The Middle 3.17 “Leap Year” Recap

It’s not surprising that Sue’s birthday falls on a day that only comes once every four years: February 29. It’s just her kind of luck. She desperately wants a surprise party, but in a recent episode of The Middle, “The Concert,” Sue gave up her birthday presents for three years so she could attend a Justin Bieber concert. Frankie is planning on sticking to this plan and giving her a small, regular party, but Sue doesn’t believe her; after all, nobody would reveal the secret if they were planning a surprise party. It isn’t mentioned in the episode, but given the leap year factor, it must be her 16th birthday. Sweet 16. For Sue, a birthday this special can only go horribly wrong.

Meanwhile, it’s between sport seasons, and Axl is so bored he asks Sue to do something. Frankie suggests he vacuum, and after briefly brushing it off, he decides that this will be his new hobby.

Brick is at his social skills group, practicing how to give and receive compliments with a very loud boy. A new girl walks into the class: she is the first girl in the group. The boys are fascinated by her. At home, Brick tells Frankie about the new addition, and they can’t figure out what’s wrong with her. She makes eye contact, she never has her hands in her pants, and everything she eats is food: these are the big three issues in the social skills group. Frankie says, “Sounds like a clerical error.”

Mike has been mysteriously late coming home for several days. One night, he doesn’t come home until close to 3am, and he claims he had stuff at work to do. Frankie says it’s getting weird and asks him if he’s having an affair, “And if you are, can you please come in more quietly from now on?” It turns out that Mike has been caring for a sick cat at the quarry–a cat he named Limestone who has been around for 7 years. He claims he didn’t name it; he just calls it that. Frankie thinks it’s sweet that he has a cat: it humanizes him. He thinks it’s boring, which is why he never talks about it.

The girl at the social group, named Hayley, has given the boys focus. The loud boy announces, “I feel very excited right now, and I don’t know why!” Brick tells her about the origin of the word “Lego.” She asks a boy to pass her some yellow Legos, and when he does, she bites him. There we go. Brick likes her and doesn’t care that she’s a biter (whisper: “Who cares?”).

Axl is vacuuming and rocking out at the same time. He has discovered that vacuuming is a great way to collect loose change, but Frankie assures him that any winnings belong to the house. Frankie asks Sue which friends she wants over for her birthday and what kind of cake she wants–Frankie suggests yellow since she has a box of mix in the cupboard. Sue simply says, “Roger that, no surprise party. That’s why Axl is vacuuming.”

Brick brings home a notice that says the social group will be ending because of budget cuts, and Frankie is upset: “They can’t do this. You’re not fixed yet.” Brick tells her that he loves social group; meanwhile, Axl is vacuuming and Mike is off somewhere taking care of a cat: Frankie admits that she doesn’t know the men in the house at all. At what could be one of the final social group meetings, Brick rallies the boys together and says they need to find a way to save the social group. They need to raise the money to pay the janitor so he can stay at school late, so they brainstorm ways to make money: sell rocks, save the money that the loud boy gets every time he’s asked to leave the room when he’s annoying his dad, and tell their grandmothers that their birthdays are coming up. Brick takes a vote to see who is in favor of taking a break to see what Hayley’s doing across the room–all the boys raise their hands except the one with his hands in his pants. When Brick gets home, he tells Frankie lots of ideas for raising money: rocket ship rides, finding treasure with a metal detector, or designing a fleet of helper robots that will never turn against mankind. Frankie suggests a car wash or bake sale, and as usual, this ends up with Frankie organizing it and Brick promising to not micromanage (help) her.

One night, they bring home Chinese food and Axl steals the only egg roll. Sue gives the best line of the episode, “Mom, Axl’s licking my leap year birthday week egg roll!” Mike comes home, only slightly late, and Frankie tells the kids about the cat; they get extremely excited and want to bring it home. Sue wants it to sleep in her room. Just as quick as they learned about the cat’s existence, Mike informs them that the cat died while he was feeding it in his arms with an eye dropper. He then buried him in a place where the cat liked to lay in the sun. Frankie wants to comfort Mike, but he plays the macho role and claims he’s not sad. For the next few days, he avoids watching sports and instead builds a shelf in the garage while drinking beer; Brick watches the basketball game and counts the dribbles.

Axl starts taking his vacuuming very seriously. Frankie purposely eats popcorn and drops it all over the floor to give him an idea of what it’s like to live with him. He becomes so obsessive that he places phone books on the floor for people to walk on so they don’t touch the carpet.

Frankie confronts Mike in the garage, but he refuses to admit anything is wrong. She wants to discuss his profound feelings of loss, grief and pain, but that’s not happening. He lets her give him a hug and he leaves to get a haircut. His attempt to get a haircut is what sends him over the edge, because his barber is moving to a salon. The cat, the barber, “Everything I care about. Gone.” While Frankie isn’t impressed with the list of things he cares about, she’s happy he admits he’s sad.

It’s finally leap day–Sue’s birthday–and she approaches Axl to ask what she should wear if there happened to be people coming over. He tells her that she should wait in the basement, because he wasn’t supposed to say anything, so of course, she goes in the basement and waits with excitement.

Frankie, meanwhile, is holding a car wash and bake sale with the social group. They are awful at washing cars and end up damaging a couple. Frankie receives a message from home, “Frankie, your daughter’s in the basement. She wants to know if she can come out.” At home, Sue comes out of the basement and excitedly peaks around each corner, but ultimately finds nothing. There is no party.

For the boys in the social group, the entire reason to save it is so they can continue to hang out with Hayley. One boy, whose issue is pretending he’s a cat, purrs up against Hayley. Brick offers to get her anything he can reach off the bottom rung of the vending machine; “Stick with me. I’m sort of a big fish in a weird pond.” The boys start fighting over her–they all want her to bite them. To get them back under control, Frankie sprays them with water. They are all kind of like cats. When they get home from the fundraiser, Frankie is upset that she wasted her day, and Brick admits that he only wants to save the group because he likes Hayley. It’s only 7pm, but Frankie is taking a shower and going to bed. At some point later on, she wakes up and realizes they forgot Sue’s birthday.

Even though there may be only a few minutes left of Sue’s birthday, they have to pull something together. Frankie and Mike go into Sue’s room and wake her up. Sue is so excited: she cried herself to sleep for nothing, and there is a surprise after all. They make Axl and Brick get up: they are the second part of the surprise. It’s time for presents: a sweater that appears to have been purchased by Frankie, for Frankie; Frankie’s old cell phone; and a whisk. Sue takes the whisk as a metaphor: they must be going to whisk her away somewhere. Yes: to the kitchen for cake!

Mike calls Carly and hands the phone to Sue, but Carly is obviously confused and half asleep–she hangs up. The boys quickly piece together a cake from the bake sale leftovers and stick a large candle from the bathroom in the middle. Sue loves it: “Patchwork cake! I saw this on Cake Boss!”

Frankie tells Sue to make a wish when she blows out the candle, but Sue with her eternal optimism and positivity says, “What could I wish for? I got everything I ever wanted.” The optimism rubs off on all of them. Frankie tells Brick that liking a girl is very social, so she’s happy about it despite the disastrous car wash. A new cat wanders into Mike’s office and he immediately names it Granite; the cat growls at him, but they’ll be friends eventually.

What did you think of the “Leap Year” episode of The Middle? I hope you all enjoyed your extra day! Watch The Middle, Wednesdays at 8/7c on ABC.