Modern Family: Clean for a Day (7x12)

This was a pretty good episode. Not great, but pretty good. It focused on the changes happening in the lives of Jay and Claire, as Jay retires and Claire takes up running the closet company. Let's take a look.

Cons:

Cam's role in tonight's episode was to freak out that Jay was going to die in a plane crash, and then not-so-humorously interfere until he almost puts himself and Jay in actual danger. It was sort of slap-stick-y, as at one point while Jay is taking his flying lesson, Cam manages to knock the instructor unconscious with a pipe he accidentally broke off from the inside of the plane. These kind of over-the-top antics just didn't do it for me.

Pros:

The rest of Jay's plot, however, was quite lovely. In short, Jay doesn't tell Gloria that he's learning to fly, since he wants to surprise her. Gloria, however, had just had a terrible dream where Jay fell to his death from a great height. This is what causes Cam to worry, but Mitchell tells Gloria that maybe the dream was metaphorical. She's probably stressed because of Jay retiring, since she's worried that the change will drive them apart. Mitchell suggests that Gloria learn to golf so that she can spend time with Jay. Mitchell ends up being a horrible teacher, while a random guy is able to teach Gloria how to golf expertly in the course of one afternoon. At the same time, Manny takes over flute lessons for Lily, and turns the formerly dreadful flautist into a musical genius in just a few short hours. Mitchell concludes that he's a terrible teacher because he's "too smart." Jay, upon returning from his scary plane adventure, talks to Gloria and they work out their fears and insecurities about their future.

A lot was going on here, and I liked the mix of Mitchell's comedic teaching with the more serious themes about Jay and Gloria's marriage. As Jay pointed out, they just spent the whole day trying to learn something to make the other one happy, so they will probably be okay. That's a really sweet thought, and a lovely insightful comment coming from Jay.

Meanwhile, Claire wants to do a deep clean of the house before she starts her new job, so she can leave the house as organized as possible before taking on a new challenge. (I relate to this so much). In the process of cleaning, she decides to donate many nostalgic items, which Luke and Phil object to. Just as Claire is donating them, she feels a wave of regret about throwing away precious memories just because she's stress-cleaning. Phil then takes the family to a storage unit, where he has been hiding the items that Claire had told him to donate over the years. The family joyfully reunites with some of their old belongings.

This plot thread took a very simple premise and did a lot of funny things with it. First of all, this story made me laugh because my parents are just like this, only it's my mom who holds on to things (not for nostalgic value so much as for practical value - she always thinks that one of her three kids might want the stuff, which is probably true!), while my dad would throw away pretty much anything that he hasn't found immediately useful in the past week or so (I'm exaggerating, but he does hate clutter). It was funny to watch Phil latch on to so many useless items, but also quite touching to see the payoff, as the family reminisces over some of their old belongings, including board games, an old bike, and even some clothing that Haley gleefully declares has come back in style.

While all of this is going on, Alex encounters a jacket belonging to Sanjay, and Haley takes her over to his house (he's home for the weekend from school) to get closure. However, closure is not forthcoming, because it turns out that Sanjay really regrets ending things with Haley, and wants to get her back at all costs. Alex, who is facing an uncertain period of her life much like her mother and grandfather, eagerly returns to the familiar. At first I was a bit annoyed at the return of Sanjay, but on second thought I'm excited to see what this means for Alex's character. Is she just using him as a crutch? Will she be able to move on into the next phase of her life in a satisfying way?

That's where I'll stop for this week. There were a lot of really funny moments in this week's episode, but it wasn't necessarily one of those installments that I'll always remember.

8/10