After 10 seasons, countless laughs and oodles of heartwarming moments, tragedy will strike Modern Family.
The news comes from Entertainment Weekly's new interview with Christopher Lloyd, who, apparently, wanted to instill the Modern Family audience with the same nervous energy that This Is Us viewers feel every time they watch that particular show. According to Lloyd, someone will die during season 10 of Modern Family, and, while Lloyd won't reveal who to Entertainment Weekly, the death will be a "significant" one.
"We’re handling some bigger life events in this season," Lloyd told EW. "We do deal with a death, which is certainly a topic that families have to deal with, and on television, it’s not easy to do because that’s a heavy subject. But at the same time, it would seem unusual for a family not to go through it."
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This won't be a Very Special Episode of Modern Family, either — it will affect a good chunk of season 10, which could be the show's last.
"[The death] will be a moving event — and an event that has repercussions across several episodes," Lloyd teased to the outlet.
One possibility, of course, is that it will be patriarch Jay (Ed O'Neill) who dies during what could be the final season of the show. (The main cast has contracts that expire at the end of the 10th season, and it won't be cheap for ABC or studio 20th Century Fox to renegotiate.)
In many ways, Modern Family is Jay's story, showing how an old fashioned guy who already raised kids to adulthood would navigate a new, "modern" world with a younger wife (Sofia Vergara) and stepson (Rico Rodriguez). Jay's death would complete his arc, and possibly give significance to the doc-style "talking heads" interviews Modern Family is famous for. Maybe the family is watching a movie they made about their dad's life, only deciding it is finally time to finish it after his death.
Of course, it's also possible that a significant, but not necessarily main character will die. Perhaps a friend of Jay's will pass, leading him to question his own mortality. Or maybe Claire (Julie Bowen) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) will lose their mom (Shelley Long), whom they have long had a complicated relationship with.
One thing is clear: In season 10, Modern Family is getting real. What's more modern than a sitcom that also makes you cry?