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Continuity Nods tonight
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** In "The Telling", Sue is shown sleeping with [[BracesOfOrthodonticOverkill her headgear]], which she got earlier that season, on. During "Last Whiff of Summer (Part 2)" she takes it off in a desperate bid for attention, loudly announcing she's doing so, but no one notices.
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** In "The Telling", Sue is shown sleeping with [[BracesOfOrthodonticOverkill her headgear]], which she got earlier that season, on. During "Last Whiff of Summer (Part 2)" she takes it off in a desperate bid for attention, loudly announcing she's doing so, but no one notices. She sleeps with it yet again in "Bunny Therapy."
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** In "Bunny Therapy", Axl and his friends are shown raking leaves in the "Boss Co." shirts they had printed up for the previous season's finale, "The Wedding,"
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** The fourth episode of season four has Brick starting to make little siren sounds out loud. Cue Frankie spraying Brick with water (like a bad cat.)
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Ultimate Job Security averted tonight
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* UltimateJobSecurity: Averted, seemingly, in "The Second Act." After three full seasons never having actually sold a car that we've seen, [[spoiler:Frankie gets let go from the dealership. She decides to go to a technical college and learn another job skill]].
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* PokeThePoodle: Sue trying to act out so that her parents will notice her. It doesn't work.
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* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Axl just ''knows'' ''ChittyChittyBangBang'' sucks because "it has "chitty" right in the title!"
** The chicken that Frankie brought along on the Fourth of July in "Last Whiff of Summer" got browsed at by a dog, surprisingly not eaten, and left so the Hecks could do so. Then they all got sick.
** Brick might very well be open to reading anything, but most of the time when he has a book open, it's a [[PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians Percy Jackson]] book.
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** He seems to have finally stopped doing this in season 3.
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** He seems to have finally stopped After Season 3, he's been doing this in season 3.a lot less often - and most of the time he ends up [[HilarityEnsues spilling milk or something similar on his chest.]] And at one point, [[{{Squick}} soaking it up with bread and eating it.]]
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There Will Be Toilet Paper tonight, rare with a female
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* ThereWillBeToiletPaper: A rare example with a female character. Among Sue's attempts to [[GoodGirlGoneBad go bad]] in "Last Whiff of Summer" is shaving her legs with her father's razor, followed by a SmashCut to her sitting next to him watching TV with little bits of red-dot special on her legs.
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Good Girl Gone Bad gets double subverted
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* GoodGirlGoneBad: Subverted in "Last Whiff of Summer," the fourth-season premiere. Sue realizes that even the negative attention her older brother gets is attention, and decides to start going bad to get some of that from her parents. However, the transgressions she comes up with—not wearing her headgear at night, wearing a red hair extension, and not taking her multivitamins—aren't really that serious. Double subverted by her parents not noticing or caring.
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another Shout Out tnoight
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** In "Last Whiff of Summer," Sue asks her father what his favorite ''{{Glee}}'' character is during her attempt to create a scrapbook of the summer and get closer to him.
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Multi Part Episode (tonight\'s premiere and last season\'s)
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* MultiPartEpisode: The third- and fourth-season premieres are Type 1: "Forced Family Fun (Parts 1 and 2)" and "Last Whiff of Summer (Parts 1 and 2)", respectively.
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Parental Favoritism
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* ParentalFavoritism: Deconstructed by "Last Whiff of Summer", the two-part fourth-season premiere. The kids' debate among themselves as to which of them their parents like more soon turns into a question to them, and their answers and non-answers (Frankie denies that parents favor any of their children) drive the plot. Then Frankie and Mike ask the kids which parent they prefer, which leads to a competition between the two of them.
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fix last
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* BreadEggsMilkSquick: In the first part of "Last Whiff of Summer", the fourth-season premiere, the Hecks go to a [[Drive-InTheater drive-in]] where the triple bill is ''ChittyChittyBangBang'', ''FiddlerOnTheRoof'', and ''{{Serpico}}''.
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* BreadEggsMilkSquick: In the first part of "Last Whiff of Summer", the fourth-season premiere, the Hecks go to a [[Drive-InTheater [[DriveInTheater drive-in]] where the triple bill is ''ChittyChittyBangBang'', ''FiddlerOnTheRoof'', and ''{{Serpico}}''.
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link this
Changed line(s) 31 (click to see context) from:
* BreadEggsMilkSquick: In the first part of "Last Whiff of Summer", the fourth-season premiere, the Hecks go to a drive-in where the triple bill is ''ChittyChittyBangBang'', ''FiddlerOnTheRoof'', and ''{{Serpico}}''.
to:
* BreadEggsMilkSquick: In the first part of "Last Whiff of Summer", the fourth-season premiere, the Hecks go to a drive-in [[Drive-InTheater drive-in]] where the triple bill is ''ChittyChittyBangBang'', ''FiddlerOnTheRoof'', and ''{{Serpico}}''.
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the headgear continues
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** In "The Telling", Sue is shown sleeping with [[BracesOfOrthodonticOverkill her headgear]], which she got earlier that season, on.
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** In "The Telling", Sue is shown sleeping with [[BracesOfOrthodonticOverkill her headgear]], which she got earlier that season, on. During "Last Whiff of Summer (Part 2)" she takes it off in a desperate bid for attention, loudly announcing she's doing so, but no one notices.
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Crappy Holidays (one act tonight was on the Fourth)
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** The two-part fourth-season premiere, "Last Whiff of Summer," had one act set on Fourth of July.
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Bread Eggs Milk Squick tonight
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* BreadEggsMilkSquick: In the first part of "Last Whiff of Summer", the fourth-season premiere, the Hecks go to a drive-in where the triple bill is ''ChittyChittyBangBang'', ''FiddlerOnTheRoof'', and ''{{Serpico}}''.
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None
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* TheAllegedCar: Axl's '75 Ford Gran Torino [[spoiler: met its' end]] when a county fair official took a guess about the rusty, faded old land yacht and [[spoiler: waved Axl into the demolition derby]].
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None
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** In ''The Guidence Counselor'', guest star WhoopiGoldberg gives her character's birthday as Nov 13th, same as her own.
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** The pilot also features a horrible ''field trip'' for Sue, where she forced her way onto a bus that was for kids that had sold a certain amount of cheese and sausage for a fundraiser so that they could go to the state capital. It turned out that her mother had forgotten to mail the money, resulting in Sue having to sleep on the floor in their hotel, not having a seat on the bus, having to sit out on the steps of the state capitol with an orderly because she wasn't authorized to come in, and a whole other list of horrible things that happened because of it.
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None
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An {{ABC}} sitcom about two working-class parents raising three children in small-town Indiana. Rife with narration and flashbacks.
