The Middle Episode 2.19 The Legacy

The Heck kids are bummed when a brand new box of hand-me-down clothes arrives from their cousins. Brick is the hardest hit by this fashion catastrophe. His new leather jacket with chains gets him labeled as one of the Village People at school. And the outfit that has him looking like Liberace doesn't exactly have Brick feeling like a Macho Man.

Speaking of clothing issues, Mike is upset because Axl keeps leaving his smelly socks all over the house. Things escalate to the point where he has no choice but to punish his number one son. It's gotta be something big, so Mike benches his boy for the final basketball game of the season. Ouch!

Axl is stunned. He begs Frankie to intervene, but she fully supports Mike's decision. At least, that's what she tells Axl. Truth be told, yanking the kid out of his last hoops game is a punishment that doesn't fit this particular crime. Mike can't cave though. What to do? What to do?

Sue receives a trophy at the cross-country banquet. She's the MVP. No, really! Mike balks when he hears they must pony up 40 bucks to cover the cost of the award. He's further upset when he learns that every member of the track team gets an MVP award. They've all been divided into subcategories. Sue is the most valuable player when it comes to punctuality.

Mike believes trophies meant something back in the day. His plaque for hitting 106 straight free throws is still sitting in the school trophy case. Axl has made 101 consecutive shots from the charity stripe this season. He believes Mike is keeping him out of the final game to preserve his school record. It turns out that Mike would love to see his son beat his streak. He drops many hints to give Axl an opening for an apology, but nothing registers.

In other news, a series of unfortunate events leads to Sue's MVP trophy ending up in the Glossner family garage. The bad boys of the neighborhood aren't about to part with it, so Sue and Brick try to swipe it back. When the automatic garage door closes, Brick gets trapped inside. The Glossners offer Sue a choice. She can have her trophy or her brother. Sue opts for Brick, who was able to slip the disassembled pieces of Sue's trophy into the big pockets of his new cousin clothes.

Over at the big basketball game, Mike tells Axl that if he would have just given one tiny gesture of remorse, he would have been able to play in the game. Axl says, "Well, I'm sorry, I'm not a mind reader." The word "sorry" was buried somewhere inside that sarcastic statement. That's good enough for Mike. Axl is allowed to play in the game, where he breaks his dad's free throw record. And even though his team lost by 30 points, every player got a trophy for participation. Score!