It's finally graduation day, and the family is struggling to find money for Malcolm's college tuition. Reese finds his dream job as assistant janitor from his high school and is set up to move in with Craig as soon as he graduates, and in a final honor to the event, Malcolm, Reese and Dewey decide to get rid of "The Nuclear Option".
This work contains examples of:
- Armor-Piercing Question: After Malcolm scoffs at the idea Lois and Hal genuinely expect him to become President of the United States, Lois replies "You look me in the eye and tell me you can't do it". Malcolm is left speechless.
- Babies Ever After: The epilogue reveals Lois is pregnant again and Piama admits she's ready to have children.
- Back for the Finale: Francis and Piama return after being absent since "A.A.". Stevie, Abe, Craig and Grandma Ida also appear in the episode.
- Big Brother Instinct: Only by seeing Dewey's expression when Lois goes to the closet, Francis dives in to save Dewey, asking for the explanations after they get away. While he is horrified when he learns about The Nuclear Option, he understands that Dewey didn't want to destroy memories of living with Malcolm and Reese.
- Book Ends: Some things match up with the pilot episode:
- Francis' name tags here and in the pilot are the only references to the family having a surname. It says "Wilkerson" in the pilot and "Nolastname" here.
- Both episodes end with the Citizen King song "Better Days (And The Bottom Drops Out)".
- Bring It: After having to drive eighty miles with Ida, Francis snaps and grabs a fire poker, intending to kill her. Ida responds with this.Francis: [grabbing the fire poker] There you are! I drove by eighty miles of blunt objects just to get to you! [facing Ida] I HOPE YOU RUN!Ida: You'd better make that first swing count, princess!
- Bounty Hunter: When Lois tells Francis to get a job, he tells her he's thinking of applying for a bounty hunter license.
- Death Glare: After Lois screws Malcolm over, Malcolm gives an absolutely seething one towards his mother in the van. Lois notices how angry he is towards her and tells him to let it all out.
- Do Wrong, Right: Ida advises Reese on finding a patsy to blame his stink bomb on before he sets it off.
- At the end of the episode, Reese tells Malcolm that Ida's advice about deflecting the attention was useful. Turns out that the head janitor was found with peeping holes in the girls' lockers, which gave Reese an immediate rank up.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Despite everything Francis has done, even he is horrified after learning that his brothers made Lois believe she had cancer.
- Feedback Rule: The microphone makes noise the moment the Principal says Malcolm's last name.
- Generation Xerox: Hal discovers that Francis has been employed for a while in an office desk job. Unlike Hal, Francis loves everything from the job: the cubicles, the stability, the paychecks, the parking spot, and the office emails with the lame jokes. In the epilogue, Francis goes to work in the same regular outfit Hal wears daily.
- Graduation for Everyone: Malcolm and Stevie graduate, as well as Reese, since he purposely repeated his senior year to have an extra year living in the house. It's not explained how he managed to graduate at all.
- Humble Goal:
- Reese is set up to work as the school's janitor after graduation, not only because that's one of the few low-paying jobs he can aspire to, considering his school records, but Reese genuinely loves it and everything it demands.
- Francis ends up finding his dream job in a blue-collar desk job like Hal, to the point he loves even the most simple and basic things that bored Hal about his own job.
- Averted with both Dewey and Malcolm. Malcolm eventually accepts that he has to work low-tier jobs to build his way up to be President. Dewey is also set to have a very wealthy life with an easier ride than Malcolm.
- Humiliation Conga: Lois admits that Malcolm needed to suffer more to be a good President since Lois thinks that was necessary to teach Malcolm that there's more in life than showing off how intelligent he is.
- Loan Shark: As his last resort, Hal goes to a loan shark and offers to get his limbs broken in exchange of publicity money he is not going to pay back. When the gangster outright says that he would just break his bones, not give him the money, and still get the same results, Hal just leaves.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Apparently, everyone in the family, even his brothers, was aware of Lois' plans to make Malcolm President. Francis says they didn't tell him because they thought Malcolm figured it out already.
- Misery Builds Character: Lois believes Malcolm will make a better president if he works menial jobs for years.
- Moral Event Horizon: Invoked. Malcolm states that The Nuclear Option is the only thing neither of them will rat on each other, no matter what (pretty big, considering that they had petty revenge rampages on each other for small things). They are not proud of it, even if they were in the moment.
- Noodle Incident:
- To prevent Francis from blackmailing him about The Nuclear Option, Dewey says "Mom's friend Jenny". Francis immediately leaves him off the hook.
- Lois mentions that the last time she refused Ida, someone (presumably at Ida's behest) dropped a pig's head down the chimney.
- Pet the Dog: In the epilogue, Craig finally is getting treated well after being The Chew Toy for seven seasons. After being roommates for three months, Craig is overjoyed when Reese gives him exactly what he wanted for his birthday, since he actually listened to him, and even makes him a birthday cake.
- Ridiculously Successful Future Self: It turns out the family has been planning for years for Malcolm to grow up to be President of America. Hal implies Dewey is scheduled to have a more luxurious life than Malcolm.
- Scholarship Student: During the episode, the family is trying to rack up enough money to pay for Malcolm's tuition, which includes one scholarship, Malcolm works three shifts in the cafeteria, the library, and as a janitor, and they are still short. Malcolm later finds out that Harvard withdrew one of his scholarships to fund a study on what happens to people who can't afford college.
- Series Continuity Error: In "Bomb Shelter", Lois wins a new van after spending two days without letting go. The family goes to the graduation in the old van and there's no sight of the new car.
- Sibling Team: In the Epilogue, Dewey and Jamie hide in the closet after another mess, and he smiles when he realizes that he and Jamie are still together in the pranks.
- Unconfessed Unemployment: Inverted where Francis' reveals he has a good office job but just pretends to be unemployed to annoy Lois.
- The Unreveal: The last name of the family is unrevealed.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Lois tells Susan on the phone that Ida bullied her into giving them their remaining ticket for the graduation. After the sludge bomb explodes and Ida says that she is going for tea while the rest of the family is cleaning the mess, she isn't seen with the others at the ceremony.
- Where Are They Now: The episode ends with a three month Time Skip after graduation.
- Dewey and Jamie are still making disasters in the house.
- Reese and Craig have a happy relationship as roommates.
- Francis keeps arguing with his mom on the phone, while he is still Happily Married to Piama and enjoying his steady job.
- Hal and Lois discover that they are going to have another kid.
- Reese gets to be the main janitor after the previous one was fired for making peeping holes in the bathrooms.
- Malcolm is attending classes at Harvard while working as a janitor as well.
