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S09.E01: Lake Life

ari333

By ari333
in Modern Family [V]

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hoodooznoodooz

hoodooznoodooz

I laughed but was considering deleting this from the DVR. It is not competing with a lot of other stuff, so there's that.

I was really expecting that Gloria was going to mistake Ben for a dead body somehow.

I thought that the guy Mitch tried to kiss 30 years ago looked too much like the guy Hayley was dating/Joe's babysitter.

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Traveller519

Traveller519

Not the strongest summer recap episode they've had, but I do like the format. The show is comfortable that we're familiar enough with the characters that they can play with the dynamics without much reference to larger story lines.

That House Boat must have had a lot of skips for getting around. Mitch would have had one; Gloria and Cam; Phil and Claire; The Kids. That's at least 4. Maybe that's typical for House Boats. I don't know.

"I think we've witnessed the death of Manuel" was probably my favorite line

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ari333

ari333

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I am a pushover, but I loved Cam in the caftan and then naked. "Don't be garish " heh. And then there was the "fresh nuts and berries" sign.  I loved Claire jumping alone three times from the cliff. 

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tennisgurl

tennisgurl

Claire jumping off alone from the cliff cracked me up. Pretty good episode overall, I have SUCH vacation envy for the MF crew. They get to go to the coolest places ever all the time it feels like. 

Most relatable moment? Singing Total Eclipse of the Heart following the eclipse. 

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dleighg

dleighg

1 minute ago, tennisgurl said:

Most relatable moment? Singing Total Eclipse of the Heart following the eclipse. 

that was so fun. As was Luke's comment "is this even a song?" 

Now my 59 yo husband would say the same thing (and did last August) because somehow he missed all of pop culture from his youth. It's kind of amazing.

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Mrs. Hanson

Mrs. Hanson

36 minutes ago, ari333 said:

I am a pushover, but I loved Cam in the caftan and then naked. "Don't be garish " heh. And then there was the "fresh nuts and berries" sign.  I loved Claire jumping alone three times from the cliff. 

Cam was my only favorite part of the episode.  I found it lacking, not sure why.  I think Julie Bowen's face is plenty tight, though!!

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seacliffsal

seacliffsal

I, too, thought that  Cam was the best part of the show, and I usually don't like him.  I actually thought this was not that funny and found myself shocked throughout the episode with how selfish most of the characters were and that Alex was just outright mean to Ben.  Mitch wouldn't let the bait guy go outside and watch the eclipse because Mitch couldn't believe that when they were younger bait guy wasn't interested in 13 year old Mitch.  Go figure...  Lily and Joe kicked Ben on the float out onto the lake when all he was trying to do was get the float ready for them.  Alex was downright rude to Ben and then left him alone on the island (and I didn't see him in the singing scene so I guess she never went back for him).  And, only Joe watched the eclipse with Jay when that was the one thing Jay asked of everyone after paying for the vacation for all of them.  Gloria and Cam had the 'boating' mishap, but everyone else chose to do something else that prevented them from being with Jay for the eclipse.

I guess that overall, the selfishness of the characters lessens my enjoyment of the show.

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CleoCaesar

CleoCaesar

I loved them singing Total Eclipse of the Heart, one of my favorite songs.

I really liked the guy at the bait shop for some reason. Can Mitch divorce Cam and start dating him instead?

What did Julie Bowen do to her face? It was so distracting and poorly done. Cosmetic surgery, not even once.

It's interesting that no matter how old the actress playing Lily gets, her delivery is still the same monotonous delivery with no inflection or real comedic timing.

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useryikes

useryikes

1 hour ago, CleoCaesar said:

t's interesting that no matter how old the actress playing Lily gets, her delivery is still the same monotonous delivery with no inflection or real comedic timing.

I find that funny.  Her deadpan delivery is in direct contrast to her fathers' over the top manners.

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CleoCaesar

CleoCaesar

Deadpan is deliberate, though. This seems more like bad/lazy acting. Like she doesn't fully grasp what the words in the script mean (same thing goes for Rico, Nolan, and the kid who plays Joe) so she just delivers them all in the same dead tone.

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DrSpaceman73

DrSpaceman73

I liked this one

Cam was over the top in his all white but funny. 

My reaction wasn't so much about Julie Bowen but how Lilly suddenly grew a whole bunch. 

And Haley is wrong.  Its not that Alex gets close and then pushes people away.  She just......isn't very nice.  To anyone, it seems. 

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Eolivet

Eolivet

6 hours ago, Traveller519 said:

"I think we've witnessed the death of Manuel" was probably my favorite line

That was a good one, though my favorite exchange was Mitch and the so-obviously-gay-but-didn't-like-Mitch guy:

"Want some free bait? Have a lure?"

