Cam’s overzealous need to please is not as desperate as Phil’s, though. Ty Burrell, always and forever this series’ MVP, gets a perfect outlet for his over-animated self this week. He takes Haley as his date to an annual realtors banquet that he is hosting (for the third time, may he add) and does his best Billy Crystal impersonation by taking a popular song during his opening schtick (here, it is “Come Sail Away,” by Styx) and switching up the words. (Choice line: “A gathering of agents appeared above my head.”) His puns are groaners but the audience takes it affably; however, even after three costume changes, he is distracted by Haley’s texting and screws up.
If Modern Family had just stuck to these three dads trying to impress others – in all the storylines, Mitch, Cam and Phil are hoping that their performances have what it takes – it would have been enough. However, we are left with a lot of subplots that aren’t as strong, although still punctuated with some smart humour.
One such subplot sees Jay and Gloria try to be the better negotiator with Lily when they suspect she broke Gloria’s phone and Lily blames it on Joe. (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons has definitely worked on her comic reactions, which she may have gleaned from her often nonplussed dads.)
The weakest story involves Claire chaperoning Luke and Alex (and their gawky, peculiar dates) to the Spring-a-Ding-Fling. Luke is hanging out with Rhonda, who is just as goofy and childish as he is. Meanwhile, Alex is hanging out with Drew, a boy just as unfazed by the superficiality of school dances and wants to “go ironically” with her. These matches are perhaps too perfect, and so Claire makes it her job to change them to her benefit. She prettifies Rhonda like Molly Ringwald does to Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club and tries to ‘pimp out’ Drew by giving him permission to have the house to Alex and himself. This attention she gives to Luke and Alex could have sprouted into a funnier and more fulfilling story for Claire if we understood her motives a little more clearly and the writers had more room to let the story breathe on its own. Unfortunately though, that isn’t the case.
Despite a bit of clutter and compression, “Spring-a-Ding-Fling” was a Modern Family episode that could have run in season two. The one-liners are sharp, the actors receive, for the most part, fresh plots that give them a chance to display their range and the two guest stars do not feel wasted. Now, let us wish there is an extended cut of Phil Dunphy’s Styx-influenced showstopper available somewhere.
