Modern Family: On the Same Paige (10x06)

This episode had a few really lackluster moments, but it did have some good stuff to balance that out!

Cons:

Cam and Mitchell are the masters of physical comedy in this show, but sometimes my brain doesn't accept the ridiculousness, and this story was an example of that. Cam points out that Mitchell is afraid to live his life out loud, and Mitchell realizes that Cam is right, so he decides to put on a bee costume and join in with the charity performance at Lily's school that all the other dads are putting on. This all leads to Mitchell flying across the stage and accidentally knocking over a memorial picture of a recently deceased lunch lady. It was campy, and it added nothing to my understanding of these characters. That would be fine, but it also didn't really make me laugh, so that seems like a bit of a problem.

Similarly, Gloria and Jay's story didn't really ever take off for me. Jay has been talking with a mom at Joe's school, and Mitchell and Cam get him paranoid that he has been accidentally flirting with her. Gloria shows up at the school to monitor Joe, who keeps taking off the eye-patch that he's wearing to correct a lazy eye. Jay thinks Gloria is mistrustful of him. This all culminates as Joe and Jay both confess their misdeeds. Gloria thinks nothing of Jay's friendship, and is relieved that Joe is weak like his father and confesses his wrongdoings instead of lying with no sense of remorse like Gloria's side of the family.

The thing is... of course Gloria was fine with Jay having a friend at Joe's school. It would have been really creepy if she hadn't been. I know that jealousy is a mainstay in sitcom marriages, but it would be completely gross if a woman wouldn't let her husband have female friends. And Joe's eye-patch? That came right out of nowhere, and I'm almost positive we'll never see or hear of it again. It felt like the laziest of props.

Pros:

The Dunphy plot came so close to being stupid as well. In truth, it was a little bit uncomfortable at moments, but ultimately I feel like it worked really well. Basically, there's a girl in Phil's class named Paige who is dating Luke, but Phil thinks she's interested in him after seeing "Mrs. Dunphy" doodled in her notebook after he pays her compliments in class. Cue awkward misunderstandings as Paige comes over for dinner with Luke, and Phil thinks she's trying to seduce him. The punch-line? She totally was. She made the dinner for Luke, but in reality she was just hanging out with him to get closer to Phil.

This totally fooled me, as I thought the joke was going to be the expected one, of Phil making a fool of himself for assuming incorrectly. Instead, Luke was the one who lost out, although we do find out that poor Paige has some issues. Her father was a realtor and an amateur magician who abandoned the family, and her last three boyfriends have been fifty years old. This plot thread had a lot of double-meaning, what with Claire encouraging Paige and Luke's relationship while making it sound like she's encouraging Phil and Paige. Claire talks about an old paper she wrote on the Monroe Doctrine while making it sound like she's talking about Phil - "you made me realize this was something I should have stopped caring about twenty-five years ago!" etc. etc. The misunderstandings worked well because there was a larger misunderstanding arching over all of it. I feel like it worked much better than the same joke over in Jay and Gloria's plot thread.

So, there you have it. I'd love to spend more time seeing Phil as a teacher. It's refreshing that he's genuinely good at what he does and that his students like him. It's fun to see Phil fail, but it's rewarding to see him succeed. Hopefully we can get some substance in the coming weeks, as this still might be the show's final season.

7/10