The Middle
Frankie Heck is a hassled mother who juggles lots of balls in Orson, Ind. When she’s not dealing with dying household appliances, her too-frank husband, Mike, and their three peculiar children—Axl, the smart-aleck high school jock; Sue, the 13-year-old extracurricular flop; and young Brick, who whispers to himself for no apparent reason—she’s busy ordering fast food for the family dinner in front of the television.
Besides covering daunting domestic duties, she hangs on by her fingernails to a part-time job at the last car dealer left in town.
Episode Reviews
October 7, 2009
TV Parental Guidelines Rating: tvpg
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The Cheerleader
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Frankie and Mike, a quarry supervisor, work really hard. But they just can’t seem to dig the Heck household out of its black hole of mediocrity and self-inflicted debt. "No payments till 2009!" was the family motto until ’09 actually rolled around. Now they owe $650 on a VCR they just sold at a garage sale for two bucks.
Though the show’s writing is often clever—and sometimes does humorous justice to real-life households trying to break even—The Middle often meanders off on slightly rancid tangents. The very same kind of rancid, as a matter of fact, as the slightly expired meat the Heck family is forced to buy (and keep down) while cutting back on expenses.
Take for example, the lies that get told. If the Hecks are ABC’s representation of middle-Americans, then we are opportunistic and disorganized, and we misrepresent the truth to get ourselves out of jams. A lot. Frankie cons a little boy into checking out a library book for her when she can’t pay a $189 fine. Her colleague lies about Frankie’s whereabouts when she’s late to a meeting. Axl lies about being in church group when he’s actually making out with a girl at the mall. Brick lies to a neighbor to get through the door and use her clothes dryer. (The Hecks’ dryer is kaput. Of course.)
Then there’s the mild profanities ("d‑‑n," "h‑‑‑" and exclamations of God’s name).
And the disregard for decorum. (Axl makes out with a girl in front of his father, who casually dismisses the teens’, um, new hobby.)
But the Hecks also love their kids and want the best for them. They encourage one another when finances are tight. Frankie relentlessly keeps trying to trust that their hard fiscal times will eventually work out, and she consistently acts as cheerleader for her familial "team." Together they support Sue’s swim tryout even though a ship’s anchor has better form than she does.
Since they do ultimately manage to realize that their family is more important than anything else, they muddle along happily, for the most part. It’s kind of like Jonathan Storm says in his Philadelphia Inquirer review: "The Middle is affectionate silliness." Yes, it is. But with a little bit of My Name Is Earl-style crassness thrown in for good measure. And a Midwest breadbasket full of lighthearted lies, too.