So, as you’ve probably noticed, I was a bit fail with last week’s Modern Family recap. But it wasn’t my fault! My POS DVR decided last Wednesday that it didn’t feel like recording Modern Family. I don’t normally watch it live, so I didn’t notice until 9:03, so I scrambled to start the recording when the apocalypse hit. My DVR crashed. And proceeded to try to reboot itself for the next 45 minutes. *Sigh* But, so, instead of having the recap be days late, or show up on a Saturday, I decided to make you wait a week, because that’s the logic that my brain follows. Kidding. I figured I’d just hit y’all with a DOUBLE recap this week! I know. I’m too kind. So that’s what I’m going to do.

Last week’s ep was pretty good. There was a good call back to Phil’s friend Andre, the neighbor he met while he was working on Luke’s treehouse, so that was pretty awesome. I enjoy them together. I love Phil and Luke together (like with last night’s episode), but it’s good to see Phil with actual adult friends. Anyway, the purpose of their friendly outing was that Phil was going to buy a new car. He was going to be all practical about it and buy a sedan, but Andre convinced him to get the sleek, 1991 convertible instead, even though Phil knew Claire was going to be mad. Soon after purchasing, he realizes it’s not practical for work, so he and Claire trade cars for the day so he can have the van.

The story then becomes about Claire and her decision to really let loose, blow off her errands, and just drive up the coast. She goes to the beach, plays in the sand, does cartwheels… and loses the car keys. Luckily Phil comes to the rescue, and they have a really cute moment where they make plans to sneak off to the beach together more often. It was nice to see Claire allow herself to be carefree, even if she did have sunscreen in her purse and ended up losing the car keys. And I just love watching her and Phil together.

In Mitchell and Cam’s story, they decide to take Lily on her first train ride to Chinatown. The main plot here is that they accidentally lose her stuffed bunny, Bunny, but the best part is probably all the jokes about how Cam was scared she would freak out and think they were taking her back to Vietnam. Even though she was an infant when they left. And you know, Chinaisn’t Vietnam. I really do love how dramatic Cam can be. But anyway… Mitchell makes a big deal out of finding Bunny because of another of his long-standing daddy issues: when he was a kid, he left his “Shorty Robe” Luke Skywalker doll on a plane and Jay did nothing to get it back. So Mitchell is determined. Unfortunately, they finally find it in the clutches of a homeless man who hacks up half a lung onto the thing and they decide to abandon the whole task. In the last scene of the story,Cam gives Mitch a “Shorty Robe” Luke that he bought online, but Lily commandeers is, so all’s well, I guess.

Last was the Jay/Gloria/Manny story, which was a tiny bit tedious, not gonna lie. Jay has a reunion of sorts up at Pebble Beach with some guys he used to play football with. He’s make a bit show of getting up there, like bringing expensive watches, and hiring charter planes. Gloria is super annoyed, but when all their transportation methods fail (she won’t get on the plane, their giant-ass Escalade breaks down, she won’t take a helicopter), he admits that he wasn’t that popular with the guys and he only wants to go up there to show off… specifically his hot trophy wife. Well, THAT makes it worth it! In another circumstance, Gloria’s sudden willingness to go could have been construed as a bit sexist, or at least somehow offensive, but because Gloria is Gloria, it kind of works that she wanted to be a trophy wife, I guess. I mean, you can’t deny that it’s gotta be pretty great being Gloria, you know? More on this in the next ep, though. For real.

Favorite Moments/Quotes

• Lily: “Daddy lost bunny!” Mitch & Cam: “She means you!” HAHAHA awwww!
• “I’d rather take her for a spin. Take her top down, see what she can do.”
• “This is just like last year when you wouldn’t take off those skinny jeans.”
• Phil telling Claire, “Andres’ seen a lot of people die,” like it’s some valid explanation as to why he bought the car.
• Claire: “You can make your own choices.” Phil: “Since when?”
• Claire: “Phil, I did cartwheels.” Phil: “Without me??”
• “Alex is learning Chinese so she’ll be useful when they finish buying us.” And “She’ll be China’s problem soon.”

ON TO LAST NIGHT’S EP!

