Modern Family is gearing up for the release of its eleventh and final season. The show redefined the meaning of a sitcom family, introducing family members from different ethnic backgrounds, same-sex parents, spouses with huge age-gaps and different cultural backgrounds and proving that even such diversity in relations can be overcome with love and humor.
As sad as fans will be to say goodbye to the Dunphys and the Pritchetts, they will be even sadder if certain unresolved storylines from earlier seasons are not resolved in the final season. Here are 10 such storylines from the show that fans have yet to get some sort of closure to:
Who Is Watching Their Documentary?
The central conceit of the show is that it is a mockumentary. This allows characters to address the audience directly and add humorous observations to the most mundane activities. But after 10 seasons, we are wondering what the in-show explanation for the documentary style of filmmaking with plenty of cameos by famous actors is.
Is it something like a very long and involved video diary project by Manny, the budding filmmaker? A present for Jay? Is everyone high while recording their monologues for the camera? They’re high, aren’t they?
Alex’s Gay/Not Gay Boyfriend
Modern Family had the chance to introduce that still-relatively-rare thing, a gay teenager, into their show with the addition of Alex’s prom date later-turned-boyfriend Michael. After spending an entire episode teasing whether or not Micheal is gay, and showing the teen clearly struggling with his identity, the narrative ultimately went nowhere.
His final confession to Alex in the episode was left unheard, and we never got to hear from him again about whether or not he was actually gay or able to finally come out.
Who Fixed The Step?
The broken step on the staircase is a running gag from the show where someone or the other constantly trips on the step, causing Phil to remind himself yet again to fix the step. At some point in later seasons, it was revealed that Phil had finally managed to fix the step, only for it to be broken again.
We would like to see, as a final sign of growing out of his father’s shadow, Luke finally accepting the role of the man of the house and taking it upon himself to properly fix the step his father never could.
Haley’s Life Mirroring Claire’s
Haley might seem to be the opposite of her mother Clair, but it is repeatedly hinted that Claire was just like Haley at her age, right down to the excessive drinking, having multiple boyfriends, and finding a steady beau at a very young age with whom she accidentally got pregnant and became a mother.
It will be interesting to see if the final season shows this arc coming full circle, with Haley taking on a more motherly role and learning to let go of her childish, self-centered and immature ways to become a smart, capable mother and businesswoman like her mother.
Fat Andy/ Slim Andy
Andy was Haley’s boyfriend who was a pretty significant recurring character at one point. So much so that he got his own storyline, where he and Haley broke up and Andy spiraled into depression, coping with the loss by overeating and becoming extremely fat.
We next catch up with Andy a few months later when he has magically managed to slim down again. We never got to see what he did to lose the pounds so quickly, or how he got over the depression phase that resulted in the overeating in the first place.
Claire’s Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome
Many jokes have been made at the expense of Claire’s high-strung nature. She always puts in that extra bit of effort, even at the expense of her personal health. Things finally came to a head during one Valentine’s day, when Claire was hospitalized and diagnosed with a serious heart problem, Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome.
And yet, after that episode, this significant medical complication was never mentioned again. It appeared to be yet another case of later episodes of the seasons creating drama by introducing new plotlines and abandoning them after one episode.
Gloria The Cab Driver
Gloria had a hard life before meeting Jay. She was a single mother, raising her son by driving a cab with Manny riding in the seat beside her. And yet, later episodes have established that Gloria is a terrible driver.
She is unmindful of traffic laws and prone to shouting at other cars and arguing with the law. It is hard to believe such a rash driver was ever allowed to work for a cab company, let alone managed to earn a living doing so without getting into frequent accidents.
Haley And Andy
Haley and Andy were the Ross and Rachel of the show, in that they kept having a “will-they-wont-they?” series of interactions long past the audience remained interested in the question. But unlike Ross and Rachel, the two did not end their romance on a positive note.
After spending several episodes establishing that the two had a special connection, Haley and Andy broke up, and Haley went back to Dylan. There seemed to be a lot of untapped potentials wasted with the exit of Andy from the show.
Donnie’s Prostate Cancer
Everyone on the show is slightly intimidated by Jay, either because of his no-nonsense nature or his great wealth. Except for his brother Donnie. He showed up in one episode and got Jay to start acting like a squabbling older brother instead of the family patriarch.
Donnie then revealed that he had prostate cancer, causing Jay to sober up quickly. But despite the shock of this big news, we never got a follow-up on how Donnie was doing with his treatment or the reaction of the rest of the family to his bad health.
Manny’s Too Many Talents
Manny often comes across as a collection of cutesy mannerisms instead of an actual kid. A big indication of this is how Manny is shown to have any number of hobbies and talents depending on what the script wants him to do. Like his earlier aptitude for studies. Which was later switched up to a talent for sports. Then filmmaking. Then cooking. Then improv, and poetry and a great other numbers of interests that would be frankly impossible for any one person to maintain.
Let’s hope the show finally manages to decide on one direction to take Manny’s character in for the final season for the show so he can have some sort of satisfying finish to his narrative arc.
