Look out Annie- Manny’s got a gun now! In this episode, it is Manny’s birthday, but he realizes that he never really acted like a child so he decides to try and make up for lost time by doing all sorts of things children supposedly enjoy. Meanwhile, Gloria can’t find her car keys and Phil is very excited about going back to family camp, but Haley and Alex don’t want to go. While at the mall shopping for Manny’s birthday present, Cameron tries to reacquaint two elderly people who he believes are long-lost lovers.

In addition to being hilarious as always, this episode was very interesting because it digressed from the typical “Modern Family” formula.  Instead of opening with a scene of the Dunphy or Pritchard’s house, we see the exterior of Maggiano’s, an Italian restaurant where Manny decided to have his birthday dinner.  Usually the episodes have very straightforward plots that take place in a very short period of time, but this week’s episode was a little different. Instead of moving forward in time, the show opened in the present and then backtracked to a flashback. I really liked this structure of the show because it was something fresh, something I wasn’t expecting to see on “Modern Family.”

My favorite part of this episode was when Haley and Alex told Phil that they don’t want to go to family camp this year. I might have a sick sense of humor, but I thought watching the three of them sob hysterically in the car was priceless. Another one of my favorite moments was when Cameron yelled down to Helen in order to serve as a liaison between her and Donald.

I thought it was really cute when Manny was sitting in his island float out in the middle of pool, reflecting on how he let his childhood slip right out from under him. The scene reminded me a lot of one in “The Graduate” where Dustin Hoffman’s character is laying on a pool raft trying to figure out what he should do with his life.

 

In this episode, Halloween, Claire’s favorite holiday, has finally arrived and she is ready to scare some trick-or-treaters.

Mitch recently began work at a new law firm. He drives to work dressed up as Spiderman because he is under the impression that the whole office wears costumes on Halloween. When he discovers that this is not the case, he puts a suit over his costume before entering the office, but his arms and legs squeak whenever he moves them.

In the second act, Jays corrects Gloria on some of the words and phrases she mispronounces in English. Meanwhile, when Phil finds out that his neighbors are getting divorced, he becomes irrationally afraid of losing Claire.

Halloween night provides the setting for the third act. All of the trick-or-treaters begin to arrive at Phil and Claire’s haunted house, but it lacks the scariness that Claire was hoping for due to her family’s lack of enthusiasm. She finally tells her entire family that she is frustrated that they aren’t putting effort into being scary because she feels as though this is the one holiday that she has control of. In the end, everyone comes together to transform the home into a scary, haunted house.

At the beginning of this episode, the viewer finds out that an incident happened to Cam when he was a child, which was so traumatic that it ruined Halloween forever for him. It is now just a holiday that he has to get through. We don’t find out until the middle of the third act exactly what the incident was and, frankly, I found it rather disappointing. There is so much build-up throughout the episode that when we finally hear Cam’s story it turns out to be lackluster and not nearly as elaborate or funny as I was expecting. The funniest part of this episode, however, had to have been when Gloria begins to speak English in an American accent

Happy Halloween!

 

In the first act of episode five, Many and Gloria are upset because their neighbor’s dog barks throughout the night, making it difficult for them to sleep.  Gloria decides that she’s had enough and goes to talk to her neighbor about it, but he neighbor refuses to do anything about the dog. Meanwhile, Mitch and Cam are trying to get Lilly into a preschool while Claire bans the use of personal electronics in the house for a week. Phil, however, decides to turn the rule into a competition. Whoever can refrain from using their electronics the longest will get whatever they want including Haley’s request for a car.

In the second act, Mitch and Phil are told by a secretary at a preschool that as gay parents with a minority child, they can choose to send Lilly to whatever preschool they want. Every preschool will supposedly want them.  Jay and Gloria’s neighbor comes to their house because his dog is missing. They act oblivious, as if they don’t know where the dog is, but Jay knows that Gloria must have done something to the animal. He is afraid that she might have killed the dog because she has a history of killing rats. Claire lets Mitch know that they have been accepted to Wagon Wheel Preschool, but they have an appointment at “the Harvard of preschools.” Claire warns her brother that the Wagon Wheel’s offer won’t last very long, but Mitch decides that they are willing to take their chances.

In the third act, Gloria confesses to Jay that she gave the dog to her hairdresser’s family. Mitch and Cameron have a terrible interview at the top-rated preschool. Haley goes without using personal technology the longest and although she was promised a car if she won, Phil and Claire have to tell her that she is not getting a car.

