The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – ABC

Created by Christopher Lloyd and Steve Levitan

Theme music by Gabriel Mann

• 001. Pilot – 9/23/2009
  • Told in mockumentary style, we meet three seemingly unrelated Los Angeles families. The first is Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell) and his wife Claire (Julie Bowen) and their three kids Haley (Sarah Hyland), Alex (Ariel Winter), and Luke (Nolan Gould). Haley is a sophomore and has just invited a senior named Dylan Marshall (Reid Elwing) to visit her at their home, causing much worry in her parents. Meanwhile Luke has shot Alex with his rubber BB gun and as promised, Phil has to retaliate by shooting him. He ends up not being able to pull the trigger on his son, but then accidentally shoots Luke, Dylan, and himself. The second family is led by Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill), who has just married a much younger Colombian woman named Gloria Delgado (Sofia Vergara), who has a fifth grader named Manny (Rico Rodriguez). Manny plays soccer but is more interested in girls, and writes a poem for a 16-year old. Jay tries to discourage him, but he presents it to her only to find that she has a boyfriend. The third family is comprised of gay lovers Mitchell Pritchett (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron Tucker (Eric Stonestreet) who had just adopted a baby named Lily (Jada Hiller and Ella Hiller) from Vietnam. They end up all coming together in the end to reveal that Mitchell and Claire are the children of Jay from a previous marriage. Although Jay discourages the adoption, he decides to support his son once he realizes they have already adopted the baby. 11/16/14

• 002. The Bicycle Thief – 9/30/2009
  • The characters discuss what it means to be a good father. Phil ignores Claire’s opinion that Luke is too young to get his own bike, and purchases him a nice one with the understanding that he will be responsible. On his way home, Phil notices the bike parked on the sidewalk and not locked up, and takes it in order to teach Luke a lesson. On his way he encounters new neighbor Desiree (Brandy Ledford) – whom Claire thinks is a slut – locked out of her house and helps her by climbing and entering through her bedroom…at which time the bike is stolen. Phil buys another bike, but when he gets home, he is surprised to find that Alex’s bike is there, and Desiree brings the other – now third – bike that someone had put in her garage, much to his embarrassment in front of Claire. Meanwhile, Jay reluctantly works on bonding with Manny by putting a fan together, but is irritated to hear him constantly rave about his father, who then doesn’t show up to take him to Disneyland. Jay hires a limo, and he and Gloria take him instead. Mitchell and Cameron take Lily to a kids class, and Mitchell asks Cameron to be less flamboyant, but when two other gay fathers attend and are popular, Cameron gets his chance to let loose and dance. Julia Lehman is Danielle, the daycare instructor. 12/11/14
• 003. Come Fly with Me – 10/7/2009
  • When Phil tries unsuccessfully to bond with Dylan, Claire notes that Phil has never bonded with her father. Phil visits Jay to hang out much to Jay’s irritation. He ends up letting Phil help with his remote control airplane and then purposely crashes it into Phil’s face. Meanwhile, Alex rebels against wearing a dress to an upcoming wedding because it make her look too much like Haley. Gloria ends up taking her shopping and opening up with her, convincing that boys will notice her more if she dresses pretty. Manny counsels his step-sister Claire, who is having trouble handling Alex’s rebellion. Cameron convinces Mitchell to put aside his snobbish attitude and go shopping with him at Costco, and Mitchell becomes upset with it. Jay is confronted by Claire and Gloria about never telling Phil that he likes him, so in the end Phil, Cameron, and Manny all end up in a group hug with Jay. 12/11/14
• 004. The Incident – 10/14/2009
  • Claire and Mitchell’s mother DeDe (Shelley Long) comes to visit and enlist Mitchell’s help in apologizing to Jay and Gloria for the scene she caused at their wedding when she became progressively drunker and ended up insulting them during her toast. Meanwhile Haley wants to attend an overnight concert with er boyfriend Dylan, and Claire agrees to at least attempt to get to know him before saying no. Jay allows Mitchell to let his mother come to their family dinner, with the stipulation that he pretends that Jay had no idea. DeDe delivers a heartfelt apology but it soon spirals into her attacking Gloria. Dylan is the voice of reason and gets the family to come together…and Claire and Phil almost fall under his spell, until he croons them a catchy folk song that has highly sexual overtones. Manny takes revenge on a his friends by setting one of their bikes on fire after they draw a beard on him during a slumber party. 1/24/15
• 005. Coal Digger – 10/21/2009
  • Manny and Luke get into a fight at school when Manny refers to Luke as his nephew, causing both sets of parents to get called in to see Principal Balaban (Andrew Borba). Tension between Gloria and Claire intensifies, especially after Luke lets it slip that Claire referred to Gloria once as a “coal digger.” Meanwhile, Jay bonds with Cameron over an Ohio State football game, although Mitchell has no interest in the game but tries to bone up on it in order to bond with both of them. Phil tries to smooth things over with Gloria and ends up covered in her underwear, but it is ultimately Claire’s willingness to jump fully clothed into the pool at the family barbecue as a symbol of her apology that makes Gloria forgive her. The entire family winds up in the pool as well. 1/25/15
• 006. Run for Your Wife – 10/28/2009
  • Phil and Claire send the kids off on the first day of school, Luke already behind on his homework, and Alex with a giant cello. Haley is working on driver’s education after school. Claire wants time alone at home to read and run, but Phil asks to run with her. When Claire says that she’s faster, Phil challenges her to a race. Claire lets him win, but Phil is hit by Haley during he driving class. Manny head off for school wearing a Colombian poncho, but Jay talks him out of it when he drops him off. Gloria makes him return the poncho to the school, but when Manny says he is going to play the pan flute for the class, Gloria has Jay smash it. Mitchell and Cameron take Lily to the hospital after Mitchell bangs her head in a door jam. Cameron convinces him that they are still good fathers, and then proceed to lock Lily in the car…which is finally opened remotely by a car service. Suzy Nakamura is Dr. Miura. 11/16/14
• 007. En Garde – 11/4/2009
  • Manny is excelling in fencing and advances to the championship, and Jay couldn’t be more proud. It stirs up feelings in Mitchell that he was unable to win his trophy in figure skating because his skating partner Claire quit before they had their opportunity. Claire and Phil are also curious what their children are the ‘best’ at – especially Luke. Phil tries practicing baseball with him with disappointing results, but soon figures out that Luke is great at helping him sell houses. But while trying to prove that a house is kid-friendly, Luke falls on the slippery floors and claims to see a ghost, so they ultimately return to baseball where Luke is able to finally throw one ball to his dad. Cam pushes Claire and Mitchell to talk about his resentment and soon Mitchell admits that he misses being on the same side as her. They do their routine in the parking lot of the school where Manny’s championship is taking place. Manny nearly ‘retires’ from fencing because he doesn’t want to compete against a girl, Caroline Markham (Alexandra Park). His parents tell him that it would be an insult to women not to compete and imply he should give it his all. However it becomes uncomfortable for Jay and Gloria to watch Manny mercilessly defeat her after her nurse Denise (Mo Collins) tells them how Caroline has lost her parents and is diabetic. Nolan North and Amy Landers are Donald and Krista Flum. 3/13/15
• 008. Great Expectations – 11/18/2009
  • It’s Phil and Claire’s anniversary and after Phil has flowers delivered and gives her a nice bracelet, Phil only gets coupons for five free hugs. Claire realizes that she needs to get him something else so she hires Izzy LaFontaine (Edward Norton), former bass player from Spandau Ballet to sing for him privately. Phil has no idea who he is. Jay and Gloria host “Jay’s Night” for the grandkids, and agree to watch Lily so Cam and Mitchell can go out. Haley wants to get out of it and go to a party with friends, especially since Manny stares at her constantly because he has a crush on her. Luke fears Jay is dying. Cam and Mitchell meet up with their uninhibited friend Sal (Elizabeth Banks), who gets so tired of hearing about Lily that she mentions killing her several times and refers to her as “Yoko.” The guys feel she is suffering from ‘second child syndrome.’ Jay ends up letting Haley go to the party and Dylan comes to pick her up, but Dylan has more fun staying at Jay’s Night. Izzy realizes that Phil doesn’t know Spandau Ballet, and Phil has to admit that True is not their theme song, but rather If You Leave, so Phil makes True their new song. 3/13/15
