Modern Family, "Mother Tucker"

Surprisingly, this episode that aired the night before Thanksgiving was not about the holiday.  It actually didn't matter to me, because the storylines they did have were brilliant.

Phil has always had a special attachment to his eldest daughter Haley's boyfriend Dylan.  Dylan is a clueless, quiet yet hilarious teenager whom Haley was cheating on with her tutor.  When Claire catches Haley making out with the tutor, she encourages Haley to break up with Dylan as soon as possible.  Phil is upset at the thought of the break-up, partially because he had been publicly dumped in high school.

When Dylan comes to the house to get his things left there, Phil feels bad and starts to hang out with him as they go guitar shopping.  Phil is definitely my favorite character on TV right behind Michael Scott on The Office.  Those 2 characters have a lot in common, and it is no wonder that this attributes to the popularity of both shows.

Manny, the 50 year old soul living in a 12 year old's body, was helping diagnose his stepfather Jay's symptoms using a Web MD type of site.  Manny's mother Gloria doesn't believe in any sort of medical attention because she was raised in Colombia and is used to treating her ailments herself.  This particular storyline wasn't the funniest the Pritchett family has had but nothing could have beaten Phil's relationship with Dylan.

I haven't even mentioned Cam and Mitchell's story yet, and their situation is where the episode title comes from.  Cam's mother (as seen above) comes to visit, and she is very inappropriately touchy with Mitchell, without meaning to be like that.  This was a very predictable way to prove that Cam is a momma's boy at heart.

Modern Family, "Manny Get Your Gun"

The ABC Wednesday comedy night line-up was full of excellent episodes.  I chose to write about Modern Family this time because out of all the shows, this one had me tearing up from laughing so much.

The Dunphys are my favorite of the 3 main families.  Phil and Claire are the parents of Luke, Alex, and Haley.  Phil started off the episode with talking about family camp, an apparent tradition in their family.
Talking about the color teams they were split into last summer, this exchange of words was classic:

Phil: "If you ain't white, you ain't right!"

Claire: "Phil, have you learned nothing?!"

Soon, the attention shifted to the other families, all of whom were getting ready for Manny's birthday dinner.  The gay couple, Cameron and Mitchell, were shopping for their nephew's birthday present when they found an old man trying to yell for an old woman in the plaza.  Cam stepped in and helped get his message across, only to discover that the woman was the man's mistress.  As Mitchell said, they were the most "adult adulterers!"  Perhaps the funniest scene with Cam and Mitchell happened after Mitchell joined in on a flash dance mob.  Cameron was so upset that Mitchell "cheated on him with dance" when all Mitchell was trying to do was prove that he can be fun. 

Manny is getting ready for his own birthday dinner when he realizes he hasn't lived like a child much.  He drinks coffee, and complains about his achy knee predicting the rainy weather to come.  When he pulls out an old pool float he got years ago, he literally floats around in his wallows until his mother Gloria makes him snap out of it so they can finally leave for his dinner.

All of these storylines literally collided in the end when they all almost crash in front of the restaurant.  The good thing about this show is that every episode has a warm message underneath all the humor.  If you haven't seen it before, I would highly recommend catching up!

Season 1 is out on DVD now!