Modern Family: I Don't Know How She Does It (7x15)

This is one of those episodes where none of the plot threads were great, but each featured at least one or two really funny moments. It's a mixed bag, and unfortunately I can't give it high marks... but it doesn't totally flop either.

Cons:

First of all, you've got Claire and Phil. Phil is flummoxed by the fact that Claire is still being a super mom while also working all the time. Eventually, we learn that Claire is having a guy from marketing do all of the mom stuff, like making lunches for the kids and running errands. Phil is suspicious of Claire's successes, and figures out that she must be getting help. In the end, Phil overhears Claire talking about how she misses being a good mom, and decides not to give her a hard time about all of this.

While this premise isn't necessarily bad, it was a bit awkward given the age of the children. All three of those kids are old enough to be making their own food and running their own errands. I can see helping Luke out, since he's still in high school, but I can't even imagine the look on my mother's face if I told her I expected her to pick up a present for one of my friends' birthdays, or make a lunch for me every day at work. Additionally, they tried to play this like Claire was having an affair and Phil was getting suspicious. That's a pretty tired joke.

Meanwhile, Cam and Mitchell are at a wedding. They notice that everybody seems to be snubbing them, and that they've not received invitations for two upcoming gay weddings. Pepper tells them that since they declined the last two weddings, people are upset with them. The truth comes out: Lily was the one who declined the wedding invitations without letting her dads see them, because she's embarrassed by their over-the-top dancing.

The premise here was good at first. I was intrigued by what Mitchell and Cam had inadvertently done to make all their friends dislike them. But the punch line fell seriously flat. None of Lily's lines were particularly funny, and the dance routine was just stupid. I can't imagine that Cam and Mitchell would be more flamboyant than some of the other wedding attendees anyway. And what did Lily do? Sort through her parents' mail before they could? What kind of little kid would do that?

The third plot thread was the best of them, but it still wasn't all that great. Luke and Manny get into trouble when Gloria's computer freezes on porn. Meanwhile, Gloria doesn't want Jay to find out that she left baby Joe sleeping in the car. And Jay tries to feed Gloria's bad cooking to Stella, and tries to avoid Gloria finding out about it. All three secrets are almost revealed, but everybody realizes that everybody else is trying to hide something, and so they look the other way to protect their own secret. I'll talk in a minute about what I liked, but this plot thread did have its flaws as well. The Luke and Manny stuff really wasn't funny, not even when Alex came in and Manny thought she was hitting on him. Why are there so many off-putting jokes about different members of the family hitting on Manny? It's creepy! And the bit with Stella eating Gloria's cooking didn't really hit its mark either.

Pros:

That was a long "cons" section, but I didn't actually hate this episode. There were  a lot of individual laughs. The problem is that the concepts and the character work didn't back up the humor. Let's take a look at some of the jokes that did work, though.

In Claire's plot thread, I loved the part where Phil was trying to investigate if Claire's amazing parenting was possible. He timed out the different activities she was supposedly completing during the day, pantomiming things like frosting cupcakes, and churning ice cream. I liked that. I also thought the ending, where Phil realized how hard Claire was working and all the stress she was under, was quite sweet.

In Cam and Mitchell's plot thread, I liked the potential that was building up in all of the scenes. It wasn't great, but it was decently amusing enough. It was the punch line that ultimately killed this thread for me. I especially liked Pepper wailing about how gay weddings were going out of vogue. He was in such emotional turmoil as he was forced to replenish the baked potato station, and was very upset at the thought of an upcoming wedding taking place on a Monday, God forbid!

Finally, I thought the plot with Jay, Gloria, Luke and Manny had a lot of really strong stuff. I've already mentioned that I didn't think the porn thing was funny, or the actual comedy of Stella eating Gloria's food. But I did like the conclusion a lot. All of these people are ashamed of something, and want to stop the others from learning the truth. Each of them knows that they've done something wrong, and that the others have as well. Instead of all the secrets coming out, they all decide to protect their own truth at the expense of never knowing the other secrets. That was a lovely subversion of my expectations, and it got a much bigger laugh out of me than it would have if all the secrets had come out. Also, I loved when Luke and Manny were driving around and they had no idea that Joe was in the back seat. That kid slept through quite a day, and nobody was ever the wiser.

That's what I've got! I wish I could give this episode higher marks. I'm not sure what's been going on this season, but Modern Family doesn't really seem like the same great show it used to be.

6/10