Modern Family - "Lifetime Supply"

Season 3, Episode 11

The latest episode of Modern Family had a structure that I liked – in that it allowed the family to come together at the very end – with some stories that I didn’t – because up until the closing scene, the families were once again separated under clichéd circumstances. The end result was a highly frustrating half-hour, as I felt the show mocking me with the possibilities of greatness, while simultaneously taking the easiest path to its storytelling.

One of the truest things about extended families, but which so many shows either unwilling or unable to depict, is the chaos and insanity that comes simply from putting a bunch of people in one space together. There’s this sort of unspoken rule that shows in the family drama have to over-correct in one direction or the other. Either everybody in the family has to be super-duper, unbelievably nice to one another, or these families have to be so broken or histrionic that they become un-relatable, and in both cases is become hard to buy that these people are supposed to be a family.

There have been some strides in recent years of course to make the family genre more realistic – and I would argue that Parenthood is the frontrunner in these attempts, although it’s not as if it’s a very deep race. At its best, Modern Family can hit these notes as well, or at least as well a comedy, which as a genre tends to rely on exaggerate character types and relationships can, but as I’ve said many times this season, the show is no longer at its best, and it tends to swerve too much in either direction. Either (and this is more often the case) everybody in the family is too quick to forgive someone, or, for the sake of comedy, they become unbelievable shriek-y and/or mean. (*cough*Claire*cough*Mitchell*cough*)

So I was pleasantly surprised with the closing minutes of “Lifetime Supply”, wherein the entire family got together in one place (yay!), in this case the Dunphy household, and, even more importantly, the show let their personalities bounce off of one another as a way to ratchet up the tension. As Phil worries about his missed Doctor’s call, he gets Gloria, who had a omen in her dreams worked up, and this is turn exacerbates an all ready agitated Cam and Mitchell, and further annoys an already irritated Jay. It was a beautiful piece of setup that brought all of the discrete plot lines together into one giant ball of manic energy. It was glorious.

The problem with this scene, of course, was the general predictability of all the storylines leading up to it. We knew that Phil’s missed call was going to be a simple misunderstanding, because that’s how this show works, and it’s not about to stick him with some bad news. We knew that Jay would be shown up my Javier’s ridiculous method for picking winning horses over his more rational approach, because that’s how it’s been done for decades. And as far as the Gloria and Cam/Phil storyline were concerned, neither of them really went anywhere, but that’s not really by big concern, as I was much more bothered by the fact that they seemed to trade in on past stereotypes (Latinas’ belief in the supernatural, gay people’s bitchiness) that was both offensive and under-serving of the character. (The same thing can be said about Javier’s insane method for picking horses, on not the under-serving his character part. This was only his second appearance, so he has not character to under-serve.)

I also wasn’t bothered by the less developed storylines this time around because I think the show found a way to make less developed beats work. Things like Gloria suddenly coming over to tutor Haley in Spanish, or Walt coming over to play video games with Luke may not be particularly motivated (and does Phillip Bake Hall have nothing better to do?), but they were great little additions to the mad-cappery of that final scene, and they also served as great fodder for the “Phil looks on longingly/creepily at his family in the face of perceived mortality” gag. I only wish that the show would keep such joke telling up – and that they would come up with more original punch lines.

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

Add this to the list of offensive stereotypes in tonight’s episode: Cam and Mitchell leering at Javier. Because you know, all gay guys are lascivious like that.

“Now you’re playing Logic Police? You’re standing on a staircase in a meadow.”

“A real petting zoo would have been cleaner.”

“What? Two blades in one razor? It’ll never get better than this!.”

“Win a war sometime. Then we’ll start talking like you.”

“No, he’s not weird! He’s a saint, and you’ll miss him when he’s gone!”

“I could also see her as a cop.”

“Though I try to stay neutral in the whole east coast/west coast debacle.”