The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – ABC

• 001. Pilot – 9/30/2009
  • Frances “Frankie” Heck (Patricia Heaton) is a middle-aged mother living in Orson, Indiana, and working as a used car saleswoman while trying to raise a family with her husband Mike (Neil Flynn). Their oldest son Axl (Charlie McDermott) is a sarcastic loner who rarely comes out of his room and when he does only wears his boxers, their daughter Sue (Eden Sher) is an awkward teen who has trouble fitting in, and their youngest son Brick (Atticus Shaffer) is a quirky misfit who whispers to himself and whose best friend is his bookbag. We meet Frankie stranded in the middle of a rural road with no cell phone reception wearing a Super Woman outfit. She recounts the actions that led her there, primarily that Brick told her that she needed to dress that way for his book report – which turns out to not be until the following week – and a customer named Gail (Amy Farrington) steals the car from her during a test drive and leaves her stranded. Also Sue tries out for the show choir and gets accepted, but her family later finds out that she is just part of the crew. While posing for a picture that her mother is taking, she wrecks the performance by not putting a box step in the right location. Axl gets suspended from the football team for calling the coach a moron. Chris Kattan is Frankie’s friend and co-worker Bob, Brian Doyle-Murray is her boss Mr. Ehlert, Peter Breitmeyer is her work nemesis Peter Miller, Jeanette Miller is Aunt Edie, Frances Bay is Aunt Jenny, and Patricia Belcher is Brick’s teacher Mrs. Rettig. Bob Clendenin is the voice on the car lot P.A. 9/15/14

• 002. The Cheerleader – 10/7/2009
  • Hard times befall the Heck family when their dryer breaks, Sue needs glasses, and all of the items they bought with ‘no payment until 2009’ are coming due. Frankie avoids being fired by coming up with a promotional idea of filling a car on the lot with jelly beans and having a counting contest – but the discount jellybeans become hardened into one solid block inside the car. Mike is grounded from moving further than five feet away from a parent. Sue hopes that glasses is the reason that she fails every tryout, but she proves to be just as poor of a swimmer even after getting her glasses. Brick cannot check the book out of the library that he wants because of overdue fines, so Frankie has another kid (Garrett Ryan) check it out. He ends up taking it in the pool, and Sue’s poor swimming causes it to sink to the bottom. A storm strikes the area and the family has to take refuge in their basement. Frankie nearly has a breakdown due to all of the financial crises, but Mike comes through with some cheerleading. The storm brings a stray dryer into their yard, solving one of their issues. They end up getting a credit card to help solve the others…with no payments due until 2012. Daniel A. Lopez appears as Lou. Scott Sperber is a car salesman. 9/15/14
• 003. The Floating Anniversary – 10/14/2009
  • Frankie and Mike are hoping to get away to French Lick to a carpet remnant store to celebrate their 16th and 17th anniversaries (and re-carpet their bedroom). Unfortunately, as the day to leave gets closer, life keeps closing in on Frankie. First she has to take Brick to work when he gets sick, then her aunt Edie loses her license, so she has to tote her and her Aunt Ginny around, then she has to take her aunts’ dog Doris who has emphysema. This causes a rift between Frankie and Mike and the trip is cancelled. Back at work, Bob laments about not having a family and offers to make coffee so Frankie can take a fifteen-minute break in the restroom…without her phone. When she gets out, all hell has broken loose as Bob started a fire, and she has multiple phone messages from her family: Sue has made a fool of herself by singing Close to You to her crush Brendan Nichols (Thomas Mann) on the P.A. system, and Axl has taken Aunt Edie for a drive and nearly run over the dog, crashing the car in the process. In the middle of being bombarded, Frankie is taken to the car by Mike, and they head out to French Lick. Mike has arranged for Bob to take care of their family for a day. 10/4/14
• 004. The Trip – 10/21/2009
  • Sue sells enough sausage and cheese to win a trip to Indianapolis to visit the State Capitol, but when her name doesn’t show up on the list to go, Frankie tries to get her to stand up for herself and confront Mr. Perez (Mel Rodriguez). He says he’ll look into it, but Sue never hears back. Frankie drives her to catch the bus and confronts Perez herself. Finally he gives up and lets her on. As she’s driving away, Frankie finds the sales money that she was supposed to send in. Sue has a terrible time and comes back and yells at her mother, which makes Frankie quite happy that she’s standing up for herself. Meanwhile Brick agrees to be the boyfriend of classmate Olivia (Alexandra Gold Jourdan), but when she proves bossy, he tries to get out of it…but ends up ‘marrying’ her. Even the advice of Axl and the assistance of Mike can’t help him out of it. Eventually Brick passes her off to a school bully. 10/4/14
• 005. The Block Party – 10/28/2009
  • As the family prepares for the Birchwood block party and Mike gets his lawnmower ready for the race, Brick’s counselor Mrs. Tompkins (Krista Braun) shares the results of his Waterman-Ginsburg test that indicates that he is socially inept. Mike tries to rectify this by getting him enrolled in basketball, but his first game is a disaster. Meanwhile Sue has gotten the job as a ball retriever for the tennis team and has failed, while Axl invites his mom to a presentation by the booster, where he hurts her feelings by offering his old jersey to a girl named Sophie (Rachael Marie), unlike his teammates who have given theirs to their mothers. Brick helps his dad get his lawnmower prepared for the race and just when it looks like he’s going to win – beating neighbor Jack Meenahan (Thomas F. Duffy) and securing a bet, Brick interrupts and invokes a promise that his dad had made: to take him to a book-signing. Mike ignores the request at first, but then abandons the race to take him. Frankie’s faith in Axl is restored when she finds out that he ultimately gave his old jersey to Sue to make her feel better after she gets injured retrieving a tennis ball. Beau Wirick stars as Sean Donahue. Jen Ray is Sean’s mother Nancy. 11/6/14
• 006. The Front Door – 11/4/2009
  • With his parents frustrated about his attitude, Axl slams the front door causing it to fall off its hinges. Mike insists that he fix the door, but with a stand-off between them, the family goes days and days without a front door. Sue’s school pictures turn out terrible, so she gets a retake that are equally bad. Frankie is thrilled that Brick is working on a sugar cube pyramid a week before it is due instead of waiting until the last minute, so she happily supplies him with cubes that she is stealing from work. Meanwhile, Mr. Ehlert is threatening that anyone who doesn’t make a sale that week will sand outside and advertise in the dog’s uniform. Back at home, Frankie and Mike start to disagree on waiting for Axl to fix the door himself. Brick finishes his pyramid and throws it away, then tells her that he has to construct the State Capitol by the next day. At work, she finally makes a sale by lecturing a customer like his mother. She fixes the door herself and say that supporting someone is also letting them know when they are wrong. Sue’s second set of retakes are horrible as well, but her parents are on the same page about telling her that they look great. Frankie comes up with a suitable punishment for Axl: having him wear the dog suit at the car lot. Brock Ciarlelli appears as Brad Bottig. 11/7/14
• 007. The Scratch – 11/18/2009
  • Rushing to get the trash out in the morning, Frankie tosses a beer bottle to Sue and it hits Brick in the arm. Brick goes overboard with the bandages and then tells the hall monitor at school that his mother hit him with a beer bottle. This gets escalated to Principal Larimer (Mary-Pat Green) to the police to a social worker named Ms. Barry (Vicki Lewis), who then visits the house and interviews each family member separately. A panicky Sue has hit her head on the patio door and Axl is curious if living with a foster family might be fun, so these add to Frankie’s worries about the interviews. They are especially concerned by the answers Brick will give, so they attempt to coach him, but it proves unsuccessful. After the interviews, Ms. Barry reveals that she once dated Mike, but that he never called her back. Now concerned that this will influence her decision, Frankie visits her at her office and confronts her in the restroom, where Ms. Barry tells her that she has nothing to worry about…and even prints out her report for her. Meanwhile, Ehlert wants to recycle an old commercial in which he shoots a black man designated as “High Prices.” His employees convince him that the commercial is racist and he should film another one. Ehlert flubs every take, but finally gets it…then doesn’t like the way he looks. They end up using the vintage commercial with Bob inter-cut as “High Prices.” 12/10/14
• 008. Thanksgiving – 11/25/2009
  • When Mr. Ehlert announces that the car lot will be open 365 day a year, Frankie tries to juggle and re-juggle the family’s holiday schedule to include Black Friday shopping, taking Brick to a corn maze, and preparing dinner. She also has trouble getting Mike to invite his father Big Mike (John Cullum) to the dinner and getting Axl to accept her decision not to let him go snowmobiling on the holiday. Sue would rather enjoy Thanksgiving with her new ultra-effeminate boyfriend Brad Bottig. Frankie gets so frustrated that she cancels Thanksgiving, which causes Mike to rally the family around preparing the dinner while Frankie is at work. Axl takes Brick to the corn maze and loses Brick. When he finds him, he is so ecstatic he hugs Brick and embarrasses himself in front of a girl. Big Mike comes over and helps mike saw the turkey in half and grill it. Frankie finds out that Ehlert’s wife left him, so she gets drunk with him, and he says she can go home. She then finds out that she left him because he wanted to stay open for Thanksgiving and not the other way around. Frankie stumbles home drunk to her family and passes out on the bathroom floor. 12/10/14
• 009. Siblings – 12/2/2009
  • Frankie gets volunteered as chairwomen of the winter wreath sale for the Booster Club, and during the meeting she notices that the Nancy Donahue’s kids Sean, Shelly (Sam Schuder), and Dotty (Laura Anne Kesling) get along much better than her kids. She tries to foster that type of relationship with her kids by making them all eat as a family but it doesn’t go well. Mike takes over and gets them involved with touch football, but it is only when the kids take on the parents that they start to bond. The only problem is that they want to continue playing every night. Mike finally ends his participation feigning injury, but Frankie tries to press on, ultimately getting upset when they won’t play without her, gives up, and throws down the football which bounces and hits her in the nose. The kids bond again by making fun of her. Meanwhile Aunt Edie assists with closing out the books at Mike’s office at the quarry and ends up over-paying the employees on their bonuses. Mike tries his best to fire her, but she doesn’t understand. He ends up assigning her to work a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle. Malcolm Foster Smith is Dave. Troy Metcalf is Jim. 1/24/15 
• 010. Christmas – 12/9/2009
  • Frankie recalls the major event of the year and the holiday season via Christmas newsletter. When she gets the opportunity to rehearse and audition for the solo at the church play, Mike agrees to take over the Christmas duties. He makes it seem effortless, and Frankie resents him doing all the things she considers fun. Meanwhile Sue can’t understand why Brad hasn’t kissed her, and Brick is melancholy after remembering how he lost his Santa Pez dispenser two years earlier and realizes that other people will one day be gone. Mike finally blows it when he oversleeps and nearly misses Frankie’s Christmas Eve performance of O Come All ye Faithful. On the way there, the kids insist on opening one gift in the car, but none of the gifts have labels. The evening ends with everyone angry and everyone bickering until Mike nearly wrecks the car twice. Everyone begins being nice and the accident causes the Santa Pez dispenser to slide out from under the seat, which snaps him out of his funk. Sue catches Brad smoking with another boy and decides he might not be for her. Charles Dougherty is the choir director. Donovan Scott is the Santa who Brick manages to depress. Dierk Torsek is Reverend Hayver. 1/24/15
• 011. The Jeans – 1/6/2010
  • Axl has been on his best and most helpful behavior recently and the reason is because he wants his parents to buy a car. Conversely Sue has a series of meltdowns because she wants a $112 pair of Citizens of Humanity jeans. When Mike finds out that Axl is dating a beautiful girl named Kate (Mandy Musgrave), he buys Axl a $110 car. Brick takes on the responsibility of watching Doris, Edie and Jennie’s dog, when they head off to Las Vegas. Everything is going well until Frankie accidentally shrinks Sue’s jeans and Axl’s car breaks down and he shows off by berating his father when he picks him up, causing Mike to end the date and take Kate home. Brick keeps up with the dog until the end when he loses her. Sue decides to wear her shrunken jeans as Bermuda, but freaks out when Doris has had puppies on top of them. 3/13/15
• 012. The Neighbor – 1/6/2010
  • When Frankie kicks a kickball into Rita Glossner’s (Brook Shields) yard while showing Brick how to kick a ball, she refuses to retrieve it because they are such intimidating neighbors. The dog Razorblade is terrorizing the neighborhood as well and when Sue and her friend Carly (Blaine Saunders) try to fight them – to a dance choreographed to Kung Fu Fighting – the Glossner boys Rodney (Gabriel Basso) and Derrick (David Chandler) steal their boom box. Mike confronts Rita and accidentally gets his sleeve caught on her bra and exposes her breast. Frankie tries to avoid them all costs, but when she sees Rita have to put back groceries while struggling to discipline her four boys (also including Parker Bolek as Wade and Gibson Sjobeck as Diaper), she feels bad and buys Rita some groceries. Rita refuses to thank her and Frankie finally gets angry and re-claims all the items that the boys have stolen in the neighborhood. Frankie thinks all has ended well while the Glossner’s plot their revenge. Meanwhile Brick offers to write Axl’s term paper on Moby Dick one page at a time as long as Axl spends time with him and teaches him to kick a ball. 3/13/15
• 013. The Interview – 1/13/2010
