The Middle: “Film, Friends and Fruit Pies”
Pity the poor patchwork quilt, viewed by some as a beautiful construction even as others are only capable of seeing an assortment of random pieces haphazardly sewn together. That’s not to suggest that this week’s episode of The Middle feels like such a thing, but…oh, hell, I can’t finish that sentence without feeling like a fraud: what we have on our hands is a catch-all installment, one that picks up past story threads for each of the three kids and throws in a token bit of action for Frankie and Mike, including a reference to Valentine’s Day that arrives so late in the proceedings that you can almost imagine someone running onto the set, waving a calendar and shouting, “Wait! Wait! This is airing on February 10! For God’s sake, we have to add something about Valentine’s Day!!!”
There’s not much way that an episode focusing on such disparate storylines (not to mention one where each storyline takes place on a set that looks completely different from the ones seen before and after it) can avoid coming across as a bit of a hodgepodge, but for those who arrive on the scene well-versed in what’s been happening lately on the series, it’s a highly rewarding affair.
First of all, let’s look at Axl’s situation. He’s still in the midst of his Little Betty internship and still struggling to some extent, and based on how his boss, Mr. Kershaw (guest star Alan Ruck), acted toward him when he was first introduced, there’s every reason to believe that the status quo is going to be maintained. Things change, however, when Axl unwittingly manages to offer up a side of himself that Kershaw likes, resulting in an unexpectedly tight relationship between the two men, if one that leaves Axl befuddled as to why Kershaw’s suddenly being so cool. As it turns out, there’s a reason for it: finances are in the toilet, but Kershaw hasn’t been able to tell anyone about it…until now. It’s a storyline that heads into slightly darker territory by the end of the episode, with Axl clearly startled by the realization that some of the offhanded remarks he made to Kershaw during his efforts to come off as cool have directly resulted in the closing of the entire fruit pie division, putting dozens of people out of work. Axl may not have made a dramatic transformation by the time the credits roll, but despite his best efforts, he seems to have learned a lesson from Kershaw: uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Wait, was that the lesson? Maybe it was more along the lines of “the only thing worse that a friend becoming your boss is a boss becoming your friend.” Either way, it’s an unpleasant lesson, to be sure, but let’s hope that whichever one he picks proves to be a valuable one.
Next up we’ll tackle Brick’s story, which is easily the most ridiculous aspect of the episode yet also delivers some of the best laughs of the overall proceedings. You can tell things are going to get a little absurd from the moment that Brick’s torn on which classic achievement he should attempt to reproduce for his class: Battleship Potemkin or Knots Landing. He selects the latter, naturally, having devoured all 14 seasons worth of Betamax-recorded episodes from Aunt Edie’s personal collection, and for his male and female leads, he goes to his two closest friends: Cindy and Troy. It’s not that the plan is bad in and of itself, but what no one realized was that Brick was going to transform into the unholy spawn of Otto Preminger and Michael Bay as soon as he took over the directorial reins.
Although Mike and Frankie can see that their son is becoming a terror, they decide to stay out of it until things reach a point where both Cindy and Troy opt to feign excuses to avoid having to work with Brick any longer. At a loss about the reason they’ve bailed out of the project, Brick finally gets the 4-11 from Frankie, who mentions that maybe it’s not fun for them anymore and reminds him that he doesn’t really have enough friends to be able to afford to alienate the few people who don’t mind hanging out with him. It’s a great ending to discover that Frankie’s remark is the exact same thing that the other two have been told by their parents, and it’s why he apologizes, they accept, and everyone goes off to get fries together.
Now it’s Sue’s turn. She’s gotten everything she ever wanted in a roommate and is so excited about the situation that she can hardly stand it, but she soon discovers that there’s one little hitch with her relationship with her roomie: Lexie is, for lack of a better word, “rich,” whereas Sue is near about as poor as the day is long. It’s not like there’s particularly a culture clash, but their disparate incomes come into play when Lexie starts buying things for their dorm room and just saying, “You can pay me your half later.” There’s a very sweet gesture at the heart of her actions, but Lexie just has no frame of reference to Sue’s economic situation, nor does she grasp just how much Sue’s had to give up or sell outright to pay for her half of the stuff.
Growing increasingly more stressed about the situation, Sue ventures back home to get some insight from Frankie and Mike, plus a little bit of extra cash to go with it, but her state of mind results in her spilling the beans about Lexie, at which point Mike lays down a little bit of Heck family wisdom: when making friends, always friend down rather than up, because if you friend up and start hanging out with rich friends, then eventually your normal life is suddenly going to seem even crappier than it already is. When Sue gets back to her dorm room and gets offered VIP tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming concert, she accepts and hears the hearty “just pay me your half whenever you can,” but finally Sue can’t take it anymore: she admits that she’s poor, that Lexie should probably get a roommate who’s on the same financial level as Frankie is, and she’s basically expecting to get the bum’s rush when Lexie erupts and says that she absolutely wants to stay roommates with Sue. It’s clear that the financial middle ground between them is a work in progress, but they’re clearly on the right track, given the sweet ending with them attending Taylor Swift’s concert by sitting in chairs outside the venue. That’s right: Lexie clearly could’ve gone the VIP ticket route, but she wanted to see the show with Sue. Could two young women possibly be more perfect pals? Surely not.
Lastly, we’ve got the little Frankie and Mike story that more or less bookends the episode, with Frankie finding a foreign object in the carpet, spending the episode trying to figure out what it is, and when she finally realizes what it’s forth, she finds out that Mike’s thrown away the object. End result: Frankie demands that Mike’s punishment is that he’s now responsible for making good on a Valentine’s Day that would make her happy. Seriously, it’s a plot thread that really does feel like it was written on the night before filming, but it’s an important one to the episode in the long run, as it gives Frankie her closing narration, where she suggests that we’re all really just “random pieces lost in carpet of life, looking for where we fit.”