Modern Family: And One to Grow On (5x11)

Rapid fire review time!!!

Phil tricks Luke into going to a dancing class, but Luke gets mad about his dad's dishonesty. On the drive home, they get pulled over for having their taillights out, but due to Haley's several unpaid parking tickets, Phil is taken to jail. He calls Claire to bring money to pay for them, but she can't remember where Phil has hidden the emergency cash, because he always uses weird mnemonic devices to hide it. Eventually she finds it in a pillow and rushes off to free Phil.

Meanwhile, Haley has been taking Alex driving to prepare for her test, because Claire hates driving with Alex. She takes way too long to do everything and is ridiculously overcautious. When Alex starts lecturing Haley about the parking tickets, Haley lets slip that Claire has been paying her to drive with Alex.

All of them meet up at Joe's birthday, where Haley steps in and eases the tensions between Alex and Claire, as well as the fight between Phil and Luke. Although she's in trouble for the parking tickets, Claire and Phil are relieved that she got them out of trouble with their kids.

Cam and Mitch are attempting to find a venue for their wedding. When they finally find the perfect spot, somebody books it for her sweet sixteen. Turns out, it's one of Cam's students. Originally, this girl was going to have a joint sweet sixteen with her best friend, but they got into a fight. Cam and Mitch work on reuniting the girls, but they get swept up in the argument themselves. In the end, the girls make up but they decide to have the party at Cam and Mitch's venue. Luckily, the guys decide they can have their wedding two months later, when their "real" anniversary falls, as that was the point at which they were both certain of each other.

Manny, who has just had his birthday party a day before his brother Joe's, expresses interest in a girl from his class who left her jacket behind at the party. He plans a romantic gesture to return the coat to her, but Jay worries that this girl is way out of Manny's league. Gloria, when she sees the romantic gesture, can't bring herself to talk Manny out of it.

All of the family gather together in this episode, at Joe's birthday party, but it's really not a collective story. They all have their own stuff going on in this one. However, I loved all of it. There were maybe a few things here or there that tried my patience a bit... for example, the thing where Cam and Mitch both champion the causes of the girls who are fighting. That's a bit cliche. For the most part, however, all of this was really funny. I think my favorite part was Haley's expert maneuvering of her entire family there at the end. Even though Haley is often played off as an idiot, she has incredible skill when it comes to manipulation and communication.

So, there ya have it! A short review for a fairly unremarkable but still enjoyable episode.

8/10