“Fifteen percent” sets down its premise in the opening voice over—can people change? For Modern Family this question is particularly odd because, well, so far no change has happened yet in the show. Aside from exposition which wasn’t too strong to begin with, there isn’t much difference between the most recent episode and the first one, either in plot structure, character development, or pretty much anything else. The show’s funny, but verite traits aside it sticks pretty well to the traditional sitcom formula of everything returning to status quo at the end of the episode.
“I just met the sweetest guy named Cameron. I think he might be the one.”
The show certainly doesn’t live up to that thematic material, and largely ignores it, but two of its plotlines are as strong as we’ve been lead to expect things to be. My favorite of these, for personal reasons, is about Phil Dunphy telling his wife Claire that their entertainment center is usable by anyone, up to and including her. As a man who has tried to explain to his girlfriend that an entertainment center is simple and failed miserably, this area seemed spot-on. Not only that, it was also one of the few times that Phil has risen above his Michael Scott origins and shown some modicum of intelligence. It’s not much, since Luke seems to have the same electronic aptitude, but at least he’s got that going for him.
Claire destroys their remote in frustration, and the pair decides to answer once and for all whether the setup is usable by seeing if Phil can teach their “dumbest kid” to use it within 20 minutes. In a surprise twist, this turns out to be Haley due to Luke’s aforementioned abilities. Less because she gives a damn or Phil’s a good teacher or their setup actually is easy than because she wants to humiliate her mother, Haley learns this and Claire concedes that they can keep things the way Phil wants.
Meanwhile (I suppose, since the plotlines at no point interact even slightly), Mitchell is incensed that his dad called Cameron Mitchell’s friend rather than husband in front of some of his friends. When Cameron confronts Jay about this, nothing is really solved but he claims that one of Jay’s friends is in fact closeted himself. Jay treats this very seriously, though, and after years learning to accept Mitchell wants to help his friend come out as well. Of course, his friends isn’t actually gay (or is he?), Mitchell just wanted to screw with his father while he was angry with him, and long story short Jay now owes his friend $20,000.
The show basically says that Jay treating anyone gay, or in this case potentially gay, with a modicum of respect is change, but of course this isn’t true except in the abstract. Since we’ve known Jay he’s been mildly offensive but not actually homophobic, and his claims to be racist are belied by his spouse and step-son. Likewise, Claire’s change is so minimal as to not really matter at all. It’s a bit of a cop out in that way, but both of these plots are funny enough that who really gives a damn? I’d just rather that episodes weren’t framed with topics like this.
Oh, and aside from these plots, there’s also some of the usual business with Manny hitting on a much older girl. The girl in this case happens to be Kristen Schaal, who plays Mel on Flight of the Conchords, which is nice, but nothing else of interest happened on that front.
Stray Observations:
“You guys look like a scene out of Jersey Boys” – yeah I have no idea what that means either.
“I had to actually come out of the closet three times before [my dad] acknowledged it.”
-I like the thermostat song a lot. Useful and catchy.
“I come from a neighborhood with a lot of prostitutes.”
“We’re guys, we don’t open up. We talk about sports and cars and getting up in the middle of the night to pee.”
-I enjoy any “who’s the dumbest kid” competition between parents. It seems so wrong yet so very right.”
“Look at that, two things flaming at once.”
“This for all those times mom told you she was right, and you knew she was wrong.”