The Middle Episode 1.11 The Jeans

Sue is the only person at school who isn't wearing Citizens of Humanity jeans. They must be the Member's Only jackets of the 21st Century (except they're pants). Frankie knows how much having the same jeans as all the cool kids would mean to Sue, so she shells out more than a few bucks to purchase a pair. Mike goes ballistic when he sees the receipt for $112. All of his pants put together didn't cost that much!

Frankie tries to convince Mike that this will help Sue's self-esteem, so it's money well-spent. She may be right. While wearing her new jeans, Sue comes home to say she did not "not" make drama club. That blatant double negative means she "maybe almost did make it." And that means she got a call-back. Way to go, Sue!

Axl wants his parents to buy him his own car, but Mike says no way. So now Axl needs his folks to drop him at the park to meet up with friends. As it turns out, one of those friends is a lovely young lady named Kate who Axl has been seeing. Mike thinks Kate is "boat show model pretty." It has him rethinking his attitude about buying Axl a car. After all, it's not like he can be picking up a high-level girl like that on his bike.

Frankie can't believe Mike wants to spend more money after all the grief he gave her about the jeans. She says, "If you can find a car for the same price as those jeans, you go for it." Mike does just that. He pulls up in a beat-up old car that he purchased for just 110 bucks. You may be thinking that Mike lowballed the seller. But from the looks of this clunker, we're thinking he paid way too much.

Sue wants to wear her new jeans to her call-back audition. Unfortunately, Frankie accidently tossed the magic jeans into a not-so-magical load of laundry and shrunk them. Surprisingly, Sue takes the news in stride. Okay, not really. She totally goes off on Frankie for ruining her life (and her jeans). She accuses her mom of only thinking of herself, which makes Frankie totally go off on Sue. Come back, magic jeans. Come back!

Axl picks up Kate for a date in his new car which breaks down almost immediately. Mike rescues the stranded couple with plans to drop them at the movies. During the ride, Axl rattles off a series of disparaging remarks aimed at his dad in an attempt to impress his date. It doesn't work. In fact, it backfires completely as Mike ends up dropping Kate at home. He informs her that Axl won't be going anywhere until he learns the proper way to talk to his father. Now Axl thinks Mike is trying to ruin his life. Come back, clunker car! Come back!

Frankie and Mike chat about Axl and Sue as they push that D.O.A. automobile down the road. No matter what they do as parents, it only seems to enrage their kids. They agree that the teenage years are nature's way of putting parents through hell so they won't miss their children when they're gone. They also agree that they have some pretty good kids and they're lucky. They further agree that they could be a whole lot luckier.

When Aunt Edie and Aunt Ginny hop a smoking bus to Vegas, Brick volunteers to watch their diaper-wearing dog, Doris. Unfortunately, our boy Brick has a history of killing pets due to his short attention span. Nevertheless, Frankie and Mike decide to give him one more shot. After all, Doris is super old. If she dies on Brick's watch, there's no way the Vegas-bound aunts can pin it on them.

Sue eventually forgives her mom and opts to continue to wear her new jeans as Bermudas. But that's not going to work. Doris the dog, who has been missing for awhile unbeknownst to Brick, shows up in the laundry room. As it turns out, Doris was pregnant and she delivered a full litter of puppies right on top of Sue's magic jeans. But judging by the mess Doris left behind, it's safe to say that the magic is gone. Think Brick will get to keep one of those puppies?