The Middle – Is Sue even fun to laugh at anymore?

What could have been — what should have been — a fun, light episode of The Middle last night turned into perhaps the most annoying exhibition by these characters to date. The episode had three stories, and while Mike’s wasn’t particularly grating, none of the three were interesting to me.

The great pretzel strike at the quarry was too whacky to be cute. Looking to save money, Mike cut the complimentary pretzels that he keeps in his office … I suppose I could more believe that his employees would react the way that they did — sometimes it really is the little things — than that pretzels are a constructive source of savings. Mike’s response of incredulity was right on, but I still thought it was just a bunch of nonsense.

Sue trying out for an anchor slot on the Shucker News team held a lot of promise, but at some point I started to wonder both why Brick bothers anymore, and also whether Sue’s predictable plot lines are still worth laughing at after all this time. Clearly once she started down the path of trying out she was going to embarrass herself miserably. Also clearly the embarrassment wasn’t going to affect her that significantly, because how much lower can she go? So there was a predictable outcome without much consequence. Was that funny for the umpteenth time? Not really.

As far as Frankie’s concerned, I’ll acknowledge the fact that she already had a tough mountain to climb with me, because I think the world’s obsession with the upcoming British Royal Wedding is ridiculous. What is the draw of someone else’s pomp and circumstance? And what’s with the nonsensical commemorative item industry that’s spawned around the event? The entire thing’s just a lot of noise to me.

So Frankie was already down a few strikes, but she didn’t help herself by being — dare I say after her explosion — annoying. And completely irrational, buying a $3,000 HDTV that she planned to return after the event. That’s the entertainment version of the less-than questionable “buying a dress but not cutting off the tags so you can return it the next day” scheme, and for the sake of teaching Frankie a lesson I was hoping that something would happen to the TV to keep her from being able to return it. Then again, Mike wouldn’t have deserved that.

And while I understood her point during her nutty, I still think she was being completely ridiculous with her obsession with the event. Yes, catching vomit in your hands should bank you a few points, but if an expensive cream is enough to send the family’s expenses over the edge, what about a TV that costs more than ten times as much? And once she brought it home, why couldn’t everyone at least get to enjoy it a little before it had to go back?

I also think that, in the end, the family once again had to pay for Frankie’s insanity. Last time Mike also picked up extra shifts/jobs to pay for the cream; this time he had to spoon-feed Frankie a commentary on the wedding and all of it’s many moving pieces. What did he do to deserve that? Frankie’s punishment should have been the pink eye, and while she was suffering Mike should have returned the TV. Done and done. Otherwise the wrong person’s paying for Frankie’s craziness.

Anyway, not an “on” episode.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Apr 21, 2011 @ 15:46 EST5EDT