Here’s where you can watch the Modern Family finale
Modern Family is coming to an end with “Finale”. (ABC)
The Modern Family finale brings the story of the Pritchett-Dunphy-Tucker clans to an emotional end. Here’s where you can watch the last episode and why it’s ending now.
After 11 seasons and 250 episodes, the 22-time Emmy-award winning comedy is taking its final bow.
Modern Family‘s season 11 finale promises to send the characters off into new directions as Phil and Claire finally ask one of their children to fly the nest, and trailblazing gay couple Mitch and Cam decide whether or not it’s time to adopt a second baby.
Co-creator Steve Levitan said fans should expect the usual mix of laughter and heart, with the scales — fittingly — tipped towards the latter.
“We tried to balance the right level of comedy and emotion that our show has always done — perhaps leaning with a slightly bigger dollop of emotion than usual, which seemed fitting here,” he told EW.
“But we still wanted to tell funny stories and not get too maudlin about things. There’s some nice comedy right to the end.”
Where to watch the finale.
The Modern Family series finale airs on Wednesday (April 8) at 7/8C on ABC in the US.
The two-hour event kicks off with “A Modern Farewell”, a behind-the-scenes look at the series 11-year run. This is followed by the two-part final episode, simply titled “Finale”.
All season 11 episodes are available to stream on ABC Go.
In the UK, fans will need to wait an extra week, with the the last episode due to air on April 15 at 8.30pm on Sky One and Now TV.
The most recent episodes are also available to watch on both services.
Why is Modern Family ending?
Originally it was thought that the show would end after season 10, with the cast’s contracts expiring at this point, but ABC surprised fans by announced one last run back in February 2019.
At the time Levitan’s co-creator Christopher Lloyd said, cryptically: “For 10 years, our characters have bravely faced turning points in life and moved through them to great personal enrichment; we have chosen a different path by doing one more season of Modern Family.”
Levitan joked: “Even after 10 years together we realised there are still some things our writers don’t yet know about each other’s sex lives.”
It is thought that Disney’s acquisition of Fox – which began in July 2018 – paved the way for one last season, bringing its studio, 20th Century Fox, and network, ABC, under one roof.
Lloyd had earlier hinted that the show could continue for an 11th run, explaining that the double-whammy of twists in season 10 (DeDe’s death and Haley’s pregnancy) had reinvigorated the writers.
“We actually went into the planning of the season with the idea that if we got excited about certain changes in the characters’ lives, we should do them, whether it was the final season or not,” he told E! in November 2018.
“Because it was just going to be good for the show, and we kind of planned that it could go either way. It would make for a very lively last season, but if we end up doing another season – and I think it’s looking a little bit more likely that will happen — we’ll just throw all these changes into people’s lives, which is only good in terms of new stuff for us to explore.”
