Modern Family: The Cold (6x03)

This episode had three separate story lines, but there was a culminating scene at the end where the entire family got to be together. I always love episodes that do this, because I often think the family is at its best comedic effect when we can see the whole big group play off of each other. Let's take a look at the plot very briefly.

Cam, who is Manny's football coach, must make the hard decision of showing family loyalty, or benching Manny to help win the game. He chooses to bench Manny, and although the game is a success, Gloria and Jay are furious. Eventually, Manny tells Gloria that she makes him nervous by always telling him that he's perfect - he's nervous about letting her down.

Mitchell is excited about Lily's new friend Sydney. He thinks that Lily is smarter than most of her other friends, so he's excited for her to have a friend that challenges her. However, Sydney proves to be something of a genius, which makes Mitch embarrassed and jealous on Lily's behalf. He calls Sydney a "know-it-all," and then accidentally spills something on her painting, and gets his watch stuck in her hair. Lily, who had had no problem with Sydney's intelligence, is mad at her father for making her friend cry.

While all of this has been going on, the entire family has been undergoing various degrees of sickness. Claire's is so bad that she passes out when trying to go to a client meeting for her dad's company, causing her to be afraid that she has disappointed him. As the entire family gripes about the illness and blames Mitch as its originator, Phil discovers the truth while editing the wedding video. He was the one who started the sickness by sneezing on the cake, among other things. He and Luke try to edit the video so that no one will know, but they keep messing it up.

Phil nervously decides to show the real video to the family. However, when everyone sits down to watch it, they are horrified by their own embarrassing moments - Jay has pit stains, Claire is drunk, Mitch dances weird, etc. Phil offers to edit out the embarrassing parts, which everyone eagerly agrees to. Now, he gets another chance to hide the truth!

So. There were two jokes made in this episode that were offensive. Phil says that he needs to "stop whining like a little girl and man up." Jokes like these are never funny, and they're never okay. The idea that being a girl is being weak, and being a man is strong, is one that seriously needs to be put to rest.

The other joke was much worse: Haley is talking about being sick, and she says "I threw up for three days straight. I don't know how models do it." NO. That is a joke about an eating disorder! Just... NO. I was so horrified to hear that. It's not funny. It's offensive and hurtful and just wrong in so many, many ways.

Modern Family usually doesn't make offensive jokes like that, so it was really shocking and upsetting for me to encounter two of them in this episode.

I also wasn't that big a fan of Cam and Manny's plot... I guess the whole thing about playing football just didn't afford too many funny opportunities. It was weak in comparison to the other plots.

Phil and Luke had the funniest moments. The best is when we finally see Phil's edited video, which includes a cut-away to Luke laughing after Jay says something about his dead father, and shows two Phils in the same shot at one point. Too funny.

Mitch's behavior with Lily's friend Sydney was another highlight. I love how at the end, when Sydney's mom storms out, she mentions Sydney's age, and Mitch just turns to Lily: "She's a year younger than you?" The best part is the fact that Lily wasn't at all concerned. She was just having a good time with her friend. I think that's often true - little kids are oblivious to the politics of their parents. They're just having fun.

I did like the end of the episode, when all these plot lines converge and we can see the whole family together. As I mentioned above, that's always one of the best chances for this show to shine.

I'll stop there. Ordinarily I'd give this episode decent marks... only one of the plot threads didn't grab my attention. But the bulimia joke and the sexist comment really threw me for a loop. I hope they don't make mistakes like that in the future.

5/10