Modern Family: Valentine's Day 4: Twisted Sister (6x14)

Really, really funny. Pretty much everything about this episode made me chuckle.

It's Valentine's Day, and Phil is excited to do his normal role playing game with Claire. Claire fakes it like she can't make it to the hotel, but then shows up as Juliana, ready to have a wild night of passion with "Clive Bixby." Very quickly, Claire realizes that Phil seems to be in love with "Juliana," so she tries to make Juliana less appealing to Phil. In the end, Phil realizes what's going on and tells "Juliana" that he can't see her anymore, because he's still very much in love with his wife.

Too many funny moments in this one to count. I think my favorite was Juliana's impassioned rant about Dirty Dancing. That really made me chuckle. Also, I loved Claire's fake-out at the beginning, and the way that Phil actually fell for it. The cutest part, though, was at the very end when Phil breaks up with Juliana. Claire tries to follow Phil inside of the house, but Phil stays in character and keeps telling "Juliana" to stop following him. He even closes the door in Claire's face, to her annoyance, but he then opens it and drags her inside, both of them laughing. It was such a sweet way to remind us that Claire and Phil can be a good couple. They always seem really unbalanced, like Claire's the competent one and Phil's an idiot, but this episode showed them on more equal footing, and I loved it.

Gloria's sister is in town, and she spends Valentine's Day being all subservient and timid. That is, until Jay feels bad and gives her a necklace (it was originally supposed to be a collar for Stella). Sonia then starts flirting with Jay, but when Jay tells Gloria, she doesn't believe him, thinking that Jay is just feeling neglected on Valentine's Day. In the end, it turns out Sonia was hitting on him. Gloria hears the whole thing on the baby monitor and comes storming into the room. The two sisters fight over Jay, and he happily declares this to be the best Valentine's Day ever.

If I had to pick a weak link, I guess I'd say it was this plot. It wasn't bad or anything, but it didn't have me laughing out loud quite as much. I think mostly the problem was that I saw the twist coming. Of course Jay was going to think Sonia wanted him, and then there was going to be another explanation for everything, and then we'd go back one more time and discover that Sonia was hitting on him all along. This thread followed the formula so well that it just didn't do much for me. However, I did like the idea behind it, and I liked one moment a lot. Jay talks about how he's feeling disappointed at not getting more attention on Valentine's Day. He wonders why girls get more attention for this particular holiday, and then he says "Ah, what am I crying about? We get paid more, so what the hell." This sort of casual calling out of sexism just makes my day.

Mitchell and Cam go over to their friend Anders' house to deliver a wedding gift to him and his husband Cooper. The gift is a beautiful painting, and Mitchell and Cam are really reluctant to hand it over, because they love it so much. However, when they get there they find out that Anders and Cooper are splitting up. From here on out, the evening turns into a back-and-forth game, as Mitchell and Cam try to decide whether or not to give Anders the present. At first they want to take it back, but then Mitchell discovers a beautiful bowl that Anders is planning on gifting them. Then, the bowl gets replaced, etc. Then, they find out that Anders' mom just had surgery, and about what a hard time he's been going through, etc. etc. In the end, Mitchell and Cam are given the fancy new bowl, but when Anders makes a comment about how it's "about time they had something nice in the house," they take the picture with them too.

Anders and Cooper. HA. This plot thread was so amusing. I sort of knew where it was going... I figured that Mitchell and Cam would end up keeping the painting in the end. But I wasn't expecting them to go back and forth as many times as they did, so that was quite funny. I liked the fake-out with the fancy glass bowl, I liked the motion detector in the ailing old grandmother's bedroom, I liked Cam and Mitchell's petty decision to keep the painting. The whole thing was just funny from beginning to end.

I think that's where I'll stop. This was the perfect way to spend Valentine's Day with the Modern Family gang.

9/10