Modern Family: A Game of Chicken (11x06)

Hey, they gave Luke something kind of new and potentially interesting to do! Who would have guessed!

Cons:

Gloria trying to secretly baptize the twins was... really crossing a line, and also didn't really add anything. Gloria's characterization is all over the place. I did like one part of this plot thread, which I'll discuss in a moment, but overall I wasn't a fan. The super old priest didn't add any real comedy, although I guess it was nice to have a scene in Spanish for once.

Similarly, there was a moment or two that I enjoyed in Cam and Mitchell's plot thread, but the over all story was pretty shrug-worthy. Mitchell attacking a teenager in a dolphin costume, while wearing a chicken costume, should have been really funny. Instead it was kind of rote - there was nothing unexpected about what was happening here. Just a manufactured situation designed to look absurd. Cam having his feelings hurt by the school mascot isn't really related to the bigger question of whether Cam and Mitchell are going to move away for a new work opportunity for Cam. That's a more interesting story, and one I wish we could spend some time exploring.

Claire quitting work could be interesting, but I question it as the inevitable conclusion to the story this week. It felt like it came out of nowhere. I hope in the remaining episodes of the season, we get to actually look at what Claire looks like without her job. Is she going to try and find other employment? Is she going to stay home with the grand-kids? Sometimes Modern Family will do something that feels like a big move, but ends up going nowhere. I guess I'm just hoping that in this case, we get to see the results.

Pros:

My favorite comedic thread in this episode was Claire's assistant Margaret, and the recurring jokes about the Dunphy house being like a mansion. She kept using fancy terms for parts of the house, and Claire kept correcting her. "The wine cellar" is just a basement, etc. That stuff was really funny, and was actually an effective way to remind Claire and the audience of the privilege all of these characters have.

While Cam and Mitchell's plot wasn't my favorite of the night, I did like the moment when Cam drove up to pick up Mitchell from where he was wearing the bird costume and twirling the sign. "My love is not unconditional," Cam says as Mitchell climbs into the car. Mitchell slumps in the seat, dejected: "I love it when they honk for me."

So, while Gloria trying to baptize the twins felt very distasteful and wrong, I really liked the result, where Haley contemplates her relationship with faith and how she wants to celebrate that with her kids. She basically decides that she and Dylan should take the twins to Yosemite and say "thank you" for their blessings. It's not necessarily a God-specific thing, just more an acknowledgment of something greater than herself. That's sweet, and I liked that Haley was thoughtful about what she wanted to do. She could have just let Gloria drip some water on the babies, thus appeasing her own beliefs, but Haley wanted to think it through and make her own decision. I really liked that.

Surprisingly, my favorite aspect of this episode was the stuff with Luke. He has a business proposal with a venture capitalist he met at the club, for an app that helps retain medical information so that people don't have to fill out the same forms over and over again. Claire and Phil are expecting a horrible pitch, but are surprised to find it's an actually good idea. Phil is insecure about Luke going into business with this guy, as he feels jealous of the father/son vibes between them. Claire, meanwhile, had been adamant that Luke wasn't going to drop out of school to go into business, but after seeing the quality of the idea and the plan, is actually supportive.

As I said, Modern Family has a bad habit of introducing big ideas and then doing nothing with them. But last week, when Luke and his much older girlfriend broke up, I expressed a hope that they'd find something interesting for Luke to do. And so far, we seem to have made actual progress on that front. I'll be keeping an eye on this development!

7/10