I've been racking my brain as to why I haven't been able to write an article that is admittedly much later than I’d care for it to be.

Why? I’ve been asking myself this too. Modern Family is easily one my favorite shows of all time, so why no article? It wasn’t writers block because I had a topic. I tried to blame the busy time of season but the other shows are on winter break so that’s not it.

I thought, maybe the episode boring, didn’t engage me, didn’t make me laugh but no, that’s not the case. Finally it came to me. The episode was over simplified.

Read on, and you’ll understand. Sometimes I’m too logical and when movies and TV, especially a sitcom goes from point “A” to “Z” in one step because there is an underlying storyline they are trying to set the stage for.

Perfectionist that I am, I get so lost in the “But that’s not possible!” I eventually lose interest. Hopefully I’m wrong and that’s not what is about to happen. We’ve all seen how when sitcoms become at a loss for ideas, typically a character with an already established family has a baby or a new live family member is introduced – Welcome cousin Oliver!

Or a big, extended road trip is taken – Lucille Ball went to both Italy and Hollywood, and then moved to the country and how can we forget that it wasn’t enough for Happy Days to go to Hollywood, Fonzi jumped a shark.

"He went that way."

The good news is that although Modern Family is introducing a baby, they will not be taking an extended road trip to Hollywood because they are already only a few miles away.

One last diversion before I begin, nope, lucky you, I haven’t started yet. There is a joke my son told me about an Italian farmer during tomato season. The farmer’s son was in prison for tax evasion and the father felt overwhelmed with the task of preparing the land for harvest so he writes a letter to his son from prison.

“Dear son. It’s time to plant the tomatoes and my heart just isn’t in it. You always have helped me in the past and no one can tend land the way you can. I’m tired and I’m weak. I wish there was a way you could help.”

The son writes back. “Dearest father, please skip the harvest this year. There are dozens of dead bodies in the back yard and I don’t want to add to my sentence.”

The father was an honest man, so naturally he gave the letter to the police, who in turn came out in droves to look for the dead bodies. Dug up the ground, but strangely enough they didn’t find one body.

The day the father received another letter from his son. “Dearest Father, have a successful harvest. That is the best I can do from here.”

So now you know how, what looked to me like a public dump, turned into a baseball field capable of hosting a championship softball game.

Moving on:

Christopher Lloyd is co-creator and executive producer for Modern Family. I have great respect for his work and how each character is true to himself.

Let’s begin.

Welcome back to one of my favorite shows of all time Modern Family. What makes Modern Family the success it is, in my mind, is that it’s true to its characters. This episode was no exception. I do have to confess that the episode itself didn’t grab me the way they usually do, I had to watch it again before I could write the article. Sometimes I get too stuck in my head, and the star of the episode, a baseball diamond had a Pygmalion transition I can’t imagine happening as easily as it did in the episode so I think I got stuck.

Hailey – Is it me or is Hailey’s fashion consultant giving her some kind of, in the words of my mother, “Vampira” look? Oh wait she’s wearing salmon colored jeans, just the black lace top with her long dark hair makes it look like she’s hosting horror movies on an independent TV station after hours. Oh, and she’s going to work today. There’s no mention of where she works, so based on how she’s dressed, I’ve guessed that is what she does for a living now.

Cam & Claire, The BFFs -- Wait, I thought Cam and Gloria were BFFs. I think Cam is every woman’s BFF, and why wouldn’t he be? Anyway, Cam and Claire are transitioning what looks to be a waste land to build a baseball diamond to host Luke and Manny’s baseball game playoff game. The transition of the field itself is remarkable. There is no drama, no hiccups, and no stress between Cam and Claire during the miraculous transition. No really. It’s super smooth. So smooth in fact that I actually think it could have been a two-parter, but I can see the handwriting on the wall, or in this case FIZBO’s nose and something bigger is coming.

Gloria - We all know my favorite cackler is having a baby. Despite the pitch of her voice, the show really wouldn’t be the same without it. When you were a kid did you used to talk into a tape recorder and pretend that you were a news announcer? What is a tape recorder? Well it’s a device people used to record their voices in the 1960’s. Gloria is cackling and singing to her unborn child through a microphone just in case he/she couldn’t hear her before. Jay intercepts the microphone and does some adorable cooing himself as well.

Fizbo – We all love Fizbo, who is Cam’s clown character. For those of you who have your real estate license sitting in a drawer because you already work 40 hours a week, but you dream of selling real estate, you’ll also know that a the term (pronounced fisbo) stands for “For Sale By Owner.” Real Estate agents love those leads. Cam and Claire come across a home that is being sold by its owner. An elderly lady, we all recognize from the Rockford Files. After all, they are inches from Hollywood. She’s selling her home at a ridiculous price because she hasn’t hired an agent. The money isn’t a concern to her because her son is rich enough to have a phone by his toilet. Hurrah!

They call Phil and Mitch who look at the property and they toss around the idea of flipping it. Since the house is a FSBO, that means, even though it didn’t come up in the episode, that if Phil works some magic and gets her to list with him as the agent (after all Phil is a real estate agent) he could collect commission on both sides of the deal, thus ending up with quite a bit of money to invest back into the house – I think I just gave you a teaser!

However, Phil really doesn’t like the idea. This might seem unlike Phil, but since he is a real estate agent, he has a very honest assessment of how these types of deals can become money pits. Since Mitchell is a lawyer, who has real estate experience, after all, he did work in Phil’s office at one point, Mitchell also knows the dangers of the flip. But because Cam and Claire turned the dirt lot into a baseball diamond it’s obvious that Cam and Claire can take this project on and so it’s agreed.

This should be hysterical.

Also, keep your eyes open for David Faustino in upcoming episodes.