I've been binge watching this considering that Disney Plus and Hulu are one of my exceptions to "no subscriptions" due to AmEx paying for most of it.
I got to the episode "Flashback" which I think is my favorite one so far, and I'm not sure how it got on the air.
I liked that episode because it shows the backstory of Hal and Lois having kids.
It started with a "shotgun wedding" because Lois was already pregnant with Francis.
Then it went from "These people are yuppies and they have lots of disposable income. Hal is clearly moving up the corporate ladder." to "each time they have a kid it gets visibly worse".
By the time they have Francis and Reese and Lois is about to give birth to Malcolm (in the front lawn in front of the neighbors, because Francis assumes he's going to the doctor for a vaccine and locks Lois out of the car), they have already had to trade-in their "nice apartment with night clubs and trendy restaurants and stuff" to "Hal pulls up to his tiny home that hasn't been remodeled in 30 years in his luxury car, which has rusted and has become an eyesore".
Hal got a demotion at work because he went to his boss and explained that he's a parent now and he needs more time off, so his boss smiles and says "Sure Hal, we understand." (this is boss speak for a backstabbing about to happen), then it flashes forward to "Hal's office being moved to a supply room next to the toilets" while his boss promotes the guy that Hal trained.
(As people come out of the bathrom next to Hal's desk, Hal has become numb to the fact that all he can do is spray a can of air freshener in that direction.)
Never once does it occur to them that they went from being yuppies with a nice apartment, a luxury car, and no debt, to "Crappy house, can only afford groceries on double coupon day, and the credit card companies calling them." because they won't stop having kids.
Presumably Hal's Jaguar went from being an eyesore to breaking down offscreen, and having just barely paid off the Jaguar without being sued by the finance company and being forced to drive it until the wheels fell off, he had to trade it in for scrap metal prices to get a used minivan that (in a previous episode where they should not have been driving it to the water park) overheats if you don't leave the heat on.
(In a previous episode, where Lois's parents accidentally blow up the refrigerator, Hal demanded $3,000 to "pay off some credit cards, replace the fridge, and finally get that transmission fixed", remember this was 2001. This van has a lot of problems and presumably breaks down a lot and lives in the shop, but Hal can't afford to replace it either, so it's a money pit.)
Francis would have been about my age. He was their oldest.
They sent him off to military school because he was the worst delinquent out of the bunch; even worse than Reese.
Reese was just a bully, but the problem was sort of self-limiting because there was no brain.
Francis was not as smart as Malcolm, but he was clearly intelligent. Not intelligent enough to avoid getting caught, but intelligent enough to explain his way out and return to baseline. Malcolm is their best one. Brilliant and not really a troublemaker.
Dewey is manipulative, but too immature for it to hold together very long, but long enough to cause Hal and Lois serious problems. Dealing with all four of them at once proved disastrous, and they're already stretched down to the last penny to keep Francis contained.
The "Flashback" episode where they're panicking that Lois "is late" and Hal had to run to a store to get a pregnancy test was brilliant. I was explaining it to my partner. He's not from this country.
I explained how each child was setting them back financially and a fifth one would "certainly land them in bankruptcy court".
Throughout the episode, Dewey was watching them argue through the eyes of a small child, and assuming they would get a divorce because he had no idea what was happening.
I'm surprised they allowed this on TV. It shows a terrifyingly accurate financial portrayal of an upwardly mobile young couple cut down in their prime working years by unplanned children.
Against a backdrop of "Don't think about it, just produce children for Capitalism and The State. Fertility crisis!"
Although to be fair, this nonsense had not fully intensified until the past 5 years or so, and this show was a product of the early 2000s when the United States was still pretty great.
The episode resolves with "Lois isn't pregnant and they escaped financial ruin, but the relief of the marital tension leaves Hal and Lois running towards the bedroom, again, having learned absolutely nothing even in the wake of a possible crisis."
No disaster today, maybe next month.
I told my partner, "The complete irony is that they're living in the peak of the richest nation on Earth. Hal could have ended this growing crisis at any time by spending $500-600 on a simple procedure and chased Lois around the house whenever he wanted to starting about a week later. This would have ended a multi-million dollar drain on the finances and he could have been promoted instead of the guy he trained, and Hal might even be the CEO of the company by the time the show takes place."