Frankie Heck ([[EverybodyLovesRaymond Patricia Heaton]]) and her husband Mike ([[{{Scrubs}} Neil Flynn]]) live in the midwestern town of Orson, Indiana. Frankie is a saleswoman at "Ehlert Motors" (where she has the lowest sale record) and Mike is the manager at the local quarry. Their three children are: Axl, perpetually lazy and unmotivated, even to wear a shirt or pants; Sue, the braces-wearing middle child who tries out for a number of extracurricular activities...and fails spectacularly at them all; and Brick, the gifted, but socially awkward smallest child, who reads a lot and has a tendency to [[VerbalTic repeat the last words he said]][[hottip:*:last words he said]].
Frankie Heck ([[EverybodyLovesRaymond Patricia Heaton]]) and her husband Mike ([[{{Scrubs}} Neil Flynn]]) live in the midwestern town of Orson, Indiana. Frankie is a saleswoman at "Ehlert Motors" (where she has the lowest sale record) and Mike is the manager at the local quarry. Their three children are: Axl, perpetually lazy and unmotivated, even to wear a shirt or pants; Sue, the braces-wearing middle child who tries out for a number of extracurricular activities...and fails spectacularly at them all; and Brick, the gifted, but socially awkward smallest child, who reads a lot and has a tendency to [[VerbalTic repeat the last words he said]][[hottip:*:last words he said]].
to:
An {{ABC}} Creator/{{ABC}} sitcom about two working-class parents raising three children in small-town Indiana. Rife with narration and flashbacks.
Frankie Heck ([[EverybodyLovesRaymond Patricia Heaton]]) and her husband Mike([[{{Scrubs}} ([[Series/{{Scrubs}} Neil Flynn]]) live in the midwestern town of Orson, Indiana. Frankie is a saleswoman at "Ehlert Motors" (where she has the lowest sale record) and Mike is the manager at the local quarry. Their three children are: Axl, perpetually lazy and unmotivated, even to wear a shirt or pants; Sue, the braces-wearing middle child who tries out for a number of extracurricular activities...and fails spectacularly at them all; and Brick, the gifted, but socially awkward smallest child, who reads a lot and has a tendency to [[VerbalTic repeat the last words he said]][[hottip:*:last said]][[note]]last words he said]].
said[[/note]].
Frankie Heck ([[EverybodyLovesRaymond Patricia Heaton]]) and her husband Mike
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* ActorAllusion:
** In the season one finale, Neil Flynn's character mentions a [[{{Scrubs}} brain trust]].
** In the season one finale, Neil Flynn's character mentions a [[{{Scrubs}} brain trust]].
to:
* ActorAllusion:
ActorAllusion:
** In the season one finale, Neil Flynn's character mentions a[[{{Scrubs}} [[Series/{{Scrubs}} brain trust]].
** In the season one finale, Neil Flynn's character mentions a
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* BrainlessBeauty: Deconstructed in a season 2 episode; Axl's boss is an extremely sexy but extremely dumb party girl who he is at first overjoyed to work with, but eventually grows to intensely dislike, even turning down a date (to his own shock) due to frustration at her thoughtlessness.
* BrickJoke: [[IThoughtItMeant No, not with the character]]. In one episode, Brick tries to make Pizza puffs with the oven and nearly starts a fire because there was a ''quilt'' in the oven. In a 2012 episode, Axel and Brick try to bake a dough map of Indiana and after turning the oven on, shout, "THE QUILT!" and take it out of the oven.
* BrickJoke: [[IThoughtItMeant No, not with the character]]. In one episode, Brick tries to make Pizza puffs with the oven and nearly starts a fire because there was a ''quilt'' in the oven. In a 2012 episode, Axel and Brick try to bake a dough map of Indiana and after turning the oven on, shout, "THE QUILT!" and take it out of the oven.
to:
* BrainlessBeauty: Deconstructed in a season 2 episode; Axl's boss is an extremely sexy but extremely dumb party girl who he is at first overjoyed to work with, but eventually grows to intensely dislike, even turning down a date (to his own shock) due to frustration at her thoughtlessness.
thoughtlessness.
* BrickJoke: [[IThoughtItMeant No, not with the character]]. In one episode, Brick tries to make Pizza puffs with the oven and nearly starts a fire because there was a ''quilt'' in the oven. In a 2012 episode, Axel and Brick try to bake a dough map of Indiana and after turning the oven on, shout, "THE QUILT!" and take it out of the oven.
* BrickJoke: [[IThoughtItMeant No, not with the character]]. In one episode, Brick tries to make Pizza puffs with the oven and nearly starts a fire because there was a ''quilt'' in the oven. In a 2012 episode, Axel and Brick try to bake a dough map of Indiana and after turning the oven on, shout, "THE QUILT!" and take it out of the oven.
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* DemotedToExtra: Bob was a regular for the first season or so, but after the show began to focus more on the Hecks' lives and less on Frankie's job, he had little use on the show and was relegated to the end credits.
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* DemotedToExtra: Bob was a regular for the first season or so, but after the show began to focus more on the Hecks' lives and less on Frankie's job, he had little use on the show and was relegated to the end credits.
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-->'''Aunt Edie''': (reaching out and actually pressing Frankie's face) ''Hello? Hello?''
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-->'''Aunt Edie''': (reaching out and actually pressing Frankie's face) ''Hello? Hello?'' Hello?''
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* GoingToSeeTheElephant: In "The Bee", the family forgets Sue's birthday in the runup to the road trip to Chicago for Brick's appearance in the regional spelling bee, so they make it up to her by letting her plan the trip from a guidebook. Sue winds up wanting to see [[HilarityEnsues hilariously minor]] tourist attractions.
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* GoingToSeeTheElephant: In "The Bee", the family forgets Sue's birthday in the runup to the road trip to Chicago for Brick's appearance in the regional spelling bee, so they make it up to her by letting her plan the trip from a guidebook. Sue winds up wanting to see [[HilarityEnsues hilariously minor]] tourist attractions.
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* LemonyNarrator: Each episode begins with Frankie narrating over a short montage of StockFootage, going from describing some general aspect of life in [[TitleDrop "the middle"]] to the specifics of the episode. The narration returns when needed later in the episode, sometimes describing things Frankie couldn't be aware of, and usually taking a somewhat Garrison Keillor-esque tone.
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* LemonyNarrator: Each episode begins with Frankie narrating over a short montage of StockFootage, going from describing some general aspect of life in [[TitleDrop "the middle"]] to the specifics of the episode. The narration returns when needed later in the episode, sometimes describing things Frankie couldn't be aware of, and usually taking a somewhat Garrison Keillor-esque tone.
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* RuleOfThree: Whenever a character thinks about previous examples - Sue's past Halloween costumes, Brick's suffering though Frankie's errands etc - they generally think about three examples.
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* RuleOfThree: Whenever a character thinks about previous examples - Sue's past Halloween costumes, Brick's suffering though Frankie's errands etc - they generally think about three examples.
