How Modern Family Ended After 11 Seasons - Vanity Fair

There was no twist ending or shocking surprise at the conclusion of Modern Family. The Emmy-winning ABC comedy ended on Wednesday night, after 250 episodes of good-natured family conflict, with a simple finale that put all its main players on a path toward new adventures. In the Dunphy household, Phil and Claire (Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen) made plans for a cross-country road trip as their three children decided to leave home at the same time; Cam and Mitchell (Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson), meanwhile, moved to the midwest after Cam landed his dream job as a college football coach; and, finally, Jay and Gloria (Ed O'Neill and Sofia Vergara) prepared to head to South America for the summer to spend time with Gloria's family, for the first time since their marriage 12 years prior.

“Life is full of change—some big, some small. I learned a long time ago you can fight it or you can try to make the best of it,” Jay said in a voiceover during the episode's final montage, which briefly showed some next steps for the characters. “And that’s all a lot easier if you’ve got people who love you helping you face whatever life throws at you. At least, that’s what helps me sleep at night.” The final image was of the Dunphy home with its porch light still illuminated, a callback to something Phil said earlier to a crestfallen Claire after their three children left the nest. “Leave a porch light on,” he told her. “They come back.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, co-creator Christopher Lloyd said the idea to split the family off onto new paths felt like the most honest way for the show to conclude. “We embraced that idea of putting people on new paths that are exciting for the audience to imagine, but also necessitates a big goodbye from everyone,” Lloyd said. “And that will add a bittersweet quality to the end, but feels fitting because families do morph. It’s the type of change a lot of people feel in their own families, and we wanted to capture that.”

But, he added, that final image was meant to provide a glimmer of hope for the future. “It's a hopeful thing for Phil and Claire. And for the kids to know they're always welcome at home. Everyone's always welcome at the Dunphys’,” Lloyd said.

Modern Family has been a fixture in the ABC lineup since its 2009 premiere. The show, co-created by Lloyd and Steve Levitan, was routinely one of the highest-rated comedies on television, averaging nearly 12 million viewers per episode from 2010-2015. That run coincided with awards acclaim as well: Modern Family won five straight Emmy Awards for outstanding comedy series over the same period, a success that spilled over into the cast as well. Burrell, O'Neill, Stonestreet, Ferguson, Bowen, and Vergara have all received multiple individual Emmy nominations for the series, with Burrell, Stonestreet, and Bowen each winning two Emmys apiece for their performances. (All told, Modern Family won 22 Emmy Awards during its first 10 seasons.)

With that kind of track record, it should be no surprise that ABC has long discussed the possibility of launching a spinoff series—and the finale teed up the potential for Stonestreet and Ferguson to continue as Cam and Mitchell in a new locale.

“It does present a possibility for us,” Lloyd said in a separate interview with Deadline when asked about further Modern Family adventures. “Will that happen? I’m not sure, but we would be probably dumb to not explore it. However, doing a spinoff is fraught in a lot of ways and we won’t do it unless we feel confident there’s something there, I don’t want to say it’s a long shot, it’s under discussion but we’ll see. We don’t want to jump into something like that, particularly because Modern Family is a tough act to follow, but that is a possibility.”

Maybe the porch light won't need to stay on very long at all.