Modern Family: She Crazy (7x04)

Pretty cute episode! A few things in here felt like re-tread, but it's okay to go back to simpler concepts sometimes. Let's take a look.

Cons:

Manny and Gloria's plot thread was about how they both had crushes on people but couldn't talk to them. Manny's crush was on a barista, and Gloria's was on a Spanish soap opera star who was in the city. She couldn't bring herself to talk to her, even when she approaches her in the lobby of a hotel. Both Manny and Gloria are confounded by their lack of confidence, but they give each other pep talks. Gloria continues to make a fool of herself in front of her celebrity crush, but Manny bravely calls the barista and asks her out. She says yes. I didn't really like this plot thread because it didn't offer anything new or creative. The jokes were all stale. Manny has a crush on a girl, and his sophistication surprisingly wins her over? We've been there. Gloria loses her confidence briefly? We've done that too. It felt like we could have had something a bit more solid with this concept. It wasn't horrible by any means, but it didn't much grab my attention either.

I liked Cam and Mitchell's plot thread for the most part, but there was one seriously questionable moment. Mitchell complains that Cam always takes on the personality of the people around him. They've been renting the upstairs unit out, and Cam keeps changing who he is to fit in with each group staying there. We see him with a southern accent, drinking tea with a bunch of old southern ladies, and then we see him watching a scary movie with a black family and saying "don't go in there!" and yelling at the screen. Sometimes it's hard to tell when something is okay and when it's racist, but in this case... I don't know. I felt uncomfortable. It would have been funny if Cam had been yelling at the screen but the black people hadn't been. They could have been looking at him like he was crazy, and it would have emphasized how stereotypes are often not true at all. As it was, with the black people yelling at the screen in the stereotypical way, I felt a bit iffy about it.

Pros:

But there were genuinely funny things about Cam and Mitchell's plot thread. Cam's frat boy attitude is hilarious. Mitchell takes Luke on a practice drive, as he's trying to get his license, and the two have a hilarious conversation. Luke is talking about his driving, while Mitchell talks about Cam. Neither of them are listening to a word the other says, and everything gets misinterpreted. The whole thing ends with Cam stealing a goat as part of a fraternity prank, and admitting to Mitchell that his pathological need to be liked by everybody makes him do crazy things. I was chuckling a lot during these moments.

The duck eggs from a few episodes back make a reappearance here. Phil is still optimistic that they will hatch, while everybody else has given up on them. Phil drags Lily into his plans do build a duck community. Lily is jaded and uninterested, but she becomes much more attached to the idea of the ducks when she learns that they are orphans in need of a new family. In the end, Claire sees that the eggs are indeed hatching, and Phil and Lily rush home to see the new baby ducklings.

This was so cute! I wish they could have done more with Lily's obvious connection to the orphaned eggs. They didn't make much of it, but it was really sweet to see how she identified with the eggs in some way. I also loved all the physical humor here as well. Phil is an incompetent egg caretaker. These eggs have been through a lot of terrible stuff, and yet somehow, hilariously, they still hatched!

Claire and Jay had a good plot thread as well. Claire wants to express her closet design ideas to the company. Turns out, all of her ideas have already been used. Jay is harsh with Claire in the meeting, but later tells her to keep trying. Nobody gets it right on their first try. This plot thread was sort of basic, but that can be a good thing. I like Claire's characterization, and the way she always tries to please her father. Jay can be cold and distant, but he always seems to come through when it really matters.

Nothing really with Alex, Haley, or Luke this week, so we'll probably check in on those three next week. I guess I'll finish up this review by saying that I didn't really understand the title. "She Crazy." Huh? It didn't really seem to encompass the themes of the episode very well. Oh well. I suck at titles so I shouldn't judge.

7.5/10