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** In "Year of the Hecks", two of the four girls who try out for the "wrestlerette" cheerleading group that Sue organizes decide to go home and watch ''PhineasAndFerb'' instead.
** In the first Mother's Day episode, when the kids are in Frankie's room, you can see briefly that they're watching [[KickButtowskiSuburbanDaredevil Kick Buttowski]].
** In the first Mother's Day episode, when the kids are in Frankie's room, you can see briefly that they're watching [[KickButtowskiSuburbanDaredevil Kick Buttowski]].
to:
** In "Year of the Hecks", two of the four girls who try out for the "wrestlerette" cheerleading group that Sue organizes decide to go home and watch ''PhineasAndFerb'' ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' instead.
** In the first Mother's Day episode, when the kids are in Frankie's room, you can see briefly that they're watching [[KickButtowskiSuburbanDaredevil Kick Buttowski]].
** In the first Mother's Day episode, when the kids are in Frankie's room, you can see briefly that they're watching [[KickButtowskiSuburbanDaredevil Kick Buttowski]].
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* YouCanAlwaysTellALiar: For Brick its when he says "[[spoiler:I'mmmmmmmmmm lyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyingggggggg]]" to himself out loud.
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* YouCanAlwaysTellALiar: For Brick its when he says "[[spoiler:I'mmmmmmmmmm lyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyingggggggg]]" to himself out loud.
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* DemotedToExtra: Bob was a regular for the first season or so, but after the show began to focus more on the Hecks' lives and less on Frankie's job, he had little use on the show and was relegated to the end credits.
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** In the first Mother's Day episode, when the kids are in Frankie's room, you can see briefly that they're watching [[KickButtowskiSuburbanDaredevil Kick Buttowski]].
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YMMV sinkhole
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Along with ''ModernFamily'', it was ''the'' break-out comedy of the 2009 television season ([[YourMileageMayVary love it or hate it]]).
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Along with ''ModernFamily'', it was ''the'' break-out comedy of the 2009 television season ([[YourMileageMayVary love it or hate it]]).
season.
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* HotDad: Neil Flynn. [[strike:[[YourMileageMayVary YMMV]]]] EvenTheGuysWantHim
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* HotDad: Neil Flynn. [[strike:[[YourMileageMayVary YMMV]]]] EvenTheGuysWantHim
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misuse as emphasis
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*** Due to several reasons that scene [[BeyondTheImpossible triples]] as CrowningMomentOfAwesome, CrowningMomentOfFunny, and CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
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*** Due to several reasons that scene [[BeyondTheImpossible triples]] triples as CrowningMomentOfAwesome, CrowningMomentOfFunny, and CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
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I Want You To meet an old friend of mine
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* IWantYouToMeetAnOldFriendOfMine: Doris Roberts as Brick's teacher during the second season and Ray Romano in the third-season premiere—both costars with Patricia Heaton in ''EverybodyLovesRaymond''.
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add another Continuity Nod and Running Gag (made clearer tonight)
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** In "The Wedding", Sue looks for ideas for Rusty's wedding in a notebook she kept when she was imagining that she and Matt (whom she'd broken up with long distance earlier in the season) would someday get married.
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** Mike's father and brother rarely informing him about major events in their lives, such as a health problem or getting engaged, because he didn't ask, and their general tendency towards almost no verbal communication when they're together.
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Wedding Day (tonight\'s episode)
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* WeddingDay: The third-season finale, "The Wedding", built around Mike's brother Rusty's wedding at the Hecks' house.
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None
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http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TheMiddleGroupPic_2499.JPG
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** In the episode "The Paper Route", [[TheMaryTylerMooreShow Ed]] [[LouGrant Asner]] plays the publisher of the Orson Herald.
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** In the episode "The Paper Route", [[TheMaryTylerMooreShow Ed]] [[LouGrant Asner]] EdwardAsner plays the publisher of the Orson Herald.
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Blackmail last week
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* {{Blackmail}}: In "The Telling", Axl accidentally wakes Sue up late at night while sneaking back into the house via her room. Knowing that he has a big trip to the lake with his friends coming up on the weekend, she holds the threat of telling on him over him to get rides for her and her friends everywhere over the next few days.
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another Continuity Nod tonight
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** In "The Telling", Sue is shown sleeping with [[BracesOfOrthodonticOverkill her headgear]], which she got earlier that season, on.
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We learned this tonight
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* TheStoolPigeon: Brick, who we learned in the third season episode "The Telling", has been rewarded by Frankie with candy cigarettes for years for informing on Axl and Sue.
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http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TheMiddleGroupPic_2499.JPG
An {{ABC}} sitcom about two working-class parents raising three children in small-town Indiana. Rife with narration and flashbacks.
Frankie Heck ([[EverybodyLovesRaymond Patricia Heaton]]) and her husband Mike ([[{{Scrubs}} Neil Flynn]]) live in the midwestern town of Orson, Indiana. Frankie is a saleswoman at "Ehlert Motors" (where she has the lowest sale record) and Mike is the manager at the local quarry. Their three children are: Axl, perpetually lazy and unmotivated, even to wear a shirt or pants; Sue, the braces-wearing middle child who tries out for a number of extracurricular activities...and fails spectacularly at them all; and Brick, the gifted, but socially awkward smallest child, who reads a lot and has a tendency to [[VerbalTic repeat the last words he said]][[hottip:*:last words he said]].
Other characters include Bob ([[SaturdayNightLive Chris Kattan]]), Frankie's coworker at Ehlert Motors; and Don Ehlert, Frankie's boss.
Along with ''ModernFamily'', it was ''the'' break-out comedy of the 2009 television season ([[YourMileageMayVary love it or hate it]]).
----
!!The show provides examples of:
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Weird Ashley to Axl
* ActorAllusion:
** In the season one finale, Neil Flynn's character mentions a [[{{Scrubs}} brain trust]].
** Also in the season 2 premiere, Frankie goes to meet Brick's new teacher. Playing the teacher? [[spoiler: Doris Roberts! Or Marie of EverybodyLovesRaymond!]] [[HypocriticalHumor She ironically accuses]] Frankie of [[MyBelovedSmother smothering her children]].
** In the season three premiere the hiker played by Ray Romano tells Frankie "[[EverybodyLovesRaymond In an alternate universe]] you and I could have been very happy together."
** In the episode "The Paper Route", [[TheMaryTylerMooreShow Ed]] [[LouGrant Asner]] plays the publisher of the Orson Herald.
* AerithAndBob: There's Axl, Brick, and... Sue. It kind of emphasizes her lack of specific talent. It even works with their real actors' names: Charlie, Atticus, and Eden.
* AmbiguousDisorder: Brick (see under IntelligenceEqualsIsolation and VerbalTic on this page)
* [[AmbiguouslyGay Ambiguously Camp Gay]]: Sue's temporary boyfriend, Brad, whose talents include square dancing, embroidery, and making centerpieces out of everyday objects. Mike and Frankie have their suspicions, but Sue and Brad are both oblivious of that fact (they broke up because Sue found out that Brad was a smoker).
