Jesse Tyler Ferguson pointed out on Twitter last night that the promo photo tableau was probably the inspiration for this episode.

Oh @eric827:disqus , did you even have to ask? Of course AD is superior — it's one of the greatest shows in the history of television. MF has had some very high highs, but its historic mean is merely "pretty good."

Yes, but did they make it into a school assignment, complete with an evaluation rubric? That's a whole extra layer of awesome.

I am pro anything that gives the Sklar Brothers paid employment. Especially when it seems like they actually got to write it.

Well, the Claire stop-and-smell-the-roses storyline was pretty heavy on the life lesson beats. The other two weren't, true, but Claire's what-I-learned-that-day vibe was so striking that it made the others seem almost like anti-lessons.

Andre lives behind the Dunphys. In a cul-de-sac ridden subdivision, that could be quite a hike.

Not bad, actually. Awesome opening.

Oops!  Fixing now. (Copy editors aren't on call 24 hours for the TV Club stuff.)

"Why now?" Well, one answer might be found in this hypothesis from the article: "Some of the Girls nitpickers seem to be funneling their issues with other aspects of the show—the depiction of privilege, the emphasis on women, the youth of its creator—into the race question, where their objections will seem less…

I'm willing to bet that Noel was prompted to write this article not because people-who-have-no-stake-in-what's-being-put-on-screen said "that's really white" but because people-who-are-very-much-like-what's-being-put-on-screen said "that's really white," because they don't happen to like what's on the screen and find…

Great working class sitcom = "The Middle." I'll grant the "older people" complaint if it's about the elderly, but good shows about people past their prime demographic exist all over the place, mostly on TV Land ("Hot In Cleveland") but also recently on TNT ("Men of a Certain Age").

Played cheesy keyboards.

Yes, it is. Editorial typo there — I'll try to get in and fix it.

Not only that, but I was a member for a couple of years!

It was indeed sublime.

Oh it goes back at least to Aristophanes. But that doesn't make the host's smooth-pattern setup any less funny.

I cannot tell you how delighted I am with Uma/Rebecca in the "Next time on SMASH" this week. "Not so much of the singy, dancy stuff!"

This is the first indication I've seen that it's not a musical reworking of this pre-code crime drama: 
http://www.imdb.com/title/t….

What Nathan Ford's Evil Twin said. (Sorry, NFET — Disqus won't let me @-mention you.)  We're here for you, Little Emma Adderall.  It'll all be okay.

Thanks for the correction — I thought they were pulling tapes out of a combo pack each time, but I didn't rewind to look closely. Rescinding kudos for the trilogy purists and redirecting them to @ThatWesternSkyline:disqus .