‘Malcolm in the Middle’ predicted a real accident: It was all Hal’s fault

Bryan Cranston has memorable moments in “Malcolm in the Middle,” but there’s one in particular from a 2001 chapter that predicted a real-life accident in great detail.

Although the innocent and loving father is one of the audience’s favorite characters in the sitcom, Hal has moments where he was a bad husband, a bad father and even a danger to all people.

It was just one of Hal’s reckless actions that has now become a terrifying fact of life.

• Bryan Cranston also stars in movie “Trumbo: The Hollywood Blacklist”, which you can also watch for free in Spanish on ViX.

“Malcolm in the Middle” predicted a real accident: It was Hal’s fault

In Season 2 Episode 24 titled “Evacuation,” the family gets a new couch, but when Hal and Dewey take the old one to the dump, they drop it and it ends up on the train tracks.

Later, the entire city has to be evacuated because a train containing toxic waste falls on the couch and derails. So the family lives their own adventures inside the emergency shelter.

But the premise of this episode is very similar to an accident that happened on February 3, 2023 in East Palestine, a city in Ohio, Pennsylvania.

In the real-life derailment, where an estimated 18,000 tons of hazardous materials such as vinyl chloride were spilled, a cloud of toxic smoke covered much of the city.

Due to the level of the threat of toxic gases and water contamination from the spilled materials, the government was forced to evacuate hundreds of residents near the accident and set up shelters, as seen in “Malcolm.”

As reported by various media outlets, on February 15, 2023, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced that nearly two weeks after the accident, drinking water was already safe to drink.

Similarly, in the case of this actual accident, authorities said it was due to a mechanical axle malfunction on the Norfolk Southern Railway train.

Netflix’s “White Noise” also predicted the Ohio derailment

Following the accident online, many comparisons were made to another similar story on screen, the Netflix film ‘White Noise’, starring Adam Driver and written and directed by Noah Baumbach.

Although the movie “White Noise” was one of the worst failures for Netflix in 2022, it became a trend in February 2023 because its plot is very similar to what happened with the train in Ohio.

The Netflix film based on the book of the same name published in 1985 tells the story of an American family who must face their fears and their existence after a toxin is released into the air by a train derailment.

Just like in “Malcolm in the Middle” and in real life, in “White Noise” people are driven to shelters because of the danger of toxic fumes. However, something that has attracted attention is the location where the film was shot.

“White Noise” was shot almost entirely in Northeast Ohio, and several residents of East Palestine, where the actual events later took place, worked as extras on the film.

Ben Ratner, 37, one of those extras, told CNN on February 21 that the situation was very strange because the plot of the movie they were shooting was now happening in real life.

In this way, this is another case where life ends up imitating art, because in both “Malcolm in the Middle” and “White Noise” the derailment plot and chemicals became present in reality.

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