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Favorite Character?


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When I started to watch, I irrationally hated Phil.  I gradually warmed up to him, but that episode where he wore the tight suit that he was told made him look like a "Mumford & Son" made him my favorite.  And I never looked back :)

 

Very VERY close #2 is Lily.  That's my dog's name, and this is exactly how she'd behave if she were human.

Edited by ByTor
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Wow, this is a hard one!  It depends on the episode I guess.....  Overall I'd say I laugh most at Phil.  I'm surprised at all the people on here who are adding in Lily but I'm finding her quick come backs so funny the last couple of seasons.  Good delivery :) 

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Could never stand Lily. I do completely adore Phil and have since the beginning. I think he is just the sweetest, greatest dad and husband. I like Alex too because I like smart asses. Cam and Mitch just constantly fight and always have. Don't get the appeal of them. Manny, I go back and forth on. I always liked Gloria. I like Jay too because he's just Jay and deal with it. 

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It changes from season to season. Like first season I really liked Manny and didn't like Phil and Luke. I really didn't know what Claire saw in him that first season. Second season I found Manny pretentious and thought Claire was a shrew but really started to like Phil and Luke. Luke I liked a lot until he hit puberty but I've grown to like Phil more and more. I think Claire has toned down and relaxed now that her kids have matured but she was getting on my nerves for a couple of seasons.  Lily when she was recast I didn't like until the last few seasons. When she's used well she can be great.

Edited by VCRTracking
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It's impossible to dislike any of them all the time. There are times when the kids have annoyed me (Haley sometimes, older Luke a lot, Manny occasionally) but Phil is, was and always will be, solid gold. There's something so subtle about the charcterization of every person that even though someone can sometimes irritate the hell out of you, you still like them the next time you see them.

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I didn't care for Manny early on and never could understand what everyone saw in that character, I just thought he was pretentious and unrealistic. He has been better over the years though. Still not my favorite

Claire as well early on, she was no shrill, controlling and mean at times. Also has grown on me.

I've always loved Phil.

The kids all have there pluses and minuses. I know some don't like Lilly and find her too snarky. I find her funny and to be a believable product of the environment she is growing up in

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DeDe Pritchett. She owns every episode she's on. I wish we could see her more. Even the mentions of her - her family Christmas letter, her reason for missing Mitchell and Cam's wedding - are hilarious. 

 

Where is Javier? 

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Everyone is quite funny except for Luke.

Nolan Gould outgrew the goofy, naive little kid role, and the writers don't know what to do with him as a very tall, handsome teenager. The veiled reference to his sweatsock tonight was hilarious, but too little, too far between. Maybe more scenes like the one with Luke and Claire in the fishing boat where he proved to be at least as clever as Alex and as creative as Haley.

Edited by Bobbin
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I have to agree and as a result, Gould is almost constantly phoning in his performance or not even trying. However, episodes like the one you mentioned or last night's episode give Luke some fun stuff to work off of. They are not only entertaining, but work for the character. Not, him walking around going: "Duh... which way did they go George?" Or him doing things that would get him a restraining order. I remember when Manny said in the ski trip episode: "What is wrong with you?" Because they have Luke saying some things that would warrant consoling most of the time.

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I'm trying to pick just five favorites and am having a surprisingly hard time narrowing it down! Phil is probably my special favorite and adds so much humor AND heart. I'm happily surprised by how much I've grown to love and appreciate Claire, especially since I started thinking of her as somewhat similar to another favorite fictional character of mine, Hermione Granger :) Haley is not generally my type of character, but yet she adds a type of humor and surprising sweetness that makes her one of my MVPs of the series. Alex IS generally my type of character, and while I'm not always thrilled with the writing for her, she's really grown on me. And I also really, really love Mitchell and Cam.  

My least favorites are probably Gloria and Lily (I WANT to like her, but I can't seem to do so!). I'm back and forth on Manny and Luke. 

