The "Modern Family" Creators Explained The Show's Ending And It Might Answer Some Of Your Questions

From explaining the final scene to the alternative storylines they had for the characters. Warning: This post contains spoilers!

In case you didn't know, Modern Family came to an end last night after 11 years on the air.

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🚨 🚨 🚨This post contains spoilers, so if you haven't yet watched the series finale and don't want to be spoiled, STOP READING NOW! 🚨 🚨 🚨

The final episode was an emotional goodbye to the characters we've come to know and love over the last decade.

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The finale saw Phil and Claire becoming empty-nesters after Alex announced a new job in Switzerland, Luke got into college, and Haley and Dylan found their own home.

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Mitch and Cam welcomed a second baby, before deciding to move to Missouri where Cam had landed a dream coaching job.

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Meanwhile, Jay surprised Gloria by revealing that he'd learned Spanish and would join her on her annual summer trip home to South America, and Manny decided to head off on a yearlong trip around the globe.

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The final half-hour was devoted to lots of goodbyes — with scenes between Claire and Mitch, the Dunphy kids as well as Claire and Phil — and many group hugs.

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But perhaps the most poignant moment was this final shot.

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Earlier in the episode, Claire lamented the children leaving and asked Phil what they were going to do now. He responded: "What people have always done — leave the porch light on. They come back."

The show closed out with an evening exterior shot of the three family homes with the lights going off. After a brief pause, the Dunphy porch light turned back on — a moving nod to Phil's earlier comment.

Well, the creators of the show, Christopher Lloyd and Steve Levitan, have now broken down the season finale, giving fans some behind-the-scenes details about their decision-making process.

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Here's what we learned from two interviews they gave with Deadline and Entertainment Weekly.

The creators were adamant about having the family go off on new journeys to allow the audience to imagine their futures — so having a flash-forward scene or episode was off the table pretty much immediately.

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"I think there was a pitch that there was a shot from the future," Levitan told Deadline. "Ultimately we decided not to do that. What we tried to do was let the audience know that there were good things in store for these characters and let their imaginations fill in the rest."

Lloyd agreed, adding: "Flash-forward seemed like a terrible idea to me because that’s science fiction where you’re time traveling, so we didn’t go too far down that road."

And part of the reason so many of the characters were physically leaving was to create farewell scenes and give the audience a chance to say goodbye too.

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"We needed everyone to have a chance to say goodbye to the family — a joint goodbye to this unit that they have really come to lean on and that they know will never be in the same constitution again," Lloyd told Deadline.

He added: "And in so doing it, it gives the audience a chance to say goodbye to the family as a whole, too. This group — they’ll be around each other, in each other’s lives, but it will never be a day-to-day solid unit again after this moment."

They also thought long and hard about which characters to pair for particularly poignant goodbyes — and were especially pleased with the Dunphy kids having their moment.

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"We chose to give space in the episode for several pairings," Lloyd told Deadline. "But we had to choose which goodbyes we wanted to give the spotlight to. I think it was nice to have the kids — the kids who have been through a lot of adventures together — to give them a private moment."

There were some alternative storylines they considered for each character's ending.

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Lloyd told Entertainment Weekly that they tossed around the idea of having Jay and Gloria move to Columbia, as well as the possibility of Jay giving up work to become a full-time father to Joe. They also considered sending Alex off to Switzerland in a full-blown relationship, but decided just hinting at a possible romance was more in keeping with her character.

The final group hug was so emotional, it had to be reshot.

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There were scripted lines in the scene, including: "I don't want to let go," which apparently hit far too close to home for literally everyone on set.

"There was a take where the emotion just sprung out of everyone in kind of an overwrought way," Lloyd told Entertainment Weekly. "It was absolutely genuine to the people who happen to be actors playing these roles, but it seemed a little too much ... So we asked them to do it one more time … and it was the last take that we wound up using, which is a little bit more measured."

The image of the porch light at the end of the episode wasn't a hint at a possible show reunion further down the track, but a reference to the characters coming together again in the minds of the audience.

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"The intention of that image was to make people imagine that the family will reunite," Lloyd told Entertainment Weekly. "Families disperse, but they come back together at various times. It seemed a hopeful final image."

And, finally, a potential spinoff wasn't part of the decision to send Mitch and Cam off to Missouri, but the option hasn't been ruled out entirely.

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"We wanted to have them off on a new journey, and it seemed symmetrical to have Mitchell follow Cam some place and maybe be around Cam’s family because Cam had played that role in Mitchell’s life for the last 11 years," Lloyd told Deadline.

When asked whether that meant a spinoff exploring their move might happen, he responded: "It does present a possibility for us. 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."

You can read the full Deadline interview here, and the full Entertainment Weekly interview here.