"Apparently I don't have allure."

Classic Modern Family wordplay.

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SanDiegoInExile

SanDiegoInExile

4 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

.... Alex was downright rude to Ben and then left him alone on the island (and I didn't see him in the singing scene so I guess she never went back for him).  ....

There was a tagline added as the camera panned up skyward.  Someone asked "Where's Ben?"  And Alex said "Uh-oh".

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biakbiak

biakbiak

2 hours ago, CleoCaesar said:

Deadpan is deliberate, though. This seems more like bad/lazy acting. Like she doesn't fully grasp what the words in the script mean (same thing goes for Rico, Nolan, and the kid who plays Joe) so she just delivers them all in the same dead tone.

Interesting I find Lilly's deadpan completely deliberate. Not only for the actress but for the "role" she has decided to play in the family.

I really hated Gloria for leaving naked Cam without any cash and exposing him to children which could have easily backfired.

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Toothbrush

Toothbrush

Cam was hilariously OTT looking (but thankfully not acting) in his white caftan, sunscreen, hat, parasol, etc. And I loved his line about never dreaming he would marry into a lake family. 

Lily is so tall! I missed Stella.

I had almost forgotten about the eclipse thanks to Harvey.

All the things the family said about Jay - saving their favorite flavor gummi bears for them, him texting Phil every day for a week after his mom died - were sweet. 

8 hours ago, useryikes said:

Not sure if I liked it or not.  I couldn't get past Julie Bowen's face.

I couldn't get past how much more weight she has lost. But I guess she felt the pressure due to having to be in a swimsuit. It's really a shame. But there has been no surgery - no need as per her commercials for Neutrogena ;-)

7 hours ago, dleighg said:

that was so fun. As was Luke's comment "is this even a song?" 

Now my 59 yo husband would say the same thing (and did last August) because somehow he missed all of pop culture from his youth. It's kind of amazing.

Luke's comment was hilarious. I played the song for my 11-year olds a few days before the eclipse and they were not impressed. "Overdone" "Too long" "Who told her she could sing?" My little Simon Cowells...lol The video freaked me out when I was a kid. 

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ChipBach

ChipBach

19 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

I, too, thought that  Cam was the best part of the show, and I usually don't like him.  I actually thought this was not that funny and found myself shocked throughout the episode with how selfish most of the characters were and that Alex was just outright mean to Ben.  Mitch wouldn't let the bait guy go outside and watch the eclipse because Mitch couldn't believe that when they were younger bait guy wasn't interested in 13 year old Mitch.  Go figure...  Lily and Joe kicked Ben on the float out onto the lake when all he was trying to do was get the float ready for them.  Alex was downright rude to Ben and then left him alone on the island (and I didn't see him in the singing scene so I guess she never went back for him).  And, only Joe watched the eclipse with Jay when that was the one thing Jay asked of everyone after paying for the vacation for all of them.  Gloria and Cam had the 'boating' mishap, but everyone else chose to do something else that prevented them from being with Jay for the eclipse.

I guess that overall, the selfishness of the characters lessens my enjoyment of the show.

This!  I was thinking the same thing...  What a crappy family.  It was hard to enjoy the song at the end due to how selfish and mean they all were, in particular to Ben.  Not sure why Alex felt she had a "pass" on any responsibility toward being a good host to someone she invited in spite of the fact that she knows her mother does not care for the dude.  And putting a passed out person on a raft in a lake?  I guess I couldn't find the humor.  Little sociopaths making their babysitter float out to get sun stroke, get hit by another boat, or roll off and drown?  I guess its whacky, but why not just drug him or clobber him over the head...

Hard to root for the bad guys...

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love2lovebadtv

love2lovebadtv

Cam and his getup really made this episode for me. I liked them singing Total Eclipse and even Luke's question, but I wish we got to see Alex apologize to and include her boyfriend and be a part of that scene. 

Oh and cam's excitement about being married into a lake family was hilarious. 

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ItCouldBeWorse

ItCouldBeWorse

I don't believe that none of the 4 kids had a cell phone to call for help with when they were stranded. Cell phones today can be waterproof and there's no way Haley would go out without hers. 

I also didn't like Lily and especially Joe being on the deck without life vests at the beginning (they were only wearing them when Ben was planning to take them out in the float).

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ErinV

ErinV

I actually laughed out loud at this episode - the Manuel comments from Luke (!) and Alex, and Phil's "What am I looking at here?" when he saw Cam in the caftan.  I mean, just Cam's use of the words "caftan" and "muu muu" were hilarious.
Yikes to Julie Bowen's plastic surgery though.

