Generally speaking, dramas use their penultimate episodes to deliver the biggest surprises in terms of plot and character. That leaves room for the comedown, for the show to settle all of its stories and wrap up any dangling threads. Sitcoms usually work in a different way; it’s all about the finale. Next week Modern Family goes off the air forever with a two-part finale. Thus, this week’s episode is a lot of setup. It’s putting in place the building blocks for what looks like a finale about change and the struggle that comes with it. Thankfully, “I’m Going To Miss This” isn’t just setup, it’s also partly rewarding in its own right.
Well, not all of it is rewarding. As I’ve mentioned in a few recaps from this season, the show’s taken a bit of a strange path in its final season. Outside of Cam and Mitchell adopting a new baby, there hasn’t been all that much change for these characters. The show’s been weirdly in its usual groove, throwing out random comedic storylines and never really committing to anything long term. That extends to this week’s episode, where Claire and Phil get stuck, well, being Claire and Phil.
You see, the kids threw a party while Claire and Phil were away on a trip, and now, with an Easter party planned for the twins, the kids are scrambling to hide what they did. They try to keep their parents away from the scene of the crime, telling them to take a nap while they do all the work. But Phil and Claire—well, mostly Claire—take offense to the suggestion, wanting to prove that they’re grandparents in title only, that their youthful vivacity is still intact.
Thus begins a rather excruciating collection of scenes where Phil and Claire try to set themselves apart from the older grandparents at the party while also failing to connect with the guests younger than them. It’s all the stale jokes you can imagine; the older crowd gets jokes about bad backs and comfy shoes, while the younger crowd uses lingo that Phil and Claire can’t keep up with. It’s all incredibly corny and unfunny and I can’t help but think there’s more for Phil and Claire to do at this point. Hopefully next week’s finale, where they’re meant to head out on that trip they talked about in previous episodes, results in something more substantial.
Jay and Manny’s story from this week isn’t nearly as bad. The two end up challenging each other to a wine tasting competition to prove who knows more about wine, a competition spurred on by Manny’s recent meeting with a wine club. There’s a lot of the usual generational conflict that’s predictable, but there’s also a climax that makes it all worth it. It’s pretty cliche in itself, but essentially Manny and Jay have a good time during their tasting, and briefly agree to not see who the winner is so that they can retain the purity of their evening. Of course, Manny goes back to see if he was the winner, and Jay revels in that. But that’s the point. They share this competitive nature, and while this isn’t any sort of earth shattering emotional reveal, it’s a welcome denouement for Jay and Manny’s relationship, which the show never really figured out how to handle beyond the obvious comedy of opposites failing to get along.
That brings us to Cam and Mitchell, who are anchoring this final season. Their journey, from considering a move back to Cam’s hometown to adopting a new baby, has provided this final season with its only moving arc. Now, the baby is two weeks away, they’re moving into their new house, and Mitchell is predictably freaking out. I can’t say this episode digs into ideas of handling change in an sort of significant way, but it does manage to boil down that idea and apply it specifically to Cam and Mitchell. The episode does a good job of showing how these characters handle these types of circumstances: Mitchell freaks out, Cam remains calm, and then when the baby comes early and they have to bring him home, they both panic. That leaves Lily to be the one with psychological insight, showing them how they always panic and end up fighting with each other before coming together in the end to do what they need to do.
It’s a great coda for the series’ penultimate episode. It’s touching and sickly sweet, and affirms that while the rest of the show seems to be stuck with meaningless storylines, Cam and Mitchell are getting an appropriate send-off. Here’s hoping they stick the landing next week.
Stray observations
- “That was your last eye roll in this house.”
- I made it through that whole review without mentioning python eggs.
- “We got this.”
- Next week, folks. See you then for the two-part finale and my final words on Modern Family.
24 Comments
The Cam/Mitchell plot was good, both funny and with that unexpectedly sweet Lily moment of summarizing their relationship dynamic. The Jay/Manny thing was fine. The Dunphys acted like idiots. Gloria’s movers plot was odd. Other than acknowledging how unlikely her crazy resume is, I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Any chance the documentary comes/came out in the finale? Like on both versions of The Office?
Yeah…why were these people behaving like they were in a documentary or a reality show? Or does that just get ignored?
Why were they in Parks and Rec? At this point it’s just a stylistic convention
yes, good point. The Office at least stayed canonical
I remember in the first couple of episodes they had text appear identifying each character, to really emphasize the documentary approach, but then they abandoned it, so I think at this point it’s documentary style, but not documentary as an actual plot device.
11 years, and they finally give Lily something of a role in the family. I had “never” in the pool, so there’s money lost.
