Modern Family: Haley's 21st Birthday (6x10)

Cute for the most part. A little weird in a few places. Let's jump in.

It's Haley's 21st birthday, so she goes out to a bar with Claire, Gloria, Cam and Mitch. Claire is committed to having a more adult relationship with her daughter, which eventually leads to the two of them talking about boys and sex and all sorts of stuff like that. Gloria, to Claire's annoyance, continues to egg things on, until Haley announces that she wants to get a tattoo, and Gloria suggests that she and Claire get matching tattoos. Claire decides to go for it, to have this special connection with her daughter.

Meanwhile, Cam and Mitch think that a group of girls at a bachelorette party are going to glom onto them all night because they're gay. Instead, a younger gay couple get accosted by the women. Cam and Mitch are insulted to find that they are considered too old to be the fun gay guys. They decide they'll get tattoos too, so they can be cool.

At the tattoo parlor, Claire gets the word "mother" in Sanskrit. However, at this point Haley decides to back out. She's afraid of something so permanent. Cam and Mitch also decide getting a tattoo is a bit desperate, so they back out as well. Claire is obviously pretty pissed off.

Meanwhile, Jay and Phil are supposed to go pick up Haley's present - a new car! Jay drops Phil off at the dealership to sign the paperwork, but Jay is worried that Phil is being a pushover, so he decides to go in and haggle. Jay is convinced that he can get a better deal, but Phil is pretty sure the deal he already has is a good one, and he wishes that Jay would butt out. Jay plays hardball so much so that they actually lose the deal they had, and they have to go to another dealership. This new dealership can't offer them anything close to the original deal. Eventually, Jay reports to Phil that he managed to talk the dealer down to an even lower price, but the salesman reveals to Phil that Jay was lying, and that he paid the difference. In fact, Phil's original deal was close to a thousand dollars lower than what Jay got. They bring the car to Haley, who joyfully rushes to her new present.

While all of this is happening, the younger kids all hang out at home. Alex is technically in charge, so she is horrified to discover that Luke and Manny are going to explain were babies come from to Lily. However, it turns out that Lily thinks she already knows the answer. She proceeds to explain it to the three older kids, who all stare, agape, as Lily tells them. Of course, she has the idea totally wrong, as she thinks that the mommy "pees" the baby out, and that things are mixed up in a petri dish and swallowed.

So, what did I think of the episode over all? Well, let's start with a few brief complaints.

There was a sort of distasteful joke about Nelson Mandela for some reason. Cam was trying to think of what to get a tattoo of, and he asked Mitch if Mandela was still in jail. I was like... what? Mandela has been dead for a year. This isn't the sort of thing you toss out casually. It was just really weird.

Actually, I didn't really think the stuff with Cam and Mitch was that funny altogether. It felt kind of... sexist, weirdly. Like, the perception of those girls as these ravenous clingy beasts was really odd. It sort of seemed like the other gay couple, along with Cam and Mitch, were being really belittling and negative about these women. I don't know. I just wasn't a fan.

However, mostly I thought this was pretty funny. Nothing spectacular, but a solid episode nonetheless.

The plot line with Lily, Manny, Luke and Alex was great. Nothing much happened, but the punchline at the end, with Lily's hilariously inaccurate description of where babies come from, made it all worth it. Also, there was one stand-out joke. Luke says he'll teach Lily where babies come from, but that he needs a pen and a bagel. Why? Because Lily needs to take notes, and Luke is hungry. That made me chuckle.

Also, despite my problems with the Mitch and Cam stuff, I did like the joke when Mitch said "Who are those gays?" instead of "who are those guys?" I don't know why, but it did get a laugh out of me.

Jay and Phil's plot line was also quite lovely. Phil is always embarrassing himself in front of Jay, but in this case, Jay was the one who made the mistake. Phil got an incredible deal, and Jay was the one to mess it up. Phil interprets this whole thing as Jay caring about what Phil thinks of him, since Jay was willing to lie and say he got a better deal. There were lots of good jokes in here, and everything ended up working out for the best eventually. Great stuff.

In my opinion, Claire and Haley stole the show. I have a really close relationship with my mother, so it was funny to see Claire trying so hard to be Haley's friend instead of just her mom. All the sex jokes, etc. were great fun. (I was, however, the tiniest bit annoyed when Haley downed her first legal drink and her whole family looked at her, flabbergasted. Like, they're not idiots - they know she's been drunk before, right?). The tattoo thing is the funniest. Hopefully Claire doesn't mind her tattoo. It's tiny and it's out of the way, so that's good. it could have been a lot worse! 

I think that's all I've got for this one. Not my favorite episode ever, but it had some good laughs!

7.5/10