Modern Family is usually at its best when the whole gang gets together and so I expected a lot of this week’s episode, which saw the whole family head to Disneyland. Unfortunately, I was left feeling kind of unsatisfied.
Mitch and Cam faced the difficult decision of whether to put Lily, who tends to run off, on one of those kiddie leashes. Look y’all. These aren’t new, they’ve just gotten cuter. I had a leash when I was a kid, and I turned out fine. Although I did like that Jay took the Suri Cruise approach with Lily, putting her in kiddie high heeled princess shoes so she could barely walk, let alone run away. That was smart. Ultimately, I felt like there wasn’t much to this story.
Claire spent the day trying to hook Haley up with a smart college kid who actually got along better with 14 year-old Alex, and her entire plan was thwarted when they ran into Dylan at the theme park. Turns out he works there now. So…Dylan’s back, and back with Haley. Dylan provided some funny material, but I feel like it’s been exhausted. I didn’t really need to see him again.
Phil‘s storyline was pretty funny, though. He was so excited to finally be able to go on rides with Luke, now that Luke is tall enough, but every ride beat the crap out of him. It turned out it was just the flu. Yay! But the end credits revealed that healthy Phil can’t handle rides either. I thought this was stupid – both my mom and my dad went on big rides like that with me when they were around Phil’s age and they loved it as much as I do. So I’m calling bull on this one!
Jay and Gloria‘s storyline was cute and funny, but pretty minor. Gloria insisted on wearing heels to Disneyland, and of course her feet began to hurt pretty quickly. Eventually Jay bought her some giant Disney slippers. Meanwhile, Manny wasted most of the day pretending to be a stock broker on his phone. I love pretty much any Manny storyline.
All that said, I really liked how throughout the episode we learned from Jay about a family trip to Disney long ago, in which he’d considered leaving DeDe but decided to stick it out. It was a sweet reminiscence, and it ended on a funny note. In fact, there were some really damn funny lines in the episode – I especially liked theDownton Abbey references. Here are a few other favorite quotes and moments:
- “Do you know how much walking you have to do at Disneyland? Why do you think they have so many fat people on scooters?” – Jay
- “Everybody’s looking at us. I haven’t been judged by this many people since I forgot my canvas bags at Whole Foods.” – Mitch
- Jay: “The fluid in your inner ear is thickening. That’s what happens when you get old.”
Phil: “It is?”
Jay: “Yeah, you can’t take the motion. I gotta pop a Dramamine to get into my swivel chair.” - “Okay, it’s Toontown, not Toonton. You’ve been watching too much PBS.” – Mitch
- Claire: “You might have the flu.”
Phil: “A bunch of guys at work had the flu and we all drink orange juice out of the same carton! We should get cups.”
