List of The Middle characters

Cast overview

The Hecks

• Patricia Heaton as Frances Patricia "Frankie" Heck, is the wife of Mike and mother of Axl, Sue, and Brick. Frankie is the central character in the show, as her voice is heard narrating at various points in every episode. She is a devoted wife and mother and sees family as the most important thing in her life. Her motto, "You do for family", guides her daily routine, despite the frustrations she encounters with her husband and three kids, as well as her older ailing relatives who often depend on her. She often forgets family members' birthdays and her and Mike's anniversary. Frankie attended college but did not finish. She is often busy with work and does not have time to volunteer at her children's school activities. When the family goes on a trip, she always forgets "the blue bag" which has the food in it. She initially works as an under-performing salesperson at Ehlert Motors, a job she took after losing her position as a dentist's receptionist when the office closed. After she loses this job in season 4, Frankie completes dental assisting school and gets a job at a dentist's office near the end of the season, a job she would keep for the remainder of the show's run.
• Neil Flynn as Michael Bartholomew "Mike" Heck Jr., Frankie's husband, known for his straightforward manner and lack of emotion. Mike works at the local limestone quarry as the manager. He reaches his 25-year work anniversary at the quarry in the season 9 episode "The Crying Game", wherein he is promoted to Regional Manager. Despite his no-nonsense approach to work and family, Mike is a devoted and understanding husband and father who always seems to come through for Frankie and the kids. It is said on several occasions that Mike's favorite film is Reservoir Dogs and that, when they were younger, he only asked Frankie out on a second date because she lied and said she also liked the film. Mike's reclusive, emotionally distant father, "Big Mike", and Mike's well-meaning but unreliable brother Rusty both live in Orson. Season 8's "Clear and Present Danger" reveals that Mike's mother died of lung cancer at age 42, and his father made him do his homework and go to school the next day instead of allowing Mike time to mourn. Mike loves all sports but is particularly passionate about seeing the Indianapolis Colts play in the Super Bowl. In season 7, he and Rusty start a business designing disposable diapers with sports team logos on them named "Li'l Rivals", which he sells off in the next season to pay for Sue's college tuition.
• Charlie McDermott as Axl Redford Heck, Frankie and Mike's oldest son. Unlike his siblings, Axl is sarcastic, lazy, selfish, and a bit of a narcissist. However, he has his heart in the right place whenever he helps out a family member or friend or win over one of his girlfriends. With his frequent problems and the situations he is brought into, Axl is arguably the most frustrating to Mike and Frankie, who in particular wishes to be more open with her, as he was apparently a very loving "mama's boy" when he was a child, something Frankie seems to want to recapture. Despite his behavior, Axl is much more charismatic, outgoing, and popular at school than his siblings are, but his skills do not extend to his grades in school. Axl also plays electric guitar, and it is presumed that he was named after Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose. Axl is two years older than Sue, as evidenced in the third season when he starts his junior year in high school and she starts her freshman year. His girlfriends over the series include wizardry fan and outcast "Weird" Ashley Wyman, student tutor Cassidy Finch, and tomboy Devin Levin. As a star running back on his high school football team, he is recruited by a Division II state university in Indiana. In college, he decides to major in business. Early in season 8, Axl dates and then secretly marries his slow-witted girlfriend April, mainly as a way to defy his parents, who don't like April. The marriage is quickly annulled after both sets of parents find out. At the end of season 8, he begins dating Sue's roommate Lexie and graduates from college with a business degree. Between seasons 8 and 9, he travels around Europe with his former roommate Kenny to promote Kenny's upcoming apps. After briefly working as a school bus driver and at the restaurant Spudsy's earlier in season 9, Axl gets his first professional job as a sales representative for a plumbing fixture company in the episode "The 200th". In the series finale, he moves to Denver in search of a job opportunity, but a flash-forward reveals that he eventually returns to Orson, marries Lexie, and has three sons who behave similarly to how he did in his youth.