This is definitely a show where I enjoy certain characters a lot more or less depending on who they're interacting with that episode. Jay tends to be most likable for me when he's interacting with Phil, Cam, etc. I love Claire and Mitchell, but almost never when they're interacting with each other. And I love Phil when...well, I pretty much ALWAYS love Phil :) 

Edited by amensisterfriend
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Alex has probably been my favorite character for a long time, but this needing to bring her back from College has really stunted the character. I still think of her Therapy episode as one of the best character pieces in the series.

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It's hard to pick because I love most of them so much, and as someone else noted, it depends partly on how much I love their relationship with the characters they're interacting with in a particular episode. If I could keep just four, I would choose Phil, Alex, Cameron and Claire. I thought of picking five but had so many characters tied for the last spot. 

Phil x Claire is one of the best relationships I've ever seen on television. I love the reversal of traditional gender traits, with Phil as the openly emotional, sentimental, sweet and nurturing partner and parent while Claire is a little sterner, more ambitious, competitive, responsible, assertive and other characteristics people still sometimes expect more from males, even now in 2017. But they're both more than that as well. Claire gets excited and pasionate about random things you wouldn't expect and despite her more serious nature values fun, adventure and happiness for herself and her kids, thanks in part to Phil. Phil is much more insightful and smart than he may initially appear, and he's able to be a firm parent when needed. He's not the clueless "man-child" that someone might conclude. The way they interact with each other gives me life. Their marriage isn't a false ideal but is real and so loving. I'm a little like a less organized, less ambitious Claire and this show makes me wish I had a Phil.  

Thinking about all this makes me wonder what people's favorite relationships on the show are? Platonic or romantic.  

It's harder for me to pick least favorite characters than favorite ones because at this point it's hard for me to imagine the show without any of them. They all come together in a way that makes the show what it is for me. I wouldn't miss Lily that much, but now I can't envision Cam and Mitchell without her. This may be unpopular, but I've grown to love Gloria and would miss her a lot. I also think her presence makes Jay easier to like for me than if we knew him only as a parent to Claire and Mitchell.  

I hope other people here still love the show enough to talk about it. I love even the newer seasons and still watch episodes almost every day. 

Edited by NorthangerAbby
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I have always liked Gloria and some of the wild comments she makes when referring to the hard, dangerous life of Colombia. I've appreciated how she seems unaware of her looks.  I like Haley's shifty-eyed stare when she's lying to the camera. I really liked Manny when he was a middle-aged boy, but now that he's a young man, he's kind of grown into his middle aged-dom so he's not as funny. My favorite character is Jay. I find his comments coupled with his sour expression the funniest. After Jay, I'd pick Phil and then probably Gloria.

I think I like Jay and Gloria's household the most, too. Including the dog and squeaky-voiced Joey. 

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2 hours ago, mojito said:

I have always liked Gloria and some of the wild comments she makes when referring to the hard, dangerous life of Colombia. I've appreciated how she seems unaware of her looks.

From "Coal Digger":

Phil: You're probably one of those beautiful women who doesn't even know it.
Gloria: No, I know it.

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3 hours ago, mojito said:

I have always liked Gloria and some of the wild comments she makes when referring to the hard, dangerous life of Colombia. I've appreciated how she seems unaware of her looks.

I think I like Jay and Gloria's household the most, too. Including the dog and squeaky-voiced Joey. 

First off, I love squeaky-voiced Joey.   But second, Gloria is unaware of her looks?   To me she is hyper-aware and constantly primping and seeking attention for them.   I remember the episode when they missed a special dinner because Gloria had to make an entrance after everyone was there so that they could all "ooh" and "ahh" over her stunning looks.  Plus she wears ridiculously cut tops and dresses most of the time because she has to make sure everyone gets an eyeful of her cleavage, whether they want to or not.  She is incredibly vain and high maintenance, and probably not surprisingly, one of my least favorite characters on the show.   (Along with Cam who is awful for so many reasons.)

32 minutes ago, Brandi Maxxxx said:

From "Coal Digger":

Phil: You're probably one of those beautiful women who doesn't even know it.
Gloria: No, I know it.

Oh yeah she does.

My favorite character is Phil, by far.  For so many reasons, including the ones mentioned by NorthangerAbby.  I wish I had my own Phil too!