I think this was the first episode I saw that didn’t have a life message at the end. I hope that this is not new trend for the program because I like those messages. They really help to wrap the episode up into a bow and give it a quality of finality.

In the first act, Phil and Claire are to attend a big real estate banquet where Phil will be the host of the event. Claire is afraid that Phil will totally bomb the show because she thinks he is “fun, but not funny.” Meanwhile, Jay and Gloria have been invited to a quinceañera and although Jay initially doesn’t want to go, Gloria convinces him to attend the girl’s fifteenth birthday party. Cameron has begun to work out again, but he wears bike shorts when he does so, which are not flattering on him.

While working out together, Mitch and Claire discuss problems they are having with their spouses and strike up a deal. Mitch decides that he will tell Phil that he is not funny if Claire will tell Cam to ditch the bike shorts. When Claire tells Cam that he shouldn’t be wearing bike shorts, he gets really upset. It does not go over well at all. When Jay and Gloria get to the party, Jay realizes that he doesn’t know anyone there, even though the party is for the daughter of someone who works for him. He doesn’t want Gloria to know, though, that he doesn’t recognize anyone so, he pretends to know the attendees. While Gloria is at the bar, however, the bartender tells her that she is not at a quinceañera like she thought, but at an engagement party.

In the second act, Claire calls Mitch because he didn’t carry out his end of the deal while she did. The problem is that Phil still thinks he is hilarious. Cam refuses to believe that he looks bad in bike shorts, but Cam overhears Mitch’s phone conversation and realizes that Mitch had purposefully sent Claire over to tell him that he doesn’t look good in bike shorts.

That night, at the banquet, Claire takes Phil’s index cards out of his suit pocket. Right before Phil is to go up on stage, he realizes that his notes are gone. Claire tells him to just give a short speech and not tell any jokes.

In the third act, Phil begins his speech in a very straightforward way, but then he begins to work in some of his jokes. It turns out that his jokes are a huge success and Claire realizes that she was totally wrong about how well they would go over.  In the end, Claire ends up confessing her mistake in taking his notes.

This episode was extremely funny. If you haven’t seen it yet you can watch it here. I was laughing even as I wrote this post. Recently, Ty Burrell, who plays Phil, was on the “Tonight Slow with Jay Leno,” and he talked about the jobs he had before he was a successful actor.  His interview from the show is posted below.

 

In “Earthquake,” the ground shakes and causes all kinds of craziness for the characters of “Modern Family.” In the first act, Claire calls a plumber to fix the tub, but while she is in the bathroom with him, an earthquake occurs and the door gets stuck, locking them in. Meanwhile, Cameron and Mitch are preparing for their friend Pepper’s brunch, an event that they have to dress up for, but they really don’t want to go. Jay refuses to attend church despite Gloria’s pleas and when he decides to go golfing instead, Manny wants to come along.

In the second plot, after the earthquake hits, Cameron calls Pepper and lies about how the natural disaster led to some destruction in their home. He even says that Mitchell was injured in the event. When Pepper hears this, he decides to come over to their house right away. Since the earthquake caused Claire and the plumber to be stuck in the bathroom, Phil decides to use the time to anchor a cabinet to the wall, a task Claire had asked him to do a long time ago.

In the third act, Pepper arrives and Cameron tells him the truth- that he and Mitch didn’t want to go to the brunch because it had become too much work. The plumber gets himself and Claire out of the bathroom. When she asks Phil where he’d been, Alex comes to her father’s rescue by pretending that he’d been fixing  all the damage that was done to the house while she was in the bathroom.

While I enjoyed this episode, I have to say that I thought “The Kiss” was quite a bit funnier. Nothing in this episode could really compare for me to the fake Columbian traditions and the storyline involving Gloria’s deceased grandmother of the last episode. I think that Luke really made this episode funny, though, with his comments about the cabinet and slipping a pan of Coca-Cola under the bathroom door for his mom to drink like a cat because he couldn’t find any straws.

