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Modern Family: Season 2, Episode 22 – Good Cop Bad Dog

With just a few episodes left in the season, Modern Family was new again this week with Good Cop Bad Dog. This episode dealt with role reversals in each of the families, and for the most part it was fairly successful.

Let’s look at the Dunphys first, as they were the strongest story of the evening. Claire is sick of being the “bad cop” so she insists that Phil and her trade styles. Claire takes Luke and Manny go-karting and tells Phil to stay home and make sure that the girls clean their bathroom. Both of them take it way too far, in classic Dunphy fashion. Claire is so dead set on the boys having fun that she can’t even realize that they are miserable.

Meanwhile, Phil makes the mistake of trusting Haley and Alex, and they sneak off without actually cleaning their bathroom. Upon realizing this, he chases them out of the house and jumps on Haley’s car! This throws Phil over the edge, and he makes them clean the bathroom until its spotless, and then assigns them other household projects while refusing to feed them.

Mitch and Cam have tickets to see Lady GaGa, but Cam has fallen ill. Mitch wants to go to the concert anyway, but feels guilty because Cam always takes care of him. (We get to see a funny flashback of Cam carrying Mitch into the kitchen.) Once Cam chugs some Nyquil, Mitch decides to sneak off without him. Not much meat to this storyline, but it provided some chuckle-worthy moments.

That brings me to what I think is the weakest storyline of the evening. Gloria has invited a man over to the house so that he can get business advice from Jay. The man (played by Lin-Manuel Miranda) has a lot of enthusiasm, but a strange idea for a “good doggie, bad doggie training system.” Jay in his crippling honesty tells the man that his idea is terrible. Jay convinces Gloria that she has to learn to say no, to which Gloria responds by taking the man’s dog so that he can move. Jay holds firm and decides to take the dog away. I have two problems with this whole story-arch.

First, the premise is centered around the fact that Gloria collects needy people and tries to help them. Haven’t we seen that exact same story play out with Cameron? Second, I was hoping for a great guest appearance from Lin-Manuel Miranda (who wrote and originally stared in the Tony award winning Broadway musical “In the Heights,” one of my personal favorites.) However, he didn’t have much to work with, as his character was written with zero depth. The best part of this story was Gloria confusing sugar coating for “putting on a sugar jacket.”

In the end, the writers tried to tie all of the story lines together under monologue delivered by Gloria about why people end up with the people they love. Jay ends up being the one who can’t say no, and he takes the dog back home. Mitch tries to pretend that he’s been by Cam’s side the entire time, but he has a neon necklace on, which he forget to stop from blinking. When Claire brings the boys home, she and Phil decide that they fit best in the roles they already have. (Good, we need Phil to be the fun one.) All in all, this episode was not as good as last week, but I’ve come to expect a lot from Modern Family. I enjoyed two of the three stories, which is a fairly decent score.

Memorable quotes below the jump:

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Modern Family – Mother’s Day

Modern Family was new this week with “Mother’s Day,” the 21st episode of the second season. Sitcoms always place an extra emphasis on holiday-themed episodes because they can be very relatable, and this episode was a worthy reflection of all the show’s moms. With Mother’s Day just around the corner, Modern Family served up an episode that was both witty and a tear jerker.

Starting with Mitchell and Cameron, they are dealing with the definition of parenting roles. Mitch serves Cam breakfast in bed, and he takes this to mean that he is the “mother” between the two of them. Even at a picnic for Lily’s play group, the women invite Cam into their picture as an “honorary mom.” Cameron is feeling increasingly insulted as he realizes that everyone considers Mitchell the “husband” and Cam the “wife” in their relationship. Mitch explains that they are just a new type of family and that the right vocabulary to describe them doesn’t exist. Out of anger, he grabs a football and throws it as hard as he can…right at an old man. He then chases after him, and Mitch has to remind him to not flail his wrists.

Meanwhile, Claire and Gloria take their children on a nature hike, and all the kids can do is whine. Out of anger, Claire decides to leave them behind so that she and Gloria can enjoy their day. This prompts a conversation between the two of them about how sometimes their kids can annoy them. Claire provokes Gloria until she finally admits that she can be slightly irritated by Manny. She calls him “persnickety” and says his poetry isn’t that good. She turns around to find Manny standing right behind her. Down the hill, Luke, Haley and Alex decide to not apologize for their actions this time. They finally think they have discovered a way to beat Claire at her own game.

While the ladies are away with the children, Jay and Phil are cooking a Mother’s Day feast. Flipping through a recipe book, Phil finds a poem that Jay wrote for his mom when he was nine years old. Upon reading the poem, Jay starts to tear up a little. When the entire family comes home for dinner, Mitchell recalls a story about his grandmother. Jay then tells a story about his mother yelling in the face of his little league coach, which causes him to finally let his tears go. Haley breaks her own rule and apologizes to Claire, followed shortly by Alex and Luke. And in typical sitcom fashion, everyone starts crying and hugging each other.

With only three episodes left in the second season, I look forward to Wednesday nights more and more every week. Modern Family will be new the next few weeks leading up to and including the season finale. Unless the upcoming episodes are absolutely terrible, I think I can safely say that the series has not experienced a sophomore slump like a lot of strong-starting series do. What do you think? Has the second season of Modern Family been better than the first?