• 009. Fizbo – 11/25/2009
  • Jay rushes to the hospital to visit an unknown person for an unknown reason, that if which is revealed in flashback. Feeling bad that they’ve largely ignored Luke’s birthday in the past, his parents decide to throw him a party. Phil goes all out with wild animals, a rock climbing wall, and a bounce house. Claire however sets up a craft booth to make a comb sheath, much to Phil’s condescending amusement. Cameron insists on coming as Fizbo the clown, which terrifies Phil. It also irritates Mitchell until Fizbo sticks up for him against a bully (Stacey Hinnen) at the gas station. Manny has a crush on a girl at the party named Bianca (Kaitlyn Dever), and gets advice from Jay to be the ‘funny guy’ which fails. Haley gets jealous of Dylan flirting with Jungle Tanya (Margo Harshman) and sets her scorpion free. When Fizbo sees it, he runs screaming, causing Jay to fire the crossbow he is giving Luke into the bounce house, and ultimately causes Luke to fall on the comb sheath beads, breaking his arm and winding up in the hospital. The attention he gets makes it all worthwhile. Manny rescues Bianca – and her balloon dog – from the bounce house and she keeps calling him. 6/1/15
• 010. Undeck the Halls – 12/9/2009
  • As the Dunphy family to talk to Phil’s father Frank (Fred Willard) via Skype, Claire discovers a cigarette burn in the couch and demands that the kid who did it fess up. When none will talk, Phil cancels Christmas. The girls coax Luke into admitting it, but soon he recants. Finally Alex fesses up to trying a cigarette and Christmas is back on, but they soon realize that the sun shining through a tree ornament is the real culprit for the burn… so Phil promised to make up for over-reacting by taking everyone to Italy. Meanwhile Cameron and Mitchell get a sub-par department store Santa named Scott (Brian T. Finney) fired, but feel bad enough to invite him to their house for Christmas Eve dinner. After a nice evening, Scott confesses he knew what they had done, and was teaching them about forgiveness. Cameron tries to exercise that forgiveness with the carolers The New Greensleevers, who had thrown him out of the group… but when caroler Andrew (Jeremy Scott Johnson) insults him, Scott punches him out. Jay struggles to adapt to Manny’s Columbian Christmas rituals, during which pranks are played on each other and fireworks are set off, but ends up doing his best to accommodate. 6/2/15
• 011. Up All Night – 1/6/2010
  • The kids all tell the documentarian the most irritating their parents have said, all of which are repeated in the episode. Manny’s father Javier (Benjamin Bratt) shows up to visit with him a day late. Jay is annoyed with Javier’s responsibility and can’t understand how he had seduced Gloria in the first place. Soon Javier has won over Jay when he takes him to a baseball park to practice hitting a curve ball, and takes him on a motorcycle ride. But Javier eventually disappoints Jay as well when he fails to show up to take him out with his baseball friends. Meanwhile Phil has a kidney stone and is taken to the hospital, but notices that Claire is dressing up for the firemen who come to take him. She finally admits this to him in case it’s the last thing she ever tells him before his operation. He thinks that he will owe her a big favor in the future to make up for it… until he is caught showing magic tricks to two hot girls Doris (Stacy Fuson) and Elaine (Kelsea Button) and their mother (Shawn Huff). Mitchell and Cameron argue because Mitchell wants to “Ferberize” Lily, that is to let her cry herself to sleep. Cameron has too big of a heart for that and it leads to them physically fighting, and Mitchell spraining his ankle. They agree to both be the bad guy sometimes, and they call the ambulance to take away Mitchell so that they can see the firemen. 7/24/15
• 012. Not in My House – 1/13/2010
  • Claire finds a picture of a topless woman on a tractor one of the laptops in the house and assumes that it was Luke who was looking at it. It was actually Phil who received it in an email from a friend, but he is afraid to confess, and instead says that he will talk to Luke. Haley believes that Alex has been reading her journal but it was actually Luke. When Luke confesses to Claire that he looked at the journal, she believes he is talking about the photo, causing Phil’s cover to be blown. Meanwhile Jay brings home a dog statue dressed like a butler that Gloria can’t stand and tries to discard. Mitchell gets angry at Cameron for trying too hard to help everyone when Cameron take in their crying gardener (Eddie Diaz) who only speaks Spanish and causes Mitchell to miss a Russian Marionette show. Mitchell talks to his father about it, and he convinces Mitchell – and himself – that they are both different from their partners…which is good. Mitchell returns to apologize and finds that the gardener’s wedding is taking place in their house. 7/24/15
• 013. Fifteen Percent – 1/20/2010
  • Cameron runs into Jay with his friends, to whom Jay introduces him as Mitchell’s ‘friend’. Mitchell confronts Jay, and also tells him that Jay’s friend Shorty (Chazz Palminteri) is gay. Although Jay can’t believe it, he eventually comes to accept it and offers Shorty to help him through it. It turns out however that Shorty is not gay, but in gambling debt of $20,000, an amount that Jay now feels himself indebted to help with. Meanwhile Claire cannot figure out Phil’s home system set-up and destroys the remote. Phil guarantees that he can teach the system to Haley, and eventually succeeds, making Clair feel dumb and seeking out the help of Haley to learn. Manny meets a girl named Whitney (Kristen Schaal) online and they meet for a date, although it turns out that Whitney is quite homely… and in her thirties. Gloria ends up giving her a makeover. Cameron is embarrassed when flowers he complained to a florist about seem to revive themselves. He tries to microwave them before the florist arrives to exchange them, but they burst into flames. He delivers the flowers to Gloria as thanks for watching Lily. Whitney meets Cam and thinks he might just be ‘the one’. 10/18/15
• 014. Moon Landing – 2/3/2010
  • Claire meets up with an old co-worker named Valerie (Minnie Driver), who is now quite successful and clearly pities Claire for giving up her career for her family. Claire brings her home to show off the family but finds Phil wearing a fake mustache locked in a port-a-let, Haley and Dylan in an explosive argument after breaking up followed by them kissing passionately on the stairs, a house that reeks of alcohol after Alex and Luke bring home bottles to recycle, and a loose rat in the house. Claire blows up at them, but is pleased when she returns home and the family acts like nothing has happened. Meanwhile Jay plays racquetball with Cam, but when they accidentally touch bare butts in the locker room, Jay finds it hard to concentrate. Jay later does the same thing with a stranger (Brian Oerly) and assumes it is Cam, and gets carried away with rubbing his butt on the stranger’s back. Mitchell agrees to represent Gloria in court after a car accident, which Manny privately insists that his mother caused. Gloria gets angry when Mitchell questions her, thinking that he is stereotyping Latinos as bad drivers. But when she leaves in a huff and crashes the car into the building, she is forced to re-enlist his services. Blake Gibbons is a construction worker. 10/19/15
• 015. My Funky Valentine – 2/10/2010
  • Feeling upstaged when Dylan give Haley a large painting that he has created from a photograph of them in bed, Phil decides to up the ante on his Valentines Day date with Claire by taking her to a hotel and role-playing that he is visiting businessman “Clive Bixby” and picking her up. Things become disastrous when Claire gets her coat caught in a hotel escalator with her naked underneath. They end up running into Phil’s co-workers Tom Mickleson (Bruno Oliver), Principal Balaban, and Luke’s math teacher Pamela Passwater (Ariane Price). Meanwhile Jay takes Gloria out to see comedian David Brenner (himself), who ends up making fun of Jay’s age during the performance, causing him to leave the show with self doubts. Gloria assuages his concerns and then rescues Claire when they too run into them. Cameron and Mitchell skip their date when Mitchell has an important law case, but doesn’t end up being able to use his perfect speech. Instead he and Cam accompany Manny to a restaurant to confront Manny’s fellow student Ted Durkas (Jackson Odell) who stole Manny’s poem and presented it as his own to Manny’s crush Fiona (Rylee Fansler). Cam uses his original speech to get Ted to admit it, but Fiona is still touched that Ted went to so much trouble. 12/25/15
• 016. Fears – 3/3/2010
