Review: Modern Family, The Incident

Jay's Ex-wife Wants To Move On After Embarrassing Outburst.

Oct 20, 2009

Modern Family is a new comedy that's fresh, intelligent, and clear in its goal to be a contender.

Modern Family is Fox's new primetime show for Wednesday nights. If you haven't had a chance to catch it yet, the show centers around the families of Jay Pritchet, his daughter Claire Dunphy, and his son Mitchell Pritchet. Jay has a new wife, Gloria, and a new stepson, Manny. Claire and her husband, Phil, have three children: Haley, Alex, and Luke. Mitchell lives with his life partner, Cameron, and their adopted Vietnamese daughter, Lily. Each family is given about the same amount of screen time with their own unique problems and issues that, so far, usually end up overlapping for a total Pritchet-reunion towards the end of each episode.

The Incident

In the fourth episode of Season 1, which aired Wednesday, October 14, 2009, Jay's ex-wife, Dede, wants to apologize months after she embarrassed Jay and Gloria on their wedding day. She claims to have found her own love and plans to move to a 'far-away land' (read: Canada), but can't without being forgiven. She goes to Mitchell, who's known for being a momma's boy, to set up a family dinner so she can have her chance. When Mitchell pitches the idea to his father, Jay wants nothing to do with it, advising that he make it look like the dinner invitation was a last minute intrusion that no one else had prior knowledge of.

Meanwhile, Claire and Phil struggle with the decision of letting their teenage daughter go to an overnight concert with her boyfriend and Jay tries to (misguidedly) teach Manny how to deal with bullies. The whole episode builds up to the inevitable final scene when Dede comes to dinner, bringing a tension with her that not only turns Gloria into a raging madwoman, but has a resentful Claire reflecting on childhood memories. How does it all turn out? Unexpectedly. Haley's boyfriend, Dylan, saves the day with his own deep inner thoughts on family and then tops it off with a nice guitar solo about his sexual desires for the beloved Haley.

Where It Shines

Modern Family is like a breathe of fresh air amongst a generation of new sitcoms that just seem to try too hard. The jokes are funny, well set-up, and make you feel like the the show earned your laughter, rather than tricked it out of you. Phil's 'hip' dad persona, Claire's constant state of 'I've had enough,' Mitchell and Cameron's special relationship (and I'm still waiting to see what exactly is wrong with that baby, as hinted in episodes 1 and 2), and especially Manny's carefree take on the world that led to the funniest line in the series so far--all are fun to watch and promise a bright future.

With The Incident, this is no different. In fact, this is the best episode of the four. Manny naively thinks that his 'friends' invited him to their slumber party out of kindness when they only wanted to play a joke on him--Jay's suggestion of revenge leads to the ten-year-old setting a few bikes on fire. Claire's mother isn't helpful with the Haley-boyfriend-concert situation, reminding Claire how she stayed out until two in the morning when she was the girl's age. Mitchell spends the episode trying to combat his label as the one who always cleans up all his mother's mess while Cameron just tries (and fails) not to say 'I told you so' about getting involved. And then there's the hilarious Incident itself in all its drunken, judgmental glory. There are a lot of laughs to be had here in what sounds like a circus but plays like the hardships we all find in this thing called family.

The best thing about the show is what critics have said the latest seasons of The Simpsons lack: it has heart. Remember those episodes of The Simpsons that would end with Marge and Homer riding into the sunset? Or no matter how ridiculous the antics of the storyline, everything came back together for a message that related to true family life instead of just a string of jokes that might get a chuckle but really don't hold water? Yeah, Modern Family is something like that. It was seen in the Pilot when Mitchell and Cameron introduced Lily to the family for ultimate support despite previous criticism, and it was present in The Incident when Dylan pointed out that this family talks about their issues, a characteristic many lack. Sure, the family is flawed, rough around the edges, drama-filled, all the things that make a family a lifelong headache, but it feels like a family. It shows us what we already see in ourselves and invites us to laugh. And what can be better than that?

Final Thoughts

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