Memorable quotes are below the jump:

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Dancing with the Stars: Goodbye, My Friend

Last night our stars were tasked with impressing ballroom legend Donnie Burns, and they (mostly) delivered. Romeo and Kirstie found themselves on the outs with the judges, which is usually not a good sign. But our ballroom is a fickle friend, and everyone should be… Read More »Dancing with the Stars: Goodbye, My Friend

Dancing with the Stars: In the Presence of Greatness

We’re down to six couples, and it’s time to separate the best from the rest. There’s a mirrorball trophy on the line, people. Tonight, each couple must perform two dances, their usual routine plus the dreaded (for me, anyway) team dance. And tonight there was… Read More »Dancing with the Stars: In the Presence of Greatness

Extreme Makeover Home Edition – Must Watch TV?

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted about Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I used to watch the show religiously, but I deleted it from my record list about two seasons ago. It was some combination of the show hitting the same emotional tones over… Read More »Extreme Makeover Home Edition – Must Watch TV?

Dancing with the Stars: Guilty as Charged

Last night was Guilty Pleasures Week, and there wasn’t too much to be embarrassed about. All our stars turned in respectable performances, nothing horrific happened, which means tonight’s cut will be all the more devastating. Tonight’s results show was preceded by a one hour show… Read More »Dancing with the Stars: Guilty as Charged

Dancing with the Stars: Guilty Pleasures

It’s Guilty Pleasures Week on DWTS, which means all of tonight’s dances will be interpretations of America’s Next Top Model, Jersey Shore, Real Housewives of [Insert City], or any reality show starring Bret Michaels. Not that I would know anything about those shows. Of course not.

Actually, it means our stars will be dancing to classic guilty pleasure songs, which is way less exciting than it sounds. And I was about to be all, pssssh please with this episode … and then Hanson performed. HANSON. As in, my first concert. As in, the boy band whose pictures ripped from the pages of BOP magazine adorned my bedroom. Hanson. On Dancing with the Stars. Ohemgee. (Also, “MMMBop” sounds totally strange when it’s being sung by farmer-men instead of prepubescent boys, yes?)

Kirstie and Maks
Dance: Samba
Guilty Pleasure: Baby One More Time
Verdict: Kirstie had a small tantrum in rehearsals and I think the competition is starting to take its toll. This was a decent performance, and she thankfully didn’t have any mishaps, but it felt like her heart wasn’t in it. The samba is a party dance, but I wasn’t feeling it.
Carrie Ann: “I want to see you in the finals.” – 8
Len: “You’ve never fulfilled the potential I saw in week one, until today.” – 9
Bruno: “Hit me Kirstie one more time!” – 9

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Modern Family recap: The Musical Man

Ed: Please welcome back Adam Britten. I promise to get him a full user account for the next recap.

After taking another short hiatus, Modern Family returned last night for “The Musical Man.”  This episode introduced us to Jay’s brother Donnie, played by Jonathan Banks. Their storyline revolved around the fact that Donnie and Jay have some distance between them due to poor communication.  The only times they talk, they are either picking on each other or making a joke. (Too similar to the relationship between Phil and his dad, if you ask me.)

Speaking of Phil, he’s taken the initiative to increase his “brand awareness” as a Realtor by wrapping the Dunphy’s minivan with an advertisement, complete with a picture of the whole family.  (Claire and Haley actually end up on opposite sides of the car, with the rest of the family on the back – this is where it gets funny.)  As Claire and Haley are driving through town, several cars honk while passing by.  Claire dismisses it, not realizing that the text near the picture is….suggestive.  Phil’s phone is ringing off the hook, and of course he thinks that people are calling to look at a house, and later finds out what’s going on when people start asking for “the hot blonde.”  Claire, who has been upset that her better years might be behind her, has her confidence boosted by the fact that she received more calls than Haley.

Meanwhile, Cameron is deeply invested in turning a middle school concert into a full-blown spectacle.  He has been named interim musical director of Franklin Middle School, and he decides to finally give their show some “flare” and a theme.  The show has been rebranded as “a musical trip around the world” and Cameron is prepared to teach the entire set before the performance that night.  Of course, disaster ensues during the production.  Luke is stuck hanging in a harness above the stage, even while saying the line “learning about the world was fun, but I’m glad to have my feet back on the ground.”  Cameron directed the children to hold up letter cards which would spell out “WE LOVE THE WORLD.” Luke’s absence combined with Franklin’s insignia being lowered into just the right spot caused the children to actually spell out “WE LOVE THE F WORD.”

Back to Jay’s brother, who we find out has cancer.  This causes Jay to treat him differently, which upsets Donnie.  The brothers agree to resume their normal relationship, which is sealed by Jay punching Donnie in the stomach.

Yes, this episode was funny. Generally, every episode of Modern Family has that quality. However, I do not think this episode was as good as the previous episode, or the ones before that.  What did you think of “The Musical Man?”

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Adam Britten is a student social media strategist and marketing major at Syracuse University.  Read about him more at www.AdamBritten.com or @AdamBritten.

Don’t miss the memorable quotes below the cut:

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