Last night's episode of "Modern Family" felt incomplete, akin to a puzzle missing its final piece. Alright, several pieces were absent, but the most pivotal absence wasn't the lack of internet access or a wandering neighbor's dog, though those were indeed temporarily absent from the narrative landscape. For the second consecutive week, the episode concluded without the customary voice-over, and for that, we can offer a silent prayer of gratitude to the showrunner who made that inspired decision. The series may not always possess a grand, overarching message, but it is infinitely more engaging when it embraces this relaxed demeanor rather than forcedly pounding one home.
This week's installment was whimsically bizarre, induce-palpable-awkwardness levels of cringe, and occasionally tinged with a hint of creepiness — its dearth of syrupy sweetness serving as a delightful respite in itself.
The Pritchett-Dunphys found themselves at a crossroads when Claire, overwhelmed by her family's gadget addiction, decreed a week-long moratorium on all tech devices, including computers, cell phones, and games. Phil, albeit visibly distressed, stood by her side ("I'm fully on board with your mother's nostalgic journey back to simpler times"); their children, however, were less than enthusiastic. How, for instance, would Alex compose her science paper? "That's what the public library is for," Claire asserted. "I thought it was just a restroom for the homeless," Haley pondered aloud, unwittingly voicing the collective confusion of youth today.
To rally the troops, Phil announced that the last Dunphy to remain unplugged would win a prize of their choosing. Alex, yearning for a new computer, was the first to capitulate after earning a B on her science paper, having to rely solely on the family's outdated encyclopedias for research (a reminder of our own fourth-grade struggle to pen a report on velociraptors, thwarted by our mother's 1969 "World Books" that predated the species' discovery).
Luke was easily distracted from the promise of a hearty chicken potpie by a mesmerizing YouTube video of a para-sailing donkey. Claire, attempting to book tickets for the family to visit Phil's family in Orlando, slipped into a voice-recognition-software-induced frenzy, bordering on madness (Fred Willard cameo alert?!). And why did Claire's Mac Mail sport a circa-1998 AOL greeting? Meanwhile, Phil was on the brink of breaking his streak to check his fantasy football rankings when they overheard Haley, who had demanded a car as her prize, chatting away on her cell phone upstairs. Storming into her room, Phil declared himself the victorious holder-out, logging in to ax Tom Brady from his team, only to realize, "Good heavens, we've been Shawshanked!" Haley's phone was nothing more than a bar of soap, cleverly carved and colored with a black marker. She had been conversing with herself on it all week, hoping to outsmart them, a task that must have started excruciatingly dull but likely gained an unexpected edge after the initial Sharpie-induced high wore off. Alas, she still didn't get the car. Which, quite frankly, seems utterly unjust.
The Pritchett-Tuckers' World
Despite Lily's minimal on-screen presence, consisting merely of her fussy cries, Mitch and Cam have inexplicably become fixated on her education. Deceived by their playground acquaintances who falsely assured them they weren't enrolling their children in preschool for another year only to secretly sign them up to secure prime spots, the couple realized the gravity of the situation: Lily risked being left behind academically and socially if immediate action wasn't taken. "Leave it to us gays to raise the sole underachieving Asian in America!" Mitch joked, albeit bitterly. Claire came to their rescue by leveraging a favor from her brother to secure Lily a spot at Wagon Wheel, the prestigious preschool attended by all the Dunphy children. (Mini-drinking-game suggestion: Take a sip every time Cam utters "duckies" in this episode, and another whenever Mitch winces upon hearing it.)
Anxiety gnawed at them ("You should mention how she perks up whenever we watch Charlie Rose," suggested one. "That was a one-time thing, and he was interviewing Elmo," corrected the other.) However, their worries began to dissolve upon encountering a warm receptionist who pointed out that as a gay couple with a minority daughter, they could practically walk into any preschool in town, given their fervent commitment to diversity. For Mitch, if not for Cam's perpetual optimism, this revelation almost erased every hardship he had faced as a young gay man. ("This is the first time being gay is a competitive advantage. Imagine being picked first in gym class for once," he remarked, half-jokingly. "I always got picked first—I could throw a dodgeball through a piece of plywood, but I see your point," Cam replied, playfully.) Their spirits soared as they secured an interview at Billingsley, an elite school where students often shared the school's surname and where the headmaster's absence of Rowan Atkinson's portrayal came as a surprise.
But their hopes were swiftly dashed when they encountered an even more diverse couple in the waiting room: "Disabled interracial lesbians with an African-descent soccer prodigy?" Cam exclaimed in disbelief. "Didn't see that coming," he lamented, resorting to an absurd charade of pretending to be Native-American, much to Mitch's embarrassment and Lily's silent adorableness.
In the Pritchett-Delgado household, where battles have ranged from deceased grandmas and divine debates to excruciatingly awkward gatherings, Jay and Gloria this week find themselves entangled in a feud with the neighbor over an incessantly barking canine. "How can one yapping dog keep you awake when you've slept through cockfights and revolutions alike?" Jay gripes. The neighbor, confront, retaliates with a tinge of irony, "Isn't it ironic? Here you are, griping about a silly dog, yet I've never once complained about your parrot that squawks incessantly," as the scene transitions to a montage of Gloria shouting, "Jyay!" repeatedly.
When the dog mysteriously vanishes, Jay's imagination runs wild with the worst-case scenarios. Recalling an incident where he witnessed his wife ruthlessly dispatch a rat by their garbage cans with mere swift shovel strikes—a "shoobbel"—and acknowledging the Colombian "comfort level with terminating life," he's convinced Gloria has meted out a similar fate to the poor pooch.
The subplot then takes an amusing detour into the realm of a parody thriller, with Manny and Jay scrutinizing tools in the garage for any signs of their use in canine carcass carnage, only to be startled by Gloria's sudden appearance from nowhere. The truth behind her actions unfolds: she had stealthily spirited the dog away and entrusted it to the care of her hairdresser's children in the countryside, who, in gratitude, gifted her a jar of canned vegetables. "Now, the dog is content, Manny can rest peacefully, and we have pickles," she remarks. Jay, struck with guilt for his harsh judgments about his wife's native culture, ends the episode by surprising her with tickets for a trip to her home village. With Claire presumably having successfully secured their Orlando tickets online, could an "Airport 2011" episode be on the horizon?
