Modern Family: First Days (5x02)

Announcement: Due to my extremely busy schedule and the absurd amount of television I will be blogging about, most of my posts will dramatically decrease in length. If an episode warrants special attention, I'll be sure to write more.

It's an episode full of first days as Luke and Manny start high school and Claire starts her new job working for her father.

Phil and Gloria are both upset because their children pulled away from them as they were starting their first day of school. They try to go out for coffee, but end up stumbling in on a commercial set. The director invites them to be extras, but they continuously cause disruptions, ranging from being way too animated to crying about their children. In the end, however, Luke follows some of his father's "first day of school advice" and Phil feels happy to know his son still needs him.

Claire's first day at the office doesn't go so well, as she tries to make nice with everyone but ends up looking like a dork. After telling the IT guy that he's going to be fired, he messes up the computer system of the office. However badly she may have done, Jay doesn't give her too hard of a time, and Claire concedes that maybe she should listen to her father, who has been working at this job for a long time. (My favorite part of this plot thread, incidentally, was the Christopher Walk-in-Closet thing. Stupid jokes like that crack me up.)

Cam is all set to substitute as an AP History teacher. Alex is in the class, and ends up taking over and teaching, since Cam has no idea what he's talking about. He realizes he's not cut out for that job. He ends up taking over as coach for the football team instead, and gets a job as a gym teacher.

Mitch takes Lily with him to work after she runs into a tree on the first day of school, and calls Haley to come pick her up. When she does, Mitch's boss, going through a midlife crisis, immediately starts hitting on Haley and asking her questions about fashion.

Thus describeth the plot of the episode. I liked it. It wasn't as strong as the premiere, because it didn't have any moment to bring all the threads together. The theme of first days worked pretty well, but it still felt like a bunch of separate and choppy stories. That being said, there were a lot of funny jokes and I love seeing Claire and Jay get used to working together.

7/10