The Middle: Difference between revisions

* [[Ambiguous Disorder]]: Brick (see under [[Intelligence Equals Isolation]] and [[Verbal Tic]] on this page)

* [[Ambiguously Gay|Ambiguously Camp Gay]]: Sue's temporary boyfriend, Brad, whose talents include square dancing, embroidery, and making centerpieces out of everyday objects. Mike and Frankie have their suspicions, but Sue and Brad are both oblivious of that fact (they broke up because Sue found out that Brad was a smoker).

* [[The Baby Trap]]: One episode had Brick have an unwanted girlfriend that started stalking him. When he tried to break up with her, she said that they were now married and had a baby to apparently keep him from leaving her.

* [[Bad Luck Charm]]: The titular object in the third-season's "The Clover" is an inversion, as a four-leaf cover is usually a ''good'' luck charm.

* [[Big Eater]]: Axl has a reputation for having a big appetite

* [[Blackmail]]: In "The Telling", Axl accidentally wakes Sue up late at night while sneaking back into the house via her room. Knowing that he has a big trip to the lake with his friends coming up on the weekend, she holds the threat of telling on him over him to get rides for her and her friends everywhere over the next few days.

* [[Braces of Orthodontic Overkill]]: Sue is expecting to get her braces off in the third season's "The Paper Route". Instead, because the braces overcorrected her teeth, she developed a simultaneous overbite and underbite and must wear headgear full-time.

* [[Brainless Beauty]]: Deconstructed in a season 2 episode; Axl's boss is an extremely sexy but extremely dumb party girl who he is at first overjoyed to work with, but eventually grows to intensely dislike, even turning down a date (to his own shock) due to frustration at her thoughtlessness.

* [[Brick Joke]]: [[I Thought It Meant|No, not with the character]]. In one episode, Brick tries to make Pizza puffs with the oven and nearly starts a fire because there was a ''quilt'' 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.

* [[Brilliant but Lazy]]: Subverted with Axl in the season one finale. Arguably, Brick is a more straight-up example (though see below)

** 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.

* [[I Call It Vera]]: Mike's father nicknamed his belt 'The Enforcer'.

* [[Intelligence Equals Isolation]]: Brick, who'd almost always rather read

* [[Ironic Echo]]: Plenty.

* [[Inept Aptitude Test]]: Sorta played around with in the season finale. Axl's score says that he's [[Brilliant but Lazy]], so Sue and Mike try and push him harder. It turns out that some results were switched, but because of his hard work, Axl gets the best score he's ever gotten- a B minus.

* [[It Got Worse]]: Sue and Brick's attempt to fix a small hole in her wall in "The Big Chill" only makes it larger.

* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Axl, who usually treats Sue with disdain, will nevertheless protect her and help her—but only when she'll never know he did.

* [[Laxative Prank]]: Axl does this to Sue in "Foreign Exchange", just before the family takes a long car trip.

** Mike's father and brother rarely informing him about major events in their lives, such as a health problem or getting engaged, because he didn't ask, and their general tendency towards almost no verbal communication when they're together.

* [[Sexy Priest]]: Rev. TimTom, youth pastor at the Hecks' church.

* [[Shout-Out]]: In "The Map":

{{quote|'''''Frankie''''': How is it that we've missed all these milestones in our children and family's lives, but we haven't missed a single episode of ''[[Celebrity Rehab]]''?}}

* [[Teen Pregnancy]]: In "[[Valentines Day Episode|Valentine's Day]] III", Frankie expresses her amazement at Sue's mistaken belief that a French kiss was one given under a rainbow by reminding her that at least two girls in her high school class (she's a freshman) are pregnant.

** In "The Clover", Axl and his friends recall that at last year's prom, a girl gave birth.

* [[Title-Only Opening]]

* [[Tomboyish Name]]: Frankie

* [[Transparent Closet]]: Brad Bottig

* [[Verbal Tic]]<ref>verbal tic</ref>

** "It soothes me."

* [[Walking Shirtless Scene]]: It's easier to count the number of times Axl ''has'' worn a shirt.

** He seems to have finally stopped doing this in season 3.