The Moth Chase

Making Tradition Bigger

So I’m new to the Modern Family watching, but I’ve quickly come to love it! With each episode I love each character just a little more, and last night was no exception. It captured everything that makes this show so great – I laughed my ass off through the whole thing and then got a little weepy at the beauty and wisdom with which it closed.

Three key storylines: Mitchell and Cameron accidentally get a mall Santa fired for not being fat enough and that Santa teaches them an important lesson about forgiveness; the Dunphys attempt to cancel Christmas when they think they’re kids are smoking liars but reinstate it when Alex is willing to sacrifice herself so everyone else can have their holiday; and Gloria, Jay and Manny battle over whose Christmas is the true Christmas in the ongoing give and take of new multi-cultural life together.

What I liked about the Delgado-Pritchett storyline was that the competing traditions were, in many ways, irreconcilable. You can’t go to bed at 9pm and stay up all night. You can’t open one present the day before and all presents the day before. Joke versions of a favourite Christmas movie effectively ruin that Christmas movie. And so an additive approach just wouldn’t work. The word ‘tradition’ might get a lot bigger, but it can’t do so simply by doing everything and letting that chaos reign.

And so Jay learns a more important lesson – the holidays are special because of the traditions we repeat, the new traditions we create, but also because of the moments of surplus to and aberration from everything we try to put in place. We remember the Christmas our parents went crazy, for example.

Ok, so if you don’t watch this show yet, a) you should and b) all that probably sounds kind of after-school-special schmaltzy. But the first 19mins of hilarious ironic humour and riotous observational quips makes room for the final 2mins of life-lessons.

Best line in the episode: Jay asking Manny, “How can you sit on the baby Jesus’ lap? You’d squish it!” and the runner up, Cam about the New Greensleeves, “It’s like people are applauding out of shock!”

I’m just sad that this was their Christmas episode because that probably means we’re not getting any new ones before the new year – that being said, it gives all us late-comers a chance to catch up on the re-runs that will inevitably be running all season long.

Posted by Natalie

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Up All Night

Another hilarious yet sweet episode of Modern Family! Our three families tonight performed three great stories of how to be a dad.

Eschewing annoying narratives of masculinity that would dictate Javier and Jay must square off for Gloria’s or even Manny’s attention, the two quickly come together to love Manny together. Jay even learns how to be more spontaneous from Javier after Javier admits his own insecurities in regards to Jay’s success. In the end, it’s Jay who is left abandoned by Javier after being seduced into friendship with him. Rather than a pissing contest, then, we have Jay discovering that the ups and downs both Gloria and Manny know from Javier are something with which he can empathize.

Dads can be empathetic.

Mitchell and Cam argue over the ‘ferberizing’(?) method, with Mitchell wanting Lilly simply to cry it out and Cam wanting to be the big mother bear who just cares for her crying cub. In the end we learn that the disagreement isn’t really about Mitchell wanting to set aggressive boundaries (although really, babies should not be watching Scarface!), but about his fear that Lilly will love Cam more. The solution – Cam reminds Mitchell that they’ll both walk her down the aisle one day.

Dads can be emotionally over-reactive.

And Phil gets a kidney stone that requires minor surgery and an overnight in the hospital. While assuring his family that he’ll be fine, he also blurts out panicked statements that he has cancer and that Luke needs to learn all the pin numbers in case he doesn’t make it through.

Dads can be big kids.

Tying these stories of alternative masculinities together, though, is the great thread of those manly men firefighters. Claire quickly sexes it up when she realizes that the firemen are coming to save her husband, much to Phil’s chagrin (although we also catch him flirting with numerous ladies in his ward), and Cam and Mitchell call the firefighters in together for Mitchell’s ankle as Cam cutely films the guys carrying Mitchell out to safety.

Oh, and of course, in reference to the episode’s title – what can keep men up all night? Baseball and bonding, screaming babies, and kidney stones!

My only question is, why didn’t we get to see more of those firefighters?!

Best lines in the episode:
Phil to Luke in regards to the ouija board – “That wasn’t wind buddy. We brought something forth” – I love his childlike earnestness!

