The Middle: Office Hours

Frankie (Patricia Heaton) is not having a good day, with the kids making demands of her when Brick (Atticus Shaffer) could totally make snacks for his friends on his own and then she leaves work and finds that her car is stolen. Mike (Neil Flynn) proclaims that it would be stolen for its parts because no one would want it as a whole. But it turns out that it was parked in the back for the whole week. Yikes, totally called that one. But she realizes that the actual reason for this is that the kids and husband are making too demands of her so she creates office hours, meaning the kids and Mike can only ask her to do things for one hour each day. And it seems to work. She can remember more random, crazy stuff now. Plus, she's happier.
But, it's Frankie so the good won't last. Axl (Charlie McDermott) loses the apartment because she doesn't mail the deposit in time and he can't call to remind her because it's outside of office hours. So Frankie learns the hard way, that there are no office hours when you have kids. She should have figured that out by now. And, she goes back to normal, forgetting simple things, scrambling to get everything back together again and even showing up to her old job.
In the meantime, Sue (Eden Sher) and Darrin (John Gammon) are dating and are grossly cute. Mike can't stand it so he lets them go to Sue's room, if she keeps the door open, which she does, but that also proves to be too much so they are shunned to the basement. While they are kissing, Darrin's watch gets caught on Sue's sweater while Mike is spying on them. Naturally, Mike misinterprets the situation and talks to Darrin about the whole thing. Sue isn't happy to hear that, but this leads to a nice moment between father and daughter. He tells her that he wants to protect her from stuff. AKA sex, but never says that word and Sue can't figure what he means for the longest time but when she does she snaps, saying he doesn't know her at all and that she's not even close to being ready for that. Mike also proclaims that he never thought he would be the father of a daughter so he's learning as he goes.
Brick also has his own small plot line, involving his book club which is made up of older women. Sure, he likes them, but simply can't understand why they don't like the Planet Nowhere books as they are just the older generation.
All-in-all, this was a pretty good episode though they do rehash some old plot lines, but the Mike and Sue moment truly shined and there were actually some funny moments this time around. Grade: A-
Side Notes:
-Darrin tells Mike that he would never harm Sue in any way but Mike says that Darrin is nineteen and male. --Darrin then says that he is twenty because he skipped a grade, 'that's what happens when you repeat a grade twice.'
-Sue says that when she is ready it will be by a warm fire and a lit Christmas tree.
-Axl forgets his psychology notes but Frankie can't even read them. These notes have nothing to do with the subject.
-Sue and Darrin are really the cutest, most innocent couple ever.
-Frankie can remember her locker combination from junior high before she forgets everything again.
-Brick tells Frankie that she can't play any Duke Ellington in the house because Helen's husband just died.
-Sue apparently has scoliosis.