* AVerySpecialEpisode. Subverted by the third season premiere, in which Sue gets her first period near the end of the episode.
* TheBabyTrap: One episode had Brick have an unwanted girlfriend that started stalking him. When he tried to break up with her, she said that they were now married and had a baby to apparently keep him from leaving her.
* BadLuckCharm: The titular object in the third-season's "The Clover" is an inversion, as a four-leaf cover is usually a ''good'' luck charm.
* BigEater: Axl has a reputation for having a big appetite
* [[BrattyTeenageDaughter Bratty Teenage Son]]: Axl
* BracesOfOrthodonticOverkill: Sue is expecting to get her braces off in the third season's "The Paper Route". Instead, because the braces overcorrected her teeth, she developed a simultaneous overbite and underbite and must wear headgear full-time.
* BrainlessBeauty: Deconstructed in a season 2 episode; Axl's boss is an extremely sexy but extremely dumb party girl who he is at first overjoyed to work with, but eventually grows to intensely dislike, even turning down a date (to his own shock) due to frustration at her thoughtlessness.
* BrickJoke: [[IThoughtItMeant No, not with the character]]. In one episode, Brick tries to make Pizza puffs with the oven and nearly starts a fire because there was a ''quilt'' in the oven. In a 2012 episode, Axel and Brick try to bake a dough map of Indiana and after turning the oven on, shout, "THE QUILT!" and take it out of the oven.
* BrilliantButLazy: Subverted with Axl in the season one finale. Arguably, Brick is a more straight-up example (though see below)
** Brick does invert this in one episode. He fails a few math tests, but it's not because of the teacher or the material. He was just curious what getting an F was like.
--> '''Brick:''' That's probably because [[spoiler:I only answered the first five questions]].
--> '''Brick:''' Ms. Rinski said we could have free reading time after we finished the test, [[spoiler:so I finished in five minutes]].
** When a football recruiter from East Indiana State visits the Heck home, Axl demonstrates that he ''can'' be a polite, charming young man, infuriating his parents, because at home, he doesn't bother.
* BrokenAesop: In-universe in the second-season episode "The Quarry". Axl gets suspended from school, so Mike decides to teach him a lesson about how much of a drag the real world is compared to school by taking him to work with him. It backfires when Axl finds his temporary co-workers are cool guys in their early 20s who throw weekend parties attended by lots of attractive women.
* ButtMonkey: Sue and, to a lesser extent, Frankie. You could argue that it's an ''entire family'' of {{ButtMonkey}}s, but those two stand out the most.
* CaliforniaDoubling: Normally averted, except for the roadside scenes in "The Concert".
* CaptainOblivious: Sue is the only one who seems to have no idea that her former boyfriend Brad is [[TransparentCloset very probably gay]].
* ChildProdigy: Youngest son Brick is prone to philosophical thoughts about the meaning of life.
* CloudCuckoolander: Brick Heck.
* ContinuityNod: In "Friends, Lies and Videotape" during the second season, Mike confronts Sue about a ticket stub to an R-rated movie she and her best friend sneaked into earlier in the episode. Sue responds by tearfully confessing every (actually relatively minor) trangression she's committed recently. In the process she reveals the hole in the wall she and Brick enlarged while trying to fix it four episodes earlier in "The Big Chill."
** In "The Clover", Mike takes the Heck's old dishwasher from "[[ValentinesDayEpisode Valentine's Day III]]" to his father.
* CrappyHolidays: As of its third season, the show has done a Thanksgiving, [[ChristmasEpisode Christmas]] and [[ValentinesDayEpisodes Valentine's Day]] episode every season. An annual HalloweenEpisode started in the second season. The first two seasons also featured Mother's Day episodes.
** The first Mother's Day episode sneaked in a ''Father's Day'' episode via flashbacks. A third-season episode was also devoted to the Hecks trying to keep their New Year's resolutions.
** And the show has also built episodes around the 2011 Final Four and Super Bowl XLVI, both of which in real life took place in Indiana. ''And'' an episode around the 2011 Royal Wedding.
** On Feb 29, 2012 the show aired the episode ''Leap Day''.
* CutHimselfShaving: Subverted when Frankie tosses an empty bottle to Sue which accidentally hits Brick in the arm. Later at school when asked about the injury, Brick innocently says, "My Mom hit me with a beer bottle", not intending to make it sound the way it did.
* DawsonCasting: Axl is a high school freshman and he's played by a 19 year old. Sue, a seventh grader, has an 18 year old actress. Brick is supposed to be in second grade, but the actor playing him is 11 years old. To be fair, the actor playing Brick (Atticus Shaffer) has Type IV Ostogenesis Imperfecta (also known as brittle bone disease), which causes him to be a lot smaller than average.
** For the same reason, he is almost never filmed walking all by himself within a certain distance of the camera, as he has a noticeable limp.
* DaydreamSurprise: "Ok...that didn't really happen..."
* {{Determinator}}: Sue. No matter how many times she fails to make any team or club, she never gives up. This extends far enough that, in that SeasonFinale, she "runs" five laps around a cross-country track ''with a twisted (and possibly broken) ankle'', only for it to start raining while she's on her final lap. Then, after being splashed with mud and grass and losing a crutch, she drags herself across the finish line with only her arms. Did we mention that the entire time [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome the theme from Chariots of Fire was playing]], timed out well enough that what is usually a cheesy StockParody turned into a CrowningMomentOfAwesome for Sue?
** Not to mention the fact that every one of her schoolmates watching and cheering for her cheered the wrong name until the family corrected them!
*** And presumably had been for the first four and a half laps. That makes the support of the family even more heartwarming!
*** Due to several reasons that scene [[BeyondTheImpossible triples]] as CrowningMomentOfAwesome, CrowningMomentOfFunny, and CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
*** In the second episode of the third season it's lampshaded when Axl pays her a backhanded compliment, calling her a "dork optimist."
** Frankie could be one too, given her various quests to help out her family (during which she is inevitably faced with several obstacles).
* EggSitting: Axl gets this assignment in sex ed. Needless to say, he is a less than perfect parent.
* EmbarrassingMiddleName: Sue Sue Heck. Her first name was accidentally written twice on her birth certificate. Frankie and Mike have been meaning to get that changed.
* EskimosArentReal: In a ChristmasEpisode, Brick explains that Eskimos know how to put a fire in an igloo, only for Axl to snap that back that Eskimos aren't real, but are made-up creatures like leprechauns.
* EverythingsWorseWithBears: On their camping trip...
* ExactWords: In "The Clover" during the third season, Frankie, worried about Aunt Edie's ability to continue on her own after her sister's death, visits her. While there, she points to the phone with extra large buttons and pictures of her, her mother and her sister on the numbers in memory:
-->'''Frankie''': ''Press my face if you want to talk''
-->'''Aunt Edie''': (reaching out and actually pressing Frankie's face) ''Hello? Hello?''