And Phil listing the immediate perks of getting one up on one’s spouse – “A week at circus camp” – really, had I known that was a smaller perk, I’d cash in sooner when my husband ended up in the doghouse for something!

In sum, I love Phil!

Posted by Natalie.

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First, let me add my voices to those expressing deep joy and gratitude that Modern Family has been renewed for a second season – wise choice ABC! We’re very happy with you! That being said, this was the first time this show kind of missed the boat for me. Perhaps I’ve come to expect too much? Perhaps I was just too excited hot on the heels of the renewal news. But it felt like tonight had a few too many dull moments and, dare I say it, obvious jokes.

The dog butler certainly began as a a great joke, and it set up the theme for the evening in each family (which I’ll get into in a moment), but it quickly became stale and repetitive. Did Gloria really think that Jay was in love with his dog butler? Of course not! So why storm out of Cam and Mitchell’s house at the end as if she really thinks a dog/Jay wedding is taking place? It didn’t make sense. And Luke’s “was she hot?” was so immediately obvious that Phil’s overwrought answer just seemed over the top to me.

So this is the moment, Modern Family – please don’t get caught in a rut! It’s kind of like what happened with Glee – we had some great characters set up, but then they got quickly trapped in the ways they’d been set. Modern Family is just too creative and mold-breaking to go down this path…I hope! It needs to stick with the oft-made Arrested Development comparison, with which any action a character did that was oh so true to character wasn’t obvious or repetitive or stale, but was instead a deeper, even funnier revelation of the character we all knew.

Ok, all that being said – there still were some great moments in the show! And so the theme for the three families this evening was the ways in which a spouse can bring things into the house you don’t want – be it a dog butler, a gardener (and all his family and a wedding), or porn. And in each scenario, the offended spouse manages to expunge the offending object/person/picture from their house; hence the victorious title for the episode, “Not in my house”!

Making a dog butler, a gardener (and all his family and a wedding), and porn serve the same function in a narrative is truly brilliant – in each there is a humanizing and dehumanizing aspect (the anthropomorphic dog, the gardener whose name no one knows, and an objectified woman), and each resolves in a somewhat unexpected way. The dog butler is the greatest offense and can’t be handled by anybody. The weeping gardener ends up having his wedding in Cam and Mitchell’s house, while Mitchell learns to accept Cam as the helpoholic he is. And perhaps what some would consider to be the greatest offense – the porn – ends up being no problem at all. Claire is just so happy it’s not Luke’s.

Tonight revealed a deeper need for the show – so many of us have lauded the way in which the family narratives are each able to stand alone, but I’m starting to think that they might require a little more integration into each other. We had that tonight with the dog butler story (and I loved the carry over from last week with Cam and Jay’s relationship continuing to blossom as Cam was the one whose photograph was taken with Barkley at the beginning of the episode), but perhaps we could break up the spousal defined stories and have our themes play out across the families or, now and again, move away from the model of three sets of people each performing a different version of the same problem. This would help keep it fresh, I think.

Now that the show is renewed for its second season, it’s going to need to start thinking long term.

Cam and Mitchell definitely got the best lines of the night – the shared, “you feel like a torpedo” was brilliant, and Cam’s description of the gardener as being “like Batman, but straight” was hilarious.

And of course, my love for Phil – soft porn or no soft porn – continues. His miming of the female transformer was perfectly delivered and had me in stitches.

I have faith in you, Modern Family – tonight may have slumped, but you’ll be back! You’ve just got too much good stuff to work with to fail now!

Posted by Natalie

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“Fifteen Percent”

A Scene Out of Jersey Boys

Tonight’s Modern Family theme was the question: can people change and, if so, how much? The answer: 15%. And so we had narratives that revealed the balance of how much our characters have stayed the same (Jay still embarrassed of his son’s sexuality; just as when he came out of the womb, Cam is still like “hello!”; Phil is still a cheerleader) and how much they’ve changed (Jay tries to help Shortie come out; Cam sometimes summons up his ‘cowboy voice’; Phil, well – Phil really is just Phil!). But perhaps the more interesting ‘change’ of the evening was found in the format of the show itself.