  • When a cable guy references a ‘great collection’ in the Dunphy crawl space, Phil and Luke fantasize about what might be down there and finally decide to check it out. Phil ends up too scared to go in, so they send Luke’s remote-control truck in there which gets stuck, followed by Luke who also gets stuck. Phil has no choice but to follow and they end up finding skeleton bones… which turn out to be old Halloween decorations. Meanwhile Gloria tries to get Manny to face his fear of riding a rollercoaster and tricks both him and Jay into getting on one. Mitchell and Cam freak out when Lily calls out “Mommy” to her pediatrician Dr. Miura when she visits them for dinner. After freaking out, they end up comforted when they figure out that one of her dolls also calls out for “Mommy.” Haley takes her driving test for the third time with the crotchety instructor Mr. Jenkins (Dale E. Turner), and manages to scrape by. Alex is scared to go to a school dance, fearing that no boy will ask her to dance. 12/25/15
• 017. Truth Be Told – 3/10/2010
  • Jay attempts to force an inspirational poster onto Manny, but while hanging it in his room, it falls on Manny’s turtle Shel Turtlestein and kills him. Jay makes up a lie about a raccoon getting into the room and killing the turtle, but Gloria can see right through him and tries to persuade him to tell Manny the truth. When Manny starts to feel guilty about the death, Jay finally confesses… although Manny already knows that the raccoon story was a lie. Jay tells him that he just didn’t want to screw up their relationship. Meanwhile Phil plans a meeting with an old girlfriend named Denise (Judy Greer), which he assumes is innocent. When Clair starts to get jealous, Phil invites Denise over, and Claire realizes that she was wrong about Denise. However Phil then realizes that Denise does in fact have intentions to have an affair. The whole encounter is put to a stop when Claire realizes that Phil had actually been dating them both at the same time as he transitioned from Denise to Claire. In trying to get revenge on Luke for making fun of her, Alex tells Luke that Denise is his real mother. Mitchell is called in on a Saturday and nearly gets caught lambasting his boss Mr. Jennings (Bruce Altman) as he drives into work and pulls up next to him. When Jennings insists that Mitchell come in on the Sunday as well, Mitchell stand up for himself and quits. He nearly has a nervous breakdown after doing so but Cam convinces him he did the right thing… and Jay offers him the motivational poster to help get him through it. 2/28/16
• 018. Starry Night – 3/24/2010
  • Jay and Mitchell plan their traditional night under the stars to watch a meteor shower, but Jay brings along Manny, who, acting on Jay’s advice about brothers, continually insults Mitchell, who ends up getting sprayed with a skunk. Jay confesses to Mitchell that he only brought Manny along because Manny had not been invited to a kids party he wanted to attend, and he knew that Mitchell was sensitive enough to talk to him. Meanwhile Clair has to help Haley prepare cupcakes for school, and assigns Phil to oversee Luke’s Vincent Van Gogh project for school. Alex maintains that Luke has ADHD, and it becomes clear that he gets it from Phil, who is distracted by a loose arm on the computer chair, then a flickering garage light, and a found pair of sunglasses, and stops helping Luke. To everyone’s surprise Luke emerges from his room with a completed Van Gogh project, but later Alex learns that part of his oral project includes talk of invading aliens. Clair throws away the cupcakes she made, and insists that Haley make her own…which are terrible. Cam wants to spend the evening with Gloria because he feels he always says the wrong thing around her. They end up at a Latin restaurant where he gets violently sick after eating a spicy dish to impress her. They end up bonding anyway… shortly before his car wheels are stolen in the neighborhood where Gloria grew up. 2/28/16
• 019. Game Changer – 3/31/2010
  • Phil is excited that the new iPad is being released on his birthday, and Claire offers to line up early to get it for him as his birthday treat. When she oversleeps, a disappointed Phil heads to the batting cages where he expects a surprise party, but there only ends up being one for a kid also named Phil (Tyrel Jackson Williams). Phil hangs out at the party and then heads home feeling numb. Meanwhile Mitchell hears another voice on Lily’s baby monitor and gets scared and has Cam check the room. It turns out to be an intercepted signal, but Mitchell feels wimpy and turns to his father for some fighting tips, and ends up falling unconscious when Jay puts him in a headlock. Clair exhausts any means she can to find Phil the iPad, but comes up short when she is arrested in line after Mitchell tries to put a man (Jason Antoon) in a headlock for cutting in line. Jay feels swindled when Manny lets him win in chess, and then during a rematch beats Jay again and takes his watch. Jay and Gloria then square off in chess, but Gloria allows Jay to end the game before she wins, feeling like a good wife. Luke ends up coming through with the iPad by telling Phil’s friends that Phil has a terminal disease and getting one from one of them. Cam listens in on the neighbors on the baby monitor, and eventually recognizes that a misunderstanding between them threatens to break them up. He rushes to their aid and tells them about what is going on, leaving them wondering who the creepy guy is who has been eavesdropping. 5/23/16
• 020. Benched – 4/14/2010
  • Gloria and Phil take issue with the way Manny and Luke’s basketball Coach Stupak (Eric Lange) uses such abusive motivation on the team. When Phil confronts him, Jay butts in and really ticks off the Coach, causing him to quit. Phil is ready to take over the duties, but Jay steps in and takes over the team, becoming more and more frustrated at their ineptitude. Jay eventually eats crow and turns the team over to Phil… who really doesn’t do any better. Unbeknownst to each other, Cam and Mitchell are both dying to return to their original roles of Mitchell as bread winner and Cam as the stay-at-home parent, so when the opportunity arises for Mitchell to meet with Charlie Bingham (Justin Kirk), who is looking for an environmental lawyer, they both jump at the opportunity. At a party at Bingham’s house, Cam is so clumsy and annoying that Mitchell has to pull him away and talk. They find out their true feelings and celebrate, but manage to get locked in the garage, and accidentally activate the driveway turn-around carousel and damage Bingham’s car. Meanwhile Claire and Gloria babysit Lily and lament the days of having little kids, Gloria having been asked by Manny to stay away from his games and Claire clearly being a subject of embarrassment to Alex at the mall where she is meeting up with friends. Alex ends up apologizing to Claire before borrowing money for shopping with her friends, but Claire still takes the opportunity to embarrass her by mentioning her training bra in front of the friends. Stoney Jackson is the referee. 5/23/16
• 021. Travels with Scout – 4/28/2010
  • Phil’s father Frank comes to visit and drop off his new dog Scout, whom he found out Phil’s mother is allergic to, much to the chagrin of Claire who is tired of the constant jokes and superficial relationship between Phil and Frank. Meanwhile Jay runs into Mitchell’s old actor friend Ben Dugan (Christopher Shea) and finds out that he is in a movie called Maple Drive, so he takes Manny to go see it, not knowing that it is a horror film. Consequently Manny becomes terrified of everything, so Jay invites Ben over. However this scares Manny even more when he sees Ben with the prop machete. When the Brian (Ben Le Jeune), the drummer from Dylan’s band quits because he is moving, Cam offers to step in and play with them. Dylan and his friends Craig (Joshua Doswell) and Neil (Ben Seaward) are surprised to see how well he plays. He steps in to play the gig despite Mitchell’s disapproval, and turns out to play so well, that Mitchell is proud of him and stays for the whole show… which runs on forever because Cam hogs the spotlight with drum solos. Cam thinks he is going to become a permanent member of the band, until Brian returns and re-claims his spot. When Claire catches Frank crying, she tells Phil to talk to him because she thinks he and Phil’s mother have separated. It turns out that Frank has merely become attached to the dog and doesn’t want to leave him. Phil insists that his father take the dog… which upsets Claire, who has now become attached to Scout as well. 8/25/16
• 022. Airport 2010 – 5/5/2010
