'Modern Family' actor signs up for 'Horror'

Sorry Modern Family fans, but there won't be any new episodes tonight since the Country Music Awards will be airing on ABC. But don't fret since a member of the family will be paying a visit to American Horror Story tonight at 10 p.m. ET on FX.

That's right, Eric Stonestreet, who plays Cam on Modern Family, will appear as Dr. Ben Harmon's newest patient. In the "Piggy, Piggy" ep, Stonestreet plays Derek, a man terrified of urban legends - especially the one about a dead butcher who wears a pig's head and appears after you recite his name in the mirror. As opposed to his normally fastidious Cam, Derek is a disheveled mess who can't even sleep with the lights out.

So far we've seen that Ben is one lousy shrink since all of his patients end up crazy or dead. Which will be Stonestreet's Derek's fate, or will it be something entirely different? You'll have to tune in to see.

Meanwhile, "Piggy, Piggy" delves more into the background of Tate (Evan Peters) after the shocking revelations in last week's "Halloween (Part 2)."

In fact, in this week's opening sequence - one of the series' most disturbing, for non-haunted reasons - gives more background on the group of mangled teens we met on the beach in the last episode. The scene sets the tone for the episode, because the horror and fears of the living trump the presence of the dead in "Piggy, Piggy."

Depression, anxieties of parents, broken marriages, phobias and seeking closure with loved ones are all themes we see in the episode - and it demonstrates that the show is good even when it's not always trying to scare us half to death.