Never Break Character. Never. Ever.

Here are my thoughts on Tuesday and Wednesday’s Modern Family, Off the Map, and V. My review of V may have turned into an explosive rant. I’m not sure, I kind of blacked out while I was writing it.

Spoilers are coming. Prepare yourself.

Modern Family – “Princess Party” (B)

Modern Family has kept each of the families fairly separate over the last couple of episodes, so when I heard that this week’s episode would feature Lily’s birthday party I was excited to see the whole Pritchett clan back together again. Throw appearances by Fizbo the clown and Shelly Long as Mitchell and Claire’s unstable mother Dede into that equation, and you have what was a fairly enjoyable episode.

My favourite scene from this episode was Jay, Gloria, and Manny trying to record the book for Lily together. From Gloria’s weird voices to Manny playing the part of a baby girl bear, the result was an appropriate disaster, and a hilarious one at that. I was really happy that the little after the credits moment was Mitchell and Cam playing the book for Lily. Cue the gasp.

I also enjoyed watching Dede undermine Claire in front of her kids. The joy on Hayley’s face after each subtle barb at her mother was more than enough to make that dinner scene hilarious but Claire’s frequent glances to the camera certainly didn’t hurt. I hate to say it though, but I think this may be the first time where I haven’t liked Luke’s part in an episode. His cuteness routine just wasn’t working for me.

Cam’s attempts to bring back Fizbo the clown were certainly good for a few laughs as well. I loved how offended Cam got when Mitchell passive aggressively suggested he just didn’t respect party themes. Also funny was Cam prodding the poor Princess performer to break character, only to freak out on her for doing just that.

The birthday party itself was a fairly good sequence, although somewhat up and down. The party was the first time the rest of the family got a taste of Dede’s craziness, and I thought it was clever that each character suspected her behaviour was somehow directed at them. I also liked the subtle “I’ve got Gloria” call back to the last time Phil tried to break up a Dede and Gloria fight on the show.

What I didn’t care for though – why was it necessary for Gloria to be drugged up at the party? I know they explained her apprehension earlier in the episode, but it didn’t really add anything to the scene, and it detracted from what was an otherwise stellar outing for her character. Still, this was an entertaining episode that brought back the inter-family storylines I love so much, so it’s a minor complaint at best.

I’ll leave you with my favourite lines.

GLORIA: What? I’m going to miss Alex’s graduation, all of Hayley’s weddings, just because of Dede?

HAYLEY: Ew dad gross! Your hand smells like cheese.
PHIL: I didn’t want to dirty a knife.

CLAIRE: Mom didn’t mention that I’m married with 3 kids?
ROBBIE: No, all she said was that you were still trying to figure out your life.

JAY: What kind of voice is that?
GLORIA: I am a bear.
JAY: A bear? I was going to get a crucifix.

V – “Siege” (C-)

This episode was downright stupid. V has never been what I would call a “good” show. It’s had its moments, which I’ve mistaken for potential, but it’s never really materialized past that. Well this week’s episode had to be a new low for the series, full of glaring plot holes, weak character motivations, and stupid story progressions. Oh and did I mention forced romances? Those too. The plotting for this episode was so bad it made it feel like they don’t plan this show past the episode they’re writing.

Let’s start with Tyler’s father Joe. When Anna finds out Erica has been taken hostage by the Fifth Column (not knowing Erica was in on this) she sees it as an opportunity to get rid of Tyler’s mother. Fine. But according to her, getting rid of just his mother isn’t enough, so she decides to get his father involved. This is where the writing gets ridiculous. So Joe shows up at the site where Erica is supposedly being held hostage, and decides, despite all the FBI agents around him, to enter the building through an entrance he found on a map left lying around by a fake FBI agent.

Let’s count all the things wrong with that. First off, why enter the building at all? You’re unarmed, and according to their later conversation he had no idea that Erica was working with the hostage takers at all. What could you possibly accomplish by going in there? And am I seriously supposed to believe that Anna’s fool proof plan to get him into the building was to leave a map lying around where he could see it? Really? All that was holding him back from going into the building was that he didn’t have an entrance. See above for all the reasons why that’s ridiculous.

And then we had what had to be one of the most forced romances I have seen in a very, very long time. Joe showed up LAST EPISODE. He and Erica have had extremely limited screen time together. Do they expect us to buy that in that short time together they completely rekindled their romance? I think the more obvious explanation is that they needed a reason to make his death meaningful to Erica, and they foolishly believed that having them make out a few minutes beforehand would accomplish this feat. Instead all it did was point out how ludicrous this relationship was in the first place.

