By Shira Ovide
- Associated Press
The “City Slickers” sets and costumes may have been reused 20 years later for the season premiere of “Modern Family,” which was set on — yup — a dude ranch. It’s called recycling, people.
Last season, a similar three-family vacation in Hawaii didn’t go so smoothly. Jay stared down his own mortality. Haley got horribly drunk. Mitchell and Cameron had a serious philosophical disagreement about the nature of vacation (manic sightseeing vs. zen). And they lost Lily. Luke and Manny shared a room and bickered like Oscar and Felix. It all ended completely normally, with a beach-side wedding ceremony for Claire and Phil, set to the dulcet tones of an island-infused rendition of “Eye of the Tiger.” So what could go wrong on this vacation? Well, a lot.
This time, a dude ranch was a fitting scene for tonight’s hour-long episode, which centered around the theme of not feeling enough like a man.
Phil is forever feeling emasculated by his man’s man father-in-law, and this time he tries to prove his mettle by riding horses and skeet shooting. Even on the plane, Phil was wearing a cowboy hat. (So did Cameron, who also donned a fringe-accented leather jacket.) Phil confessed that leading up to the vacation, he practiced shooting, roping and pancake eating — all the core cowboy skills.
The man-proving exercise works surprisingly well for the walking disaster that is Phil. That man can ride a horse. Hank, the uber-man cowboy guide, dubs him “Buffalo Phil,” a name he says he’s been waiting for all his life. Meanwhile, Jay’s horse lists to the left. Alone in the mountains, Phil for the 1,482nd time confronts Jay about not treating him with enough respect. Yeah, we get it.
Meanwhile, Cameron and Mitchell have decided they want to adopt a second child, a boy, and Mitchell is worried he doesn’t have enough testosterone for the task. The series opened with Cameron and Mitchell taking baby Lily home from Vietnam, so this is the first time we’ve seen them go through the tedious adoption process. They made a book to show off their brood to prospective moms. It’s a pop-up book. In Wyoming, Cameron takes a photo of Mitchell wielding a rifle in a skeet-shooting session. This works about as well as you’d expect. Mitchell nearly kills them all.
Mitchell worries openly about being a father to a son. “I don’t get boys,” Mitchell tells Luke, who wants to blow up stuff with a firecracker. Mitchell agrees to do a “boy thing” with Luke: blow up a birdhouse with the firecracker. Mitchell likes it. And now he’s confident he can have a son now, thanks to the wonderful magic of blowing up stuff.
Sidebar: That summer hiatus must have been extra long, because baby Lily is now really big. And…different (Ok, the twins who played Lily were replaced by a new child actor. Out with the old…)
We have to wonder if the network sensors got a load of this: Gloria riding a horse. Gasp. Might this be the current generation’s version of Bo Derek oozing from the surf in “10”? Yeah, probably not. Gloria, with her ears still clogged from the plane flight — is at her un-sexy sexy best as she talks IN INAPPROPRIATELY LOUD LEVELS and as she screeches out songs by the campfire. Nevertheless, the cow-poke guide Hank comes onto her when they’re alone by the mountainside. She nearly kills him. Jay rides up on a horse — ok, on the back of Phil’s horse — and stops Hank. Sidebar: Sofia Vergara has a fashion line at Kmart. Really. There was an ad during the episode.
Haley’s doofus boyfriend Dylan tags along for the vacation, and Claire is not pleased. At all. “Where is a cliff when you need one,” Claire says after a doofus uttering from the doofus. Claire promises Phil she’ll make an effort to be nice to Dylan. Then Dylan, moved by the campfire and the big sky, tries to propose to Haley, but Claire stops them. Dylan goes back to his room to cry, and then disappears into the woods. After a search, Dylan is found, but, it turns out he’s been hired as a ranch hand by a woman(?) named Jake.
Alex meets a boy that she hates, and who splashes her at the pool while she’s reading — “Freakonomics,” natch. For some reason, this boy talks like a character for ‘50s gangster movie. He kisses Alex. Several times. And Alex likes it. Even though she calls him a Mario Brother. Which he is.
PART II OF THE OPENER IS COMING:
Readers, tell us what you thought of the “Modern Family” season premiere. More Phil? Not a fan of Manny? Either way, shower us with comments.
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