8 hours ago, NorthangerAbby said:

Phil x Claire is one of the best relationships I've ever seen on television. I love the reversal of traditional gender traits, with Phil as the openly emotional, sentimental, sweet and nurturing partner and parent while Claire is a little sterner, more ambitious, competitive, responsible, assertive and other characteristics people still sometimes expect more from males, even now in 2017. But they're both more than that as well. Claire gets excited and pasionate about random things you wouldn't expect and despite her more serious nature values fun, adventure and happiness for herself and her kids, thanks in part to Phil. Phil is much more insightful and smart than he may initially appear, and he's able to be a firm parent when needed. He's not the clueless "man-child" that someone might conclude. The way they interact with each other gives me life. Their marriage isn't a false ideal but is real and so loving. I'm a little like a less organized, less ambitious Claire and this show makes me wish I had a Phil. 

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I get what you're saying about Gloria. You're right. Probably, if I'd written more carefully, I would've stated that Gloria wants to look good, but doesn't seem to judge others by their looks, nor compare herself to them. 

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I'm glad to see love for Claire and Alex. They're hard characters to like in a way but close to my heart. They may be my favorites after Phil. I've already talked a little about why I love Claire. As for Alex, her flaws make sense to me. She's not as enthusiastic about family time because she's more introverted and needs more alone time and space than the others do to feel her best. I really relate, lol. She doesn't feel she fits in very well with her family, and spending time with them is a painful reminder. The smugness can be seen both as real pride in her intelligence but also someone who's insecure in most areas and needs desperately to feel good about what she sees as one of her only strengths. Her sharpness and irritability is a common defense mechanism for those with anxiety, which we already know she suffers from. She seems to think people won't like her and will want to stay away, so she beats them to the punch and gives them a reason to feel that way before she has a chance to become too hopeful and attached. She's probably the MF character I'm most similar to. 

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On 1/17/2017 at 1:03 PM, Traveller519 said:

Alex has probably been my favorite character for a long time, but this needing to bring her back from College has really stunted the character. I still think of her Therapy episode as one of the best character pieces in the series.

As I noted in the Weathering Heights thread, we rejoined MF last night after a two-year sabbatical. If you don't mind filling me in, what was the "rationale" for bringing Alex back from college? (Of course the true reason was to save the expense of shooting in a different location, but what was the ostensible reason?)

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22 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

As I noted in the Weathering Heights thread, we rejoined MF last night after a two-year sabbatical. If you don't mind filling me in, what was the "rationale" for bringing Alex back from college? (Of course the true reason was to save the expense of shooting in a different location, but what was the ostensible reason?)

She got mono and missed a lot of classes.

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No, she had to take a semester off.  I assume she will go back to college in the fall

Its never really made sense to me WHY they felt the need to do this with her character. 

My favorite character is Phil, for all the reasons stated before.  He comes across initially as aloof and clueless but obviously is not once you dig a little deeper.  Second is probably Jay. 

Cam is my least favorite.  He is so self involved, sensitive and touchy about everything. 

Joe I don't feel like I know that well, hard to judge him. 

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On 11/12/2015 at 2:50 AM, Drusilla said:

 

Since he grew out of cutie kiddiehood, yes. His voice is a major irritant.

Because of her voice, I personally can't stand Sophia Vergara. She is the main reason I never watched the show at all, and now I watch re-runs because it comes on before The Goldbergs locally in the late afternoon (and I mute all her scenes).  I think she lays on the accent thick and on purpose. We get it Sophia.  You're from Columbia and made it big in America. You (AND your sister) have been here long enough to lose some of the accent.  Stop using it as some type of schtick.  Also? How dare you take my man away (Joe Manganiello)!!   ;)

Edited by TGinKY
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Cam may be my least favorite.  He has given me some laughs over the years, but he is so over-the-top that he often annoys the heck out of me!  Although I'm currently re-watching "Lake Life" (the one with the eclipse) and I cracked UP when Cam's caftan got stuck in the boar motor and came off.  Oh, Cam.

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