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Worldly Distractions: Modern Family 5.4 - Farm Strong


crazyforkate

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blog-camfight.jpg 

ERIC STONESTREET, DANA POWELL

I'm assuming this is a Cam episode, given his background. Will we get to meet more of his crazy family? Let's see.

We join Phil and Claire in bed - an unfamiliar bed - where they are being woken up by the alarm. Apparently they've been destroyed by Luke's insane soccer schedule. The kid's not very good, either, and is perpetually benched, so they are basically rearranging their lives for nothing. Claire proposes letting him go by himself. Phil is convinced that this will make them bad parents. Claire says her mom never went to her stuff, and she's...uh...fine. (If a tad competitive.) Anyway, she needs the weekends now. Lured by the promise of a robot vacuum cleaner, Phil is sucked in. As long as Luke is okay with being abandoned. He asks if they should stay in bed a bit longer. Hem hem. Opening credits.

Cam and Mitch argue over fabric swatches. Mitch is in a fantod over wedding stuff, Cam is also in a fantod because his sister (Dana Powell) is coming and he hasn't told her he's engaged. She's apparently bitter over being single. An engagement will get awkward, fast. Even Lily is scared of her. Pam (short for "Pameron") arrives, bitching over minor things and making Lily run out of the room. They start to tell her their news, but change it at the last second in favor of "we're getting a new dryer". Looks like they're in for a tough ride.

Alex is mad because her grandfather's beating her at Words With Friends. Aww, little genius can't handle it. Haley makes fun of her, of course. Phil and Claire broach the soccer-abandonment issue with Luke, manipulating him into thinking it's the mature thing to do. He agrees. "Can you imagine how easy it would be if it was just him?" Phil asks, unfortunately in his daughters' earshot. WOW, that was awful, Cool Dad.

Manny has turned Joe into a hipster, and Gloria has come back from the eye doctor with a 20/20 diagnosis. Jay doubts this. We get a montage of Mr Magoo-style slapstick to prove it. Jay thinks Gloria never even went to the doctor, and won't wear glasses because of pride. Manny says she's only hurting herself - just as we hear the dog squeal in pain.

Pam is still complaining, and gets even angrier when she finds a double-groom wedding cake topper. Cam and Mitchell make excuses. Lily announces "My daddies are getting married." That's a good girl!

Anyway, Pam is stunned - and quickly sweeps her future brother-in-law into a hug. She's just thrilled for them. She loves her brother, after all. And it turns out - she's engaged, too! To Cam's childhood crush. He is less thrilled.

Claire got everything done for today, and with nothing to do, she decides to check out the soccer game just to see what's going on - and finds out her son is playing the game of his life. She's stunned, and gleefully sits down to watch.

"Grandpa's cheating," Alex tells her sister. Of course Haley assumes she means on Gloria, but in actuality it's Words With Friends. Phil shows off his robot gutter cleaner. No, that's not a typo. He gets super happy about it. Alex and Haley are not quite so enthused. Unfortunately, the cleaner then wipes out a nest full of baby birds. Phil cries out to God to forgive him as the girls run away screaming. Family time is so great.

Manny and Jay run screaming into the room. Jay has swallowed rat poison! Oh, no! His life depends on Gloria's ability to read the package! As she hemms and haws, Jay gives up and tells her he's dead - or would be were this a real-life situation. They guilt-trip the fuck out of her, which is really evil, IMO. She claims she pretended to have trouble seeing. No one believes her.

Cameron feels jealous of his sister marrying this guy (Beau - how apt), but assures himself that the guy was straight anyway and wouldn't have any interest in him. Just then, her cell phone rings. Cam unwisely picks it up, and with a put-on good ol' boy accent, he assures the guy that he's happy about the wedding, but his big sister had better be taken care of. Pam comes in. She's mad that he can't stand to see her marry Beau, they argue, Mitch awkwardly tries to defuse. She then tells him the whole family warned her about sharing her good news, since everyone knows Cam is jealous of her for being able to handle country life while he fled to the big city. He's not "Farm Strong", but rather a guy who cries all the time. They argue over who's the more sensitive whiner but are interrupted - surprisingly - by the most forceful shout I've ever heard from Mitch. He just wants to know if the sister's name is actually Pameron.

Claire's enjoyment of the soccer game is interrupted by a call from Phil, who's still upset about the baby birds. Hey, I would be too. He thinks the mom bird (a raven) is out to get him. Heh, Poe reference. It's all because they're bad parents, of course - if they had just gone to the soccer game it would never have happened. She awkwardly covers up, tells Luke to keep her presence at the game a secret, and flees the field. Meanwhile, several more ravens have joined the rooftop vigil...

