Modern Family: Alex Predicted Haley's Pregnancy In The Very First Episode

As one of the most critically acclaimed sitcoms ever to rack up an eleven-season run on broadcast TV, ABC's "Modern Family" anchors its comedy formula in the series' core pair of average yet hilariously extraordinary suburban California families. When the pilot episode launches, we're quickly introduced to the Dunphy clan: parents Phil (Ty Burrell) and Claire (Julie Bowen), with kids Haley (Sarah Hyland), Alex (Ariel Winter), and son Luke (Nolan Gould). Then there's older husband Jay Pritchett (Ed O'Neill), his knockout young wife Gloria (Sofia Vergara), and son Manny (Rico Rodriguez). The couple Mitchell Pritchett (Tyler Ferguson) and Cam Tucker (Eric Stonestreet) round out the show's family picture.

By the series' conclusion, eldest Dunphy daughter Haley somewhat uncharacteristically decides to ditch a fashion industry career to settle down and have children with long-time love interest Dylan (Reid Ewing). But the truth is, at the moment doofus boyfriend Dylan arrives at the Dunphy household to meet the folks in the pilot, little Alex, a precocious grade-schooler at the time, actually seems to foretell the end of Haley's series-long narrative arc.

After seeing Haley and Dylan together and being well acquainted with her older sister's affinity for parties and boys, Alex asks if this means Haley will now be getting pregnant. And while Alex's perceptive prognostication doesn't actually come true for another eleven seasons of "Modern Family," her prediction does validate the venerable old saying, "From the mouths of babes..."

In the early going of "Modern Family," Sarah Hyland's Haley Dunphy seems to be on screen to fulfill the standard sitcom trope of the archetypal scatter-brained, guy-crazed teen beauty. As time and seasons of the show go by, however, Haley grows into a character who is increasingly seen as street smart, artistically inclined, and deeply caring when it comes to her family. So, it's less than surprising that some fans complained when she eventually decides to forego independence to get married and have twins with good ol' Dylan.

But the fact is, Alex's entirely rational, common-sense question in the pilot perfectly foreshadows how Sarah's character is depicted in the show's initial seasons. In asking whether her older sister will be embarking on a sexually active lifestyle as soon as the teen girl brings home a boyfriend, Alex sketches the outlines of the stereotypical ditzy-daughter personality type that will inform Sarah's character until much later in the series. And while we don't know if the show's execs had Haley's ultimate fate in mind when the "Modern Family" pilot was written, Alex's pointed query in that first episode does seem to imbue her with an uncanny sense of plot-appropriate clairvoyance.