It’s another gray day, with more storms expected any minute, and I’m more awake than I probably should be.
Which is unusual.
It was one of those mornings where I woke up too early, early enough that I should have still been asleep, late enough that I knew I wasn’t heading back to the world of slumber.
And so I fell down a rabbit hole about the TV show, The Middle. You may have noticed it seems to be everywhere right now or maybe that’s only me, the algorithm doing its thing to choreograph our lives.
It started with Eden Sher’s one woman show “I Was on a Sitcom,” in my YouTube suggestions. Eden played the lovable try-hard Sue Heck, the middle child, forever awkward, forever sweet and kind.
Here’s the full special (absolutely worth the watch when you have the time, it’s an hour):
It’s funny and heartfelt, and I genuinely enjoyed getting to see Eden, rather than Sue, for probably the first time for me.
So it naturally followed that I figured I’d rewatch the series, and in doing that in those hours of the morning when the sky isn’t yet bright but there are plenty of people on the road hoping their travel mug of coffee contains a miracle, a question occurred.
I wondered if the actors who played the kids are all still friends. Eden mentions Charlie McDermott, who played her older brother, Axl, in her show, and he even directed her special, but she doesn’t mention Atticus Shaffer, who played her younger sibling.
Once I have a question, I have to see if I can find an answer. How incredible to live in an age where it’s so much easier to find one, if there is one to find.
And there was one to find.
The answer is no.
After gleaning other tidbits, like the entire show was recast but for Atticus after the original pilot, which starred Ricki Lake in the role later played by Patricia Heaton, I found Atticus was largely estranged from the rest of the cast, except for Patricia Heaton, who, in true mom fashion, appears to keep in touch with her TV kids, at least from this show I didn’t do a Patricia Heaton deep dive.
And maybe Neil Flynn, or as I STILL call him, Janitor, but I don’t know about that.
It seems Atticus is super religious and right wing, from what I could gather from people talking about what he talks about, so I mean, take that for what it’s worth.
And he’s said some not-so-nice things about Eden, again, from what I could gather.
It was quite a journey for that part of the morning that is technically morning but doesn’t feel like it.
But it also felt like life.
Were they a real family, the same rifts and fissures could appear. I’m not going to get too into the weeds about specifics, especially since I didn’t see them from the original source, but I’ll say this. If you read what I read, and you’re here, we’d all be Team Eden/Charlie, if there had to be teams.
But these ugly thoughts that people kept to themselves, generally, are now all out there for the world to see. It’s good and it’s bad, as we can see who people are.
And we can see who people are.
How many families from the middle of Indiana are the same way now? From the middle and the edges and the bottom and the top of anywhere in this country?
That show was meant to be about a typical (white) nondescript town family, and even as they ceased to exist fictionally, they still fit the bill.
I thought the information might make the rewatch hard, but it hasn’t. You never know what kind of adults adorable kids will grow up to be.
And then it was time to get up and get going, to take advantage of a bit of head start, so I could get here and share this all with you.
Anyway, that’s it for me on this Thursday, long as it was. Please do watch Eden’s special if you’re interested and have the chance.
Have a great day.
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