Modern Family: Wine Weekend (9x16)

Do you guys remember the Vegas episode? This episode wanted to be the Vegas episode, but it decidedly was not.

Cons:

I don't mean to be too harsh, but there was just so much going on here that I don't feel like any of it had time to really land. The idea is that everybody is staying at Haley's new boss's fancy house for the weekend, and then each of them has a different reason for wanting to sneak out at night without anybody else knowing. But rather than a lot of really funny close calls and moments where the stories get tangled up, each story is a tepid, underplayed little moment, and everything comes together at the end for a mediocre climax.

The most annoying of the separate little plot threads goes to Cam and Phil, who are practicing hip hop for the chance to get in to a better class than their spouses. The routine is uninspired, they use stupid lingo, and honestly the whole setup just doesn't land. Why would Cam, Mitchell, Phil, and Claire all be taking a hip hop class together? I want to see the moments leading up to that decision.

Claire is using the vacation as an opportunity to "accidentally misplace" a pair of bear slippers that belong to Phil and that she really hates. I strongly dislike it when sitcoms rely on spouses lying to one another over petty things. I get that it's a staple of the genre, but it drives me bonkers. Just let Phil have his stupid slippers, Claire. It's not hurting anybody.

I thought Mitchell and Gloria's plot thread had the most promise, and there were definitely some good moments in it. But when I hear that there's going to be a party at Oprah's house, I want to see a lot more of that party at Oprah's house. We got just brief snippets, and I felt like so much more could have been done with this setup.

Pros:

Like I said, Mitchell and Gloria's plot thread did have a lot of funny moments. Like the monogrammed candy dish being "OW" for Oprah Winfrey, but when flipped upside down it's "MO" for Michelle Obama, and it turns out that Oprah actually stole it from Michelle. That's fantastic. And the fact that Cam is not invited to Oprah's house because of a fight he's having with the caterer who invited Mitchell, over what kind of cracker goes on a cheese platter. Little details like that are really quite fun.

The overarching setup surrounding Haley's new boss is also kind of fun. Lots of silly jokes about lifestyle gurus and all of that stuff, and then there's the tiara. Haley warns everybody not to touch it, but of course everybody does, and when it turns out to be cracked, Manny decides to solve the case. In the end, we learn that Haley actually cracked the tiara before, then set it up so that her whole family would mess with it and all of them would take part of the blame. This was a fun setup and payoff, especially when Haley reveals that her master plan was almost ruined by the moose - this moose, incidentally, being a clumsy fabrication by Claire and Jay that Manny and Haley both instantly believe.

Also, Manny being a TERRIBLE detective was pretty funny. Everybody keeps giving horrible excuses and flat-out lying about where they were all night, and Manny believes most of them, or even when he doesn't, he comes to hilariously wrongheaded conclusions about what all of the lies mean. Meanwhile, Haley keeps putting the clues together with ease, and Manny ignores her. A simple bit, but one that worked effectively.

So... there you have it. I know I had a lot of things written in the "cons" section, but I didn't hate this episode. Mostly, I just have a feeling of... meh about it. Not the worst, but nothing special.

7/10