News

Modern Family Season 4, Episode 15: “Heart Broken”

Written by Dan O’Shannon, Abraham Higginbotham and Bianca Douglas

Directed by Steven Levitan

Airs on Wednesdays at 9pm on ABC

Modern Family ditched its typical format this week and showed us how the three principal couples spent their Valentine’s Day and for once Claire and Phil’s story wasn’t the most hilarious.

Once again we saw the brilliant return of Phil’s alter ego, Clive Bixby. Their yearly tradition of going to a hotel and pretending not to know each other wasn’t as funny as previous episodes as Claire suffers a minor heart issue. This time round, it felt quite incoherent with the children not knowing Claire and Phil were home before throwing a party. However, it’s lovely to see how worried they are about their mother.

The show rarely explores why Jay and Gloria’s marriage works...

Hawkes (Hill Harper) attends a food festival, coerced by Camille (Lesley-Ann Brandt) where one of the food truck explodes. The chef, Derby Chayson (Daniel Bonjour) is dead. Flack (Eddie Cahill) thinks it may have been a terrorist attack. Mac (Gary Sinise) states the position of the truck and the time of the blast would not lead to loss of many lives. Mac finds traces of Tatp, an explosive made from household chemicals, that's why liquids are not allowed on planes. Jo (Sela Ward) comments on Hawkes calling in sick and he should save the explanations for Mac. Jo finds a bottle lid on the floor. Mac indicates the splash pattern shows the blast originated from the side panel, where the propane tank would have been located. The ignition source was the bottle. Mac thinks if they piece together the shrapnel it may tell them something. Regular as clockwork, Lindsay (Anna Belknap) pops up.