Modern Family – Recap & Review – Bixby’s Back

photo: abc

Modern Family
Bixby’s Back

Original Air Date: Feb 9, 2011

Karen Belgrad- Associate Editor
Karenbelgrad
@thetwocentscorp.com

Ah, Valentine’s day.  The last bastion of torture for single people and oddly enough, most couples.  In fact, the pressure on couples to top themselves and show their most romantic, endearing sides can often lead to great conflict.  And nobody does humorous conflict like Modern Family.

Last year’s My Funky Valentine was an instant classic in a standout first season.  Therefore, this year’s episode had a lot of expectations to live up to.  Let’s see if it lived up to the hype, shall we?

Claire and Phil: After last year’s disastrous role playing adventure, Phil and Claire are playing it safe this year with a simple dinner at Ibiza.  However, their 6:30 reservation does little but make them feel old, especially with the senior citizen dinner company they’re keeping and Phil’s awesome ability to maneuver a scooter.   Despite their resolution to not overreach this year, Claire invokes their alter egos, “Clive Bixby” and ”Juliana”.  After staging an argument at the restaurant, Phil takes off to stop at home for name tags and then then to their favorite hotel bar.

At the bar, the two work their character charade to hilarious results.  “Clive” is apparently not a salesman, but a high risk “national man of mystery.”  He has ten million dollars, less the cost of “Juliana”’s next appletini.  “Juliana”’s a bored housewife, whose hotel key card doubles as a “gift card”.  The one liners fly back and forth, with Phil’s ineptitude showing through as he is “usually pretty good at catching things from women in bars.”

“Juliana” lays her room key down for “Clive”, who in his distraction grabs the wrong key.  As “Juliana” preps herself in the bathroom, “Clive” strips down to his skivvies (cause she could still hear his pants) and lays on the bed with champagne and rose petals.  He entices “Juliana” to search for him, but Claire quickly realizes they’re not in the same room.  Just as the champagne cork pops, the lady who’s key Phil grabbed walks in, and Phil claims “tiny mistake”.

Back home, Claire is mortified that Phil narrowly escaped arrest.  Phil reminds her that they don’t need the alter egos, they have a bedroom that can be imagined as hotel room any time they want.  They sneak in the house (all the kids are there) to go up to their room to enjoy the rest of their evening.  Until, of course, Phil hurts his back falling off the bed.

Cam and Mitchell: Cam has Mitchell flowers for Valentine’s Day, but they never make it to his desk.  Cam is quick to correctly point the finger at Mitchell’s assistant, Broderick (played by iCarly’s Jeremy Rowley), whom he says has a massive crush on Mitchell, which Mitchell unconvincingly denies.  When Cam visits the office and finds out Mitchell’s in a meeting, he accuses Broderick of trying to come between them.  Broderick admits he has “a” crush and tightly hugs Cam, who surmises that he is the true object of the crush.

Cam and Mitchell go to Ibiza (where they have to reclaim their reservation from Gloria and Jay, but more on that below), but can’t enjoy their dinner once they both realize that that they each think Broderick’s affections are for themselves.  They pretend to play it off, but end up bickering and actually leave the restaurant to go ask Broderick who he favors.  En route, Broderick sends a text that he’s resigning because it doesn’t want to come between them.  He says what they have is special and they should treasure it.  The two agree that they need to appreciate each other more, but secretly still think Broderick meant themselves and not the other.  The situation only reoccurs though when their delivery guy, with extra tiramisu, ponders “if only you were single.”

Gloria and Jay: Jay plans an elaborate fake out to prove his romantic nature to Gloria.  He plans to take her to Ibiza without a reservation and when they can’t get a table, surprise her back at home with a private dinner and a personal chef. It goes wrong at the restaurant when Gloria mistakenly assumes that Cam and Mitchell’s “Prichett-2” reservation is hers, and Jay has a hard time getting her home.  Back at home, she’s mad and yelling and he has to carry her into the house… which is empty.  She storms off to the garage to take a drive, but when she opens it, the chef, the dinner, and a motorcycle are waiting for Jay.

Gloria proclaims she’s won Valentine’s Day.  She also says it proves that Jay is romantic and that she’s smarter than him! He thinks competing on the holiday defeats the purpose.  She still says she won.  They for a bike ride.

The Kids: Yes, this week all of the kids (except Lily) are hanging at the Dunphy’s.  Alex has a phone date with her boyfriend to watch Love Actually (a Christmas love story, but so much better than last year’s Americanized, overstuffed dreck of a movie Valentine’s Day ).  Haley is depressed because David is studying and she’s thinking of using Dylan to make him jealous.  Manny steps up and says Haley should (be like 1995’s Kelly Taylor) and choose herself.  She seems open to the idea, but freaks over being alone.  Unfortunately, Manny’s actions are driven by his crush on her.  Um, ew!  He may be younger, but he’s technically her UNCLE! Luckily, Dylan shows up with a band to serenade her with a song about imagining him naked (Claire in her room pretends not to hear the lyrics).

And with that Modern Family succeeds with an awesome sequel to last year’s episode.  Claire and Phil played off each other perfectly.  Although some see Claire as overbearing at times, episodes like this show how she and Phil really are a perfect match.  Trophy wife comments disappear when you see the lengths Jay and Gloria go to for each other.  And Cam and Mitchell are amazingly similar when it comes down to matters of the heart.  But just out of curiosity, did Luke speak tonight?

Well, those are my TwoCents!  What are your TwoCents?  Share your comments, thoughts, and feedback below!