S11.E12: Dead on a Rival

[JTMacc99]

Quote

Mitchell learns a valuable life lesson when a former resident of the house shows up unexpectedly; the Dunphys' old neighbor-turned-tech-titan, Kenneth, comes to visit with a big surprise for Phil; Manny's dad has a big opportunity for his son.

 

[Suzn]

Wow!  This one really had impact...  They all act like they are in a hurry for it to be over - me too.

[AriAu]

The episode was actually, not awful...which makes it one of the best of the season. Some good lines by most of the characters, obviously other than Manny.

I actually thought that Kenneth was going to tell them that he had given Phil a small piece of the company way back and that they were now filthy rich, but not to be. He did not need a victory lap after only 2 episodes, but he does bring out the best in them.

I don't mind Javier getting a victory lap, altho he was really only in maybe 5 or 6 episodes and he and Gloria are consistently funny-loved the teeth bit.

By the way, what is Alex doing again that she needs an assistant.

[Ottis]

The best plot suddenly disappeared... what happened to the old guy who wanted to die? They just walked him off? I really thought that had possibilities and it evaporated. Could have done with a lot less Manny and his show and more of this plot. 

I did like Phil’s Pop-pop line. 

[Josiemae]

Loved Benjamin Bratt's blinding buck-teeth bit! 

[joanne3482]

3 hours ago, Ottis said:

The best plot suddenly disappeared... what happened to the old guy who wanted to die? They just walked him off? I really thought that had possibilities and it evaporated

It kind of indicated he was going to go back to Florida and curse the other guy by signing him up for mailing lists and whatnot.  Basically justifying Cam's belief in having a nemesis.

Hated the Manny plot, although I loved that Gloria realized her son has been too coddled and that's led him to be kind of pathetic.  

[foxfreakinmulder]

8 hours ago, AriAu said:

By the way, what is Alex doing again that she needs an assistant.

Well she can't get her own coffee, she sits behind a desk now, lol.

I liked this episode, except for Manny and did they really have to show his dumb one man play.

[tennisgurl]

Mannys one man play looked exactly like you would imagine a Manny written and performed one man play would be like. Ouch. 

Fun seeing some previous characters like Javier and Kenneth coming back, even if most of the plots are rather ho hum at this point. So what is Alex's actual job now? Whatever it is confuses me. 

"Hey Tennille called, she said you look like every kid in an 80s movie we`re supposed to hate!"

[Eataton]

5 hours ago, joanne3482 said:

Hated the Manny plot, although I loved that Gloria realized her son has been too coddled and that's led him to be kind of pathetic.  

It might be the best Manny plot ever if it means he's gone for good traveling with his dad.

[Deskisamess]

Actually laughed a few times, and except for Manny, it was a decent episode. Love Benjamin Bratt as Javier. Ed Asner and Paul Dooley were fantastic.

[Aryanna]

It looks like they're working hard to wrap things up. Sending Manny off with his dad. Haley being offered a job which I believe will cause her and Dylan to have to move away. They've been hinting at Cam and Mitch moving to Missouri for a while. Whatever happened to Luke and his friend starting a business? Will that get brought up from out of the blue when it's convenient? 

[Johnny Dollar]

What kind of a job does Alex have where her employer pays for a luxury apartment despite her living at home and allows for her to have an assistant who is a Stanford grad and Rhodes Scholar?  Didn’t she just flunk out of an Antarctic expedition and before that have trouble even finding employment? And who has assistants get them coffee anymore?  Did they hire old Bewitched writers for this show?

[Quickbeam]

I gut laughed at Paul Dooley and Ed Asner. Genius. 
 

I cried over the Margaret bit with Jay. I’m seeing the doctor tomorrow.

[SnarkySheep]

On 1/23/2020 at 1:19 PM, AriAu said:

By the way, what is Alex doing again that she needs an assistant.

