Did Bryan Cranston Just Doxx Dewey From ‘Malcolm in the Middle’?

Hal is one of my favorite TV dads. He loves his wife and kids, is goofy as f***, and can roller skate with the best of ‘em. The character came a long way from being a bad boy who smoked cigarettes and cheated on his girlfriend with her sister. He married that sister and kept a dead-end job to help support their family (while occasionally skipping work to visit theme parks). He’s a simple man who, again, loves his wife and would do anything just to lie in bed with her for several moments a day. The dude rules. However, it is a sitcom, so he isn’t without his shenanigans.

As already mentioned, it was revealed at one point that he would play hooky at work to go have fun without his family. Hal! There was also that time when he worked the overnight shift at his wife’s (Lois) job, only to mobilize the other employees against management in a showdown fit for Helm’s Deep. Oh! Also! Let’s not forget the time that Dewey retired from public life, asking his friends and family to keep his location a secret, and Hal revealed it to the world while talking about how proud of him he is. Wait! That wasn’t the show. That was real life!!

Malcolm in the Middle is returning to television screens with a reboot/revival/legasequel/regular sequel/who the f*** knows anymore on Disney+. Almost the entire cast is returning to see what Malcolm and his family have been up to over the nearly twenty years since the show ended (thank god I was already lying down when I wrote that). Eric Per Sullivan, who played Dewey on the show, will not return. He’s been privately attending college. That has seemed to be the case for a while, with Lois actor Jane Kaczmarek noting that Sullivan had asked everyone to remain quiet about where he was attending school. Bryan Cranston apparently didn’t get that memo.

Cranston was recently on the Fly on the Wall podcast and was asked about the revivalboot. He reflected on how long it’s been since the show started, saying, “It’s amazing how these boys who were my boys on that show are now around the same age I was when we first started, and they’ve got children of their own.” He then explained that he reached out to Per Sullivan directly about the show. “I talked to Eric and I said, ‘Hey, we got the show! It’s going to come back,’” Cranston explained. “He goes, ‘Oh, that’s fantastic!’ And I go, ‘Yeah, so we’re looking forward to having you back.’ He goes, ‘Oh, no, no, I don’t want to do it. But it’s fantastic.’” At least he got let down easily.

It’s the next part that made me spit out my morning coffee. “He’s actually going to Harvard,” Cranston noted. “He’s really, really smart, and he’s getting his master’s at Harvard right now. He said, ‘Oh God, no, I haven’t acted since I was 9 or something. So I’m not into it.’” Not only did the man reveal Dewey’s location, but he also doubled down! Everyone else has been so careful, and he just told David Spade and Dana Carvey like it was nothing! He’s proud of Per Sullivan, that’s clear, but it is very much a Hal move to be beaming with pride only to screw up in a way that may be against one of his kids’ wishes. If Cranston is still this much in character, the new show should be pretty great.