  • Mike finds a dinosaur bone at his construction site and when he reports it to the media, it results in their project being shut down for four months and him out of a job. He takes Axl to a job fair but discover that most of the booths are just selling their services. Mike gets an interview with a grain company but can’t comprehend the interview style. He finally embraces technology with Axl’s house and submits his resume to and gets an interview with a septic tank company but comes off as too enthusiastic and un-sincere to interviewer Doug Morton (Joel McCrary). Axl however immediately gets hired at a movie theater. Meanwhile Brick is running for Class Historian, and despite her resolution not to, Frankie can’t resist helping him though it. Bob advises her to let Brick fail on his own if he won’t do the work, but then Brick delivers a crowd-pleasing campaign speech to the school and is elected. Sue is upset because she has lost so many elections. Mike gets back on the horse and keeps job-searching. Mackenzie Smith is Megan. Rachel Quaintance is Barb. Kiva Jump is teacher Mrs. Thomas. 6/1/15
• 014. The Yelling – 1/27/2010
  • When Frankie discovers that her phone takes video, she decides to record her kids yelling at her as Axl puts off a book report, Sue tries out for the baton team, and Brick prepares for Hat Day at school. Instead, she realizes that it is her who is doing most of the yelling and vows to turn over a new leaf. Everything seems to be going well until she then realizes that Brick got his hat form a bum and contracted lice, Sue ignored her babysitting gig with Ellen Craig (Monica Yudovich) to try out for the team and Frankie ends up saddled with a baby, and Axl realizes his book report is due one week earlier than he thought. While trying to get the book report cover he needs, she is locked in the supply store. When her family arrives to get her, she screams at them about why she needs to yell… but no one can hear her through the glass. Meanwhile Bob tries to bond with Mike by taking him on a third shift route of the Little Betty Snack Cakes he moonlights at in hopes of landing Mike a job. Mike can’t stand Bob but ends up comforting him when Bob’s online girlfriend breaks it off with him. 6/1/15
• 015. Valentine’s Day – 2/10/2010
  • Frankie and Mike think they might get to spend Valentine’s Day together alone for the first time in years when Axl has a date that he is constantly begging Mike for money to go on, Sue is permitted by a reluctant Mike to go to her first boy-girl party with her blossoming friend Carly, and Brick gets invited to a sleepover by Beth (Suzy Nokamura), the mother of Zack (Andrew J. Fishman), one of Zack’s fellow ‘special’ students. Plans start go sour when they can’t find a restaurant with less than a two hour wait. Eventually they get to one, but Frankie has to go pick up Brick when he feeds Zack chocolate, causing Zack to act like a feral cat. Mike picks up Sue and Carly when Sue is upset that there is beer at the party and everyone, including Carly, is making out. Axl and his friends Sean and Darrin (John Gammon) are stood up by their dates and end up joining Frankie and Mike at the restaurant as well. Frankie concedes that a day will come when she doesn’t have her kids there, so learns to appreciate having dinner interrupted. Devan Leos is Henry. 7/22/15
• 016. The Bee – 3/3/2010
  • Frankie is given an assignment of writing birthday cards to all of the cars that her company has sold in the last ten years, leaving Mike with taking her place at volunteering at Brick’s school. When Mike finds out that Brick has won the school-wide Spelling Bee, he becomes excited at the prospect of him going to Midwest Regionals in Chicago if wins the Orson County Bee. He does in fact win, but in the process of attending the Bee, Sue’s birthday is forgotten. As they travel to Chicago for the Bee, Sue is given carte blanche on where they stop along the way. Her stops, along with her motel choice, are disastrous. Mike shows some compassion and promises her a party when they get home. He also finds out that Brick doesn’t care about winning the Bee, which Mike thinks will give him the edge. He advances to the final round, but loses when he repeats the last letter in his whisper tic, causing him to storm off the stage. It turns out that he didn’t care about the trophy but has looked forward to going on a trip to Washington D.C. for the finals with his family.7/23/15
• 017. The Break-Up – 3/10/2010
  • Frankie gets suckered into running the concession stand during Axl’s basketball game, and while there she learns that Axl has been dating a girl named Morgan (Alexa PenaVega) for the past six weeks. Axl is clearly in love, and his parents take a liking to her right away… although wondering what she sees in Axl. When Morgan suddenly breaks up with Axl, he is crestfallen and in tears, but embarrassed to show emotion around his father. Frankie digs out an old phone message that she recorded of Mike confessing his love as he weeps over the song Hold on Loosely. Mike is embarrassed but eventually tells Axl that women love it when men cry. During the next game, Axl has the chance to make the winning shot, but pauses at the sidelines and declares he won’t shoot until Morgan comes back to him… which ends up costing his team the game and angers Morgan. Later two girls approach Axl to go out with them, thinking what he did was romantic. Meanwhile Sue and Brick watch the movie Revenge of the Pod Zombies, and are scared to death that everyone around them is possessed by zombies, culminating in announcing in front of the basketball spectators that Brick has been taken by the Pod Zombies. Sarah Rush is Sally Meenahan. Jeris Poindexter is the janitor. 10/19/15
• 018. The Fun House – 3/24/2010
  • Tired of competing with the Donahues for having the most fun house for the kids to hang out at, Mike brings home a pool table. Soon the house is infested with teenagers, making the raising of the kids more difficult. He offer’s Sue’s ex-boyfriend Brad advise to ‘go with his gut’ when Brad confesses he has some feelings he doesn’t know how to deal with. Mike assumes that Brad has realized he is gay, but it actually encourages him to ask out Sue’s friend Carly. He then tries to correct it, but it ends up upsetting Sue even more. Brick tries to get Mike to help him with his school report about his family, but Mike eventually retreats to the car to be alone. Meanwhile Frankie has to deal with a motivational consultant named Abby Michaels (Amy Sedaris) who poses as a drunk customer, and then singles out Frankie when she doesn’t make a sale to her. She tells Frankie that she will have to chose the person who Ehlert will fire, so Frankie ends up telling Abby to fire her. This was a ruse to show Frankie that she doesn’t understand her own worth. Mike and Frankie team up to rid their house of all of the stray teens, by dancing to Wang Chung in the basement. Brick’s school report is disastrous. 10/19/15
• 019. The Final Four – 3/31/2010
  • Mike hits it off with Mr. Ehlert, who then gives him tickets for the Final Four game on Saturday. Meanwhile Brick wants to get out of attending the birthday party of his friend Kevin Siccola on that same Saturday, so he gets Sue to call and pose as Frankie and tell her that he isn’t coming. When Aunt Edie’s brother, Frankie’s Great-Uncle Mac passes away, and funeral falling on Saturday nearly derails both sets of plans. Sue has to try and do damage control when it looks as if Frankie will now be calling the Siccola’s for real to say Brick can’t make it because of the funeral. She leaves a series of awkward messages on Mrs. Siccola’s machine and can’t stand the pressure of trying not to get caught. It turns out that Frankie forgets to call and thanks Sue for her efforts. Mike and Frankie bicker about whether he can skip the funeral and go to the game. Finally the guilt gets to him when he recalls how Aunt Edie moved in to help babysit when they were younger. He attends the funeral, but once Aunt Edie reveals that she thinks it is her birthday party, Frankie sends him and Axl to the game. Unfortunately Mike is hit with appendicitis and has to go to the hospital… where he hears the results of the game just as he is being put under. 12/22/15
• 020. TV or Not TV – 4/14/2010
  • When the electric is turned off in the Heck house, they seek the advice of financial advisor Steve (Michael Kostroff), who advises that they cut back on expenses… including their cable TV. Sue keeps busy by babysitting for money to get modeling lessons, Axl practices with his band, and Brick reads. When Frankie and Mike win $1000 at church Bingo, they try to decide whether to use it for the cable, hoping the kids will influence them to do so. Frankie ends up pre-paying for a year of a cable, and Mike sends in money for the bill, which will cause the check to bounce. As they argue, they see a news announcement on TV that the quarry will be re-opening, meaning Mike can return to work. Meanwhile Brick and the kids from the social skills class are forced to leave the library and go on playground for recess. Brick concocts a scheme to get back in by causing a diversion for Mr. Seifried (Will Matthews). Mason Cook is Corey. Parker Contreras is Eric. Piper Mackenzie Harris is Rayna.  Parker Contreras is Eric. 12/23/15
• 021. Worry Duty – 4/28/2010
  • Frankie is distraught over Axl’s on and off relationship with Morgan, and even more so when she finds out from Mike that they are back together, and sees that Morgan, whom Sue worships, seems to be running Axl’s life. Mike tries to convince her that their relationship will pass and not to worry. Frankie tries to be the bigger person and invites Morgan to dinner, and then to attend Mr. Ehlert’s work party, which is actually a party for his granddaughter. Frankie overhears Morgan telling Axl how lame it is to hang out with his parents, and as a result Frankie ends up striking her with a bean bag during a game of cornhole. Frankie feels vindicated, but Mike then starts to suffer from worry when he finds out that Morgan has asked Axl to quit football. Meanwhile Bob fears repercussions from Pete after Bob steals one of his customers, which comes to a head during the three-legged race. The egg that Brick is babysitting hatches into a chicken and Brick learns what it’s like to be a parent. In the end, Axl and Morgan break up three weeks later when Axl falls for Inga (Jillian Nelson), a foreign exchange student from Finland. 2/23/16
• 022. Mother’s Day – 5/5/2010
  • Frankie contrasts her miserable Mother’s Day with the ideal Father’s Day that Mike last had. Her day starts with breakfast in bed that is ultimately spilled on her, a macaroni frame that falls apart from Brick, and an unenthusiastic Axl who wants nothing but sleep. Mike takes the kids to the drug store to buy a gift and they end up with an inflatable foot bath that Frankie hates. When Frankie’s mother Pat Spence (Marsha Mason) tells her that she can’t come to visit, Frankie decides to go see her and brings Sue with her. On the way, Sue confesses that she stole an inspirational magnet at the drug store and is feeling so guilty that she throws up repeatedly. Frankie finds her mother alone and dancing around the house when she arrives, and soon it becomes apparent that her mother wanted to be alone and is irritated by the intrusion… and also hates her gift, a food dehydrator. Frankie is offended, as is Sue when she finds out that her mother also wanted to be alone. The three end up making up over tears and the candy drawer. Frankie comes home to a gigantic mess, but that night with her kids gathered around her in bed, she realizes that Mother’s Day is really for the family… while the day after is her real Mother’s Day when she can actually do what she wants. 2/23/16
• 023. Signals – 5/12/2010
  • Frankie laments the fact that Mike is socially awkward and can never understand her signals at parties. They also attend a presentation of Brick’s Social Skills class, and realize that Mike is setting a bad example for him. The family hosts a Spring party at their house, and Mike and Brick both promise to try to work on their social interaction. Bob takes over the grilling so that Mike can socialize and ends up burning the food and his face. The social experiment leads to party-goer Jody (Audrey Wasilewski) thinking that Mike wants to have an affair, and Brick getting continually punched by a bully. Axl works to get the pool clean so that ‘bikini season’ can begin, but is disappointed when it is way too cold to swim. Sue begins attending a church youth group and feels that Reverend Timothy “TimTom” Thomas (Paul Hipp) is the only one who understands her because of all of the Christian songs that relate to teen angst. When she finds out he is leaving, she invites him to the picnic and tries to raise money for him to stay. He tells her that he feels called to travel from place to place, but leaves her with an inspirational acoustic song… which also seems to bring out the sun and get the girls in their bikinis. Frankie learns to become thankful for Mike’s honesty, whether socially awkward or not, because it means that she can always trust him. Mike is able to use his signals to get Brick to get him out of a conversation with old man Mr. Johnson (Terrence Beasor) who wants to talk about growing squash. Mandy McMillian is Henry’s Mom. 5/23/16
• 024. Average Rules – 5/19/2010
  • Frankie and Mike question their parenting schools because their children are so average. Sue isn’t pictured in the school yearbook and when Frankie visits her teacher Mrs. Seabrook (Mary Passeri), she finds she doesn’t know who Sue is. Axl’s guidance counselor (Dale Raoul) says that Axl scored extremely high on an aptitude test and is performing way below his potential. Brick’s teacher Mrs. Thomas says Brick might not pass to the third grade because he has 31 overdue library books and the librarian Mrs. Nethercott (Betty White) plans to invoke the rule about holding him back. Frankie also visits Principal Sholin (Andy Milder) and gets him to change cross country to a no-cut sport as long as Sue can run at least five laps. While warming up in the morning, Sue is hit by a deer and injures her leg, and forced to finish the five laps by crawling in the rain when she loses her crutches. Bruck realizes that Axl’s test scores actually belonged to another student Alan Hueng, so he now feels like he’s living up to his ability. All the studying that Mike forced upon him helps him get a B- on his test. Brick finds every book but one and returns them, and gets the last one, an atlas, from the Municipal Library and turns it into the school library. 5/23/16

SEASON 2

• 025. Back to School – 9/22/2010
