Modern Family – Recap & Review – Halloween

photo: abc

Modern Family
Halloween

Original Air Date: Oct 27, 2010

Karen Belgrad – Associate Staff Writer
karenbelgrad@
thetwocentscorp.com

Back in the 90’s, one sitcom ruled Halloween and that was the blue collar world of the Conners, “Roseanne.” Well, here in 2010, we have a new ruler for the newish millennium with the Dunphys! And that’s fine by Claire, as she is the new queen of the spooky day!

I apparently lived in a dull neighborhood growing up. Everyone had candy, sure, but nobody opened their home as a haunted house to scare us children. We ducked flying eggs and shaving cream, but never did a grown man dressed as a scarecrow frighten me from the bushes… I guess that’s a good thing! Let’s see how the folks at Modern Family do it, shall we?

Phil and Claire love Halloween. They’re decking out their house and yard as the creepiest on the block, but not everything is going according to plan. Claire is distressed by Haley’s parade of skimpy costumes and Alex’s underwhelming interest. Phil is freaked to learn that his neighbors are divorcing and afraid that he and Claire could end up there one day. He’s not afraid of it being because of cheating, drinking, or spousal abuse though, because he’s “a monogamous social drinker and Claire only sleep hits” him! What he is afraid of is that it could come out of the blue, so he resolves to be more spontaneous and sexy. Yes, it causes physical injury.

Gloria is insistent that her English is not that bad, but there is a long list of incorrect phrases that beg to differ. When receive a box of Jesuses instead of cheeses, there may be an enunciation problem! However, I do propose we all switch to “doggy dog world” going forward because, as Gloria put it, “Who wants to live in a world where dogs eat each other? Doggy dog world is a beautiful world full of little puppies!” But the damage is done, and Gloria’s feelings are hurt.

Mitchell is having a bad day at work. He believed that dressing up was a tradition at his new office, but arrived in full Spiderman costume to find the only people dressed were the tool, the douche, and him. Luckily, his dry cleaning is in the car so he dons a suit over his costume. However he is dragged from meeting to meeting with his costume squeaking underneath and coworkers commenting on his muscular arms. He finally makes it to the bathroom to remove the costume, and in an incredible bit of physical mishap comedy, he manages to lose his shirt, drop his pants in the toilet, and ends up shimmying down a drain pipe dressed as Spiderman to get to his car and extra suit, only to set off multiple car alarms and attract the attention of all of his coworkers.

But no matter how bummed Mitchell is, how upset Gloria is, everyone must still go to the Dunphys for haunted house madness. Phil and Claire are corpse bride and groom. Luke is Dr. Frankenstein and Manny is his monster. Alex is in a cage. Gloria is a bruha (witch) and Jay is a gargoyle. Haley decides on Mother Teresa (skimpy dress and habit).

Unfortunately, nobody is in Claire’s holiday spirit. Gloria is over enunciating in proper English. Cameron has a long standing grudge against Halloween, which he likes to refer to and not explain. Mitchell is despondent over his bad day at the office. And Phil is still trying to be spontaneous and sexy.

The haunted house has all the bells and whistles with lightning, thunder, fog (fog que!), stalking scarecrows, cackling witches, and a child in a cage. They botch the first run and Claire is annoyed. During the second run, Cameron’s childhood trauma comes to light, as at ten years old, dressed as Quasimodo, was falsely accused of taking all the candy, ran off, was chased by townspeople, tripped, and wet his pants. Oh, poor Cameron… But we still wanted to see him dressed as Fizbo again, so a little poor us!

Claire finally loses and goes off, explaining that they have fireworks on Christmas (like in Colombia) and that the ‘gays’ have taken over Thanksgiving so they can do the new turkey cooking craze from the Food Network, that she wants Halloween. It’s her crazy ass day.

Out if the front yard, Phil comforts her and confesses that he worries she’ll leave him just like the neighbor’s wife. She lovingly reminds him that he’s stuck with her. Inside, they hear the family perfectly executing her haunted house dream as the neighborhood children come screaming from the house,

This was an incredible half hour of comedy. The best Modern Family episodes come when the families interact and overlap each other seamlessly. This is an instant television classic that will be on every best Halloween episode list for years to come!

Those are my TwoCents! What are your TwoCents! Did you love this episode too? Or do you have an old tomato (ultimatum) to issue? Leave your thoughts and comments below!