Modern Family - Up All Night

Network: ABC
Time: Wednesdays, 9:00-9:30pm
Cast: Ed O'Neill, Sofia Vergara, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet, Rico Rodriguez, Nolan Gould, Sarah Hyland, Ariel Winter

Summary: When Gloria encourages Jay to get along with Javier, Manny's father, he gets a little carried about with his male bonding.  Phil has a kidney stone and proceeds to milk it it for all it's worth.  Mitchell wants to use the Ferber method to get Lily to sleep, but Cameron has a lot more trouble with it than he expected.  Guest starring Benjamin Bratt.

Review: In the last few months, this has easily become one of my favorite shows on television.  It's one of the few sitcoms I've ever watched where I've really grown attached to the characters, enough so that I truly care about what happens to them.

I'd like to say this episode was the best so far, or that it wasn't quite up to par, but the truth is, there hasn't been a single episode I haven't loved, and there hasn't been one that I thought really rose above the rest.  Modern Family is consistently great, and this episode was no exception.

We've heard talk about Manny's father in several episodes, and I certainly had an impression of him going into this episode.  I imagined he was a smooth-talker, deadbeat dad who showed up just enough to keep his son's hopes up.  And... I was pretty much right.  Benjamin Bratt, who I adore, did an excellent job portraying Javier--and showing Jay exactly how easy it was for Gloria to be seduced by him.  The downside to this was that they didn't have time to show much of the relationship between Manny, his father, and his stepfather.  I would have liked to see more tension there, maybe a little possessiveness on their parts.  Instead, the episode focused on developing the relationship between Jay and Javier.  It was probably my least favorite of the three storylines (which makes it sound much more negative than it was).

Next up was the Dunphy family drama.  Phil had a kidney stone and, being Phil, acted like he was dying from it, leaving the family no choice but to call in the hot firemen to take him to the hospital.  I'm not really sure why firemen came to take him to the hospital, but we can ignore that minor plot hole in favor of the far funnier idea that Claire paused in caring for her ill husband (and a kidney stone is something he could legitimately get worked up about, even if he wasn't Phil) to put on a nice shirt and heels to impress them.  The family dynamic was great in this story, from Luke's fear that he would have to be the man of the house, to Phil's overdramatic line, "If I never wake up, I'd hate for the last thing you ever said to me to be a lie," to all the ways Phil thought Claire could pay him back for lying to him.

And then there was my favorite story: the Ferberization of Lily.  Mitchell wanted to use the Ferber method to get Lily to get herself to sleep (which basically consists of letting her cry herself out instead of cuddling her every time she fusses, obviously within reason).  Cam has... difficulties with this.  Most of the episode deals in short spurts with Mitchell trying to stop Cam from picking Lily up every time she cries.  But the best part came when Mitchell finally confronts Cam and tells him he's tired of always being the bad cop.  There's such a realism to Mitchell and Cam's relationship; it's always funny, but, in the end, it's usually the sweetest part of the show.  I appreciate a sitcom that takes a gay relationship and doesn't overdo it.  So many shows make the characters overly flamboyant and the relationship really tacky.  And Modern Family certainly has its flamboyant moments.  But the relationship is always real, and it's much more like you'd expect a committed relationship to be than most sitcoms offer.

The only thing this episode was lacking was the part where the whole family comes together in the end.  It wasn't necessary, and it wasn't something I missed until I looked back and thought about it, but it's something I've enjoyed about the other episodes, the big, happy family bit.

What this episode did have that most of the others don't, however, were interviews with the kids.  In fact, most of it was dominated by them.  The theme of the day was, "What do my parents tell me to do that annoys me the most?"  I think we can all, no matter how old, relate to that.

Favorite line:
Cam (after a small scuffle causes Mitch to hurt his ankle): "I'm sorry I hurt you."
Mitch: "No, no, don't be.  I could just have easily have hurt you."
Cam: "Well, it's cute that you think that."

Rating:
[5] Excellent
[4] Good
[3] Average
[2] OK
[1] Bad