Maria "Chalk, Bored" DeLuca hates wardrobe, her life, and us. But mostly she hates us. When we join her in this week's tired classroom opener, her outfit is yet another take on the wraparound skirt. As opposed to last week, though, this time the fabric straps are mercifully tied around her waist, at least removing the immediate danger that she's going to start walking around this empty classroom she now calls home and start collecting pledge donations for "Jump Rope for Heart." She erases the word "prom" from the board, and deadpans her first line directly into the camera because she is Malcolm and this, clearly, is the middle: "I told you. Prom sucks." Oh, so it was you who told us that, then? She recaps that episode practically in real time, cutting deeply into the promised "Alex Killing Hour" we knew was to reward us. Spoiler? I think not. What with the dozens of promos intoning, all sinister, "Alex Whitman has died," and the threat of imminent cancellation, and the public huff recently made by actors on this show loudly trumpeting to the press and other public forums that they, in fact, hate it more than I could ever have possibly mustered the energy to. Maria recounts that Sexy Prom didn't quite work out as planned for Max and Liz or Kyle and Tess, but that "there is a silver lining in this gray cloud of prom disaster." Shot of Alex. "The death of a close friend." Anyway, that's not what she says. Maria and Promo Pete are apparently unfamiliar with each other's work, because everyone in WB Land knows he's dead but her. "He came back from Sweden a new man and Isabel finally noticed. And I think with a little help from Liz and myself, those two crazy kids might actually find true love." Oh, perfect. Miss Lonelyhearts and the Lizbot are matchmaking again. He'll become the perfect composite of all they hold dear in men. What with Alex sporting a haircut befitting a seventies forward on a Canadian hockey team by week's end and composing love sonnets to his beau of the "It is you I do love datink/I hope we never stop lovink" variety, he's sure to find himself under-the-bound in no time. Oh, and Alex? Rhyming "ink" with "ink"? Genius. Just genius.