A small side peeve, I know, but this is the kind of thing I hate, because it really gives kids/teens a totally wrong picture of what happens in the work world...like, NO, you will NOT get your own assistant the minute you graduate college and land your first entry-level job. And if for some reason you do, odds are the person will only be assisting you in actual work-related tasks, because it's not 1967.

And Haley, too...despite barely having stepped a toe into college and essentially being qualified for nothing, she gets offered fantastic, well-paying jobs. Because she's fun and thinks outside the box.

Edited January 26, 2020 by SnarkySheep

[Deskisamess]

The actress who played Jay's old assistant passed away last week. Makes that part of the episode even more poignant. 

[Aryanna]

On 1/26/2020 at 1:51 PM, SnarkySheep said:

A small side peeve, I know, but this is the kind of thing I hate, because it really gives kids/teens a totally wrong picture of what happens in the work world...like, NO, you will NOT get your own assistant the minute you graduate college and land your first entry-level job. And if for some reason you do, odds are the person will only be assisting you in actual work-related tasks, because it's not 1967.

And Haley, too...despite barely having stepped a toe into college and essentially being qualified for nothing, she gets offered fantastic, well-paying jobs. Because she's fun and thinks outside the box.

With Alex I can kinda see it because she has a STEM degree from a prestigious university. I'm with you on Haley though. Kinda like Rachel on Friends. She started out the show with no skills, no degree or talent and wasn't even a very good waitress at a coffee house and ended up the series with a good job in high fashion. Only on TV. It's frustrating watching such things on TV when you're having difficulty finding work in the real world even though you have a master's.  

[anna0852]

Yeah but Rachel worked her way into that position over the 10 year run. And had a degree, just not in fashion. Hailey on the other hand.....

[Aryanna]

On 2/13/2020 at 8:04 AM, anna0852 said:

Yeah but Rachel worked her way into that position over the 10 year run. And had a degree, just not in fashion. Hailey on the other hand.....

Rachel had a degree? I didn't think she did. If she had a degree, why did she work at a coffee house for two or three years? I just never bought how she fell bass ackwards into high paying fashion jobs.

[anna0852]

Rachel had a degree in Art History. She intended to just get married and never work. So she had to start from scratch with job skills.

[AncientNewbie]

I too have trouble buying that new grad Alex is now some executive level type with an office job and an assistant. Which is not rare for tv at all, but even with whatever STEM degree she has, a new grad would still be a pair of hands in a lab or a junior engineer on projects (no idea which part of STEM she was supposed to be.) I'm probably paying less attention than the writers and they may have covered it, but even a throw away talking head about "this tech sector is booming so much they are offering me six figures to supervise people doing this 10 years, because I have a shiny new degree."

[ljenkins782]

9 hours ago, AncientNewbie said:

I too have trouble buying that new grad Alex is now some executive level type with an office job and an assistant. Which is not rare for tv at all, but even with whatever STEM degree she has, a new grad would still be a pair of hands in a lab or a junior engineer on projects (no idea which part of STEM she was supposed to be.) I'm probably paying less attention than the writers and they may have covered it, but even a throw away talking head about "this tech sector is booming so much they are offering me six figures to supervise people doing this 10 years, because I have a shiny new degree."

There was an episode where Alex talks to Jay about her potential job in a science field vs wanting to be a singer and she mentions that she could be making $500k a year right out of school. But since she’s on this show, she was honestly considering walking away from that chance to try being a singer, because this is a show where people buy magic shops on a whim and quit CEO level jobs over the phone with no plans.

[AncientNewbie]

Thanks for the clarification @ljenkins782. 

Even though they apparently did what I asked and I missed it, I'm still reserving my right to be befuddled by this plot at times. 

In no small part because, a stupid kid from a trailer park in a rural 1/2 horse town (there was an incident), way too much of my view of the world came from tv and the idea that college led to magic important jobs and it's a pet peeve of mine now. 