I mentioned last week that I really wished the show would be a little looser with the themeand that I wished it would mix up the families more as it explored its theme – thank you Modern Family for granting my wish so quickly!

Because I think it paid off. Rather than keeping each family unit closed and defined by the spousal relationship, things got shaken up. Sure, we had the duel between Claire and Phil over the remote control technology, but even that plot revealed its loveliest moment in the middle of the night as Haley and Claire forged a long-overdue connection. The other two storylines revolved around Manny and Gloria teaming up to give the fabulous Kristen Schaal (Mel from Flight of the Concords) a makeover and Jay’s various interactions with Cam, Mitchell and Shortie

Why was this mix up good? Because there are so many other beautiful relationships in this show besides the spouses! And we not only got to see them tonight; we also got to see them develop a little. Jay might not be able to affirm Mitchell directly, but we get to see him try to transfer that affirmation to another character, Shortie. And we got to see Mitchell getting it, and appreciating it. Oh, and thank God Manny is back! That kid is amazing and it was wonderful seeing him and Gloria team up. And while the season thus far has mostly played up the fraught relationship that exists between teenage girls and their mothers, tonight we got to see the flip side of that relationship that also usually exists – genuine trust, care and even fun.

Best lines in the episode (besides the aforementioned, “I used my cowboy voice” – oh, what I would give to hear Cam’s cowboy voice!): Jay’s, “I’ve got a gay son and a Chinese granddaughter” as Mitchell mutters, “she’s Vietnamese” and Jay responds, “Only you would know the difference”.

Best pop culture reference – the ongoing jokes about the trifecta of those who love vampire novels: little kids, lonely white women and gay men.

And, as this show has received much accolade for its healthy, stereotype breaking and honest portrayal of a gay couple, best riff on sexuality: Mitchell drawing us all into thinking that Shortie was gay only to reveal that good taste in clothes, the ability to be affectionate with men, and a mysterious divorce in one’s past does not a gay man make.

Sorry NBC and your wonderful Thursday night line up – Modern Family is still the reigning best comedy out there right now!

Posted by Natalie.

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With more mixed up narratives, Modern Family continues to develop the characters’ relationships with each other but, more captivating for me tonight, the characters themselves. So this week we had Gloria, Mitchell and Manny head out to solve the problems of Gloria’s bad driving; Cam and Jay get a little closer-than-Jay’s-comfort level; Claire and Hayley both break out of the typical Dunphy family structure to explore extra-familial relations while the younger kids bond over booze and Phil gets up to some hilarity on his own. So perhaps the unifying theme was something along the lines of facing aspects of one’s self one would rather not face…but all in all it was the moments of character development that got my attention this week.

Claire’s own self-realizations were perhaps the loveliest of all, especially hot on the heels of her bonding with Haley last week. Oscillating between thinking Valerie (Minnie Driver) envies her and then pities her, Claire attempts to show off her family situation, only to be met with a port-a-pottied hubby, drunk hillbilly children fornicating on the (first time it’s not broken) stairway, and a rampant rat. There’s no a-ha moment where Valerie realizes that the family life really is the true path of womanhood (thank God!). Instead Claire faces the incommunicability of why she loves what she loves as much as she does. I admit, I was bummed that we still had to face a dichotomy of options – successful career woman (with multiple lovers) vs. sad-about-her-monogamy-stay-at-home mum. I like to think that matters of vocation, family, desire and love are infinitely more complex than such a binary suggests. Nevertheless, it was good to see both women appreciate their lot in life and leave satisfied rather then continue to envy the grass on the other side.

Funniest and most poignant of all, then, were Jay and Cam’s escapades. I am loving the ongoing development of their relationship and the way it plays out in the sporty arena. That Jay tries to accept and embrace his son’s sexuality is made even more beautiful and yet bittersweet by the fact that he relates so much more easily to his son’s (flaming bear of a) partner, Cam, than he does to his own son, Mitchell. Jay picks the worst moment to learn that not all moon-landing type contact has to be viewed as sexual when a gay man is involved by rubbing his butt up against an actor surely chosen for his stereotypically homophobic appearance. Embarrassment aside, this realization nevertheless allows him a moment of bonding with his son-in-law as the two escape together.