  • Gloria gets Jay a surprise trip to Maui for his birthday, but the trip begins to look less and less attractive to him when she invites the whole family to go, they’ve planned activities including hiking and putting on a show for him, Luke smashes his Kindle, and all of this is at his expense. When Cam and Mitchell arrive at the airport, Mitchell realizes he forgot his wallet and blames Mitchell for not helping get ready. Phil drives Mitchell back home to get the wallet and they have to break in because Mitchell has also forgot his keys. Meanwhile Dylan has gotten locked inside the Dunphy house because he fell asleep in Haley’s room and didn’t get out before they left for the trip. When he leaves, the alarm goes off and Phil has attend to that too, while Mitchell gets frustrated with Phil’s slow driving. Phil tells Mitchell that he should have made it clear that he wanted Cam’s help, while Claire, who is getting drunk because she is scared to fly, tells Cam that he needs to be more intuitive to Mitchell’s needs. Jay confesses that he is upset because he thinks that by inviting the while family, Gloria doesn’t want to spend time with him alone. Manny is questioned by airport security (Tom Wright) because someone by his name is on the no-fly list. Haley has a crush on a boy named Jeff Jackson (Patrick Stafford) who she spots at the airport and finally flirts with, only to find that he is only 14 much to Alex’s amusement. Phil and Mitchell make it back just in time, to the delight of Claire, who embraces him and then passes out, and Cam, who both gives and gets an apology for that morning’s events. Jay finds out that the family is flying back after six days so that she and Jay can be alone for the rest… and she’s also found him a topless beach. 8/25/16 
• 023. Hawaii – 5/12/2010
  • Since the Dunphys never had a proper honeymoon, Phil is determined to make their Hawaii vacation romantic, even though the kid are along. He goes to great lengths to ditch the kids, even if it means allowing Haley to go to a party with some other kids. She ends up getting drunk, and Claire then has to tend to her. Jay is hellbent on relaxation until his brother reminds him their father died at his age. He then decides to start working out, which annoys Gloria. Manny and Luke share their own room, and Luke gets irritated with Manny being a neatness freak. Cam gets annoyed because Mitchell tries to keep them busy doing activities when all Cam wants to do is relax. Cam finally tells him this and refuses to go along on a trip to a lavender ranch. When Mitchell returns, he finally is convinced to relax, and after a note feels so relaxed that he and Cam leave Lily on the elevator. Jay ends up throwing his back out, and when Phil tries to help him out of a hammock winds up on top of him for quite a while. Mitch and Cam end up compromising and working on a banana farm where they lose Lily again. After all of Phil’s failed attempts, he is able to pull off having their vows renewed. Laki Kaahumanu is the wedding officiant. Jason Sadang is the ukulele player. 11/12/16
• 024. Family Portrait – 5/19/2010
  • Claire arranges to have an extended family portrait made with everyone wearing white, but then begins obsessing over the crooked step on the stairs in their house where she was going to have everyone pose. She attempts to fix it herself but ends up making it worse. Meanwhile Phil and Gloria take Alex and Manny to the Lakers game, and when the kiss cam lands on them, Gloria finally just gives him a kiss. When Claire tries to call Phil to ask him about the step, she sees him on TV ignore her call. Phil thinks she is angry because of the kiss, not knowing about the call. Cam sings at a wedding but Mitchell refuses to attend because he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. While Cam is gone, a pigeon gets in the house and Mitchell nearly destroys the house trying to get it out. Luke interviews Jay for a school project about people who lived through the 60’s. Jay ends up telling Luke about multiple famous people who lies and says he knew. When it comes time to take the picture, Claire beings to freak out in front of the photographer (Sean Smith) when everyone keeps arguing during the session. Jay finally lays into both Claire and Mitchell for being so uptight about everything and ends up throwing mud at Claire. This leads to a mud fight between everyone, and that is what is ultimately captured in the photo. Claire loves the photo, but is still uptight about hanging it up straight. Kobe Bryant appears as himself. 11/12/16

SEASON 2

• 025. The Old Wagon – 9/22/2010
  • Claire pesters Phil to sell their 1983 station wagon that is never used, but only by saying that he won’t be able to sell it is he challenged to do so. However as they begin to clean it up, Claire becomes emotional with the items found inside as it brings back so many memories. Phil tries to make her feel better by turning the car into a ‘Time Machine’ and going on a picnic with their kids. However old problems with the kids and the car re-surface ultimately causing the car to fall off a cliff. They realize that the laughs this brings the kids are part of new memories being made. Meanwhile Cam is petrified of letting Mitchell use power tool to help build Lily’s Princess Castle, so he brings Jay over to assist. Mitchell gets his feelings hurt and storms off when he finds out, and then tries to build it himself, which results with him getting locked inside. Gloria becomes resentful of Manny’s new girlfriend Kelly (Callie Thompson) when he seems to take her advice over his mother’s. She is gratified when he breaks it off with her for being too demanding, but then gets angry when he moves on to the next girl so quickly, thinking that he’s acting like a man and discarding women too quickly. 2/19/17
• 026. The Kiss – 9/29/2010
  • Cam gets irritated when Mitchell snubs him during a kiss attempt in public, which leads to them bickering. Meanwhile Jay makes fun of Gloria for thinking that her grandmother’s ghost is present in their house. Jay reluctantly calls Phil to come help install a printer when he can’t get it to work. Phil spends four hours trying to get it to work, after Manny and Luke throw away a picture of Gloria’s grandmother when it spits out of the printer, thinking that it might be her ghost. Claire finds a flirtatious text in Alex’s phone, but Alex won’t talk to her about it, so Claire asks Haley to find out about it. Haley ends up pressuring Alex that she should have already kissed her crush Jeremy Reed (Aaron Sanders). Alex decides to put it on the line and ask him for a kiss, but she inadvertently asks in front of his friends which embarrasses both of them. The families all get together at Jay’s house just as Phil finishes the printer. Jay’s lack of appreciation opens up Gloria, Mitchell, and Claire accusing Jay of withholding affection from his kids, leading to Mitchell’s coldness in public. Jay is forced to prove himself by giving Mitchell and Claire a kiss. Claire finally admits the indiscretions of her youth and tells Alex that the embarrassment will pass. Jeremy comes to see Alex and tells her that he would have accepted her offer if his friends weren’t there, but Alex decides they should get to know each other first. Phil has a gag reflex to paint. 2/19/17
• 027. Earthquake – 10/6/2010
  • An earthquake affects all of the families, as Claire gets stuck in the bathroom with a plumber (Vic Polizos). Instead of trying to help them out, Phil frantically tries to secure a fallen shelf to the wall, which he had told Claire that he had already done, and consequently it had almost hit Luke during the quake. Haley fights with Claire and accuses her of being a control freak when she won’t let Haley take a break with her friends while studying for SAT’s. Alex tattles on her when she tries to leave, but covers for Phil when he gets caught trying to anchor the shelf. Cam and Mitchell use the earthquake as an opportunity to cancel out on a masquerade brunch with their annoying friend Pepper Saltzman (Nathan Lane). Their lies backfire when Pepper comes to visit, and when Cam can’t keep his true feelings about the brunch to himself, Mitchell is forced to tell further lies to spare his feelings, indicating that he is jealous that Cam has feelings for Pepper. Gloria thinks that the earthquake is a sign from God when Jay opts to go golfing instead of church. When Manny joins him, Jay tells him his true atheist feelings. 6/12/17
• 028. Strangers on a Treadmill – 10/13/2010
  • Phil is preparing to deliver a speech at the SCARB – Southern California Annual Real Estate Banquet – and Claire doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he isn’t funny. Meanwhile Cam begins exercising, and Mitchell doesn’t want to tell him that he looks terrible in his bicycle shorts. Mitchell and Claire agree to do the dirty deeds for each other, and while Claire goes through with telling Cam, Mitchell can’t go through with telling Phil. Mitchell insists that he doesn’t feel the same as Claire, but Cam overhears him talking to Claire. Mitchell makes it up with Cam by agreeing to shave off his beard to please Cam, but Cam stops him after he takes a chunk out of it. Claire steals Phil’s notes at the SCARB, but Phil kills the performance anyway, impressing Claire and teaching her a lesson. Jay agrees to attend an a Quincenara event for one of his employees with Gloria. Although he pretends he knows everyone there, Gloria finds out that they are actually in the wrong room and are in fact at an engagement party. He makes a fool of himself when he sees the couple (Marcus DeAnda, Myrna Velasco) dancing together, and assumes they are father and daughter. Haley tries to teach Alex to be popular by having her snub her popular friends. It almost works… but Alex shows her true enjoyment of homework and spoils the whole thing, relegating her to being friendless again. Reggie De Leon is the DJ. Laura Leyva is Julio’s wife. Luis Jose Lopez is the bartender. 6/12/17
