“I Don't Want To Talk About It”

I only have one thing to say about tonight: next week better be huge to make up for tonight's Alex-less episode #20.

That is all.

“Hook, Line and Sinker You Were Walking With Her Out The Door”

There's more than a small chance history will be made with tonight's “Catch Of The Day”, but it's not good history. Tonight is the first real chance this season for the 20th Alex-less episode.

You can probably guess from here what I think about tonight:

"And Everything So Unexpected" (First Impressions - "It's The Great Pumpkin, Phil Dunphy" - Season 9, Episode 5)

Well, here's one I didn't see coming - I figured we were going to see a repeat of last year's Halloween episode, since they usually run one every other (even-numbered) season, but, apparently, we're getting a new one again this year after all.

It doesn't look like it's going to be a big deal for Alex, even though she and Ben are both in it (Alex is in the only two promo photos, Ben's in the guest star list), as it looks like a "Phil/Claire want to celebrate Halloween but the kids don't" story.  Personally, I would've rather seen them go with the repeat and save an episode for something else later (OK, wishful thinking on my part that that something would involve Alex).

Hopefully they're still going to do a Christmas episode (typical for an odd-numbered season).

"It's Not What Good Girls Do" (First Impressions - "Sex, Lies & Kickball" - Season 9, Episode 4)

Remember I said that we could safely exclude one of the items from this title as a possible Alex story?  Well, guess what - one does get eliminated, and another is unlikely.

“Ain't Nobody Else To Impress” (“The Long Goodbye” Recap)

Maybe it's just my still being sick, but a lot of Alex's story tonight just didn't make a lot of sense.

“Ring The Bell - School's Back In”

As much as I'd love to really go deep with this preview of tonight's “The Long Goodbye”, physically I'm just not up to it – I'm still dealing with this illness that's bugged me for the past two weeks (thankfully it's only bronchitis and not pneumonia again), and I'm only now just catching up on all the sleep I've lost. Sad, because this one has quite a bit going for it, with a story about Phil and Claire visiting Alex at her dorm (again):

"Joy(?) To The Fishes In The Deep Blue Sea" (First Impressions - "Catch Of The Day" - Season 9, Episode 3)

As you can probably guess by the question mark I placed in the lyric snippet, there really isn't much joy to be found in this upcoming episode's press release.