Modern Family S9E12 Review

The 200th episode of Modern Family has a theme of death after Phil has to go to the hospital. While Claire searches for an important teddy bear for Phil, the other two stories of the episode talk about death.


S9E12 "Dear Beloved Family"

The episode begins with Phil having stomach pain. He is taken to the hospital, and the entire family comes to the hospital to comfort him. However, they don't stay for long, as it seems the whole point of that for most of the family was to cause conflicts. Mitch and Cam end up talking about if one of them would get remarried if the other one died, and Joe asks his parents about death.

Claire spends the episode searching for a bear that Phil won after a lot of trying that members of the family have with them during surgeries. There are some funny moments here, such as the joke about Claire looking through Luke's drawers, and when she believes that the bear is in the pile of bears that Joe has. The highlights here though are the sincere moments. When Claire arrives at Manny's dorm, she reflects on how fearless Phil is, and when she returns to the hospital, Phil reveals that he had her search for the bear to get her mind off of his surgery. However, that seems strange considering Phil's condition when he mentioned the bear.

The set-up for Mitch and Cam's conflict is obvious. I'm sure any regular Modern Family viewer knew as soon as Cam responded to Mitch's comment about Claire moving on if Phil dies that this would be what the two talked about throughout the episode. Cam pries out of Mitch who he would be interested on dating if he died, and then invites that guy over. It's a typical instance of Cam overreacting to something, and seemingly intentionally making the situation worse.

When Joe asks Jay and Gloria about death, Jay insists that he take the question since Gloria is too blunt when it comes to death. However, both of them end up being too far in either direction. Jay says that they might never die due to scientific advancements, which causes Joe to be careless. Then, Gloria says that there are plenty of ways that Joe could end up dying, which leads to a depressing party, which is the funniest part of this story. I also really liked the ending, how Joe said he didn't know if he'd ever laugh again, and then laughed at Manny's hair when he entered.


Claire's part of the episode was the highlight, with great moments both funny and sincere. Jay, Gloria, and Joe were also enjoyable. Mitch and Cam easily had the weakest part of the episode, bringing down what was an otherwise perfectly solid episode.

Score: 7/10

What did you think of "Dear Beloved Family"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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