"Chirp" doesn't have the all-out humor of Halloween, but strikes a sentimental tone in two of the three plots, giving a warmer feeling than usual.
While Phil searches for the beeping fire alarm, Claire spends most of the time sick in bed with Haley who is also sick. As expected, Phil's search is fruitless and bumbles around for most of the episode. Claire, wanting Haley to see Dylan for the goof he is, uses a soap opera as an allegory for their relationship. However, Haley interprets the story as Claire talking about Phil. Both of them are clueless about how the story could apply to their partners, and it's kind of cute that way. In the end, after Haley gives Claire a pep talk, Phil and Claire are the same affectionate couple they've always been and Haley thinks she's the reason why.
Although "Chirp" is set up so that Jay and Gloria's date is the endpoint of the Pritchett plot, it's actually about Manny and Jay and the date itself is never even shown. After Jay fires an employee who let Manny operate the forklift, Manny gets angry and refuses to help Jay until the employee is hired back. Jay's reasoning, that he fired an employee who put his kid's life at risk, rings true and according to Manny, it's the first time he's called Manny his kid.
I'm confused about Cam and Mitchell's story, though. It's pretty clear that the writers want us to know that doing pretend Japanese accents is racist and both Cam and Mitchell disapprove of it. Fair enough. Mocking accents and cultures for the sake of a commercial can be considered wrong. However, compare that to Jay's attitude two episodes ago in "Unplugged." Jay openly talks about Gloria as if she and other Colombians are animal killers who do weird things to the bodies. In that context, it's funny and the audience is expected to laugh at Jay's cleverness while we're supposed to laugh at how cringe-worthy the commercial is. And in "Unplugged," Cam does his Indian chief impression which should be offensive. Is he racist? What gives?
Score: 8.7/10