Best lines in the episode:
Phil to Hayley: “5 months later we were 4 months…away from having this little bundle of joy” – the look on Hayley’s face was perfect!

Mitchell’s somehow sad and hilarious: “I never used to let people in [referring to driving]. Now I do…just now getting that metaphor.”

Cam: “High-5, low-2”

Dylan on Anne Hathaway: “I like her movies. She’s everywoman!”

Claire: “No you can’t, Mario!”

And the winner – Phil’s description of Jagermeister as being like that potion that makes princesses fall asleep to get kissed by the prince…only instead of waking up in a castle, waking up in a frat house with a bad reputation.

Posted by Natalie.

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Phil’s description of his new Valentine’s Day activity suits this episode just fine! Sure I’ve complained about the couples-focused format, and sure I’ve lauded this show every week it’s been on, but the truth is that I’ve worried it’s been slipping in the last few episodes. Moon Landing was great, but it wasn’t no Fizbo! This week’s episode was back in business, and it reclaimed its brilliance with – ironically for me – a return to the couple’s focused format against which I’ve tended to rail.

Of course, the return to this format is totally appropriate for the Valentine’s Day episode! Furthermore, it’s hilarity was heightened by the non-couple relationships I’ve longed to and much enjoyed seeing developed. But it was really fun to catch a glimpse of Jay and Gloria facing the truth only to get tired of the laughter. And while I tend to think that Mitchell and Cam are the most solid, healthy couple on the show, it was good to see a little tension between them tonight play out at an ice-cream parlour as they tried to help Manny learn that the universe really isn’t a cold and loveless place (that blonde kid had nothing on his earlier love-interest, the amazing Kristen Schaal!).

But the story that captured my heart (and probably the hearts of all married folks) was Claire and Phil attempting to re-kindle the sexiness in their own 15+ year marriage. First, I loved that Phil was inspired to leave that cheesy garlic bread behind by his daughter’s messed up but endearingly stupid boyfriend, Dylan! And I loved that he had multiple role-plays ready to go (who wouldn’t want to see his tiger training in action?!). Their barside flirtations were actually lovely as they both got their groove back and Phil – sorry, Clive Dicksby – offered line after line of hilarity: “Pretty kitty has nails…I like it”… “I get things to make noise”… “I’m pretty smooth all over” and of course, “She’s always tired…she can make lists for days” were among my favourites. But I have to give the prize to the very smooth jackpot line he makes in his do-over attempt to explain why he’s hitting on this strange lady at the bar instead of going home to his wife – “Because I respect her too much to do to her what I’m going to do to you”…complete with it’s own awkward question mark on the end. For a brief moment, I was almost attracted to Phil. At least I understood why Claire rushed to the restroom to remove every article of clothing she had on!

Of course we could see some version of her subsequent embarrassment coming. But for her father to show up (in addition to their colleagues, friends and local school-teachers) was 3 steps beyond excruciating. Avoiding the schmaltzy voiceover this week, we got to have the moment of sweetness enter through storytelling instead as Claire was forced to bond with her step-mother (who had been through this before) and Jay was forced to recognize that his (mother of three) daughter is also a sexual being.

And perhaps this is one of the more lovely aspects of this family – this collection of slightly messed up adults really tries to accept each other and love each other as adults, in the fullness of who they are.

Perhaps what is even more lovely though is that even after the terrible experience on the escalator, Phil and Claire apparently still made it to the room and did something messy with hot oil. You go Dunphys!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one more great line in the episode: “While bathing her last week I found traces of Martin Luther King behind her ear”. Seriously, how does little Lilly manage to match everyone else with her amazing acting skills? That baby’s got talent!

Posted by Natalie.

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Taking 3 Breaths

This episode kind of let us know what it was going to be up right up front with the title: Fears. And while some fears were obvious – the dark, spiders, roller coasters and human skeletal remains – others had a sweeter poignancy to them. Of course, I’m talking about Cam, Mitchell and Mommy here.

