“I Want To See You Go Down On One Knee(?)” (“We Need To Talk About Lily” Recap)

This is going to be a kind of a “seat of the pants” recap (which has nothing to do with Bill's invention, BTW) – I may or may not clarify/re-think things in the next few days –  I'm still processing how I feel about tonight but I wanted to say something before I went to sleep.

“Get Started, Start A Fire”

A couple of quick scheduling notes, one personal, one show-related:

Because I took a four day weekend this past weekend, I'm working tonight until 10:00.  So I won't get around to watching tonight's “We Need To Talk About Lily” until around 11:00.  So the recap (and there will be one) will probably be a bit later than usual (maybe more than that), unless not much happens.


And this will be the last new episode for a little while – there's going to be another repeat airs on February 13th (“Kids These Days”).   No, I have no idea why they didn't do these the past weeks instead of running repeats during sweeps.

Anyway, back to tonight's episode.

"Through The Years You've Never Let Me Down"

Or, any of your fans, for that matter.

Happy 21st Birthday, Ariel!

“The Days Are Empty And The Nights Are Unreal” (“Whanex?” Recap)

OK, how can I calmly describe how I felt about tonight's episode?

ARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!

Sorry – it's nighttime so I don't want to wake everyone up with a blood curdling scream.  But that's how I feel after tonight's edition of “How Else Can We Dump On Alex?”

(And, no, that scream was not because of rain fade – the storm I feared would start in time to interrupt/delay things held off..  Maybe I should have wished for that to have happened anyway.)

"Just For A Moment I Was Back At School And Felt That Old Familiar Pain"

So we now know that Alex will finally make her 2019 debut tonight in “Whazzup?”... er...”Whanex?”.  The question is does that make tonight a big deal or not?

"We Sure Could Use A Little Good News Today"

And I actually have some, for a change - the chance that we will have an Alex-less three-peat is no more.  She appears in the promo for this week's episode about two-thirds of the way through, as part of Cam's story:

Models and role models. We have them all on a new #ModernFamily tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/goYQnKRemk

— Modern Family (@ModernFam) January 22, 2019

I'll have more to say in a few hours with the "official" pre-show post as to how much this moves any meters.  But at least one part of that post won't happen.

"Don't Look At Me If You're Looking For Perfection"

So, how does one improve on near perfection?

Well, if we're talking about "Under Pressure", the simple answer is this - give us one more scene with Alex and Dr. Clark.  And, maybe a do-over on the birthday party after Alex hugs Claire.

“Seven Years Went Under The Bridge Like Time Was Standing Still”

Actually, it was about seven years and two months – that was the last time Alex went missing in back-to-back episodes (“Go Bullfrogs!”, “Treehouse”).

Until tonight.

At least we've never had back-to-back-to-back Alex-less episodes.

Until next week?  The longer we go on, the more and more likely that seems to me.

I'm sorry, but that “other post” I teased this morning is going to have to wait.  Surprise, surprise¹, I'm not in a good mood right now.  Maybe over the weekend.
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¹ I'd say that in Luke's voice from “When Good Kids Go Bad”, but wherever Alex is hiding I think she took Luke with her.

“Boom! Boom! Boom! Clap!”

It's too bad none of the “Blasts From The Past” for tonight can take us back to 2014 – it would be a lot more interesting than what we appear to be getting:

"To Ease The Pressure Of My Ever Worrying Mind" (First Impressions - "We Need To Talk About Lily" - Season 10, Episode 14)

First of all, as I posted in the comments about this press release,  I can't believe there actually will be an episode on January 30th.  This is the first time ABC has ever aired a new episode of Modern Family this late in the month of January - they usually air re-runs the last week or two before heading into February sweeps.

One thing this means is after this episode there will only be 8 new episodes left in Season 10, and about 16-17 weeks left to run them.  If ABC airs all new episodes during February then that leaves only 4 for all of March, April and whatever part of May (also a sweeps month) will be left.  That means a lot of re-runs as winter turns to spring, unless there is a pre-emption or two in February (they could also air a re-run or two, but that seems unlikely - unlike last year there's no Olympics with which to contend).

“I'm Listening But There's No Sound”

Alex is super-smart – maybe she can re-program Gloria and Jay's smart speaker to talk in her voice.

At the rate we're going, that's the closest we may come to seeing (or at least hearing) her in the near future.

“Black As Night, Black As Coal”

As you can probably tell from the title, I'm still not in the best of moods going into tonight's “A Moving Day”.  Or the rest of the month, for that matter.  Until the 28th, at least (wink, wink).

"'Cause You See I'm On A Losing Streak" (First Impressions - "What's Next?" - Season 10, Episode 13)

Yawn, another week, another new episode (January 23rd) with a  press release with no mention of Alex.   The only difference between this one and the other episodes this month is they're giving Haley and Dylan a breather.  

I wish I could be optimistic and hope that one of these episodes has a hidden Alex story.  But instead I think it's more likely she'll miss all of them.  It's entirely possible the only time we see her all month will be in the likely rerun for the 30th (they repeated the Alex-less "Torn Between Two Lovers" last week, and on Thursday this week they are re-airing the Alex-less "On The Same Paige", so "Did The Chicken Cross The Road?" should be next up¹).

Man, I hope I'm wrong about this, but I have a really bad feeling.

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¹ "Good Grief" was technically a Halloween episode, which is why I'm guessing that one hasn't been repeated.