Modern Family Ending Explained: What Happens To Each Character

It concluded with an emphasis on the future, as if to say: see how the various protagonists’ lives continued, even after the cameras had been switched off.

When Jay and Gloria wrapped up by paying homage to his new love for all things Gloria’s culture and endearing himself to her by saying he hoped to return all the efforts she had put into his family – it was as sweet as America’s most famous sitcom family ever wished to make it.

The finale also highlighted each of the Dunphy kids maturing and heeding their inner voices, with Haley and Dylan moving into their own apartment and Alex pursuing her dreams and Luke heading off to college.

When the Modern Family ending comes along, audiences get a sense of how the various Dunphy and Pritchett branches were moving forward after the mockumentary’s run of 11 seasons ended in 2020. When considering how Modern Family ends, the show’s creators emphasise that the episodic finales for this sitcom extend the scope of everyday life and set the viewer up to believe that life goes on for the Dunphy and Pritchett homes at least.

Modern Family traces three different branches of the same family, headed by our patriarch Jay Pritchett, who are all worlds apart. By the end of the series, many of their narratives had almost come full circle – Haley was starting her own family, Claire and Phil’s kids had all moved out, and Manny had gone travelling to find himself. After 11 seasons’ worth of storytelling, there was a lot to tie up. The Modern Family ending indicated where the characters were headed. It suggested the kinds of futures they might have.

Jay, Gloria, & Joe Reconnect With Family & Travel To Colombia

Jay Embraces Gloria’s Culture And Joe’s Heritage

Later, in season 4 of Modern Family, Jay and Gloria have a son of their own. His name is Joe. Gloria’s oldest child, Manny, never knew his father and he was close to his mother in a way that pre-dated Jay. Gloria has spent her years on the show making sure that Manny was as connected to her Colombian heritage as possible. Many of Gloria’s storylines revolved around her culture and how it clashed with the rest of the family. Of course, Jay doesn’t like it when a new culture invades his life. He’s set in his ways.

Recall that, in the series finale of Modern Family (2009-20), its viewers are informed that Gloria plans to take Joe to Colombia for the summer so the grade-schooler can learn more about his roots, which are presumed to be distinctly and authentically Colombian. In the interim, to surprise Gloria, Jay announces that he’s been studying Spanish so he can travel to Colombia with his wife and son. Now that Gloria has invested so much time in his family, it seems only fair, Jay reasons, for him to reciprocate by investing time in hers.

Manny Travels The World With His Biological Dad

Jay’s Step Son Is Off To Find Himself With Gloria’s Blessing

If you remember the Modern Family finale, you’ll know that Manny didn’t go to Europe with Jay and Gloria and Joe; instead, he headed east to pursue a long-held dream of his own, to see ‘this huge world of ours’. Manny had a sophisticated taste for theatre, literature and fine wine. But he never really saw the world itself. Growing up in Jay’s house was comfortable, to put it mildly.

It’s fitting that Manny’s run on Modern Family ends with him stepping out into the world. In the penultimate episode before the end of the series, Manny’s biological dad suggests they travel the world together for a year. He’s but Gloria insists he go, ‘to get out of this house, to get experience, and to see the world’. In the series finale, Manny is packing for that trip.

Claire & Phil Become Empty Nesters & Take An RV Trip

The Dunphy Children Have All Moved Out

Chaos has stalked Modern Family since the day three kids arrived for Claire and Phil. They spent that time of their lives bailing out Haley, trying to make heads or tails of raising an almost-genius child with Alex, and dealing with the hijinx of Luke. While their storylines usually involved them searching for ways to help out their kids, they ultimately came away with some peace and quiet at home – which makes sense as a way to end Claire and Phil’s story.

By the time Modern Family ended, all three of Phil and Claire’s children, plus Luke’s family, were living with them, and Claire and Phil were so fed up with lack of privacy that they tell their kids that one of them has to move out. To everyone’s surprise, all three say they are ready to leave the nest.

