Modern Family: The More You Ignore Me (7x06)

Kind of a mess of an episode, unfortunately. There were a few things to enjoy, though.

Cons:

The Dunphy's plot was sort of all over the place. We learn that Luke stole the car to go see a girl, and got caught driving without his license. Phil decides to crack down on the punishment, while Claire is actually relieved to see Luke participating in normal teenage rebellion. This plot thread could have been interesting, and I can certainly think of many avenues we could have gone down with the idea of Luke being arrested. In particular, we could have explored the switched roles of Phil as the enforcer and Claire as the "cool" parent. Or we could have addressed Luke's problematic behavior with women. But instead of doing any of that, we got Phil worrying about his masculinity. Is it just me, or have we done this before? It's getting old! Claire is constantly having to reassure her husband that she finds him manly enough. It's very annoying.

This plot thread quickly delves in another direction that sort of annoys me. Phil and Claire see Alex in town. She lied to them and said she would be staying at school all weekend. When she gets into a mysterious van after going to a licqour store, her parents follow her. They find the van back at their own house, and learn that it belongs to Alex's new flame - an annoying kid who's a friend of Luke's from school. She says she's feeling so lost, having recently been dumped, and she just wanted something comfortable and simple. This plot thread didn't really have any good laughs, and it didn't lead to an actual discussion about Alex's situation, either.

Then there's Haley's plot thread. Her and Dylan go to a movie, where they run into Andy and Beth. They're forced to sit together for the movie. Haley feels super awkward, but Andy seems fine. Afterwards, Andy talks about how glad he is that they're normal again, and can just be friends. Beth thinks about inviting Haley and Dylan to the wedding. Look, I wanted to be excited about seeing Haley and Andy share the screen again, but nothing really happened in this episode to move the plot forward. Haley's character has sort of remained in stasis this season. I hope we can actually get this Andy/Haley thing going at some point.

Pros:

The one good thing about Phil and Claire's plot thread was the recurring jokes about the ducks. The baby ducks have imprinted on Claire instead of Phil, and he's desperately trying to get them to switch over to him. No matter what he tries, they follow Claire. He splashes wine on his neck, wears Claire's clothes, but to no avail. The thing that finally does the trick is when Phil is on the phone trying to sort out Luke's ticket, and he's talking to an automated operator. He has to keep saying his name over and over to get it to listen, and his irritable shots of "Phil! Phil!" apparently make the ducks think that he's Claire. That was an excellently set up joke with a hilarious punch line.

In Haley's plot, there was one shining moment - she dumps Dylan, and talks about how she's tired of watching everybody else move forward while she's standing still. Dylan is really funny, but mostly in small doses, so I'm okay with him leaving for a while. And maybe this is a sign that Haley's character is going to have some growth!

The only winning plot thread of the night was the one with Jay, Gloria, Mitchell, and Cam. It wasn't the best thing we've ever seen from this show, but it was serviceable and it got a few laughs. Cam is selling his family's "famous" sauce at a farmer's market, but gets competitive when one of his rivals sells more than he and Mitchell. Then, at dinner with Gloria and Jay, Cam gets upset that Gloria's sauce from her dead aunt is such a hit. Cam accidentally ruins the recipe for the sauce, but then helps Gloria to recreate it by accessing her childhood memories. Meanwhile, Mitchell has been offered a job, but he's been thinking about opening up his own practice, and doesn't know what to do. While all of this is going on, we find out that the Chamber of Commerce is awarding Jay an award for being a titan of industry. He tries to make a video about why he's so successful in the business world, but none of his attempts come off quite right. In the end, he tells Gloria it's a bad idea to sell her sauce, and tells Mitchell that he should take the safe option and take the job offer. Both of them, motivated by being told they won't succeed, go off to sell the sauce and start a business, respectively. Jay then makes a new version of his video where he talks about how his success comes from proving his haters wrong.

This plot thread was really fast-paced and fun, and contained a lot of information in a short period of time. I loved the way it tied together at the end, with Jay coming across as the pessimistic patriarch, but really using his pessimism to motivate his loved ones to succeed. He even got Joe to learn to tie his shoes! Then there's the humor of Cam's competitiveness when it comes to sauce. Once he tastes Gloria's he admits that it's better and says that his is mostly ketchup. That was a funny little punch line. I also loved the story about Gloria's earlier failed attempts at selling things at the farmer's market, which caused a lot of women to ruin their hair with the relaxer Gloria was selling.

I think that's all I've got. This was a rather weak episode, although I did find humor in parts of it.

6/10