My least favorite Modern Family episodes are the ones that reveal just how awful the Dunphy-Pritchett-Delgado adults are deep down -- and that was the running gag in "Games People Play." Not to mention that the pattern this season has been that for every tiny step Lily has taken to improve, Manny just gets that much worse. Making him a whiny sneak with an unsubtle Oedipal problem did not do him any favors. While we've seen Jay and Gloria realize how obnoxious they are, with Phil and Cam accidentally (and unbeknownst to them) publicly shaming themselves and Claire functioning as a wet blanket, this episode wasn't a complete waste. There were still some pretty funny moments, so let's focus on those:

Modern Family does well with backstories -- especially when it includes adding insult to injury. "My Hero" may have had a contrived and predictable framing device with Manny's school assignment, (though I like that Luke had the same essay to write) and the Phil-Gloria subplot was pretty much a huge waste until its genuinely hilarious conclusion, but it was a solidly funny and sweet episode. I credit that in no small part thanks to the writers getting the entire ensemble of "jumpy Protestants" together in a believable way (even Cousin Pete!) and to Eric Stonestreet's physical comedy. Before we get to the highlights, I do want to point out that Happy Endings had a similar storyline in its recent Season 3 (and perhaps series) finale this past Friday, "Brothas & Sisters." If you enjoyed "My Hero," I definitely recommended giving that episode a whirl -- you don't need much context going into it, either. Now, let's get to it:

Much as I love Rob Riggle, Modern Family does not need Gil Thorpe. His gross sexual harassment of Claire didn't jibe with the sensibility of the show, and there are only so many times I can see Phil get emasculated and take it simultaneously hard and relatively well. On the bright side, by the end of "Career Day," the writers nipped the idea of Claire working with Gil right in the bud.

"Flip Flop" really wasn't so bad. I don't entirely understand why the conceit of the plots were "women intimidate each other and constantly feel inadequate," and "gay men are serious about buying houses," but whatever, both storylines were entertaining enough, I laughed out loud at the reveal of Workaholics' Anders Holm as the cool put-together young man interested in settling down (since his character on that show is the polar opposite) and it's always fun to see where Rob Riggle (who played Gil Thorp) is going to pop up on TV next. The two-month time jump bothered me since baby Joe did not age (good thing he was huge to begin with), but on the bright side, the house drama is over and we got a nice callback to Barkley. Here are the best lines of the night, since I am actively trying not to be the biggest grouch ever about this show, I swear:

"The Future Dunphys" wasn't the worst episode of Modern Family ever, and I really enjoyed the visual gag of the titular future (and past) Dunphys. Manny and Jay's storyline was as predictable as it was humorless (though the actors are at least trying), and the Mitch, Cam, Lily and Gloria plot was terrible, but at least it acknowledged that these two gay parents with an adopted Vietnamese daughter don't know how to teach her about her culture or the very basics of her own body. I would have hated if that were the subtext, since it'd lead me to dedicating yet another whole piece about how problematic it is for a show that's supposed to be pro-gay to portray this family as grotesquely as it does -- but that being said, I've read convincing arguments in its favor, and maybe I would have even liked it if it was given more time to breathe instead of being stuck as one of three plotlines in a 22-minute episode. And besides, I really, really did like seeing future Luke, Alex and Haley, even if I was hoping for a just a bit more payoff. Here are the best lines of the night:

As a feminazi with no sense of humor, watching Modern Family is tiring -- but writing about this show is truly exhausting. To be clear, "The Wow Factor" wasn't all that bad, but also, I don't like genuinely hating shows... especially not comedies. I love being snarky and meticulously nitpicking what's wrong with Modern Family, but I take no pleasure in having to come here every episode and tell you why the half-hour of TV you enjoyed last night after your long day of work was actually, on my completely biased critical level, pretty crappy.

When did Modern Family start regularly making tasteless jokes at the expense of Asian people? The writers have always felt just a bit too comfortable making off-color jokes about gay people -- tonight, we got Elizabeth Bank's Sal delivering a quick line about Mitch and Cam's sex life ("Oh, well, this is a mystery solved," when Mitch was on Cam's back) -- but the jokes about bad drivers and serving cats for dinner seem relatively new, no?

"Bad Hair Day" was a lesson in using the Modern Family ensemble well. Rather than feeling like a strained mash-up of characters, there was a flow to the storylines, and when everything fell into place for the Pritchett-Dunphy-Delgado men at the end, the big comedic reveal worked -- maybe not as well as it did in "Fulgencio", but still, not bad. If you ignore the missed opportunity for a Married... With Children reunion between David Faustino and Ed O'Neill and choose to overlook yet another jab at Lily's heritage and the moment when Mitch admitted that he and Cam are walking clichés, then this episode was pretty fun and had a few funny lines:

While last week gave me some hope that this show was on an upswing, "Heart Broken" took away most of those good feelings. It wasn't the worst episode, but having each couple get their own separate Valentine's Day storyline made me feel like the third wheel on all these dates, and that's not a good thing at all. Particularly, since making it three distinct acts with no overlap between the adult characters made the less entertaining segments (the ones without Phil and Claire) seem far longer than they needed to be. Also, is there a more annoying character on this show than Manny right now? Even Lily is looking better by comparison.

I'm feeling a little guilty since I only offered to sub in for this week's episode because Rachel just couldn't deal with another awful installment of this show and "A Slight at the Opera" actually turned out to be one of the more enjoyable episodes of this season. There wasn't much of Gloria, Cam and Mitchell were entirely separated for the whole episode, Lily was kept to a minimum, the kids had their own storylines and Phil just got to be his delightfully weird self (and even play on the trampoline with Ty's real-life brother Duncan Burrell). Aside from everything related to Mitchell wanting his father's approval so desperately that he staged this elaborate golf outing with Pepper and the "Nancy" jokes, and with seeing Alex turn into just a bitter girl whose insults are getting less cutting and more mean spirited, t was good. And Nolan Gould singing "The Music of the Night" was far better than Russell Crowe in Les Miserables. And if you've got an episode tied together with Harry Chapin's "Cats in the Cradle", how can you not be a little bit moved? I mean, if you have any kind of heart at all.