Season 3, Episode 5
A story, in two
parts
For all I’ve talked about the problems Modern Family has had with its structure, I’ve failed to explicitly state another general rule of television:
a good structure doesn’t make up for a lack of poor jokes or a lacking setup,
but it can help. Or, to put it another way, I found the first half of “Hit and
Run” to be very trying, but the back half was far more entertaining, even if
that’s not saying much.
The episode tonight had about seven plots, depending on
how you were counting – Clair trying to run for office and then backing out, Phil
trying to take care of the kids, Haley’s attempts to get a fake ID, Jay having
problems getting the son of a former business partner to buy his bid to build
closets, Manny doesn’t want to make a “flashy” project, Gloria thinks she has
all the answers, and Cam and Mitchell squabble over the latter’s
confrontational streak. Yes, that was a lot of plots for 22 minutes, none of
which were really all that funny or original, and I was soon questioning why I
even bother to watch this show anymore.
But then the halfway point hit, and some of these
storylines started coming together when the whole clan gathered together at Jay’s
house. Gloria, tired of no one listening to her answers, convinced Claire to
run for office. When the family learns about Haley’s botched fake ID buy, Phil,
Jay, Cam and Mitchell head over to the guy’s house to get back the money, and Mitchell
takes down the guy, which somehow evens things up with Cam, because no episode
of this show can ever end without out all the story lines at least pretending
to be resolved. And Gloria uses the power of her awesome cleavage to solve Jay’s
problems, while everybody pretends that that isn’t sexist in the slightest.
I’m not going to say that any of this was good or
terribly interesting, but the second half of the episode did feel a whole lot more
effortless than the first. As I’ve explained before, MF is at its best when it stops trying to be a throwback to 90s sitcoms
and is just itself. And considering that the family, the whole of it, is the
show, having the family converge on one or two shared locations and just having
them and their problems bounce off of one another is what it does best. As much
as I despise all the plotlines that the show likes to cram into just one
episode, I’d feel better about it if I knew they were going to converge
together by the end. And if the convergence happens sooner. And if they were
more original.
Quotes, Etc:
Also making the storylines more palatable this week:
fantastic guest stars. We had David Cross as Daune Bailey, Claire’s new
political opponent; Samm Levine as the condo developer that butt heads with
Jay, and The Guy Who Played Todd in Last Week’s Community Episode as the fake ID maker. (Okay, so that last one
wasn’t really a guest star of note, but it did make me smile to see that actor,
whoever he is, show up on two shows within a week.)
“Enjoy the show. I was always a fan of the Muppets, especially
the two guys in the theatre that never shut up.”
“I want to be homeschooled.” “Really? You want me to
learn you English?”
“And you’re easy on the eyes when you put a little effort
into it.”
“I’ll admit it: I’m tuned on my powerful women. Michelle
Obama, Oprah, Condoleezza Rice, Serena Williams….wait a minute…”
“Heh heh…assets.”
“Pssh, the police. Aren’t they too busy winning the War
on Drugs?”
“Shotgun!” “No, no weapons.”
“Help, he’s slipping out of his skinny jeans.”
“The Fabulous Baker Boys. The title was misleading. A lot of Michelle Pfeiffer, that’s all I’m saying.”
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