What I’m Watching: Modern Family

Modern Family: Season 5, Episode 21 “Sleeper” (C+)

This show’s last few episodes haven’t delivered, and I wasn’t particularly impressed with this one either. Taking another family portrait is an event ripe for some comedy, but a lot of this felt forced and overdone. Gloria wanting Joe to look more Colombian was a big waste of time and doesn’t even need to be addressed further here because it falls into the recognizable category of pointless ways to utilize Gloria and her non-American heritage to fill plot points. Jay wanting to enter Stella into a dog show was strange and rather random, and resulted in some hush-hush goings-on that didn’t add anything to the overall story. At the center of this ridiculousness this week was an actor who always commits, Ty Burrell, laden with an unfortunate case of sudden onset narcolepsy which was visually somewhat amusing but otherwise irritating and unnecessary. That Phil let Claire yell at the washing machine company for not sending anyone when he knew full well that someone did stop by was more entertaining, but everything after and aside from that wasn’t needed. Alex fretting over report topics was a nuisance, less endearing and productive than usual. That leaves the one somewhat redeeming storyline, which was Mitchell being invisible, praised for talents he obviously didn’t have by others not paying attention to him and then forgotten by his father when he opened the door and wasn’t in the family portrait. Cam’s fake hand-me-down photos were slightly amusing as well.