What I’m Watching: Modern Family

Modern Family: Season 6, Episode 20 “Knock ‘Em Down” (C)

This episode was mildly entertaining, but all of its plotlines were hard to latch on to in terms of both their believability and their uncreative nature. Mitchell and Cameron trying hard to be exciting and to stay out late was pretty much just a plotline, yet it was dragged out to them trying to pump themselves up with loud music and make Haley think that they were actually up for going to a bar at 10:30 for a band that wasn’t even going to go on stage until midnight. Haley calling them fifty because she was bad at math was the only worthwhile part of all that. Jay having to flounce around to pretend that he was a gay man was silly, and it’s appalling that after Cameron told him that he needed to pretend so that the league wouldn’t throw them out, he thought it would be a good idea to spill the beans to his arch-nemesis. It’s always fun to see Oliver Platt, but I’d have preferred him to have a much more sophisticated role than someone trying to sniff out a straight man and then falling for Cameron’s excuse that Jay had a crush on him. The mere existence of Steve Zahn’s Ronnie and Andrea Anders’ Amber is a disservice to this show, especially considering their earlier TV roles on “Treme” and “Better Off Ted,” and the notion that they are fancy wine drinkers whose son has to settle for going to Julliard is more than a bit far-fetched.