Modern Family: Disneyland

Posted by: S.P. Young • May 10, 2012 @ 8:08pm

"But I realized that staying with my kids was more important than leaving my wife. Now that's not the right decision for everyone, but it was the right decision for me."

"Disneyland" told two stories. The first was the entire family's trip to the theme park, and the second was Jay sitting at home talking about the past. These two stories would eventually intersect at the end, as Jay wanted everybody to go see the animatronic Abraham Lincoln give a speech. "Disneyland" is the closest Modern Family has ever come to providing a backstory episode, but more importantly, it showed the side of Jay that made all the right decisions.

	As Gloria stubbornly went against her husband's advice on footware, she ended up limping around Disneyland with her feet in pain. Fortunately, her husband was an expert in women's shoes, and he bought her the most comfortable pair of shoes there were.
	Like everybody else, the Old Man saw the downside of Cam and Mitch attaching a leash to Lily, so that she could not run away. He once again relied on his extensive knowledge of women's shoes, and got Lily a pair of baby high heels, making it difficult for her to run off.

Meanwhile, the rides proved too much to handle for Phil. Jay reassured him that it was just a symptom of getting old.
Claire's plan to hook Haley up with a new boyfriend failed miserably. Dylan fell his way back into Haley's life, after a couple of unfortunate incidents at Disneyland got him fired.

So everybody went to watch the animatronic Lincoln, as per Jay's insistence. This was where the two stories intersected, as the scenes would alternate between the family watching Lincoln, and Jay telling the story of how he took Claire and Mitch to Disneyland when they were children.

Throughout the episode in the talking head segments, Jay opened up and talked about how he had a fight with his old wife, and that he had planned to leave her after coming home from Disneyland with Claire and Mitch. And this was where the significance of Abraham Lincoln came in. Seeing the robot Lincoln give a famous and emotional speech made Jay change his mind, and keep the family intact for just a little bit longer:

Jay: So I stuck it out until they were grown.
Gloria (off-screen) : Jay, you want to join me in the jacuzzi?
Jay: And the universe rewarded me.

Tags: Modern Family, Disneyland, Ed' O'Neill, Sofia Vergara, Ty Burrell, Julie Bowen, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet, Sarah Hyland, Ariel Winter