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I once went to jail for three weeks, but it wasn't my fault.
Piama

Piama Wilkerson (née Tananahaakna), (portrayed by Emy Coligado), is the wife of Francis. Her first appearance is in the episode "Hal's Birthday", in the third season. She was 19 years old when she married Francis and is of Inuit (Native Alaskan)/Asian descent.

Biography[]

Piama was 18 to 19 when first introduced in the third season and was 23 to 24 by the final season of Malcolm in the Middle. Piama's life has been less than ideal; her mother left when she was only three years old, and her father kicked her out when she was fourteen for throwing away his liquor. She once spent three weeks in jail but claims it "wasn't her fault" and has been married once before with no children. Initially, she and Lois do not like each other at all, as shown in 'Hal's Birthday' when Francis introduced her as his wife. Lois absolutely refused to acknowledge her as part of the family. Piama was the only one who didn't back down from a fight when she went after her. She has been shown many times throughout the show to have an absolutely fiery, scary temper, which has left Francis absolutely terrified and intimidated of her.

When the boys visit the dude ranch, she fakes a sickness just to have an excuse not to talk to Lois when she thought she came as well. After Lois is mistreated by Hal's family, she starts treating Piama better, seeing that the actions against her by her husband's family reflect that she was being rude to her, and saw her own hypocrisy. Their relations change permanently after Hal and Francis take a motorcycle road trip against their wives' wishes, where they happily break all of Francis' gifts as punishment. She also show kindness by coming to Lois's aid when she is about to give birth to Jaime and helps convince Francis to help Lois deliver him, which he reluctantly does.

She later comes to work for the Mannkussers at the dude ranch with Francis. She mostly serves as a voice of reason between Francis and his family. Although it has never been directly stated (Francis says she is "fiery" in "Hal's Birthday"), the series hints that both her attitude towards Francis and others, and her mannerisms, are very much like Lois'.

During Season 3, Piama was in a heated conflict with Lavernia for the way she mistreated Francis at the lodging camp. She even took her pet parakeet hostage to force Lavernia to treat him better, or else she would have killed it.

Piama has been shown to be against the idea of having children, but grew out of this in the finale after Reese's prank with Ida for graduation goes awry, claiming that she and Francis might as well have kids as the resulting mess had desensitized her to diaper changing. She even supports Francis' decision not to tell Lois about his permanent stable job at Amerisys doing data entry since he enjoys making her life miserable by telling her that he's unemployed.

It was also shown in the episode "Baby Part 1", Ida is bigoted towards Piama. However, because she wasn't dark enough to scare her, Ida considers Piama a minor nuisance. She was instrumental in helping her reconcile with Susan and move out of the Wilkerson home. She suffers bigotry a second time in "Malcolm Films Reese", when a reporter who wrote a bad review of Otto's ranch scathingly insults her for her Native American descent. This ended with Francis and Otto and presumably Piama herself beating him senseless for his racial insults on Piama, with Piama handing over a clump of the reporter's hair to the medics that arrive.

Episode Appearances[]

Trivia[]

  • Francis and Piama's relationship is much like the relationship of married couples from other sitcoms, like Basil and Sybil's relationship, from Faulty Towers, or Frank and Betty's from Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.
  • Francis and Piama also resembles Hal and Lois, since the husbands tend to love their wives for their fiery, pushy personality, much to the detest of the other family members.
    • However, there are some minor differences. Piama doesn't want children, and she isn't a loudmouth control freak. Lois originally did, but after dealing with Francis and Reese, she wanted to stop revealed in Reese's Party.
    • At the climax of Graduation when Ida and Reese's prank goes awry, Piama tells Francis that she's ready to have children now since she's not afraid of dealing with diaper changing anymore, showing she has gotten over her dislike for children.
  • Piama's male counterpart is named Pablo in If Boys Were Girls.
  • Some fans speculate that In the end of Graduation, Piama is pregnant though nothing is shown to support this.
    • There was supposed to be a scene where Piama is shown in her third month of pregnancy as she gives Francis his lunch
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