History YMMV / TheMiddle

* DiagnosedByTheAudience: Brick's disorder is never specified though he does seem to have several symptoms[[note]]such as not making friends with children his own age, lack of interest in social activities, his VerbalTic (known as echolalia), etc[[/note]] that suggest he may be on the autistic spectrum.
** Cindy Hornberger, Brick's girlfriend, speaks in a monotone voice, refuses to take her hat off, cannot say something she doesn't mean, and she has little understanding of social etiquette (ex. she has no problem speaking to Brick in the men's room while he's using a stall).

** Season 9's "Meet the Parents"--which aired in October of 2017--has Mike and Lexie's father Bennett sit down to watch the football game. Mike is a diehard Indianapolis Colts fan with Bennett saying he switches teams ever now and then and is now rooting for the New England Patriots. In February of 2018 at Super Bowl LII, the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Patriots with a score of 41-33--which could be LaserGuidedKarma aimed directly at Bennett.

** The final episode ends with Sue marrying Sean while Lexie is pregnant with Axl's child. In real life, Beau Wirick, who played Sean, married Daniela Bobadilla, who played Lexie, the same year that the show ended.

* OneTrueLove: Axl Heck and Lexie Brooks. Having met due to the former being Sue's older brother and the latter being her college roommate, Axl very nonchalantly is fully himself around Lexie and while they start out having an adversarial but very respectful friendship, Axl clearly started out highly interested in Lexie from the beginning and still acted like Lexie was interested in him even when he had a girlfriend already in the form of April. Lexie eventually sees that genuinely caring and sensitive side to Axl and she begins to realize her own feelings for him, wanting to get his attention and when Axl discovers this, he nearly rushes to see her—even while he still has said girlfriend. Eventually it's not long after Axl ends things with April that he reciprocates Lexie's feelings by kissing her, the two spending a lot of time together, her constantly being cheerful and proud of their union, supporting each other through difficult times and eventually making it through the ups and downs in end. Proves how ultimately strong that bond of love is when in the future, they're Happily Married with three-four kids.

** Season 8's "True Grit" has Brick talking about how much he enjoys the work of Charlie Rose and praising him. Needless to say, the episode was dated back to early November 2016.

** Season 9 itself practically is this. Toted "The Farewell Season", the writers have been treating it way too much like a regular season with too much of the same usual hijinks and occasionally bringing on old recurring characters for quick and somewhat unnecessary send-offs. They could have had big stories like whatever would have happened had [=SueSean=] been resolved in only a few episodes or the progression of Lexl's relationship, seeing more of Lexie's parents and seeing Lexie become an AscendedExtra and how she becomes more integrated into Axl's family, spending more time with them. Things are expected to really heat up in the final three episodes with big changes occuring, but you wouldn't know it by how safe the rest of the season has been playing it.

** The episode where Sue goes to college presents Mike as an incredibly overprotective dad by having her master a ridiculous amount of skill before letting her go. However, nothing about Sue up to this point would lead the viewer to believe that she is ready to live on her own. Even her actions in the episode itself would give anyone doubts.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Lexie's family financially cuts her off. Axl is delighted to show her how to live poor only for the plot to barely be mentioned again.

** The episode where Sue goes to college presents Mike as an incredibly [[MeddlingParents overprotective dad]] by having her master a ridiculous amount of skill before letting her go. However, nothing about Sue up to this point would lead the viewer to believe that she is ready to live on her own. Even her actions in the episode itself would give anyone doubts.

* IdiotPlot: The [=SueSean=] Season 9 arc relied heavily on the fact that both Sue and Sean were each too insecure to tell each other how they felt and that a third party didn’t do enough to help either one get there. While it might’ve been fine for a few episodes if not almost half the season, the fact that it instead stretched [[ArcFatigue throughout the entire 24 episode season]] quickly spread fans thin.

** The episode where Sue goes to college presents Mike as an incredibly OverprotectiveDad by having her master a ridiculous amount of skill before letting her go. However, nothing about Sue up to this point would lead the viewer to believe that she is ready to live on her own. Even her actions in the episode itself would give anyone doubts.

* FridgeLogic: In "Please Don't Feed the Hecks", it isn't just Sue's stubborn pride—and Beckett being her Statistics professor—that keeps her and Lexie from getting their apartment back sooner, but the fact that Lexie's father Bennett—who's paying for the place—would face legal ramifications for not stopping the girls from subletting the apartment in the first place—regardless of the fact that Derek and Andy proved to clearly be very untrustworthy—but that the girls themselves could face them too due to their not going through the proper channels was also clearly not something in their authority to do.

* HilariousInHindsight: In "The Neighbor", Sue and Carly try to beat the Glossners in a fight after the latter challenges by a dance off, not knowing what a fight really entails. In ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'' the titular Star Butterfly (voiced by Creator/EdenSher, who plays Sue) has no such problems in knowing how to fight and can be excessive at times. In fact, the episode "School Spirit", Star had... [[KnightTemplar the exact opposite problem when it came to football]], acting under the belief it was a blood sport, donning battle armor, thinking a trophy case is a memorial, and ''mining and laying traps in a football field''.

* HarhserInHindsight:

* FunnyAneurysmMoment:
** In the Japanese exchange student episode, Frankie describes sending a wave to Japan (which Mike reminds her is called a tsunami, which the Japanese do not like).

* CriticalResearchFailure: In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YckdzD92A48 Brad's big musical number]], he mentions Tina Fey as a high school outcast who ended up getting the last laugh. Except Tina Fey's been very open about actually being one of the [[AlphaBitch mean girls]] [[https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/tina-fey-admits-girl-high-school/story?id=35861388 during her school days]].
** In one Halloween episode, after claiming to see the ghost of Christopher Columbus' ship, Sue defends herself by pointing out that people used to think the world was flat until Columbus proved otherwise...[[http://www.kofc.org/en/columbia/detail/christopher-columbus-fake-history.html except this isn't true in the slightest.]]

** Season 8's "True Grit" has Brick talking about how much he enjoys the work of Creator/CharlieRose and praising him. Needless to say, the episode was dated back to early November 2016.

** In one Halloween episode, after claiming to see the ghost of Christopher Columbus' ship, she defends herself by pointing out that people used to think the world was flat until Columbus proved otherwise...[[http://www.kofc.org/en/columbia/detail/christopher-columbus-fake-history.html except this isn't true in the slightest.]]