  • After a dull summer and a chaotic first morning of school, Frankie decides that she and Mike need to find a way to get ahead of any issues that might come up. She becomes very organized, gets Axl an alarm clock, gives Sue money for her cross country sweatshirt, and buys Brick a new backback. Brick doesn’t think he can survive without his old backpack ‘friend’ and Axl’s sleep schedule is thrown off, but Sue seems happy wearing her sweatshirt… even though it is 80 degrees. Sue wants to get ahead of Brick having any issues with his new teacher Ms. Rinsky (Doris Roberts) so she and Mike go to see her, although Rinsky thinks they are interfering. Problems start to escalate at school when Rinsky tires to give Brick special attention, so Frankie returns to ask that she now back off. Brick thinks things are getting worse and attributes his problems to not having the backpack. Frankie retrieves his old one from the garbage truck as it drives away, only to find that now Brick doesn’t seem to care. Sue overheats and causes a pile-up at the school pep rally. Frankie decides to give up and things return to their normal hectic last-minute routine. Patrick Malone is Mr. Rasmussen. 8/24/16
• 026. Homecoming – 9/29/2010
  • Axl makes the varsity football team, and Frankie is excited to be able to walk him onto the field for the Homecoming game. Sue however has her first cross country meet on the same day, and although she desperately wants to attend Homecoming, she agrees to go watch Sue, who comes in dead last, and only agrees to let her mother drive her to finish line – where she gets out of the car and runs across the line – after Frankie tells her that everyone has gone home, and she needs to relish every opportunity she can to still be in Axl’s life. Meanwhile Mike assigns Brick to rake the back yard, which takes him 11 days since he picks up each leaf individually. When he finds out the leaves are going to be incinerated, he throws a fit. Frankie ends up missing Homecoming when she and Sue get in a traffic jam, and once she arrives, she witness Axl make a dramatic interception and get plowed down. She runs onto the field and embarrasses him. After they get home, she apologizes and explains how hard it is to let him go, and Axl asks her to stay and massage his injured shoulder. Frankie gives Mike advice not to wish away Brick’s young years, so he takes him to release the leaves into the woods. Bob has no idea what is going on at the football game but still shows spirit. Ehlert rides in a car with the Homecoming Queen – who drives – until the car breaks down on the field. Greg Cromer is Sue’s Coach Emerson. 8/24/16
• 027. The Diaper Incident – 10/6/2010
  • Frankie insists that Mike gets a check-up at the doctor, bragging that she is much healthier than him. She starts to feel old however when she agrees to pick up diapers for Sue’s babysitting gig and the clerk (Victor Samuel Lopez) assumes she needs adult diapers. Then she throws her back out and is too embarrassed to tell Mike, who wants to take her out for their anniversary. Meanwhile Axl and his friend Sean manage to get their teacher to agree to let them do a project that has them playing video games for hours on end. Sue develops a crush on Sean, verifies it by consulting Carly, writes him a romantic poem, fears that her ex-boyfriend Brad and Sean will come to blows, then changes her mind so that she can focus on cross country… all without Sean ever knowing about the crush. Brick finds out that his mother had been telling him white lies to manipulate him, but when Frankie explains why, Brick covers for her by offering an explanation as to why Frankie has splashed water all over the bathroom floor due to her bad back. Axl and Sean’s mind begins to suffer from the video games, and Axl covers for Sue when Sean finds her love letter. Frankie finally admits her back ailment, and Mike admits that he’s really not in the best health as he has high cholesterol. Frankie and Mike enjoy a nice anniversary watching TV with pizza in bed, and Frankie continues to milk it by staying in bed and having Sue do the chores. Judith Drake is the old lady. 11/11/16
• 028. The Quarry – 10/13/2010
  • When Mike finds out that Axl has been suspended for skipping school, he makes him go to the quarry to work with him on his days off. Axl drives Mike so crazy the first day, that Mike sticks him in the trenches with the workers, but when Axl makes friends with a worker named Chuck (Greg Cipes), he decides he can quit school and go to work there. Meanwhile Frankie says a prayer that Cross Country will be eliminated… then feels terrible when it comes true. Frankie and Sue both make impassioned speeches to the school board, but they cut it anyway. When Frankie is caught by Mr. Ehlert trying to reverse her prayer in the bathroom at work, he decides to fund the team, although the team now wears his face on their backs advertising the car lot. Brick finds an old magic set and ends up losing the remote control when he makes it disappear into a top hat. Mike tires to get see how empty Chuck’s life is, but when he takes Axl to his house, Chuck is having a huge party with beautiful women. Mike settles on simply telling Axl that he is still and idiot and from now own Mike will run his life. The remote turns up the minute Mike buys a new one and opens the package. Ethan Phillips is the board chairman. Victoria Kelleher is Tabatha’s mother. Chane’t Johnson is the chess mom. Travis Guba is an angry father. Jeff Lewis is a customer. 11/11/16
• 029. Foreign Exchange – 10/20/2010
  • In church Reverend Hayver promotes a foreign exchange program which Nancy Donahue recommends, inspiring Frankie to do the same in order to get their kids more tolerant and mature. They end up arranging to receive a Japanese student named Takayuki (Matthew Moy), who says very little and refuses to eat anything that Frankie gives him, instead holding it all day long. Frankie feels he is just getting acclimated, but when she meets Nancy’s enthusiastic Spanish exchange student Esteban (Steven Krueger), she finally agrees with her family that they got a dud. However when she learns that Nancy has been taking Esteban on trips, she then feels that they have been lazy in bringing Takayuki out of his shell. They head out to Brown County to try and show him some Americana, but their car breaks down on the way. The entire family gets into a fight when it is revealed to everyone that Frankie has been paying Axl and Sue to get along, and Axl slips Sue a laxative. Frankie finally admits to Takayuki that this is what American life is like, but he seemingly couldn’t care less, only telling them that he can help fix the car. It turns out that he liked to fix things and over the next week, he fixes all the broken devices at their house. He gives them a slight smile as he leaves, and once back home it is revealed that he has adopted Axl’s habit of wearing only underwear and Brick’s habit of whispering to himself. Toshi Toda is Takayuki’s father. 2/16/17
• 030. Halloween – 10/27/2010
  • Frankie tries to convince Mike to attend a Halloween party thrown by new neighbor Paula Norwood (Julie Brown) and to dress up in a costume, to which he flat-out refuses. They end up going as a hippie and ‘Mike’. Frankie gets irritated about his inability to have fun, so Mike instigates toilet papering the Donahues’ yard. Sue plans to attend the school Halloween dance, but finds out that Wylie Janousek (Hunter Allan) doesn’t really like her, so she agrees to go to a holy Halloween hayride with the church instead. This is good news to Brick as he doesn’t want to to be partnered with Sue for Halloween, and dresses as Scottish World War 1 hero Sgt. Charles McKenzie. No one knows who he is, except for Mr. Johnson, so Brick stays with him for the rest of the night. Sue is thrilled when Reverend TimTom shows up, and she confesses feeling like a misfit. However she ends up getting her first kiss from a boy named Joe (Nicholas McDonald) on the hayride. Axl and his friends plan to attend a morgue haunted house, hoping that their scared dates Denise (Elle McLemore) and Michelle (Kelly Heyer) will look to them for comfort. When the car breaks down on a dark dirt road, the guys are the ones who look scared, so the girls lose interest. Aunt Edie and Aunt Ginny come over to hand out the candy but they fall asleep and never answer the door, causing the Hecks to get toilet papered themselves. 2/16/17
• 031. A Birthday Story – 11/3/2010
  • Brick surprises his parents by telling them that he has invited his entire class over for his ninth birthday party. In addition to the party, Brick also wants to be told the story of the day of his birth, a topic which has been skirted for years. When Brick’s birthday party at the library doesn’t make him forget about it, finally his parents tell him that his father passed out during his birth, but Axl gives it away that there is more to the story involving the Fergusons. Finally they reveal through flashback that Frankie had posed as Mrs. Ferguson when it meant that she got a more luxurious birthing suite. In turn Mike was preoccupied with a football game, so ended up taking the Ferguson baby back to his room. A month later they realized they had the wrong baby. Brick is so upset he locks himself in his room. He eventually comes out and says he realizes that now he will have a great birth story to tell… and also blackmails him that they will now have to forgive him for his indiscretions as well as honoring his many gift requests since he now feels that his birthday should be a month long. Meanwhile Axl gets a very hot new boss named Kasey (Sarah Wright), who also proves to be completely ditzy and incapable of running the movie theater. Axl continuously comes to her rescue but draws the line when she causes a raccoon to become locked in the snack display. Mike say it’s a sign of Axl maturing that he chooses not to be seduced by a girl who he considers too dumb. Liz Montgomery is the librarian. 6/9/17
• 032. Errand Boy – 11/17/2010
  • Brick decides that he doesn’t want to go on errands with his mother, and although he wants to stay home alone, she forces him to stay with Aunt Edie and Aunt Jennie. Brick keeps pressuring her to let him stay alone, so one day she finally does, only to come home and find that he’s burnt up a quilt in the oven. Meanwhile Mike overhears Sue’s new friend Shannon Kendrick (Jillian Rose Leigh) conspire to exclude Sue from a sleepover. When Shannon asks Sue to borrow her sleeping bag, Mike goes over to deliver it and berates Shannon’s father Steve (Kevin Carolan) for not teaching his daughter manners. Mike decides to spend the evening watching Eclipse with Sue. Frankie forces Brick to run errands with her, but they make up when they accidentally drive through a car wash with the windows down. Axl attempts to grow facial hair with his friends, but it is weak. Frankie agrees to corroborate his story that she forbid him to grow a beard, under the condition that he go on her errands with her. 6/9/17
• 033. Thanksgiving II – 11/24/2010
  • Frankie is upset when her mother chooses to spend Thanksgiving with Frankie’s sister, so Frankie wants to ensure a full house by insisting Mike invite his father, but when Mike arrives at his house he finds out from the postman (Mike Muscat) that an ambulance had taken him away. He finds him in the hospital with a broken hip, brings him home, and then goes to tell his brother Rusty (Norm MacDonald)… only to find that his house has burnt down and he is living in a tent. The both end up at the Hecks’ for the holiday, but Frankie badgers Mike to get them to talk about their next steps. When that fails, she asks him to tell his father he loves him, in order to open the flood gates of emotion between the Heck men. This too fails, but after a Colts victory on TV, Big Mike and Rusty finally awkwardly discuss Rusty moving in to assist his father. Meanwhile Brick is ecstatic that Bob is coming to Thanksgiving with his painfully shy librarian girlfriend Lisa Gibbs (Laura Heisler), and tries to get Axl to help clean their rooms to impress the librarian. The librarian is indeed impressed with Brick and they open up to each other, causing huge resentments from Bob. Sue talks Frankie into making a pie from scratch, which causes various injuries to Sue before they revert to baking a frozen pie. 1/31/18
• 034. A Simple Christmas – 12/8/2010
  • Much to Mike’s chagrin, Frankie invites her mother and father Tag (Jerry Van Dyke) to come spend the twelve days preceding Christmas with them. As they’re getting their sleeping area in the basement ready, the stumble on unopened gifts from previous Christmases and announce to the kids that they’ll be doing a simple Christmas this year: less gifts, oranges in their stockings, and more family time. Axl gives his gift to Brick by building him an igloo, which the kids end up having to defend from the Glossners. Sue tries to call a truce by singing Christmas carols but the Glossners boys just attack her with snowballs. Mike is being driven by Tag’s constant talking, so he breaks the water heater as an excuse to go find a part for it… which proves to be a challenge. On Christmas morning, Frankie becomes irate when her parents load the kids up with gifts and lays into her mother for her double standard of how she treated her as a kid versus how much she is giving her grandkids. Feeling like a killjoy, Frankie thinks all anyone will remember is her meltdown, but Mike fixes everything by participating in their annual Christmas play in the living room, thus saving the holiday for everyone. The kids even appreciate their oranges, which they use to attack the Glossners. Kurtis Bedford is Kevin, the hardware store worker. 1/31/18
• 035. Taking Back the House – 3/20/1973
  • Realizing that the kids are running all over them. Frankie and Mike decide to take back the house by refusing to wait on the kids and allowing time for themselves. This means they deny helping Sue prepare her props for her new Lunchroom Follies performance with Carly, refusing to take Brick to the library, and forcing the kids to eat pineapple pizza. The also have Axl babysit while they go out on a Wednesday night to see a Little River Band cover band, and convince their friends Nancy and Ron Donahue (Sean O’Bryan) and Paula and Bill Norwood (Pat Finn) to follow suit, citing a new revolution in the neighborhood. The next day they realize they are too old for weeknights out and that Brick has been getting into dangerous areas of the internet. They also feel bad for Sue, whom they have denied taking her to buy a polka dot umbrella for her Follies. Frankie and Mike each show up separately at her school to give it to her, and then both argue for going behind each other’s back. They realize they were weak, but vow to continue the new revolution. However soon they have slipped back into their old ways… except for getting themselves one piece of pizza with pineapple on it, which Axl now claims he likes. Frankie tries to warn a neighbor lady (Kamala Jones) walking her baby not to fall into the same trap, but she quickly scurries away thinking Frankie is a nut. 10/3/18
