Tag Archives: Modern Family

At its best, Modern Family plays like an old school slapstick comedy. The zingers fly faster than lightening and while there’s the occasional “man falling down” gag (see: Cam’s spill tonight), the biggest laughs come from more elaborate scenes, like Phil fixing the printer as Luke and Manny thought Gloria’s grandmother was haunting them. It’s part of the reason Modern Family is the best comedy on television, that so much thought goes in to every joke over the 30 minutes.

“The Kiss” incorporated elements of this signature style, as I mentioned above, but it also did something new, which was to pull all of the stories into one, centering on the family’s hang-ups with physical displays of affection. In one thread, you had Cameron confronting Mitchell’s dislike of public displays of affection,* while Claire tried to get Alex to slow down with a boy so as not to gain a reputation. All of this was going on while Phil his hardest to set up Jay’s computer and Jay mocked Gloria for her insistence on keeping Columbian traditions, respecting her dead grandmother.

*There was a bit of an uproar during the summer over the fact that Cam and Mitchell had never slowed any physical affection on the show. There was one scene in particular in which Cam and Mitchell hugged as Claire and Phil kissed.

What we got was a nice bit in which Gloria forced Jay to confront his own issues with displays of affection, which trickled down amongst the whole family. It wasn’t just a lesson learned by two or three characters, but one for everyone. As I’ve said before, Modern Family can frequently have a super sweet moment at the end in which everyone reveals the lesson they learned, but I kind of liked the way that it all came out in one big scene, which worked perfectly.

Few notes were missed in this episode, and there were a lot of great moments, like Hailey and Alex’s conversation about first kisses and Jay screaming at the chicken for Gloria’s benefit. Like I said, I liked that the show broke some new ground and tried something a little different, which is encouraging as it starts its second season. I’m looking forward to seeing what new tricks they have in the next 20 episodes.

Other Notes:

“He blew his lid when she tried to contain him.”

Phil beat boxing was amazing

“Ugh, Mom, my arm hurts!”

“Slap the chicken!”

“This guy’s been working like an imbecile all day!”

Michael’s Score: 88

TUiW Grade: A

After a season of praise and a win in a tight Emmy race for Best Comedy Series, Modern Family made its triumphant return tonight. Would it live up to its tremendous expectations, or would it begin in a sophomore slump?

I think it’s safe to say Modern Family isn’t going to disappoint this season.

“The Old Wagon” of course featured three main stories: Phil and Claire try to sell their old car and deal with the loss of the memories from it, Cam and Jay tip-toe around how dangerous Mitchell is when he gets around tools, and Gloria confronts her jealous side when Manny brings a girl over for a study date. As a result, we got a little bit of everything the show does well: Phil as an idiot, Mitchell and Cam trying to be manly, and Manny as a mini-grown up. The MF writers were smart to play to their strengths to start their second season.

The episode was about as solid as any episode last season, with every joke landing perfectly. I loved seeing Gloria as the jealous mother while her son and his lady friend are still kids (particularly the bit about moving stuff into Manny’s notebook), and when Mitchell came in with the nail gun, Cam’s reaction was priceless. But as with last season, the funniest moments came as the result of perfectly choreographed physical comedy. Mitchell stuck in the castle, sticking his out into the face of Repunzel was pretty damn funny, as was the scene in which the Dunphy family realized all the problems with their car. It was a classic moment that required no more set up than knowing the car was a piece of junk.

Sure, there were still some corny moments at the end (I almost knocked my grade down for Luke’s spark of light in the jar at the end), but that’s the show Modern Family is. I think overall, the episode played out nicely and was able to establish that the show has lost no creative steam over the summer. Whether or not it will be able to keep it up remains to be seen, but for now, I’m gonna head to the store to get some chocolate milk to see if a little salt really does bring out the flavor.

- Phil getting hit by the box from the shelf was amazing, as was Claire kicking the car to get it to open
- ”I will snap!”
- ”I don’t think I’d be a very inspiring disabled person.”
- “I just want to let you guys know, I’m not taking care of him when you die.”
- “Who’s the bitch now bitches!”
- “We only have light beers.”
- “We like to play Six Degrees of Sir Francis Bacon!”

Michael’s Score: 95
TUiW Grade: A

The Pritchett/Dunphy Family had the perfect Sunday figured out. Jay and Phil would take Manny and Luke to see the Lakers play the powerhouse Indiana Pacers, Mitchell would go watch Cameron sing “Ave Maria,” and then they’d all get together at the end and take a nice family picture, organized by Claire, in which they’d all wear white and stand on the stairs of the Dunphy house. It sounds like a pretty good day. All that stands in their way is a school project, a broken step, a dislike of small talk, a pimple, some stained wood, a screened call, a kiss, a pigeon, and the language barrier between Spanish and Portuguese. Sounds like the Modern Family we’ve grown to know and love.

Things start to get derailed when Luke has a school project to interview someone who lived during the 1960s (Jay), so Phil and Gloria end up going to the basketball game with Alex and Manny. At the Dunphy house, Claire decides she’s going to fix the step that has plagued the family since the Pilot, so that there’s not one imperfection in their family portrait. Cameron gets frustrated with Mitchell, meanwhile, because the latter refuses to come see the former sing at a wedding because he hates having to make small talk.

