Modern Family, Adopt Me

Julie Bowen, congratulations. You have been in good show after good show and have either not gotten the recognition you deserve or had the plug pulled on you. Now, we warmly welcome you to great ratings and are delighted by your comedic talents in Modern Family.

I was a little skeptical at first by the premise of Modern Family. There is the “normal” family (with Julie Bowen), the gay couple, and the remarried couple. The good jokes seemed to be wasted in the previews and I expected another mockumentary that would get tired half way through the fall. But my girl Julie was in another show and I was going to tune in.

It took about 2 minutes to get hooked. The comedic timing in Modern Family is spot on and the characters are out of control. I’ve almost peed my pants on multiple occasions. I have a weekly debate with myself (and sometimes friends…) about which character is my favorite. Even though Julie is great and her skills definitely aren’t wasted, she sadly isn’t on my short list for faves.  Here are the contenders:

Phil Dunphy. Played by the hilarious Ty Burrell (where has this guy been?), Phil is the self-confessed cool dad. He is an awesome foil to his wife Claire (Bowen) and walks a perfect line between endearingly awkward and embarrassingly out of touch. Where Phil goes, antics follow and the fact that he sometimes looks like a vampire is only part of his charm. Best scene of the season: toss up between Coulrophobia, and shooting his son Luke (Nolan Gould) and daughter Haley’s (Sarah Hyland) boyfriend (Reid Ewing) with a BB gun.

Cameron Tucker (aka Fizbo). Cam is Claire’s brother’s boyfriend and parent to newly adopted Lily. Where to begin with Cam, perfectly played by Eric Stonestreet? First of all, I am very happy that the gay couple isn’t a cliché. They are solid characters with attributes beyond their sexuality. Cam is the cuddly one in the partnership, which balances out Mitchell’s (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) cynicism. He is so lovable just thinking about him makes me smile and is best described by himself during an interview post Mitchell’s deflowering of bargain shopping at Costco: “I’m sort of like Costco. I’m big, I’m not fancy, and I dare you not to like me.” Best scene of the season: uhhhh impossible to choose.

Jay Pritchett. The patriarch of the family, Jay (Ed O’Neill) is newly married to Gloria (Sofía Vergara) and stepfather to Manny (Rico Rodriguez) while Claire and Mitchell are his kids from his first marriage. I didn’t expect Jay to be one of my favorites, but his comments, usually directed towards Manny, always seem to come out of left field and crack me up, such as “if you notice from the absence of goats in the streets, we’re not in Colombia.” Despite being politically incorrect, his Full House-style closing comments at the end of the show are touching and clever. Best scene of the season: watching Miracle on 34^th Street with Manny. Innocente!

Modern Family is beyond charming. It is witty, sweet and hi-larious. If you aren’t watching, tune in, because you are missing some of the best friends you’ve never had.

Wednesdays at 9/8c

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Photographs courtesy of ABC, Patrick Wymore, Danny Feld, and Eric McCandless.