I loved that the producers brought back the pediatrician and that they brought her back for brunch; her Asianness, breasts, womb, lady bits and all! I loved it because it allowed Lilly’s first words to draw out a whole bunch of the boys’ insecurities. Of course, the two dads, no maternal figure fear was front and center. But we also got a glimpse of their white-guilt fear at raising an Asian baby. And more interestingly, we got a sense of the deeper connection between those two fears. We’ve seen that concern in Cam before – that his daughter will miss out on her cultural heritage because he wanted a daughter in the first place. But I’m sure all parents have similar fears whether they’ve birthed their kids themselves or adopted them. Dr. Muira is right: that kind of self-searching love is a gift to a kid, which is what made it so delightful that Lilly was really connecting to a random doll left at the house by two lesbians who couldn’t fit everything they needed onto their motorcycle

I really do love Mitchell and Cam. They’ve got great chemistry together. They make sense. They accept each other for who they are and always seem to hope the best for each other. The plotlines don’t need to require any over the top drama or familial exclusion based on sexuality. Nor do they require any over the top melodramatic versions of acceptance. They’re just honest, insightful and damn funny forays into same-sex marriage and family life together. So I’m glad they dealt with this two-daddy issue head on. Their care was sweet and warranted without ever touching on moralism or the need to make a point. Their sheer joy at realizing the Mommy was coming from the doll and not any deep-seated need for a maternal Asian figure was lovely. And ok, so Cam twirling Mitchell did spring a tear to my eye – I’m a sucker for some sweet, lovey boy on boy twirling!

Second only to the line about breasts and lady parts for me was Gloria to Manny: “Now your eyebrows have grown back and your salmon is legendary”. And how cute was Manny’s little fisherman outfit – that kid continues to crack me up, even if his greatest fear is something as morbid as dying alone. And poor Haley reminded me of my own failed driving test when I hit the curb so hard during the parallel park the mean dmv lady grabbed the window frame and shouted out in her own version of fear. Watching Claire’s fear as Haley backed out the driveway sent a little shiver of guilt through me thinking about the first time I took out my parents’ Ford Explorer to pick up a friend and totally speeded irresponsibly on my way to his house! And I had to sigh a sigh of relief for Alex that she apparently got asked to dance (even if I spent my own 7^th grade dances waiting on the sidelines!).

Posted by Natalie

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Jay’s attempts to support Mitchell continue to crack me up.  With his attempts to show  how open-minded he longs to be about his son’s lifestyle, he mostly manages to communicate his vastly stereotypical understanding of that lifestyle.  Even so, they come out as sweet attempts to encourage his kid; a skill he attempted to pass on down to Manny last night too.  This was perhaps the first time we’ve seen Jay really admit that Mitchell might be better at something than he is. We’ve seen him hint at it before, or give it with some sort of reservation – but tonight he just came out with it: Mitchell is better at doing the dad thing than Jay and so Jay needs his help.  It was a sweet story, in the end allowing Jay, Mitchell and Manny each to inhabit their particular roles in the hierarchy – father, older brother, kid brother – with finesse.

And so it was kind of awesome that the connecting storyline of how to best be a parent over at Claire and Phil’s house opened with the hilarious line: you’ve never heard of anyone being sfathered to death.  It was great seeing Phil’s ADHD approach to parenting pay off.  In many ways, this episode was about misunderstandings – Mitchell not getting that Manny was trying to connect with him; Cam offending Gloria again and again; and in this storyline, Claire and Phil struggling to see that Luke’s games were actually contributing to his creative process.  Best of all tonight, though, was getting to see that broken step come back and almost take someone out – I have to wonder if it will ever get fixed.  Perhaps we’ll get an episode where Phil sets out to do so, and gets distracted by everything else along the way.

Cam and Gloria took the prize for me last night, though.  If I had only seen Cam’s awkward, “I wish that tart would go back to Columbia and take her weird Brown friend with her” followed by repetition upon repetition of “your people” (and his accompanying panicked face as he realizes that’s what he’s saying), I think I would have been satisfied by this episode.  We’ve dealt a lot with weird things families say to each other inadvertently along the lines of sexual difference, but this one really took the prize for weird things families could say to each other inadvertently along the lines of racial difference.  And Cam executed it perfectly!