 

In the first act, Claire picks up Alex’s phone and discovers that she has been texting with a boy. Feeling disconnected from her youngest daughter, she enlists Haley to talk to Alex in order to see if she can get the scoop on this boy. Meanwhile, the subplot develops when Gloria decides to have the entire family over for a traditional Columbian meal. Her deceased grandmother has repeatedly appeared in her dreams, telling her that she has is loosing touch with her Columbian roots. Jay tries to print out a picture of Gloria’s deceased grandmother, but he can’t get the printer to work so, he asks Phil for help. Alex visits Jeremy, the boy she has been texting, to prove to him that she isn’t a lesbian, an idea Haley put in her head, by asking him to kiss her. After she makes this speech on Jeremy’s doorstep, his door opens further to reveal his entire soccer team, whom heard the whole thing. Alex gets super embarrassed and runs off.

In the second act, the audience learns that Jay has been teasing Gloria about her visions of her dead grandmother. She decides to get back at him by coming up with fake Columbian customs for him to perform like “slapping the chicken.” Alex finds out that her mom, Claire, was reading her texts and becomes extremely angry. Manny and Luke try to figure out if the spirit of Gloria’s grandmother is really in the house by imploring her to show herself. While in the attic, Phil tries to get the printer to work again by fixing the router and then pressing the print button. The picture of Gloria’s grandmother that Jay was trying to get, prints out and scares Luke and Manny to death.

In the third act, Mitch’s trouble showing public affection comes to fruition. When Cam tries to kiss Mitch at Jay’s home, Mitch slides away and Cam ends up falling backwards over the couch. It turns out that Jay never really showed Mitch or Claire affection so they have struggled with displaying it throughout their lives. Jay ends up kissing his son to make up for the past and as a way of starting something new. When Haley and Claire get home, Claire shares an embarrassing story with her daughter about an event that happened to her when she was young. Jeremy shows up in the driveway and tells Alex that if his friends had not been present he would have kissed her. When he asks if she wants to try it now, Alex suggests hat they wait and get to know each other better.

I thought that “The Kiss” was a great episode. I liked it even better than last week’s episode because it provided more laugh-out-loud moments. My favorite scene had to of been when Jay “slaps the chicken,” which I posted a video of below. If you have not seen this episode, you can watch it here on ABC’s website.

Before the second episode of season two comes on tonight, let me recap the season premiere. Last week, I said that the title of the first episode was “The Old Wagon,” but I had no idea what that could refer to. If you watched the premiere, you know now as well as I do that the title was a reference to an old family station wagon. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, I suggest you watch it here first because I walk through the plot below.

In the first act, Claire suggests that Phil sell the car because it just sits in their garage. She motivates Phil to get rid of the station wagon by, as Phil puts it, “insulting his selling.” While fixing up and cleaning out the car, Claire rediscovers all sorts of mementos that bring back cherished memories. When Phil receives an offer on the station wagon, Claire becomes upset and has a hard time with the idea of letting the family car go. Phil surprises Claire by turning the station wagon into a “time machine” so that they can take it out as a family one more time.

The second act begins during the family outing. While on the family trip, Claire begins to remember why the station wagon had been sitting in the garage for so long and suddenly, the idea of selling it doesn’t sound so tragic anymore. Everyone gets out of the car because Luke is about to throw up, but Phil forgets to put the car in park and it ends up rolling of a cliff.

In the final act, Phil stills believes that he can sell the car and utilizes “the art of the sale” to market the car. At the end of every episode there is always a life lesson. This episode teaches that change is hard, but learning to let things go is normal part of life.

Although this was the primary plot, two other subplots were incorporated in the episode. In one, Mitch and Cameron are building Lilly a princess playhouse, but Cam is afraid to let Mitch help with the construction because he is awful with power tools. While in the other subplot, Manny brings home a friend from school he likes named Kelly. She ends up having a lot of impact on Manny’s decisions-a little too much influence for Gloria.

“Modern Family” did tremendously well in the ratings after last week’s premiere. An estimated 12.6 million people were watching the show, making it the second highest rated network show on a Wednesday night. This is very exciting news for the sitcom. I really enjoyed “The Old Wagon.” It was hilarious like every other episode of this sitcom and I can’t wait to see what the writers’ have in store for tonight’s episode. I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a beautiful season.

It’s finally here! Tonight at 9/8c the second season of “Modern Family” will premiere on ABC. I know that it has been awhile since the last season so, here is a short recap of the final episode of the first season, “Family Portrait.”

In this episode, Claire has arranged for a photographer to take the family’s portrait and she is freaking about making sure that everything is perfect for the event. Phil, Gloria, Manny and Alex attend a Laker’s game. Gloria kisses Phil when they are featured on the kiss cam. Phil thinks that Claire and Jay saw the kiss on television and are now very angry at him.

