Modern Family – Halloween 4: The Revenge of Rod Skyhook

By: Paige Zinaman

With All Hallow’s Eve just around the corner, television series are airing their very own spooky fun episodes back to back. “Modern Family” was one of them as every year the writers seem to dive into their twisted part of their brains and bring the best Halloween episode. In Halloween 4: The Revenge of Rod Skyhook we see Luke (Nolan Gould) in his Emoji costume as he prepares for his ultimate Halloween party. As he’s eating cheese puffs out a skull head he tries to get his parents to leave so the party can start. Phil (Ty Burrell), dressed in a beaver costume, sets rules (like no going upstairs) while Claire (Julie Bowen) tells Alex (Ariel Winter) she’s in charge.

When the episode starts we see Cam (Eric Stonestreet), Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) all decked out as Batman, Robin and Batgirl outside their house passing out candy. And by passing out candy, I mean enforcing Cam’s “one candy per kid” rule while Lily is begging to go trick-or-treating. But when Cam and Mitchell start getting into a little spat over Mitchell’s comments on Cam basically stress eating the candy, a kid that takes more than one piece every Halloween leads to Cam saying Mitchell doesn’t support him on anything while he being the loving husband he is supports Mitchell on everything. While this is happening the kid in question comes up and grabs a handful of candy and laughs in Cam’s face. The kid runs away after Cam grabs his arm. Suddenly, an egg is thrown at Cam and when we hear the same evil laughter from Cam’s “Halloween nemesis” Lily jumps into action and chases after the boy (mostly to get some candy from the other houses, but still to protect her dad’s honor).

Meanwhile, we had the power of Jesus, Mary and Joseph during the episode as Jay (Ed O’Neill), Gloria (Sofia Vergara) and Joe (Jeremy Maguire) were dressed as the Holy one and his parents much to Gloria’s disagreement. Jay, being Jesus, states that it’s only right because Joe’s name is similar to Joseph. Manny (Rico Rodriguez) makes his appearance in a bathtub costume with a typewriter, but the meaning behind it is he was going as Dalton Trumbo who is famous for writing in his bathtub. When asked why he wasn’t going to Luke’s party like everyone else he says no one will understand him and that he is going to the party at Earl’s house. Earl is Jay’s nemesis and only allows Manny to go if he will put a dead fish in Earl’s shoes as a form of revenge for Earl stealing Jay’s business out from under him.

Manny is attempting to complete his mission and Facetimes with Jay to find out if he has a shoe preference for the fish. Jay notices a signed autograph on the wall behind Manny and insists they change the revenge idea to snagging the photo. Manny refuses so Jay drags the family along to get the autograph, lying to Gloria by saying they are headed to Earl’s in order to ground Manny for skipping Luke’s party.

When Claire and Phil find out no one is going to show to Luke’s party Haley (Sarah Hyland) volunteers to go the party at Earl’s to get the attention towards Luke’s. There is only one problem, this is Haley. So, something is bound to go wrong. Meanwhile, Phil being the awesome dad that he is steps up to try and get Luke’s party started. He, in all his beaver costume glory, goes inside and pretends to be Rod Skyhook – a new high school student who is super cool and super suave. Everything Rod (aka Phil) does and says is beyond amazing.

Meanwhile, inside the party Manny keeps striking out with the ladies as no one gets his costume. He gets dragged out of the party by Jay in an attempt to make Gloria believe he’s really there for the kid (even though Jay is holding the autograph). Earl (in a devil costume) arrives just in time to catch him. A battle ensues with Jesus literally putting Satan in a headlock only to have a sudden Holy moment and decides to forgive Earl for his “wrong doings.”

After waiting for Hayley for over an hour (who got waylaid by a friend from her past), Claire heads inside to Earl’s. While there, she decides to take matters into her own hands and pulls the “Mom Card,” meaning she does what she does best and makes things so awkward that kids decide to leave (i.e. offering to send pics of the kids holding beers to their parents, turning the music down so people can hear themselves talk better, etc.).

At Luke’s party, Manny meets a girl who is dressed as Dorothy Parker. After complimenting the young woman on her costume and the two bond over a lack of understanding by their peers. Yay Manny! Later that night, Jay still dressed as Jesus tries to convince Gloria to have sexy time with him and she protests saying they were not going to have any form of sexy time based on their outfits. And when the lamp flickers, Gloria starts saying her prayers in Spanish thinking it’s a sign from God.

Cam and Mitchell manage to chase the boy back to his house where they find out that he wasn’t the one to egg them after all. It was Claire aiming for Mitchell and missed by a long shot. This was also the scene where Mitchell supported Cam and even stood up to the boy’s father for him.

• Standout Moments:
• *Luke’s emoji costume was on point.
• *Alex being typical Alex didn’t dress up and was reading about the Dewey Decimal System.
• *Haley slips and tells Claire and Phil that she got weed before.
• *Jay takes a page out of Jesus’ teachings and forgives his enemy.
• *Manny meeting the girl who would understand him.
• *Jesus putting Satan in a headlock.
• *Phil can actually breakdance.
• *Alex still having some type of feelings for Ruben.
• *Claire dressed at June Cleaver with a meat cleaver in her head.