• 029. Unplugged – 10/20/2010
  • Claire is tired of her family always being attached to their computers and cell phones, so she declares that they will go one week ‘unplugged’. Phil decides to make it a contest, offering a prize to the winner who can go the longest. Haley is hellbent on getting the car that she is offered, and when Luke and Alex drop out immediately, then Claire is caught making airline reservations on her computer, it comes down to Phil and Haley. Phil is ready to cheat to update his Fantasy Football picks, but then he and Claire hear Haley talking on her cell phone and disqualify her. Phil immediately gets on his computer when Haley reveals that she was actually talking into a bar of soap colored black with a magic marker. She is ecstatic, but Phil and Claire then tell her that she won’t be getting a car, although they have no excuse for their lousy parenting. Meanwhile Cam and Mitchell feel the need to reserve a spot for Lily in a pre-school. Claire gets them an interview at Wagon Wheel, but when the secretary Nikki (Carla Renata) tells them they are a shoo-in as a gay couple with a minority baby, Mitchell then thinks they can do better and gets an interview with the prestigious Billingsley. However when they note lesbian couple Stephanie Kaner (Libby Baker) and her partner Kavita (Kiran Deol), who is in a wheelchair, with a black baby, Cam gets nervous and poses as a Native American to the administrator Mr. Plympton (Taylor Nichols), thus ruining their chances. Gloria and Jay are being pestered by neighbor Larry Paulson’s (Michael Rothhaar) barking dog and the dog disappears, Jay thinks Gloria may have killed it. When she catches Jay and Manny examining the shovel, she throws a fit, causing Jay to bring up her childhood in Columbia. Feeling bad, he buys tickets so she can show him her old home in Columbia. She feigns excitement, but confesses to the interviewer that she would never go back to her horrible city. Lauren Cohen is the Billingsley receptionist. 2/2/18
• 030. Halloween – 10/27/2010
  • Claire is preparing for an elaborate Halloween haunted house in her living room and faces a variety of obstacles. Haley tries wearing an outfit that is too revealing, and Alex would rather work on her homework. Phil suffers a crisis of confidence about their marriage when their neighbor Jerry (Matt Besser) is left by his wife. Jay makes fun of Gloria one time too many for her mispronunciation of English words and phrases, causing her adopt an American accent. Mitchell wears a Spider-Man costume to work with his co-workers Dale (Amir Talai) and Lance (Ryan Gaul) tell him that wearing costumes is a big thing at the office. When he arrives he finds that he and they are the only ones in costumes and their boss Charlie Bingham thinks costumes are ridiculous. Mitchell find a suit in the car to wear over the costume but it squeaks all day. When he tries to remove it, he ends up getting his suit wet and loses part of it, so he has to scale down the side of the building to try and get another suit, setting off the car alarms and being seen by everyone. Cam merely wants to recall the worst Halloween of his life when he was a kid. This all leads to a half-hearted haunted house, much to the irritation of Claire. However just when she has a meltdown and is about to give up, everyone begins playing their roles perfectly. She reassures Phil that they will be together forever. Chris Erric Maddox is Ethan. Mike Faiola is James. Tanner Buchanan, Curtis Harris, and Lauren Tju are kids. 2/5/18
• 031. Chirp – 11/3/2010
  • As Phil searches the house trying to find the smoke detector that is chirping, Claire and Haley both come down with colds and stay home for the day. Their bonding day is interrupted when Dylan calls, leading Claire to try and convince her how important that it is that she doesn’t settle for the wrong man. Haley assumes that she is talking about her own marriage to Phil, who is also upset because he is rapidly losing clients. Trying to assuage his manhood, he starts destroying all of the alarms with his old cheerleading baton, only to realize that Luke had left the old smoke detectors in the attic, which was where the chirping was ultimately coming from. Meanwhile while Manny and Gloria are visiting Jay at his work, a worker named Jack (Bryan Krasner) lets Manny drive a forklift and he crashes it through a wall, leading Jay to fire Jack. Manny is furious at this, and after attempts to secure Mitchell as a lawyer fail, Manny gives Jay the silent treatment. As Gloria forces Jay into yet another date to celebrate an anniversary of some event that Jay can’t remember, Manny offers to tell him what they are celebrating if he’ll re-hire Jack. But when Jay refers to to Manny as ‘his kid’, who was put in danger by Jack, as being the reason he won’t re-hire him, Manny gives in and tells Jay that they’re celebrating their first kiss at the pier. Mitchell is angry at Cam for allowing Lily to be used as a baby in a commercial, especially when he finds out it is a Japanese parody of Godzilla called Sav-Zilla (Stephen Shore) where actors Jim (Mike Rock) and Deb (Samantha Klein) do baby voice-overs in a Japanese stereotype. Once Cam hears it long enough, he agrees and tells the director (Darren Dupree Washington) he’s pulling her from the commercial. Jim Devoti is Ron, Claire’s gym friend who makes Phil feel even less manly. Alisa Statman is the assistant director. 10/6/18
• 032. Manny Get Your Gun – 11/17/2010
  • As Manny celebrates his birthday dinner at Macciano’s, he addresses his family, all of who are grumpy, with a positive attitude. We see why they are grumpy by flashing back a half-hour earlier. Phil and Claire decide to drive separately to the restaurant, and when Luke finds out they’re splitting up, he says he wants to go with his father. As they race, Claire realizes that Luke thought their marriage was splitting up, leading to the question as to why he chose to go with Phil, who is having tears of his own with Haley and Alex who have decided they don’t want to go to family camp and participate in the Color War competition. Gloria can’t find her keys, and Jay delights in telling her how scattered she is, until he eventually realizes that the keys are in his jacket pocket. He tries to slip them back to her in her purse, but she catches on, which leads to a fight. Manny is depressed when Jay gets him a gun and tells him that he was ‘born 16.’ Manny thinks he has squandered his childhood, so tries to find every kids prank possible into the next 30 minutes, including getting into a blow-up animal in the pool. Mitchell is rushing Cam to hurry up as they walk to the restaurant, but Cam thinks they should take time and smell the roses, even assisting an elderly man named Donald (Norman Lloyd) reconcile with his girlfriend Helen (Norma Michaels)… until they realize that Donald has a wife. It turns out that Mitchell was rushing so that he could join a Flash Mob he had been rehearsing for, thus proving his spontaneity. This upsets Cam even more that he would do this behind his back. Everyone arrives at the restaurant at the same time, and as Manny has cheered himself up by watching his entire family act like children, his speech cheers them all up and they all make up with one another. 10/6/18
• 033. Mother Tucker – 11/24/2010
  • When Haley gets caught kissing her tutor David (Thomas Kasp), Claire encourages her to break it off with Dylan, though Phil has sympathy for him since he was once dumped in high school. Haley quickly breaks it off, and when he comes to see her, Phil invites him to go guitar shopping and to have lunch. Haley mistakes Phil for another girl and gets jealous and confronts him. Soon she realizes it was her father  and tries to get him back, but Phil has given Dylan advice that he should be single for a while and live his dreams… including going to Graceland. Meanwhile Cam’s mother Barb (Celia Weston) comes for a visit and makes Mitchell uncomfortable with her inappropriate touching. Mitchell tries to egg her into touching him so that Cameron can see, which leads to an uncomfortable situation for all. Barb finally admits that she has been playing with him and promises to back off, but that doesn’t stop her from bursting in on him while he is in the bathtub and trying to find a bracelet she dropped into the water. Jay is sick and Manny tries to help him diagnose his problem online, while Gloria insists that Americans are too coddled and there is nothing wrong with him. Eventually Jay goes to the hospital and the doctor (Amro Salama) diagnosis his issue as appendicitis, making Gloria feel terribly guilty. Ki Hong Lee is the busboy. 7/11/19
• 034. Dance Dance Revelation – 12/8/2010