Phil and Claire are devastated by their inadvertent status as empty nesters, but then they fall into a full acceptance of its inevitable trajectory. The last moments of the couple in the series depict them planning a trip. They’re travelling in an RV left to.

Haley & Dylan Get Their Own Home (And Keep It In The Family)

The Eldest Dunphy Child Moves Into Cam And Phil’s Old House

The senior Dunphy, as the series progresses, goes through almost as many changes as her daughter Haley, whom we meet as a teenager in the first episode of Modern Family: partying, constantly dating new guys, and flunking out of college. By the time Modern Family came to a close, though, Haley’s story had come together. She had settled on a career in fashion and hooked up again with her first boyfriend, Dylan.

Haley gets pregnant with twins and marries Dylan in an ode to their love and lifelong devotion, giving birth to a son (GeorgePoppy) just beforeultimate season. During, Dylan and the kids resided with Phil and Claire. But in the series finale of Modern Family, amid Cam, Mitch and Lily’s departure to Missouri (yes, the aforementioned bit about the Buckwheats was canon), the young couple finally moved into the house they’d lived in years before. But the ending sure didn’t sit well with the actress Sarah Hyland.

Alex Moves To Switzerland To Pursue Her Career (& Fall In Love)

Claire And Phil’s Second Child Is Destined For Professional Success

Towards the end of Modern Family, Alex graduated from college and took her employer’s cushy and well-paid corporate job, ultimately leaving those who shared the screen with her to offer her ‘sell out!’ She had always dreamed of using her vastly over-evaluated talents to save the world – and that dream was rekindled just before she settled for corporate work. The middle Dunphy kid, egged on by her former professor/old flame, who is also her sister Haley’s ex-boyfriend, decides that it’s time to get back to it. Arvin offers her a place on his research team and she accepts.

Through the intervention of her elder sister, Alex comes to realises that she is still in love with Arvin. He calls her to his office, and there she lets slip this information. Arvin had only intended to inform her that his study had moved to Switzerland, but he reciprocates Alex’s feelings too. She consents to moving to Switzerland, to study as part of Arvin’s research group, and it seems like the couple began a relationship just before they travelled there.

Luke Gets Accepted To The University of Oregon

The Youngest Dunphy Is Finally Moving Out

Luke Dunphy was eleven years old when Modern Family premiered for the first time on ABC in the fall of 2009. But a lot can happen in 11 seasons. (And even more can happen after an entire immediate family finishes off a giant jar of mayonnaise during a lockdown.) When Modern Family ended a decade later as one of ABC’s most successful shows of our time, the youngest Dunphy son had come into his own. But one thing he didn’t come into was the habit of leaving. Sure, over the course of a show that followed a loving family for 11 years, Luke grew a lot, met the girl of his dreams, and went to Dragon Con. But this 22-year-old, who never made it out of the house in school – and whose only talking animal best friend is a hamster – was forced to admit in the final show’s final line that: ‘That’s another greeting I’ve never used. Well, it’s been a great day and a great life. Oh my God, I’m gonna cry, I’m gonna freak out. I’m gonna go home. I was accepted to the University of Oregon, I’m going in the fall.

Though he and his sisters squabbled frequently over the course of the Emmy-winning television show, in the final episode of Modern Family (2020), the siblings pledge to stay in touch; Luke asks if he can still call them for advice about his girlfriend, and he and Manny exchange a tearful goodbye, the first time they’ve been apart since they met as childhood pals.

Cam, Mitch, & Lily Welcome A New Family Member And Move

The Trio Are Destined For Missouri

Cam, Mitch, and Lily probably go through the biggest transformation in the Modern Family end. Most of the series, the couple wrestled with if they still wanted only another baby. It nearly came to be when their surrogate was pregnant just as Gloria was at the beginning of season five (right around third season), but it didn’t end up happening. They gave up on the dream but stayed happy as a family of three.

Cam had a few dreams too, but for years he thought they might have to include sorry – a permanent apology that he’d give up his dreams. Cam is a Missouri farmer. Yes, he’s one of those – proud as Mitch always said he and Cam could move back home someday, but never did. Over these last couple seasons, Cam started to coach school football. He’d loved football since he was a kid and dreamt of coaching college, and actually gets the chance of coaching in Missouri, but doesn’t get the job.

