Modern Family: Sleeper (5x21)

I'm going to say right off the bat that I think this episode lacked focus. There were a lot of threads dangling, and most of them didn't ever feel completed. Even though we had a centralized theme of getting a family photo, the family didn't come together in any meaningful way, and there weren't any good jokes generated by them all being in one place. Let's go through what happens.

Phil was supposed to stay at home and wait for the repairman, but he ends up missing him when he goes out to get a record. The record is the one that was playing when he lost his virginity, and he's afraid that Claire will be mad that he "cheated on her" with the memory of his first sexual experience. Alex is doing a project in school on narcolepsy, and she learns that her father may have it, when the extreme stress of lying to Claire causes him to fall asleep.

Mitch is worried that his own family doesn't know him and doesn't pay any attention to him. Throughout the episode, he is constantly ignored and pushed aside for other concerns. In the end, Jay tells him that maybe the rest of the family leaves him alone because he's so dependable and can take care of his own stuff.

Claire thinks that Cam is too much of a snob to put Lily in the hand-me-down clothes that Claire gives them. In order to prove her wrong, Cam stages a Christmas picture and puts Lily in an old pair of pajamas. It almost works, but Claire catches the reflection of Mitchell, wearing the same clothes from that morning, in the picture.

As everyone prepares for the family photo, Gloria worries that Joe is too pale to look Colombian. She is going to send this picture to her family there, and she wants to give a good impression. Everyone is supposed to wear jeans and a black shirt for the picture, but because of the family's broken washing machine, Luke has to go to a laundromat to clean his shirt. Haley takes him, and they run into a guy that she one time used to get festival tickets. Luke accidentally grabs a woman's shirt instead of his own, and he has to take the picture in it.

Jay decides to enter Stella into a dog show. He's nervous about it, but eventually decides to be who he is. He tells the family about it, and they all come to cheer him on.

Gloria finds Claire's wedding ring, which forces Claire to admit to Phil that she lost it after taking it off to flirt her way out of a speeding ticket. Phil is relieved that he's not the only one who occasionally lies in their relationship, and his stress-induced narcolepsy seems to go away.

So... I don't have any giant huge problems with this episode, but I also don't have much to praise. I didn't like Mitchell's "nobody pays attention to me" plot, because it seemed totally unfounded by anything that came before it. I don't think of Mitch as a well-collected and together guy. He's usually pretty manic and controlling, actually.

Also, I wasn't a fan of Phil's secret. The idea that he messed up when waiting for the repairman is fine, and that could have been a perfectly fine plot. But the secret being his desire to relive a sexual experience from his youth? That's just... weird. And too awkward.

I liked the bit about Jay and Stella, though. And Luke's shirt fiasco got a chuckle out of me. The best plot was the one about the hand-me-downs. Cam's dedication to the deception was hilarious, as was Lily's reaction when she saw a Christmas display set up and then learned that it was all fake.

I'll leave it at that. Not a very impressive episode, unfortunately.

6/10