* {{Expy}}: The title, characters, setting, and family dynamics have a resemblance to MalcolmInTheMiddle.
* FailOSuckyname: Axl and Brick. Not surprising with a family name like Heck.
** Justified, sort of, as they are from, presumable central Indiana... where the "[=BRICKyard=]" is. That is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, for those who didn't know.
* {{Fanservice}}: Axl. He's played by a 19-year-old actor.
* FirstKiss. Subverted somewhat in "[[ValentinesDayEpisode Valentine's Day]] III" in the third season. Sue and her new boyfriend have admitted to each other that his French kisses have been a problem for them both—she doesn't like the feel of an other person's tongue in her mouth, and he's been trying to avoid cutting his tongue on her braces. So the show ends with a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming on the Hecks' doorstep, as they kiss on the lips, limned by sunlight. It's not her first kiss per se but it's her first real one.
* FlyoverCountry: The show is set in the U.S. Midwest, and the title, "the middle", is a colloquialism used by inhabitants of places like Orson to describe where they live.
* GilliganCut: Used often.
* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: The third season's Thanksgiving episode introduces Molly Shannon as Frankie's sister Janet. Frankie resents the fact that she's married to a chiropractor and has a higher standard of living than the Hecks do, while Janet in turn resents that Frankie didn't need medical assistance to conceive and has three children whereas she only has one.
* GoingToSeeTheElephant: In "The Bee", the family forgets Sue's birthday in the runup to the road trip to Chicago for Brick's appearance in the regional spelling bee, so they make it up to her by letting her plan the trip from a guidebook. Sue winds up wanting to see [[HilarityEnsues hilariously minor]] tourist attractions.
* GoldenMoment: Usually with Frankie, but when it's Mike, expect a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
* HappilyMarried: Frankie and Mike
* HorribleCampingTrip: The two-part third season premiere, which doubles down on the trope by flashing back to a similar trip 20 years earlier—which was the Hecks' ''honeymoon''.
* HotDad: Neil Flynn. [[strike:[[YourMileageMayVary YMMV]]]] EvenTheGuysWantHim
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Lampshaded in the episode "The Final Four" when Mike meets Frankie's boss for the first time and Mr. Ehlert remarks "Short woman, tall guy...always funny!".
* IAteWhat: Axl's toenails, clipped into a bag of Doritos.
** In "The Map", Axl eats Brick's school project, a baked clay relief map of Indiana, after it breaks. Subverted, weirdly enough, in that he doesn't seem as bothered by this as much as he is at the fact that everybody else finds this almost too stupid to believe.
* ICallItVera: Mike's father nicknamed his belt 'The Enforcer'.
* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: Brick, who'd almost always rather read
* IronicEcho: Plenty.
-->'''Mike''': I'm done talking to you now.
* IneptAptitudeTest: Sorta played around with in the season finale. Axl's score says that he's BrilliantButLazy, so Sue and Mike try and push him harder. It turns out that some results were switched, but because of his hard work, Axl gets the best score he's ever gotten- a B minus.
* ItGotWorse: Sue and Brick's attempt to fix a small hole in her wall in "The Big Chill" only makes it larger.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Axl, who usually treats Sue with disdain, will nevertheless protect her and help her—but only when she'll never know he did.
* LaxativePrank: Axl does this to Sue in "Foreign Exchange", just before the family takes a long car trip.
* LeapDay: Sue was born on February 29th and is technically four years old.
* LemonyNarrator: Each episode begins with Frankie narrating over a short montage of StockFootage, going from describing some general aspect of life in [[TitleDrop "the middle"]] to the specifics of the episode. The narration returns when needed later in the episode, sometimes describing things Frankie couldn't be aware of, and usually taking a somewhat Garrison Keillor-esque tone.
* LimitedWardrobe: Axl again. To the point that his wardrobe seems to consist solely of boxers.
* LongDistanceRelationship: Sue tries to have one with Matt in "The Paper Route." Axl warns her it won't work, [[spoiler:and they break up by the end of the episode]].
* MiddleChildSyndrome: Sue seems to be unable to succeed. On the bright side, she at least appears to be cheerfully unaware of it or undaunted. Either way, you gotta give her credit for trying.
* MyBelovedSmother: Brick's teacher accuses Frankie of this.
* NeverMessWithGranny: though Aunt Edy is very old and senile, in "The Math Class" episode she sprays a guy with a garden hose.
* NewYorkCity: Sue wins a trip there in the second-season episode "Hecks on a Plane". However, when they arrive, after the expected plane trip in which everything that can go wrong does, it's snowing and they can't really see anything.
* NonverbalMiscommunication: When Sue is at the meeting listing all the activities she tried (and failed) at in a speech, Frankie gives her a 'hurry up' gesture from the audience. Sue sees this and concludes "Oh, yes, and tumbling."
* OnceAnEpisode: Brick will whisper something to himself.
** Less common, but Axl will usually wind up in his boxers at some point in the show.
* OnlySaneMan: Mike is usually the first to acknowledge the craziness going on in the house.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Subverted in "The Concert", Brick is angry and depressed after washing out of the school spelling bee on the first word (after he had gone to the regionals in Chicago the year before). His parents are actually happy about this since it's an emotionally appropriate response (normally, he responds to his failures philosophically).
* PersonaNonGrata: : Mike is banned from Brick's school after his attempt to help at the Valentine's Day craft project ends up ruining Valentine's Day.
* ThePratfall: Sue specializes in this.
* ProductPlacement: "Hecking it Up" in the third season is a drawn-out ad for the Volkswagen Passat.
** Later in that same season, "The Guidance Counselor" has Frankie announcing dinner's ready while the camera pans across some ostentatiously placed Subway sandwiches and wrappers.
* PutOnABus: Sue's boyfriend Matt moves to another town in "The Paper Route."
* RealitySubtext: Plots in two episodes are based on events from the actors' real lives. Atticus Shaffer once went out for Halloween as the same obscure Scottish World War I hero Brick did in the first Halloween episode, and Patricia Heaton's family once hosted a Japanese exchange student who didn't say a word to them for two weeks—just like what happens in "Foreign Exchange".
* RecycledInSpace: Some people feel like it's a rip off of ''MalcolmInTheMiddle''.
* RuleOfThree: Whenever a character thinks about previous examples - Sue's past Halloween costumes, Brick's suffering though Frankie's errands etc - they generally think about three examples.
* RunningGag:
** The announcer on the P.A. system at the car dealership constantly paging Frankie about weird home situations.
** Brick occasionally repeating the last word or phrase he says under his breath.
-->'''Brick''': My egg hatched! There's a chicken in the house! (Stage whisper) Chhhhhhicken in the houuuuuuse...
