'Modern Family': Sometimes People Can Surprise You

"Modern Family's" episode this night was one of the cleverest, in terms of dialogue, with an episode written by series co-creator Steven Levitan and Jeffrey Rickman and directed by Chris Koch.

From the opening scene, where Manny (Rico Rodriguez) complains that his mother has given him scrambled eggs instead of fried and Sofia Vergara's character of Gloria Delgado-Pritchett says, "This is not the biggest curve ball that life is going to throw you.," the episode is golden. Jay jumps in with a family anecdote about how he thought he didn't like crab cakes and then he tried them and he did like them. Manny asks, sarcastically, if Jay has the movie rights for sale for that story.

Haley Babysits Lily

There was a funny bit of dialogue where Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson are talking to their niece Haley Dunphy (Sarah Hyland) about potentially babysitting for their adopted daughter Lily. Haley confuses the words "oncologist" and "ophthalmologist." [It reminded of the real-life David Cassidy arrest video, where the police officer does not know the difference between an ophthalmologist and an obstetrician when Cassidy talks about his vision problems during his arrest for DUI.]

Cranky Neighbor Walt Klesack

A large part of the night's plot dealt with the cranky old neighbor, Mr. Klesack, a retired fireman. The Dunphy family is playing baseball in their yard, when their baseball flies over the fence into Mr. Klesack's yard. Everyone is too frightened of the crotchety old man with the oxygen tank to go get it back. Luke Dunphy (Nolan Gould) eventually does go to the old man's house and they begin to bond.

Cam & Mitchell

Another plot thread involved the gay couple, Cam (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), who want to spend a night out with their other gay friends, one of whom, "Pepper," is played by Nathan Lane. Cam says, "I need a night out with my homies...or homos." The gay group is sitting in a restaurant discussing their very first onscreen crushes. Pepper admits that his first crush was Montgomery Clift. One of the group says, "How old are you?" Jay wanders into the bar, as he has balked at accompanying Gloria to the theater. The group invites Jay to join them, despite Mitchell's concerns over his straight father joining his homosexual friends at their table. Nathan Lane's Pepper character is saying things like, "I will cut you like you were nothing, Farm Boy." Jay's line, "What does a guy gotta' do to get a drink around here?" is met with the immediate cautionary line, from Mitchell, "Nobody say anything." Jay shares that his first onscreen crush was Gina Lollobridgida and says he always wanted to grow up to marry her. The group agrees that he pretty much has. The line "Walk like a man" elicits this line (from Nathan Lane), "Well, I can sing it, but I can't do it."

The next day, hung over and unable to get the aspirin bottle open, Jay receives a phone call from Pepper (Nathan Lane) and learns, to his horror, that he has made a date to drive 2 hours to Palm Springs with Pepper to view a record collection. Jay asks Gloria to fake a bad headache so that he is not free to go on the trip. Gloria, however, still irked that Jay would not attend the theater with her, refuses. Nathan Lane's character (Pepper) is Jay's companion for the day, even though Jay declared (to Gloria), "I'm hung over. I'm not going shopping with Priscilla Queen of the Desert." Pepper's dog, Tallulah, is going to be sitting on Jay's lap most of the way in his open roadster

Haley & Dylan

There was a funny sub-plot involving Haley and her boyfriend Dylan (who is not supposed to be there) babysitting Lily. Cameron saw Dylan in the house, viewed on Haley's computer screen while he and Mitchell were out on the town. Dylan accidentally leaves his shoes at Cameron and Jesse's house. Haley wanted to babysit because she was grounded and she could see Dylan if she were babysitting. Haley, pretending outrage, appears at her Uncles' house. She begins to give Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) a long lecture about trust, ending with, "If you don't have people's trust, what do you have?" To which Cam responds, holding them up, responds,"Dylan's shoes."

People Can Surprise You

The ultimate theme of the night's well-written episode was, "People can surprise you. You get used to thinking of them in one way, and then they do something to show you they have all this depth and dimension." By show's end, Walt Klesak has brought a bag of onions from his garden as a gift for the Dunphys and there is talk of Luke watching "Shane" with the lonely old man. And, of course, Jay has been on a 2-hour trip to Palm Springs with his new gay friend, Pepper.