On the Dunphy front, Phil has reached a hot streak as a realtor by charming his divorcee clients – he tells one, “You’re not going to be alone, you’re going to get a loan.” He spends more time catering to their needs as a way to score some new sales than catering to his wife’s needs, which include grocery shopping and yard work while she runs to the office. Down in the Dunphy basement, Luke invites some friends over for a poker game, much to the chagrin of his older sisters who must bear with being the butt of the pranks Luke’s friends pull when he loses a hand.
It is clear that the best chemistry on the show still belongs to the loving, if constantly sniping and disagreeing, Phil and Claire Dunphy (there’s a reason why Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen are favourites on Emmy night). The episode’s finest, freshest moment comes at the end, when Phil bumps into a trio of his divorcee clients at the supermarket, where Claire is also shopping. Claire then play-acts as an ex-client of her husband’s, accentuating how well he treated her while selling her a home. It turns out that she is a better salesperson that her hubby.
As satisfying as that scene is, their teenage kids get little to do back at home. The entirety of the poker game happens off-screen and the actors must reciprocate with dialogue explaining who lost what bet when upstairs. Considering how the young actors’ comic timing typically comes up aces, it is a shame there is such little time spent with them in the episode. (Note to writers: more brother-sisters bonding between the Dunphy kids!)
There is a lot of plot for writer Bill Wrubel to condense into a half-hour of television, and it proves to be too much. To keep the stories rolling, Wrubel recoils to jokes that bring up the most one-dimensional descriptions of the characters: Haley is dumb, Alex is smart, Manny is effeminate, Jay is cranky, Gloria is superstitious, Phil is careless, Claire is controlling, Cam is overbearing, Mitch is cautious.
By trying to stuff in too many plot details, Wrubel must flatten the characters to these base personalities. When the characters are this flat, the jokes fall flat as well. If this streak continues, perhaps the Modern Family writers need to reexamine how to structure their episodes, so that each storyline gets a proper treatment.
