"Modern Family" Episode "Chirp" Blends Clever with Heartwarming

MODERN FAMILY, Wed., Nov. 3, 2010, 8 PM (ET) on ABC: The most recent episode of "Modern Family," the series that won an Emmy for ABC for the first time in 22 years (since "The Wonder Years") has Julie Bowen's character Claire Dunphy and her daughter Haley (Sarah Hyland) both home sick with colds. ("Typhoid Claire-y", Phil calls his wife).

Mom (Julie Bowen, previously on the series "Ed") convinces her teen-aged daughter to snuggle with her and watch soap operas which they used to do when Haley was a young girl. Phil is home because his real estate appointments have all fallen through. Haley, like all teen-agers, is on her cell phone the entire time talking with her boyfriend Dylan.

Claire thinks that Haley can do better than Dylan ("He's kind of a doofus"), and uses the soap opera episodes and romances onscreen as object lessons, trying to discuss the concept of looking around a bit in life before settling for the first man you meet (the theme of the classic sixties song "Shop Around".) The clever factor is that Haley thinks that Claire is talking about her own relationship with Phil, well played by Ty Burrell as the always-cheerful bumbler Phil Dunphy. ("You don't want to end up a bitter ghost of a woman married to a total buffoon.")Even as the episode ends, Haley thinks she has just had a Dr. Phil moment in bringing her parents back together.

A secondary theme involved Phil making Ladyfingers and trying to stop the smoke detectors in the house from chirping. He eventually smashes every single smoke detector in the entire house with his old cheerleading baton ("the old burglar basher"), only to learn that son Luke (Nolan Gould) is responsible for the chirping. [Luke stashed last year's smoke detectors in the attic, where they are continuing to make the annoying noise.] Phil is already stressed because his real estate business is slow

The sight of Luke wandering around the house wearing a glass bubble-headed spacesuit (to protect himself from the cold germs in the house, since his class is going to Disneyworld in 2 days, he says) is amusing. (Phil's dad bought the suit during the Cuban Missile Crisis). (The actor who portrays Luke, Nolan Gould, in real life has been a member of MENSA since he was four years old.)

Manny climbs aboard a bulldozer left by one of Jay's employees and crashes through a wall of the house. As a result, Jay fires Jackson, the forklift operator, for carelessly leaving keys in the machine. Manny feels this is unfair, tries to hire attorney Mitchell Pritchett (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) to get the employee's job back, and is temporarily not speaking to his step-father, until Ed O'Neill's character says, "Anybody puts my kid in danger doesn't get a second chance ever."

Manny seems genuinely touched by Jay's expression of genuine acceptance, telling Jay that Jay has never called Manny "his kid" before. (It's a heartwarming moment).

Another plot line has Sofia Vergara's character Gloria planning to "celebrate" an anniversary event with her husband Jay Pritchett (Ed O'Neill). Unfortunately, Jay is not quite sure where they are to romantically rendezvous, since Gloria celebrates everything as a major event. Jay needs help from stepson Manny (Rico Rodriguez) to find the right location. It is when Manny realizes that Jay really does care for him, when Jay calls him "his kid," that Manny finally breaks his silence and tells Jay where he should go to meet Gloria.

Cameron Tucker (Eric Stonestreet, who won the Emmy this year) has gotten adopted daughter Lily involved in a television commercial shoot for furniture over his partner Mitchell's objections. Mitchell arrives at the studio to find that Cameron is protesting the two small Asian children being used in the shoot interchangeably as cute stereotypical props.

The commercial has a "Save-zilla" creature knocking down skyscrapers. Cameron (who in real life is straight), makes a dramatic statement to the director: "And, by the way, Lily is Vietnamese, not Japanese, but you're only interested in seeing these children as interchangeable stereotypes." The comic punchline comes when Cameron scoops up the wrong Asian toddler and has to have his mistake pointed out by partner Mitchell standing nearby (I wondered if the two small Asian toddlers were the real children, Ella and Jayden, who portray Lily, used together in the scene when they usually spell each other.)

Michael Spiller directed the clever script by Dan O'Shannon.