MODERN FAMILY: Election Day Recap

After a long break, Modern Family came back this week and they definitely brought the funny with this episode directed by Bryan Cranston. It was Election Day and we all know when it comes to the Dunphy’s and the Pritchett’s there will be some drama and definitely some laughs.

It is Campaign headquarters at the Dunphy’s and everyone has their assignments to help Claire win the election. Even with the best intentions, they fall short. Phil is to pick up 50 senior citizens and drive them to the polls. He picks up Walt, Luke’s friend, and because of all the stops he has to make, he ends up being Phil’s only passenger to the poll (there is a loss of 49 votes for Claire).

Alex is in charge of managing the phone bank with Gloria, Manny and Luke on her team. Well Manny is great on the phone as we would expect, but Gloria and Luke are a bit of a problem. Luke tells voters that they will never have to pay taxes again if they vote for Claire. When Alex questions him about this he replies “Like she is the only politician to make a promise they can’t keep.” Hilarious! Gloria gets frustrated because she is used to people doing what she tells them. She discovers she has to be seen to get anything done. Calling voters is not successful for her.

Mitchell and Cam, who have already voted, show up in a car with campaign signs and a loudspeaker on top (this screams trouble to me but still hilarious). They have cleared their schedules to drive around town reminding everyone to vote for Claire. Well, that was the plan until they realized how much fun their loudspeaker was. Cam saw someone littering and he called them out on the loudspeaker to make him pick up his trash. Realizing the power of the loudspeaker, they voice their opinion about everything from jaywalkers to local businesses but not anything about voting for Claire.  They start gossiping about a lady from Lily’s school saying her fiancé is gay, not realizing the loudspeaker was on and she heard everything. They spent the rest of their time trying to convince her they were just gossiping and he was not gay. Another hit for Claire’s campaign.

Jay is proud to go vote and see his daughter’s name on the ballot. Unfortunately, when he gets to his local polling place, he sees Dottie, a woman from his past he would like to avoid. Jay dated Dottie after his divorce and snuck out one morning and never spoke to her again. Ouch. He tried to slip into a voting booth without being noticed, but was not successful. Dottie spotted him and tried to play it cool, but that was a facade. When it was time to put his ballot in the box, we never saw her do it.  

The Dunphy’s show up as a family to vote and a reporter asks to question Claire about voting without knowing who she was. After realizing she was Claire Dunphy he asks for a photo. Claire attempts to remove a tag from her jacket with her teeth but loses a tooth instead. The press photographer took a picture of the toothless candidate. She then has a radio interview and gets smacked in the mouth with the microphone before she goes on air. She tries to answer all of her questions cautiously, but she has a heavy lisp that causes her to sound drunk. The family knows that is not her drunk voice, but the rest of the town does not.

Back at the Dunphy Headquarters the entire family gathers to find out the results. Claire gets a call to confirm she did not win the election.  She goes to the kitchen to get a glass of wine and Haley joins her. She admits that she has been feeling bad because she has not been accepted into any colleges yet and has one acceptance letter left to open. The entire family is in the kitchen to show support. She opens the letter to find out she didn’t get into this last college, but she is in on their “wait list.” Haley is excited and Phil yells “Our daughter might be going to college!” Yay! As for Claire, even though she lost the election, she still got what she wanted in the end. Duane Bailey finally gave her the stop sign she wanted from the beginning. Way to go Claire!

Modern Family airs Wednesday nights at 9/8c on ABC.