Modern Family: A Hard Jay's Night (5x19)

Okay, this was a decently cute one. It had some shrug-worthy bits, and I thought one of the threads was pretty stupid, but other pieces were lovely.

Jay hosts a party for his family, but there are a lot of tensions going around. For one thing, Claire spent all week at the office solving all sorts of catastrophes, and Jay won't even say thank you, or tell her she did a good job. While making dinner, Jay continually insults Claire's cooking skills.

Luke hears about a pool party down the street, and he wants to ditch Jay's house with Manny and go to it. Manny doesn't want to, but Luke eventually drags him there. When they get to the house, Luke discovers to his horror that Manny was actually invited to this party. Luke was not. Manny gives Luke advice on how to be better around girls. It seems that they're finally at the age where Manny's maturity gets him further than Luke's childish ways.

Adding to the drama, Cam's father has just sent a truly awful wedding cake topper for Cam and Mitchell. It shows the two of them posed together. Cam looks stoic and manly, but Mitchell has one of his legs popped up and looks ridiculous. Cam insists that he loves it and can't wait to make replicas to give to every wedding guest. Mitch is horrified. Unfortunately, they have both already used all three of the "vetoes" that they allowed each other when planning the wedding. So, Mitch tries to get rid of the cake topper in other ways. He recruits his father's help, and Jay has his dog bury it in the yard. However, Cam manages to dig it up. Mitch admits that he hates the topper, and Cam agrees to give Mitch one more veto, if he can have another one, too. Mitch vetoes the cake topper, and Cam gets to veto the wedding singer, who kept trying to change Cam's song lineup.

While digging up the yard, Cam and Mitch find a bunch of other stuff that Jay wanted to get rid of, including a gift from the office, which makes a joke out of Jay's age. Claire realizes in that moment that Jay hasn't been complimenting her because he hasn't wanted to pass the torch. He still needs to feel needed. He and Claire make amends.

Meanwhile, the other plot follows Gloria and Phil. Gloria is getting ready to sell her old apartment, and Phil is helping her show it to potential buyers. However, Gloria is hesitant about selling. The two of them go into an old hair salon where Gloria used to work, and Gloria and Phil both actually help out, Phil with the shampooing, Gloria with the cutting. While there, Phil becomes a confidant for the women in the shop, and he gives them advice. He ends up serving the same function for Gloria, who finally admits that she doesn't want to sell her apartment because she doesn't want to let go of that part of herself. She used to work so hard for every dollar, and now she feels ashamed of how easy she has it. Phil makes her feel better.

Okay. I'm already going on a bit more than I usually do for this show, so I'll try to be quick about the rest of this.

Things I didn't like: Mitch and Cam's plot was silly. I didn't enjoy it at all. I think I'm just getting tired of wedding hi-jinks already, and I would love to see them tie the knot so we can move on to other things.

I felt like Luke and Manny's plot could have been a lot stronger, too. Maybe their plot should have been put in a different episode, where it could have been given more attention. The idea of girls outgrowing Luke, and Manny suddenly being "cool" is a very interesting one, but I don't think it was utilized here.

I liked a lot of stuff about Phil and Gloria's plot thread, but it always freaks me out when they play on the fact that Phil has a crush on Gloria. I think they need to cut that out.

But now for the good stuff!

Jay and Claire's relationship. I thought it was really interesting to see how much Claire still wants her father's approval, and also how understanding and amazing Claire can be when it comes to her personal relationships. Also, Haley and Alex were pretty funny when they were comforting their mom.

Phil washing hair! The best joke in the episode came at the very end, when Phil decided to wash his kid's hair to learn about their lives. Luke said he was having a hard time with girls. Alex admitted she tried beer. But Haley wouldn't budge. She actually flipped it around and started washing Phil's hair, asking him what was going on in his life. Phil listed his own woes, and concluded the list with "Alex tried beer," to which Haley simply nodded sagely.

Gloria's characterization touched on some more serious stuff, which I liked. She's afraid of giving up her past, and she's feeling guilty about her good life. That's an interesting dynamic!

I'll stop there. One of the main plot threads was not so good, but it wasn't a bad episode over all.

7/10