This correlated to my observation of Hal. He's burned out, he's got brains that he's never been allowed to use, he's resentful of that boss to make a supreme understatement.
In a previous episode, he told his boss that his job is "mind-numbing crap" and pulled the phone clear out of the wall to go build a Battle Bot in the backyard, then managed to remain employed somehow.
In that episode, Hal let loose that he planned to sic the battlebot armed with table saws on his boss's luxury car, then target the boss himself with a laser that aims a swarm of bees. Without Lois around to contain him, Hal becomes a liability to the family unit and himself, very quickly. That's what everyone wants to do on some level, but knows they can't because it comes complete with felony charges.
Surviving the "telling the boss off and ripping the phone out of the kitchen wall", which is where it actually ended, leads me to believe that they're using Hal badly. He is irreplaceable. They won't promote him, but they won't fire him.They know exactly what they've done to him and they don't care.
Had Hal actually let out his battlebot fantasy, the specific Illinois compiled statutes are Criminal Damage to Property (720 ILCS 5/21-1), 2 to 5 years in a state correctional facility and fines up to $25,000 for the car.
Aggravated Battery (720 ILCS 5/12-3.05) which is a Class A Misdemeanor or can be elevated Class 3 Felony or Class 2 Felony depending on the severity of the anaphylactic shock or physical injury induced by the stings. Also, Stalking / Aggravated Stalking (720 ILCS 5/12-7.3 & 12-7.4): Pre-positioning a laser targeting array, tracking the boss’s movements outside the office, and calculating his daily spatial coordinates to launch an attack constitutes an organized course of conduct designed to place a reasonable person in fear of physical injury. This acts as a Class 4 Felony for a first offense, scaling immediately to a Class 3 Felony for Aggravated Stalking if a weapon or bio-hazard is deployed.
Reckless Conduct (720 ILCS 5/12-5): Testing high-velocity rotating saw blades and biological weapons directed by lasers in a dense residential neighborhood backyard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care, consciously disregarding a substantial risk to adjacent neighbors. This registers as a Class A Misdemeanor, carrying up to 364 days in a county jail.
Not to mention the separate DCFS investigation from building this thing in the backyard with three children present.
Under Illinois law (89 Ill. Adm. Code 300), DCFS does not require a formal criminal conviction to launch an aggressive intervention.
The Allegation: Testing rotating saw blades and weaponized insect swarms in a shared family environment constitutes an immediate allegation of Substantial Risk of Physical Injury / Environment Injurious to Health (Allegation 10/60).
The Mandatory Hold: The exact second a neighbor or a responding police officer logs that backyard setup, a mandatory reporting requirement is triggered. A DCFS investigator drops onto Hal’s front lawn within 24 hours, freezes his parental rights, and initiates a 60-day process (with the children in State custody) to determine if the children are facing a state of Intellectual and Physical Child Neglect.
The total would be up to 16 years in state prison and a potential fine of over $100,000. That's before he gets restitution (or sued) for the car and the hospital bills. If his boss went into anaphylactic shock from the bees and died, it would have been First Degree Murder (720 ILCS 5/9-1).
To say Hal hates his boss at this point is a massive understatement.
Even where the show stopped him, he was already facing Reckless Endangerment and DCFS had the State become aware.
I've had a few "Hal" moments where I snapped and said something I shouldn't to a middle manager. At least I never ever seriously entertained the idea of a battlebot against any of mine. They won't tell you this but they expect you to vent. They know that being disrespected, used, and underpaid builds up like a pressure cooker. The "Human Shield" is the middle manager. You're not supposed to hate anyone else. You're supposed to hate the middle manager. They're the ones that impose policies from upper management and take all the blame from the floor.
Attacking the "human shield" verbally accomplishes nothing, except it may get you targeted for workplace harassment designed to get you to leave. It's better to figure out where their operational visibility actually exists.
There's no telling what they actually would have done to Hal since we know he didn't get fired for yelling and then ripping his phone out of the kitchen wall, but I doubt he walked away from that either. Makes you wonder what a boss would do to a guy who was already spraying air freshener at the bathroom.