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ljenkins782

ljenkins782

On 10/1/2017 at 1:32 PM, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I don't believe that none of the 4 kids had a cell phone to call for help with when they were stranded. Cell phones today can be waterproof and there's no way Haley would go out without hers. 

I assumed the phones were in bags they left on the stolen boat (though it also seems unlikely that they would leave their phones behind to go explore the island). I couldn't imagine why else the other kids would have bothered to steal their stuff. 

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I actually laughed out loud at this episode - the Manuel comments from Luke (!) and Alex, and Phil's "What am I looking at here?" when he saw Cam in the caftan. 

Those are the moments where I really love the Phil character, the understated moments is where Ty Burrell really shines. His character so often becomes a caricature that I can't find it funny, but the little moments are fantastic. Gloria's simple "Ayy, no" was pretty good too. 

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 And, only Joe watched the eclipse with Jay when that was the one thing Jay asked of everyone after paying for the vacation for all of them.  Gloria and Cam had the 'boating' mishap, but everyone else chose to do something else that prevented them from being with Jay for the eclipse.

Agreed that they were selfish and he had a right to be upset, but this sequence is possibly the first time I've really noted a "miss" in Ed O'Neill's acting. He's the one character that I never felt went over the top in any direction, but this tantrum felt very hammy and unlike the character and the way Ed O'Neill has always played it.

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All the things the family said about Jay - saving their favorite flavor gummi bears for them, him texting Phil every day for a week after his mom died - were sweet. 

Those really were sweet, most of them were such little things but so thoughtful. 

Quote

that was so fun. As was Luke's comment "is this even a song?" 

I really needed that little moment in an otherwise too-cheesy-for-words scene. 

Quote

What did Julie Bowen do to her face? It was so distracting and poorly done. Cosmetic surgery, not even once.

I noticed that too, but I saw her on Jimmy Kimmel maybe a week ago and she didn't look nearly as jarring so I'm confused. Maybe whatever she had done hadn't "settled" yet when they filmed this and has gotten better since then. Her face looked extremely pulled back in this episode. She's morphing into Kathy Moriarty crossed with present-day Faye Dunaway. 

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ItCouldBeWorse

ItCouldBeWorse

35 minutes ago, ljenkins782 said:
On 10/1/2017 at 1:32 PM, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I don't believe that none of the 4 kids had a cell phone to call for help with when they were stranded. Cell phones today can be waterproof and there's no way Haley would go out without hers. 

I assumed the phones were in bags they left on the stolen boat (though it also seems unlikely that they would leave their phones behind to go explore the island). I couldn't imagine why else the other kids would have bothered to steal their stuff. 

I don't know-most young people lock their cell phones and have ways of tracking them, thus making stolen ones pretty worthless. I think the boat (and didn't they say jet skis?) were the reason they were lured to the island.

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ljenkins782

ljenkins782

22 minutes ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I don't know-most young people lock their cell phones and have ways of tracking them, thus making stolen ones pretty worthless. I think the boat (and didn't they say jet skis?) were the reason they were lured to the island.

The jet skis belonged to the other kids, the Modern family kids saw them parked on the island. The kids all rode in one little boat together, which the other kids stole, but it didn't look like any kind of impressive vehicle that would be worth taking. 

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TheLastKidPicked

TheLastKidPicked

(edited)
On 9/28/2017 at 9:46 PM, Toothbrush said:

All the things the family said about Jay - saving their favorite flavor gummi bears for them, him texting Phil every day for a week after his mom died - were sweet. 

Don't you love it when you think people are taking you for granted, and then they mention something like this that shows they really do appreciate the little things you do?

Well done, show.

Edited by TheLastKidPicked
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useryikes

useryikes

On 01/10/2017 at 1:32 PM, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I don't believe that none of the 4 kids had a cell phone to call for help with when they were stranded. Cell phones today can be waterproof and there's no way Haley would go out without hers. 

Maybe there was not signal in that part of the woods.

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ItCouldBeWorse

ItCouldBeWorse

1 hour ago, useryikes said:
On 10/1/2017 at 1:32 PM, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I don't believe that none of the 4 kids had a cell phone to call for help with when they were stranded. Cell phones today can be waterproof and there's no way Haley would go out without hers. 

Maybe there was not signal in that part of the woods.

Then we would have gotten the common trope of "Oh no, there's no signal, our phones don't work!"

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Blakeston

Blakeston

I'm surprised there wasn't a line about the kids not having a signal. It may have been cut for time. I don't think we were supposed to believe that their phones were stolen, or else Haley would have freaked.

