My Funky Valentine

"My Funky Valentine" is the 15th episode of first season of Modern Family. It premiered on ABC on February 10, 2010. It was written by Jerry Collins and directed by Michael Spiller.

Plot

Phil (Ty Burrell) and Claire (Julie Bowen) are arranging their Valentine's date at their usual restaurant, but after being shocked by Dylan's (Reid Ewing) present for Haley (Sarah Hyland), they decide to spend the night at a hotel and indulge in role playing instead. Phil poses as Clive Bixby, a visiting businessman and Claire as Julianna, a local housewife. The two meet at a bar and he "picks her up", she goes to the bathroom and comes back wearing her coat with no clothes underneath. As they prepare to go upstairs she gets her coat stuck in the escalator, which she cannot take off. The situation turns worse when they begin running into a lot of acquaintances from work and school, all of whom suggest that she take the coat off.

Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) break their valentine date, because Mitchell has a case that he has been working on for weeks. When his client decides to settle before Mitchell had the chance at giving one of his best speeches, he comes back home with no Valentine's spirit.

Manny (Rico Rodriguez) arrives at Mitchell and Cameron's home, since Cameron agreed to look after him. That seems to lift Mitchell a bit but it soon goes south when they see that Manny is terribly depressed because he wrote a Valentine for a girl, but someone else took the credit. They go to the restaurant where Manny had arranged for his date and confronts her about the true authorship of the poem. Mitchell then defends Manny by using the speech he was going to use from the case which makes Cameron happy. Unfortunately, the girl still likes the other boy, because he says he had the feelings, but did not know how to express them.

Jay (Ed O'Neill) and Gloria (Sofía Vergara) go to a comedy club where David Brenner is performing. They initially enjoy it, until David catches sight of them and starts making fun of Jay's age, and after getting angry, Jay excuses himself. Gloria comes to comfort him and as they leave to go salsa dancing, which was Gloria's first choice for the Valentines, they find Phil and Claire with Claire still stuck in the escalator. Gloria helps Claire out (because it has happened to her before, as she states) and then Jay and Gloria leave and Phil and Claire go upstairs into their hotel room.

The next morning it turns out that Phil still managed to make a disaster of Clive and Julianna's rendez vous by spilling oil all over the place, which he confesses during a phone conversation with Claire which is heard by the entire family in the van's hands-free system.

Cultural references

The title is a reference to the song My Funny Valentine. Jay mentions David Brenner was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Reception

Ratings

In its original American broadcast, "My Funky Valentine" was viewed by 10.11 million viewers with a Nielsen rating of 4.2/11 matching with the previous rating high from Fifteen Percent and The Pilot and helping it come second in its timeslot after American Idol, and making it the most viewed episode on ABC Comedy Wednesday helping ABC come third for the night after CBS and FOX.^[1] The episode ranked 13th in the 18-49 rating with 5,438 million viewers from that rating watching and ranked 23rd in the total viewership for the week.^[2]

Reviews

The episode got positive reviews.

Robert Canning from IGN gave the episode an 8.6 saying it was "Great" and "the three storylines from "My Funky Valentine" had a lot of laughs. The episode continued to prove Modern Family is the best new comedy of the season."^[3]

Jason Hughes of TV Squad gave the episode a positive review saying that "Again, it's those genuine little moments that help the audience believe in these characters, and believing in them makes the situations they find themselves in that much funnier."^[4]

Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A- saying that "It may not be the freshest idea in the world, but I haven't laughed this hard at a sitcom in a long time." and that "Nothing new about these storylines. But it's not about the situation -- it's about the comedy. And what we have here are comic actors playing characters -- especially Mitchell, Cam, and Phil -- that can make everything old new again."^[5]

Lesley Savage of Entertainment Weekly gave the episode a positive review saying that "How is it possible that this show gets funnier every week? I mean, you would think that it would have to plateau at some point, but the last few episodes have just gotten better and better. While I thought that last week was ultra-quote worthy, this week’s Valentine’s Day-themed episode may have just topped it.^[6]

References

External links

• "My Funky Valentine" at ABC.com
• "My Funky Valentine" at the Internet Movie Database
• "My Funky Valentine" at TV.com