Modern Family Review: “Australia” (Season 5, Episode 20)

Episode scribes Elaine Ko and Danny Zuker lay out a rather rigid collection of Australian stereotypes. From the encounters with kangaroos, wild dogs and an actual crocodile hunter to the threat of dangerous men invading on the characters’ space – Australia’s tourism has dipped due to poisonous tales of misbegotten adventures in the wild – it is a rather flat depiction of a beautiful country. Add Manny and Luke’s joining a native tribe and engaging in some overly flamboyant dancing and the local targets feel even cheaper. It is fitting that Lily is searching crazily for the perfect marsupial stuffed animal for the entire episode. Ko and Zuker are doing something similar, looking for staples of Australian traits that an American audience will recognize without giving them more depth than a toy.

What makes the episode even stranger is its rushed pace doubled with the loose, seemingly random plotting – the biker gang that Cam and Mitch meet when their cab breaks down, the kangaroo punching Phil, the native tribe approaching Manny and Luke so informally. By trying to push so much into the episode, “Australia” turns into a half-hour driven by situational jokes rather than insightful, character-based humour.

This undercuts Phil’s spiritual journey, which could have been poignant, but ends up turning the aloof dad into something of an annoyance. His encounter with a character credited as “Wise Australian” (Peter Phelps) is sweet and a nice way to finish his subplot, but there is no doubt the episode could have done more with his quest. Yes, the writers make a “Crocodile Dunphy” joke and yes, it is painful.

“Australia”’s MVP is Lily, who has been absent from many of the best episodes this season. Aubrey Anderson-Emmons gets three of the best lines of the episode, as the sour cynic puts the rest of her fussy family in their place. “Lily, what did I just say?” Haley asks her as they lie on the beach. “I don’t know,” Lily bites back. “Something about shoes, probably.” Lily is the only character on the show to surprise the viewer every week, since the writers gives her the freshest dialogue. She points out her cousin’s vapidity and her fathers’ most egregious flaws as parents with wicked aplomb. She is the little engine of comedy that makes lazier episodes like “Australia” nearly worth the time. “Shopping with Lily is the best birth control in the world,” Haley quips, but I am sure Modern Family’s writing staff disagrees.

This year’s edition of Modern Family Tours the Globe ends with a montage of the characters partaking in some rather pricey adventures – lying on beautiful sandy beaches, taking a helicopter ride above the coastal mountains. By characters, I mean the actors. This is the most blatant ABC has ever been with how these episodes are small work duties that eventually turn into a full-fledged vacation for the show’s stars, where one of network television’s highest-paid casts can splurge on a week of seeing scintillating sights. Some of the writers responsible for crafting the sly jokes and situational comedy were probably on vacation this week, too.