Modern Family- season 4, episodes 9-10

By Jenn Deering Davis  Uploaded by MyCanon (Modern Family Cast) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

When a Tree Falls- This is the one where Mitchell and Cameron work together to save a tree, Haley picks trash up by the side of the road, Jay strives to bond with younger men by throwing Phil under the bus, Alex tries to get an unflattering picture of Haley, and Claire gets caught shoplifting, only to be saved by Gloria faking labor. Cameron stole the show with his jealousy of the Cats lead and his understudy costume. Haley's mugshots were funny and cute, but we were less impressed with Alex's storyline. It felt beneath her, and since the pictures of Alex were not that bad or funny at all, the number of facebook "likes" they got were just stupid and unrealistic.



We were astounded that Phil beat Jay in a fight, even if Jay is old. Jay deserved it. We hoped that Gloria would have her baby at the end of this episode, but we guess the pregnancy story line isn't tired yet, and it was funnier and more surprising to have Gloria fake it. The funniest part was when the kids matched their friends by skin color to countries for their fake Olympics. Mexico is close enough for these purposes, Manny. So wrong, but so hilarious.  This was a good one. If it weren't for the blah Alex plot, it would have been an A.
Episode grade: B+

Diamond in the Rough- This was the midseason finale? MEH. No mention of Christmas at all, but we had Cam and Claire make a mostly stupid decision to buy and flip a house. It should give those characters something fun to do and more interaction though. We like Cam and Claire together. Our favorite part of this subplot was Mitch and Phil sending threatening texts to each other in their passive aggressive, childish phone fight, all the while not knowing that Cam and Claire were seeing all the texts.

When older people text, things go wrong. And they abbreviate/falsely punctuate more than the teens do. It's gross. What was Haley's new job? We either forgot or never heard where she was working. This was one of the rare episodes where Gloria was pretty funny. She shouldn't have been allowed to butcher the anthem though. The baby is definitely going to be a girl, as it is every time a TV father makes jokes about it being a boy. They even did that joke on The Office. We missed Alex this week, even though her plot sucked last week.
Episode grade: B-