Right off the bat, I have to
say that I think this episode was an excellent start to Modern Family’s sixth
season, and I feel like it really showed why Modern Family deserves to have won
so many Emmys. While I enjoyed all of the storylines in this episode, I
wouldn’t give this episode a perfect 10 though.
My favorite storyline was
definitely the Phil/Claire/Haley/Alex/Luke storyline. The episode opened with
Phil, Claire, Haley and Luke all talking about how they had been having the
perfect summer. Phil has apparently been doing a lot of gardening and baking,
and Claire had been doing a lot of reading and was suddenly enjoying magic as
much as Phil always has. Haley’s fashion blog had really taken off; apparently
she now has 50,000 subscribers. Plus, Haley and Luke were getting along with
each other very well. Unfortunately, their perfect summer came to an end the
moment Alex returned home early from her Habitat for Humanitarians trip.
While Phil, Claire, Haley
and Luke had been having the perfect summer together, Alex had apparently been
miserable on her trip, hence her coming home early. Personally, I thought that this
storyline was the funniest of the episode. After Phil and Claire started to
wonder if Alex was bad luck for their family, they decided to try and convince
her to not only finish her Habitat for Humanitarians trip, but to also consider
picking an out of state college, she freaked out and stormed out of the house
saying that she would go back to where she had been helping to build houses.
The fact that Luke happily announced that they now had free Cinemax the moment
Alex stormed out of the house only seemed to add credence to the idea that she
might be bad luck for their family.
In the end, Phil, Claire,
Haley and Luke all decided that without Alex around, they were all a danger to both
themselves and each other. Apparently, Phil hadn’t taken the leaves, which are
poisonous and could kill a person, off the rhubarb that he had used to make a
pie, a fact that Alex pointed out moments before Luke almost started eating a
slice of rhubarb pie that he had made earlier. A fire also started in the oven
because Phil had apparently put another pie in the oven while Claire had
apparently been trying to dry out a copy of the book War and Peace that
she had gotten wet while reading it in the bathtub, which she had previously
mentioned at the beginning of the episode. Alex ended up having to put the fire
out for them because Phil couldn’t get the fire extinguisher to work. Alex also
pointed out to Haley that her webcam was still on even though Haley had
believed that it stopped recording whenever she navigated away from her blog to
visit a different site. The fact that it had been recording everything that she
did in her room throughout the summer, such as changing her clothes and was
naked was obviously the reason why she had gotten so many subscribers.
One thing that I thought was
kind of interesting about this storyline is that Phil and Claire had spent
pretty much the entire season five premiere trying to figure out how to get as
many “kid free” days as they could for the summer, while Claire was secretly
trying to get as many days all to herself as she could by trying to convince
Phil that he should go visit his dad. However, in this episode they all made a
point of talking about how great their summer together had been.
Since this storyline was my
favorite storyline in the episode, I loved that it was the one that was
featured during the end credits, showing some of the things that had been
recorded on Haley’s webcam, which included Claire trying on some of Haley’s
clothes. I just wish they had shown whether or not the footage it had recorded
of Phil eating some fruit and taking his shirt off in the kitchen had had any
impact on how many subscribers Haley had.
The Jay and Gloria storyline
in this episode is a storyline that I’ve been waiting for the writers to do pretty
much since the show began. Gloria was starting to think that Jay didn’t care
about his appearance any more, because he had started dressing very casually
and wasn’t making an effort to look good for her, while she has pretty much
made an effort to look beautiful for people for years. Apparently, Gloria
hasn’t been able to feel her feet due to the high heel shoes she always wears ever
since she turned fifteen and had her Quinceanera.
After Gloria confronted Jay
about the fact that he wasn’t making much of an effort to look nice for her, he
told her that he felt that the only reason she dresses the way that she does
was because she wanted to and not for others. He also told her that he didn’t
care if she stopped making herself look so glamorous all of the time, so Gloria
decided to prove a point by dressing very casually and making herself look
rather ragged for her standards when she had to go to a party for Jay’s work.
