I think Modern Family managed something that not many shows accomplish. A near perfect final season.

The final season of any show is tough to get right, and I think that is especially true for sitcoms. Which is why I think Modern Family’s feat is so impressive. Full discourse here, I’m a huge modern family fan, it is without a doubt my second favourite sitcom, secondly only to Friends.And where Friends, in my opinion, nailed the final episode, Modern family nailed the final season.

The thing I most love about this season is it’s pacing. We’ve seen in the past when sitcoms get their pacing wrong in the final season. In my opinion, HIMYM’s painfully slow final season forced a super rushed final episode. All the episodes building up to the finale took place over the course of a weekend. The plot in the finale episode took place over the course of like 20 years.

Modern Family’s finale suffers no such fate. This is perhaps best illustrated by how well the writers set up each of the characters postshow futures. They start laying the ground work early so it’s not a mad dash in the final episode to explain what’s going to happen to all the characters.

For example, Cam’s coaching opportunity in Missouri is first introduced in episode 6. Manny’s yearlong aroundtheworld cruise is introduced in ep.12, Alex’s new job in Ep 15, and Gloria’s future in real estate is introduced all the way back in episode 2. The whole season felt planned and well crafted.

You can tell going into this season that it was going to be the last season, and that is crucial, I think, to a successful final season.

The second reason why I like this final season is so much is because it throw in a few episodes that I could best describe as spiritual successors to some of the show’s most loved episodes. For most American sitcoms, episodes surrounding a holiday are often some of the best and MF is no different. Think the Friends thanksgiving football, b99’s halloween heist or Ted Lasso’s Christmas episode (it’s incredible if you haven’t seen it). Each of these three holidays were a staple in the modern family season. And in the final season we get episodes titled The Last Halloween, The Last Thanksgiving and The Last Christmas. One final chance to spend these holidays with this iconic TV family.

And we can’t talk about spiritual successors without mentioning what is perhaps Modern Family’s highest rated episode Vegas. In the fifth season, the show took a trip to Las Vegas and a comedy of errors inspired episode graced our screens. This farcical episode had the characters each off on their own missions and it all comes crashing down together out the end. It is a great episode and the final season couldn’t have ended without a sequel. And a sequel we got and it was called The Prescott. Set in Alex’s new very fancy apartment building, we are treated to a glorious followup to the Las Vegas episode, we even have Stephen merchant reprising his role as Higgins, the butler from the Vegas episode. Throw in some pretty random cameos from Beckham and country cox, and you have yourself the 10th ep of the 11th season, The Prescott.

Throughout the seasons, Modern Family has often taken the opportunity to travel and shoot an episode or two elsewhere in the world. The show had episodes shot in Haiwii, Australia, Florida and other places outside of the studio gates. In the final season the show heads to Paris for an episode for one trip on 20th century fox’s credit card. The usual shenanigans ensue, but there’s a montage at the end that seems to be shot on a phone and it really just feels like it’s behind the scenes footage. As if the show saying to the fans “yes, we know the show is ending, just bask in this little bit of footage of this cast just being real people having fun, doing there thing”.

Sadly, the weakest part of the final season, I think, is the finale. Part 1 is good, but I had hoped for a better part 2. There was nothing particularly wrong with the episode and I loved how the show ended on a grander scale of where all the characters were heading. But I found some of the story lines in the finale a little weak. It wasn’t that they were necessary bad, it was just that this is the finale this is prime tv real estate, every minute needs to be brilliant, and is this asking too much of the writers? Probably, yes. But Friends crushed it, Scrubs crushed and (and yes, IM talking about JD’s last episode not the actual series finale). The Gloria and Cam storyline about Cam’s heartfelt letter I thought was a bit weird. And the storyline of L A and H remaking the Woofie video was… fine I guess, but again, prime real estate. Now I know that you cannot please everyone with a season finale, and I am being hypocritical because I had I hold this show in such high regard. There is a lot a like about the finale, I did enjoy how low key it sorta was.