‘Malcom in the Middle’ Reboot Team Was Psyched for That Big Cameo

Other parents will often ask me how I stay so up-to-date with the goings-on in pop culture despite having kids, and the answer is often that I have this job. Monday through Friday, I spend my mornings combing the internet to see what folks are talking about, carving out my own little niche, and writing about it. Usually, I don’t care about the things that get spoiled for me, but this morning, I was kind of annoyed, which is my way to say that this post contains a spoiler for the Malcom in the Middle reboot that released today, but that I haven’t seen yet, but I’m being nicer about it than some people!

I get it, you need to hop on stories, and this one seems like it got put out there to help get more eyes on the show, and I appreciate that, but dagnabbit, this is about something that apparently happens in the last episode! Give us the weekend at least! But, they didn’t. Instead, Deadline is reporting that a big cameo at the end of this season was met enthusiastically by all involved. The actor in question had their team call specifically to get them on set, and the rest worked out swimmingly. This is your last chance to turn back, so you don’t know who I’m talking about.

Linwood Boomer, creator of Malcom in the Middle, told the outlet that Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard wanted to be in the show, and that they were happy to have him. “His agent called us and said, ‘Can Finn visit the set?’ We go, ‘S***, yeah,’” Boomer explained. “He loves the show, he’s such a big fan of the show, and we’re like, ‘Well, there’s a part we haven’t cast yet. Does he wanna do that? I mean, it’s a small part.’ And he said, ‘F*** yeah, he wants to do it.’ And we were like, ‘F*** yeah, we want you to come, that’d be awesome.’”

Am I annoyed that I already know about this?! A bit. Does the sweetness of the situation outweigh that? Absolutely. I love Malcom in the Middle, and, apparently, so does Wolfhard. So much so that he forgot some of his lines. “He was so great. He’s so charming, it’s so fun to watch him do comedy,” Producer Tracy Katsky noted. “He was so cute with Lois, Jane Kaczmarek. He was standing there, and he kept forgetting to deliver his lines, because he was just so overwhelmed that Lois was screaming at him, and he’d kind of go, ‘Oh wait, I have to act. OK, OK.’ It was so cute.” That is pretty cute.

Bryan Cranston also explained that he was starstruck by Wolfhard, which makes the whole thing pretty adorable. I would have very much preferred that they save adding this story to Deadline’s top-10 stories until, like, I dunno, Monday, but it does make me even more excited to watch. It’s also not like this spoils a huge plot detail. But he was even in the header picture! Be cool, Deadline!

I’ll get over it. Eventually.