Last night’s ep is the one that got tweeted about a TON – the whole family goes to Disneyland! I think it was a pretty solid episode, about on par with last week’s. And there were some great moments that I absolutely loved. Oddly enough, my favorite moment of the entire thing was between Jay and Gloria, but we’ll get to that. One issue though: Are you telling me they were at Disneyland the entire day and those kids didn’t become utter HELL at all?

Basically, it was a typical ensemble story line. The characters were broken off into their little stories, but they were all interwoven. But there was one interesting difference: In the interviews, Jay was telling a story about the last time he was at Disneyland when he brought Claire and Mitchell as children. It became the overarching theme of the episode. This show typically does have one, like a moral to the story. But I thought that having Jay’s talking head story sprinkled in throughout the episode was a nice touch. It made it really cute.

Jay: The Greatest

So here’s the rundown: Luke is finally tall enough to ride all the rides, so Phil’s almost beyond ecstatic. They ride some rides, but for some reason they start to make Phil feel really ill. Jay tells him it’s because the fluid in his inner ear is thicker because he’s getting older, and he can’t take the motion of the rides anymore. Phil refuses to acknowledge this and presses on, resulting in a little breakdown where he tells Luke that doing stupid fun stuff with him is one of his favorite things to do. It was really, really cute, and reminded me of how my dad used to take me to this amusement park called Carowinds that’s half in North Carolina and half in South Carolina. We’d ride the few rollercoasters I was a) tall enough for, and b) brave enough to ride, and had a blast every time. Our favorite was this one called The Hurler, which, the website says, “hurls” you at a WHOPPING 50 MPH! (THE HUMANITY!) The real reason it’s called the Hurler is because it was in a section called Wayne’s World, and was TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY Wayne’s World themed, which in the 90s, was, like, the coolest thing. It even had a Stan Mikita’s where you could eat burgers and fries and talk about foxy babes (Or Babraham Lincolns, if you will), if you were so inclined. It was awesome. But anyway… Phil and Luke’s storyline sat dangerously close to my heart.

In other stories, Claire has her friend’s nephew Ethan come with them to try to set him up with Haley, whom Claire thinks needs to get over her thing for bad boys. Even though Haley is like 17 or 18, I still think setting her up with a boy was a little on the creepy side. Especially when Alex took an immediate liking to him, and she’s 14 and he’s in college. I just feel like this wasn’t well planned. Plus it also backfired when they fun into Dylan who’s back from Wyoming and now working there as a Dapper Dan. The best part of this story was when, dressed as Little John (the bear), Dylan pleads with Haley, and Ethan ends up pushing him over, and the Robin Hood fox comes over and pantomimes laughter. Yeah.

Manny was annoying and unchildlike.

Mitchell and Cam have Lily on a leash, which garners them a lot of stares. Honestly, I don’t blame them because Lily’s a runner, and in a place like that, that’s a pain in the ass. But Jay solves their problem by buying Lily a pair of child heels she can barely walk in. And that’s because…

of the greatest moment of the ep. Greatest moment because it teaches us that as curmudgeony as Jay can be, he is also one of the greatest husbands ever. Gloria, because she’s so stylish, I guess, decides to wear giant-ass heels. To fucking Disneyland. Jay warns her and is all “I’m not giving you my shoes!” when she gets to the point where she can’t walk anymore. And when that finally happens and she pretends nothing is wrong, instead of being all, “I told you so,” he goes and buys her Minnie Mouse slippers. Because he loves her, and it hurts him to see her in pain. And it was a beautiful, wonderful moment. Because you KNOW those bitches probably cost like $100. But also because he loves her, and it’s just cute.

Favorite Moments/Quotes

• “Do you really want girls who only like you for your money?” “I’d like to have that option.”
• Love the callback to Luke still hating Lily when he taunts her about having to ride the Teacups.
• GOD I LOVE WHEN CAM SCREAMS
• “I haven’t been stared at this much since I forgot my canvas bags at Whole Foods.” HAHAHAHA.
• “it’s Toontown, not ToontON. You’ve been watching too much PBS.”
• “A bunch of guys at work had the flu and we all drank orange juice out of the same carton! We should get cups.”
• The rollercoaster fist bump. I… maybe have to start doing this.

So what did you guys think of either of the episodes? Did I leave out any of your favorite moments? Let me know in the comments below!