A quick one

It's the week after October sweeps, so a lot of shows have been airing reruns, making this a great week to catch up on Netflix Instant.  I don't have a whole lot to say about last night's episode of Modern Family, but I thought there were a lot of great jokes throughout which I wanted to highlight.

The premise of parents struggling to get their child into an elite elementary school is inherently amusing to me as a Los Angeles native, and as someone who was once one of those children.  However I have to call out ModFam for stealing a major bit from The L Word, when Mitchell and Cam feel that their diversity credibility is threatened when they see a lesbian couple, with one partner in a wheelchair, and an adopted baby, applying to the same school as they are.  Swap the genders and we've seen this exact scene before.

That said, Mitchell's line about feeling inadequate in the preschool race, "Leave it to the gays to raise the only underachieving Asian in the country," was pure Mitchell, and tied in nicely to one of the show's funniest and most uncomfortable running gags, which is how uncomfortable Cam acts around minorities.  There was an episode last season in which he struggled with Gloria, because while he is not a racist, his yen to be as politically correct as possible often manifests in excruciatingly awkward actions and misunderstandings.  So when he pretended to be a Native American in order to give Lily a better chance at getting into the school, I was horrified and could not stop laughing.  He described his daughter as having skin the color of "maize."  Unreal.

The Jay/Gloria storyline did nothing for me, but at the Dunphy household, Claire implored her family to compete to see who could go the longest without using cell phones, video games, and internet.  Phil described the challenge as an experiment in being Amish, whose lifestyle includes "witnessing murders."  Amazing.  Luke finally had an opportunity to use his imagination, which involved building miniature cities and destroying them.  I have to admit that I loved when he acted out, "There's no fire escape; they cut corners!"  "I'll cut your corners!"

Finally, when Claire herself broke the no-internet rule, she was discovered when Phil heard the computer call out, "You've got mail!"  Because of course Claire still uses AOL!

Modern Family, 9pm Wednesdays on ABC