• 036. The Big Chill – 1/12/2011
  • Frankie is portraying a woman named Rachel Moody Cochran, wife of Obadiah (Rick Overton), in the 1800’s, churning butter as part of a her role in the Orson Heritage Village. She explains why it was necessary to take a second job, beginning with a frantic stop at the makeup counter at the mall where she is coaxed by a saleswoman Peggy (Rebecca Ann Johnson) to buy some $200 anti-aging facial cream. She later realizes that it actually cost $200, and didn’t realize it. After attempting to return it and failing, she is forced to tell Mike, who is clearly furious and gives Frankie the silent treatment. Realizing it was her fault, she takes on the second job at the Heritage Village. Finally she confronts Mike about his silent treatment, and he admits that he’s not angry at her, but angry that a $200 setback is so catastrophic to their finances. Frankie convince him that they have gradually gotten more well off from the days when they used to have to scrounge for $5 to buy Axl’s diapers. Meanwhile Axl has an assignment to take care of an electronic baby doll, which he can’t manage to stop crying, eventually ripping it apart. Brick can’t stand the crying and moves into Sue’s room. When Sue throws a shoe at the wall to irritate Axl, she puts a small hole in it. As she and Brick try to repair it, they wind up causing more damage, dropping a screwdriver and egg inside the wall, and eventually tearing out a huge portion of it.Carolyn Wilson is the Heritage visitor. America Young is Toni, Drake Kemper is Sam, Michelle Pascarella is Mel, all managers who turn down Frankie for a job. 10/3/18
• 037. Super Sunday – 1/19/2011
  • With Super Bowl Sunday coming up, Frankie is excited to spend the day watching the game with her family, but both Sue, who is entering a Square Dancing with the Stars competition with Brad, and Mr. Ehlert have other plans for her. Ehlert invites her to attend a work seminar the day before, and after some ribbing from her co-workers, actually becomes concerned he is looking for an affair when he shows up with a mobile home to drive them. Turns out there is no seminar, but he wants her to drive him back from Indianapolis after he gets a colonoscopy. However when the nurse (J.J. Boone) finds out that Ehlert has been eating, they have to stay the night and go back the next morning. Frankie finally gets irritated by her treatment and quits, but Ehlert is able to talk her down by raising her commission rate. Meanwhile back home, Brick wants to read about football to enjoy the three-syllable words, but ends up become exceptionally knowledgeable about the game. Axl, who appears to have no interest in watching the game with his father, becomes clearly jealous, while Mike is thrilled to show off his son’s new knowledge base… which quickly becomes old and annoying forcing them all to leave. He ends up watching the game with both of his sons. Sue fears that Brad might be trying to get back together with her, but then finds out that he is about to dump her as a square dancing partner because she is terrible. He agrees to tutor her, and she ends up having to save him when he stumbles right away during the competition, for which they come in last place. Potsch Boyd is Vice Principal Doyle. Tammy Locke appears uncredited as a dance judge. 7/8/19
• 038. Valentines Day II – 2/9/2011
  • Valentines Day is coming up and Mike is saddled with having to buy flowers for Frankie and volunteer at Brick’s school. Frankie is thrilled when Axl asks her to help him find her a Valentine gift for his new girlfriend Vanessa (Alison Sieke), but starts to become concerned when Axl lets it slip that she is nineteen years old, has tattoos, and half-shaved pink hair. Nevertheless she enjoys being part of his life, and asks to take him to dinner again, but despite her effort to remain cool, she becomes more and more worried about Vanessa. Sue has been searching for Joe ever since they kissed on the hayride, and finally shows up as a transfer student at her school… but seems to have no memory of her. She tries to show him around the school and be his only friend, but soon a cheerleader (Chelsea Tavares) introduces him around and he becomes popular. Mike gets in trouble when he chats with another mother named Janice Wagner (Delaina Mitchell), and lets it slip that Brick has a crush on her daughter Autumn (Isabella Acres). He tries to make things better the next day but cause more chaos in the classroom and gets banned from the school like Frankie. When Frankie meets Vanessa, she realizes she is even worse than she thought but still doesn’t say anything… and she and Mike realize it is because she is ‘dating’ her son. After they realize this, they try to talk him out of dating but Vanessa, but he has already broken it off because she’s a vegetarian. Sue goes to the Valentine dance dressed in the same crayon costume she wore at Halloween, and he finally recognizes her. Autumn comes to see Brick to thank him for the Valentine. Mike is disturbed when Frankie tells him that she actually hated Reservoir Dogs, and liking it was the reason he had asked her out on a second date. The kids in Brick’s class are Dale (Bryce Hurless), Heather (Elle Labadie), Jake (Jacob Bertrand), and Danny (Raymond Ochoa). Bob Rumnock is the man who Sue surveys. 7/9/19
• 039. Friends, Lies, and Videotape – 2/16/2011
  • Brick isn’t advancing along with the other kids in his Social Skills group, so Frankie tries to take more of an interest in spending time with him. She discovers that she really enjoys skipping again, and also decides that Brick is fine as he is… until he suddenly does in fact ask to find a friend. Frankie goes in search of one for him, and finds a lonely boy named Gerald (Andrew Astor) and arranges a play date with him. Frankie oversees it and they seem to have a good time, but days later, Brick hasn’t heard from Gerald. Frankie decides to call his mother Dawn (Susan Leslie) and arrange the date, but she says that Gerald has been sick. Frankie grows suspicious of this and follows them when they leave their house, accidentally rear ending their car. Dawn confesses that Gerald was actually creeped out by Frankie, not Brick. While this is going on, Brick makes a friend named Arlo (Nick Shafer) on his own. Meanwhile, Axl and his band Axl and the Axeman attempt to shoot a music video for their latest song Run to Me, and try to involve their hot teacher Ms. Devereaux (Kristin Cavallari) without her knowing it. She eventually catches on that they are filming her before they can get the crucial ‘running toward the camera’ shot, so his bandmate Darrin gets his mother (Ginny McMath) to do it, which disgusts Axl and Sean. Eventually they decide they have a better shot at becoming YouTube sensations by skateboarding off of a roof. Sue wants to see the movie Rivers of Love, but since it is rated R, Mike tells her now. She and Carly sneak in by disguising themselves as grown woman, but Mike finds the ticket stub in the sweater that she borrowed from Frankie. They try to decide how to punish her since they’ve never had to do it before, but Sue has no mercy on herself and doles out her own litany of punishments, while confessing everything she’s ever done wrong. Scotty Noyd Jr. is the sidewalk boy who Frankie scares. Alex Stamm is the ticket seller. Kevin M. Horton is Brick’s fellow student. 3/2/20
• 040. Hecks on a Plane – 2/23/2011
  • Sue wins a contest and receives a trip to New York for four. After briefly considering leaving Brick at home, they purchase a fifth ticket in First Class where everyone will take a turn sitting. Things get off to a rocky start when they oversleep and have to rush out the door, leaving behind the snacks and Brick’s books, and forgetting to close the back door. Mike is embarrassed when Frankie gets on the x-ray belt to shove a suitcase in despite the warnings of a TSA agent (Luenell), demands that all passengers rearrange their seats so their family can sit together, and announces that Mike has never flown before. Axl and Sue bicker, until she challenges him to be nice to her for 24 hours. He reads her diary, which is taken over by Frankie, who finds it dreadfully boring. Mike and Frankie bicker on who is the bigger control freak, until Frankie puts Mike in charge of the trip and heads up to take her turn in First Class, where she falls asleep on the passenger (John M. Keating) that everyone in the family has been annoying. Mike somehow loses Brick on the plane, and seeks Frankie’s help, putting her back in charge. They find him hidden in a cabinet reading a book about menopause. The pilot announces that they need to circle LaGuardia airport due to a snow storm, but after circling for hours, they have to re-route to Pittsburgh. By then all of the men are ready to go back home, but Sue cries that she can never win without losing in some regard. Axl is the first to make the call to head on to New York via bus, and the rest of the men agree. The family enjoys the trip and sees everything amidst the blistering cold and snow. Jessica Wright and Catherine Kresge are flight attendants. Charles Emmett is the security guy. Ant is the little passenger. Marcy Goldman is the lady passenger. Ayumi Izuka is the airline official. 3/3/20
• 041. The Math Class – 3/2/2011
  • When Brick brings home a D in his Math class, Frankie and Mike attempt what they’ve never had any luck with in the past: to tutor him. This becomes difficult when they barely understand the third grade Math material. Frankie goes to see Brick’s teacher Ms. Rinsky to explain the situation to her, and Rinsky suggests that they hold a class to teach the parents how to do the math that the kids are working on. Everyone including Mike seems to get it but Frankie, and Rinsky seems to take delight in this fact by having Frankie work a problem on the board and not dismissing class until she finishes it. They tutor Brick, but on his next paper he gets a D-plus. Frankie thinks this is the fault of Ms. Rinsky and winds up calling family members to complain about her while drinking beer, and gets drunk enough to pen a scathing letter to Principal Larimer insinuating that Rinsky is a drunk and a Nazi. She re-reads it later and is embarrassed, and then also finds out that Brick has only been answering a small portion of the test so he can have free reading time after the test. She is called in to meet with Rinsky and the principal, and winds up getting chastised by them and forced to be a room mother and crossing guard. Meanwhile Axl and Sue are forced to visit their aunts Edie and Ginny, and when Sue finds out that Aunt Edie had buried a time capsule in her backyard as a child and never got to dig it up. Sue wants to help her find it, so she and Axl take her on a wild goose chase to find her old house. They get caught by the current owner (Ron E. Dickinson) after finding out that Edie had only read about the time capsule in a Nancy Drew book. After Edie sprays a hose at the homeowner, they run off and drive home. As they talk on the way home, Sue and Axl are finally enthralled with may of Edie’s stories about her young life. Jessica Randle is the receptionist. Eva Fisher is the secretary. 6/11/20
• 042. Spring Cleaning – 3/23/2011
  • During Spring break, the Hecks take a three-day trip to Wave World, and while they are gone they have Nancy Donahue bring in their mail. Seeing how big of a mess the house is, Nancy thinks they have been robbed and calls over two policemen (Michael Patrick McGill, Maurice G. Smith) who tell them to report anything that is missing. In light of this, Frankie demands that the whole family do some major house cleaning. As they clean, the amount of junk seems to multiply and they can no longer move through their house. It eventually spills outside, and when they put a desk up out by the curb, Brick sets himself up there and begins selling information to people passing by. Sue struggles with throwing out some old curlers because she thinks they have feelings. Frankie is able to convince her that a homeless man with long hair will be able to use them. Frankie becomes furious when she finds various pro-and-con lists, including one that lists reasons for and against marrying her. She tries to retaliate but Mike doesn’t seem to care. People begins adding things to the collection on the front lawn, so they move it back inside and to various rooms in the house. Brick continues with his information business, but then faces a difficult question when a neighbor kid (Terrell Ransom Jr.) asks why his parents are getting divorced. Frankie and Mike’s argument escalates to a screaming match, just as Brick is asking them about divorce… which helps them de-escalate. Axl and Sue take the garbage to a recycling center, and when it is closed, they are warned not to leave it. Axl demands that they leave it anyway, causing Sue to live in constant fear of being arrested. When the job is finally done and the house is clean, the two cops show up. Sue is ready to be arrested, but they actually have found the family’s possessions at the recycling center and assume it was dumped there by the ‘robbers.’ Brick gives the kid an explanation of why divorces happen, but the kid revealed that he had heard them wrong and his parents are actually getting him a horse. Jerry Hauck is Brick’s lost driver customer. Kenneth Chang is his teen customer. Zachary Conneen is the Lincoln question customer. 6/11/20
• 043. The Legacy – 4/13/2011
  • The Hecks receive a new set of hand-me-down clothing from their cousins. Brick gets some odd selections like leather and velvet outfits, which prompt comments about his likeness to the Village People and Liberace. Axl’s new socks are too big and one keeps consistently falling off at various places around the house. Mike gets irritated when Axl won’t stop leaving them everywhere so after a stern warning, he tells Axl that he can’t play in the last basketball game of the season. Frankie supports him, but privately begs him to come up with a way to call it off. Other parents are also furious with him, and Axl will neither speak with him, or make even the smallest gesture that he’s sorry no matter how much Mike tries to prompt him. Axl also learns that he is closing in on beating Mike’s old basketball free-throw record that still stands at the high school. In the end, he gives in and lets Axl play, and he is able to beat his father’s record. Although mildly depressed that his record no longer stands, he takes it as an opportunity to get closer to Axl. Meanwhile Sue announces she is getting a VIP trophy from her track team, and even though Mike and Frankie have to pay for it, they are happy that this day finally came along. It turns out that every kid on the team is the VIP of something, and hers happens to be punctuality. Nevertheless, she is ecstatic to have it and carries it with her everywhere. When she takes it to get the mail, a dog steals it and it is commandeered by the Glossner brothers. She and Brick attempt to get it back, but Brick winds up lost in the garage. She pays them $50 but can only get the trophy or Brick back, so she chooses Brick. He however has disassembled the trophy and snuck it out, so it goes on the mantel in pieces next to Axl’s new plaque and basketball participation trophy. Jake Watkins, Noah Lomax, and Austin Ryan Lhamon portray Axl at ages 12, 8, and 4. 9/29/20
