Whenever I look back on
Modern Family’s fourth season, I can’t help but view it as being the show’s
weakest season. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t completely hate season four. It’s
just that while the first three seasons have numerous episodes that I feel like
watching repeatedly, season four doesn’t have nearly as many episodes that I
feel that way about. While I do think that season four is currently the weakest
season of Modern Family, I’ll admit that I found that a fair amount of season
four episodes had really grown on me when I watching the season again on DVD.
Personally, I feel like season five has been a major improvement compared to
season four. Much like the first three seasons, I’ve one again felt like
watching a lot of the season five episodes that aired at this point repeatedly,
and I feel fairly comfortable guessing that when season five has ended, this
will be one of the episodes that I’ll feel like watching numerous times in the
future.
I feel like this episode
really demonstrates one of the things that I’ve always viewed as being one of
the show’s greatest strengths, which would be the fact that the writers handle
the ensemble nature of the show perfectly for the most part. It’s also my
opinion that the cast of Modern Family is the perfect size. There’s enough
characters that give the writers a lot of different combinations to work with
when it comes to pairing characters up for storylines, but the cast doesn’t
have so many series regulars that the actors/characters are constantly being
neglected by the writers, which has always been my main complaint about Once
Upon a Time. All of the storylines in this episode feature some really great
combinations of characters, and all of the storylines were very funny and a lot
of fun to watch.
One of the themes that was
featured in several of the storylines was the fact that by the end of the episode
it was made very clear that a lot of the characters were putting on some kind
of act around other people in this episode. One of the storylines that revolved
around that idea was the whole thing with Cameron, Mitchell, Alex and Manny all
going to a local art gallery together to see a new art exhibit. Towards the
beginning of the episode, Cameron revealed in a couch interview that since he
doesn’t know all that much about art, he had some research on the artist whose
work he believed was currently on display at the gallery. He did this so he
could come across as knowing what he was talking about when they were all at
the art gallery. Unfortunately for Cameron, the exhibit that he had done
research on was only a temporary exhibit and was no longer on display, which
prompted him to try his next idea for how to handle the situation: Touch a
painting and get kicked out of the gallery.
Cameron’s streak of bad luck
continued when even that plan didn’t work. A woman who worked at the gallery
simply told him to not touch the paintings. Eventually Cameron managed to get
away from the group, and as the episode continued both Mitchell and Manny also
ditched Alex, saying in couch interviews that they both felt like they were the
weakest link of the group and couldn’t continue to pretend like they knew what
they were talking about any more. In the end, even Alex admitted in a couch
interview that she had been putting on an act all day, dumbing it down for
Cameron Mitchell and Manny’s benefit. I for one loved that they all admitted in
couch interviews, but not to each other, that they had all been putting on some
kind of act for everybody else. Personally, I found that rather amusing. The
final scene of the episode where Cameron, Mitchell and Manny were all talking
to each other as if they were talking about a work of art when they were
actually all looking at Alex who had gotten a stripe of mustard on her shirt
was a great and funny way to end both that particular storyline and the episode
as a whole.
Cameron and Mitchell mentioned
that while their wedding obviously won’t be the most traditional wedding ever
with it being a gay wedding, they wanted to take the whole tradition of the
groom not seeing the bride in her wedding dress until the day of the wedding
and apply it to the selection of Lily’s dress for the wedding, so they had
Claire and Gloria go to the mall with Lily to buy her a dress. Apparently, they
thought that having both Gloria and Claire help Lily pick out a dress would
keep Gloria from picking a dress that was too over the top or inappropriate,
and that it would keep Claire from picking a dress that was too plain or too
boring.
Gloria was very excited
about making a whole day out of finding a dress for Lily, because she loved
shopping for clothes with Manny. However, within minutes of arriving at the
mall, Lily saw a child sized version of Belle’s yellow dress from the movie
Beauty & the Beast on display in the window of a costume shop and declared
that it was the dress that she wanted. When Claire mentioned to Lily that the
dress was technically considered a costume, Lily managed to successfully put
Claire on the spot by pointing out all of the things that Belle accomplished in
the Disney version of Beauty & the Beast and followed it up by asking
Claire what she had accomplished. The whole thing left Claire speechless for
the most part with the exception of defensively saying that she had apparently
managed to park her minivan in a compact parking spot.
The fact that the only thing
that Claire could think of when Lily put her on the spot by questioning her
about her own accomplishments was her being able to park her minivan in
difficult parking spot reminded me a lot of many of the posts by Blair Koenig
that I’ve read on the websites STFU, Parents, which is Blair’s own
website, and Mommyish, which she also writes columns for that are pretty
much the exact same thing she does on her own site, only she appears to post
things on that site more often than she does on STFU Parents these days. For
those who don’t know who Blair Koenig is or aren’t familiar with her work on
either site, what she basically does is comment on Facebook posts that people
write about their children, questionable pictures that parents post of their
children, or posts that parents, primarily Moms, hijack by talking about their
children in the comment section of a status update when the actual posts have
absolutely nothing to do with them or children in general.