Jay finally admitted that, yes, he likes it when she dresses up and looks all
glamorous just as they were about to walk into the party, much to Gloria’s
delight. Jay also told her that the only reason he started dressing so casually
was because some younger guys had been laughing at him the last time he had
been out shopping for new clothes since he likes to keep his wardrobe up to
date with the latest fashion trends. This had apparently made him think that he
should just “be old” now and stop caring so much about his appearance.
Gloria suggested that
perhaps he was simply making the wrong decisions when he was buying clothes,
and she offered to go with him the next time he went shopping for new clothes.
They decided to skip the party for Jay’s work and go home after she told him
that she thinks he’s sexy. However, when they got home Gloria was horrified to
discover that the rest of the family was there to throw her a surprise birthday
party a week early. Jay suggested that they give Gloria some time to change
into some different clothes for the party, only to have her walk into the room
looking like her usual self moments later. This shocked Jay since she has
apparently always had a habit of taking a long time to get ready whenever
they’ve had to go somewhere over the years.
Personally, I loved this
storyline for a lot of reasons. For starters, I had always hoped that the
writers would do a storyline where Gloria for whatever reason would start
dressing very casually and would look rather frumpy compared to the way she
usually looks. The other reason why I liked this storyline so much was because
I feel like it really showed how the writers have done great job of making Jay
and Gloria feel believable as a couple despite the age and cultural differences
between them. It also featured some great bits of dialogue, including a quick
comment from Gloria that Jay having a lot of money was only a very small part
of why she married him. That was a moment that I feel really showcased Sofia
Vergara’s talent for being able to deliver a somewhat absurd line in a way
that’s very subtle, yet hilarious. The first time that I ever really noticed
Sofia’s talent for doing this was in the season two episode “Princess Party”
when she told Jay that she wouldn’t want to miss “All of Haley’s weddings”
simply because DeDe might be there. Even though Gloria only said that one time
in the history of the entire series, I still think it’s hilarious that Gloria
apparently assumes that Haley is going to be someone who gets married multiple
times.
I also liked it when Claire
asked Jay if they should be concerned about Gloria since she ran out of the
room in a manner that similar to how DeDe acted when she left Jay. The final
reason I liked this storyline was because I thought Jay’s reaction to Gloria walking
back into the party looking like her usual glamorous self moments after she had
run out of the room was very consistent with his behavior in “The Late Show”
where he was frustrated with Gloria because she always makes them late for
things because it takes her a long time to get ready to go places.
While I’m typically a huge
fan of Cameron and Mitchell, both as a couple and as individual characters,
their storyline was definitely my least favorite storyline of the episode.
Despite the fact that several months had passed since Cameron and Mitchell’s
wedding and their honeymoon, it was very obvious that Cameron was still in the
honeymoon phase of their marriage and was therefore being overly affectionate
and romantic, while Mitchell was clearly ready to just get back to their usual
life. While I usually love Cameron and think he’s hilarious, I personally can’t
blame Mitchell for being annoyed with him in this episode. I say this because I
do think he was going a little overboard with his behavior, especially at the
beginning of the episode when he insisted that they sit on the same chair
together during a couch interview now that they are married. Plus, not only did
he show up, uninvited, at a work function that Mitchell was at despite the fact
that Mitchell had specially told him that the party was just for people who
worked at his office, Cameron also insisted that they dance when no one else at
the party was even dancing.
This was when Mitchell
finally told Cameron that he felt like he (Cameron) was going a little
overboard with his behavior and all of his romantic gestures, despite the fact
that Claire had warned him not to say anything earlier in the episode.
Naturally, Cameron freaked out like he usually does when he’s mad at someone
and went home to take down a romantic surprise that he had set up for Mitchell
with help from Lily and a friend of theirs named Rosa, who we didn’t see.
Cameron and Mitchell ended up having a nice talk where Cameron explained that
the reason he had been acting the way he had been was because he felt like the
past year had been very romantic when they had been planning their wedding and that
it had reminded him of what the first two years of their relationship were like
and he was simply trying to keep that feeling alive. Personally, I especially
liked the end of their conversation where Mitchell admitted that he should
probably make more of an effort to be romantic and they danced to a song that
had apparently been playing the night Mitchell had asked Cameron to move in with
him.