• Eden Sher as Sue Sue Heck, the middle daughter of Frankie and Mike whose sunny personality tend to make her an object of ridicule, especially by Axl. Her first and middle names are the same due to an accident on her birth certificate. Despite her best efforts, she is usually unrecognized by teachers and other students. Many of her plot lines involve her being overlooked, or trying to organize parties or events and receiving no help. She often seeks life advice from a website called "kickingitteenstyle.com", and later "kickingitcollegestyle.com" starting in season 7. Her tell when she is lying is indicated by ending her sentences with "...and so on, and so forth, and what have you". She wears braces for the first five seasons, which are briefly removed in season 3 and permanently at the beginning of season 6, requiring her to wear only a retainer thereafter. She is also left-handed, apparently the only southpaw in her immediate family. She is two years behind Axl in school, graduating high school in the season 6 finale. She is known for trying out for almost every group activity in school but never actually getting picked, as she lacks the necessary skills. In season 2, she joins the no-cut cross country team. Sue becomes a cheerleader called a "wrestlerette" in season 3, only to learn her group includes other misfits, and dates a wrestler named Matt for a short time. In season 4, she dates Axl's friend Darrin MacGrew. She is engaged to Darrin for three days in season 6, before deciding she does not want to get married yet and ending their relationship. The season 3 episode "Leap Year" reveals she was born on Leap Day. In season 7, she gets accepted into the same college Axl is attending. Throughout the series, she has an on-and-off crush on Sean Donahue, and they become an official couple by the end of the series. In season 9, she is a junior in college majoring in hospitality management. In a flash-forward in the series finale, Frankie narrates Sue and Sean broke up and got back together a couple of times before finally being married, with Reverend Tim-Tom officiating.
• Atticus Shaffer as Brick Ishmail Heck, the other son and youngest of Mike and Frankie's children. He loves to read and has a case of palilalia, which is demonstrated by his repeating words from previous sentences to himself in a whisper. He has trouble lying because he will usually follow it up by whispering, "I'm lying". In season 6, he says he does not whisper when he is lying anymore, but now he farts. In season 1 episode 5, it is revealed that he possesses an eidetic memory. He is smarter than most teenagers, having read Of Mice and Men, a book his elder brother is struggling with at the same time. He also loves the Planet Nowhere book series, which is native to the show, and the real-life Percy Jackson & the Olympians. He has referred to Diary of a Wimpy Kid as "the book that changed my life". He is exceptionally intelligent but easily distracted, leading him to procrastinate on doing his homework assignments and projects. In the season seven episode "Find my Hecks", in response to Cindy discussing her IEP diagnosis, Brick states he has trouble focusing on non-preferred activities, with a diagnostic code of borderline 5A62, which may be a reference to disability codes related to the IEP. Brick is also a known gephyrophobiac and is fascinated with fonts. Due to his awkwardness, he struggles to make friends. In season 1, he is put in a social skills class with kids like him: one thinks he is a cat; one only eats red food. In season 2, he befriends an equally awkward boy named Arlo, whom even Brick struggles to deal with. He is five years behind Sue in school, starting the eighth grade in the seventh season. In season 2 episode 7, it is revealed that he was accidentally switched at birth with another baby due to Mike watching a football game and taking home a child that the nurse brought up next to Brick, and he spent a month with that child's family while the other baby was with the Hecks. In season 8, Brick meets the other child, Blake Ferguson, along with the literature-loving Ferguson parents, and discovers that it was likely exposure to them as an infant that led to his appreciation for reading and classical music. While Sue gets overlooked by classmates and teachers, Brick is constantly overlooked by his own family. Frankie and Mike have forgotten his birthday multiple times. In season 8, Brick makes it into the National Honor Society, a first for a Heck family member, but his parents did not know until Frankie hears a voicemail from someone at Brick's school informing the Hecks of Brick's accomplishment. He has a girlfriend named Cindy. In season 9, Brick is a sophomore at Orson High School. He asks Cindy to the prom, and Frankie invites the former students from the social skills class for a pre-prom party. They no longer have the eccentric qualities that they had in season 1, but Brick still has his same quirks. In a flash-forward in the series finale, Brick is married and a famous author who writes a popular book series for teens loosely based on his childhood habits of treating his backpack like his friend and his microfiche machine addiction. Though it is not stated whom he marries in the finale, the seventh season episode "Halloween VI: Tick Tock Death" hints that Brick marries and starts a family with Cindy.