Modern Family: Tree's A Crowd (11x08)

This episode sure does... exist. It's not strictly speaking terrible, for any specific reason... but it slipped out of my brain pretty much the second I watched it. Just... bland.

Cons:

The blandest and yet somehow still the most annoying plot thread goes to... Jay, Gloria, and Manny. Big shocker there. Apparently Manny has been dumped by Sherry Shaker, and Gloria wants Luke to go to Sherry and talk Manny up so she'll take him back. Instead, Luke is charmed by her improv comedy skills and ends up kissing her. This is paired with a plot where Gloria accuses Jay of being unfeeling, so Jay tries to find Manny a new girlfriend. The climax of this thread comes when Jay tells Luke to get out, that he's disappointed in him, because Luke kissed Sherry. This is supposed to prove that Jay does have empathy.

First of all, I made myself bored just writing out that plot thread. Second of all, Manny is truly insufferable as a character. I mean it. Whenever he's onscreen I'm just prepared to cringe. I also hate it when they take something stupid and try to make it poignant. I think we were supposed to feel genuine emotion about Luke betraying Manny and Jay standing up for him, but it just did not work for me. If I thought they were going to spend some real time on it, explore Luke and Manny's relationship from this point forward, I'd be more on board. But it's not going to happen. Any amount of connection I felt to Manny's character died long ago.

Cam and Mitchell's new lesbian friends appeared out of nowhere, and ostensibly will never appear in the story again. I liked what we saw of them, but it felt like a waste of time for them to be there so briefly! Cam or Mitchell donating sperm to a friend could have been a big life-changing thing, a way to mix up the characters before the show ends. I'm a little bummed that we're not getting that. Although I do suspect that maybe Cam and Mitchell will be moving away at the end of the season, so at least that's something to add some drama.

Pros:

As I said, I liked the lesbian friend characters, especially when they hide their new Lyft driver/sperm donor from Cam and Mitchell at the end. That was pretty funny. I could have used more, but I liked what I got. I also appreciated that the story didn't just stay on one expected beat, with Cam and Mitchell arguing over who should donate. They got off of that pretty quickly and moved on to other things, which I liked.

I found Phil and Claire's plot thread the most successful of the night. They are getting fed up with Dylan's mom, who has come to stay, and also with Claire's step-dad, who keeps calling to reminisce about his dead wife. They have an idea to pair the two hippies up with each other, so that they stop bothering the Dunphys. This backfires when instead they become convinced that the tree in the backyard, with DeDe's ashes, is upset with the idea of her husband moving on to someone new.

The stuff with Phil's magic tricks and the signs from the tree was actually really cute and charming. It came from genuine character emotions, but was still light-hearted. Claire misses her mother, but it's not some big dark character moment. It's fitting with the tone of the show, the tone of these characters.

I could probably go on, but I'll stop things there for the time being. This show is just... a giant shrug for me these days. I don't really know what more I can say.

6.5/10