This was one of my favorite episodes in ages, because it actually made me laugh out loud repeatedly. But I would agree that some of the characters seemed excessively mean, even by the standards of this show. Poor, sweet Ben being effectively left to die on two different occasions, Gloria calling attention to Cameron's nudity in front of the children, and Mitchell's "No I won't let you watch the eclipse, because you weren't attracted to me when we were 13!" rant were all really unnecessary.

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Toothbrush

Toothbrush

On 9/30/2017 at 4:08 PM, auntiemel said:

Just watched this. My family spent a week in Tahoe every summer when I was growing up. Not on a houseboat, but still. It made me miss it!

You're from a lake family!!!

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

23 hours ago, useryikes said:

Maybe there was not signal in that part of the woods.

As someone who goes to Tahoe every summer, there are DEFINITELY spots where there is no signal. Mr. EB's family has a cabin near Camp Richardson (where this episode was filmed) and although service has improved slightly over the years (from absolutely no signal ten years ago to more recently maybe once a day our phones would buzz to say we had new messages and then our phones wouldn't load them), it got a lot worse this year. We were guessing that due to the big fire, the closest tower must have been destroyed or something because this year, my phone didn't buzz a single time for the entire week while we were at the cabin. In order to get any signal, we had to drive two miles closer to town. We didn't go up to Emerald Bay this year so I'm not sure what the reception is like up there but you definitely can't rely on having signal once you leave the Y.

Despite that, we always took our phones with us in case we wanted to take pictures, which came in handy when Mr. EB came across a huge pile of bear poop (prompting him to take a picture while asking the age old question: "Does a bear shit in the woods?").

Heh, we're not a lake family though because we don't have a houseboat on the lake!

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Ottis

Ottis

I thought this episode was awful. Cam and his outfit were beyond ridiculous, even for Cam. Jay suddenly caring what people will think of him when he is gone ... have you met Jay? They all take a trip on a houseboat to see the eclipse, and yet there is no set plan on being together when the eclipse occurs? Manny deciding he will be someone else than who he has (mostly) unapologetically been? 

And it looked cold there, both in the air and the water. It did not look like a fun trip.

I don't mind some of the meanness, because, well, it's what they do. But a lot of this was just dumb or out of character.

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biakbiak

biakbiak

1 hour ago, Ottis said:

both in the air and the water.

Lake Tahoe in August, when this was set and filmed average daily temp is 80, so not cold at all.

I don't think their would need to be any more of a plan than this is the time of the eclipse given they huge deck on the houseboat would be the obvious place together. Of course, the eclipse in Tahoe was at its peak at like 10 in the morning so I imagine no one would have actually left the boat.

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dleighg

dleighg

2 hours ago, biakbiak said:

Of course, the eclipse in Tahoe was at its peak at like 10 in the morning so I imagine no one would have actually left the boat.

yeah that was painfully obvious to me (as an eclipse geek). All that activity before 10 in the morning????

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SerenityInSpace

SerenityInSpace

(edited)

It was the first ep I've seen in a long time and it was pretty funny. Cameron got a few good laughs from me, but Mitchell didn't half make his relationship with him sound depressing. Are they meant to be in love?

I noticed Julie's plastic surgery too. I get that she's in Hollywood and she's a woman, so plastic surgery was pretty much inevitable, but why do these millionaires not shop around for better surgeons? Susan Sarandon's is pretty great. I'm sure she could afford him/her.

Edited by SerenityInSpace
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Blakeston

Blakeston

On 10/6/2017 at 7:09 PM, SerenityInSpace said:

It was the first ep I've seen in a long time and it was pretty funny. Cameron got a few good laughs from me, but Mitchell didn't half make his relationship with him sound depressing. Are they meant to be in love?

I noticed Julie's plastic surgery too. I get that she's in Hollywood and she's a woman, so plastic surgery was pretty much inevitable, but why do these millionaires not shop around for better surgeons? Susan Sarandon's is pretty great. I'm sure she could afford him/her.

This is wildly off-topic, but I know a plastic surgeon who's said that, based on Susan Sarandon's appearance, he truly doesn't believe she's had any work done. As in, even though she looks ridiculously young and amazing, her face doesn't show any signs of surgery whatsoever.

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SerenityInSpace

SerenityInSpace

3 hours ago, Blakeston said:

This is wildly off-topic, but I know a plastic surgeon who's said that, based on Susan Sarandon's appearance, he truly doesn't believe she's had any work done. As in, even though she looks ridiculously young and amazing, her face doesn't show any signs of surgery whatsoever.

I only mentioned Susan, because she's previously spoken about her plastic surgery, so I didn't feel bad about bringing it up.

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