Top 10 Times Lily was a Savage on Modern Family

It’s not uncommon for kids to cause scenes in restaurants, but Lily has some rather personalized insults for those at the dining establishment. Cameron and Mitchell take her to a Vietnamese place in the hopes of exposing their daughter to more of her heritage. Mitchell invites a waitress (who he hopes is Vietnamese) to tell them more about her home country, to which Lily interrupts with a poignant: “I hate Vietnam!”. Most of the background characters appear to be Asian, so it’s safe to assume she’s insulting more people than just the waitress. Even after her dads attempt to correct the behavior, she insists, this time in the waitress’ direction. That’s cold, Lily, that’s cold…

This episode sees a visit from Cam’s sister, Pam. When she reveals that she’s getting married to Cam’s childhood crush, Bo, her brother is not exactly jumping for joy. Pam calls him “weak and weepy”, which leads to Cam, later in the episode, asking the family to be honest with him about whether he’s overly sensitive. A few examples fly around the circle, and just when we think everyone’s done admitting things, Lily pipes up: “Sometimes when you read to me, I pretend to fall asleep so you’ll go.” She’s not exactly known for pandering or beating around the bush and this time is no exception. If Cam’s small whimper is anything to go by, we bet that one stung!

This might just be one of Lily’s funniest exchanges, which is saying something because there are a lot of them. This little gem comes at the end of the episode, with Sal and Lily sitting on the couch after Sal’s wedding. The bride apologizes to Lily about her not being able to attend since the event had a no-kids policy. Luckily, Lily’s not very offended. Her delivery is so perfect and this moment leaves us in stitches every time we watch it! Hey, if Sal is making out with a bartender an hour before she gets married, maybe Lily’s not too far off here.

This episode features a fun girls shopping trip with Claire, Gloria, and Lily. The youngest of the group is supposed to find a dress for her role as flower girl at her fathers’ wedding. Holding princesses as the highest standard of beauty is a pretty on-brand kid thing to do, and Lily picks out none other than a princess Belle costume. Claire and Gloria maintain that she can’t wear it to the wedding, but Lily knows what she wants and she shuts down Claire quickly and brutally. It’s okay, we see you, Claire. We’re sure the parking spot was very difficult to pull into.

Little kids do the funniest things, and cursing is apparently one of them. Lily, now in pre-school, has just learned about the f-word, and that it makes her daddy laugh. Mitch and Cam do their best to discourage her from saying it, but Cameron’s laughter seems to be the only thing Lily retains at the wedding later that day. Cam has a habit of crying at… well, everything–including weddings, which leads Lily to think her dad is sad. To cheer him up, she knows but one sure-fire way to get him to laugh. Fortunately, this was before Cam and Mitch got married, so Lily had a little time to practice being flower girl before their big day.

Cam and Mitch went back and forth a few times on whether or not they were ready to have another baby before finally going through with it in the last season of the show. Lily was heading into her teenage years by then so things weren’t quite so rocky, but they definitely didn’t start out that way. Early on in season 3, Lily is much less ecstatic about a baby brother. There’s a lot of “I hate baby” talk, to put it mildly. The unhinged behavior only derails from there, with Lily pushing a friend’s baby out of Cameron’s lap. Suffice to say, we understand why the couple waited a little longer before adopting again.

When Mitch and Cam drunkenly agree to let Dylan live with them, they spend some time mulling over how they’re going to take back their offer. As it turns out, however, Lily’s got it covered. It’s obvious she doesn’t like sharing her space, but the explanation she gives Dylan is more of a personal attack, to be honest. Now, we’re not advocating for letting your kids do your dirty work for you, but if you can count on anyone to be unabashedly truthful, it’s those between the ages of three and twelve.

Season four might just be the pinnacle of Lily’s savage awakening. It’s difficult to discern exactly where she gets her facetious nature from, but this bout of unrbridled sass is all Claire. The “cry me a river” line was snippy enough, but the “wambulance” bit is full-fledged savagery. Of course, it isn’t until the end of the episode that we find out exactly where Lily has picked up her snarky little attitude from, though we probably should’ve known from the start. She adds a little flair to Claire’s remark, the latter of whom couldn’t look more proud.

“Modern Family” had an incredibly clever team of writers, and this is a moment where we’re reminded of that. This is a punchline that comes early on in the episode. It’s such a small quip, but is also certainly packed full of laughs. The Tucker-Pritchetts are playing what we can assume is a game of Go Fish and Cam asks if Lily has any queens. You can probably guess where this is going. Audrey Anderson-Emmons’ delivery is great and the fact that this is apparently a joke that’s been repeated a few times makes it that much more terrible. In the best way, fof course.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

When She Heard What She Wanted To
“Haley's 21st Birthday”

When She Understood the Family Roles
“Grill, Interrupted”

When She Was Just Looking Out for Alex
“Haley's 21st Birthday”

When She Used Adoption to Her Advantage
“Spuds”

Mitch and Cam discovering that their daughter lacks any and all empathy is peak savageness if we’ve ever heard it. Of course, the end of the episode reveals that she is capable of feeling, but her aloofness in the sequence at the beginning is unmatched. We see Lily favor her food over her dad’s well-being and literally pull the plug on the both of them. Mitch’s solution is to cry in front of her so she’ll see that, even in his stoicism, he’s empathetic, but things don’t go as planned and Cam ends up in tears instead. Lily walks in, takes one look at him, and spits what might be her snarkiest lines of all.