“Kiss Me, Beneath The Milky Twilight” (“Patriot Games” Recap)

I'm just going to come right out and say it – although there's a small part of me that wishes Alex had kept running and won the race, in the end who cares if the race wound up being anti-climatic? Those scenes with Alex and Sanjay were so darned cute they more than made up for that.


And they also made up for the (now disappointing) fact that with Sanjay heading to Stanford, any long-term relationship with him and Alex seems unlikely (for at least the next four years and by then Modern Family will likely only be on in re-runs) – at least hopefully they'll be friends.

"Okay?  Okay."

I thought Alex would reveal feelings for Sanjay first – but not until the race ended. At least I know now why Sanjay didn't bring up Alex's comment about him from the awards assembly (I was expecting him to say something in the principal's office).

I'm guessing Sanjay did win a few awards last week after all, regardless of what Alex said. Otherwise, I can't reconcile Alex being so dominant in academic awards and yet only be tied for valedictorian.

Who thought Sanjay's words to Alex at her house were sincere and who thought he was trying to psych her out? Or both at one time? (That would be me – I bought Sanjay's praising Alex as genuine – until just as soon as she started mentioning it to Phil and Claire).

It was weird that their parents just left the track without saying much to each other when all was said and done – I would have liked to see them be all smiles but at least they didn't go all Romeo and Juliet either (OK, they did for a while before the race which was not surprising).

One thing about not finishing the race – does that mean they technically both flunk Phys Ed? No, I know that won't happen...

Actually, forget the A- in the French Final – why wasn't Alex ruing the B- she got (with a little “un-help” from her family) from her real-life art project from “Tableau Vivant” in her freshman year? If they had just been able to stay still for a few more seconds, maybe she gets a B and tonight doesn't happen. Oh, wait...nevermind.

Hold on, why am I continuing this nit-picking?

Unless something incredible happens in the next two weeks (it's still possible with an Alex story in “Crying Out Loud” and her graduation party being the backdrop to “American Skyper”*), this is the best episode of the season, and probably jumps to #2 all-time (I'm always a bit wary of judging in the heat of the moment, but it will definitely be no worse than #3). And it wasn't just Alex's story either (easily her second best after “Under Pressure”) - there were several LOL moments in the other two stories. This is definitely the best I've felt at the end of an episode all season.

Alex's Line Of The Week: (together with Sanjay) ”But my GPA is 4.645923!”

Wait – I thought 4.0 was the highest GPA – these kids really are super-geniuses! Oh, and good luck remembering that number if QuizUp ever uses that as a trivia question.

On the other hand, maybe they shouldn't have said anything: Principal Brown had rounded up their GPA's to the nearest thousandth, which means they were sort of arguing for lowering their GPA's from 4.646.

*There was one small added detail in the press release  issued for that episode: my favorite writer of Modern Family (Elaine Ko) wrote it. That gives me hope that she wrote a nice ending for Alex, even if Alex is only a small focus of one of the stories.