Alex confronts Jay on the Words With Friends Issue, which he dodges. Cam and Pam show up, still fighting. Pam has brought boar for dinner. Mitchell tries to quiet them, which makes things worse. Manny brings up the "murder of crows" thing in front of nervous Phil, while Claire apologizes to Luke for "missing" the game. Luke says his game was "nothing special". Claire is confused by this, and drags him off to talk. Phil and Pam are also apparently buddies. Oh, and Phil can't hear anything related to birds.

Luke explains he doesn't want his dad to feel any worse about missing the game, so he'll just pretend all is well. Claire explains the whole situation to Cam, who just uses it as an excuse to bitch about Pam. However, when Claire joins in, Cam complains that only he can say such things. Whine, whine, whine. And yet, it is so true.

Jay has a surprise for Gloria - a lovely new...pair of glasses. She is furious, and demands that he take the hearing test she's been bugging him to do. Jay reluctantly agrees, Haley breaks out her Hearing Test App (yes, that's a thing - I just did one, heh). It's the one with high-pitched sounds. Jay can't hear anything and thinks they're all lying. They all start arguing over who's the most sensitive. Cam asks if everyone thinks he's fragile. Claire hemms and haws her way through a response. It's painful. Everyone then chimes in with sensitive-Cam stories.  Even Lily admits to pretending to fall asleep when he reads her stories. Phil tries to comfort Cam, but the latter lashes out and drops the bombshell of Claire's soccer game attendance. Gasp! Cam then storms out.

Phil alternates between mad at Claire and proud of Luke. Pam and Mitch find Cam and tell him that his sensitivity is one of his best qualities, as he celebrates the best in life like no other. They reconcile. Gloria and Jay agree to ease up on the glasses topic, but Gloria concedes that she is getting older. Jay gets in a fat joke about Manny. She puts on the glasses - and gasps when she sees her husband. The two agree that if he can't hear her, and she can't see him, it will be a much better marriage. Sigh.

Tag scene: Alex concedes defeat in Words With Friends. She then accuses him of cheating. He tells her she's not always the smartest one in the family, liberally peppering the conversation with big words to prove his point. You go, Jay!

This episode was actually pretty funny, doing the whole "family gathers over a cohesive topic" plot which worked so well in the early seasons. Run-of-the-mill, sure, but it was a solid effort. Good performance from Eric Stonestreet. Don't listen to the critics, guys - Modern Family is still good for a few laughs and truths after all!

 

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  • Posts

    • JDuggs

      Posted

      On 12/22/2023 at 11:51 PM, JDuggs said:

      It looks like Micah is in a relationship, or very good friends, with this Florida realtor Veronica Peters. I’ve seen photos of them together on Micah’s IG, but I always thought she kind of looked too old for him. Maybe not.

      This was on Moriah’s IG:

        Hide contents

      image.thumb.jpeg.e5583f82734714ccb023fc889e4f0f90.jpeg

      And this was on Veronica’s personal IG and professional IG:

        Hide contents

      image.thumb.jpeg.e637a588be2f14fc379935962e743f47.jpeg

        Hide contentsimage.thumb.png.bfaa9a4a2ac77388067acef5c5afb81c.png

       

      Quoting myself from six months ago. I think this really is Micah’s girlfriend. She doesn’t seem quite as public about their relationship as she did back then.

      This photo of Veronica didn’t get copied over from my old post.

      Spoiler

      image.thumb.jpeg.0ae44da117d43f1db49868c42924ea03.jpeg

       

    • JermajestyDuggar

      Posted

      There was a post on social media talking about this recent interview with Ballerina Farm and asking what people think about some of the things in it. So many commenters were like, “it’s her business! It’s not your life so why do you care?” This is the type of thing that bugs me to no end. Ballerina Farm posts their lives willingly! They post their children’s lives! Of course people will speculate and care! If they didn’t put their lives all over social media none of us would know anything about them. 

      • Upvote 1
    • LongTimeLurkerOG

      Posted

      On 7/25/2024 at 6:47 PM, LilMissMetaphor said:

      Just FYI in case someone missed it the first time round, this is what Art wrote on Reddit a year ago addressing some of the concerns that were brought up.  It's very telling if you read between some of the lines.

      "I don’t lie or make fraudulent claims to get money. That’s what a grifter is. I’ve closed all previous fundraisers and not all of them were successfully funded – for instance my legal name change and wedding fund did not get funded, so I still haven’t had a chance to do those things.

      I’m unable to work for a variety of medically supported reasons. It’s not okay to ask disabled people for proof of their disability simply because it’s medical information. To entertain the question is to concede that it’s okay to go ask other disabled people for their private medical history. It’s a common misconception that people pretend to be disabled for benefits or monetary gain, but it’s rare and doesn’t really make sense to do because benefits and fundraising add up to so little.