For example, somebody might
post a status update about receiving their PhD, only to have a woman “mommy
jack it” and only talk about their children or say something about how they
won’t have learned anything truly meaningful until they become a parent when
all of the other comments on the status update are congratulating them on all their
hard work and finally receiving their PhD. Claire’s behavior in this episode reminded
me of the posts on those sites where parents talk about the most mundane thing
such as parking your car in a difficult parking spot or childbirth as if it
should be viewed as an Olympic sport. These posts are submitted to Blair Koenig
by people who visit both sites, and then she comments on them, typically in a
rather snarky and hilarious manner. She also wrote a book titled STFU Parents
where she does the same thing as she does on both sites, and some of the posts
from her own site are also featured in the book. While I think the book is
hilarious, I definitely think it’s a lot funnier to read the posts along with
her commentary on the actual websites. I say this only because I feel like sometimes
people’s comments in the comment section of the posts really add to the overall
humor of Blair’s commentary on parents’ Facebook posts. Okay, that’s the end of
my commercial for Blair Koenig’s writing. Let’s get back to discussing the
actual episode.
Lily pointing out Belle’s
accomplishments and questioning Claire about her own accomplishments was
definitely one of my favorite parts of the episode, and it along with the
episode as a whole really showcased Aubrey Anderson-Emmons’ talent as an
actress. When it comes to the acting ability of child actors, I typically don’t
hold it against them too much if their acting isn’t very good, because I think
one of the things that an actor needs to be able to do in order to give a good
performance is draw from their own life experiences and channel it into their
performances. When a kid is only six years old like Aubrey is, I don’t think it
occurs to them to do that when they are acting. Ever since Aubrey started
playing Lily in season three, I feel like the writers have a done great job of really
giving Lily a personality and some clearly defined character traits, one of
them being Lily’s tendency to be very sassy when she’s talking to people at
times, which usually results in them acting defensive and speechless like she
did with Claire in this episode. If you ask me, Aubrey definitely plays that
part of Lily’s personality very well.
After telling Lily that she
couldn’t wear that dress, Gloria and Claire took her to look at some possible
dresses, but she didn’t like any of them. Claire wasn’t as into the whole
process of finding Lily a dress for Cameron and Mitchell’s wedding as Gloria
was, but she tried her best to fake enthusiasm for Gloria’s sake. When Gloria
eventually confronts Claire about her unenthusiastic behavior, she admitted
that she’s not really into the whole idea of shopping for fancy dresses, saying
that she was more like Jay and that Jay essentially treated her like a son
growing up. She even admitted that the shirt that she was wearing was a boy’s
shirt that she had originally tried to pass off as an old shirt of Luke’s and
that she also bought several different versions of that particular shirt. I
thought it was nice to see the writers maintain continuity by saying that
Claire never wore a wedding dress when she and Phil got married because they
didn’t have a fancy wedding. So many times I feel like writers for comedy TV
series play fast and loose with continuity all for the sake of being able to
tell the jokes that they want to tell in a particular episode, and it annoys
the hell out of when they do that.
That being said, I’ve always
felt like the writers ruined one of my favorite parts of the season one episode
“My Funky Valentine” by later revealing that Phil and Claire didn’t have a real
wedding and that they had gotten married by a judge at courthouse after Claire
got pregnant with Haley. My favorite joke from that episode was when Phil
mentioned that he had always viewed the song “If You Leave” by Orchestral
Manoeuvres In the Dark as being his and Claire’s song, which led him to sing it
at their wedding when in reality that’s a breakup song. While I’m glad that the
writers at least chose to be consistent when it comes to the idea of Phil and
Claire getting married at a courthouse since they first mentioned that in the
season one episode “Hawaii”, that joke no longer made any sense after that,
which I really did find rather disappointing.
Soon after Claire told
Gloria about not wearing a wedding dress when she and Phil got married, she put
on one of the wedding dresses at the shop to try on and they discovered that
Lily was missing. After frantically racing around the mall in search of Lily,
Claire still wearing the wedding dress, they found Lily wearing the Beauty
& the Beast dress in the costume shop. After they saw that she was so happy
wearing it, Claire called Mitchell to ask him if he and Cameron would be okay
with them buying Lily the Beauty & the Beast dress for their wedding since
it was the only one she liked. Mitchell said it was okay, saying that their
wedding wasn’t the place to keep people from being who they want to be. Claire
looked at herself in a mirror at the costume shop again, this time thinking
that she looked good in the wedding dress. Gloria even pointed out that she had
noticed Claire twirling in the dress like they had just found Lily doing as she
was looking at herself in the mirror.
Phil spent most of the
episode helping Andy (Jay and Gloria’s nanny) make a video to give to his
girlfriend, Beth, as a gift for their anniversary since she’s apparently in the
Coast Guard. I have to say that I have somewhat mixed feelings about this
storyline. On the one hand, I thought that the whole storyline was rather
hilarious, especially when it comes to the comments that Haley made about what
they were doing as she was waiting for her latest boyfriend to pick her up for
their lunch date. On the other hand, I’ve always found Andy a little annoying,
especially when it comes to the way he talks to Haley.