** When BettyWhite made a cameo in the season finale as an authoritative librarian, she was seen to share this habit.
*** Or she was making fun of his tic, she was playing a character just mean enough to do that.
** Did Sue mention that she was on her school's cross-country team throughout the second season?
** Various things ending up in kitchen appliances that you wouldn't expect or want to be there (i.e., a quilt in the oven)
* SexyPriest: Rev. [=TimTom=], youth pastor at the Hecks' church.
* [[TheCharacterDiedWithHim The Character Died With Her]]: Aunt Ginny. At the end of the third-season episode "The Map", which had begun with the Hecks coming back from her funeral, there was an InMemoriam to Frances Bay, the actress who had played her until her death several months earlier.
* ShoutOut: In "The Map":
--->'''''Frankie''''': How is it that we've missed all these milestones in our children and family's lives, but we haven't missed a single episode of ''CelebrityRehab''?
** In "Year of the Hecks", two of the four girls who try out for the "wrestlerette" cheerleading group that Sue organizes decide to go home and watch ''PhineasAndFerb'' instead.
* SignificantReferenceDate: The episode ''Leap Year'' aired on Feb 29, 2012.
* TeenPregnancy: In "[[ValentinesDayEpisode Valentine's Day]] III", Frankie expresses her amazement at Sue's mistaken belief that a French kiss was one given under a rainbow by reminding her that at least two girls in her high school class (she's a freshman) are pregnant.
** In "The Clover", Axl and his friends recall that at last year's prom, a girl gave birth.
* TitleDrop: Just about every episode starts with Frankie's narration saying some version of "Here in The Middle...."
* TitleOnlyOpening
* TomboyishName: Frankie
* TransparentCloset: Brad Bottig
* VerbalTic[[hottip:* :verbal tic]]
** "It soothes me."
* WalkingShirtlessScene: It's easier to count the number of times Axl ''has'' worn a shirt.
** He seems to have finally stopped doing this in season 3.
* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: ''Axl and Brick?''
** Cool name makes a cool kid, right?
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Brick is afraid of bridges.
* YouCanAlwaysTellALiar: For Brick its when he says "[[spoiler:I'mmmmmmmmmm lyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyingggggggg]]" to himself out loud.
* YourFavorite: For Frankie, the way her Mom makes grilled cheese sandwiches with potato chips in the middle.
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An {{ABC}} sitcom about two working-class parents raising three children in small-town Indiana. Rife with narration and flashbacks.
Frankie Heck ([[EverybodyLovesRaymond Patricia Heaton]]) and her husband Mike ([[{{Scrubs}} Neil Flynn]]) live in the midwestern town of Orson, Indiana. Frankie is a saleswoman at "Ehlert Motors" (where she has the lowest sale record) and Mike is the manager at the local quarry. Their three children are: Axl, perpetually lazy and unmotivated, even to wear a shirt or pants; Sue, the braces-wearing middle child who tries out for a number of extracurricular activities...and fails spectacularly at them all; and Brick, the gifted, but socially awkward smallest child, who reads a lot and has a tendency to [[VerbalTic repeat the last words he said]][[hottip:*:last words he said]].
Other characters include Bob ([[SaturdayNightLive Chris Kattan]]), Frankie's coworker at Ehlert Motors; and Don Ehlert, Frankie's boss.
Along with ''ModernFamily'', it was ''the'' break-out comedy of the 2009 television season ([[YourMileageMayVary love it or hate it]]).
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!!The show provides examples of:
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Weird Ashley to Axl
* ActorAllusion:
** In the season one finale, Neil Flynn's character mentions a [[{{Scrubs}} brain trust]].
** Also in the season 2 premiere, Frankie goes to meet Brick's new teacher. Playing the teacher? [[spoiler: Doris Roberts! Or Marie of EverybodyLovesRaymond!]] [[HypocriticalHumor She ironically accuses]] Frankie of [[MyBelovedSmother smothering her children]].
** In the season three premiere the hiker played by Ray Romano tells Frankie "[[EverybodyLovesRaymond In an alternate universe]] you and I could have been very happy together."
** In the episode "The Paper Route", [[TheMaryTylerMooreShow Ed]] [[LouGrant Asner]] plays the publisher of the Orson Herald.
* AerithAndBob: There's Axl, Brick, and... Sue. It kind of emphasizes her lack of specific talent. It even works with their real actors' names: Charlie, Atticus, and Eden.
* AmbiguousDisorder: Brick (see under IntelligenceEqualsIsolation and VerbalTic on this page)
* [[AmbiguouslyGay Ambiguously Camp Gay]]: Sue's temporary boyfriend, Brad, whose talents include square dancing, embroidery, and making centerpieces out of everyday objects. Mike and Frankie have their suspicions, but Sue and Brad are both oblivious of that fact (they broke up because Sue found out that Brad was a smoker).
* AVerySpecialEpisode. Subverted by the third season premiere, in which Sue gets her first period near the end of the episode.
* TheBabyTrap: One episode had Brick have an unwanted girlfriend that started stalking him. When he tried to break up with her, she said that they were now married and had a baby to apparently keep him from leaving her.
* BadLuckCharm: The titular object in the third-season's "The Clover" is an inversion, as a four-leaf cover is usually a ''good'' luck charm.
* BigEater: Axl has a reputation for having a big appetite
* [[BrattyTeenageDaughter Bratty Teenage Son]]: Axl
* BracesOfOrthodonticOverkill: Sue is expecting to get her braces off in the third season's "The Paper Route". Instead, because the braces overcorrected her teeth, she developed a simultaneous overbite and underbite and must wear headgear full-time.
* BrainlessBeauty: Deconstructed in a season 2 episode; Axl's boss is an extremely sexy but extremely dumb party girl who he is at first overjoyed to work with, but eventually grows to intensely dislike, even turning down a date (to his own shock) due to frustration at her thoughtlessness.
* BrickJoke: [[IThoughtItMeant No, not with the character]]. In one episode, Brick tries to make Pizza puffs with the oven and nearly starts a fire because there was a ''quilt'' in the oven. In a 2012 episode, Axel and Brick try to bake a dough map of Indiana and after turning the oven on, shout, "THE QUILT!" and take it out of the oven.
* BrilliantButLazy: Subverted with Axl in the season one finale. Arguably, Brick is a more straight-up example (though see below)
** Brick does invert this in one episode. He fails a few math tests, but it's not because of the teacher or the material. He was just curious what getting an F was like.
--> '''Brick:''' That's probably because [[spoiler:I only answered the first five questions]].
--> '''Brick:''' Ms. Rinski said we could have free reading time after we finished the test, [[spoiler:so I finished in five minutes]].
** When a football recruiter from East Indiana State visits the Heck home, Axl demonstrates that he ''can'' be a polite, charming young man, infuriating his parents, because at home, he doesn't bother.
