What I’m Watching: Modern Family

Modern Family: Season 6, Episode 18 “Spring Break” (C)

I’m writing this review a few days after I watched the episode, and I went online to remind myself of exactly what it was about. While summaries aren’t everything, the one-line description on TVRage.com reads “Claire does some spring cleaning. Haley attempts to distract Alex by taking her to a music festival.” The second part is obviously a much more substantial plotline, but the first is an example of how this show really stretches sometimes to fill the content of a half-hour episode. It’s nothing new that Claire snoops through her children’s stuff, and therefore finding out about Alex’s rejection from Harvard seemed inevitable. That Haley would try to get her to unwind and end up loosening her up too much at the music festival was somewhat entertaining, but I have a hard time believing both that Haley would take her and that Alex would actually agree to go. I prefer the much subtler instances of Phil and Luke bonding since his impossible perfection in both music and gymnastics abilities was far from compelling as a father-son obstacle. I wasn’t interested at all in Cam’s musical feud or Gloria’s role in it, and Mitchell trying to rescue Lily from camp because he thought she was having a miserable time was only slightly amusing. Jay’s thorough attempts to smoke a cigar in peace were redeemed only by his casual donning of a full-body orange track suit and hairnet so that he could mask the smell from certain detection by his wife.