Eventually the death of his father sends Tyler running back to the Vs, leaving Erica appropriately devastated. Of course, as is usual with most of Tyler’s storylines, all of this could have been avoided if Erica just told Tyler the truth. And I know, she was trying to do just that at the end of the episode, but being that the plot of this show is held together by thread, the writers made the foolish decision to have Tyler blame her for the death of his father, a weak association at best and terrible way to move the story forward.

Then there was Hobbes, who one week after assassinating the V’s second in command was working for them. But wait, he had a good reason. He has a suddenly invented wife that the Vs are apparently holding. And you know it’s true, because they made a call and it was her voice on the phone. You can just take their word for it that it’s not a recording.

Oh and why is it the Vs couldn’t send any of their own people to stand outside a building and flip a switch? Is there some reason they need to keep recruiting their bitter enemies to do all their dirty work for them?

In the end Erica takes over as the leader of Cohn’s Fifth Column cells. Luckily there was this second guy who could do everything Cohn could do without being Cohn (the real Cohn had to die for some reason). In her final speech to the rest of our local chapter, it sounded as though the Fifth column would be taking a new and exciting direction in their fight against the Vs. Somehow I doubt this though. So far every time this show has given us any sort of promising storyline, they’ve managed to quash it by the next episode. Why would this one be anything but the same?

Off the Map – “It’s Good” (B+)

The clinic was robbed in this week’s episode of Off the Map, sending our doctors scrambling to find the supplies they need to keep their patients alive. It was a particularly good episode for the series, following up quite nicely on the events of last week’s episode.

It seems like I say this every week now, but Mina continues to be one of the break out characters on this show. I really liked her opening scene where she (and more importantly the writers) acknowledged Keeton’s favouritism towards Brenner, and I totally bought that Mina may not want to stick around in the jungle that much longer because of the way she’s been treated up until this point. I think we all knew she would come around by the end of the episode, but that doesn’t mean her journey getting there was any less enjoyable. Her heroine buying scene was executed quite nicely, and while her conversation with the owner of the jungle inn was a little on the nose, it didn’t take away too much from an enjoyable arc for her character.

I also liked that Keeton called out Brenner for putting the clinic in danger for the last two consecutive weeks (he only blamed her for last week’s fiasco but still). I know he later admitted it was no one’s fault, but it’s good that this show doesn’t forget the consequences they themselves laid out.

With Keeton returning to Clark this week and Brenner finally hooking up with Mateo, it’s clear it’s going to be a few more episodes (I’m thinking maybe season finale) before these two finally get together. The complicated relationship here is between Clark and Keeton (Brenner and her Spanish soap opera companion won’t last). Once he finds out she’s sick it’s going to be hard for the writers to break the two of them up.

Clark’s illness is actually a lot more serious than I thought it would be. Cole was talking about transplant lists so I’m quite interested in seeing where the writers go with this. Like Mina, we didn’t get to see much of her in the early of episodes of the series, but she’s slowly turned into one of my favourite characters on this show, so they better not kill her off. I would be super pissed... and a little sad... mostly sad... I would be devastated.

Tommy’s story was strong in this episode as well, with the show continuing to build upon his jungle evolution. Lacking the medicine he needs to treat his meningitis patient he goes to his old friend the medicine man for help. I found it a little odd the medicine man all of a sudden knew a bunch of technical medical terms, but it didn’t really matter as the heart of this storyline was in his advice on how to handle Alma’s father. Respect where you are, he tells him, summing up perfectly what this show has been selling since its inception.

Cole had a much stronger episode this week too, as they finally dove into his drug problem. I thought they handled the storyline quite well. I don’t know much about drug addiction, but I have heard that many addicts relapse more than once before they get completely clean. My only complaint would be the argument he and Keeton had over whether he could be in the operating room when they administered the heroine. Your patient is in some serious pain on the table, so maybe your focus should be getting him the drugs first.

And of course I can’t leave without talking about that shocking twist ending. I had a hunch the helicopter might crash when they told Ryan they didn’t have room for her, but by no means am I saying I called that. Considering who they had on board I can almost guarantee that next week’s episode will be intense.

Oh and I have to give a quick shout out to Judy Reyes and her part this week as the mother of the two young girls. I’m glad she’s doing well and I look forward to seeing her again next week in an expanded role. Scrubs for life!

My god I’m lame.