Last night's 'Modern Family' was very much a by the numbers episode of this show. That's not to say it was a bad episode, which it wasn't. There was much about it I enjoyed, but it was a predictable episode that resolved itself exactly as I imagined - Phil gets in trouble over the car, Gloria learns to ride a bike only to have her fears proven true and Mitchell is right all along.
There was a lot of funny stuff in the Mitch/Cam plot, most of it rather silly, but I had trouble being against Mitchell, mainly because I don't believe in Reiki or spirituality or anything like that. I'm often the person not-so-subtly rolling his eyes at people's supernatural beliefs (which I accept is not my best quality). So I was glad to see that Barry (who was played with just the right mix of sweet, crazy and pretentious by James Marsden) turned out to be a complete nutjob, because I don't think I would enjoy an episode which ended with Mitchell accepting that he was wrong and actually there's something in this whole Reiki thing and we should all be a little more tolerant of everyone. Am I a bad person?
The Phil/Claire stuff was very much a textbook Phil/Claire storyline, which reminded me of 'The Stolen Bike' from the beginning of the first season. It pretty much played out the same way - but I loved Luke's little digs at the police. Speaking of Luke, I think Nolan Gould is absolutely killing it this season - his training Gloria with the super soaker was brilliant. I don't know whether it's the writing, Gould or a bit of both, but they manage to take Luke to these really funny places that they used to take Manny to.(*) What I like about Luke, though, is that they remind us that he's just an 11 year old kid again, such as Luke celebrating his success by squirting the super soaker in his mouth. Plus, we got that excellent tag at the end of the episode where he successfully got Hayley to remember who invented the alphabet. Great stuff.
(*)I wonder why Rico Rodriguez has been taken out of the equation recently? There was the funny episode where we saw Manny have a mid-life crisis, but I wonder if the writers just thought Manny as an old man in a young body just wasn't that funny anymore?
I don't watch Modern Family the same way I watch 'Fringe' or 'Chuck', or even other comedies like 'Parks and Rec' and 'Community'. It's chilled out viewing for me rather than hardcore fanatic, so I'm perfectly content with episodes that don't really push the boundaries but make me laugh a bunch of times anyway.
What did everyone else think?
