Line #0 Fridge/ModernFamily


1	%%
2	%%
3	%%
4	%% This isn't Troper Tales or a forum. Refrain from first person entries, speculation, and "replying" to entries. Administrivia/RepairDontRespond is in effect here as much as any other page.
5	%%
6	%%
7	%% Fridge that demands an answer goes on the Headscratchers tab.
8	%% If you want to add a fridge example that needs an answer, or see a fridge example you want to answer, move it over to Headscratchers.
9	%%
10	%%
11
12	[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
13	* Cameron loves costume parties and dressing up Lily for every holiday, yet hates Halloween, the one day where it's normal.
14	* In "Chirp", Jay said that Gloria likes to celebrate an anniversary for everything, including a fight she had with him after he forgot to celebrate the anniversary of their first date. In "Two Monkeys And A Panda", we find out that Gloria fell in love with Jay right after their first fight.
15	* Jay's tendency to snark to his family. It's only when you really look at who and when he snarks do you realize he's not snarking because he's old fashioned but because he just doesn't have many people in his family that share his interests and personality. Look at how quickly he became closer to Cam after finding out Cam loved/played football for instance. Likewise, Manny is willing (and wanting) to share in Jay's interests -- and again, Jay becomes pretty close to him in ways that perhaps go above and beyond the call of duty.
16	* The end result of Stella's introduction episode is apparent when you remember the Barkley the Dog Butler episode. Clearly, Jay has a thing for dogs.
17	* As of season 5, Barkley resides in Jay's office at work, after Gloria had him stashed in the attic. Now, Jay has a source of stress relief at work, and Gloria doesn't have to put up with Barkley hanging around the house and freaking her out.
18	* In The Musical Man, Haley is thinking of not going to college. Later that season, in See You Next Fall, Haley admits to Alex that she's worried her grades aren't good enough to get into any colleges. She was probably thinking that not going to college would spare her the inevitable heartbreak of being rejected by any school she applied to.
19	* In Dude Ranch, when Mitchell wants to prove his masculinity, he and Luke blow up a bird house. The Brilliance in this episode is that while Mitch usually prefers not to do things that are against the law, he also hates birds. He's wrecked his own house on account of a pigeon before, and another bird caused him problems when he was building Lily a princess castle. Now he's blown up a bird's house. Current score in that battle: Mitchell: 1, Birds: 2.
20	* When Jay accidentally kills Manny's turtle, he tells Gloria that Mitchell used to have a pet bird, who he let out by accident and covered Mitchell and the rest of the room in bloody feathers. As an adult, Mitchell is afraid of birds, probably because of the childhood trauma.
21	* In "Aunt Mommy" Claire remembers [[spoiler:offering her eggs to Cam and Mitchell]] while holding an egg in her hand. Wonder what triggered that memory?
22	* Meta one but all the special episodes that take place outside their homes like Disneyland? Well, who's the parent of the studio that makes the show? That's right, it's Disney. Which in turns means no messy legal issues when it comes to re-showing these episodes or putting them on DVD, etc. ABC has a history of doing special episodes of their shows in Disney Parks as a form of cross-advertising, going all the way back to Family Matters, Roseanne, and a 2 part Disney World episode of Full House. I'm still rooting for a “Heck Family goes to Disney World” episode of Series/TheMiddle...
23	** [[HilariousInHindsight They did!]]
24	* Luke's disdainful comments about Obama and the police make more sense after hearing his friend Walt's political opinions in "Election Day."
25	* In "Spring a Fling Ding", when Gloria tries to get a confession out of Lily for breaking the glass on her phone by threatening her toys, you can see a hint of fear on Lily's face. For a six-year-old, Lily is rarely intimidated by anyone, and Gloria is usually one of Lily's favorite adults. [[spoiler:Why does she go to so much trouble (again, for a six-year-old) to frame her baby uncle Joe for breaking it and try her hardest not to take the blame?]] Because Lily knows what Gloria's capable of if she gets angry. She probably figured that was her best chance [[spoiler:to escape unholy retribution]].
26	* In "Message Received", one sub-plot involves everybody in Jay's part of the family struggling with trying something new that they claim not to like, and they all stand around near the climax of the episode staring down their 'something new': Jay is given one of Gloria's mother's blood sausages, Manny is given a pickle, and Gloria has to rub Stella's stomach. They all try on three, and their reactions are hilariously over-the-top -- Gloria screams "WHY SO MOIST?!", Manny claims he's gonna be sick, and Jay drinks straight out of a pickle jar to wash out the flavor of the sausage. In the post-plot stinger at the end of the episode, we see Gloria and Manny returning to Stella and the pickles respectively, finding their previous fears not so bad at all, but Jay is nowhere to be seen. It crosses into Fridge Brilliance territory when you realize that Jay's inability to accept something as simple as a blood sausage is yet another metaphor of [[spoiler:his inability to accept Cam and Mitchell's wedding, something he and Mitch argued about at the climax of the episode, and unfortunately, splits the two apart to the point of Mitchell uninviting his father to his wedding]].
