TV Review: Modern Family - "Treehouse"

Season 3 - Episode 7

ABC (US)

"Treehouse" was the Modern Family guest star special! Three big name guest stars showed up and made excellent appearances, and there was some very funny storyies going on all over the place.

I say all over the place, as their were four separate plots running through the episode. And that was with Manny barely featuring, and Alex being nowhere to be seen whatsoever. That said tehre were three very funny plots, and a decent side one involving Claire and Haley. The plot where the episode takes its name from involved Phil attempting (and failing) to build a treehouse for Luke. This saw Phil managing to use his catchphrase "Need to fix that", a few times, and eventually question exactly how he has ended up at this stage in his life with virtually no friends. This is closed out by him meeting a new friend in his neighbour Andre (guest star, Kevin Hart, not a huge name like the other 3, but still a good guest star). It's a sweet storyline for Phil, who continues to be the best character on this excellent show.

Elsewhere, Cam makes a bet with Mitchell that he can get a woman's phone number. After chatting to Katie (played by Leslie Mann), and hitting it off with her, therefore winning the bet, Cam becomes upset that he led her on. They arrange to meet where it's revealed that Katie always knew Cam was gay, and she just wanted to a cool gay friend. In order for Cam to still win the bet, she kisses him passionately in front of Mitchell, giving a hilarious send off to the plot.

The best plot of the episode though, was Jay and Gloria's, pairing them with Jay's returning friend Shorty (the absolutely brilliant Chazz Palminteri) and his new grlfriend Darlene (the ageless Jennifer Tilly). Shorty and Darlene persuade Gloria to go salsa dancing with them, something that Jay is highly uncomfortable with. After a chat with Mitchell, who gives him a pill to loosen up (in reality an orange flavoured children's aspirin) Jay goes to the dancing and ends up opening up and having a great time. All on his own.

The theme of this episode was definitely all about acceptance, and was a really strong showing. The lack of continuity and serialisation between episodes is something that might need to be addressed in the future, but for now, as an episodic show, it's working just fine.

****