So, I've come up with a compromise: The Episode Reaction. It's pretty simple. Whenever I have the time and motivation and an episode of a show is good or interesting enough to talk about, I will. It'll a little bit series review, somewhat a season check-in, and mostly an examination of the episode in question.
What better show to start this with than The Middle? You see, The Middle has quietly become one of my favorite shows. It's not flashy. There's no breakout stars. It's not meta or rule-breaking. It's sort of a throwback: A sturdy family comedy. For those of you who are unfamiliar, The Middle is about the Hecks: a lower middle class Indiana family. They are led by family matriarch, Frankie (Patricia Heaton) who fosters an atmosphere of ambivalence. She's a refutation of the Martha Stewart types who have it all figured out. She tries, but she's no good at it and, when she's honest with herself, doesn't mind that at all. Her husband Mike (Neil Flynn), is quiet, stubborn, and easy to please. Flynn is magnificently understated in his performance, kind of like if Dan Conner from Roseanne meets Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights. The oldest son, Axl (Charlie McDermott) is conceited and lazy. The only daughter, Sue (Eden Sher) is the world's biggest optimist in the body of the world's unluckiest klutz. The youngest son, Brick (Atticus Shaffer) is a highly eccentric book nerd. The Hecks bicker amongst themselves, but at the end of the day, are a loving family.
On paper, nothing about The Middle is special. What sets it apart is an incredible understanding of its characters. It's currently as strong as ever because all any episode needs is an inciting event and the characters' responses naturally carry it. I can't think of a show that does it better.
"Floating 50" is a perfect example of this. The inciting event: Frankie asks for a pizza as a makeup for "floating" her 50th birthday celebration. Everything that follows makes sense. Brick and Axl complain about her pizza choice. Mike and Frankie forget the pizza on the roof. The men realize they need to do better by Frankie and throw her a birthday party. This being the Hecks, this doesn't go well. Every single beat makes perfect sense for the characters. When I saw it writes itself, I mean that as a compliment. One of my biggest complaints about Modern Family is that I can see the strings too often. They structure the show for an endpoint and reverse-engineer the episode to get there.
The Middle is very much the opposite. It's character driven. I honestly don't know how they could've started with the idea of "Frankie isn't there for her own party" because everything falls into place perfectly. It's well established that the men of the family have no idea how to show their appreciation. After the pizza fiasco, they want to make it up to Frankie but don't know how. They decide to throw her a surprise party. Why? Because if she knows about it, they know it'll fall on her to plan it. It makes sense that they leave Sue out of it. Why? First of all, she's at college (looking for a sock, but more on that later). Axl is homeless and has his internship, so of course he'd be around. Secondly, it fits Sue perfectly that she can't keep a secret. That's exactly who Sue is. The Heck men put together the most passable excuse for a party they can. Axl gets the sub, because the less you give him to do, the better. Brick decorates with two balloons, because frivolous things are beyond him. Mike forgets to have someone guide Frankie to show up on time for the party, because he's a simple man who is used to things being reliable and exactly the same as they always are. Why wouldn't he assume that Frankie wouldn't come back home around the time she normally would?
On Frankie's side, she's feeling unappreciated by the men, so she reaches out to Sue, the one person in the family who knows how to cheer her up. The exact timing of her call after Sue finds out about the party in contrived, sure. The fact that Frankie comes out of that conversation deciding to surprise Sue with a visit makes perfect sense though.
This is an odd episode too. It's like they wrote the A-story for the party and still have seven minutes to fill. That's how we end up with the odd B and C stories of Sue searching for a sock and Brick learning a sport. I'll generously call these filler. Structurally, they're quite entertaining though and individually they're pretty entertaining. You could just tell me the pitch "Sue loses a sock in the dryer" and I'm going to chuckle. The character is so well drawn out that I know exactly how this will play out, and Eden Sher is such a pro by now that she'll do it with gusto. Brick's teacher trying to teach him a sport is even more silly, but it fits the pathos of the show perfectly with the teacher having him change his "I can't" by the end. I liked how the Sue story was mostly contained to the first act of the show and Brick's to the second, which left sole focus on the party in the third. Perhaps the "filler" was actually a sign of a more shrewedly crafted script than I initially assumed.
It all comes together with the surprise party with Frankie stuck in Mumford, and that's where the episode truly shines. There's all the neighbors pointing out all the ways that the Heck men screwed up. There's Sue completely folding under the pressure of the phone call. Brick fails at small talk in glorious fashion. Best of all, when Mike finally reveals the surprise, Frankie isn't mad. She's touched. Those beat have been hit many times before, normally on the Mother's Day episodes, which the show itself recognizes. Heaton still nails it, as the effective script earned it. Then there's the small touches like Sue's new friend Lexie showing up with the vending machine "cake". Frankie's right. I see why Sue and her would be friends too.
I worry that The Middle will never get the appreciation that it deserves. Episodes like this one remind me that it's probably the best family comedy of the last decade, given the longevity, consistency, attention to detail, and criminally underrated cast.
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