Seeing Cam and Gloria together made me think about other pairings we haven’t seen yet or in a while: Gloria and Claire, Gloria and Phil, Phil and Jay, Claire and Jay, Cam and Claire…it made me realize what endless combinations we’ve got set to go here, and I’m hoping to see some of them soon.  In fact, it made me realize that the guest stars we’ve had have almost always appeared in relation to one of the women (Benjamin Bratt, Minnie Driver, Kristen Sshaal), and I realized I’d like to see the ladies work on some family relationships outside of their spousal ones some time soon as well.

Manny was rocking it tonight – he takes tango lessons?! “If you don’t sweat, you’re not doing it right”.  And who says, “blammo” after zinging someone – an old man who usually spends his time playing canasta, that’s who!  The same old man who would say, “spin around cupcake, lemme see your caboose,” not an 11 year old kid.  Oh, he cracks me up!  Although Luke really came into his own too, especially with his foray into noise canceling headphones: “Everybody is stupid. Except me.  Haha.  I’m funny”.  Oof, Modern Family does well when it leans on the kids a little too!

Let me know what you thought Moth Chase readers – what funny lines did I miss?  What combos of characters would you like to see in future episodes?

Posted by Natalie

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Um, did Modern Family just jump the shark?  I’m hoping not – I’m hoping this was just a weird blip…a weird blip of way over the top product placement that got taken to too much of an extreme.  Because that just felt weird.  Did it make me want an i-pad?  Yes, more than anything in fact.  Did I want an i-pad before I started watching?  No, not really.  Will I still want one in the morning?  Meh, probably not so much.  And how much endorsement cash did Modern Family get for a completely i-pad centered episode?…I’d love to know – if any of you readers know, please do comment it below.  The weirdness of the apple thing is a real shame because the episode had so many other great things going for it!

I quite liked the asshole-neighbour-turns-out-to-be-incredibly-sweet-neighbour storyline.  Most of all, I loved Cam’s attempt to be super secret spies with the mail carrier.  And while Mitchell’s attempts to be a tough guy were certainly endearing, who wouldn’t want to see pictures from Cam’s time as a crossing guard?

What we really got tonight, though, was a sense that there’s something more to Gloria than a big accent and even bigger boobs (seriously, my husband and I gasp every time she moves…HD or no HD, those puppies could hurt someone!).  But Gloria is perhaps the least well rounded (ironic pun intended) character in the show.  Unlike Cam, Manny and Phil, she has no quirky hobbies or even quirks.  She doesn’t have the emotional breadth of Mitchell.  And she doesn’t have the complex family connections like Jay.  Everything about her is a play on her Colombian ethnicity – spicy food, loud talker, bad driver.  With her mad chess skills tonight, we got a sense that something else is going on with Gloria – that there’s a brain in that body…and an interesting brain that that!  Developing this could really bring some new dimensions to the ever more complicating set of relationships on the show.

Even with these two great storylines, though, I felt like tonight missed the boat (if not jumped the shark).  Besides the weird i-pad storyline, the characters were just meaner tonight than they usually are, and I found it quite tiring.  One of the things that I love about this show is that it manages to be funny without being mean.  It manages to entertain without the characters being self-centered and cruel (seriously, look back at an old episode of Friends and you’ll see what I mean – those kids were so selfish and mean to each other, I can’t handle watching it anymore!).  Tonight’s Modern Family took a turn in that direction – Claire’s thoughtlessness was just frustrating; Haley’s refusal to put down her damn cell phone got on my nerves; Phil’s mopiness at the end was just too much; Jay’s ripping open of Phil’s gift before Phil even had the chance to look at it and everyone’s general disregard for his birthday…it was all too mean!  Thank goodness we had Gloria’s winning attempt to be a better wife than chess player and Cam’s attempt to save a marriage.  It’s easy to go down the path of picking on people to get a laugh – I sure hope Modern Family doesn’t take that easy way out.

What do you think, dear readers – am I being too harsh on the episode?  Did you think the i-pad thing was a well integrated plot of product placement?  Am I over-reacting to the meanness of the characters?  Does every season of a show get to have one really really bad episode – a freebie?  And what gems of great hilarity have I missed in my review tonight?  What stopped this episode from completely missing?

Posted by Natalie

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MotherScratcher