The Middle - 1 ª Season

Sue tries out for show choir with disastrous results. Frankie desperately tries to close a sale with disastrous results. Brick has trouble relating to his teacher with odd results.

Payments delayed until 2009 come due just as the dryer breaks, Sue needs glasses and Frankie comes within a jelly bean of losing her job. Sue tries out for the swim team with disastrous consequences but a tornado brings good fortune.

Mike gives daughter Sue questionable advice on handling a crush. Mirroring Newton's laws, growing Independence by Axl and Brick are balanced by codependency by Frankie's aunts. Assured the world won't stop without her, Frankie takes a fifteen minute break, and the world falls apart.

Socially indifferent Brick didn't bother to protest when classmate Olivia declared him her boyfriend, but soon tires of her 'romantic' demands to the point of despair. Alas, Axl's advise doesn't cut it and Mike is no match for the possessive, selectively girl either but Brick's brain ultimately finds a way out. Eager to see Sue succeed at something, both parents invest ludicrous effort in helping her win a place on a cheap bus trip to nearby Indiana by selling $3,000 food for the school. When her name is absent from the winners list, teacher in charge Perez is not allowed to 'get away with his error', nor with vague promises until it's too late anyhow. Only once Sue is aboard, non-assertive bad example Frankie discovers the real error, with twisted consequences.

Brick's teachers tell Frankie and Mike that Brick tested as "socially challenged," so Mike thinks basketball is the answer to help Brick interact with others. When that fails, Mike enters the neighborhood block-party lawnmower contest and discovers that Brick has a talent for souping up machines. Meanwhile Frankie joins the booster club to raise money for new football jerseys for Axl's team, but Axl refuses to give his old one to her.