The story presented in this episode of Modern Family is extremely disjointed. Problems in the story's timeline are so happenstance for the sake of presenting a "funny" scenario that the overall story becomes disjointed, confusing, and distracting. First, the Dunphy family - in the early morning hours of that day, the Dunphy family celebrates with their neighboring residents at the annual block party. Phil decides to dress up as a clown for the enjoyment of the neighborhood children, only to find himself scared in front of a hall of mirrors and passes out from seeing himself as clown. Phil has a phobia of clowns (i.e., coulrophobia). He (Phil) thought that dressing up as clown would not make him scared, as he states, similar to "Not being able to tickle yourself, so how could you scare yourself". Cameron typically does the clown for these events, but Claire states that he was busy with Lilly's birthday party. This is where several "what" or "where are these people" moments come into play. Lilly's birthday party was not until later in the afternoon. So why wasn't Cameron helping the family with their block party, as they typically do according to Claire? Additionally, Mitchell, Cameron, and Lily, are shown at home resting at the same time (early morning hours, before the party) as the Dunphy block party. This was the moment Lily received confirmation that a popular student in her class was going to be in attendance at her party later in the afternoon. Furthermore, the family (Dunphy) is already at home resting and enjoying their company, while Cameron and Mitchell are shown at Lily's birthday party. Additionally, where was everybody for Lilly's birthday party? Why wasn't anyone in attendance at her party? She may be adopted, but she still is family.
When I first saw this episode, I thought Mitchell and Cameron were hosting their daughter's sleepover party with fellow classmates and not Lily's actual birthday. What is made worst is the fact that no one in her family is even acknowledging Lilly's birthday. I didn't hear one character in this story mention "birthday" and "Lilly" in a sentence, much less the phase "happy birthday".
While enjoyable to watch, this episode of Modern Family was disjointed and confusing, with odd plot devices used for the sake of one or two jokes about a man dressed up as a clown and scaring himself to the point of passing out. That seemed to be the only joke the writers of this show wanted to tell, and the only plot point in the story worthy, ostensively, of dismissing all other characters and their relation to the story or fully actualized scenarios that could have worked for us to watch 30 seconds of Phil dressed up as a clown and scaring himself. For the record, building a story around one or two jokes can work.
A story built around one or two jokes that does work is exemplified in season 5, episode 21 of Modern Family titled, Sleeper. In that episode, Phil buys a record of a song that reminds him of his teenage years, only to later realize he was listening to the exact song that played when he first had sex, and there therefore felt as if he was cheating on his wife. In the end, Modern Family can indeed produce good stories with funny and interesting plot devices without sacrificing continuity, story logic, and character development, but that was not seen in The Storm.
-CDM
