Of all the episodes from Modern Family's seventh season, this one frustrated me the most. It's far from the worst episode of the season - nor is it the best either - but it perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with this show's seventh year: a complete failure to deliver on solid potential.
Let's begin with Mitch & Cam. They haven't been invited to two upcoming weddings and are being treated pretty shoddily at the wedding they're currently at, and they don't know why. This is a perfect opportunity for the show to create a fun storyline in which Cameron and Mitchell team up and try to work out why this has happened, giving them even the possibility of some spy-based physical comedy which both actors always excel at. Instead, though, the subplot decides to just have Mitch and Cam squabble over whose fault it is, only for Lily to then hop in at the end and reveal its her fault. It's such a bland ending to a woefully lacklustre story. It speaks volumes for the sloppy writing that every time Pepper appeared I laughed, yet Mitch and Cam barely mustered up one laugh between them.
Then we have the Jay/Gloria/Luke/Manny plot, which sees each character doing something that they'd rather not be caught out on. It's a fun setup, and it has a handful of solid jokes within it, but the actual storytelling is so sloppy and poorly handled that by the time the four characters are staged in Mexican standoff for the final sequence, it's tough for the show to really earn this moment. It could be hilarious - all four actors are great with bizarre situations like that one - but when everything that comes before it is so scattershot it's difficult to really enjoy it. Plus, the moment is instantly ruined by Luke immediately pointing out what's going on, as if the writers don't have faith in the viewer to work this simple conclusion out for themselves. Again, what could've been a fun and clever ending falls entirely flat.
Phil and Claire fare better, if only because they actually felt like the characters we've known and loved for years. The story is an almost beat-for-beat copy of their plot from two weeks ago (and it even takes a handful of similarities to last week's The Storm), but it works mostly because the episode plays to Phil and Claire's strengths as likable people: Claire is trying to be the best mum and the best boss at the same time, and Phil just wants to know how she's achieving everything so that he can try to help out as best he can. It culminates in a nice moment between the pair, even if the whole thing feels far too familiar to truly take off as something special. It's also nice that the show skips right past the predictable route of Phil thinking Claire is having an affair, something I'm not sure would be done should this story have landed with Jay & Gloria or Mitch & Cam.
And because of these nice character beats, it's a genuinely enjoyable subplot in an otherwise dull and disappointing episode. The show needs to get back to who these characters are behind all the forced humour, because right now Modern Family is on a steep downward spiral that I'm not sure it will be able to come back from.
Grade: B-
Let's begin with Mitch & Cam. They haven't been invited to two upcoming weddings and are being treated pretty shoddily at the wedding they're currently at, and they don't know why. This is a perfect opportunity for the show to create a fun storyline in which Cameron and Mitchell team up and try to work out why this has happened, giving them even the possibility of some spy-based physical comedy which both actors always excel at. Instead, though, the subplot decides to just have Mitch and Cam squabble over whose fault it is, only for Lily to then hop in at the end and reveal its her fault. It's such a bland ending to a woefully lacklustre story. It speaks volumes for the sloppy writing that every time Pepper appeared I laughed, yet Mitch and Cam barely mustered up one laugh between them.
Then we have the Jay/Gloria/Luke/Manny plot, which sees each character doing something that they'd rather not be caught out on. It's a fun setup, and it has a handful of solid jokes within it, but the actual storytelling is so sloppy and poorly handled that by the time the four characters are staged in Mexican standoff for the final sequence, it's tough for the show to really earn this moment. It could be hilarious - all four actors are great with bizarre situations like that one - but when everything that comes before it is so scattershot it's difficult to really enjoy it. Plus, the moment is instantly ruined by Luke immediately pointing out what's going on, as if the writers don't have faith in the viewer to work this simple conclusion out for themselves. Again, what could've been a fun and clever ending falls entirely flat.
Phil and Claire fare better, if only because they actually felt like the characters we've known and loved for years. The story is an almost beat-for-beat copy of their plot from two weeks ago (and it even takes a handful of similarities to last week's The Storm), but it works mostly because the episode plays to Phil and Claire's strengths as likable people: Claire is trying to be the best mum and the best boss at the same time, and Phil just wants to know how she's achieving everything so that he can try to help out as best he can. It culminates in a nice moment between the pair, even if the whole thing feels far too familiar to truly take off as something special. It's also nice that the show skips right past the predictable route of Phil thinking Claire is having an affair, something I'm not sure would be done should this story have landed with Jay & Gloria or Mitch & Cam.
And because of these nice character beats, it's a genuinely enjoyable subplot in an otherwise dull and disappointing episode. The show needs to get back to who these characters are behind all the forced humour, because right now Modern Family is on a steep downward spiral that I'm not sure it will be able to come back from.
Grade: B-
