Yeah... not a real winner of an episode. Let's take a look.
Jay is perturbed to discover that Joe has had his toenails painted, and that Gloria wants him to go pick up Lily's old princess castle. He thinks Joe isn't masculine enough, and is upset with Gloria for pushing these feminine things on him. Phil is mad at Claire, because he wants a Ms. Pac-Man machine and Claire doesn't seem to approve. Jay and Phil both go to get the princess castle, and they lament that their wives have such control over their lives. Jay convinces Phil to buy the Ms. Pac-Man anyway, and Phil reciprocates by releasing the princess castle from the back of the truck, in order to free Jay from Gloria's control. However, it turns out they were both mistaken about their wives. Claire didn't want Phil to buy the machine because she was buying one for him as a surprise, and Gloria had plans to paint the princess castle to make it into a pirate castle.
Meanwhile, Cam and Mitchell have been watching Joe. Each of them thinks they are ready to have another child, and they talk about it with each other. Initially they are very excited, but as Joe starts to wreak havoc, messing up their expensive couch and breaking their beautiful bowl, they realize that kids are a handful, and maybe they shouldn't rush in to anything. However, later as they help make Joe his pirate castle, they seem a little wistful about having another baby.
It's award day at school, and Alex is getting ready to get all of the awards, as usual. Claire feels bad, because Luke never wins anything. Claire tries to bribe the principal into giving Luke the integrity award. When that doesn't work, she purposely sabotages the kid who usually gets the award by pushing his car into a "no parking" zone. Luke wins the award, but he's not happy about it - apparently it's the loser award. Claire tells Luke that she's the one who made sure he got it, because she thought he was upset. Turns out, Luke was in a bad mood, but it wasn't about awards. Manny is mad at him for flirting with a girl he likes, but actually the girl was the one who hit on Luke, and Luke didn't do anything about it. He's been lying to Manny to spare his feelings.
The last plot thread sees Gloria and Haley spending time together. They're supposed to go shopping, but Haley's terrible boss Gavin makes Haley do demeaning work for him, such as standing and saving him a spot in front of a food truck, or fetching him flowers for his office. Gloria tries to interfere, which leads to Haley nearly losing her job. Eventually, however, Gloria threatens Gavin to get him to be nicer to Haley.
The whole family gathers at the end of the episode for Joe's birthday, helping to put together his pirate castle. We get a voice over of Alex accepting her many awards, and then presenting the award for integrity. She is delighted to discover that the award is going to Luke, who she knows will be mocked mercilessly for it.
Honestly, I don't even have the energy to go through each plot thread separately on this one. Let's talk about the stuff I didn't like:
Jay doesn't want Joe to have a pedicure and a princess castle because he wants his son to be masculine. I mean, come on. The kid is a tiny baby. And who the heck cares if he has a pedicure? I guess what annoyed me about this is that it seemed at first like they were doing something interesting with Jay's conservatism, but then nobody in the episode ever called him out on his BS. They catered to it, in fact! I was getting so annoyed.
Then there's the whole Ms. Pac-Man thing. The misunderstanding between husband and wife, with the wife being the "boss" of the couple, is something that felt like it should have come out of a show from the 80's or 90's. It's an old, tired, oddly sexist trope.
Claire trying to bribe the principal into giving Luke an integrity award was also really silly. I saw a bit more potential with this plot thread than some of the others, but ultimately the payoff was rather weak. If we could have actually explored the tension between Manny and Luke, that might have been fun, but that was barely touched on.
I did enjoy a few things, though.
Cam and Mitchell wavering on the idea of adopting another child is really interesting. I love that they didn't go the obvious route of Lily getting super jealous of Joe. Instead, they had her sit on her high horse and remark on how hard it must be to watch a little baby. We see how Cam and Mitch both love and dread the idea of having another little one around, and by the end of the episode we're not sure what decision they've landed on. I like that ambiguity, and the setup for future story telling.
I also liked Haley and Gloria's plot thread. This show always does well when it puts interesting pairings together. Haley and Gloria are the two members of the family who care the most about fashion, and it was interesting to see them come together for a supposedly "shallow" activity like shopping, and end up examining Haley's future instead. Also, Gloria's threats to Gavin were really funny.
I think I'll stop there. I wasn't too happy with this episode overall. Hopefully Modern Family can still finish off the season strong.
6/10
The whole family gathers at the end of the episode for Joe's birthday, helping to put together his pirate castle. We get a voice over of Alex accepting her many awards, and then presenting the award for integrity. She is delighted to discover that the award is going to Luke, who she knows will be mocked mercilessly for it.
Honestly, I don't even have the energy to go through each plot thread separately on this one. Let's talk about the stuff I didn't like:
Jay doesn't want Joe to have a pedicure and a princess castle because he wants his son to be masculine. I mean, come on. The kid is a tiny baby. And who the heck cares if he has a pedicure? I guess what annoyed me about this is that it seemed at first like they were doing something interesting with Jay's conservatism, but then nobody in the episode ever called him out on his BS. They catered to it, in fact! I was getting so annoyed.
Then there's the whole Ms. Pac-Man thing. The misunderstanding between husband and wife, with the wife being the "boss" of the couple, is something that felt like it should have come out of a show from the 80's or 90's. It's an old, tired, oddly sexist trope.
Claire trying to bribe the principal into giving Luke an integrity award was also really silly. I saw a bit more potential with this plot thread than some of the others, but ultimately the payoff was rather weak. If we could have actually explored the tension between Manny and Luke, that might have been fun, but that was barely touched on.
I did enjoy a few things, though.
Cam and Mitchell wavering on the idea of adopting another child is really interesting. I love that they didn't go the obvious route of Lily getting super jealous of Joe. Instead, they had her sit on her high horse and remark on how hard it must be to watch a little baby. We see how Cam and Mitch both love and dread the idea of having another little one around, and by the end of the episode we're not sure what decision they've landed on. I like that ambiguity, and the setup for future story telling.
I also liked Haley and Gloria's plot thread. This show always does well when it puts interesting pairings together. Haley and Gloria are the two members of the family who care the most about fashion, and it was interesting to see them come together for a supposedly "shallow" activity like shopping, and end up examining Haley's future instead. Also, Gloria's threats to Gavin were really funny.
I think I'll stop there. I wasn't too happy with this episode overall. Hopefully Modern Family can still finish off the season strong.
6/10
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