The day Cam finds out he did not get the job, the same day, the adoption agency calls him and Mitch. There is this young boy available for adoption, and Mitch and me, we go for it. Cam and Mitch buy a bigger house to fit in the baby, which they name Rexford – Rex for short, after the name of their new street.

Then Cam gets a surprise call – the man who got the job over him was fired and that job is now his if he takes it. And he does. He and Mitch, Lily and Rex all move to Missouri to start the next chapter of their lives.

What The Modern Family Cast Has Done Since The Show Ended

Several Modern Family Cast Members Have Gone On To Greater Things

Cool in its own way to see how Modern Family wrapped up for the characters but also, in retrospect, we’d see where each Modern Family star had ended up after all the seasons went off the air: Sofía Vergara is still one of the judges on America’s Got Talent, and has another gig lined up on the Netflix crime drama Griselda, to say nothing of another voice role in the Strays (2023) animated feature – and she’ll be back on the big screen next year alongside Steve Carell, Jamie Foxx and Trevante Rhodes in the comedy hitman caper The Take Down (2023); her on-screen husband, Ed O’Neill, has cropped up in the miniseries Clipped.

Julie Bowen has appeared in several films since Modern Family concluded including The Fallout and Totally Killer. She also starred in a new television show as the voice of Patricia Banks in Hailey’s On It! While Burrell played a prominent role voicing the father, Jack Harris, on the animated series Duncanville that he joined following his role as Phil. Jesse Tyler Ferguson played Peter, a wildlife activist, in the 2023 horror comedy, Cocaine Bear. And Eric Stonestreet went on to host the reality game show, Domino Masters, and played the role of Mad Santa on the Disney+ holiday series, The Santa Clauses, in its second season.

It was after her Modern Family career ended that Sarah Hyland starred in the movie My Fake Boyfriend, and also hosted the kids’ show Play-Doh Squished and the dating series Love Island USA (and guest-starred with her Modern Family love interest Adam Devine in the “climactic episode” of the Peacock series Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin). Recently, Ariel Winter popped up as a contestant on stars on Mars. Rico Rodriguez and Aubrey Anderson-Emmons haven’t been seen as hosts, guest stars or movie stars. Nolan Gould did have a role on a 2022 episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

Did Modern Family Get A Perfect Ending?

The Finale Gave Die-Hard Fans What They Want But Didn’t Redeem The Later Seasons

While modern Family was, for many fans, an adored series throughout its run, most would surely agree that it strayed considerably by its last few seasons. Among the most common criticisms was that the humour had become tired and the scripts lacking the sharp edge they once had. Yet this loving family and this terrific ensemble were still too endearing to abandon.

It stuck with it for the entire run because they loved characters with whom they’d become familiar. For some fans, this only served to underline the limitations of the sitcom’s later seasons – which depended more and more on the rapport among the cast and the broad, typecast personas that the characters had come to represent. It also produced a finale that was very unwilling to stick its neck out, that wanted to be ‘another episode’. As a review in IndieWire put it:

“What the Modern Family finale demonstrates only what we’ve known for years: that the show should have been over years ago when it was better-equipped to wrap up all these storylines, characters, and themes. We’re left with the weird feeling of an anti-ending. Maybe that’s enough (for) the family audience that’s tweens and fingerpainting adults, but I have to believe there are modern viewers who demand more.

Still, for the many who fell in love with these characters, it proved to be a satisfying send-off to them all. Viewers of this show just wanted to see their favourite characters find happy endings with themselves and the show’s larger themes of love in this dysfunctional family intact. TV Guide review:

“Like most of its best episodes, the Modern Family Finale felt like a warm hug”.

Ultimately, Modern Family’s swan song was too safe and too low-key to generalise as one of the best television finales of all time, but those who stuck around were rewarded with a payoff that could put a smile on their face.