• 044. Royal Wedding – 4/20/2011
  • The whole family gets sick, but manages to recover before Frankie’s light-at-the end of the tunnel: the Royal Wedding that she excitedly awaits. She even orders commemorative collectors plates for the occasion. When she can’t get some of the gunk off the TV, she stops in an electronics store for some cleaner. The salesman (Lamorne Morris) tries to sell her a new TV, and when she sees another customer (Jim Blanchette) return the TV, she decides to buy a TV to watch the wedding and then return it. Meanwhile Sue returns to school following the illness and decides to try out to be an anchor for the Shucker News team. She takes advice from Brick who gives her a long mnemonic device to help her deliver the news, and she winds up spilling a drink on her co-anchor Samantha (Shanley Caswell). At the construction site, Mike is forced to make budget cuts so he stops buying the giant jars of pretzels, and then faces the wrath of constructions workers Jim, Dave, and Chuck. The Union representative Phil Bickel (Brian Palermo), tries to negotiate to get the pretzels back, and uses the fact that Mike has bought a new TV as a negotiating tool. He tells them they can’t keep the pretzels and their paychecks and health insurance and discussions break down. Frankie gets up in the middle of the night to watch the wedding and can’t get the TV to work. Mike tries to help her but it gets stuck on a football game rerun. She has a meltdown when the family doesn’t seem to care of her need to see the pretty wedding. In her fury, she breaks her commemorative plate accidentally and goes to bed. The family fixes the TV and goes to wake her up, but shen she gets up she can’t open her eyes because she has contracted pink eye from a pair of 3-D glasses she tried on at the electronics store. Mike gives her a play-by-play of the wedding, and Axl gives her a Colts plate and tells her that he’s glued hers back together. More happily-ever-after endings include Mike brining pretzels back to the construction team, and Sue getting a job writing the cue cards for the Shucker News team. Dyllan Christopher is anchor Andy. Mark Daugherty is candidate Matt. 9/30/20
• 045. Mothers Day II – 5/4/2011
  • Mr. Ehlert tells Frankie she needs to work on Mothers Day so that all of the men can spend the day with their mothers, but fortunately Bob volunteers to work for her. When she tells this to Mike, he learns for the first time that Mothers Day is that weekend. He and the kids try to figure out what to do for her, and then Sue remembers that she mentioned the year before that she just wanted to be left alone. Mike runs this idea by her, and she is thrilled with the prospect of having the day off. The family leaves her a card that morning and then leaves the house, leaving her with multiple prospects of how to enjoy the quiet. However she winds up finding little tasks to complete all day long, and by the time she finishes, the family is arriving back home. They rave about a wonderful day spent in Brown County, visiting a fair, having a picnic, playing volleyball with another family, and then getting an old time picture taken. Frankie bursts into tears that night because her day was terrible and theirs sound terrific, so Mike offers to do the day over the following weekend. It gets off to rough start when Brick’s friend Arlo shows up for a playdate and they are forced to take him along because his mother (Celia Finkelstein) says he’s already written it into his date book. Arlo clings to Frankie and makes her accompany him on his many bathroom breaks. The fair is closed, and the gift shop is no longer offering the picnic lunches since they were Mothers Day specials exclusively. Sue spends the day trying to figure out what to buy in the gift shop, while Axl spends it trying to find a cell phone signal while waiting for a response for a prom date invitation. After a failed attempt with an impatient old time photographer (Hal Landon Jr.), Mike bribes a Ferris Wheel operator (Ashley Clark) to let them go for a ride. When Sue drops her stuffed octopus in the gears, they get stuck on the wheel, causing Frankie and Mike to argue. He ends up calling her a name that causes her to climb down from the wheel and sprain her ankle. Both are apologetic, but since she is stuck on the couch at home with her TV, magazines, and pie, and the family agrees to be within eyeshot of her in the other room playing a game, she gets exactly what she wants for Mothers Day. Floyd Van Buskirk is the carny. Lauren Lapkus is Sue’s annoyed cashier Rusty Burns is Chris, the gift shop worker. 1/16/21
• 046. The Prom – 5/11/2011
  • While Brick and Arlo put on a play that they call Alien Robot for Mike and Frankie, Axl and his friends Sean and Darrin confer on trying to figure out which Ashley he texted and invited to go to the prom. They deduce that it is the one everyone calls Weird Ashley (Katlin Mastrandrea), so Axl begins plotting on how to get out of it. Frankie thinks Axl should do the right thing and take her, while Mike is more lenient and thinks he should at least tell her face to face that he texted her by mistake. Meanwhile Sue gets completed by Samantha for her cue cards, and when she tells her friend Carly, the girls start to think they might be able to join her at their lunchroom ‘B’ table – where the popularity of the groups are rated A thru D. Brick keeps putting on shows for his parents, which keep declining in quality and getting more boring. When Ashley’s mother calls to coordinate the prom clothing with Frankie, she realizes that he never talked to Ashley, so now both Frankie and Mike insist that he take her to the prom. When he flat out refuses, Frankie invites Reverend TimTom over for dinner. Sue thinks he’s there to give her advice about her table situation, and Brick wants to put on a play. TimTom surprisingly defends Axl’s point of view about the prom situation. Although Axl storms off during dinner when he finds out why his parents brought him there, TimTom later plays guitar with Axl and tells him to be cool, since it’s only one night. Mike tells Brick that his plays are terrible, and later has to tell him that he’s being honest since after the first one, they seem to get worse and now he’s just holding everyone hostage to watching. Before TimTom leaves, he sings a song to Frankie about how rough it is to be a parent, and tells Sue that she’s good enough for any table, just like she’s always welcomed at Jesus’s table. Axl does the right thing and goes to the prom with Ashley, who shows up wearing a purple wizard’s cape. Sue and Carly successfully ingratiate themselves into the ‘B’ table, but Samantha and the other see a chance to move up to the ‘A’ table, so Sue and Carly are left alone again. Brick puts on his latest play Alien Robot: The Prequel, and includes some references for Mike to enjoy. 1/17/21 
• 047. The Bridge – 5/18/2011
  • Brick’s fear of crossing the Shady Lake bridge has cost Mike two traffic violations for speeding and making a u-turn, so Mike and Frankie decide they are going to get him to overcome his fear. First Frankie takes him there just to get him to walk over, and after using every technique she knows, he still won’t do it. Mike then thinks that he will have better luck, but he too fails. Meanwhile, the local swimming pool is getting ready to open, and after Sue insists that she has to be there for opening day and that she needs a new two-piece bathing suit, she goes through various stages of meltdown when she can’t find a suit she likes. Frankie has to guarantee her that this is a normal process among women, and tries to assure her that she looks great. Axl attempts to get a job as the lifeguard when the current one runs over his foot with a lawnmower. However when he finds out that he had to go out for the job against Sean Donahue, he doubles down on studying. Axl is awarded the job by the head lifeguard Dave (Michael Dunn), but it’s not all it is cracked up to be, as Sean winds up as a page for a State Senator and is able to leave the pool with two hot girls to go to the lake, while Axl is stuck with a fat kid (Aedin Mincks) telling him that his brother has an ‘accident’ in the pool. Sue finally picks out a bathing suit when a saleswoman (Nakia Burrise) at the store tells her that she looks good in a pink one. However, neither she nor Carly have the courage to take theirs off at the pool. When Sean’s mother Nancy tells Frankie that they will have to cross a bridge to get to the Junior High school, Mike and Frankie bribe Brick with $20 to cross the bridge. When Frankie sees how terrified Brick is, she makes Mike stop the car. As they argue about making him cross it, Mike drives slowly over the bridge without realizing it… only to look back and see that Brick had exited the car. They decide to give up and forget it. Six months later Brick suddenly decides to walk over the bridge, but still claims he’ll never cross it in the car. Dawn Joyal and Steffani Brass are the other mother and daughter shopping for swimsuits. Hayley Holmes is the girl admiring Sue’s bathing suit. 5/12/21
• 048. Back to Summer – 5/25/2011
  • Frankie is looking forward to Summer and buys a backyard tiki torch to celebrate. However, it seems that her efforts might be stymied by Brick not moving to the fourth grade because he hasn’t filled out his daily journal all year long, and Axl has to complete 30 hours of community service to pass his Civics class. Additionally Sue is supposed to receive the perfect attendance award, but the school secretary Ms. Jacobs (Patrika Darbo) says she was absent on October 13. Mike and Frankie frantically help Brick re-create his entire school year in the journal, with Frankie convinced that he can write anything because Ms. Rinsky will never read it. On days with no books involved, Brick seems to have total recall, and he does recall Sue’s red shirt on October 13. This helps her recall that she came in late that day after going to the orthodontist, went to Nurse Fahler (Jan Hoag) to get an aspirin, then retrieved Allison Scott’s purse from the band room for the Nurse. She then goes to see the band teacher Mr. Stevens (Tom Beyer) and remembers that the band was rehearsing when she enters, and captured the entire thing on video tape, including her knocking over all of their equipment on the way out. She shows this footage to Ms. Jacobs and the principal Mr. Sholin. Back home, Mike forces Axl to enroll in the service programs Time with Tots and Meals That Heal. When he later returns home from work, he finds that Axl is using the tots to assemble the meals. He shuts down the ‘sweat shop’ and he and Axl finish the meal assembly, and then deliver them, despite running out of gas. Frankie brings the journal to Ms. Rinsky, who forces her to wait while she reads all of it… including that day’s entry where Brick wrote that he spent the last two days filling in the journal, and that Frankie said that Ms. Rinsky was too lazy to read it. Nevertheless, she passes Brick, claiming that although she wouldn’t mind another year of Brick, she can’t take anymore of Frankie. At Sue’s graduation, she does in fact receive the Perfect Attendance award, but Mr. Sholin refers to her as ‘Barb Heckie.” Thankfully Sue sees the humor of it and breaks out laughing on stage. Frankie admits that she can barely remember anything anymore, but she does remember the good moments with her kids. The family all sits around the tiki torch as they enter summer. Brick announces that he is bored. 5/12/21

SEASON 3

• 049  & 050. Forced Family Fun – 9/21/2011
  • The Heck children all head off to their first day of school, embracing each other and promising to call when they all get to their destination. Frankie tells the tale of how they got to this point, which begins with the family getting mail and watching pets of the other families in the neighborhoods, including the Donahues who went to Disney World, a family who went to the Wisconsin Dells, and family who went to the Bahamas, the first two of whom bring Frankie a magnet. Frankie then regrets that they didn’t take their family anywhere for the Summer, although Axl was busy working as a lifeguard where he stayed busy hitting on the girls (Kathryn Collins, Ashley Rebecca Hawkins), Brick hung out at the library assisting the librarian, and Sue hung out at the mall with Carly, where it seems that only Carly had any luck with the boys, when she winds up with a hot dog vendor (Terra Glen Campbell aka Trevor Glen Campbell). Since they are already in debt, Mike suggests a camping trip, but Frankie still has bad memories of their last camping trip on their honeymoon 19 years earlier. Finally, she agrees and they break the news to their kids, who have absolutely no interest in going. Nevertheless, they all head out, and trouble begins right away when Axl forgets to bring his shoes, and Sue forgets to bring her high school handbook. She has never-ending questions for Axl since it is her first year at the high school, and it drives him crazy, leading to much fighting along the way. Brick won’t take his nose out of his books long enough to look out the car window, and would rather read about locations they are passing, rather then actually look at the real thing. Frankie has flashbacks of the store they encountered upon arrival on their honeymoon. Mike forces Brick to go fishing with him, and Brick actually notices how much nicer the actual lake is than the photos of the lake in his book. He is even able to enjoy fishing, especially when he catches one. As they get ready to turn in for the night, Frankie recalls the first trip, and when they try to turn in for the honeymoon night, a stranger happens upon their camp, who turns out to be a former high school acquaintance of Mike’s named Nicky Kohlbrenner (Ray Romano) who was the manager of Mike’s basketball team. Nicky is a continual source of annoyance to the newlyweds, as he won’t stop talking about Mike’s old girlfriend, and how Mike once kept him from actually ever playing basketball. He quickly wears out his welcome, but Mike feels obligated to invite him to dinner, and once he is finally ready to leave, it starts pouring, so Mike invites him to stay in their tent. This naturally leads to a huge fight between Frankie and Mike after less than ten hours of marriage. Back in the current trip, Sue continues to drive Axl crazy, so Frankie forces them all to play Monopoly together, making up the rules as they go along, because they don’t have any of the parts for Monopoly, but have numerous pieces from other games… and a gym sock. Sue and Axl continue to fight, and Frankie and Mike continue to fight about the honeymoon trip. Brick still won’t look away from his book, so the kids are all sent to bed. Frankie admits to Mike for the first time that she had try to make up with him on their honeymoon, but she wound up kissing Nicky since Mike had gone for a walk, and she thought Nicky was Mike. She throws Nicky out, and Nicky tells her they could have been man and wife in a different universe. After they all turn in, their own fights are interrupted when Sue wakes up and has her first period, but this attracts a bear outsides their tent. They all rush to the car, which won’t start because Brick drained the battery by reading in it all night, and they wind up stuck in the car with a bear rocking it and bouncing up and down on it. This is why they are so affectionate with each other, before heading of to school… even if the closeness is short-lived. Jill Tracy is the Dells mother. Amy Crofoot is the Bahamas mother. NOTE: This is a one-hour episode, which aired in two parts in syndication. 9/5/21
