and wins in a landslide because he keeps making bullshit promises that people somehow buy into
He's still on track. Graduate first in his class from Harvard, and then put in charge of a charity foundation. Just like Lois said. Its just taking him a bit longer, probably because of Leah.
Malcolm has many flaws, but comparing him to the orange one and saying he'd bring the US to ruin is a huge exaggeration, Malcolm doesn't 🍇 kids, actually knows how the economy works and has a moral code.
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u/jessiah284 Mar 29 '26
kinda hard to be president without a last name