Transcription
Okay, so I was rewatching *The Middle* for probably the fifth time last week [music], and something hit me that I genuinely cannot unsee. Frankie Heck is not the tired, lovable mom we all thought she was back in 2009. She kind of ruined her kids. And the worst part? We laughed the whole time it was happening.
Welcome back to Axel Gang. Today we're talking about Frankie because when the show was airing, everybody I knew loved her. She was the relatable mess, the mom who couldn't cook, couldn't clean, couldn't remember anything, and we all went, "Oh, same. Me too." But go watch it again as an adult. I'm telling you, it plays completely different now. It's not cute. It's kind of dark.
And look, I'm not a psychologist. I'm just a fan who has watched this show way too many times, but once you start noticing the pattern, you can't stop. Frankie isn't failing because life is hard. Frankie is failing because Frankie is choosing herself over her kids in almost every single episode. And I'm going to show you exactly what I mean because there are three specific things she does that honestly made my jaw drop the second I actually paid attention.
Let's start with the food thing because this one is honestly wild. So, Frankie has this habit through the whole series where she hides snacks from her own family. Not like a mom keeping a secret chocolate bar in a drawer. I mean, she literally goes out to her car, sits in the driveway, and eats candy and fast food alone so her kids can't have any.
There's this one scene, and I think about it all the time, where she's hiding in the car eating what she calls a "frosting [music] sandwich." Like, two pieces of bread with frosting in the middle. And she says out loud, "I just want to watch my show and eat my frosting sandwich." And the joke is supposed to be, "Ah, poor Frankie needs a minute to herself."
But here's the thing that messed me up. Her kids are hungry. Like, actually hungry. Brick is in the kitchen eating dry cereal out of a bowl with no milk. Sue is surviving on whatever she can find. And Frankie is out in the car with secret snacks she bought with money they don't have. That's not a tired mom thing. That's a mom competing with her own kids for food. I didn't even notice this until my third rewatch, [music] but once you see it, every food scene becomes uncomfortable.
And there's an even worse one. Remember the episode where the neighbor Nancy Donahue makes popcorn balls and brings them over for the whole Heck family? Frankie hides them and eats them herself. All of them. The kids never even see them. I mean, honestly, what mom does that? A gift from the neighbor meant for the kids, and Mom just pockets it.
Then there's the buffet episode. I love this one because it's so on the nose. The family wins a coupon for this all-you-can-eat place called King Henry's. Free food all day. For a family that's always broke and always hungry, this is like winning the lottery. And what does Frankie do? She drags them to church first because she wants to feel like a good Christian for getting the coupon. By the time they get to the buffet, the kids barely get to eat anything. Her image of herself was more important than her actual starving children. And the show plays it like, "Haha, classic Frankie." No, that's not classic. That's selfish in a way that's honestly kind of sad.
But here's the thing, the food stuff is bad, but if you don't understand what she does to Brick, you don't understand the show at all because this next part is where I genuinely had to pause and go, "Wait, is this really happening on a sitcom?"
Okay, so Brick, sweet, weird, book-loving Brick. He whispers to himself. He reads phone books for fun. He has a hard time in social situations. Any parent watching this kid for 10 seconds would go, "Hey, maybe we should get him some help. Like a specialist, a doctor, somebody." Frankie's answer? Nothing. She does nothing for nine seasons. She just treats him like an inconvenience who's ruining her day by existing.
And I'm not even exaggerating. They forget Brick at school multiple times. They leave him home alone when he's way too young. There's an episode where they flat-out tell him that middle school isn't important, so they're just going to skip parenting him that year. Like they say it [music] to his face. "Yeah, we're going to take a year off from raising you." And then they refuse to sign his emergency contact form. His emergency contact form, the thing the school needs in case something actually happens to him. They wouldn't [music] sign it.
And then they forgot his 13th birthday for months. Not for a day, not for a week, for months. His 13th birthday, which is like a big one, and nobody in the house noticed it happened. I mean, honestly, how do you forget a whole child for months?
