This week’s episode of Modern Family entitled “Farm Strong” featured a visit from Cameron’s sister Pam, an emotionally unstable, jealousy-ridden, softy. Well, that is, according to Cameron. In episode four, the sibling rivalry between Cam and Pam is explored through all of it’s potential hilarity. The siblings who both hold the same view of one another feud first over Pam’s engagement to Cameron’s first crush. From then on, the brother sister duo bicker about who is in fact “Farm Strong” and who is the cry baby.
Phil and Claire battle with parental guilt when they decide to skip Luke’s soccer tournament. While the couple runs errands and cleans the gutters, Luke plays the best game of his soccer career. Claire, aka Supermom is able to finish all of her errands in time to make Luke’s game, where she watches him dominate the field. Meanwhile, Poor Phil is left at home with his guilt, and his robotic gutter cleaner which ends up killing a nest of baby birds. Typical Phil, is in complete distress.
In this episode, we are given a peek into a different side of Jay and Gloria as the “aging” couple. When Gloria stubbornly refuses to accept that her eyesight is getting worse, Jay and Manny masterfully execute a plan to reveal her weakness and her vanity.
Modern Family has an artful way of weaving each story line together to create a satisfying and heartfelt theme. In “Farm Strong” that theme ends up being sensitivity. In the final scene, when the family is all together everyone is forced to come clean on sensitive issues. Cam and Pam confront the family about their dispute, Cam asks everyone to honestly answer if they have hidden things from him due to his sensitivity. When the family comes clean, Cameron’s sensitive side is yet again exposed. This instance prompts Claire to come clean to Phil about Luke’s game,and Gloria to out Jay on his bad hearing. The storyline takes a comical twist when Gloria gives in and puts on the glasses, miraculously she can now see all of Jay’s wrinkles!
Like many of the episodes ABC was able to take each comical story and warm viewers hearts with a touching message. The tag of the episode features Jay and Gloria sitting side by side happily. Jay states “I won’t be able to hear her, she won’t be able to see me!” Gloria then chimes in, “We’ll be together forever!” Cue the audience “awwwww.”