Surfing Sitcoms: Modern Family – Two Monkeys and a Panda

Extending Geek Life’s successful Surfing SF column comes new genres. My contribution is a weekly review of ABC’s Modern Family, a half hour sitcom about the adventures of an extended family LA.

Modern Family gives equal attention every week to the three families that make up the show’s extended family. Jay Pritchett is the head of the family and the father of Mitchell and Claire. Jay is married to a much younger woman, and his second wife, Gloria. Gloria has a son from a former marriage, Manny.

The families of Jay’s kids make up the rest of the extended family. Jay’s daughter, Claire, is married with three kids. Her husband, Phil, is a real estate agent and a modern man. Phil bumbles through life lessons with the skill of a big kid while having nothing of what older generations would call ‘a man’. Claire and Phil’s kids span pre-teen to almost leaving the nest. The girls, Haley and Alex, fight and go through growing pains with Haley interested in boys and growing up while Alex is still focused on her studies. The youngest, a boy called Luke, is still the impulsive kid who would ram his head into a wall if the mood took him. While mostly adding light relief, Luke can occasionally surprise the family with wisdom exceeding his age.

Mitchell lives with his life partner Cameron. Mitchell acts as the provider for their family while Cameron has chosen to stay home and care for their new adoptive chinese girl, Lily.

Of course there are the occasional guest stars. Both Jay and Gloria have ex-partners and Phil’s parents visit a couple of times a year. I’ll talk more about them when they feature in an episode.

Did all that make sense? Caught up? Lets get into it, not many episodes left this year but don’t worry, Modern Family will be back for season 3.

Season 2, episode 17 titled Two Monkeys and a Panda features three story lines that never cross. Slightly unusual for Modern Family but given equal time offered many laughs, especially for the fan who already knows and understands the characters.

Claire’s life is always busy. She isn’t the type of mum to hang about watching Oprah. She volunteers at the school, manages the house, keeps the kids straight and solves all the problems while looking dishevelledly gorgeous. (What, I can’t make up words?) Her day takes its first turn when Phil tries to make her use a $250 gift certificate to a beauty salon that he bought at a charity auction months earlier. The certificate is a day away from expiry and as Phil puts it, “If we don’t use ‘em then all our money just goes to charity!” Phil can’t convince Claire to use the certificate and unable to find someone else to use it, goes to the salon for some pampering himself.

The day morphs to a lesson in marriage for Phil when while at the salon, Claire rings with a problem. Phil, like all men, tries to solve it for her but as usual makes it worse. The girls at the salon overhear his conversation and school him in ways to talk to women.

Phil takes his new education home and uses it on Claire, surprisingly very successfully. I wish I had seen this episode when I was married. So many good lessons about talking to women. Its not just funny, it’s educational!

The second story belongs to Mitchell and Cameron. It’s more heartfelt than the first story and revolves around their adoption of Lily. Cam discovers that a mistake occurred on the adoption papers leaving his last name off of Lily’s last name, instead his last name has become her middle name. Initially accusing Mitchell of doing it on purpose, Cam apologises, but unfortunately he is right and is comes out that Mitchell was initially scared that Cam would leave him after they took Lily home.

Modern Family manages to drag out a few laughs but this is the real heart of the episode.

Story three, follows Jay and Gloria. Jay is thinking about his mortality and tries to buy a crypt for himself and Gloria. Gloria has her own ideas about how she would like to spend eternity and in a crypt isn’t one of them. Issues about age and marriage flood in as Jay learns secrets about his own marriage and life after he is gone.

Well, thats my first recap. Did you make it? Not exactly funny and quite the novel in length but we went through a lot! I’ll look into ways to craft these recaps better for future posts.

Modern Family airs on ABC Wednesday nights.

About Jason

Jason is an amateur writer, amateur comedian and amateur author from the down-under land of convicts, Australia. He hopes one day he will be paid for at least one of those things so he can rub out the amateur and earn money for more Apple products. When he’s not not being paid for doing what he loves, Jason is a father of three young kids and supports his geek qualifications by schooling newbs about why Facebook is so 2007 at every opportunity. Jason discovered coffee at 30 so he thinks he is a grown up now. If he could marry his iPhone he would.

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