“I Never Can Say Goodbye” (“Dear Beloved Family” Recap)

At the first commercial break, I fired off this tweet (sorry – I'm going to make you jump past “Read more” this time to see it):

So what's sadder - Phil in the emergency room or Alex on a date with a bunch of stray cats? #modernfamily

— Joe D. (@noahproblem) January 11, 2018

As it turned out, with no real direct drama about Phil's plight, the answer wound up being the latter.

Please tell me that will not be a game-changing moment for Alex (i.e. she descends into a life of a crazy single cat lady). That definitely goes into the “makes me mad “ “Poor Alex” column.
And that was basically all they had for Alex tonight – her feeding a few stray cats as a “date” (I forgot the quotes in the tweet), and not even giving her a chance to say anything meaningful to Phil.

Alex at least did get off one choice shot at Haley:

Alex's Line Of The Night: ”I'm putting kettle bells in your coffin.” The fact that I'm putting a funny line here instead of a sad line (that never happened) speaks volumes about tonight.

So yes, that was somewhat disappointing, again¹, if not downright insulting. And I expect more disappointment next week when Alex probably won't even escape being an afterthought while a story plays out at CalTech.
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¹ Actually, I can say the same about the episode in general – It had some very good moments but also there were so many scenes which seemed totally set up for emotional moments that never quite came – especially involving little Joe. I really wanted to cry as he struggled with the idea he would die someday, but they always abruptly went elsewhere just as it was about to get really sad.