  • Manny and Luke are both going to their first school dance so Jay and Phil take them to the mall for some clothes shopping. Jay gives Phil a hard time when he lets a man (Mo Mandel) take Phil’s parking space, but when Jay confronts the man inside the mall, he finds out that the man’s dog just died and he’s been driving a round in a haze. Phil tries to prove himself by going haywire on a perfume sample guy named Longinus (Kevin Daniels), a friend of Cam and Mitchell’s, by overzealously spraying him back. Jay apologizes for being so hard on Phil. Meanwhile Claire tries to prevent Gloria from being a ‘co-chair’ of the dance, especially when she shows up and seems to win over Gus (Danny Trejo), a janitor who had a crush on Claire, and Claire’s friend and helper Bethenny (Artemis Pebdani). Gloria ends up telling her that she really wanted to prove that there’s more to her than just being a threat to other mothers’ marriages, which makes Claire feel bad for excluding her. Lily is accused of biting a boy named Tyler’s (Nico Ciccone-Scott) mother (Julie Dretzin). Cam and Mitchell pass the blame to a boy named Billy (Caleb Alexander Cohen), whose babysitter (Melody Butiu) may not be watching him. However when Lily starts biting them, Cam and Mitchell realize that she might not be so innocent, and argue over whose fault it is and how best to handle the situation. Greg Roman is D.J. Greg. Steve Kehela is a customer who cuts in front of Jay. 7/11/19
• 035. Slow Down Your Neighbors – 1/5/2011
  • Cam and Mitchell find their new neighbor Barry (James Marsden) in their hot tub. Initially they are ready to call the police, but when he turns out to be hot, the simply join him. Cam seems to take a special liking to Barry, who thought that it was a community hot tub for his apartment. Meanwhile Claire is hellbent on stopping a speeder who keeps flying down the street every day. Phil takes on a new lucrative client named Laura (Jami Gertz), who turns out to be the speeder. With Phil primed to be named Salesman of the Year, he doesn’t want to make waves, so when Claire makes up posters with Laura’s license plate on it to hang around the neighborhood and gets caught by Laura putting them up, he has to pretend he is taking them down. Mitchell initially doesn’t care for Barry and rolls his eyes when Barry practices Reiki, and Cam berates Mitchell for never giving new friends a chance. Mitchell finally acquiesces and is won over by Barry, causing Cam to demand that Mitchell admit he was right. However he then finds out from the apartment landlady Mrs. Ko (Sharon Omi) that Barry doesn’t live there, and then realizes that Barry is actually sleeping in Lily’s princess castle in the backyard. This leads to a physical altercation with them, and Mitchell has to intervene and call 911, but claiming beforehand that he was right. Jay is stunned to find out that Manny is still riding his bike with training wheels. He vows to teach both Manny and Gloria to ride bikes. Manny is successful but Gloria rides it into the bushes. She turns to Luke to help train her, and he does so successfully by squiring her with a water gun. While Claire is in flight trying to catch the speeder, she commandeers Gloria’s bike and takes off after her, stopping along the way where Phil is showing Laura’s house. Phil is a nervous wreck when Claire and Laura meet, and even more so when Laura offers to give Claire a ride home. She gets in Laura’s car unknowingly and then realizes what car she is in as Gloria slams on the gas. Phil states he is making it up to Claire by ordering a dozen balloons. Luke takes over helping Haley study by using his water gun to get the right answers out of her. 3/6/20
• 036. Our Children, Ourselves – 1/12/2011
  • While Cameron and Mitchell are outdoor shopping and trying to prevent Lily from shoplifting, they run into an old high school girlfriend of Mitchell’s named Tracy (Mary Lynn Rajskub), who Mitchell also hooked up with at the 10-year reunion. When he spots her with a little redhead, he suspects he might be the father of the child and tells Cam so. Cam is shocked and upset at first, then decides that he would like to be part of the child’s life as well. Meanwhile Gloria has some friends the Hoffmans (Stephnie Weir, Adam Kulbersh) who she and Jay met on a trip over to the house despite the fact that Jay can’t stand them. They go out to eat with them and Jay decides to lay it on the line and tell them directly that they do not work out as friends. This is made even more awkward when Gloria tells him that they were planning on staying the night at the house that night. In order to cover for Jay, she tells the Hoffmans that he is losing his mind, and some of his behavior and Manny’s dribble glass seem to support this notion. Claire and Phil think that Alex is studying too hard, but she claims that only her classmate Sanjay could get a higher score than her and she wants to beat him. When she doesn’t, Phil and Claire start to question their own intelligence, especially as they are getting ready to see the film Croctopus 3-D. They run into Sunjay’s parents Vish (Ajay Mehta) and Nina (Anjali Bhimani) at the movies and pretend to see an acclaimed French film so not to appear so stupid. Phil ends up sneaking out to see Croctopus while Claire falls asleep. They feel better when they see Vish struggling with the parking validation machine. Cam and Mitchell visit Tracy at home and confront her about the boy, only to find that he is actually her midget husband Bobby (Mark Povinelli). 3/6/20
• 037. Caught in the Act – 1/19/2011
  • Jay and Gloria are planning a Las Vegas getaway, but before they leave Gloria wants to email Claire and tell her that she doesn’t want to do her bake sales because Claire is too bossy and keeps criticizing her cupcakes. As a joke, Jay types up the email to her exactly has Gloria says… and then accidentally sends it. Meanwhile it is Claire and Phil’s anniversary and the kids decide to bring them breakfast in bed, but walk in while they are having sex. The kids run off to discuss this and ultimately decide they’d rather this happen than their parents constantly fighting and divorcing like many of their friends. Phil and Claire stay in the room and labor over how to handle it. Gloria makes Jay turn around on his way to the airport to visit Gloria, and when they arrive they think she is upset about the email rather than the sex situation. After an awkward conversation, Gloria finds out the truth and looks for a way to get into her email and erase it, and eventually Jay tells Claire that Gloria accidentally send nude photos. Phil is titillated, but Claire quickly erases the email. Cam and Mitchell are tires of eating at Shawarma City, so they are excited when a new restaurant named Amelia’s opens, but unfortunately they can never get reservations. They find out that Amelia (Rachael Harris) herself is one of the parents in Lily’s class, so they arrange a meeting with her. Just as Amelia is about to tell them what to say to get immediately seated at the restaurant, she had to take a phone call. They overhear her strictly yelling at a contractor before telling them that she has to leave and asks if they can watch her son Jackson (Tristian Eggerling). Shortly after she goes, Mitchell steps on Lily’s diaper bag and spills strawberry juice all over her ultra-expensive carpet. They toy with the idea of moving the stain into a spot under the couch, but then tell her that Jackson had spilled it. She panics because Jackson is allergic to strawberries, so they are forced to tell the truth. While apologizing, Mitchell knocks over and breaks an expensive vase. Cam and Mitchell make peace with eating at Shawarma City, and Cam is even thrilled when the counterman (Munda Razooki) knows Mitchell’s name. Phil and Claire finally have the talk with the kids, which they think went successfully, but the kids had already agreed to completely tune out and just smile when they talked to them. The kids also give them their anniversary gift: a door lock. However the lock makes too much noise when they lock it, so they immediately become disgusted when they hear the lock. 6/16/20
• 038. Bixby’s Back – 2/9/2011
  • For Valentines Day, Phil takes Claire to Ibiza, but they decide to not play the role playing games that got them in trouble the year before. But after Claire notices how old everyone in the restaurant is and watches Phil help an elderly man (James Greene) maneuver his scooter, she decides to revive “Clive Bixby” and calls him on his cell and asks him to meet “Juliana.” They meet at a hotel bar, but when Phil accidentally takes the key off the bar that belongs to an older woman (Nan Tepper) and sets himself up naked with rose petals and naked on her bed. He and Claire eventually go home and decide to role play themselves as Claire and Phil enjoying their own bedroom. Meanwhile Jay arranges to have a romantic five-course meal prepared at their home, and takes her to Ibiza and bribes the maitre d’ (Edward Stanley) not to seat them. However when she sees the Pritchett name on the seating chart, she claims the seat. In order to get her home, he complains about the service and menu and decides to storm out. When they arrive home, she is furious and he has to carry her inside… only to find out that no one has prepared anything. She heads to the garage to go for a drive, revealing that she had intercepted his plan, moved the fancy meal to the garage, and bought him a new motorcycle. As happy as he is, he tries to explain that Valentines Day is not a holiday that one should try to ‘win’. Cam suspects that Mitchell’s assistant Broderick (Jeremy Rowley) has a crush on Mitchell when he doesn’t pass on the flowers that Cam sent to Mitchell. However when he comes to the office, it is more ambiguous whether Broderick has the crush on Cam or Mitchell. They have dinner at Ibiza that night, re-claiming the “Pritchett” seats that Jay and Gloria had taken, and argue about who Broderick’s crush is on. Mitchell gets a text from Broderick stating that he is quitting after the awkward meeting he had with Cam, but it is still unclear on who he likes. Cam and Mitchell decide not to argue about it, but soon once again vie to see which one of them the food delivery guy Ryan (Abraham Higginbotham) is crushing on. Hayley is destroyed when Dylan ditches her on Valentines Day. Manny sees this as an opportunity to swoop in and he helps her write a break-up email to Dylan. However Dylan shows up with his band and serenades Hayley before he even receives the email. She quickly runs back to him, despite Manny’s best efforts to convince her that she would be happier with a boy like him. 6/17/20