• 051. Hecking Order – 9/28/2011
  • Now that Sue is a Freshman, she is driving everyone crazy by constantly talking about every piece of minutiae that happens throughout the day, particularly Axl who she is constantly embarrassing. Brick is also having trouble with his teacher Mr. Wilkerson (Chord Overstreet), who he doesn’t care for because he is a man. At first Mike and Frankie blow it off, but when Mr. Wilkerson allows Brick to skip gym class, they have an issue with that. Meanwhile, Axl purposely gives Sue some bad advise to add a swimming class to her schedule, which will cause her to be late for class since the gym is so far from her next class. No matter how she tries to change her route, she keeps getting swept up in the Hall Monitor’s (Christopher Darga) ‘tardy sweep’. One of her obstacles is Lucy Howard (Galadriel Steinman) who is making out with her boyfriend Steve Johnson (Kevin Joy) right in front of Sue’s locker. Sue tries carrying all of her books with her, but they cause her to tip over and wind up on her back like a turtle. When Frankie yells at Axl, he says he won’t drive her to school anymore. Frankie has to explain the family hierarchy with herself on top and all of the kids below. However, the kids think that their father should be placed above her. Frankie takes offense at this, and when Mike doesn’t do much to convince them otherwise, Frankie assigns Mike to talk to Brick’s teacher. He doesn’t have any luck with Mr. Wilkerson, because he thinks it is more beneficial to not force Brick to go to gym class, but to eventually make Brick want to go. On the way to school the next day, Axl admits he admires the fact that Sue never gives up, and describes her as a ‘dork optimist’. On this day, Sue tries her trek to class from the gym and makes it, mostly because Lucy is not in front of her locker. Mike admits that the kids don’t always listen to him either, and they both admit that their parenting style is ‘relaxed’. It turns out that Sue is easily able to talk Brick into going to gym when she tells him that if he climbs to the top of the rope, he’ll get a free frozen yogurt. It also turns out that Axl was the one who drove Lucy and her boyfriend away from Sue’s locker. Judy Kain is Sue’s teacher. Ryan Heinke is the marijuana salesman. 3/3/22
• 052. Major Changes – 10/5/2011
  • Frankie has another tough morning dealing with the kids: Sue uses her shower so she can’t, Axl leaves his shoes on the counter and incessantly goes on about his hat which has become perfectly molded to his head, and Brick is thrilled with a catalog he finds called Chow Down Chicago. To top everything off, she finds out that her friend Pam Staggs is going to be on Wheel of Fortune. She wants to get home that night and watch the show, but Mr. Ehlert keeps her late blabbering on. She gets home just in the nick of time to watch the show, and finds a bag of nearly-gone snacks. As she eats them, Sue freaks out because Axl clipped his toenails into the bag. As she washes her mouth out with soap, as some of her family struggles not to laugh, she hears that Pam won a million dollars. She melts down and leaves the house, telling her family that there are going to be some changes, and heads to her mother’s place. Sue is really upset about her being gone, while the boys are less concerned. Still they all put their heads together and try to come up with what might need changed. Frankie gets drunk on wine with her mother, while the family tires to fend for themselves. Brick can talk of nothing but the Chicago catalog. Axl believes that Frankie has his hat, so he suddenly becomes interested in getting her back as well. The kids all start blaming each other, and then realize they’re all to blame. Since they’re not sure what the issue is, they decide to do nothing. Mike finally decides to take the 120-mile trek to pick her up. He finally gets her to leave and lets the kids know they’re coming. The kids decide to ‘clean’ the house by throwing everything into the back yard. She is impressed when she returns, and Mike sees everything in the backyard, but closes the blinds. Axl is thrilled to be reunited with his hat. The kids then make little efforts to change. For example, Axl leaves his shoes on the stove instead of the counter, and Sue takes her shower early… but then hands Frankie the broken showerhead. Brick finds a new catalog to obsess over. 3/3/22
• 053. The Test – 10/12/2011
  • Frankie gets roped into helping decorate a school float with the other school moms, and find out through their discussion that there is a PSAT exam coming up that their sons are all working hard on. This is the first Frankie has heard of it, so she confronts Axl, who said that he’s been waiting for her to nag him about studying. She lays into him heavy and tries to impart how important the test is for his college entry. She thinks he starts studying, but find out that he’s really only designing a cover for his band’s album. Meanwhile, Sue decides to tryout for the high school cheerleading squad. She auditions for the two head cheerleaders, Debbie (Natalie Lander) and Courtney (Brittany Ross), who tells the girls that if they made the squad they will get a phone call at home by 6pm. Sue is confident she will make the team, although her family has much less confidence, so Sue makes sure that none of the phones are tied up and then waits patiently by the phone for the call. As the 6pm time frame closes in, she alternates between melting down, having confidence, and gracefully accepting the fact that she didn’t make it. But when 6pm rolls around, the phone rings and she announces that she did in fact make it. However, when she shows up for practice, Debbie and Courtney tell her that she was called by mistake and that she really didn’t make it. Sue says she will not accept that, as she has already told her family and friend and pen pals that she made it. She negotiates to be able to wear the uniform at school and in the yearbook picture, and to perform in at least one performance. Frankie and Mike are called in to see Brick’s principal Larimer, who tells them that Brick’s bully who threw him in a trash can has been dealt with. They didn’t even know about it, and Mike begins trying to get Brick to stick up for himself around the house. Brick isn’t interested in being coached, and says that most bullies just want to be heard and will then go away. When Mike keeps pushing him, Brick finally lets loose and tells him that either you are tough or you are not, and he’s not. He just wants to be left alone. Mike is proud that he finally stood up to him, but then later realizes that Brick may have been humoring him just to get him to leave him alone, the same way he deals with bullies. After Frankie lays into Axl again and tells him that the results of the PSAT could affect his entire life, Axl starts to feel stressed and bombs the test. Frankie then tries to tell him that the test is just practice for the SAT and no one’s life was affected by one test. She questions on whether she should prod him to get him to study, or leave him alone so he won’t be so stressed. They are then surprised when Jack Tracy (Casey Sander), a recruiter for East Indiana State, approaches them at a football game and tells them to give him a call when Axl starts thinking about college. Sue cheers at the same game, and gets her pom-pom stuck in her braces. 7/9/22
• 054. Bad Choices – 10/19/2011
  • During a block party where it starts raining, the Heck family has to rush home quickly to put out buckets and pans to help catch water from the numerous roof leaks all over the house. Meanwhile, Axl is planning to play sick and skip school so that he can miss a Spanish test that he’s not prepared for. His friends remind him that there is a party that night at Jack’s house, so he comes up with a plan so that he can miss school and still attend the party. He starts coughing early at the block party, and then tells his parents that he’s going to skip a Hoosier game with Sean because he’s not feeling well. This gets him out of school. Then he tells his mother that party is a surprise party for Jack and that he promised Jack’s mother to keep him busy to make the surprise work. Frankie tells him he’ll have to bite the bullet and go since he made the commitment. His friends are utterly impressed, but then tell him that the test in school was only the written portion, and that the next day is the oral portion. Also the football game will be that night as well. He then commits to try a sick-well-sick-well performance. He nearly pulls it off until he finds out the coach won’t let him play if he’s not in school, so he heads there, and gets out of the test by telling his teacher Senora Porter (Sonya Eddy) that it is a Jewish Holy Day Schmula that day, and he can’t make it up on Saturday because his Aunt supposedly died. Meanwhile, the dishwasher also breaks, and when Bob suggests looking into apartments, they do just that. The realtor Debbie (Vicki Davis) shows her a perfect apartment that will require no upkeep. The kids are confident that their father will nix it, but they start to panic when he suddenly seems interested as well. However, when Mike gets up on the roof to try and make a few repairs, the neighbors start joining in helping him one-by-one, and the ladies bring over food for the men, giving them the best reason of all to stay in the neighborhood. However, when the ladies start talking to Frankie, Axl’s web of lies start to unfold. Brick starts learning Shakespeare and quoting to everyone in the family and the neighborhood. Sue and Brad volunteer to write a play about the dangers of drinking and texting while driving. The create it and put it on for the family, and then the school, much to everyone’s irritation. Price Carson is the teacher looking for volunteers. Jeanne Taylor is the neighbor Claudia. 7/9/22
• 055. Halloween II – 10/26/2011
  • Sue is planning for a Halloween party with her friends and dresses up as a single die. However, when she is unceremoniously ignored by the boys, who spend their time going after the sexy-outfitted girls and use her to put their drink onto, she starts asking her father what boys want. He doesn’t know what to see, so he tries to refer her to Frankie. Meanwhile, Frankie reluctantly commits to taking Brick’s social skills group trick or treating. Brick wants to be a book for Halloween, but his mother talks him into being the ghost of Ernest Hemingway . While they are shopping, Frankie bumps her cart into a rude shopper (Chris Chauncey) who calls her stupid lady after he apologizes. When Frankie tells Mike that girls close to their fathers wait until later to have sex, he suddenly becomes interested in helping her. He gives her some money and suggests that she ask one of the girls at a clothing store to help her pick out an outfit. The outfit turns out to be relatively modest, but Mike realizes that Sue’s body is developing, so he thinks the shirt it too tight. Frankie tells him that it is completely natural and normal but encourages him to talk to her. Axl and his friends Sean and Darrin decide to go trick or treating as generic superheroes so that they can load up on candy, return, and then offer to sell it back to neighbors when they run out. Frankie takes out Brick and his socially awkward friends Corey, Zack, Henry, Scott (Aidan Potter), and Theo (Jake Netter). When the kids get in the way of another mother (Karly Rothenberg), she snaps at Frankie even after she apologizes for them. She tracks the woman down and tells her that after someone says they’re sorry, they are supposed to respond, “that’s okay.’ The lady apologizes, and Frankie says, “that’s okay.” Axl and his friends encounter a little girl (Hailey Sole) and her little brother Kevin (Brady Allen) who had their candy stolen. The guys retrieve the candy and return it, leading the little boy to refer to them as superheroes, much to their delight. Mike plans to tell Sue how he feels about her shirt, as he drives her ultra-slowly to the party. He just can’t get it out and simply lets her go.  However, he is relieved when she puts a pumpkin sweater on over her new shirt. 10/30/22
• 056. Heck’s Best Thing – 11/2/2011
  • After a football game, a college recruiter named Jack Tracy (Casey Sander) from East Indiana State, speaks to Axl and tells him that he’d like to talk to him about coming to the college. His parents are ecstatic but concerned that Axl will screw up the interview. Frankie sends Sue and Brick to go borrow a fancy platter from Aunt Edie, and she winds up sending them home with a bunch of other junk… including her cell phone. Much to their surprise, the phone works, but they argue about who gets to keep it. They decide to share the phone so that Sue can text her friends and Brick can contact the library. Brick tests the texting functionality by texting HELP to their mother, sending her frantically over to check on Aunt Edie. She doesn’t remember texting HELP and can’t find her phone. She calls the phone to help her find it, so the kids have to put the phone in the refrigerator, so she won’t hear it ringing. Frankie and Mike get the house ready for Jack’s interview. They are then stunned when Axl appears dressed in a shirt, tie, and sweater. They try to intervene by fumbling through the questions for Axl, but then he steps in and gives his own great answers. As proud as his parents are of him, they are also angry that he did so well when he is so argumentative and irritating at home. Axl responds by saying that his parents never bring their best game for him, so questions why he should. After some introspection, Frankie realizes that Axl is right. Sue and Brick receive a text saying that the account has gone over their text limit and owe $68.34. They head to the phone store to pay the bill and find out from the clerk (Paul Connor) that they are eligible for a free second phone if they join the family plan for $5.00 a month. Frankie tries to initiate change in the home by making homemade meatloaf for dinner, but the kids are again at their worst, with Sue and Brick texting the whole time, and Axl wanting to leave the table to watch a game on TV. Frankie talks about how Aunt Edie told her that she was told that she sent hundreds of texts that she couldn’t remember and signed up for a second phone, which makes her consider putting Edie in a home. Frankie announces to the whole family that she brought her best and no one noticed, so she is done trying. Mike has a talk with her privately, and they agree to all go bowling together on Thursday. Sue and Brick agree that phones are evil because of how it will affect Edie. Just then, their mother text both of them and summon them to the kitchen and then makes them turn over the phones, adding the punishment of having to visit Aunt Edie each weekend to clean her house. Thursday rolls around and everyone forgets about bowling, and realize they are all too comfortable on the couch watching TV to actually leave the house. Tracy Weisert is the grocery store cashier. 10/30/22
