This week, ABC’s Modern Family blends humor with heart. And Karaoke. And Orgasms.
The episode picks up the morning after Claire and Phil have a huge fight. They make up, but Phil has no idea what the fight was about, just like the audience. But the kitchen is a mess with fire extinguisher foam everywhere, spilled salad, and a de-hinged microwave so it must have been something big. Right? Maybe.
Before Phil can uncover exactly what it was that caused Claire to go ballistic, Gloria and Jay arrive. Jay attempts to fix the microwave, but when he can’t, Claire needs to go to the mall to get a new one. Despite already being on thin ice, Phil backs out of the mall trip saying he was going to get a haircut. His real reason, he confesses, is that Claire has a mall habit that is too terrible for him to even mention. To get away from Gloria, who has been screaming into the karaoke machine Jay bought her, Jay offers to go to the mall with Claire. Gloria (who used to work in a salon) stays to cut Phil’s hair.
While cutting Phil’s hair, Gloria and Phil try to discover what set Claire off. Phil recounts all the things they talked about before she flipped – he left a message for her on a slip of fortune cookie paper, he brought home broccoli instead of cauliflower, a friend recommended a wedge salad to him and Phil loved it, and he’s seeing an ex girlfriend for drinks later. That’s quite a list of mistakes, some seemingly harmless and some like ticking time bombs. Holding the hair scissors to his throat, Gloria says she would kill Phil for any one of these offenses and that he didn’t do just one thing wrong, he did everything wrong. After all this, Phil is no closer to discovering exactly what he did wrong, but we all learned never to cross Gloria, especially when she has a pair of sharp scissors in hand.
At the mall, we discover that Claire’s mall habit is sounding like she’s having an orgasm while getting a massage. Pretty awkward, especially considering she’s there with her Dad. Jay later tells her she sounds like a Tijuana hooker in the massage chair. True story. Anyway, Claire reveals that the thing that made her angry was Phil trying the wedge salad. She has been suggesting that he try one for years, but as soon as someone else tells him to, he loves it.
Later that night, Phil, Claire, and Alex meet up at the restaurant where Hayley claims to be working. Alex suspects her sister of lying, and she tries to trap her, but Hayley does a pretty good job covering. Besides, Phil and Claire are too distracted to notice because Phil repeats his mistake by recommending that Claire try the wedge salad. Claire flips out again and storms out of the restaurant. Taking advantage of the moment, Hayley claims Claire’s outburst just got her fired.
Over at Cam and Mitchell’s, Cam is preparing for the benefit he’s throwing that night. He’s excited to show up Andrew, his archrival who hosted the party last year, and is expecting a great turnout. Then Mitchell realizes he forgot to mail the invitations. While Luke and Cam set up, Mitchell scrambles to find people to attend the benefit. He eventually finds a handful of people, which is enough to beat the attendance at Andrew’s party last year. At Cam’s party, Phil explains to Claire that she has changed him in many ways for the better, and that one wedge salad isn’t a big deal. Both Phil and Claire and Cam and Mitchell make up.
In the episode’s epilogue, Manny commands Gloria to stop singing and calls Jay a coward for not backing him up. Jay sings a few bars on the karaoke machine, and Manny demands that Jay get rid of the machine.
Modern Family usually ties the various plot lines together through physical proximity – all the characters end up at the same family function etc. While that happened in “Regrets Only”, each plot was also united thematically, and that’s one of the reasons why I liked this week’s episode. Each couple was struggling with listening. In Jay’s case, he was physically struggling listening to Gloria sing and Claire’s “orgasmassage”, and I think the audience sympathized with him on both counts. Phil and Claire are quickly closing in on Jim and Pam of Office fame for cutest/most awesome TV couple. Best line of the episode goes to the band names for Cam’s party – “Harp Attack” and “Cello Submarine”.
Photo: Remote Patrolled
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Tags: cello-submarine, episode, gloria, karaoke, kitchen, mitchell, office, party, sister, vampire