Mod Fam: The Things They'd Seen
Last week’s episode of Modern Family—yes, I’m a week late with this one; I had to take some time to process the Molotov cocktail of memories and emotions that it brought up, which I’m about to get into—resonated particularly with me. See, like the Dunphy children, I once witnessed my parents making the nasty. It was awful. It was weird and gross and painful to watch and not funny at all and I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
I mean Modern Family, of course, not my parents doing it; that was a beautiful and special thing to witness.
So, here’s what happened: in a rare ensemble appearance, all three Dunphy kids decided to make breakfast for their parents’ anniversary. Because that’s something that kids do; they know when their parents’ anniversaries are and they cook things. So upstairs they go with their Fruit Loops and microwaved eggs. With the acknowledged camera crew following them. Because it’s no big deal for documentary filmmakers to be in your house, talking to your children unbeknownst to you while you’re still in bed. That happens all the time. Mod Fam’s mockumentary format makes so much sense!
Anyway, the kids walk in on their parents going at it doggy style. Claire’s all like, “Oh yeah, Phil! Fill my hungry hole, Phil! Fuck me in the ass!” Cause the Dunphys are hella dirty like that.
The Dunphy children are like, “Wait…what?” And then run screaming from the house to begin new lives as sexually traumatized underage sex workers in Spokane. (Yeah, Spokane, we’re comin’ for you! What’re you gonna do about it?) Win for federally funded abstinence only miseducation!
Meanwhile, Gloria and Jay are trying to go to Vegas, having finally placed Gloria’s 76-year-old son in a nursing home where he can charm the ladies and play bocce ball during his twilight tweens. Except, oh no! Gloria accidentally sends Claire a nasty email because Gloria hates her tightly wound, absurdly insecure step-daughter, Claire resents Gloria like any normal person whose father marries a 14-year-old prostitute would, and Julie Bowen and Sophia Vergara just plain don’t like each other.
And over in Gaytown, Mitchell and Cam are using either their gayness or their Asian baby to get all cozy with that chick from the rice cake commercials cause she owns a falafel cart or something. Whatever. They spill juice on her carpet, accidentally drown her kid, download bareback porn on her computer, she’s pissed, nobody cares.
Back at the Dunphys’, Gloria and Jay arrive to find Claire foaming at the mouth and destroying everything in the house because she wasn’t able to “finish,” and that’s what happens when girls can’t cum during sex: they go on a murderous rampage. So Gloria takes her upstairs and, drawing on the skills she’d learned from her many, many years performing in girl-on-girl Internet porn—and, ok, maybe that time she was in that video with the horse helped too—finished Claire off with her immaculately manicured fingers.
Meanwhile, downstairs, Jay erased the offensive email from Claire’s computer and the day was saved! Because on Mod Fam no one gets emails on their Blackberrys.
And somewhere, on the road to Spokane, the Dunphy children were learning some hard lessons about life: when not to get into the cab of an 18 wheeler; how much some johns will pay for a “sister act;” how to care for each other when they were junk sick and wild eyed for some horse. It wouldn’t be easy for them; they knew they’d never be able to outrun the things they’d seen. But they’d survive. As long as they had each other, as long as they had their youth, their good looks, and failing that, their wit and cunning, they’d scrape by.