I was debating whether or
not I wanted to talk about my next topic in this review, but I’ve decided to
talk about it since I think it can be applied to both the Jay and Gloria
storyline and the Cameron and Mitchell storyline in this episode. One of the
reasons why I loved this episode so much was because I felt like those
storylines were very consistent with Jay and Gloria storylines and the Cameron
and Mitchell storylines from previous episodes.
While I absolutely love
Modern Family, and I consider it to be my second favorite comedy currently on
TV behind It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the biggest complaint that I
personally have about Modern Family is that sometimes I feel like the writers
disregard maintaining continuity on the show, simply for the sake of telling
whatever story they want to tell in any given episode. For example, in the
episode “My Funky Valentine” they said that Phil viewed a breakup song as his
and Claire’s song and that he had sang it at their wedding, only to later say in
“Hawaii” that they had never gone on a honeymoon or had a real wedding due to
the fact that they got married at a courthouse after Claire got pregnant with
Haley. Since it was the show’s first season and TV shows sometimes mess around
with continuity during their first season and the writers have at least
continued to maintain the fact that Claire had gotten pregnant with Haley
before she and Phil were married since that episode, I’ve tried to let that
lapse in continuity go.
However, the writers have also
been inconsistent about exactly how Jay and Gloria met each other. The first
time they ever made any reference as to how they met, I believe Claire said
that Jay and Gloria met at a wedding, but in the season two episode “Halloween”
Jay told Gloria that he fell in love with her simply by listening to her talk
to someone in a diner before he even saw what she looked like when he was
apologizing for giving her a hard time about her accent and her tendency to
mispronounce words, but I digress.
The reason I’m mentioning
this is because I felt like the writing and the humor in this episode,
especially in terms of the Jay and Gloria storyline and the Cameron and
Mitchell storyline, felt more consistent and in keeping with characterization
that’s been established for those characters in previous episodes than the show
can be with establishing character traits at times. Since Claire had mentioned
in the season five premiere that one of Cameron’s biggest complaints about
Mitchell is that he’s not very romantic, I thought it was nice to see Mitchell
tell Cameron that he should probably make more of an effort to be more
romantic. Personally, I wish the writers would make more of an effort to be
more consistent like they were in this episode instead of playing fast and
loose with continuity and characterization sometimes simply for the sake of
telling whatever story they want to tell or making whatever jokes they want to
in any given episode like they have in the past. Since that’s been one of my
personal complaints about Modern Family in the past, it was definitely really
nice to see the writing and the humor in this episode be much more consistent
than it has been at times in the past.
There was also a small
subplot involving Manny having to talk to a bunch of his relatives from
Columbia via Skype, much to his annoyance, that I feel is barely worth
mentioning. However, I’m mentioning it because it’s the other reason why I
wouldn’t give this episode a final rating of 10. Personally, there was nothing
funny about it, and the subplot just seemed like pointless filler that the
writers added simply to give Manny/Rico Rodriguez something to do in the
episode.
All things considered, I
really did love this episode, and I think this episode was a truly excellent
start to the season. It had a lot of funny moments, and it was great to see
certain ideas and bits of characterization that were established in previous episodes
mentioned once again in this episode. Aside from Manny’s subplot, the only real
complaint that I have with this episode is that I felt that some of Cameron’s
behavior in this episode was a little over the top and unreasonable, even for
him.
I think that’s something
that if writers, especially writers for comedy TV shows, aren’t careful about,
then they run the risk of having their characters become caricatures of
themselves, which only hurts a TV show in my opinion. I’m also a big fan of The
Big Bang Theory, but when it comes to Sheldon, I think he’s become too much of
a caricature compared to how he used to be written to the point where he annoys
the hell out of me in pretty much every single episode, and he’s my least
favorite thing about the show now. I think that’s pretty sad considering the
fact that Sheldon was originally one of the things that made me fall in love
with the show when I first started watching it. Personally, I would hate to see
that happen with Cameron or any of the other characters on Modern Family.
That being said, my final
score this episode is 9 out of 10.
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