• 057. The Play – 11/16/2011
  • After Sue gets rejected from lacrosse tryouts, Frankie hears from Bob about a community play of The Wizard of Oz. When he tells her that they are accepting all children to play Munchkins without a tryout, Frankie presents the idea to Sue. Meanwhile, Brick is having a ‘Grandparents and Other Special People’ day at school and wants to bring Mike’s father to get extra credit. However, when he goes to see him, he finds only Mike’s brother Rusty, who agrees to come to the event instead… even though he doesn’t know Brick’s name. Axl is grounded without TV, so he resorts to spending his days trying to toss a coin through every opening on their decorative railing in the house. Not only does Sue get into the play, but when the director Gene (Harry Groener) overhears Frankie singing along, he offers her apart in show as well. Frankie has a blast being part of it, but then Gene comes and tells Frankie that they are going to have to kick Sue out of the play because he strange eye movements are distracting the other performers. He makes Frankie be the one to tell her, and when she does, she realizes that Sue expects her to drop out of the play as well. Although she tries to drop numerous hints that she wants to continue without Sue, she can never bring herself to tell her that she is still acting in the play. Rusty doesn’t show up to Brick’s Grandparents day at school, so Mike goes over and reads him the riot act about how undependable he is. Rusty then shows up at school and interrupts Brick’s Science class to talk about how they need to learn the alphabet backwards in case they ever get pulled over. He then takes Brick out for ribs for lunch, bowling, and lets him drive home. Mike is not happy when they arrive at home and Brick is driving the car. He tells Rusty that he can’t make up for always letting down his family, although Brick is quite pleased with the day. Axl tips off Sue that their mother is secretly going to the play practices, so Sue waits up for her to get home. When Frankie arrives, she begs Sue’s forgiveness, and when Sue tells her that if it means so much to her that she should continue, Frankie tells her that they will go back and demand that Gene find a place for her. She winds up doing the lighting from under the stage as the actors perform The Merry Old Land of Oz. During the show, Mike notes that Rusty is there and watching in the back row. Frankie realizes that everything is better when they do it together as a family. They even all join Axl as he finally gets his coin tossed through all of the railings in the living room. Jill Basey is Brick’s teacher Ms. Tibbits. Jenny Lerner is the girl playing Dorothy. 4/3/23
• 058. Thanksgiving III – 11/24/2010
  • The Heck family heads to Frankie’s parents to stay for Thanksgiving, and although they try to get there to claim the guest room before Frankie’s sister Janet (Molly Shannon) and her husband Gary and daughter Lucy (Marlowe Peyton) can, the come up short and are forced to sleep on air mattresses again. Frankie decides that Sue is now old enough to loop into the family ‘dirt’ discussions, so she passes Lucy off on Brick. Lucy is a spoiled brat who cries at everything, so they wind up sending the kids outside to play in the snow. Lucy loses her pet bear out there so everyone has to look for it, except for Gary who never emerges from the guest room. Eventually Brick finds it, but it no longer speaks correctly, so Janet alludes to the fact that Frankie should replace it since Lucy claims Brick it there. Brick says that Lucy was the last one to have it, and then sets off to prove his innocence with a detective kit he finds in the basement. Frankie is offended by Janet’s passive-aggressive attitude, and for accusing Brick of lying. Meanwhile, Mike and Axl are crushed when they realize that the TV doesn’t work. They take every opportunity to run errands whenever anyone needs anything. When they have to go out and get Lucy pink marshmallows, Axl tries to hit on the store cashier (Gabrielle Christian). When she shoots him down, Mike laughs at him. The next time they are in there, Mike tries to show Axl how to be charming, but he too creeps the girl out. Finally, Tag goes along and tries to show them both how to be charming, but he too is shot down. Brick finds footprints leading to the location where the bear was found, but they wind up being his own prints for moments earlier. Tensions finally boil over with Frankie and Janet and they wind up getting in a fight, using Frankie’s mattress as a weapon. Janet says that Frankie constantly complains that she is tired and never has any time to talk to Janet. They argue over which of the two is more exhausted from being a mother. Later, they make up, and Frankie admits she was jealous because Janet’s life seems so peaceful and perfect, while Janet admits that it was Frankie who made her want to become a mother. As they leave, Frankie tells Mike what a wonderful time it was, but Mike doesn’t know what she is talking about. 4/3/23
• 059. A Christmas Gift – 12/7/2011
  • After drinking too much at a Christmas party, Frankie goes home and sends out invitations to have their own neighborhood party on Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, Brick starts exploring the Bible, but has too many hard questions about it for his parents to handle, so Sue takes him to see Reverend TimTom. She gets upset when TimTom gives up on Brick when he can’t seem to answer any of Brick’s questions satisfactorily. Axl takes a job at Mr. Ehlert’s Christmas tree lot alongside Bob, who starts to get on Axl’s nerves when he starts speaking in teen lingo in order to connect with Axl. Frankie starts to get on Mike’s case to have their dishwasher replaced since it is now an empty hole, but Mike says that they can start looking for one sometime after Christmas. However, he admits to Sue that he’s already found and purchased a new dishwasher for her that he plans to unveil on Christmas morning. He has to go to great lengths so hide it form her in Sue’s room and then try to explain why he has his friend Dave over at the house and in Sue’s room. On the night of the party, Axl tries to make time with a girl named Emily (Brianne Howey), but Bob keeps interrupting and trying to act cool in front of Axl and Emily. Axl has to tell him that he’s acting like a loser and that he needs to talk to people his own age. However, when Axl takes Emily into Sue’s bedroom to make out, he sees Bob outside punching their snowman. He goes out and tells Bob that he thought that he wasn’t cool enough for Bob since he’s a teen who still lives at home. He makes Bob feel better which is one of the most generous Christmas gifts he’s ever given. As Frankie and some her guests start to get tipsy, they all start ganging up and criticizing Mike for the lousy gifts that he always gets Frankie, if he remembers to get them at all before the last minute. Mike finally starts to get angry at the criticism and wheels out the dishwasher. This kills the party, and Frankie tries to be both thankful and apologetic to Mike. He eventually forgives her, but then when they go to install it, it doesn’t fit under the counter where it belongs. Reverend TimTom comes to see Sue before he leaves town to make sure that she isn’t upset with him. She says she’s merely disappointed that Brick is shaping up to be a non-believer. TimTom tells her that like Justin Bieber, Jesus puts his message out there and relies on others to find him. Later, Sue tells him how amazing snowflakes are and how they’re all different from one another. Brick agrees that it is pretty cool but isn’t quite convinced about the stories of the Bible, even though he admits that the stories are pretty cool. 8/13/23
• 060. Year of the Hecks – 1/4/2012
  • Once the clock strikes midnight and it officially becomes 2012, the entire family starts to head off to bed. Frankie wants them all to say their New Years resolutions aloud, but then they all agree that they never stick to them. This time she suggests that they come up with ideas for each other, and if they can all stick to them for a week, they will go out to eat at the King Henry’s All-You-Can-Eat Smorgasbord. They all receive their resolutions from a secret fellow member of the family. Axl has to keep his room clean, Sue has to stop trying out for things that she sucks at, Brick has to not read books, Frankie has to spend more time with Brick, and Mike has to smile. Frankie assumes her resolution came directly from Brick and it makes her feel like a failure as a mother, admitting that she doesn’t even know what Brick’s favorite color is. Mike tries smiling at work, but it freaks out his employees. It also leads to the bank teller chatting with him and keeping him at her window for twenty minutes. Since Sue can’t join any activities, she decides to create a cheer squad for Brad’s wrestling team. She checks with his Coach Lazovick (Joe Bays) and he gives his apathetic approval. Sue assembles four other girls, Weird Ashley, Ruth (Grace Bannon), Becky (Jessica Marie Garcia), and Mary. Sue can’t figure out which girl to cut, but fortunately Mary drops out on her own so Sue tries to get the other three girls started. Ashley and Becky then drop out because they want to watch Phineas and Ferb, while Ruth has to drop out because she’s not allowed to wear shorts. Alx find an old paper he wrote in fifth grade about firetrucks and tries to use it to get the giant cookie his parents promised him if he got an A in the class. They tell him that he didn’t get the A, and therefore is not getting the cookie. Axl ten returns to his fifth-grade teacher Mrs. Colavita (Mary Pat Gleason) and has her grade it. With the help of some fifth-grade students, she winds up giving him the A he needs. Brick is grumpy as he goes through reading withdrawal, and although Frankie tries to spend time with him, she keeps forgetting to include him in her activities. Eventually, she decides to take him to work with her, and he actually enjoys himself and thinks that she has a great job. During the day, she finds out that his favorite color is yellow. Sue makes the rounds to her Wrestlerettes to try and get them back on the team by making exceptions for everyone. Everyone has pretty successful resolutions, but Frankie realizes she left Brick at the office. On the way there, they get pulled over by a police officer (Diane Delano) and they try to explain what happened. They eventually get to the smorgasbord, and they confess who they each assigned the resolutions to. Axl assigned his mother to pay attention to Brick. Mike told Sue not to try out for stuff. Frankie told Mike to smile. Brick had Axl clean their room, and Sue had Brick. As they all toast 2012 as the year of the Hecks, a car gets towed outside. It isn’t their car, but it does scratch the side of their car in the parking lot. 8/13/23
• 061. The Map – 1/11/2012
  • On the way home from the funeral of Aunt Jenny’s funeral, the Heck family discusses how good she looked, dying in one’s sleep, cryogenics, and the fact that Sue is afraid that Axl will freeze her head an put her on a dude’s body. They host the wake at their house, and Axl eats what he thinks is a giant cookie is actually Brick’s dough map of the Indiana. Mike tells Axl that he needs to help Brick redo the homework. Frankie misses Sue’s wrestling meet when she stops by to bring Aunt Edie her vodka and cigarettes. Meanwhile, while Sue and her team are cheering for the Hens wrestling team. One of the wrestlers named Matt (Moises Arias) tells Sue that he is sorry to hear about her aunt. Later, Brad tells Sue that Matt told him that he likes Sue. When Sue tells her parents about it, they aren’t sure if Matt said that he liked Sue or liked Matt. Frankie reminds Sue that she needs to make sure she is making herself happy, and not just go out with him if she doesn’t like him. Axl and Brick work on the Indiana map but can’t find the directions or remember what was put into the first one. When they can’t figure it out, they decide to use the brownie mix since it has instructions. Unfortunately, as soon as they see it, they wind up eating it. The next time Frankie visits Edie, they go through old papers to find Aunt Edie’s birth certificate and learn that Aunt Jenny was 100 years old. Frankie is upset that they never celebrated such a milestone birthday, and regrets all of the birthdays and holidays they’ve floated. She vows to do better and plans to attend Sue’s next meet. Brick and Axl remake the map out of pancake… and eat that too. Sue tells Matt that she heard that he likes her, but that she believes that she’s not sure yet if she likes him, to which he responds with a simple ‘okay’. Brick and Axl order two pizzas to ensure that they don’t eat the map. Once they’ve finished with Indiana, Brick realizes that he was supposed to create a map of Texas rather than Indiana. Brick decides to take an ‘incomplete’ on the project, and Axl begins eating Indiana. Sue shows up to Sue’s wrestling meet and is able to witness Matt announcing in front of the crowd that he likes her and won’t take a no for an answer, followed by the entire wrestling team giving her a synchronized cheer. Frankie is grateful taht she went to the meet, and when she gets home, she finds that the family is celebrating Aunt Jenny’s 100th birthday with a cake. They also take the opportunity to celebrate five birthdays, two anniversaries, Easter, and a graduation. Keith Blaney is the wrestling referee. 12/10/23
• 062. Hecking It Up – 1/18/2012
