One rhetorical question: Jay and his family have lived in that house for more than seven years - why did he wait until now to install security cameras? I know they do have a (not very well working) security gate, but you'd think given his money he'd want to keep everyone/everything safe from day one, or certainly…

I totally disagree about Alex's story (yeah, I know, big shock) - I was angry at everyone in the Dunphy house for exploiting Alex while she was in distress (Luke the most for stealing all her hard work, then Claire and Haley about evenly, then Phil the least because in fairness to him he was still somewhat traumatized…

Dick Clark almost figured it out…

When this review wasn't posted by yesterday afternoon I thought they did stop covering it.

Considering the show's dubious (IMO) track record of travel shows when the family was all together (I still think "Australia" was the best of them, and that's the one that many people here hated the most), trying to squeeze three unrelated travel stories into one episode really wasn't a good idea. I know the idea…

I thought it was weird that the episode's title was based on a fairly minor plot sub-point. (I feel like someone will come up with another example fairly quickly, but I can't think of one right now.)

He's the kicker (at least he was last season until he got benched) - does that even count?

Point taken, but it's still a long way down from the 4's it was pulling in as recently as early in Season 5.

it was an OK scene for her, but I wouldn't even put it in my top five (her therapy scenes would top that list IMO, probably followed by her and Sanjay's first kiss).

I know it doesn't fit the "lasted a respectable amount of time" template, but I thought "Murder One" had a brilliant first season, but by less than halfway through its second (and final, I'm pretty sure) season I had already given up on it.

Given it's down to low 2's that sounds more like an indictment of ABC.

I thought it was a better finale than last year's disappointment - not as emotional as I hoped (Kyle nailed it about the Haley/Andy farewell being less sad than it should have been - maybe because one would think they'll reunite sometime next season, and Luke seemed strangely unemotional about his breakup) but it did…

Jim (Beam) or Jack (Daniels). Is it crazy talk that Alex could go full-blown alcoholic to cope? Probably and hopefully (I was told that last year when she used that as a coping mechanism a couple of times), but who knows?

Given her family history, and her own history of heartbreaking breakups, I just hope Alex's soulmate doesn't end up having a last name of Beam or Daniels.

This was probably the cruelest "pull the rug out from under poor Alex just when it looks like she'll find happiness" story of the series, and that's saying something. That theory that J.P. espoused last week about the writers hating Ariel Winter looks more and more accurate by the week.

I really want to be able to say "you're kidding, right?" (in a nice way - not as a flame) at that thought, but seeing some of the evidence it does make me wonder…

Tonight was a microcosm of the entire season - it had it moments (it really needed more of Jay and Joe bonding) but in the end it just meandered.

I have two different theories about why Alex went to prom with Reuben: either 1) she took her own words to heart (when she told Claire the world wasn't full of heartless monsters) and belatedly took pity on Reuben after soaking him with the sprinklers, or 2) she lost another poker bet to him.

That's one thing they absolutely need to do - a story with Alex at college with little or (preferably) no family interaction. Of course that goes against the grain of the show to almost always have two or more family members together at all times, so, again, I doubt it will ever happen.

They did both of them on an early Three's Company episode: The roommates tried to hide a puppy from the Ropers, then later Stanley eats dog food by mistake and likes it, thinking it was one of Jack's culinary class creations.