Modern Family Family Member of the Week: 'Halloween'

Boo! Boo. Boo. Modern Family's Halloween episode amounted to miscommunications at the Dunphy household, a hubbub over Mitchell's costume, and Gloria's sudden shame over her imprecise elocution. A 6 out of 10. At least we got to see the entire clan join forces for Claire's campy "haunted house" that didn't scare so much as puzzle her Trick-or-Treaters. That wasn't bad. And did anyone notice Claire looked and sounded just like Courteney Cox in her costume? A sinister crossover in ABC's Wednesday night lineup, definitely. Still, we've got to pick a family member of the week. Who's the King-Size Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in this bag of slightly stale popcorn balls?

Family Member of the Week: Phil

God, sometimes stupid Phil-isms are enough to float an episode. His hapless "sympathy" towards his wife-abandoned neighbor, Jerry, ruled. His voice-modulated delivery to incoming Trick-or-Treaters killed. (Related: Have you ever seen a man more suited for a Lurch costume than Ty Burrell? The man is a grown-up, slowed-down Eddie Munster.) Best of all, his reaction to the hollering skeleton in the yard elicited my gleeful whinnies all three times last night. In fact, the hollering skeleton deserves at least fourth place on our MFFMotW. He is not SAG-cleared though, so we'll have to rank him in spirit.

2nd Place: Gloria: The spookiest part of Modern Family's Halloween may have been The Americanization Of Gloria, who became self-conscious about her accent and tried phasing out her Colombian patois. Quel horreur! "Welcome to your nightmare. Ha, ha, ha, HA, ha!" she chirped like a third-act Eliza Doolittle to incoming trick-or-treaters. And before Jay assured Gloria that her bobbly accent was lovely as is, Gloria called out Claire for not appreciating her new-found diction. "It's like father, like daughter in this dog-eat-dog fam-i-ly." Anglicized or not, I like this witch's Colombian brew! Muahaha! Haha! So sorry.

3rd Place: Cameron: Of course Cameron had a traumatizing Halloween during childhood. Of course. And naturally he monologued and relived the experience for all 22 minutes of last night's episode. Less expected was his hysterical reaction to Mitchell, who phoned him "from a bathroom stall while wearing a Spiderman costume": "Hot. Who is this?"

4th Place: Claire: Claire's dialogue called for less of her fabulous drollness and more of her alpha-female fun-killer dimension. That's fine, but she only earned a chuckle when she gave up hope at episode's end and said, "We should just put out a bowl of candy and have a cocktail, right?" Mom! I've missed you!

5th Place: Mitchell: Ergh, his Spiderman suit tomfoolery never quite panned out. When Mitch crept out his office window to change out of his Halloween costume, the chaos that ensued in the parking lot reminded me of that tired show about office mishaps called The Office and one of their three jokes. I like Modern Family for avoiding standard single-camera snafus, and this felt standard (and obvious) at best. Still, Mitchell did slide down a pole like Curious George, and he did survive Gloria's fisticuffs. He wins fifth place for gusto.

Not ranked: Jay, the Dunphy kids, Manny, Jerry, Jerry's vagabond wife, the SAG-ineligible skeleton, and Cameron's Spiderman fetish.