      I have been going to Seattle to look at possible places to live because it’s literally unavoidable, and I’ve been in severe pain because of it. That doesn’t mean I could do manual labor on a consistent basis. I don’t even drive, so I’ve had to cover gas and ask friends for help with rides.

      Have you ever tried working at a call center? I have. They’re severely strict and demanding, and incredibly demoralizing without paying much. They’re not an accessible alternative for people who can’t do more demanding manual labor. “Get a job like the rest of us” is ableist and is a fundamental misunderstanding of how accessible jobs are. It’s no better than yelling it at someone panhandling on the street. The supposedly “easy” or “low-skill” jobs are still difficult to do.

      I do use what resources I can, but it’s a total myth that there’s a robust social welfare system anywhere in the United States. If there was, we wouldn’t have so many hundreds of thousands of homeless people here, with millions more just a few missed paychecks away from joining them.

      The toxic mold was confirmed. My partner is literally terminally ill from it. If you read the actual updates, the name of the illness and the research surrounding it have been detailed. We have a letter from the pulmonologist that we sent to the landlord explaining that the environment my partner was in was causing the illness. Again, you’re demanding medical proof that you have no reason to ask about. Some things can’t just be washed out.

      I am as clear as I can possibly be about specific needs so that people know what they’re helping to support. I have said again and again that people shouldn’t give unless they can spare it and want to help. I even said that in the post linked to in this comment thread. My patreon is explicitly to support my writing.

      So why am I still fundraising and making money off telling my story? Because I literally have no other real options. I’ve been formally diagnosed with PTSD, it’s not “alleged trauma.” If it was working all that well, I wouldn’t have to keep detailing my needs.

      The real grifters in our society are billionaires, not poor disabled people. You sound like you just hate us for trying to exist."

      I remember reading this before. Well, they can take all their reasons and Stop. Grifting. Plenty of people with disabilities work and /or receive assistance (as I mentioned previously, my exPOS, who has disabilities so I'm familiar with a number of options and money). Some family, have / had disabilities. I've been an advocate for services and staff training (and provided training) for Years with previous positions - because it matters to me. So, yea, Artemis get. a. job. 

      57 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

      Art lists manual labour and call centres. And that's it. Not any jobs they could look at involving writing, from editing to writing student essays for money (yes it's dodgy but people do it). Not even playing video games for money (get character to a level where they have cool stuff for someone.)  Nothing about remote work, which there is more of now, and not even entry level white collar work.

      On the one hand I agree with them that the social support is inadequate, and that detailing your medical needs shouldn't have to happen - but they just grifted nearly $5000 to move and for a holiday, and with the amount of effort that took they probably could have held down employment of some description and to be honest would probably be better off.

      So many WFH/remote legit jobs now. Hell, you can play games on your phone and earn gift cards; donate blood and get gift cards. I knew a homeless couple that donated plasma for higher amount g.c.

      Absolutely! The amount of money; it's disgusting. And that amount of effort... At some point, even we don't want to or circumstances we don't want to deal with and adult, because... We're adults! Plenty of things I want to ignore or not deal with, just have go away but persevere because the alternative... not an option.

      2 hours ago, Bookworm1564 said:

      My all-time favourite Art post is the one where they say “Just for today, you can double the impact of your support with this opportunity” as if this was the moment we were all waiting for.

      Like a sale for limited-time-only 🤣

    • justpassingthru

      Posted (edited)

      So another page shared the Lott's story and this is a comment on that post. People believe "Fundy Snark" is a person. There are at least a couple other comments that refer to the sub as a person

      Screenshot_20240726_191210_Instagram.jpg

       

      Screenshot_20240726_191619_Instagram.jpg

      Edited by justpassingthru
      • Upvote 1
    • Ozlsn

      Posted

      6 hours ago, AverageGiraffe said:

      This woman makes me especially sad. She reminds me a lot of Alyssa Ann (Wakefield) Welch, of the now defunct resolved2worship xanga. A couple of years ago I re-read through the entire thing on the wayback machine, after she did an interview about her abusive marriage, and I see a lot of the same dynamics in this family. I can't put my finger on exactly why this particular woman reminds me of her, and to be fair I haven't consumed any of their content directly, just read the interview article that was posted, but for some reason I feel so sad for her. 

      It reads like at the very least an extremely controlling relationship and I would say abusive. The egg apron could have been a funny gift - if tickets to Greece were in the front pocket. If they weren't they were just an on camera reminder to her that she is subservient to his desires and that he is in control.

      3 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

      Oh I’m sure she has access to credit cards. But I would be she can only buy stuff that he thinks fits their “homestead” life.

      It wouldn't surprise me if they're set up so he has to approve any transaction to be honest. 

      • Upvote 3


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