Modern Family returned to ABC for its third season on Wednesday, Sept. 21. Last Sunday at the Primetime Emmy Awards, the show swept up five wins, including Outstanding Comedy Series, which it also won last year. The season premiere was two new episodes aired back-to-back, and it was rather delightful.
Modern Family is a mockumentary-style comedy about a large family in Los Angeles. The family’s dysfunctional, but in a good kind of way. They’re not the crazy family that you dread getting together with for the holidays; on the contrary, they’re the kind of family that you wish you had.
The show follows the three households in the same family – that of family patriarch Jay Pritchett, his daughter – Claire Dunphy, and his son – Mitchell Pritchett.
The first episode takes place a year after the last season, and features the whole family going to a dude ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Phil, Claire’s husband, tries desperately to earn his father-in-law, Jay’s, respect by showing off how well he can skeet shoot, horseback ride, and rope. Haley, one of the Dunphy girls, brings along her boyfriend, Dylan. This irritates Claire, since she hates Dylan. Mitchell and his partner Cameron (with a now toddler-aged daughter Lily) discuss adopting another baby; this time a boy. Alex, the other Dunphy daughter, is followed around by a boy who has a massive crush on her. The Dunphy son, Luke, is busy trying to blow stuff up. Meanwhile, the dude ranch instructor is hitting on Gloria, Jay’s hot, Colombian thirty-something wife.
In the second episode, the family is back at home in Los Angeles. Phil and Claire have an argument, where, much to the annoyance of the entire family, it’s shown that Claire always has to be right about everything. In Cameron’s household, he and Mitchell are deciding when to tell the family that they’re thinking about adopting a baby boy. There’s a slight problem, though, their daughter Lily (who they adopted from Vietnam) is not excited about the idea at all. At first, the two think that Lily’s acting this way because Cameron coddles her too much. However, her preschool teachers say that Lily has a problem with sharing, which she seems to have picked up from Mitchell. In Jay’s house, Manny is accused of stealing a locket from a girl at school.
It was absolutely fantastic to have a full hour of Modern Family this week. Last season, the show was only half an hour long, and was followed by Mr. Sunshine, which was canceled. The full hour was only for the season premiere, since starting next week the show Happy Endings will follow after.
The episodes themselves were pretty good. They were funny overall, but weren’t as hilarious as some past episodes have been. This is pretty normal, though, because last season some episodes were funnier than others. The two episodes this week elicited chuckles, but each had one memorable line that caused a belly laugh.
One big change this season is how Lily is now a toddler. This makes sense, since this season is supposed to take place a year after last season’s events. At first, I wasn’t quite excited about the new Lily, since it was weird seeing her now active. In the other seasons, she was a perfect foil to the antics of her parents because she would just sit around and stare. Originally, I thought it was odd how in the first episode that Cameron was still carrying Lily around even though she could walk. (This topic, though, is addressed in the second episode.) By the second episode, older Lily eventually grew on me, though. The actress is adorable, and she will certainly have scene-stealing moments in the new season.
So far, the new season of Modern Family seems very promising and exciting. Because it’s only in its third season, there are still a lot of topics to explore. Since the actors and script are always excellent, this season looks like it isn’t going to disappoint.
