Mike's berserk button.

The very odd thing that I noticed about Mike's reaction to Molly telling him that she was perfectly capable of walking around without some kid as a guide is that he looked as if he were about to physically attack the older girl. It reminded me of why it is that he threw a temper tantrum about being forced to have a summer job he hated because his parents couldn't trust him on his own. The reason he has forced to get a job over the summer is that his immediate reaction to being told that no, he couldn't treat Liz like a creep and be allowed into the house was to turn into a fury-filled nutwad threatening to beat the whey out of her for daring to tell him where he wasn't allowed to be. In an attempt to gain entry into the house and get disowned for pulverising a defenseless child for a stupid reason when someone else suggested calming the Hell down and not rushing headlong into a stretch in juvie (or the loonie bin) he didn't need, he busted a basement window open like a moron and blamed everyone BUT himself and his own stupidity for his woes.

Since Mike has no more self-awareness than his mom and dad, he doesn't realize why it is being told to piss off brings out the raging asshole in him and why it is having girls and women do so infuriates him. When I look at him, I see a rather irritating commonplace: a nitwit with mommy issues trying to attack surrogates of the mother who keeps rejecting him. If Elly hadn't seen a selfish parasite who wanted to drain her of her substance when she looked at her child, it's likely that he wouldn't have issues with being told what to do by the women in his life. He sees himself as the victim of circumstance because of his being Neil Gallagher's 99.9 percent.