Francis is determined to show his parents why they should not have kicked Reese out. Meanwhile, Malcolm helps a football player write a college essay.

When Lois tracks down her father's "other family," she meets Victor's "other wife" Sylvia, and learns something shocking about her dad.

Hal and Lois, strapped for cash, decide that Christmas gifts will have to be homemade this year. When everyone makes much better gifts than Hal, he spins a bigger and bigger lie about the present he has in store for them. In desperation, Hal pick-pockets Malcolm's secret credit card, and buys the family a ski vacation.

Malcolm discovers a man, Norm, living in the Lucky Aide. He agrees to keep Norm's secret as long as he provides Malcolm with tidbits on his new crush, a fellow Lucky Aide employee. Meanwhile, when Reese takes a job as an exterminator, he quickly learns that to drum up business he must infest the neighbors' lawns, and chooses caterpillars as his weapon. But instead of spreading the caterpillars, he has a change of heart and begins to nurture them, ultimately leading to his own menagerie of butterflies.