* BrokenAesop: In-universe in the second-season episode "The Quarry". Axl gets suspended from school, so Mike decides to teach him a lesson about how much of a drag the real world is compared to school by taking him to work with him. It backfires when Axl finds his temporary co-workers are cool guys in their early 20s who throw weekend parties attended by lots of attractive women.
* ButtMonkey: Sue and, to a lesser extent, Frankie. You could argue that it's an ''entire family'' of {{ButtMonkey}}s, but those two stand out the most.
* CaliforniaDoubling: Normally averted, except for the roadside scenes in "The Concert".
* CaptainOblivious: Sue is the only one who seems to have no idea that her former boyfriend Brad is [[TransparentCloset very probably gay]].
* ChildProdigy: Youngest son Brick is prone to philosophical thoughts about the meaning of life.
* CloudCuckoolander: Brick Heck.
* ContinuityNod: In "Friends, Lies and Videotape" during the second season, Mike confronts Sue about a ticket stub to an R-rated movie she and her best friend sneaked into earlier in the episode. Sue responds by tearfully confessing every (actually relatively minor) trangression she's committed recently. In the process she reveals the hole in the wall she and Brick enlarged while trying to fix it four episodes earlier in "The Big Chill."
** In "The Clover", Mike takes the Heck's old dishwasher from "[[ValentinesDayEpisode Valentine's Day III]]" to his father.
* CrappyHolidays: As of its third season, the show has done a Thanksgiving, [[ChristmasEpisode Christmas]] and [[ValentinesDayEpisodes Valentine's Day]] episode every season. An annual HalloweenEpisode started in the second season. The first two seasons also featured Mother's Day episodes.
** The first Mother's Day episode sneaked in a ''Father's Day'' episode via flashbacks. A third-season episode was also devoted to the Hecks trying to keep their New Year's resolutions.
** And the show has also built episodes around the 2011 Final Four and Super Bowl XLVI, both of which in real life took place in Indiana. ''And'' an episode around the 2011 Royal Wedding.
** On Feb 29, 2012 the show aired the episode ''Leap Day''.
* CutHimselfShaving: Subverted when Frankie tosses an empty bottle to Sue which accidentally hits Brick in the arm. Later at school when asked about the injury, Brick innocently says, "My Mom hit me with a beer bottle", not intending to make it sound the way it did.
* DawsonCasting: Axl is a high school freshman and he's played by a 19 year old. Sue, a seventh grader, has an 18 year old actress. Brick is supposed to be in second grade, but the actor playing him is 11 years old. To be fair, the actor playing Brick (Atticus Shaffer) has Type IV Ostogenesis Imperfecta (also known as brittle bone disease), which causes him to be a lot smaller than average.
** For the same reason, he is almost never filmed walking all by himself within a certain distance of the camera, as he has a noticeable limp.
* DaydreamSurprise: "Ok...that didn't really happen..."
* {{Determinator}}: Sue. No matter how many times she fails to make any team or club, she never gives up. This extends far enough that, in that SeasonFinale, she "runs" five laps around a cross-country track ''with a twisted (and possibly broken) ankle'', only for it to start raining while she's on her final lap. Then, after being splashed with mud and grass and losing a crutch, she drags herself across the finish line with only her arms. Did we mention that the entire time [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome the theme from Chariots of Fire was playing]], timed out well enough that what is usually a cheesy StockParody turned into a CrowningMomentOfAwesome for Sue?
** Not to mention the fact that every one of her schoolmates watching and cheering for her cheered the wrong name until the family corrected them!
*** And presumably had been for the first four and a half laps. That makes the support of the family even more heartwarming!
*** Due to several reasons that scene [[BeyondTheImpossible triples]] as CrowningMomentOfAwesome, CrowningMomentOfFunny, and CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
*** In the second episode of the third season it's lampshaded when Axl pays her a backhanded compliment, calling her a "dork optimist."
** Frankie could be one too, given her various quests to help out her family (during which she is inevitably faced with several obstacles).
* EggSitting: Axl gets this assignment in sex ed. Needless to say, he is a less than perfect parent.
* EmbarrassingMiddleName: Sue Sue Heck. Her first name was accidentally written twice on her birth certificate. Frankie and Mike have been meaning to get that changed.
* EskimosArentReal: In a ChristmasEpisode, Brick explains that Eskimos know how to put a fire in an igloo, only for Axl to snap that back that Eskimos aren't real, but are made-up creatures like leprechauns.
* EverythingsWorseWithBears: On their camping trip...
* ExactWords: In "The Clover" during the third season, Frankie, worried about Aunt Edie's ability to continue on her own after her sister's death, visits her. While there, she points to the phone with extra large buttons and pictures of her, her mother and her sister on the numbers in memory:
-->'''Frankie''': ''Press my face if you want to talk''
-->'''Aunt Edie''': (reaching out and actually pressing Frankie's face) ''Hello? Hello?''
* {{Expy}}: The title, characters, setting, and family dynamics have a resemblance to MalcolmInTheMiddle.
* FailOSuckyname: Axl and Brick. Not surprising with a family name like Heck.
** Justified, sort of, as they are from, presumable central Indiana... where the "[=BRICKyard=]" is. That is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, for those who didn't know.
* {{Fanservice}}: Axl. He's played by a 19-year-old actor.
* FirstKiss. Subverted somewhat in "[[ValentinesDayEpisode Valentine's Day]] III" in the third season. Sue and her new boyfriend have admitted to each other that his French kisses have been a problem for them both—she doesn't like the feel of an other person's tongue in her mouth, and he's been trying to avoid cutting his tongue on her braces. So the show ends with a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming on the Hecks' doorstep, as they kiss on the lips, limned by sunlight. It's not her first kiss per se but it's her first real one.
* FlyoverCountry: The show is set in the U.S. Midwest, and the title, "the middle", is a colloquialism used by inhabitants of places like Orson to describe where they live.
* GilliganCut: Used often.
* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: The third season's Thanksgiving episode introduces Molly Shannon as Frankie's sister Janet. Frankie resents the fact that she's married to a chiropractor and has a higher standard of living than the Hecks do, while Janet in turn resents that Frankie didn't need medical assistance to conceive and has three children whereas she only has one.
* GoingToSeeTheElephant: In "The Bee", the family forgets Sue's birthday in the runup to the road trip to Chicago for Brick's appearance in the regional spelling bee, so they make it up to her by letting her plan the trip from a guidebook. Sue winds up wanting to see [[HilarityEnsues hilariously minor]] tourist attractions.
* GoldenMoment: Usually with Frankie, but when it's Mike, expect a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
* HappilyMarried: Frankie and Mike
* HorribleCampingTrip: The two-part third season premiere, which doubles down on the trope by flashing back to a similar trip 20 years earlier—which was the Hecks' ''honeymoon''.
* HotDad: Neil Flynn. [[strike:[[YourMileageMayVary YMMV]]]] EvenTheGuysWantHim
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Lampshaded in the episode "The Final Four" when Mike meets Frankie's boss for the first time and Mr. Ehlert remarks "Short woman, tall guy...always funny!".
