If you missed last week’s spookirific episode of Modern Family, “Halloween,” read my review here.
After two very funny weeks of Modern Family, I thought the season was taking off to greater creative heights. Then this week happened. As I’ve said before, even “bad” episodes of Modern Family are better than most of the schlock on TV that passes itself off as comedy, and not every good episode of the show needs to have some unifying theme, but in almost every way, “Chirp” was a bust.
This episode felt like the people sitting in the writers’ room looked up at their big board of story ideas, threw darts at the board to get the three families’ plots, then forgot that they had to write the show. The day before the script was due, the writers remembered they needed to turn in something, so they did the best they could, but had no chance to go back and refine anything. The result was the almost laughless (thank you Nolan Gould for saving the episode) entry that aired this week.
My biggest problem was that the script just wasn’t funny. For me, Jay/Gloria plots are inherently the least funny. The individual actors are great, but their best moments come when the characters are interacting with members of their extended family. Not much humor comes from Jay interacting with Gloria, especially when the comedy is derived from stereotypical “women remember everything, men remember nothing” anecdotes. Even Manny, who is usually a great source of comedy (though I’d say the character was more effective last season), didn’t get much to do in this episode. Call me cold, but I just didn’t care one way or the other whether Jack got his job back. I will say, however, that the moment between Manny and Jay when Jay called him “my kid” was pretty excellent, but this was a sentimental moment, and not a comedic one.
I always love Mitchell and Cameron, and while the idea of Lily getting her first commercial was a good one, the execution was terrible, and borderline offensive. There is a great comedic opportunity in having Cameron be a hysterical “stage mother” figure, but it would have been even funnier if Mitchell was the stage mother. Further, I’m sure there could be a million and one different commercial situations Lily could have been put in without having to resort to an extremely crude stereotype. Coming off Cameron’s imitation of an “Injun Joe” stereotype in “Unplugged” (which, admittedly, I found funny, though some were offended), the outrageously stereotyped Japanese voices seem to be creating a pattern of racial comedy of sorts. I understand that the poor stereotype was the point (Cameron points out that Lily is Vietnamese, not Japanese), but it made me feel like Cameron’ was fine exploiting his daughter as long as the commercial wasn’t blatantly racist. To me, there’s really nothing funny in this.
Last, there is the usually reliable Dunphy home for comedy. I know many critics are usually, well, critical of the Dunphy plots because they tire of Phil’s antics. I am not one of those critics. I usually find Phil and the rest of the family pretty funny. When this week’s Dunphy story was introduced, I actually thought it would be pretty funny (and it was, overall, the funniest of the three this week). God knows I often battle with the smoke detectors in my home, but I never feel less manly because they beep. This was just very weird to me. Dylan was brought in to the proceedings this week, which was I was jazzed about because I find Haley/Dylan/Phil interactions to be hysterical, but he disappeared after a couple minutes before the titles. Then we had Claire and Haley’s day in the sickbed. I appreciated how they spoke past each other regarding Claire’s comparison of Haley and Dylan to the soap characters, but I never found it particularly funny. I
guess I don’t find speaking with stuffed noses to be particularly humorous. Thank God Luke was there to provide some genuine laughs. From him trying to eat the ladyfinger but bumping his hand into his helmet, to bringing in the keyboard (see below), to the idea of him kissing a pigeon was hysterical. For whatever talk Rico Rodriguez received for a Best Supporting Actor Emmy nomination (and it was very well deserved), Nolan Gould should get the same this season.
I understand that in a 22-plus episode season, there are going to be a few stinkers. Further, because of its track record, Modern Family has high expectations that can be hard to meet week after week. Unfortunately, “Chirp” was one of those episodes that fell flat. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t a couple great lines:
Claire explains all of the things she has to do that day, depsite being sick.
Phil: Honey, with all you do for me, including going to the gym four times a week to keep me interested, I got this.
Luke: Are you OK?
Phil: Yeah, I just had a couple showings fall through.
Luke: I’m sorry.
