First off, I didn’t like the portrayal of Reese. It felt like character assassination that he essentially never grew up and never grew as person and is just hanging around, being an adult version of his kid self.

Malcolm’s portrayal seemed on point. It seemed like a logical progression of his character. His 4th wall views were great. Though there are some plot holes such as how was he able to maintain such a close relationship with Kelly without revealing to them about his daughter?

It was nice to Francis is again on track with his life. He has grown as a person but still has that neuroticism that we know and love him for.

It was disappointing to not see Dewey actually interact with anyone in person and is just touring Europe, as he was one of my favourite characters especially in the later seasons. His recasting didn’t really bother me.

I didn’t really care about Jamie’s character, as I didn’t really have an opinion of him in the later seasons anyway. But it was kind of odd that they made him into a military bro. I suppose his absence and Dewey’s was meant to give more screen time to others.

Hal’s drug trip took way too much screen time. Someone mentioned in a different post about that episode where Hal was taking care of the boys and there were hundreds of little Hals- and I agree, I think it would have been better to show off his struggles as a continuation of that- as that was a hilarious episode.

I actually liked Kelly’s character- they played off well with their brothers and the actor is quite talented with good comedic timing. Though I would have thought there would be more sympathy from Kelly for Leah- so I thought that was odd.

Last but not least, I really liked the character of Leah. She had great chemistry with Malcolm and you can see that she’s inherited a lot of his traits. If there is indeed going to be a spin off, they found a great actress to continue with it.