The one thing that I found really off was Alex allowing herself to get blackmailed by the neighbor.I mean she is the smartest one in the family, recent arc had her in a high-powered position within a biotech company, the most straight laced person there.But she would now let a creepy middle aged neighbor essentially blackmail her into doing college online classes, cooking dinner, applying spray tan on him and wearing a Harley Quinn outfit for the neighbor’s game night buddies. Seems really off for her character.
Yeah and I also found it like off putting. Like why was this a thing for? Why did they have a character get blackmailed into doing creepy things in your lighthearted sitcom?
Maybe Alex’s secret kink is being blackmailed. Luke’s into women his mom’s age, so anything can happen…
Did I miss the episode where Cam and Mitchell adopted a cat? Why was there a cat in the episode? Did they always have a cat?Also why did they have a creep blackmail a woman and get away with it? Like why was he a thing? Can he just die? Who allowed Harvey Weinstein to write a Modern Family subplot? That seemed super icky dude. I didn’t like that subplot at all. Hopefully the season finale is him getting arrested and dying in jail.Finally it’s nice to finally have an episode where everyone shows up. Nice for the penultimate episode of the show to finally figure out that Cam and Mitchell had a kid and Phil and Clair had a son. That’s nice of the writers.
https://modernfamily.fandom.com/wiki/Larry
Everything about the party plot was stupid. That’s what you write when your characters are teenagers, not in their 20s. Do the kids still live at home? Why? One’s a staffer at GOOP and one’s a scientist. Those are good, well-paid jobs. Even without that, THESE KIDS ARE IN THEIR 20s, ffs. Why would they even need to hide at that age? That’s when you can tell your parents what you’re doing and they won’t care as long as nothing’s messy or broken when they get back. Yeah, and the smart kid getting duped? And the scheming good-with-people kid? And the way that plot was written was so weird. The kids go crying to mommy was such an unsatisfying ending. It was a weird setup to put that actress in a Harley Quinn outfit.
Agreed. What a waste of Jon Daly…
I could have done without the larger python plot, but “Why do people only want to talk about my snake, gah!” was a funny gag.
Between this and Better Things, there have been entirely too many snakes on my TV recently!
It annoyed the hell out of me. I breed Ball Pythons (the type of snake the guy had). Snake eggs don’t hatch the day after they’re laid. It takes a couple of months or more, depending on the species. And besides, WTF was he doing bringing her out in public if she was gravid in the first place?But, as for the “Why do people keep asking…” gag, I worked in pet stores for about 20 years and I had a family come in with a baby Capuchin monkey they just bought. The mother was holding it and gave a bitchy attitude whenever someone asked her about it (and only about 3 people asked). Sorry, bitch, but it’s not every day that someone sees a monkey in a diaper. If you don’t want attention, then don’t bring the monkey out in public.
In the finale, it will be revealed that all of this was the dream of an autistic child staring into a snow globe of Phil’s magic shop.
Phil doesn’t own a magic shop, he owns a parking lot!
At one point he did own a magic shop. Claire bought it for him in season nine, because I guess wives can just buy stores for their husbands in Modern Family.
Wait, didn’t Jay convince Phil to sell the parking lot? Man, this show has had a lot of weird cul-de-sacs… “Let’s have Gloria run a hot sauce business for three episodes! Let’s have Phil teach real estate at a community college for no reason!”
yeah, that’s what I was getting at, Phil owns three businesses (since he started his own real estate brokerage also)! and I forgot about teaching at the community college…
Modern Family still has charm to burn and boasts a uniformly excellent cast, but the series’ subversive edge has dulled.And many thanks to sharp writing and an eccentric but exceedingly likable cast of characters, Modern Family signals the triumphant return of the Jeonju chuljanganma hugi
https://www.baidu.com/
As for the Alex subplot…Yeah, the guy was creepy. I’d punch him if I saw him coming on to my daughter, but that’s the point, right?I don’t view Alex’s acquiescence as actual acquiescence. To me, it figures that the intellectual would be the one who’d like a bit of kink in her love life. Think back to the ‘Creepy Craig’ episode. I’m not going to look up the exact quote, but there was something along the lines of ‘now spank butt with magazine’ with the obvious implication that she did.When she goes along with what Doggy Doug (is that a rapper?) wants, I saw the look on her face as not a victim of coercion, which would be unfunny beyond reason, but someone who’s asking herself, ‘why am I kind of liking this?’The show has hinted before about a wild child behind the RB-G wannabe, and it gives some fun shading to a character that could easily be presented as a politically correct poster child.There will be those that disagree. I can already hear the flamethrowers cranking up to Spinal Tap 11. Toast me.