* IAteWhat: Axl's toenails, clipped into a bag of Doritos.
** In "The Map", Axl eats Brick's school project, a baked clay relief map of Indiana, after it breaks. Subverted, weirdly enough, in that he doesn't seem as bothered by this as much as he is at the fact that everybody else finds this almost too stupid to believe.
* ICallItVera: Mike's father nicknamed his belt 'The Enforcer'.
* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: Brick, who'd almost always rather read
* IronicEcho: Plenty.
-->'''Mike''': I'm done talking to you now.
* IneptAptitudeTest: Sorta played around with in the season finale. Axl's score says that he's BrilliantButLazy, so Sue and Mike try and push him harder. It turns out that some results were switched, but because of his hard work, Axl gets the best score he's ever gotten- a B minus.
* ItGotWorse: Sue and Brick's attempt to fix a small hole in her wall in "The Big Chill" only makes it larger.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Axl, who usually treats Sue with disdain, will nevertheless protect her and help her—but only when she'll never know he did.
* LaxativePrank: Axl does this to Sue in "Foreign Exchange", just before the family takes a long car trip.
* LeapDay: Sue was born on February 29th and is technically four years old.
* LemonyNarrator: Each episode begins with Frankie narrating over a short montage of StockFootage, going from describing some general aspect of life in [[TitleDrop "the middle"]] to the specifics of the episode. The narration returns when needed later in the episode, sometimes describing things Frankie couldn't be aware of, and usually taking a somewhat Garrison Keillor-esque tone.
* LimitedWardrobe: Axl again. To the point that his wardrobe seems to consist solely of boxers.
* LongDistanceRelationship: Sue tries to have one with Matt in "The Paper Route." Axl warns her it won't work, [[spoiler:and they break up by the end of the episode]].
* MiddleChildSyndrome: Sue seems to be unable to succeed. On the bright side, she at least appears to be cheerfully unaware of it or undaunted. Either way, you gotta give her credit for trying.
* MyBelovedSmother: Brick's teacher accuses Frankie of this.
* NeverMessWithGranny: though Aunt Edy is very old and senile, in "The Math Class" episode she sprays a guy with a garden hose.
* NewYorkCity: Sue wins a trip there in the second-season episode "Hecks on a Plane". However, when they arrive, after the expected plane trip in which everything that can go wrong does, it's snowing and they can't really see anything.
* NonverbalMiscommunication: When Sue is at the meeting listing all the activities she tried (and failed) at in a speech, Frankie gives her a 'hurry up' gesture from the audience. Sue sees this and concludes "Oh, yes, and tumbling."
* OnceAnEpisode: Brick will whisper something to himself.
** Less common, but Axl will usually wind up in his boxers at some point in the show.
* OnlySaneMan: Mike is usually the first to acknowledge the craziness going on in the house.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Subverted in "The Concert", Brick is angry and depressed after washing out of the school spelling bee on the first word (after he had gone to the regionals in Chicago the year before). His parents are actually happy about this since it's an emotionally appropriate response (normally, he responds to his failures philosophically).
* PersonaNonGrata: : Mike is banned from Brick's school after his attempt to help at the Valentine's Day craft project ends up ruining Valentine's Day.
* ThePratfall: Sue specializes in this.
* ProductPlacement: "Hecking it Up" in the third season is a drawn-out ad for the Volkswagen Passat.
** Later in that same season, "The Guidance Counselor" has Frankie announcing dinner's ready while the camera pans across some ostentatiously placed Subway sandwiches and wrappers.
* PutOnABus: Sue's boyfriend Matt moves to another town in "The Paper Route."
* RealitySubtext: Plots in two episodes are based on events from the actors' real lives. Atticus Shaffer once went out for Halloween as the same obscure Scottish World War I hero Brick did in the first Halloween episode, and Patricia Heaton's family once hosted a Japanese exchange student who didn't say a word to them for two weeks—just like what happens in "Foreign Exchange".
* RecycledInSpace: Some people feel like it's a rip off of ''MalcolmInTheMiddle''.
* RuleOfThree: Whenever a character thinks about previous examples - Sue's past Halloween costumes, Brick's suffering though Frankie's errands etc - they generally think about three examples.
* RunningGag:
** The announcer on the P.A. system at the car dealership constantly paging Frankie about weird home situations.
** Brick occasionally repeating the last word or phrase he says under his breath.
-->'''Brick''': My egg hatched! There's a chicken in the house! (Stage whisper) Chhhhhhicken in the houuuuuuse...
** When BettyWhite made a cameo in the season finale as an authoritative librarian, she was seen to share this habit.
*** Or she was making fun of his tic, she was playing a character just mean enough to do that.
** Did Sue mention that she was on her school's cross-country team throughout the second season?
** Various things ending up in kitchen appliances that you wouldn't expect or want to be there (i.e., a quilt in the oven)
* SexyPriest: Rev. [=TimTom=], youth pastor at the Hecks' church.
* [[TheCharacterDiedWithHim The Character Died With Her]]: Aunt Ginny. At the end of the third-season episode "The Map", which had begun with the Hecks coming back from her funeral, there was an InMemoriam to Frances Bay, the actress who had played her until her death several months earlier.
* ShoutOut: In "The Map":
--->'''''Frankie''''': How is it that we've missed all these milestones in our children and family's lives, but we haven't missed a single episode of ''CelebrityRehab''?
** In "Year of the Hecks", two of the four girls who try out for the "wrestlerette" cheerleading group that Sue organizes decide to go home and watch ''PhineasAndFerb'' instead.
* SignificantReferenceDate: The episode ''Leap Year'' aired on Feb 29, 2012.
* TeenPregnancy: In "[[ValentinesDayEpisode Valentine's Day]] III", Frankie expresses her amazement at Sue's mistaken belief that a French kiss was one given under a rainbow by reminding her that at least two girls in her high school class (she's a freshman) are pregnant.
** In "The Clover", Axl and his friends recall that at last year's prom, a girl gave birth.
* TitleDrop: Just about every episode starts with Frankie's narration saying some version of "Here in The Middle...."
* TitleOnlyOpening
* TomboyishName: Frankie
* TransparentCloset: Brad Bottig
* VerbalTic[[hottip:* :verbal tic]]
** "It soothes me."
* WalkingShirtlessScene: It's easier to count the number of times Axl ''has'' worn a shirt.
** He seems to have finally stopped doing this in season 3.
* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: ''Axl and Brick?''
** Cool name makes a cool kid, right?
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Brick is afraid of bridges.
* YouCanAlwaysTellALiar: For Brick its when he says "[[spoiler:I'mmmmmmmmmm lyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyingggggggg]]" to himself out loud.
* YourFavorite: For Frankie, the way her Mom makes grilled cheese sandwiches with potato chips in the middle.
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