In the "Modern Family Hierarchy Of Maniacal Episodes As Porridge", this was their "too cold" episode ("Las Vegas" was the "too hot", and "Three Turkeys" was the "just right"). Other than Phil's hysterical virtual reality pantomime the payoff just didn't seem to be there, although there were a few other funny moments…

Given her role on the show, one was probably for a cloak of invisibility…

If Gloria was so worried about Joe's lack of shoelace-tying ability, why didn't she call Dr. Shoe?

It could have been the Genies - financing a trip to Amsterdam for three had to have blown a fair-sized hole in their budget…

There's one thing I'm very glad didn't happen in this episode - they didn't turn Alex's story (which, ironically, was virtually "ignored" by the reviewer) into a contrived cop-out to get her out of Caltech and back into the Dunphy house (either by having her get arrested and kicked out like Haley, or by having Phil…

I guess she really "didn't need no education"…

I agree - she doesn't do everything her father does every day but I'm sure she's had to fill in more than once before.

I don't doubt class scheduling is easy and you can set whatever schedule you want (back in my day I tried to schedule to minimize back-to-back classes even though it meant I'd be there until mid-afternoon a few days) - it's just that I'm surprised Alex would set a schedule to have a short day of classes on any day -…

It was a school-required community service task.

I thought the episode as a whole was quite funny - the one big flaw in it was the whole Claire/Alex/Haley dynamic. The story itself was decent, and would have worked fine if Claire had been by herself dealing with her father's workplace, but it was just totally illogical to bring Alex and Haley into it.

Was it me or did it look like Stella had a grin on her face when Jay said that line about that kid at preschool having bigger ears than her?

When I heard the cracking sound I *did* think at first that Claire sat on them.

Actually if Alex doesn't rebound by the next time we see her I hope it's only moping. I didn't intend to trivialize her plight as I'm worried she might have deeper issues. Either way it would be interesting to see an episode (not that it will ever happen) focused on her family (and/or possibly Maisie) trying to get…

One of the anagrams of the "Fawlty Towers" sign was "Watery Fowls"…

It would have been more entertaining to watch Alex mope about losing Sanjay for 30 minutes.

I'll upvote you, but in all honestly that post wasn't all it was quacked up to be.

I thought that was a(nother) missed opportunity - they really should have explored that aspect more deeply than they did.

I was really disappointed with Phil and Lily - I thought they'd have better chemistry together but their story just didn't click like I thought it would (actually not much did - I've seen worse from this show but if this episode was Earth Columbus would have fallen off the edge).

Alex's story hasn't exactly gone slowly - just two weeks after she and Sanjay committed to trying to make their long-distance relationship work he broke up with her.

Ariel rarely disappoints in making Alex seem like a real person and not just a character on TV - that's what made me cry so much for Alex the other night (i.e. she made me feel like it was really happening and not just a sitcom). As much as one might have expected her to just totally bawl her eyes out in that scene…