Modern Family: Message Received (5x22)

Ha. Some cute moments. And some surprisingly serious ones! This might be the most serious plot thread I've ever seen start on Modern Family. I'm immensely proud of the show for going down this path. I'll be excited to see where it leads.

Jay makes a sandwich for Manny but Manny doesn't want it because it has pickles. This prompts Jay to tell Manny he's being too sensitive, and he says that Manny can't leave the table until he tries the pickle. Gloria calls Jay out by forcing him to eat a blood sausage, something he hasn't ever been willing to try. Gloria's white whale? Scratching Stella's belly. All three of them are forced to confront their fear to prove themselves not a hypocrite. Eventually, they do. Later, we see Gloria and Manny sneaking around to rub Stella's belly and eat pickles, their pride too strong to admit they liked it.

Haley, Alex, and Luke find a box of old mementos of their parents, including an answering machine. On it, we hear Claire tell Phil that she's pregnant with Haley. This was before they were married. The kids decide to pull a prank on their parents. They concoct a fake message and leave it for Phil, making Phil think that Claire is pregnant again. He rushes home all excited, only to discover the truth. They then decide to trick their kids by staging a big argument. It backfires when Phil starts to get actually upset about Claire saying she should have married her old boyfriend. They then have a talk where Claire says she's so happy she married Phil and they got to have this life together.

Cam and Mitch discover that they need more money to pay for their extravagant wedding. Each of them gets ready to sell an expensive item - Cam has an antique belt buckle, and Mitch a rare Spider-Man comic book. When they go to sell them, Mitch discovers that Cam's belt buckle is a cheap replica. Mitch goes to sell his comic book, but it falls in the mud and is ruined.

Mitch and Jay get into an argument about the wedding - Mitch wonders why his dad is downplaying the wedding so much, and not wanting to invite any of his friends. Jay admits that he's uncomfortable because it's a gay wedding, and Mitch, shocked, says maybe his father shouldn't come to the wedding at all.

Complaints?

I don't know, honestly. Every one of these plots was really funny. To nitpick, I sometimes think that Phil and Claire's relationship gets pushed into silly territory a touch too often. When Phil misheard something about an outfit Claire had once worn, and thought it was about him... well that was just a bit too much.

Good stuff?

The belt buckle and comic book stuff was fantastic. So funny. Mitch dropped his Spider-Man comic in the mud because he accidentally walked into a spider web. Classic. Cam's elaborate past stories about his family heirlooms are also really funny.

The kids pulling a prank on their parents was a great idea, and it was surprisingly sweet to see how excited Phil was to have another kid.

I laughed out loud when I saw Manny sneaking pickles in the pantry in the dark of night, hiding his new love for them, due to his pride. That was great. Also, Jay's obstinate attitude and Gloria's weird aversion to touching Stella's belly were both hilarious.

And then there were the more serious notes to this episode, which is something that really doesn't happen too often on this show. First, we have Mitch's rather touching speech about how Spider-Man meant a lot to him growing up because it was the story of a kid who struggled with being different, but ended up being totally awesome. Then, we have Jay come right out and say that he's uncomfortable with the gay wedding thing. This is just so interesting because we've always known that Jay was a bit uncomfortable with Mitchell being gay, but he's been supportive all the same. There have been times when he's shied away from this kind of thing... he's very afraid of showing his own feminine side, for example, and has all these unhealthy ideas about what it means to be a man. But to have it out there so blatantly is... well, I was pretty shocked. I'm really excited to see where they go from here.

I'll leave it there. A surprisingly superb episode, in my opinion.

9/10