Modern Family Season 8 Finale Review

Luke and Manny are graduating high school in the season finale of Modern Family.


S8E22 "The Graduates"

Javier shows up the day before Manny's graduation, and ends up taking him drinking and to a strip club. This hits on the recurring theme of Jay being more of an actual father to Manny, as the next day he helps Manny clean up the mess he has created, by having lost his gown and sash. Manny and Jay go to the strip club, where Jay encourages Manny to be easier on himself. After the graduation, Manny tells Jay that he thinks of the two of them spending time together as father-son time, and Jay tells Manny that his rule for dating was no kids, but he made an exception in this case. This moment was amazing, it gave me goosebumps.

Knowing Phil is going to be emotional at Luke's graduation, Haley and Alex try to get him cried-out by showing him a video of a bunch of moments in Luke's life. However, he ends up keeping on crying. Claire realizes how she misses Luke being little, and it's funny but very weird when she plays with a kid. I feel like the weirdness of this isn't really addressed. At the graduation, Phil doesn't respond emotionally, but Claire, Haley, and Alex all start crying.

Mitch and Cam discover that Lily is smart, when the school recommends that she skip fifth grade. The moments where Mitch and Cam realize that Lily is popular and that she is fun are very funny, and reflect on the fact that Lily's personality really hasn't been developed much, despite the fact that we are finishing up season eight. Aside from this, this story is uninteresting and shallow, and feels just thrown together using the characters not utilized in Luke or Manny related stories.


The Jay and Manny relationship in this episode was excellent. The Dunphy family had its moments, but they weren't great. The Mitch, Cam, and Lily story felt random, but there were some very solid jokes. Gloria and Joe were also entertaining in their small part of the episode.

Score: 8.5/10

What did you think of "The Graduates"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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