I know that Andy is supposed
to be this really sweet, nice guy, and when it comes to this episode the
writers had him acting kind of like Phil, but unlike Phil I feel like has a
tendency to be a bit preachy and too judgmental of others, namely Haley. Andy
also seems mildly condescending and rude whenever he talks to Haley simply
because she’s much more worldly than he is. The way Andy acted in this episode
made him seem absolutely naïve to the point where he came across as being a
total idiot, which made him a walking target for Haley’s sarcastic comments.
Apparently, Beth is in a troop with thirty-seven men, and he thought that the Coast
Guard having a no fraternization policy would be enough to keep Beth from
becoming romantically involved with the other men. However, Haley pointed out
that sometimes making something forbidden only makes it more tempting to
people, which I think is very true in real life.
While I found Andy
especially annoying in this episode, his comments to Haley seemed to have an
impact on her when her new boyfriend finally showed up for their lunch date,
when it was almost 5 P.M. She called him out on the fact that he showed up late
because he had fallen asleep, he texted several of his friends before he texted
her when he woke up and he didn’t come to the door or even open the car door
for her when he finally came to pick her for their date before she stormed back
into the house. Haley also told him that even she didn’t understand her
behavior at that moment.
Despite the fact that Modern
Family is a comedy and not a serialized drama like Lost, one of the ongoing
storylines or themes that has been playing out throughout the season is the
idea of Haley growing up and becoming a more mature person. This episode
definitely furthered that idea, in my humble opinion. Perhaps some of you may
disagree with me about the idea that Haley’s storylines in a lot of the
episodes this season being a part of a larger storyline for the season, even if
it’s a rather subtle story arc, but that’s just my take on the writing for
Haley this season.
Luke apparently needed to
decide between taking a shop class or taking a ceramics class for school, and
when Jay realized that Luke didn’t really know how to build anything, he
decided to take him to his garage where he taught him how to build a toolbox. The
experience led to Luke deciding to take shop class. Towards the end of the
episode Luke asked Jay if he could try a sip of his beer. Jay almost let him,
but after telling the story of what happened when he let Mitchell try a sip of
his beer when Mitchell was young in a couch interview, Jay realized that he
couldn’t take that experience away from Phil, so he told Luke that the beer had
gone flat.
While I did like the
Jay/Luke storyline, because it was nice to see the two interacting with each
other and it once again touched upon the fact that Jay might not be able to do
a lot of the things with Joe that he had done with Claire and Mitchell when
they were growing up since Joe was born much later on in Jay’s life, this
storyline was my least favorite storyline of the episode. The main reason that
this is my least favorite storyline in the episode is because while it has some
humorous moments, I thought the other storylines in the episode were a lot
funnier, which caused this storyline to be overshadowed by everything else that
was happening in this episode.
All things considered, this
was a truly great episode that really stands out as one of my favorite season
five episodes out of all the episodes that have aired so far. The fact that
basically everybody was paired up with actors/characters that they typically
don’t have storylines with all that often was definitely one the episode’s
greatest strengths. All the storylines in this episode had some very funny
moments, and while the Jay/Luke storyline is my least favorite storyline and it
was definitely overshadowed by the other storylines in this episode, it was
still great to see Jay and Luke have a storyline together since they don’t
usually have storylines together.
It’s really hard for me to
decide which storyline is my favorite, but if I had to choose I would probably
say that despite my somewhat mixed feelings about the Phil/Andy/Haley storyline,
it’s still my favorite. Ty Burrell, Sarah Hyland and Adam DeVine all seemed to
work together very well and Haley’s comments to Andy definitely helped make up
for his judgmental and preachy behavior towards her. Plus, I feel like the
ending of that storyline really illustrated the idea that Haley has grown up quite
a bit and has become much more mature than she was at the start of the series,
which was very nice to see. I also loved Phil and Andy’s reenactment of a scene
from the movie Gravity. Personally, I
think the movie Gravity is perhaps
the most overrated movie that I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and I’ve
watched a lot of movies in my
lifetime, so that’s really saying something. Gravity also has the distinct honor of being the first movie that I
left the theatre at the end of the movie wishing that I could get the time I
spent watching it back. Honestly, I thought that Phil and Andy’s reenactment of
the movie Gravity was much more
entertaining than the actual movie was, but that’s just me.
The Gloria/Claire/Lily
storyline also featured some great dialogue from each of them. Aubrey
Anderson-Emmons really impressed me with her acting in this episode with her
delivery of the various snarky comments that Lily made throughout the episode.
Claire and Gloria also had some great exchanges as well, and this storyline as
a whole was altogether hilarious.
When it comes to the
Cameron/Mitchell/Alex/Manny storyline, I feel like the writers really utilized
the overall format of the show very well, namely the couch interviews, and this
storyline featured a lot of hilarious moments, especially from Cameron. Plus,
it was simply a lot of fun getting to see Eric Stonestreet, Jesse Tyler
Ferguson, Ariel Winter and Rico Rodriguez have a storyline together.
That being said, my final
score for this episode is 9 out of 10.
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