One of the most difficult aspects of life is change. People feel at a loss when the comfort of what they know and love is suddenly gone. Such is the case for Alex Dunphy and Modern Family‘s exploring of this theme delivered a funny, yet emotional episode.

This article contains spoilers so if you haven’t seen the episode, please do not continue reading.

Alex has always been the golden child of the Dunphy family. She is intelligent and an overachiever and has often felt out of place in her own family. The opportunity to go away to college was an exciting prospect for Alex in that she would be surrounded by people like herself and finally get to spread her wings.

However, for her dad Phil, this was less exciting. His little girl was leaving the nest. So it makes sense that he would form an overwhelming attachment to a group of baby ducklings. His own children were growing up so it was logical to want to parent the three (nice metaphor of the writers to use three ducklings to represent the three Dunphy children) ducklings.

Clare, on the other hand, felt that Phil was growing too attached to the ducks and decided that it was time to let them go out into the pond.  So, she enlists Hayley and Luke to help set them free while Phil is off visiting Alex in college.

Speaking of the visit, it provided the best scenes of the episode when it is Alex who decides that she wants to live at home next semester because, and Phil who encourages her to remain in the dorms and toughen it out.  For a man like Phil, this couldn’t have been easy.  He misses his daughter but didn’t want Alex not to have the college experience.  Alex lashes out at her dad reasoning that he doesn’t want her back.  Modern Family excels at humor but when they do deliver an emotional moment, it tugs at your heart strings.

But of course since the show is Modern Family, it doesn’t forget the funnier aspects to counterbalance the emotional ones. Namely subplots with Jay assisting Mitchell in throwing a sleepover for Lily’s dance group and Gloria partnering with Cam to help him with his sauce for Grandaddy’s Holiday Gift Basket.  Switching up the pairings for this episode worked and allowed the cast to use their comedic chops to chew on scenes with other cast members.

After stumbling in the early part of the season, Modern Family seems to have finally found its footing.

What did you think of the episode?  Sound off in the Comments below. Or tweet @thenerdygirlexp and @stacyamiller85 .