Modern Family: Crying Out Loud (6x23)

This was a really enjoyable, surprisingly emotional episode of Modern Family. The plot threads were all separate, but they all tied together to create a common theme - sometimes even in a close, loving family, it's hard to express how you're really feeling, and it's hard to understand how your relationships with your family members will change when people begin to move on to the next stage of their lives. Let's take each plot thread on its own.

Claire is offered a job to work for a hotel chain. She doesn't want to take it, but she tells Jay about it, hoping that he'll tell her to stay. Instead, he seems totally dismissive, and tells her to take the job. Claire does, but then she believes that Jay is secretly upset, so she says no. Then she finds out that Jay isn't upset, and tries to take the job again. Jay finally admits that he didn't tell Claire how he felt about the job offer because he didn't want to influence her decision - the truth is, he really doesn't want her to go. Jay is not satisfied with Claire's emotionless response to this declaration, so he stages a confrontation with the man who wanted to hire Claire, announcing that he wants to keep working with his daughter. Claire tears up. Turns out, the guy Jay was talking to was just a friend, not the man Claire had been speaking to on the phone all this time.

I really liked this plot thread. We're not exactly covering new territory here - Jay often has trouble accessing his emotions, and his children are starved for his attention. But there was a lot of humor and a lot of sincerity here, and that made it wonderful. I loved the fact that Jay held back from telling Claire what he thought because he knew it had to be her decision. I also liked that Jay wasn't satisfied with Claire's reaction, so he tricked her into showing more emotion. It's a dysfunctional relationship, but it seems to work for them!

Meanwhile, Mitchell and Cam start to worry that Lily isn't developing a sense of empathy. Mitchell thinks it's his fault, because he never shows emotion. Later, however, he realizes that it must be Cam's fault, because he's always crying, and Lily has become desensitized to it. In the end, they talk to Lily and tell her that she should be more caring. She didn't seem to care when they were sick. Lily says it's because they always get better... but then she wonders if that will stop being the case, and they'll die! She freaks out, checking on them with a stethoscope in the middle of the night, and sleeping in bed with them.

This was just too cute. The dichotomy between the closed off Mitchell and the overly emotional Cam is always funny. Lily's deadpan delivery gets me every time. I particularly liked the payoff, where Lily gets really scared for her daddies and climbs into bed to check on them. That was surprisingly sweet, and seemed like something a little kid would actually do.

Manny gets his wisdom teeth removed, and he is very loopy. His girlfriend stops by and gives him gifts. Gloria hates this girl, and is therefore relieved when Manny wakes up later and has no memory of his girlfriend coming over, due to the massive amount of pain killers he's on. She doesn't tell him, thus thwarting Manny's plans to go to camp with her. Manny finds out, though, when his girlfriend texts him. Gloria complains about her to Manny, and Manny suddenly realizes that his girlfriend is eerily similar to his mother. This grosses him out, but ironically makes Gloria decide she actually likes the girl, since he'll be good for Manny.

This was probably the plot thread I was the least happy with. Like the others, it had a theme of family, and changing relationships, and learning when to let go. But unlike the others, it was played pretty much entirely for laughs, and we didn't get any of the sweetness and sentimentality. I don't think the whole mama's boy thing is particularly humorous, and I felt like we were just retreading over old territory without adding anything genuine or new.

Lastly - it's Alex's senior skip day, but she plans on going to school anyway. Phil and Luke pull a prank where they pretend Luke is in the hospital to get Haley and Alex to get in the car with Phil. Phil then reveals that they're kidnapping Alex to make sure she gives herself a break. They end up stopping at an old movie theatre, where Phil apparently worked years ago as a construction worker. He shows Haley and Alex where their tiny baby footprints have been set into the cement, next to a suspicious hole that may have been created by Luke being dropped on his head. Alex and Haley go sit out in the audience, while Phil and Luke try to pull up the concrete so Phil can keep a memento. Because of the shadows behind the screen, they inadvertently put on a show for Haley and Alex that's reminiscent of the cartoons they used to watch together as kids. Phil realizes that even if he's losing the movie theatre that he built, he can be proud of the family he has made. This whole scenario prompts Alex and Haley to talk about their relationship. Haley wonders if Alex will ever call her once she goes off to college, and Alex assures her that they will probably be even closer once they're no longer living under the same roof.

This was definitely my favorite plot thread of the episode for sure. Alex and Haley's relationship has always been one of the best parts of the show for me, and here we got a lot of cute material. Alex is really excited about picking her roommate for college, and Haley is jealous. It's subtly built up in the episode, until at the end we get a really genuine conversation between them. I also really loved the slapstick humor of Luke and Phil trying to pull up the concrete. There was a lot of creative light and set design to pull this off, and I loved the neat visual effect. Also, Phil realizing that he has a lasting legacy in his children was wonderful, as the Dunphys prepare to send Alex off on the next stage of her life.

So there you have it! Gloria and Manny's plot thread may have been a bit of a dud, but it wasn't terrible by any means, and the rest of the episode worked really nicely!

8.5/10