Modern Family: Man Shouldn't Lie (7x19)

Ugh. This show is really disappointing sometimes. Mostly because I know how good it can be. And then you get an episode like this, and it's just kind of baffling. One of these plot threads had potential, there were a few good elements here and there, but mostly this was just bad. Nothing in this episode made a solid landing, unfortunately.

Cons:

Let's start with the worst one. Claire finds a dog in the street and brings it home, but she insists that she and the kids hide the dog, because if Phil sees it he'll get attached and want to keep it. In an effort to keep the dog a secret, Claire continuously has to make weird excuses for her behavior, which leads to Phil thinking that Claire is mad at him for not listening to her, and for letting himself go as a stay-at-home dad. Phil continually tries to apologize, until Claire finally admits the truth about the dog. Turns out, Phil knows who the dog belongs to, but he's excited that Claire might be willing to let him have a pet.

This plot thread veered away from funny and into terribleness very quickly. What kind of monster would Claire have to be to let Phil continue to think she was mad at him? She even fake-cried and got Phil to believe that she needed "space" from him. Phil seemed genuinely upset and worried, and it was just... unpleasant to watch. And the jokes about hiding the dog all veered very quickly into slapstick territory, such as when Claire made coughing and crying noises to cover up the dog under the blanket, or when Claire watched Phil eat dog food, since he believed it to be a protein snack. These jokes were just not funny at all.

Then there's Cam and Mitchell's plot thread, which had a lot of great buildup, and a lot of great jokes, but a very disappointing conclusion. In short, Mitchell thinks the Christian rock band staying in the place upstairs is homophobic, and the punch line is that he's right. There was a lot of nuanced setup here, with Cam explaining that some of the most accepting people he knows are men of faith, while Mitchell recounts his own experience with gay-hating Christians. Instead of getting a lesson in humility and hope for Mitchell in the end, we end on the fact that these guys were just as homophobic as Mitchell suspected them to be. Where's the complexity in that?

Jay and Gloria's plot thread was boring and repetitive. It dealt with Jay being stubborn and then refusing to admit that Gloria was right about something. Haven't we seen that a thousand times already? Gloria tries to encourage Jay to make new friends, and Jay makes a big deal out of how he already has enough friends. When he meets Rhys and the two hit it off, he continues to pretend to hate the idea of new friends just so he can be right. When Jay tells Gloria the truth, she behaves exactly as Jay was expecting her to, by forcing him to try a bunch of new things that he doesn't want to try. Nothing changed, no new character motivations were revealed, and I didn't really laugh.

There were also two mini-plots thrown in here, neither of which even made me chuckle. Alex is visiting Sanjay and buys him an expensive dinosaur bone for their one-year anniversary. Haley suspects that Sanjay's gift, a suitcase, might be something he just found lying around, but Alex insists that Sanjay loves her. Where was the humor or character development here? Nowhere, that's where.

Manny watches Joe's cartoon show with him, but Joe gets annoyed because Manny gets too into it and asks too many questions. Again, what's the punch line supposed to be? Manny made fun of the show but now he loves it? That's not really that funny, guys!

Pros:

Yikes, that's a long "cons" section. I did like a lot of individual jokes sprinkled throughout this episode. Jay tells Gloria the truth about his new friend by announcing: "I like Rhys and I want to go away with him." Ha! Phil looks at his beard and his general unkempt appearance and says: "sweet Teen Wolf, what have I become?" Haley asks Alex if her gift of a dinosaur bone is the equivalent of a normal person's Starbucks card, or really nice Rolex, in order to see if the gift is appropriate for a one-year anniversary.

Mitchell and Cam's plot thread had the most going for it, which is what makes its ending so disappointing. Mitchell is drawn toward the drummer of the Christian rock band, who seems to be flamboyantly gay. He even wrote a song called "A Cry for Help" about how he is a sinner and needs help to escape the crushing weight of his true self. However, when Mitchell presses him to talk about what's bothering him, it turns out the drummer is just torn because he doesn't want to be part of the band anymore. He misses home, and he misses his girlfriend. I loved all the jokes with this guy. I also loved the moment at the end, when the band starts singing its song about how man shouldn't lie with another man, and Cam breaks in with his own lyrics, trying to rectify things. It doesn't work, though. If it had, this plot thread might have been a lot more successful.

I keep thinking about the potential that this subplot had. You've got Mitchell, who grew up in an urban area and was terrorized for his sexuality, and Cam, who grew up among country Christians, and had a lot of support. These two widely disparate experiences as gay men could have been fun to explore. Or, if you wanted to make the Christian band simply homophobic the whole time, then maybe actually do something with that reveal. Did the group not realize that they were renting a room from a couple of "sinners"? And if they did know, were they secretly hating on Mitchell and Cam the whole time? Or you could dive in to the psychological damage all of this would have on Mitchell and Cam. Cam, who trusted the band from the beginning, and Mitchell, who learned to push through his own judgmental attitude and accept that not all Christians are homophobes. The fact that these people got up on stage and sang about how their entire life is full of sin is actually pretty brutal. Here, it was played for laughs.

Oops. I was supposed to be talking about good things. I know I'm harping on this a little bit, but... what a letdown! This entire season of Modern Family simply hasn't been up to the show's usual caliber.

5/10