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Please Don't Feed the Hecks is the second episode of Season 9 of The Middle. It aired on October 10, 2017.

Synopsis[]

After Frankie gives neighbor Nancy Donahue an old scarf that is just sitting around gathering dust, Nancy returns the favor by baking her a delicious apple pie. Believing she’s stumbled upon a way to get free and tasty meals, Frankie makes it her mission to find miscellaneous items around the house to give to her in exchange for some culinary delights. Meanwhile, Sue and Lexie prepare to move back into their college apartment but find that it’s been sublet to a man who refuses to leave, but are shocked when he turns out to be one of Sue’s professors. Axl’s new job as the school bus driver gives him a chance to see how Brick’s high school sophomore year is treating him, and he discovers that Mike has refused to speak to Brick’s class on Career Exploration Day.

Plot[]

Frankie and Mike discover that Axl has found a new job as the school bus driver and are somewhat disappointed, considering that he boasts about earning his business degree from East Indiana State. Brick is equally unhappy because he believes having a relative drive him to and from school every day will sabotage his effort to build his new reputation as a high school sophomore.

Meanwhile, Sue and Lexie prepare to move back into their college apartment but find that it’s been sublet to a man who refuses to leave. Evidently, the two girls sublet the apartment to two other boys named Derek and Andy before the summer. However, Derek and Andy put the apartment in an ad on Airbnb, and not only gave this man the apartment, but a non-binding contract, and shoved the two of them out the door.

Nancy Donahue arrives at the Heck household and tells Frankie that the snow globe she offered for the Orson Time Capsule is unacceptable because it has liquid in it. Just then, she spots an old scarf that is just sitting around on a rack at the front door, and Frankie offers her the scarf. Nancy decides to wash it, keep it for herself, and return the favor by baking a delicious apple pie. Believing she’s stumbled upon a way to get free and tasty meals, Frankie makes it her mission to find miscellaneous items around the house to give to her in exchange for some culinary delights.

Left to sleeping in Sue’s car and cleaning themselves at public drinking fountains on campus, she and Lexie try to devise a way to get their apartment back. Lexie suggests asking for help from her father, but Sue believes they should exert their power as independent women and take a stand against them. But while sitting in Statistics 204 thinking about her plan, she is shocked to find that the man who took their apartment turns out to be Professor Mark Beckett, the very professor teaching her class!

Axl’s new job as the school bus driver gives him a chance to see how Brick’s high school sophomore year is treating him, and he discovers that Mike has refused to speak to Brick’s life skills class on Career Exploration Day. Axl tried to convince him that he should talk him into talking their father into coming to class anyhow because doing so is second nature to parents. As expected, he tries to request a class visit from his father, but he refuses.

While Lexie is about to go along with Sue’s plan to get the apartment, Sue rushes over to warn her of her revelation about the man. Despite this, she opens the apartment door facing her still reluctant professor. Lexie tries to relate to the difficulty he might’ve had being new in town and finding a place to stay, while Sue (who he recognized from class) uses her apparent love for statistics in an effort to charm her way into his conscience, but he refuses to budge. With no other way to convince the professor to give them back their apartment, Sue seeks help from Brad Bottig, requesting that he teaches her how to be mean enough to stand up to him more effectively. Unfortunately, his lesson only ends up bringing her to tears.

Still receiving more culinary delights from Nancy Donahue, Frankie tells Mike that she's suspicious about the reasons for the delicious food, not to mention why she's able to barter their old junk so successfully. Just then, Axl walks in and tries to talk Mike into visiting Brick's career day class, and he still refuses. When she goes over to the Donahue household with a glass tray, she claims that the pepper steak she made wasn't up to the usual Donahue standards. In response, Nancy claims that she was having some marital and emotional difficulties, which have been showing up in her cooking.

Sean casually visits Sue at East Indiana University from St. Matthew's, when he finds out that she, Lexie and Brad are sleeping on a bench, which is also making Lexie irritable. Sue tells him about their ordeal. Unwilling to allow their situation to continue, Sean visits Professor Beckett with the three of them and threatens to spread a rumor that he and Sue are having an illicit on-campus affair.

At Career Exploration Day, Brick listens to another parent brag about running his own tire store chain. When his turn to present a working elder comes up, Axl intervenes and boasts about his job as a bus driver. Just then, Mike enters the class and tells them about his job at the quarry, and the scene is cut to a return home where Brick regrets asking either of them to speak at his class.

Sue, Lexie, Brad, and Sean return to the apartment to celebrate their victory against Professor Beckett. Though grateful for Sean's intervention, Sue is upset that her effort to expose herself as a modern self-reliant, independent young woman was thwarted by him, and she dreads the idea that his rescue plays into the stereotype of the damsel in distress being rescued by the prince on the white horse. Sean then reminds her of an incident where he got stuck in a drainage pipe he was forbidden to play in, and she rescued him with her jump rope, never revealing the incident. Sean summarized that gender and gender roles have no relevance over who rescues who

In the meantime, Frankie comes home with groceries from The Frugal Hoosier and urges Mike to help her make a decent meal in return for all the food they were getting from the Donahues. She tells him about what she believes to be some emotional distress in making their pepper steak, and the scene is cut to Nancy enjoying the meal, yelling to Ron in the next room that her distress was all a ruse.

Trivia[]

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