There are few constants in this world: death, taxes and the fact that sitcoms do not kill their characters. “The Office”? Besides that nobody from the “Grief Counseling” episode, everyone’s fine. “Parks and Recreation”? Nope, everyone just gets happily married and has government babies. Even the ‘90s sitcoms (“Full House,” “The Nanny,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”) were all free of crucial characters' funerals. Which is why it’s a bit of a shock that “Modern Family” co-creator Christopher Lloyd announced that we’ll be grieving one of the main characters next season.
In all fairness, the show is going into season 10, and the narrative has been a bit lacking of late, so maybe a twist is exactly what it needs to get back on its feet. Lloyd told Entertainment Weekly that the death, set to happen before the mid-season break, “will be a moving event and an event that has repercussions across several episodes,” so even though we have no explicit evidence on who will kick the bucket, we can assume it’s one of the main central family members.
Cast members are alluding that they don’t even know who’s getting the axe.
First of all, let’s not even toy with the idea of one of the kids being offed. That’s just sadistic, and Joe Pritchett is the most pure character we have in this world.
Maybe it’d be one of the older kids -- Haley’s not doing much except dating a professor, Luke and Manny have been in the background for a few seasons now and Alex is...Alex -- but again, I doubt it.
Most of the adults, on the other hand, all have potential to be the one to go. Jay is the most obvious, being the oldest -- maybe he contracts some kind of illness that comes with old age, though with the death coming within the first half of the season, we probably don’t have time for that. It won’t be Gloria -- they wouldn’t take a kid’s mother from him. Same with Claire. Phil, with his history, could fall off a roof or something else clumsy like that. Then that leaves Mitch and Cam, who also have Lily to take care of. My money’s on Mitch -- he’s the most stressful character to watch and always looks on the verge of a heart attack.
Obviously, none of these scenarios are ideal, so maybe we’re not dealing with a main character after all. Not likely, since there was a funeral in season 4 for Phil’s mother, and that for sure wasn’t entirely “significant.” There are a few periphery roles that could be up for a write-off, though, if we want to go with this train of thought: There’s Mitch and Claire’s mom, DeDe, who’s appeared in enough episodes and is close enough to the family to be deemed significant; there’s also Phil’s father Frank (though he just got married, so that’d be fairly morbid). We’ve got Pam, Cam’s sister, and Javier, Manny’s father, too.
Then there’s the moment from season 2 to think about where Donnie, Jay’s brother, reveals that he’s suffering from prostate cancer. It’s been eight years, so it’s not unrealistic that the cancer would be at a point of no return by now. But I also can’t imagine that Donnie would be considered a “significant” character either -- I had to Google his name myself, and I’ve seen every episode of this show.
So, do we prep for a tear-inducing season? Probably. But my spirits are high that it won’t be anyone held too near and dear to our hearts -- so long as they don’t sacrifice Stella.
The (potentially final, if we’re going by their current contract) season of “Modern Family” premieres on Sept. 26 on ABC.