Heck of an ending for The Middle
Quirky family sitcom won a following for take on life in Middle America
Successful TV shows feature characters that viewers feel comfortable inviting into their homes.
ABC’s “The Middle,” which closes an acclaimed nine-season run with four final episodes that kick off Tuesday at 8:30 p.m., goes that bromide one better: Many viewers would feel right at home in the Heck family’s worn, messy but comfy abode — hole in the bedroom wall included.
“People constantly write to me about two things: how the show reflects their lives, and how every (episode) makes them tear up,” says Patricia Heaton, who plays Frankie Heck, wife and mother of three whose wry, practical narration frames a uniquely ordinary and very amusing small-town Indiana family story.
As the cast filmed the series finale in March, Heaton gathered with her co-stars — Neil Flynn (husband Mike Heck) and the actors who play their children, Charlie McDermott (Axl), Eden Sher (Sue) and Atticus Shaffer (Brick) — for a family portrait in front of the living room couch.
Flynn, 57, is fondly reminiscing after filming the show’s final scene in the Heck house.
“It’s saying goodbye to an old pal. The nice green walls of the Heck house … I don’t know if it was always the same, but it was always messy. I guess that’s it. It’s nothing to cry about, right?” Flynn muses, before adding definitively: “We’re definitely going to cry.”
The end of “The Middle,” which began as a rare TV take on financially challenged Middle America and grew into a solid Tuesday-opening draw (with a bump since “Roseanne” arrived as its lead-in), probably will get a similar reaction from fans who connect with the Hecks’ search for simple joys amid the oftenhumdrum demands of school, work and family.
Early on, “we heard from our fans, from the Midwest especially, who said: ‘You have a camera in my house. You have a camera in my laundry room,’” says executive producer Eileen Heisler, who created the series with producing partner and fellow heartland native DeAnn Heline. “There are people who live like the Hecks or remember living like the Hecks.”
The day’s shooting takes place in the Heck family car, birthplace of routine yet sublime conversations and some of the show’s beloved running gags, including “the death napkin” (a.k.a. the parents’ will), which have been served generously this season.
“We wanted to end with the whole family together and no one else there,” says Lee Shallat Chemel, who has directed 85 of The Middle’s 215 episodes, including the one-hour May 22 finale, “Heck of a Ride.” “The car scenes are classic Middle.”
Heisler and Heline have included many classic Middle things (the blue bag, the quilt) in the valedictory season of a comedy that never received the credit it deserves, premièring a week after Emmy darling “Modern Family” and leaving just as paycheque-to-paycheque progenitor “Roseanne” (where Heisler and Heline once worked) reclaims the mantle and is network TV’s top series.
Small changes — Axl and Sue going to college, Frankie changing jobs — anchored in stability is key to The Middle’s longevity, Heline says.
“What we sold to ABC is exactly the show we’re doing now. Yes, the characters have grown and changed, (but) our show has stayed about the core five family members,” she says.