Modern Family 1x07

After the previous episode, this one felt a little lame – back to the awkwardness, the incongruous couch talk in between scenes, and especially the ham-fisted “coolness” fail of son-in-law Phil. The main story revolves around Manny’s sudden brush with success at fencing. Everyone is cheering until he’s faced with a girl in the finals. He wants to bow out gracefully, but Gloria and Jay want none of it, until they hear the girl is an orphan, her father died in Afghanistan, she lives in a children’s hospital, and has diabetes... Meanwhile, Mitchell and Claire are on ice, bummed that Jay was never this proud of them – and of course Clair’s kids aren’t particularly excellent at anything, certainly not airhead Haley or lumbering Luke. Mitch blames his sister for quitting their figure skating duo back in the day. She claims she did it to keep him from disgracing himself, but he remembers it was the last time he felt like part of her team. Honestly, I can’t say I enjoyed this much.