Modern Family: A Tale of Three Cities (8x01)

To be perfectly frank, I was a little underwhelmed with this premiere. Last season was a low point for Modern Family, and I was hoping to feel a revitalized energy in this season's premiere. Instead, I got an episode that was just... meh.

Cons:

Two of the three plots failed to capitalize on some really funny setups. Cam and Mitchell are in the mid-west with Cam's family, holding a vigil around Cam's dying grandmother. When Mitchell is alone with her in the room, she seems to wake up for a minute and grab Mitchell's hair. This leads to the family walking in as Mitchell is saying "let go." The old woman dies, and Cam's family blames Mitchell. Mitchell goes home and is upset, until he realizes that he too tends to side with his family against Cam sometimes. This plot thread could have been so much funnier. I wanted the grandma to wake up and talk to Mitchell, or something. And we could have done a lot more with Cam's hilarious family, and how they all reacted to Mitchell's supposedly treacherous words to the dying grandmother. The "moral of the story" bit, wherein we learn that sometimes you side with your family over your spouse, also fell pretty flat. In the end, the grandmother left Lily a racist present in her will, and Mitchell "the sissy" got grandma's old lipsticks. If this was meant to be funny, it didn't work.

The other plot thread that failed to capitalize was the one with the Dunphys. The whole family is getting ready to leave New York. Phil and Claire to go on a road trip, and the kids to fly home. Each group decides independently to stay in New York and lie about it. From there, the two groups keep almost running in to each other, but they make it home in the proper order and it looks like their secrets are safe. But then, Luke spills the beans out of guilt, and Haley figures out from a picture that Phil and Claire also lied and stayed in New York. The potential here was great - it reminded me of the Las Vegas episode where different members of the family kept coming in and out, popping into each other's stories for hilarious one-liners and intricately tying everything together. Instead we just got one or two "near miss" moments that didn't really capitalize on the potential. Phil and Luke feeling sad that they can't share their experiences together was kind of sweet, I guess, but even that didn't get much traction.

The third plot didn't have any problem on capitalizing on its premise, which made for some funny moments, but also the disturbing revelation that Gloria's dad looked a lot like Jay, and their whole relationship is based on Gloria's daddy issues. That's not really something I ever wanted to find out. I guess I can see why that might have been funny in another context, but for me it was just gross.

Pros:

But that being said, Gloria's plot thread did have the funniest bit. Gloria's sister follows the family back from the wedding in Mexico and kidnaps Manny. She holds him ransom in exchange for Gloria's sauce business, which apparently was always Sonia's dream. Again, the revelation that the sisters' long rivalry is all based on daddy issues was not funny to me. However, the kidnapping stuff was great, especially how calm Gloria was about the whole thing. Kidnappings are routine in her family.

Other than that, the only real winner of a plot thread was Jay's continued belligerence at his family's inability to celebrate Father's Day properly. As he goes through the trouble of preparing his own meal, the rest of the family bickers over their own problems. In the end, Jay presents each member of the family with special hand-crafted sausages suited to their temperaments. The family doesn't seem to appreciate the effort he went through, and when Luke asks for ketchup, Jay gives up.

A few other funny things: Claire smiles at death. I do that too. It's awful and embarrassing and I promise I'm not happy that somebody died!! Haley and Luke think that the Statue of Liberty is holding a paintbrush. Alex is horrified. Joe is a kleptomaniac, and says that stealing makes his hair grow faster. Ha!

That's what I've got. Not the strongest showing for this first episode of the season, unfortunately... but this show has impressed me in the past. I'm not giving up on it yet.

6,5/10