Is Julie Bowen hotter than Sofia Vergara?

To answer the question posed by the title of this entry, before Wednesday night's episode of Modern Family, I had been leaning toward Bowen being hotter anyway. There is something that strikes me as “fake” when it comes to Sofia. It's not quite the female-female impersonator level, which strikes Pamela Anderson, but she almost seems too good to be true. Also, I envision her being completely batshit crazy, which doesn't help.

In contrast, Bowen is no doubt a feast for the eyes, and she seems stable and attainable. Julie Bowen is the hot girl that your best buddy settles down with early. At the time, everyone is like, “Hey, whoa man, looks like you traded in your freedom too early, yuck yuck yuck!” But then, as time passes, and they're happily married, you just realize... That magnificent bastard. He married up!

So yes, I'd favor Bowen over Vergara at this point – Call it a 10 to 9 boxing decision, as opposed to a flat out KO. And oh, there was a hilarious new Modern Family on Wednesday night. The evil Alex moment of the night? When she gleefully spilled to Claire (Bowen!) that Haley had been drinking. “You're not going to like this as much as I do, but she's drunk.” mwhahaha. So perfect.

The other great scenes of the episode were between Luke, the normal little kid, and Manny, the Rico Suave in training. Manny was a complete neat freak in his room, which led to Luke being the messy one, spouting off things like, “I am a bathroom Martian!” and “I'm wrinkling your linen!!!” The kids definitely stole the show from the adults this past episode, although the other plots – Jay throwing out his back, Phil being Phil – were still great.

Grade: A+

TV Review: I love you, Phil Dunphy.

Everybody dies boys, let's focus on what's important!

This was a strong episode of Modern Family, especially for Phil. That sly old fox had some great lines sprinkled throughout, such as the one above I used for the photo cutline. The other great line he had? "One day I'm going to be a grandfather, and then everybody better hide their meat."

Anyway, his drama with his father-in-law Jay felt a little rehashed, since Jay basically has authority problems with every character on the show. The episode's other plot lines were pretty amusing, although a bit more bittersweet than usual, with Cameron realizing he hates being away from Lilly, and Alex and Manny pulling away from their respective parents. And while I love the middle daughter's character, it was pretty funny to have Claire get vicious, mom-like revenge on her at the end.

So yeah. I have no real idea why Modern Family took two episodes off; maybe it had something to do with them filming the season's final episode(s?) in Hawaii. Regardless, they didn't miss a beat in their two episodes off TV. It's still mandatory watching if you're any sort of fan of Arrested Development-style humor.

Grade: A

Modern Family has massive... talents.

After a couple of admonishments from friends that I wasn't watching, consider me a convert to Modern Family, the closest show to Arrested Development that I've seen on network television since its demise. (Note: I haven't seen Better Off Ted yet, the only other show I've heard compared to it.) While Modern Family is definitely rooted more in reality, it still has a sort of reckless spirit about it that allows all of its characters to have their own, entertaining identity.

Of course, this is my effing blog, so I'll note my five characters that really make the show tick - the evil middle daughter, Sofia Vergara and her breasts, the wacky middle class dad, the straight normal mom counterpart played Julie Bowen, and of course, Ed freakin' O'Neill. Tackling them in order...

- Like my love for Brittany on Glee, the Evil Middle Daughter Alex played by Ariel Winter is simply incredible, even though she isn't in that many scenes. However, when she is in a scene, she preys upon the gullible nature of her older sister Haley and younger brother Luke. The most prominent example, and the one cited on Wikipedia, is how she tricked both of them into believing that you can recharge a cell phone battery by rubbing it on your forehead.

- On the opposite end of the spectrum from Alex's subtle, seething evil is Sofia, who plays Gloria, an over-the-top Colombian trophy wife with an outrageous accent. I get the feeling that the role might not be much of a stretch for her, outside of having to pretend to love Ed O'Neill. I mean, he's a funny guy and all, but still. Even as far as trophy wives go, Ed is doing pretty gosh darn good for himself.

- Claire (Bowen) and Phil (Ty Burrell) go a bit hand-in-hand, as the married couple are the "normal" family that a lot of the humor derives from. For example, in one of the most recent episode, Phil gets hurt and has to go to the hospital for an operation... but before he does, Claire feels the need to get dressed up for the hot firefighters taking him into an ambulance.

Bowen is portrayed as the lead in some ways, since I believe she has the most screen time of any of the characters. Naturally, Burrell comes in at a close second. He is the "cool dad", although this is a self-granted title that couldn't be further from the truth. Bowen's character always has a sort of brewing, brimming rage, and the eventually lash out is almost always great.

- And finally, hey, how can you go wrong with any show that has Ed "Al Bundy" O'Neill? While his most famous role might be from Married With Children, I'll always remember him as the creepy coffee and donut shop manager Glen from Wayne's World, and his little monologues:

So Wayne, I hear you're putting on some kind of concert. That's good. People need to be entertained, they need the distraction. I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: Why do they come to me to die? Why do they come to me to die?