Modern Family: Legacy (11x11)

This episode sort of... passed me by. And I think maybe that was the point, but I'm not sure it stuck the landing.

Cons:

So the big "reveal" in this episode is that Phil's father dies. He goes on a trip to visit him, we see a fairly normal visit. They get into shenanigans with their car, Phil wants to make sure his father's mind is still all there, they go to a barber shop. And then the reveal lands, that this was Phil's last day with his father. The point is supposed to be that even a mundane day might be your last, so really appreciate all of your time with your loved ones.

I don't know... I don't want to be unfeeling, but this plot thread didn't make me... feel anything. How did Phil's dad die? He did seem perfectly healthy. A more daring story-line would have shown Phil struggling with an aging and ailing father, and making decisions about his care at the end of his life. That's more often what losing a parent really looks like.

There's also this little moment where Claire and Mitchell, having recently learned something new about the sacrifices their father made for them when they were kids, look at their dad with fond expressions, as if to say that they too know their time with their father might be short. That's... morbid? Especially since Jay still has a young child, who hopefully he will be around to raise for a long while yet.

And speaking of Claire and Mitchell, I really liked the idea behind their subplot, where they investigate old family memorabilia to try to catch their father in a lie about a vacation they went on as children. But even though the setup was good, the details weren't as funny as they could have been. I thought it was stupid how quickly they found old receipts and ticket stubs to corroborate their shaky memories. I don't know if you've ever gone through old boxes of stuff from childhood, but it's usually not quite as smooth as all that! The whole point of this plot thread is that Claire and Mitchell find out that Jay made sacrifices when they were young, picking up extra work as a bartender in order to pay his employees and get his Closets business off the ground.

Like... I don't hate this, or anything, but it just left me feeling kind of ambivalent. What was the point of Jay lying about the trip all these years? They never really came back around to that. And I was having way more fun with the idea of catching Jay out in a decades-long lie. I wanted the real truth to be something funny, not something bland and sentimental.

Pros:

I don't mean to be cruel to this particular installment... I didn't at all hate it. There were plenty of good details.

For one thing, Phil's scenes with his dad were quite lovely. They didn't work for me in terms of making his death feel poignant, but the comedic moments were nice, and I liked how Phil struggled with expressing his worry. That felt very true to life.

And I liked the recurring joke of Mitchell describing stuff from his younger life, and Claire just being flabbergasted that he got through all the bullying his tastes and habits must have incurred. I also thought it was funny that Claire had Jay's old assistant's phone number, and called her "Work Wife."

Surprisingly, my favorite plot thread of the night was Gloria, Manny, and Cam's. Usually I find Manny insufferable, but I liked the chaos of these three people with essentially different situations going on, all trying to give each other advice and help each other out with difficult interpersonal issues.

Manny tries to get the attention of a girl, and Cam's advice to do a big gesture ends up being overridden by Gloria's advice to give her the cold shoulder and let her come to him. This is a really tired and overplayed setup, but since we didn't actually see Manny being a jerk to this girl for no reason, I like the implications of what we didn't see - that Manny didn't do anything massively stupid, and the girl was interested enough to offer her number. Meanwhile, Cam is pissed off that another teacher stole his award, and Gloria helps him out by making this woman feel insecure about her new outfit. Petty and problematic? Yes. It still made me chuckle.

Gloria's problem is the richest and most interesting - she has a "swooper" trying to steal house sales from her, by coming in and telling the prospective buyers that there are problems with the places Gloria is showing. Gloria pulls a reverse "swoop" on this woman, with Cam, Manny, and Lily playing disorderly and unsuitable neighbors coming in to meet the nice couple. I liked seeing Gloria's plot thread as a realtor continue, and it was fun to see her in this capacity without Phil around, for once!

Lily is my stealth fave - I love how deadpan and cruel she is to everyone. I haven't really seen another child character on TV quite like her. Her disdain for Manny in particular was #relatable.

I think I'll stop there. I wasn't impressed by some of the bigger themes this episode tried to explore, but the individual moments worked just fine.

7.5/10