Phil: It’s alright. You know what I always say…
Luke: “You can’t get back on the horse until you fall off.”
Claire’s handsome gym trainer shakes Phil’s hand when returning Claire’s cell phone.
Phil (wearing an apron from baking for the bake sale, screams like a girl at the handshake): Sorry, I burnt my ladyfingers.
Luke (entering with a keyboard): Hey Dad. I think I found a place online where I can sell this organ. Can you drive me to the black market?
Phil: I think they mean a different kind of organ, buddy.
After changing all of the smoke detectors’ batteries, the chirp sounds again.
Phil: I can handle this. I just need the old Burglar Basher.
Phil pulls out a baton.
Luke: Is that your college cheerleading baton?
Phil: Not when you’re on the business end of it.
So, that’s what I have for this week’s episode. Were you as disappointed as I was? Did you find anything particularly funny that I missed? How did you feel about the stereotypical voiceovers for the commercial? Is Modern Family developing a disturbing pattern of racial humor? Please leave your questions and comments below. I’ll be back next week with another review, when hopefully the show will be back on track. Until then, I’m off to help Savezilla knock down prices.
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I didn't think it was racist–not everything is racist, people! And this is coming from an oft-ridiculed minority–but I simply thought it unfunny and unoriginal. We've already seen this in Malcolm in the Middle, only funnier–we had Dewey wearing the Hazmat suit for fear of germs, and we had Lois and Malcolm stuck in bed together with mano. Even though it was from a later season, it was still twenty times funnier.
I completely disagree, this was probably one of my favorite episodes of the series. I guess the three stories didn't have any universal closure in the end, which many of my other favorites tend to have (I agree that a lot of the best moments come from when the families interact with each other), but I think in this episode each story was developed well enough on it's own that a deep connection wasn't necessary.
For the commercial storyline, if it were a real commercial yes I would find it racist… But since it's a situation within the episode, and the racism is even directly addressed, I don't see how anyone could be offended. It's making fun of the actual stereotypes, not promoting them or making fun of the people subjected to them. The ridiculousness of the voiceovers I found very funny, and were perfect to show Cam's ignorance as a stage parent, which he redeemed himself for at the end (except for picking up the wrong baby – predictable but still funny to me).
I agree Jay's story wasn't particularly laugh out loud worthy… But it was heartwarming seeing his relationship with Manny develop. But the finishing each other's sentences bit was funny thanks to Sofia Vergara. And for some reason, I found Manny's expression after crashing through the wall hilarious.
The bulk of the comedy easily came from the Dunphy house though. Dylan's Claire fantasy leading him into hearing she and Haley are in bad together? Perfect. Luke had lots of good lines here as well, like his comment about Phil's unisex apron puffing out for the boobs. I thought Haley was particularly great too. The confusion between her and Claire again my not have been laugh out loud worthy, but it was charming enough that a was consistently cracking smiles. And her closing scene at the pizza boy was great. But what I really adored about this episode was Phil. It was refreshing seeing him seriously worried about something, but again, he was still hilarious, and Ty Burrell has completely mastered all of Phil's expressions and quirks. One of the things I have always appreciated about this show was it's ability to balance the comedy with sentimentality, and this episode really nailed that for me.
I have been extremely disappointed with Modern Family this entire season so far. It was a show I didn't want to miss last season, but something changed with it. I don't know if the popularity went to the writers' heads or what, but it is just not the same. By comparison, both the Middle and especially Cougar Town have been fantastic. I hope Modern Family finds its bearings again, as it is a great show – it just seems to be in a sophomore slump.
Did anyone not pick up on Jay's phone conversation before Gloria came in to see him at work? He said something about how he had to marry Gloria to get her to stay in the country and he called the person 'baby' and then he told Gloria he had to 'work late' until she reminded him of their date. Anyone???
He was playfully putting Gloria on. She recognized this and sarcastically commented, "How will I ever find another man who goes to work in sweatpants."
Jay was watching his employee on the moniter when gloria and manny showed up. He knew she was coming and was just messing with her