Modern Family: The Feud (5x15)

Every once in a while I'll come across an episode that I really just don't feel like writing about. It's not that anything was particularly wrong with it, but it didn't really grab my attention either, you know? But I'll carry on, anyway. Let's go plot by plot.

Mitch and Cam have a big meeting with a director of photography for their wedding, so Claire is going to pick Lily up from school. However, they receive an email from Lily's school, warning of lice, and they are indecisive about what to do. Eventually, they convince themselves not to tell Claire, so that she'll still go pick up Lily and they can make it to their meeting with the photographer. At home, Cam discovers that Lily does indeed have lice, and tries to keep away from her. Claire has an important meeting, set up by Mitch, but she did indeed get lice from Lily, and this causes her to act weird during the meeting. Luckily, she still impresses the client.

This plot was pretty funny. It got a bit slapstick-y when Claire was scratching her head throughout her meeting, but it was still amusing. In particular, I liked all of the ways Cam was trying to keep Lily away from him, such as making her pretend to be a robot by wearing a big cardboard box over her head, or pretending the carpet was lava and pushing her away from it.

Meanwhile, Manny and Gloria go to a museum as part of a school field trip, but Manny discovers that his shoes squeak on the floor and he's really embarrassed. He says all of the kids will make fun of him. Gloria insists that Manny needs to be confident with who he is, and that there's no reason to be embarrassed. However, when her face starts going red because of a bad reaction to allergy medication, Gloria tries to hide from the other parents. Manny calls her a hypocrite, and she decides to stand up to the other moms and take their abuse. However, Manny runs out and causes a distraction, urging the kids to make fun of his squeaky shoes. Instead, they make fun of his pink shirt. Gloria gets away undetected.

I appreciated the mother/son bonding, but there was nothing all that funny about the plot over all. We've already seen Gloria be self conscious about her appearance, and we've already seen Manny struggle to fit in at school. I wish they could have done something more creative with this.

Phil has been beat out for the social chair of his Realtor group by Gil Thorpe. Gil is giving him a hard time about it, taunting him and taking his special medallion with glee. At Luke's wrestling match, it turns out that Gil's son is wrestling Luke. Phil had previously told Luke that he was proud of him no matter what, and to just do his best, but after seeing Gil, he starts putting pressure on Luke to win. Jay shows up to watch the match as well, and discovers that Gil's father is a known nemesis of his. This man, whose name he doesn't even know, always seems to turn up right when Jay is having an embarrassing moment. Luke loses to Gil's son, and afterwards at a restaurant Luke jumps up and seemingly attacks the kid. Everyone rushes to interfere, but it turns out Luke saved the kid from choking. In the car on the way home, however, Luke says that he hadn't known he was choking - he really was just attacking him.

I really loved this thread. It showcased Jay and Phil's relationship, gave a good lesson on how to teach your kids about failure, and had the hilarious jokes with Jay's continued embarrassment. My one complaint is that they didn't focus enough on how hard it must have been for Phil to lose his seat on the committee. I felt like that should have been given a bit more weight.

Alex and Haley are trying to bring a mirror down to Haley's new basement room, but they end up trapped down there when a possum appears on the stairs. Later, when Cam and Lily show up to get a lice kit, they scare the possum out of hiding, and everyone screams in fright. At that point, Claire, her hair wild from excessive scratching, also goes down the stairs, and adds to the chaos.

This was so random, yet so hilarious. I love Haley and Alex. They're my favorite characters on the show, and whenever they interact it makes me smile. I loved it when Haley realizes that her phone is trapped on the stairs with the possum, and she receives a text. She is horrified about not being able to respond right away. All of these little moments had me chuckling.

So, there you have it. I didn't really want to write about this, but I did, and it wasn't all that bad. I'll chalk this one up to a fairly forgettable yet still amusing installment of Modern Family.

7.5/10