This Wednesday, The Middle will air its one hundredth episode. This is easily one of my favorite shows of all time so I will mention my top ten favorites from the first ninety-nine episodes.
These are in no particular order, just in order of when they aired.
1. "The Floating Anniversary"-Here Frankie (Patricia Heaton) must take care of her elderly aunts and their sick dog all while dealing with a sick Brick (Atticus Shaffer). Sue (Eden Sher) also gets her first crush, which goes completely wrong because she takes Mike's (Neil Flynn's) stupid advice. All Frankie wants to do is take fifteen minutes for herself but when she does, Bob (Chris Kattan) nearly burns down the used car dealership and Axl (Charlie McDermott) nearly crashes the car all because Brick let the ill dog Doris's wagon go into the street. Luckily, Mike comes through and gets Bob to give up his swinging bachelor lifestyle for one weekend to watch the aunts and the kids so he and Frankie can get away for their sixteenth and seventeenth anniversaries.
2. "Valentine's Day"-Brick has a sleep over which goes highwire, because he gives the host boy (who believes himself to be a cat) some chocolate which makes him go crazy. Sue attends her first boy-girl party against Mike's wishes while Axl and his friends, Sean and Darrin (Beau Wirick and John Gammon) try to hook up with some older girls. Frankie and Mike try to have a nice, quiet romantic evening, where Frankie forces Mike to come up with his top five marriage moments, not including the birth of the children. Sue ends up calling Mike to fetch her because she is scared. Carly (Blaine Saunders) comes with her. Axl and his friends also end up at the restaurant, filling up the small table.
3. "A Birthday Story"-Brick finally learns the truth behind his birth, how his parents took the wrong baby home from the hospital and didn't realize it right away. Yes, after being wrongly placed in a fancy room reserved for someone else, Mike can't take his eyes off the football game while baby Brick is having his heel prick test and because the babies have the same letter for the first name and the same last name, he accidentally selects the wrong baby. The other family realizes this after one month and the babies are properly switched back. Axl also learns that being pretty isn't everything. His new manager (Sarah Wright) at the movie theater is super hot but she is incredibly stupid. She doesn't order new candy and doesn't lock the doors up at night, causing a raccoon to get into the popcorn. He finally puts her in her place and then has a heart-to-heart with Mike and learns that smart trumps pretty.
4. "The Big Chill)-Frankie spends way too much money (two hundred whole dollars) on this face cream (an eyedropper full) so she can look better for Mike. Mike gets mad even though Frankie gets a second job at the historical society. The best part? Axl has to care for a baby for his health class and the baby (fake) breaks. It's horrible. Meanwhile, in order to not deal with the crying baby, Brick moves into Sue's room but no good deed goes unpunished. To wake up the baby, they throw shoes at the wall which eventually leads to a huge hole in her wall.
5. "Hecking Order"-With Sue in high school, Axl's life becomes harder. He's popular and she's not. He refuses to acknowledge her existence. He tries to sabotage Sue, suggesting she take swimming, very far away from her math class, leading her to be late almost every single time. Even when she flips over and is called turtle girl, he refuses to help her. Brick also has his own issues, dealing with a male teacher for the first time. Frankie learns that she doesn't have as much power as she thinks so she leaves an unprepared Mike to deal with the Brick situation. Luckily, she takes pity on Mike and Axl is nice to Sue, telling the hormonal teenagers making out in front of Sue's locker to make out under the bleachers like a normal person.
6. "The Map"-Dealing with Aunt Ginny's (Frances Bay's) death, Frankie struggles with what to do with Aunt Edie (Jeanette Miller), who forgets that her sister is dead and takes the news horribly when she is reminded of such news. Sue learns that a boy on the wrestling team has a crush on her but she doesn't want to date him, though he makes a grand gesture and of course, she loves grand gestures so she goes out with Matt (Moises Arias). Axl must help Brick with his school project, considering Axl ate it in the first place. Axl is actually sweet to Brick for once and its a nice change. The beginning scene is great when they talk about what made Aunt Ginny great and what the characters plan to do upon their deaths. Frankie and Mike also reveal that they do indeed have a will, written on a death napkin. The ending scene is also precious, with the whole family together to celebrate all the big events forgotten about in the past year. This is easily the best episode of the whole series.
7. "The Clover"-Axl goes stag to the prom, because Weird Ashley (Kaitlin Mastandrea) does have a date, but he breaks up with her at prom, leaving Axl forced to be the good guy and comfort her. Mike deals with his dad (John Cullum). Big Mike criticizes Mike's parenting techniques which makes Mike tune him out. Frankie finds a solution to dealing with Aunt Edie, to her relief and Darrin (John Gammon) takes Sue to prom, though Axl does not approve in the slightest. While playing outside, Brick finds a four-leaf clover but it gives him bad luck instead, though it does bring Mike and Big Mike together in the end.
8. "Bunny Therapy"- Brick is given a bunny because he develops another tick though the bunny is actually not nice and sweet. He doesn't even want the bunny and Sue ends up naming it Bugs. Then the bunny gets out of its cage and takes over the one bathroom, forcing the family to get closer together in the mornings because they are too scared to capture said bunny. Axl can't figure out who he is dating. He believes that he is dating Courtney (Brittany Ross) while everyone else in the school believes that he is dating Debbie (Natalie Lauder). This ends badly with him making out with the wrong girl, causing both to slap him. Sue tries out to be the school's mascot which she makes because no one else tries out.
9. "Thanksgiving IV"- Frankie invites some marines to spend the holiday with them, which goes horribly wrong. Her parents (Marsha Mason and Jerry Van Dyke) are fighting, and when Frankie tries to get them to stop, it causes the marines to become uncomfortable and leave before they can even eat pie. Sue is trying to find her chicken head from the mascot, and tries and fails to enlist the marines for help. In the end, Brad (J. Brock Cialelli) to become injured while dance fighting with the enemy. In the end, she wears a chicken head. Brick is obsessed with Love Story and Axl deals with his huge crush on his tutor, Cassidy (Galadrial Stineman). He struggles with his football game until Sue finally tells him to not think. Cassidy is there to greet him because she broke up with her boyfriend (yes, he does actually exist) and so the ending is perfectly romantic, with Axl and Cassidy making out in the snow.
10. "One Kid At a Time"- Frustrated with their kids, Mike and Frankie break them up and spend a day with each child. Axl doesn't really want to spend time with his parents, so they go paintballing and he hooks up with Cassidy and has to reveal to his dad that he has a girlfriend and loves spending time with her. Sue, on the other hand, can't wait and has them do seventeen activities, including petting puppies at the shelter. She even insists on going to Aunt Edie's house to try on Frankie's old prom dresses, which she loves though they are dated and fit her too well. She also looks through Frankie's old yearbooks and learns that Frankie was a cheerleader, meaning she will never give up on her dream because she has cheerleading in her DNA. Frankie and Mike are too tired to spend the day with Brick doing what he really wants but they finally yell at him and he's thrilled. Problem solved.
Top Quotes:
"I'm lying."-Brick's tell after telling a lie.
"I should have built a fence around here years ago."-Mike, after seeing Frankie wrestle with Axl to put on white socks for his graduation.
"If you want to insult me, you're going to have to use smaller words."-Axl to Cassidy after she does indeed insult him.
"I had the lowest of expectations and I'm still disappointed."-Axl, upon seeing the biggest oak tree stump.
"So I cried myself to sleep for no reason?"-Sue after being woken up by Frankie in the wee hours of the morning because her own parents forgot her birthday.
"It's an iconic moment."-Frankie several times before taking Axl to college.
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