• 039. Princess Party – 2/16/2011
  • With Lily’s second birthday coming up, Nana Dede is coming to say with the Dunphys, and Claire is at maximum stress level. True to form, once she shows up she begins to irritate Claire, despite Luke’s effort to distract her by being cute, and the topper, she invites Claire’s high school boyfriend Robbie Sullivan (Matt Dillon) to have dinner with them… and doesn’t tell him that Claire is married. Phil becomes understandably jealous throughtout the meal and then rushes him out. They then spot Robbie making out with Dede in the driveway. Meanwhile Jay, Gloria, and Manny record a recordable storybook called Baby Bear’s Big Catch for Lily, while Cam argues with Mitchell about whether he can perform as Fizbo the Clown at Lily’s birthday party. He convinces Cam that it is going to be a Princess party and thus has hired a princess (Kate Reinders) to perform at the party. At the party, Dede brings along Robbie, causing Jay, Mitchell, and Claire to each think that she is trying to annoy them specifically. Gloria however has taken Xanex and tequila and doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. Cam questions the Princess’s payment requirements in order to force her to break character. Claire finally confronts Robbie about dating her mother, and thinks that Claire has a crush on him because of it. Jay finally kicks Robbie out of the party in order to restore peace, and Mitchell gives Cam the okay to be Fizbo. Claire lays into Dede to always pushing everyone’s buttons, and Dede admits to Jay that she always feels like she has to prove that she made the right decision to leave him. Eventually the true source of her behavior is revealed when she attacks Gloria unprovoked. After the party, Cam and Mitchell play Baby Bear’s Big Catch for Lily and get to hear them arguing as they read the story to her. 10/2/20
• 040. Regrets Only – 2/23/2011
  • The Dunphy household wakes up in the aftermath of a big fight between Phil and Claire to find their kitchen trashed and a fire extinguisher sprayed on the wall. Jay is struggling at home with a Karaoke machine that he bought Gloria and she is using contstantly. Cam is hosting a fundraiser for the Friends of the Third Street Overpass Music Society, and wants to prove that he can host a better event than his arch nemesis Andrew from the steering committee. Cam feels that Mitchell never listens to him and that makes it even worse when Mitchell realizes that he never mailed out the invitations to the event that Cam had given him. He immediately starts looking everywhere to get guests and enlist the band Harp Attack to play at the event. Meanwhile Phil tries desperately to figure out what Claire had been mad at him about. He takes up Gloria’s offer to cut his hair so he doesn’t have to go to the mall with Claire. Jay takes the opportunity to take Claire to the mall so he can take a break from Gloria’s singing. Jay figures out why Phil avoids the mall with Claire when she gets a chair massage and moans loudly all the way through it. Phil discusses what he might have done to annoy Claire and comes up with insulting her driving, leaving her a message on a tiny scrap of paper, arranging to have lunch with an old girlfriend, and mistaking broccoli for cauliflower. Claire tells her father that she was mad because Phil had a wedge salad for lunch and gives credit for trying it to his friend Skip Woosnum, when in fact she had been trying to get him to have one for years. Haley has been telling her parents how much she makes each day working at Jimmy’s restaurant, as they agree to match her earnings for her to buy a car. When Manny tells Alex that he’s been there twice and hasn’t seen her, Alex figures out that she’s not working at all and only getting the ‘matching’ funds. She suggests they go eat there, so Haley has to pretend that she works there and tries to serve them when they come in. When Phil orders a wedge salad again, Claire gets furious and storms out. Haley says she got fired because of Claire’s outburts. Phil brings Claire a photo album of how he looked when they first met and tells her that she has rightfully changed so many things about the way he now looks, that she shouldn’t worry if he misses a few things like salads. As Luke is helping Cam with his event, Cam starts to realize that Mitchell never mailed the invites. He thinks the event is a flop, but in the end Mitchell brings in more guests – including the whole family – plus Harp Attack. Back at their house, Manny finally has to tell his mother that she sounds terrible on the Karaoke. Although he calls Jay a coward, Jay tells Gloria that he always liked her singing. Kate Rylie is the waitress. Eva Simone Fisher is the caterer. 10/2/20
• 041. Two Monkeys and a Panda – 3/2/2011
  • Cam is working on teaching Lily that the word ‘adopt’ is a positive word for when she finds out later that she’s adopted. He also wants to work on a scrapbook for her, along with a story called Two Monkeys and a Panda. While going through her papers, he discovers that her name on the birth certificate indicates that her last name is Pritchett, while her middle name is Tucker, rather than the hyphenated name they agree on. Cam thinks that Mitchell did it on purpose, and Mitchell eventually admits that he did do intentionally because Cam was freaking out about the adoption and he was afraid he’d run out. Mitchell makes it up to him by finishing the Two Monkeys story, which indicates that the monkey representing Cameron was scared, but wound up being more brave. He also uses the names that Cam wanted: Coco and Miko. Lily claps when she hears the word ‘adopt’. Meanwhile Phil has an expiring Zen Spa gift certificate, but since Claire is too busy running errands, he goes alone. He makes friends with the pedicurist Kim (Kaliko Kauahi) and other ladies Noranne (Tangie Ambrose), and Laurie (Christen Sussin). Alex borrows one of Haley’s sweaters, and Haley freaks out when she sees her wearing it. Claire insists that they get along and share their clothes, but when Alex immediately rips it, Claire searches all over town to find one to replace it, adding to her stressful day. The ladies who get a hoot out of Phil turn on him when they hear him blow off Claire’s stress by giving her advice. They tells him how he should handle these situations, and he tries it successfully when he gets home and finds Claire covered in ink because she forgot to remove the security tag from the sweater. Jay and Gloria go to a cemetery to look for their final resting places much to Gloria’s irritation. There they meet the couple Ed (Jonathan McMurtry) and Winnie Rutledge (Mary Anne McGarry) who are selling them the niches. They are skeptical of the sale because they’re afraid Jay will die first, Gloria will remarry, and the niche will go to a stranger. This gets Jay thinking about their age difference and the fact that Gloria might remarry. Manny is sympathetic because he is dating a girl named Chloe who is 13 months younger. Ultimately Jay decides to have Gloria put his ashes in a coffee can to keep around the house, knowing it will drive her future husband crazy. 1/17/21
• 042. Boys’ Night – 3/23/2011
