History Series / TheMiddle

Other notable characters include Bob Weaver ([[Series/SaturdayNightLive Chris Kattan]]), Frankie's coworker at Ehlert Motors for the first few seasons; Don Ehlert (Creator/BrianDoyleMurray), Frankie's first boss; Sean Donahue (Beau Wirick), Axl's highschool friend and neighbor; Lexie Brooks (Daniela Bobadilla), Sue's rich roommate/best friend at college in later seasons; Frankie's parents (Jerry Van Dyke and Marsha Mason); and even Rita Glossner (Creator/BrookeShields), mother of the block's trouble kids.

* NiceMeanAndInBetween: The [[HollywoodNerd studious]], inoffensive Brick and spirited, encourager Sue; the vain, pompous, opinionated and tyrannical coolness policeman Axl, who cracks down on all "dorks"; and the parents in the middle, each in a unique way: the major [[TheMcCoy McCoy]]-like Frankie and the [[TheStoic stoic]], distant Mike.

* LeapDay: Sue was born on February 29th and is technically four years old.

* {{Meganekko}}: [[FieryRedhead Cassidy Finch]], Axl's new tutor in "The Safe."

* BottleEpisode: Season 8's "Sorry Not Sorry"
* [[BrattyTeenageDaughter Bratty Teenage Son]]: Axl

* CloudCuckoolander: Brick Heck.

* DaydreamSurprise: "Ok...that didn't really happen..."

* ExtracurricularEnthusiast: Sue.

* GenkiGirl: Sue

* GilliganCut: Used often.
* GirlfriendInCanada: Brad has one, per "Sleepless in Orson".

** Frankie and Mike

* IAteWhat:
** Axl's toenails, clipped into a bag of Doritos that Frankie ate.
** 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.
** 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.

* DownerEnding: In "The Sit Down," the Heck family doesn't actually listen to the ER doctor's lecture, regarding the recent feuding between the parents and children, and when they leave the hospital, Sue loses her jacket once again.

* DownerEnding: In "The Sit Down," the Heck family doesn't listen to the ER doctor's lecture, regarding the recent feuds between the parents and children, and when they leave the hospital, Sue loses her jacket once more.

* DownerEnding: In "The Sit Down," the Heck family doesn't listen to the ER doctor's lecture, regarding their recent fights between the parents and children, and when they leave the hospital, Sue loses her jacket once more.

** In season seven, Brad is finally about to come out but Sue simply says, "I know" and hugs him.

* RealityEnsues: "The Trip" ends like this when Sue forces her way onto a field trip after she collected the necessary money (which her mother forgot to turn in) to go. Needless to say, because the field trip wasn't prepared for an extra student, it was a miserable experience for her. She couldn't go in the state capital building, had to sleep on the floor in the hotel, and numerous other things that combined to make the trip awful.

* AgonyOfDeFeet: Sue drives over Axl's foot while learning how to drive. His foot remains broken for the rest of the season.

* BackToSchool: After being fired from Ehlert Motors in the fourth season, Frankie decides to retrain, ultimately as a dental technician.

* BrickJoke: [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant No, not with the character]]. In one episode, Brick is home alone and he tries to make Pizza puffs with the oven and nearly starts a fire because there was a ''quilt'' in the oven (because they only eat fast food, Frankie puts Aunt Edie's old quilts 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.

* 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.

* ClipShow: Subverted: "Back to Summer" had a subplot where Brick had to fill out a journal covering everything he did that school year (or, in other words, covering Season 2). Only problem is that neither Brick or Frankie could actually ''remember'' anything that happened that year.

* DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff: Mike's father had a belt [[ICallItVera he called "the Enforcer"]] that he used frequently on his sons. It is implied that this is the reason Mike never even considers CorporalPunishment for his children.

* TakeThat: A rare one in "The Award":

* 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!"

* {{Crossover}}: In the episode "Operation Infiltration," Troy Gentile made a non-canon appearance as his character Barry Goldberg from the Eighties-centric sitcom ''Series/TheGoldbergs'' (a fellow ABC sitcom).

* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: "A Heck of a Ride" ends showing how the Hecks future pans out. [[spoiler:Axl marries Lexie and has three sons, Brick becomes a best-selling author, Sue marries Sean, and Frankie and Mike... stay exactly the same.]]

** Many View it as one to ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'' (down to name similarities).''Malcolm'' mother Jane Kaczmarek even guest starred in the fourth season as Frankie's teacher.

* Chekhov's Gun: In the opening of the Season 5 episode "Sleepless in Orson", Sue brings a balloon home from work. Later on in the episode, Mike tackles the balloon during the night thinking it's someone breaking in.