Luke interviews his grandfather, Jay, for a school project and Jay pretends that he was a barber for Martin Luther King Jr. the Kennedys, Elvis and a bunch of other celebrities. Meanwhile, a pigeon flies into Cam and Mitch’s house, totally freaking Mitch out. He has to conquer his fears and get the pigeon out of the house by himself because Cam is away singing in a wedding.

In the end, the family comes together, all dressed in white, for the family picture. Jay starts a mud fight, though, to prove to his daughter, Claire, that life is not perfect and you can’t control everything. They end up taking the picture covered in mud.

Some rumors have been circulating the Internet about episode themes for season two. Three episode themes have been confirmed. One episode will be about an earthquake, while in another we’ll meet Cameron’s mom and in a third, Manny will get a girlfriend. I’m really excited about the episode in which Manny gets a girlfriend and I can’t wait to meet the mother who raised the loveable Cam. The earthquake theme seems a little strange and out there to me, but that is just because I have never experienced one before. We don’t really have to worry about those types of natural disasters in Georgia. Like every episode of “Modern Family,” though, I’m sure “Earthquake” will be hilarious.  Tonight’s episode is supposedly called, “The Old Wagon.” I have no idea what it’ll be about, but I can’t wait to watch!

This past Sunday, the 62^nd Primetime Emmy Awards were broadcasted live on NBC, hosted by funnyman Jimmy Fallon. “Modern Family” received a whopping 14 award nominations this year, which was an amazing feat; especially for a television show had only aired for one season to date. Eric Stonestreet, who plays the hilarious Cameron Tucker, won the first award of the evening for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. As the night progressed, “Modern Family” executive producers, Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, picked up the statuette for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. The cherry on top to this successful night, however, had to of been when “Modern Family” won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series!

In addition to all of their Sunday wins, “Modern Family” took home three additional awards on August 21 at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. As opposed to the Primetime Emmys, the Creative Arts Awards focuses on the technical art of television production. “Modern Family” was awarded Best Casting of a Comedy Series, Best Picture Editing of a Comedy Series, and tied with HBO’S “Entourage” for Best Sound Mixing for Half-Hour Comedy or Drama Series.

Congrats, “Modern Family,” on all six of your Emmy wins!

Eric Stonestreet’s acceptance speech for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Steve Levitan’s acceptance speech for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series

Acceptance Speech for Outstanding Comedy Series

I have to say, I love the outfit that Rico Rodriguez, better know as the adorable Manny Delgado, was wearing. The red shirt and fedora combo was priceless. He looked like a younger version of LaBamba from “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.”

LaBamba

Also, is it just me or does executive producer, Steve Levitan, have an uncanny resemblance to Ray Romano?

Steve Levitan

Ray Romano

“Modern Family” is a hilarious television show on ABC that I have recently become a big fan of. If you have never seen the show, I definitely recommend tuning in to ABC at 9/8c on September 22 for the premiere of season 2. Each episode has its own unique plot line so you won’t really be lost if you didn’t catch last season. The only thing you need to know about are the family dynamics. Let me break it down for you:

Jay, Gloria and Manny

Jay is the father of Mitchell and Claire whom have now grown up and have families of their own. Jay recently married Gloria-a beautiful Columbian woman who is much younger than he is. She has a son named Manny from her previous marriage. Jay is a simple and straightforward while Gloria and Manny are very passionate people. Even though Manny is only ten and three-quarters, he is rather mature for his age, loves women and does not consider himself a child.

Claire, Phil, Haley, Alex and Luke

Claire and Phil are the parents of Haley, Alex and Luke-three very different children. Haley is a pretty, boy-crazy teenager, Alex is the smart, middle child, and Luke is the wild man of the family. Phil is a dorky dad who thinks that he is hip and cool while Claire is the high-strung glue that binds the family together.

Mitchell, Cameron and Lilly

Mitchell and Cameron are life partners who recently adopted a Vietnamese baby girl named Lily. Mitch is a serious guy and tends to be a worrier. He is basically the opposite of his partner Cameron-a very jovial and dramatic guy. Together, they are raising Lily and learning to navigate parenthood.

That’s it! Now you know the family and are ready for the season premiere on September 22 at 9/8c on ABC!