Welcome back, Hecks! Not that you were gone all that long (especially with all the replays I caught these last few weeks), but it sure is nice to see you again. Like Debbie said about Modern Family, it’s great when a show comes back after the break going strong.
And last night we got a special treat: two new episodes! And to give that gift its proper due, I’m going to give each its own review. How could you contain two sets of Brick antics in one piece?
And that’s exactly what episode one, “The Jeans,” was full of. With his siblings going all teenager batty, Brick took responsibility for Doris, Frankie’s aunts’ dog. The montage of dead pets, including electronic ones, didn’t bode well for Doris.
Turns out that she was pregnant, possibly the reason that she had to be rolled around in a wagon. But I loved Brick playing fetch with her, throwing a stick and then dutifully dragging Doris behind him as he went to pick it up. And how about one of the greatest moments in television history — Brick’s tell! He whispers that he’s lying after telling a lie … how incredibly awesome was it when he hit us with that!?!
We also got two stories of teenage wants and desires in this episode. The first was Axl’s, behaving responsibly (I thought seeing him dressed in the house was a giant step forward, ignoring his taking out the trash and bringing the paper in) in the hopes of getting his own car. I fell over when Mike handed Frankie back $2 in “change” from the $110 car he bought for Axl. I was waiting for Frankie to therefore limit the repair expenses to $2, thus requiring some creative thinking on Mike’s and Axl’s parts to repair the hunk-of-junk, but the episode wasn’t going there.
Where it was going was Kate, the “boat show model pretty” girl that Axl was seeing. She kind of ruined her opportunity with her stupid texting joke, but then The Middle doesn’t seem like it will have many secondary characters like other sitcoms sometimes do. Either way, nice to see Mike standing up to Axl after the whole exploding fist bump scene on the couch (which was cool, just using it as a reference point).
And then there was Sue. Sue, who’d I’d finally been enjoying after she started things off a bit rocky, completely lacked any believability as a typical hormone-laden teen. Not that she’s only believable as bright and bubbly; she just did a really poor job portraying something that every young actor on TV has done more successfully. Her entire story line was weak — though, being married and having two sisters I can appreciate the reality of the jeans that she coveted — which didn’t help any, but I just really didn’t like Sue at all in this episode. Lucky for her, she had another shot at getting it right.
And lucky for us, we got another helping of the Hecks. Now that’s a happy New Years!
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jan 07, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
Anyone notice the obvious stunt double for Brick, when practicing kicking the ball? I haven’t done any research on the matter, but it certainly appears the actor has some sort of problem with walking, possibly MS?
*POST AUTHOR*
“Atticus Shaffer disability” is the second suggestion on Google when typing in his name. It sounds like he has Brittle Bone Disease and has rods attached to his leg bones. But the kid can act the crap out of his role.
I never noticed it, but his character in An American Carol had braces on his legs, I think.
Pay attention to how he walks in the show and how little they show of him walking. Not that it bugs me at all, I just find it interesting I guess.
*POST AUTHOR*
I feel like I’ve noticed his gait being a bit stilted, and always assumed it had something to do with his height – either that’s how kids walk, or that his height was in his upper-body, so his legs were disproportionately shorter.
Knowing this makes me appreciate his performance even more, I think.