What I’m Watching: Modern Family

Modern Family: Season 6, Episode 15 “Fight or Flight” (C)

This episode was awfully gimmicky, and none of its threads did it for me. We’ve long known that Manny isn’t a particularly manly or violence-inclined individual, and Jay encouraging him to stand up for himself and punch his bully in the face was hardly ideal or appropriate parenting. To think that someone could go from making a cruel “butter nut squash” joke one day to bringing an apology apple pie the next day is highly unlikely, but that’s the world of this show that at least Manny and Phil live in, where people do weirdly specific and uncharacteristic things all the time to support their interests. That was absolutely the case with Phil, who ended up in the back of coach when Claire ditched him for a chance to relax in first class and sat next to a magician who seemed intent on doing tricks with the pure goal of making Phil smile. That certainly isn’t a fate that Claire would have wanted to encounter, but I suppose that the free massages from her other seatmate made up for the racist, vicious behavior of her first class companion who quickly went downhill as a human being after uttering a few words. I like Elizabeth Banks and Nathan Lane, and while I did appreciate Sal back when she first appeared, I’ve never been fond of Pepper or Ronaldo, and I think that it’s a waste of a plotline for Cameron and Mitchell, who have plenty of other things to deal with than trying to decide who will adopt the baby that their friend has apparently abandoned. Also really not working for me: all of Pepper’s jokes about what a dump Cameron and Mitchell live in – humor isn’t automatically funny just because it contradicts reality.