27	* In the nominal plot of "The Future Dunphys", the three adult children of Claire' hospital neighbor are suspicously FutureLoser versions of the Dunphy children. Very early on, Future!Alex and Future!Haley talk about Future!Alex making a suit for a hairless cat. Another episode has Cameron make an elaborate mermaid disguise for his own cat to fill the free time he got from Lily starting to go to preschool. Guess we know where Future!Alex picked up that thing for making clothes for cats out of boredom now.
28	* In "Up All Night," Mitch walks in on Cam watching ''{{Film/Scarface1983}}'' with Lily, claiming it helps her sleep. Fast forward two seasons to "Little Bo Bleep," and it suddenly makes sense where Lily heard a certain swear word she wouldn't stop repeating...
29	* In "Benched", Gloria suggests "get pregnant" as a solution for her and Claire's kids not wanting them around. Guess what she does two seasons later?
30	* In "Summer Lovin'", Dylan remarks that he and Haley are 'like magnets'. Throughout the show, their relationship has proven to be a turbulent one, with the two of them being too similar to grow or develop their relationship into a more mature one, thus they 'repel' each other, as magnets do. However, Haley and Andy are OppositesAttract, and therefore work, as their strengths and weaknesses balance each other out, and they connect, like magnets.
31	** [[spoiler: But [[FridgeHorror what happens now that Haley and Dylan got together for good?]] And [[FromBadToWorse have children?]]]]
32	* The relationship between Haley and Andy mirror that of Claire and Phil, due to their similar traits and dynamics. However, there are more similarities. Claire, like Haley, dated a lot of boys before she met Phil. Most prominently was her boyfriend Robby, who gets introduced in season 2. He is a man-child who is unable to mature from his teenage self, and he drives a limo. In Haley's life, her then-boyfriend Dylan was also immature, dumb and, as we find out, drives a limo. In both women's stories, they get sick of dating jerk boys, and instead fall for sweet, adorable men: Phil and Andy, respectively. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, history doesn’t repeat here...]]
33	* Phil warns Haley in one episode that she shouldn't go to a concert with Dylan as, in his words, "boys get urges." Later, it's discovered that Haley was conceived following Phil and Claire being at a concert themselves. Suddenly, it makes sense why Phil was hesitant in allowing Haley to go.
34	* In season 1, Phil suggests to Luke to spend their money on a robotic gutter cleaner. In season 5, Phil now has a robotic gutter cleaner.
35	* Both Phil and Andy were being deprived of father-son relationships, with Luke separating from Phil as he got older and Andy's father dying during his early teen years. They both were then able to give each other love, support and guidance, forging a relationship that mirrored that of a father and son.
36	* At first, when Luke is seeing if he gets accepted into college, Haley still not understanding the "we regret to inform you..." line from college applications seems just like a typical Haley dumb line; a callback from season 3. However, in season 3, when Haley got waitlisted, the letter also started with "we regret to inform you...", meaning that Haley was also anticipating if Luke got waitlisted like her.
37	* In "Alone Time", Mitch and Jay spend quality time throwing the ball to one another. It's fridge brilliance because throughout the series, we've heard that Mitch never got the opportunity to play catch with when he was growing up. That just makes the moment even sweeter.
38	* When Lily wants to get 'married' to Mitch, she throws the flowers at Cam, who catches it. What does catching the flowers from the bride signify?
39	* In season 9, Haley's character regresses a little, in comparison to how she was when she was with Andy. In season 8, she was proposed to by Rainer, and she starts to freak out by how adult everything is. Perhaps she was scared of growing up, and wanted to remember a time when she was happier.
40	* Haley deals with the news of Dede's death with PostStressOvereating. Considering what is revealed later in that season, it may have also had a WackyCravings element to it.
41	* Why was Cam okay with Jay referring to him as "his son's friend"? Cam grew up in rural Missouri, where, despite apparently having a nominally accepting family, still likely would have experienced a lot of intolerance in the community, and comments similar to that were probably normal from his family, in an effort to avoid creating problems, or possibly even to avoid putting him in danger.
42	** By contrast, Mitchell grew up in suburban Los Angeles, which, despite his difficulty coming out to a father who took some time to accept him, would likely have been a reasonably more tolerant (though far from good) community, enough that he may have felt more comfortable being who he is, and thus less okay with how his father defines him to friends than Cam is.
43
44	[[AC: FridgeHorror]]
45	* In "The Wedding: Part 1," we see Sal in a flashback agreeing to officiate Cam and Mitch's wedding while drinking vodka heavily. Cut forward to the actual wedding, and Sal is at the end of a pregnancy. This means ''Sal was unknowingly drinking while pregnant.''
46
47	[[AC:FridgeLogic]]
48
49	On the [[Headscratchers/ModernFamily headscratchers]] page.
50
51	[[AC:FridgeSadness]]

Context Fridge / ModernFamily