This week on “Modern Family,” everyone, except Luke and Manny, who are not in this episode, come face to face with the realities of their relationships or as it’s called in therapy, ‘Cleaning Out Your Junk Drawer.’
Gloria won a session with a therapist/author at a silent auction, and while she is super excited, the other people involved can’t say the same. Mitch and Cam, Claire and Phil and Jay all attend but as far as letting their feelings out in the open or has the book says their “emotional junk drawers,” they don’t plan to let that happen.
While the adults are cooped up in the Dunphy’s house for the next three hours, Alex and Haley spend some sister time together. It is refreshing to see their evolution as siblings. With Alex in college experiencing college stuff, it puts them on the same playing field so to speak. A field that gives both of them the courage to confide in each other about their “love lives.” And that’s exactly what they do. Alex tells Haley about the high school playboy, and Luke’s friend Reuben and Haley tells her about Andy, which totally blows her sister away. Especially since we find out that they actually had sex at the sexy house from the last episode.
Back at the house, Jay is determined to get out of talking about his feelings which is causing him to miss Sunday Football. He protests he complains, and the only thing left for him to do is “fake it,” and that’s what he does. Mitch is determined not to be the “sideshow gay couple”, so he tells Cam to “keep a low profile” and “no bedroom stuff.” Claire, like her brother and father, thinks the whole thing is stupid, but she copes by turning it into a competition. In her mind, she and Phil are going to win because they are the most put together.
During one of the exercises, Jay sees it as the perfect time to get “emotional” and retreats to the bathroom. The rest of the crew find it touching that he opened up and rush to the door to make sure he is okay, especially since he was holding his heart. They pound on the door for him to let them in and their worry rises when he doesn’t’ open. Phil comes to the rescue with a bobby pin, and when they open the door, Jay has earphones on watching the game on his tablet. Caught!
At the restaurant, Haley and Alex decide that they need to get themselves together and vow that they each will end it with the men in their lives. Haley texts Andy who thinks that it is a booty call. They meet in her car and talk about what happened. They are both very clear that it cannot happen again, and so they go their separate ways believing that it is over between them. In the meantime, Alex has broken things off with Rueben. She “did it quickly like ripping off one of his incredible Hulk band aids.” She calls to let her sister know and to confirm that she has done the same and asks her, “Did you do it” and we see that yes, she did indeed “do it” as Andy is laying right next to her. So much for that plan.
They have moved on from Jay’s bluff back at Claire and Phil’s place and are now at the point where they each have to write down what bothers them about the other. This is where things get interesting. Phil claims there is nothing about Claire he doesn’t like, but Cam and Mitch can think of a few things. This causes Claire to feel a certain way especially when Phil says her tepee joke is childish. She rebuts,“Really cause you’re the one who can’t stop playing with his pogo stick” to which he says “you know what maybe you’d be happier if you played with my pogo stick once in a while” to which Mitch says, “What’s sad is they’re actually talking about a pogo stick.” It’s an intense scene, and it climaxes moments later when Mitch tells Cam in the midst of their argument, “When I have to nag you it makes me feel like I am your mother which could be why it’s been a month since we played with each other’s pogo sticks.” Yes, Mitch not only embarrasses the hell out of himself but also broke his own “no bedroom stuff” rule.
In the end, after the therapist leaves, rather rudely, because of a family issue, Jay brings is all to a close when he genuinely opens up about his father teaching him how to be a man. He breaks down; Gloria comforts him, and it brings a calm over the entire room.
In the closing scene, everyone makes an effort to make the changes their partner suggests, but as any of us in a long-term relationship, those changes are usually short-lived.