Modern Family: A Moving Day (10x11)

Eh. This episode felt like kind of a letdown.

Cons:

First of all, I'm just a broken record at this point, but Jay, Gloria, and Manny's stories almost never work for me anymore. I'm hardly ever amused, even slightly. Manny is being controlled by his girlfriend, so Gloria controls Jay to get him to talk to Manny about it. It's... ironic, or whatever? Because Gloria is manipulative but doesn't like that Sherry is manipulative? I've got to say, this show can be incredibly tone deaf when it comes to issues of social justice and gender. There's this moment where Manny says something about how toxic masculinity is bad, and Jay then says "yeah, masculinity is bad, until someone needs to kill a spider!" I'm paraphrasing, but you get what I'm saying. In this moment, the framing is such that we're supposed to think Manny is wrong-footed for being "anti-masculinity." But he didn't say that. Nobody is saying that masculinity is bad. That's why you put the word "toxic" in front of it, guys. Irritating. Also, Sherry is boring and adds nothing.

Pam also adds nothing. She's not boring, but she is annoying. There were elements about Cam and Mitchell's story that I liked just fine, but Pam is pretty irritating most of the time. Also, although Lily isn't exactly a great example of child acting, I felt like her dry wit might have added something to these scenes.

Finally, while I continue to enjoy the focus on Haley's pregnancy, this was the first week where I felt like things fell too heavily back on sitcom cliches. We're supposed to believe that Haley and Dylan have grown and are capable of handling this grand adventure, but then we see the comically horrible apartment (converted garage) that they've rented, we see them forget Haley's doctor's appointment, and just generally fail at basic competency. Also, apparently Haley is having twins, because we've got to fall back on some other common sitcom drama tropes.

Pros:

But I don't want to be too harsh here. The stuff with Pam was effective insofar as it added a fun challenge for Mitchell. He was supposed to write to Pam's parole board to get her out of prison early, but he decided not to do so, because he felt like she deserved her sentence. Pam blackmails Mitchell, but the truth comes out. Eventually, Mitchell offers Pam the room upstairs, and we learn that this was yet another manipulation from Pam. Mitchell and Cam work best when they're at odds, hopefully in light, comedic ways, and not in ways that challenge their relationship too extremely. Here, we get that setup, where Mitchell is seemingly being unreasonable, Cam is siding with his sister, and Pam is the evil mastermind throughout everything.

Also, turning back to the stuff with Haley: I don't think this episode was awful in the way it portrayed Haley and Dylan, because ultimately this particular installment wasn't about Haley's feelings on impending motherhood. This was the episode during which we get to process Phil and Claire's feelings on things. In that context, it makes sense that we would frame these young parents-to-be in the most disorganized and immature way as possible. It gives Claire something extra to freak out over, and makes her moment of acceptance all the more powerful when it comes. I wish the content could have been balanced a bit better, but I get why they did things this way. The best moment comes during the ultrasound, when Haley is nervous that the heartbeat sounds so fast, and Dylan explains, calmly and gently, that this is normal. Dylan knows what he's talking about because of his training as a nurse, and that seems to help Claire understand that Dylan really is getting his life together.

On the other side of this equation, you have Phil, who is being upbeat and positive about everything, but has a moment of doubt and shares it with Jay. I think the writers have mostly run out of ideas for Jay's character, but he's at his strongest when he's the sage advice-giving patriarch, particularly when Phil is the advice receiver. This scene worked really well, as Phil can acknowledge what a goofy young kid he was when he started out with Claire, and he can see that maybe Dylan and Haley will have a bright future as well. Both Phil and Claire know that their lives worked out well in part because of the support of their larger family network, and they know that they can provide that support for Haley. I thought that worked really well.

Okay. That's what I've got for now. This episode wasn't a winner overall in my eyes, but it wasn't a train wreck and it didn't make me unduly angry, either. Let's see what the rest of the season brings!

7/10