  • Frankie volunteers to help out with Super Bowl XLVI, which is played at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. Liz (Marianne Muellerleile), the lady who hands out the assignments, gives Frankie the detail of working in the satellite parking lot in French Lick, while she witnesses a goofy-looking guy get assigned to accompany VIPs to their luxury boxes. Meanwhile, Nancy Donahue tells Frankie that her husband was given a trip to the Super Bowl and a free hotel as a perk from his job. Later, Nancy calls Frankie from a Super Bowl party and asks if she will put their brand-new Passat car into the garage, but instead Frankie takes the car herself and goes shopping with it. The other family members start using the car as well: Brick uses it to study the GPS, Axl takes it go get chicken, Mike uses it to take naps, and Sue uses it to practice for her driving test. When Sue accidentally lets it roll into the street, she has to drive around the block to put back in the garage. After the harrowing incident, she decides to tell Matt that she loves him. However, when she does, he only responds with an ‘okay’. Driving the Donahue Passat fills Frankie with the confidence that she never knew she had. She tells Liz that she has the face and demeanor to work at the stadium rather than French Lick. When Frankie finds out that her entire family has been using the car, they decide to take turns with it, and then all use it for a family trip to get chicken together. When they get a call from Nancy, she tells them that a couple of the kids got a stomach bug and are heading home early… and will be back home in twenty minutes. Frankie realizes that they’ve ‘hecked up’ the car and have to rush and clean it out. During the emergency, Matt shows up and wants to talk to Sue. He locks himself in the car with her and tells her that he had planned to tell her that he loves her at Valentine’s Day and then gives her a kiss. He then joins in with helping clean the car, including a trunk full of books that Brick put there. They get the car back home just as the Donahues are rolling in. When Ron notices a scratch on the car, Frankie comes clean about the family using the car while they were gone. Nancy tells them that she should have offered to let them use it, and Ron tells them that they should thank them for scratching it, which prevented the family from all blaming each other when the first scratch inevitably happened. Frankie can’t understand how the family can be so nice, and Mike remarks that they deserve better neighbors than them. Frankie winds up on an assignment at the stadium, directing people to which port-a-potty to use. Cassandra Braden is the lady looking for Section 15. 12/11/23
• 063. Valentine’s Day III – 2/8/2013
  • After much discussion, Mike and Frankie decide that they will stay home on Valentine’s Day and enjoy watching their own programs in separate rooms and splitting a box of chicken. This does not bode well for Brick, who has been assigned to write a paper on what love means to him. Meanwhile, Axl has a similar assignment to write a paper on a life-changing event. He thinks that it is obvious that kids his age wouldn’t have had much happen to them related to that, but he soon learns that his friends Sean and Darrin have had near-death experiences. When Franke runs into Nancy and Paula at the grocery store, they agree that they will all go out to dinner for a triple-date on Valentine’s date instead of staying home. Sue is counting on Matt to ask her out for Valentine’s Day, and he does in fact come through. However, she is shocked when he slips her his tongue when they are kissing. She thinks he has forgotten how to kiss properly, and Frankie doesn’t have the heart to tell her that this is what French kissing is all about. Axl comes up with a paper about his life-changing event when he asked a girl out and she turned him down. He then contemplated how hot he was, and eventually decide that he was indeed hot… and the girl eventually saw it his way and went out with him. He keeps toiling away at the paper when they all tell him it is terrible, making a pretend video of Brick on his supposed death bed. During dinner, Ron buys Nancy a flower from an old saleslady (Sara Van Horn) at dinner, and then Bill buys one for Paula. However, when she offers to sell a flower to Mike, he declines, making Frankie feel left out and upset. She later wakes Mike up in the middle of the night, and he says that he wasn’t going to fall for that phony Valentine’s nonsense, but Frankie was still hurt by his lack of making the gesture. Sue has a nice dinner with Matt, but he again tries to slip her the tongue. Frankie finally tells her that it is normal, but Sue still doesn’t like it. She tells this to Matt, who is relieved since he was cutting his tongue on her braces. With Frankie and Mike barely speaking, they all gather to listen to Brick’s paper about love. He points out that his greatest is experience in seeing true love is between his parents, who do little things all of the time to show their love and affection, even though they no longer French kiss. They are both moved by this and apologize to each other. Axl likes the paper so much that he steals the gist of it and uses it to complete his paper about how his parents’ love for each other his life-changing event was. Chris Erric Maddox is the waiter. 4/14/24
• 064. The Concert – 2/15/2012
  • Sue finds out that Justin Bieber is coming in concert to Indianapolis, but her parents tell her that they won’t be able to afford it. However, they tell Sue that if she can raise the money, she can go to the show. Sue’s solution is to ask for an advance on future birthday and Christmas gifts, and when Frankie sees how much it means to her, she says they will make it happen. When the time rolls around to buy tickets, Frankie messes up the online security entries to make sure she’s human, so the concert sells out without them getting tickets. However, the Indianapolis radio station comes up with another 200 tickets to sell, so Frankie agrees to drive her there and camp out in the line with her. Meanwhile, Brick plans to enter the Spelling Bee at school, and fully plans on going to the nationals. Mike helps him prepare for it, but they place more emphasis on Brick preparing his victory dance. Axl and his friends Sean and Darrin drive past a 15mph speed limit sign, and Axl makes the claim that he can walk faster than that. The friends then challenge themselves to try and beat that speed on foot by parking and running past the sign and speed meter. Mike accompanies Brick to the classroom Spelling Bee and is extra cocky with Brick’s teacher Ms. Tibbits about how it will just be going through motions for Brick to win in this preliminary contest. Unfortunately, Brick misses his first word “Reindeer” and is out of the running immediately. Brick is mortified, which his parents are glad to see is a very natural reaction. However, Brick refuses to return to school after this. Over in the line in Indianapolis, Frankie and Sue see a mother (Mary Elizabeth Barrett) and daughter (Abby Walla) cut in line, but when Frankie yells at them, they realize they are deaf. Then they see a group of about twenty girls line jump in front of them, and this time Frankie and Sue leave the line so that they too can cut in front of these newcomers. Everyone pushes back at Frankie for cutting and she is escorted by a station employee (Nicholas Bush) to the back of the line. However, Sue maintains this spot and is able to get two tickets for the show. Mike talks Brick into going back to class by telling him how many people fail but go back to fight another day. He agrees to accompany Brick to school in case anyone laughs at him, but when he drops him off, Ms. Tibbits asks Mike to lead the class in the Pledge of Allegiance, and it becomes clear that he has forgotten the words… prompting him to tell Frankie that he’s never going back to that school. Axl finally manages to reach 15mph on foot, but his friends then tell him that he must hit 16mph in order to actually ‘break the speed limit.’ However, when he returns with a giant crowd to cheer him on, they find that the sign and speed meter has been removed. On the day of the Bieber concert, Frankie is all ready to go and enjoy the show with Sue, when she realizes that Sue plans on taking Carly rather than her. Frankie holds back her tears as she sends Sue on her way. With Frankie feeling sad, Axl returns home and plops down on the couch and puts his legs on her while they watch TV together, somewhat salvaging her evening of feeling like her kids have outgrown her. Brandon Scott is Cory. Brooke Baumer is Margaret. Alex Alexander is the women in line. Maddie Levy is young Frankie at the Sean Cassidy concert. 4/15/24
• 065. The Sit Down – 2/22/2012
  • The Heck family has a typical chaotic morning, with reminders from Frankie for Sue to find her missing coat, Axl to work on his book report, and Brick to bring home a coffee maker he took to school. All the while, Mike barks out punishments like the fact that will never have coats again. That night after their restaurant dinner, they come home, and the chaos ensues once again, until Mike declares no more hugs and sends everyone to bed early. The next day, Axl, Sue, and Brick call their parents into the family room and instruct them to sit down so that they can talk to them. They tell them that they are not happy with the way things are going in the household, and they blame Frankie’s constant nagging and Mike’s overzealous punishments. They insist that they be trusted to do the right things on their own without being nagged or punished. Although they resent the way they were sat down and then dismissed, Mike and Frankie agree that it would be nice if they could trust the kids to do the right things on their own, so they decide to give them a chance. Things actually go smoothly for a while, as Sue hold her cheerleading practices at the house and remembers to bring her coat home, Axl appears to be reading his homework assignments, and Brick finally brings home the coffee maker. Frankie and Sue feel like they are free again, so they decide to spend the evening together out bowling. Back home, Sue realizes that her coat is missing again. Axl is worried that if their parents find out, they will end this experiment, so Axl agrees to drive her over to Joe’s Subs to look for the coat. Since Axl hasn’t actually started reading his book Of Mice and Men yet, they take Brick with them so that he can read it and give a synopsis of it to Axl as they drive. Sue then remembers that she may have left it at school, so they go there to look. When it isn’t in her locker, Sue remembers she may have left it at Ashley’s house. They don’t find the coat at Ashley’s place, but Ashley somehow tricks Axl into going to the prom with her for a second time. When Brick realizes what they are looking for, he recalls that he has actually seen the coat in a pile in Axl’s room, so they head back home. As they are digging through the junk in Axl’s room, one of the moths in Axl’s bedding flies into Brick’s ear. Over at the bowling alley, Mike and Frankie are bragging to another couple (Jim Abele, Bekka Prewitt) about how they have a lot of spare time from their kids, but when Frankie gets the call about the moth, she tells the couple not to listen to them because they have no idea what they are talking about. Upon arrival at the emergency room, they speak to the doctor (Richard McGonagle) who got the moth, along with a Monopoly house, out of Brick’s ear. When the doctor hears them arguing about whose fault it all way, the doctor sits them down to talk to them about getting along. Skyler James is the bowling son. 9/4/24
• 066. Leap Year – 2/29/2012
  • Sue’s Leap Year birthday is coming up, and since she only gets to celebrate her actual birthday once every four years, she is hoping for a big surprise party. Frankie tries to tell her that the Justin Bieber tickets that she got was her gift, but Sue doesn’t believe her and keeps expecting a surprise around every corner. Meanwhile, Axl is between sports at school and finds himself so bored that he takes up vacuuming the house repeatedly and throwing a fit if anyone gets anything on the floor. Mike has been coming home late, in some cast at 3:00am in the morning, and hesitates telling Frankie what he is doing. It turns out that he has had a cat named Limestone at the workplace for many years, and the cat is now sick. Brick and the other kids are surprised when the receive a new student in their Social Skills class, namely because it is a girl named Hayley (Mackenzie Aladjem). All of the boys have an instant crush on her, including Brick, and they think she might be in there as a result of a clerical error. It turns out that she is there because she is a biter, which she demonstrates unexpectedly on Theo. When the boys find out that they are losing funding for their Social Skills class, they come up with several ideas for fundraising that they can do in order to afford having the janitor let then in and out of the school for their meetings. When Mike reports that the cat Limestone passes away, Frankie tries to get him to release his emotions. He won’t budge, and even when he goes out to work on a shelf in the garage, she pesters him to cry about the cat, but he will not let his feelings out. However, when he heads to the barber and finds out that his favorite barber had been reassigned to a salon. Mike now feels that he’s losing everything he loves, including his barber and his cat, so he vows never to love anything again. Frankie helps arrange a bake sale at Ehlert Motors, where the kids are holding a charity car wash to raise money for their class. Unfortunately, they do such a bad job at washing the soap off that Frankie is forced to hand out some of the baked goods and a full refund on the washes. Back at home, Sue comes home from school and finds no one there to surprise her. Brick and the other boys fight over who gets bit by Hayley until Frankie has to cool them all off with a hose. Brick admits that he only wanted to save the class because he liked Hayley, which Frankie finds to be both normal and social. In the middle of the night that night, Frankie realizes that she has forgotten Sue’s birthday. She and Mike wake her up to wish her a happy Leap Year birthday. Sue thinks that this is finally the surprise. Once Axl and Brick get up to wish her a happy birthday as well, Frankie goes to the other room to try and put together some makeshift gifts for Sue, along with the remaining pieces of cake from the car wash. Sue thinks the birthday is everything she always wanted. Frankie privately notes Sue’s unwavering optimism and points out that it has even trickled onto Mike, as he has now found a new cat that he names Granite, whom he seems to be ready to love again. 9/4/24

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