The creator of Modern Family explains the death in the episode of Halloween

Warning: This story contains details of the plot of the Wednesday night episode Modern family, entitled "Good sorrow."

The episode of Wednesday Modern family, titled "Good Grief", took the almost annual Halloween episode of the ABC family comedy and returned it (respectfully) by transforming a holiday celebrating death into a day to mourn the day. 39, a loved one. It turns out that the "important character" who met his creator was the fiery DeDe (Shelley Long), Jay's ex-wife (Ed O & # 39; Neill) and mother of Claire (Julie Bowen) and Mitch (Jesse Tyler Ferguson ). . (Those of you who had feared the blindness of Prichett's French bulldog, Stella, can breathe better.)

Introduced in season 1, DeDe appeared in seven episodes, most recently appeared last season. The tragic news was revealed in the first minute of the episode – giving a new meaning to the term "cold opening" – as Claire received a sad call from DeDe's husband, Jerry. As we soon learned, she had a heart problem that she did not want to talk about, she survived a chain of impossible events during her group trip to Greenland (rescued by wolves, swallowed by a whale), before dying peacefully in his sleep. 10 pages of suggestions for the hotel staff. And as viewers were reminded throughout this episode, DeDe was a force to be reckoned with. She told Gloria (Sofia Vergara) at her wedding that she would come back to haunt her. (What Gloria thought she was doing with all these mini statues she had given to the family for Christmas.) She threatened to murder Cam (Eric Stonestreet) if he ever hurt Mitch. Oh, and she did not want to pay for Claire's voice lessons in case she ended up with her father's nose. However, she was also praised for her unique and independent spirit (she brought her own ice to restaurants, was left out of Scientology, etc.), for kindly helping Mitch cope with her sexuality and for her comfort. Phil (Ty Burrell) after dropping a child to school for the first time.

While her mind figured a little literally in the episode, DeDe herself did not appear in this episode, even though we heard Claire listen to DeDe's latest voicemail after their final disputed conversation. (DeDe sincerely apologized … before slipping into a quick insult about Claire's hair.) "Good Grief" revolved around different family members, still costumed, analyzing their relationship with her. Claire, hard to kiss with her eight spider arms, struggled with Mitch to accept the loss; she did not just feel guilty for this final fight, but throughout their relationship, "I was as mean to mom as she was to me." The two siblings eventually accepted the idea that parents might be closer to some children, but that did not mean that they liked each other less. (Plan on: Claire, slightly opposed to the notion of Jay and Mitch.)

Meanwhile, Luke (Nolan Gould) turned to humor, Hayley (Sarah Hyland) turned to food (while her mind was getting sharper) and Alex (Ariel Winter) found himself a little excited by the tragedy. As to whether this old stone creaked, Jay spent the essence of his episode to sublimate his grief and look for an obsessively lost sandwich, finally explaining to his children that DeDe would look for a special bread crispy crust for his sandwiches. When he passed the bakery and realized that it was gone, he was depressed for a week. "I did not realize how much it meant to me until it was gone," he said emotionally. The episode, which followed the line of humor and heartbreak, was wrapped by Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons), confessing to the camera that she was the one who ate the Jay's sandwich – and planted the dolls that haunted Gloria, putting an end to "grief". a, well, good note.

Why has DeDe been designated for death? Will it come back as a flashback or just as a doll? How did the Halloween episode become an episode of farewell? Place this edible arrangement, lift a pint of West Hollywood ice and say "To DeDe!" While we get Modern family Steve Levitan, co-creator, about to give us the goods on "Good Grief".

WEEKLY ENTERTAINMENT: How was DeDe sentenced to death? Would you like to use someone who was, shall we say, difficult, which would make it a more interesting and cumbersome exploration? Like, it was not just the size of the loss, but it was the complication of it?
STEVE LEVITAN: We are simply trying to give our characters something new, interesting and stimulating for us, so I think you're right. This is one of the things that make it complicated and interesting. Whenever people have a complicated relationship with someone and then die, this raises a lot of questions. So when we talked at the beginning of the season about different places to go, this idea came and we liked it. In fact, there will be another episode that will deal with the ramifications of this.

When you were looking for new challenges and new experiences for the characters, did you have the idea of ​​death and did you immediately focus on DeDe? Or did you review a few candidates on your results list?
This seemed to be the logical choice as it directly affects three of our main characters. It was also a very nice send to the character and Shelley Long, so it seemed like the thing to do. The idea, however, of setting Halloween on the map was born because I have always had a love for people who are going through something serious and unexpected while wearing a silly costume. I've always liked that kind of thing. We always do Halloween shows, and these are an important part of this year's series. So we figured, "Let's try to do something very different this Halloween." And as it's strangely a holiday that deals with so many themes of death and scary things and all that, it seemed like 39 a strange, appropriate way.

That was my next question. Did finding the emotional weight of the situation seem like an intriguing challenge? Because there is something absurd by nature in costumed mourners.
This kind of thing happens. You go out, you are disguised as a pirate, then something serious happens and you are suddenly forced to go into active mode, grief mode or anything while you are dressed in a ridiculous way. It's just another interesting part of this story. I like to take on the challenge of this episode because it's obviously something very serious, but it's not our way of doing a very special episode of Modern family. We want it to be funny. We want it to be nice for people – and sincere for people too – so it was part of the challenge to get the right tone.

On the other hand, was the network or another country worried that an episode of total death would feel too shocked for this kind of comedy?
No, I think these were our own concerns, but we felt we were up to the challenge. Phil's mother died several seasons ago, and I've also done this episode. The story was about something serious and what this person was going through was serious. But there is still time to laugh during this adventure, and there are still ways for people who are not directly involved to embark on something else. There is a way to keep the story, overall, entertaining while dealing with a serious problem. In addition, I lost my mother very suddenly two years ago. I remember when that happened to me, we got a call and it was very shocking. We just started meeting at my sister's house and everyone started arriving. So I was trying to bring a lot of what I imagined to be the real this night, for me, at Dunphy Halloween.

NEXT: Levitan and Shelley Long's reaction – and if Stella is next from