[Kiddvideo]

On 2/25/2020 at 6:47 PM, ljenkins782 said:

There was an episode where Alex talks to Jay about her potential job in a science field vs wanting to be a singer and she mentions that she could be making $500k a year right out of school. But since she’s on this show, she was honestly considering walking away from that chance to try being a singer, because this is a show where people buy magic shops on a whim and quit CEO level jobs over the phone with no plans.

I still call BS. This is beyond the pale even for a stupid sitcom. Alex seems to work in the technology part of STEM. I work in STEM at a tech company. I have friends who work the medical science part. When they got hired with their bright shiny bachelor’s they washed beakers and had to go in on weekends to check spores. Even post doc they did a lot of scut work bc that’s what you do when you’re a working scientist and not an administrator. I have only a bachelor’s but years of programming and data experience. I work with PhDs and people trained by the Israeli military and have degrees from universities there. (Mad respect, for the record. They know how to code.) We all sit in an open office environment. No one has an assistant let alone someone who fetches coffee or makes lunch reservations. People with no experience are not put in charge of managing someone. The sales people — the dilettantes — don’t even have an assistant (not even one assistant for the group let alone 1 for each.) We’re grown-ups who can use Seemless or even pick-up the phone if we need. No one makes anywhere close to $500k. I’ll go as high as $125k for a new hire from a good university, but you’ll still be washing beakers.

This show is so bad.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

On 2/23/2020 at 9:20 AM, Aryanna said:

Rachel had a degree? I didn't think she did. If she had a degree, why did she work at a coffee house for two or three years? I just never bought how she fell bass ackwards into high paying fashion jobs.

 

On 2/23/2020 at 10:15 AM, anna0852 said:

Rachel had a degree in Art History. She intended to just get married and never work. So she had to start from scratch with job skills.

Rachel definitely went to college. It was mentioned a few times throughout the series. She said she changed majors because there was no parking near the psychology building. She was in a sorority with Winona Ryder ("our coconuts kept knocking together"). She worked at the coffee house because she had a BA but no work experience (and for the record, I know people who started working at Starbucks after graduating from college).

Her first job after she quit the coffee house in S3 was as a personal assistant to a guy who owned some kind of clothing business. She was doing things like serving him coffee, untangling hangers, and walking the old seamstresses to the bathroom. Mark got her a job at Bloomingdale's as an assistant to Joanna. Later Rachel interviewed to become an assistant buyer for the junior miss department, but Joanna sabotaged her in front of the hiring committee. When Rachel confronted her about it, Joanna agreed to make her an assistant buyer in their department but then she died before putting the paperwork through. She then got demoted to a personal buyer which she did for two more years.

I don't think any of those jobs count as falling ass backwards into high paying fashion jobs. It wasn't until she got hired at Ralph Lauren in S5 that I think she was really making decent money and by that time, she had been working at Bloomingdale's for over two years. At Ralph Lauren she was coordinating the women's collection but I don't think they ever mentioned a specific title. After two years, she got a promotion to merchandising manager in S7 (which is when she hired Tag). And then in S10, Mark got her a job at Louis Vuitton. Heh, so what we've really learned is that Rachel has Mark to thank for getting her hired at Bloomingdale's AND Louis Vuitton.

Alex, on the other hand, at least has a degree in her field from a highly respected school and she worked/volunteered in a lab as an undergrad, both of which would help her get a job in her field more easily than Rachel trying to get a job in fashion.

[AncientNewbie]

I totally agree @Kiddvideo. The reason I left STEM and went back to school for social science was the prospect of endless years washing beakers in someone's lab and a desire to see natural light on occasion. I've been in science environments and it was nothing like that. 

I always feel like "it's just one line" is something I say about Modern Family a lot, like Alex could say "my professor knew their COO from college and that they are hiring a new Chief Research Administrator, and thanks to the Department of Justice and seventeen separate lawsuits, hiring a woman." Much like the show, my line there doesn't stand up to actual scrutiny, but I'm not a real comedy writer. But something like that is at least a thin veneer of tying something at the verge of suspension of disbelief to a forgivable plotline. 

Edited March 2, 2020 by AncientNewbie