Stuck with a Guy on the Couch

**"Stuck with a Guy on the Couch"** is the third episode in Season 1 of *Stuck in the Middle*. It aired on March 18, 2016 to 1.7 million viewers.

## Summary

To raise money to replace her family’s broken tablet, Harley starts an illegally unlicensed hotel service and illegally rents out the family’s couch to a foreign exchange student.

## Plot

When the Diaz kids break their shared tablet, their parents refuse to buy them another one. So, Harley convinces her siblings to help them in a scheme where they would secretly rent their house in order to make money to buy the tablet. It shouldn't be that hard to sneak in another kid past their parents since they already have a large family of nine.

They are lucky to find a customer, Bai Hsu - a Chinese exchange student. He doesn't speak English; so they have to use a translator app to communicate. First, they force Bai Hsu to stay outside in the dark until their parents go to sleep. They then bring Bai Hsu inside to sleep on the couch. When he calls Georgie a kind girl, Georgie develops a crush on him. Since Rachel has been trying to get in touch with her boyfriend Cuff without luck, he posts pictures with Bai Hsu, hoping to make Cuff jealous.

During breakfast, Harley has to make sure that their parents don't notice Bai Hsu. So, Harley sabotages Suzy's coffee maker causing it to malfunction so bad that Suzy starts crying. The next night, Harley overworks her siblings to make sure nothing goes wrong. But things get complicated when their dad decides to sleep on the couch, forcing the kids to hide Bai outside. Ethan calls out her out for being too pushy. So, Harley takes Bai to Tom's Bait & Bite store to sleep in a tent there. Ethan finds Harley trapped in the tent, struggling to get out. He makes up with Harley and admits that even though Harley is pushy, it's good pushy because she makes them do things to help the entire family. He then unwraps Harley from the tent only to find that Bai Hsu is already asleep in a raft.

Early the following day, the kids rush in to look for Bai Hsu but he's missing and the raft has been sold and thrown in the water. Georgie jumps into the ocean to look for him. Tom tells Harley and Ethan that he found the exchange student and helped him move out. He tells them that he didn't let Bai pay for the stay. He had assumed that Bai was there as part of Rachel's idea to make Cuff jealous. Rachel later realizes that Cuff wasn't responding to her texts because he got arrested for painting graffiti where he tagged her on a porta-potty.

Harley gets away with it. Even though Harley complains about being the middle kid, she realizes that it also makes it easier to get away with stuff.

While the older kids are hiding an exchange student, Daphne, Lewie and Beast are charging other kids in the neighborhood money to watch frogs wrestling. When Bethany and other parents go to see the wrestling frogs, they realize that it's not actually wrestling; they were mating.

## Cast

### Main Cast

* Jenna Ortega as Harley Diaz
* Ronni Hawk as Rachel Diaz
* Isaak Presley as Ethan Diaz
* Ariana Greenblatt as Daphne Diaz
* Kayla Maisonet as Georgie Diaz
* Nicolas Bechtel as Lewie Diaz
* Malachi Barton as Beast Diaz
* Cerina Vincent as Suzy Diaz
* Joe Nieves as Tom Diaz

### Recurring cast

* Lulu Lambros as Ellie Peters
* Lauren Pritchard as Bethany Peters

### Guest cast

* Alex Shimizu as Bai Hsu
* Kay Bess as Woman's Voice

## Continuity

* The parents eventually find out about the guy on the couch in Stuck in the Diaz Awards when Harley wins a Diaz Award for best thing mom and dad didn't see. Harley gets punished in that episode. Obviously, because she illegally ran an unlicensed hotel service and rented the couch without their parents' permission.
* In Stuck with Horrible Helpers, Lewie and Beast mention frog-wrestling, referring the frog "wrestling" they had in this episode. Completely unaware it was illegal to do so because it’s promoting animal cruelty.
* The Diaz kids rent their house again in Stuck with a Hook, Line and Sinker. The only difference being they have their parents' permission to do so and they’re not running a hotel service.

## Trivia

* The family tablet breaks.
* The family has to find ways to get money.
* They try to get a foreign exchange student to stay with them.
	+ But their dad finds out and they end up getting no money, so their plan does not work after all.
* They try to work together but it doesn't work out.
* Lulu Lambros made her debut on the show's episode as Ellie Peters.
* One of Ellie Peters's doll clothes is Anna's dress from Frozen.
* This is also Bai Hsu/Woman's Voice's debut on the series.
* This episode had an adult moment, as the frogs Lewie and Beast had wrestling were actually making out.
* Harley later gets punished, as mentioned in Stuck in the Diaz Awards.

## International premieres

* April 29, 2016 (UK and Ireland)
* June 24, 2016 (Spain, Portugal)
* July 18, 2016 (Israel)
* August 13, 2016 (Latin America, Brazil)
* September 11, 2016 (Hungary)