Claire starts to fix the broken step, but her first try with a hammer sends boards flying into the pictures along the wall, and making a tiny imperfection an actual problem. Frustrated, Hailey draws her attention to the TV, where at the Lakers game, Phil, Gloria and the kids have great seats behind the Lakers’ bench. Claire calls Phil, and watches on TV as he looks at his phone, sees who it is, and promptly hits “ignore.” At the game, Phil and Gloria get on Kiss-Cam, something that seems to annoy Gloria as an inconvenience and makes Phil really uncomfortable. With the camera consistently dogging them, Gloria finally gives in and just plants a quick one on a stunned Phil. Unfortunately for him, it’s at this time that Claire decides to voice her anger over his ignored call by texting Alex the message that she saw him on TV and is going to kill him, which Phil naturally assumes means she saw the Kiss-Cam, something that he believes shouldn’t leave the privacy of a giant stadium.

With Jay’s stories of working in a family barbershop in the 1960s boring Luke, he begins to embellish saying he cut Martin Luther King, Jr.’s hair and once, Elvis. Jay claims that he’s the second best singer to Sinatra. If anyone thinks otherwise, he’ll fight them over it. Luke lets him know that Phil thinks Peabo Bryson is the greatest singer of all time, so Jay flippantly says, “well, I guess I’ll have to fight your dad,” a message Luke relays to Alex, who relays it Phil, who is even more terrified than he was before.

Mitchell is paying the price of not going to see Cam sing when a pigeon somehow makes its way into the house, scaring the living hell out of him. He calls Cam, who is reluctant to help because of Mitchell’s refusal to go to the wedding, so Micthell cowers in fear in Lilly’s room. But his daughter needs milk, and as he says, “I am a man!” So he runs out to get the milk in a hilarious sequence in which his high pitched screams never cease, even as he’s pouring the bottle of milk. Seeing the pigeon and a tennis racket, Mitchell sees an opportunity to take measures into his own hands. In a sequence interlaced with Cameron singing “Ave Maria” at the wedding, Mitchell begins going after the pigeon, first with the tennis racket, then with wood from the fireplace, destroying their house in slow motion. It was one of the funniest scenes of the season.

With the stairs no longer suitable for a picture (they could do it by the fireplace, but Claire hates the color of the wall), they go to Jay’s house, where Phil’s pants don’t fit well, Luke is wrapped up in saran wrap to keep him from getting dirty, Gloria is wearing an attention grabbing dress, and Jay’s stained furniture makes it a tight squeeze to get outside. Making things worse, the sprinklers turn on, the switch all the way across the lawn. Phil’s solution: send in the wrapped up Luke “Hurt Locker Style” to turn them off. Once he does, the picture is ready to go, that is until Phil apologizes to Claire for kissing Gloria. Suddenly all hell breaks loose as everyone finally starts venting their frustrations. Jay breaks it up, yelling at his two kids and slinging mud at Claire. This sparks a mud fight, and the “happy family” music swells when the photographer stops everything and asks if they want to take the picture. They do, in all their muddy, and finally happy, glory.

And thus ends season one of Modern Family. “Family Portrait” was a fitting end to the season, not only in the hilarity of what happened, but in the incredibly tight pacing, choreography, and timing that has made Modern Family such a joy to watch week in and week out. “Family Portrait” flowed so perfectly, each story weaving in and out of each other, and the physical comedy of these actors is truly a sight to behold, from Mitchell’s screaming run into the kitchen, to Cam’s goofy nonverbal thank you to the applause at the wedding, to the ending that has Phil truing a tightly wound Claire away from the wall. The timing of the jokes couldn’t be better either, most hilariously in a bit when Hailey opens up to Claire, telling her how important family is to her, and Claire cuts her off, obsessing over the stairs. It’s not an original gag, but it came off as naturalistic, not fishing for laughs, which is part of what sets this show apart.

The only thing I didn’t like about “Family Portrait” was the ending, where everything is magically resolved by a mud fight, but it’s excusable in an episode that did nearly everything else flawlessly. Modern Family has been given heaps of praise throughout the season, and all of its deserved. With other shows, I might worry that it won’t be as good when it comes back for its second season, but not Modern Family. The cast is too good, and the writing was so tight throughout the season, and I’d actually be shocked to see Modern Family not come back as strong if not even stronger.

Other Notes:

- I’m glad Kobe only showed up for a second. I wouldn’t have been able to handle much more.

- Phil smuggles in snacks, not because he’s cheap, but on principle. Among the food he carries in: hot dogs.

- I like Manny’s suggestion to Alex that if they were on Kiss-Cam, it’d be okay since they aren’t related by blood, and her response, “Oh if you kiss me, there will be blood.”

- My favorite running gag of the season was the broken step. I like that it came full circle.

- “I know you’re mad at me, and I know this foam finger can’t make up for everything.”

- What’s your favorite moment of the season? I think mine are a tie between Judy Greer chasing Phil around the kitchen and Dylan’s wildly inappropriate song about Hailey performed in front of the entire family.

Michael’s Score: 85

TUiW Grade: A-