But here's the part that really got me. There's that Halloween episode where Brick eats a massive amount of candy and suddenly, for like the first time in the whole show, he's calm. He's making eye contact. The whispering stops. He's basically a different kid. And if you know anything about ADHD, you know that sugar and stimulants can actually calm kids with that condition down instead of hyping them up. That episode is basically the show telling you in writing, this kid needs medical help, and nobody is giving it to him. And Frankie just laughs it off like it's a funny [music] quirk. Her son is showing you on screen that he needs a doctor, and she can't be bothered.
This is just my opinion, but I think Brick is the saddest character on television that nobody talks about because he's not sad in an obvious way. The show dresses it up as comedy, but if you really watch him, he's a kid who figured out pretty early that his parents were not coming to save him. >> [music] >> So, he retreated into books and into his own head. And honestly, can you blame him?
Okay, third thing, and this one kind of ties the whole picture together because it's where you see Frankie's real personality. Mother's Day. So, Frankie has this pattern where she demands to be worshipped on Mother's Day. Like [music] every year she wants the perfect day. She wants gifts. She wants everyone to read her mind and guess what she really wants. And if it's not perfect, she loses it. Full meltdown. Crying, yelling, the whole thing.
Now, here's the part that makes it hypocritical. This is the same woman who forgot Brick's 13th birthday. The same woman who forgot Sue's birthday and then tried to make up for it with a random road trip. The same woman who can't remember basic things about her kids' lives. But Mother's Day? She expects the royal treatment. She wants her kids to pour their whole hearts into celebrating her when she couldn't even remember they were born. I mean, honestly, the double standard there is insane, and it gets worse.
There's this one Mother's Day episode where she tells the family she just wants to be left alone in the house. That's her one wish. So, the family, being nice, actually leaves. They go to a Mother's Day event at the fair >> [music] >> and the second they're gone, Frankie gets mad that they left. She got exactly what she asked for, and she was furious about it. She wanted them gone, and she wanted to be missed, and she wanted them to be miserable without her all at the same time.
And I haven't even gotten to the credit card thing yet. I mean, Frankie opens a credit card in Axel's name, her own son, to buy a giant flat-screen TV the family can't afford. That's identity [music] theft. Like, legally, that's a crime. She's tanking her own kids' credit score before he even moves out. And when the TV setup goes wrong, she wakes the whole family up at 3:00 a.m. screaming about it. She throws the remote. She breaks a plate over a television that she bought by committing fraud on her child. [music]
And the royal wedding meltdown is basically the same energy. She gets obsessed with watching some wedding on the other side of the world. >> [music] >> The TV breaks. It's 3:00 in the morning, and she wakes up the entire house and makes everyone deal with her feelings. Mike has work. The kids have school. Doesn't matter. Mom is upset about a wedding nobody in Indiana cares about, so everybody has to suffer.
The pattern is so clear once you see it. Frankie's needs always come first. Her feelings, her wants, her comfort, her [music] fantasies. The kids come last. And when she messes up, she doesn't apologize. She lies. She gaslights. Remember the package Sue made for her little business? Frankie was supposed to mail it. She forgot. It sat in the trunk of her car. But instead of just saying sorry, [music] she yelled at Sue for not trusting her and made Sue feel crazy for asking about it. Her own daughter working hard on something, and Frankie made her feel bad for caring.
So, here's where I landed after this last rewatch. *The Middle* was never really a comedy to me anymore. It's a show about three kids who basically raised themselves in a house where the adults were checked out. Axel turned out selfish because his mom treated him like a golden child who could do no wrong. Sue turned out desperate for love because nobody gave her any at home. >> [music] >> And Brick turned out lonely and disconnected because his parents literally forgot he existed for huge chunks of his life.
And the wild part is, the show made us laugh at all of it. The frosting sandwich, the forgotten birthday, >> [music] >> the credit card, the screaming at 3:00 a.m. We laughed. I laughed. My whole family laughed. And we didn't realize we were watching a kid slowly disappear in the background while his mom ate popcorn balls in the kitchen by herself.
I still love this show. I'm not going to pretend I don't. But I can't watch it the same way I used to. Every time Frankie complains about how hard her life is, I look at Brick in the corner whispering to himself and I think, "Yeah, your life isn't the one I'm worried about."