  • Cam and Mitchell plan to go out for boys night at the bar, and although they wanted Claire to babysit, Haley volunteers since she is grounded and has nothing else to do. They reluctantly agree to let her, but demand that she have no one over. Meanwhile Jay takes Gloria and Manny to see The Four Seasons, but when Jay realizes it isn’t the band, but rather the Vivaldi classical work, despite having earlier tried to convince Manny to try new things, he refuses to go and heads to the bar. It happens to be the same bar where Cam and Mitchell have met up with their friends Pepper, Longinus, and Crispin (Craig Zimmerman). They end up having a great time, which is especially meaningful to Mitchell, and while drunk, Jay makes a date to go record shopping with Pepper in Palm Springs. The next morning while still hungover, he tries to get out of it by having Gloria feign illness, but she refuses to play along since Jay stood them up at the musical. Meanwhile when the Dunphy family is playing baseball in the backyard and loses the ball in their crotchety neighbor Walt Kleezak’s (Philip Baker Hall) yard, they are too scared to go get it. Luke however goes and introduces himself to the Walt, and eventually they become friends and start to watch movies together. Phil and Claire think it’s a bad idea, so they go to meet Kleezak, only to find him looking like he is dead. They go inside and wake him up, and he yells at them and kicks them out. They forbid Luke to see him, and Luke goes and yells at Walt for being so rude. He winds up coming over and bringing the Dunphys onions from his garden, and wins them over. Cam spots a man in his house through his webcam and calls Haley, who yells at him for making such an accusation. It turns out to be Dylan, so she sends him home immediately. However he has forgotten his shoes in the house. Haley goes back over to look for them, and is handed the shoes by a smug Cam. 1/17/21
• 043. The Musical Man – 4/13/2011
  • Phil has put his entire family in one of his Horizon Realty ads, which he then has shrink wrapped onto their minivan, but the way the ad wraps around, it makes Claire and Haley appear to escorts by only displaying part of the verbiage: “I Can’t Be Satisfied” and “Let Me Make Your Dreams Come True” with their pictures. Meanwhile, Jay’s brother Donnie (Jonathan Banks) comes for a visit, and Gloria can’t understand they constantly put each other down and play jokes on each other. Jay tries to correct that and have a serious conversation with Donnie, but only winds up finding out that Donnie has prostate cancer. Cam has gotten hired by the interim musical director for Franklin Middle School, and is on his way to going way overboard with the school play that he’s calling A Musical Trip Around the World. Manny and Luke are both in the show, and Manny has a crush on a girl named Emma (Megan Raich), but she seems to like Luke’s antics more than Manny’s debonair approach. Manny thinks that Cam is being a tyrant, and turns to Mitchell, who encourages him to tell Cam how he feels… but it only makes Cam double down on getting the show right. On the night of the play, Claire and Haley keep getting honked at by men in cars as they pass he minivan on the way to the play as they discuss the fact that Haley has declared she might not want to go to college, while Phil keeps getting calls from men trying to answer the ‘escort’ ad. Once he realizes what the van looks like, he rushes to meet them at the play and whisk them inside before they see the van. Claire reminisces about how much fun she had in college, and starts worrying her that her best days are behind her. While sitting in the audience, Jay lets it slip to Gloria about the cancer, causing Donnie to walk out. Jay assures Donnie that he cares about him, but Donnie tells him that he doesn’t want to be treated differently. The play itself is a minor disaster when Luke gets stuck suspended by a rope, some of the set falls over, Emma catches on fire as Joan of Arc, and the letters that the kids hold up end up spelling “We Love the F World”. Claire ends up seeing the van after the play, and is naturally furious… but feels much better when Phil tells her that most of the calls that he got wanted the ‘hot blonde’. Malachi Smith is student performer Delroy. 5/14/21
• 044. Someone to Watch Over Lily – 4/20/2011
  • Mitchell and Cam have been trying to decide who name as future caregivers of Lily if anything would happen to them. Initially they consider Phil and Claire, but everything seems to be going haywire in their house. Mitchell doesn’t care for the idea of choosing any of Cam’s family in Missouri. When Mitchell sees how much Gloria is in love with Lily, he starts to lean toward his father and Gloria, but Cam is unconvinced. Meanwhile, Manny clearly wants to skip out on going camping on a class trip, but Jay thinks he should try to overcome his fears about physical activity. He takes Manny to a sporting goods store, with Mitchell and Cam tagging along, and forces him to try and climb a rock wall to prove his agility. Cam doesn’t like the way he’s yelling at Manny, and shows him how it should be done by doing a climb himself in order to demonstrate. When Jay hears that they were being considered to raise Lily, he is surprised and drops Cam’s rope, causing him to fall to the ground. Hayley is forced to take Alex to her cello practice, but when the instructor doesn’t show up, Hayley is forced to take her along with for the afternoon with her friend Gabby (Rachael Marie). They go to the school to vandalize a locker of one of Hayley’s rivals, but are nearly caught by the security guard (Hector Osorio). They wind up having a good time together nearly getting away with it. Alex admits that she had really skipped her cello lesson since she hates it, and Hayley tells her that she doesn’t need to be so perfect, and should just quit. Claire tries to sneak Luke off to a child psychologist Dr. Klausner (Alice Dodd) because she thinks he’s too distracted. Phil finds out about it, and meets them there, and while the doctor is making her diagnosis of Luke being distracted, Phil can’t help but play with the toys in the office. Claire admits that she’s only worried that Luke will turn out like him, causing Phil to sarcastically act dumb as they drive away…neither one of them taking Luke. Manny tells Cam that he shouldn’t be too hard on Jay, because on their way home from the store, Jay got Manny to admit that he felt too fat to shower with the other boys and that’s why he didn’t want to go. Jay told him that he understood and would stand by him no matter what, even offering to write a note to get him out of camping. Cam then decides that Jay and Gloria should be the parents, even though they are livid that Gloria had Lily’s ears pierced. Phil and Claire realize that they left Luke behind and head out to get him, just as he pulls into the driveway in a limo with a newlywed couple from a wedding that Luke had wandered into. Claire takes issue with not being chosen as the backup parents of Lily, just as Phil gets a phone call that their daughters had been arrested for vandalizing the school. 5/14/21
• 045. Mother’s Day – 5/4/2011
  • It’s Mother’s Day, Claire want to celebrate by going on simple walk with Gloria and all of the kids, while Jay and Phil stay home and prepare their dinners. All of the kids complain and bicker so much that Claire gets fed up and tells the kids to stand where they are while she and Gloria continue the walk. Claire lets it all out and confesses she sometimes wishes she could punch all of her kids. She also goads Gloria into letting her frustration with Manny out, and eventually she does, even going so far as to insult his poetry. Manny overhears all of this, so she ultimately blames Clare, and tells Manny she only said it to make Claire feel better about hating her kids. Phil and Jay uses Jay’s late mother’s old cookbook while making the meal, and when Phil finds an old poem that Jay wrote for her, it moves Jay to tears. Phil is thrilled that he saw this soft spot of Phil, and is sure to tell the ladies when they return. Jay vehemently denies this, and claims it was the onions that got him. Mitchell brings Cam breakfast in bed, but Cam is insulted that he thinks of him as the woman in the relationship. This is made even worse when they go to a picnic with their friends Rick (Todd Weeks) and Jen (Jean Villepique) and they have him pose for a picture with the other mothers. Cam even takes it to heart when a kid (Elijah Ebe) in the park asks him to throw a football, so he throws it so hard and fast that he knocks a kid off his bike. Mitchell is able to convince Cam that there should be no stigma to being compared to a mother. All of the Dunphy kids unite and refuse to apologize to their mother, as they feel it is always used to manipulate them. Despite Jay’s denial, he starts talking about his mother at dinner, and bursts into tears again.  Cam and Gloria all rush to embrace Jake, Claire’s kids all surround her with hugs, while Mitchell and Manny seem unphased. 9/8/21
• 046. Good Cop, Bad Dog – 5/11/2011
  • On the night of their Lady Gaga concert, Cam gets ill with the flu, so Mitchell tries to think how he can gracefully go to the concert himself without seeming selfish. He consults Claire, who advises him to pamper Cam all day. Mitchell does this, but when he goes to ask Cam if he’d mind if he went on to the concert, he finds him asleep. He attempts to sneak out, but Cam wakes up and confronts him. Mitchell apologizes profusely and vows to work on being less selfish. Cam is only half-listening because he then falls asleep again. Cam goes to the concert and is back home before Cam wakes up, but he forgets to take off his flashing necklace and gives the whole ruse away. Claire becomes furious with her girls when they ignore her request to clean up the bathroom. Phil tries to play ‘good cop’, but she gets angry at this too, and demands that he get them to clean it up. Since Phil was going to take Luke and Manny go-cart racing, Claire offers to do this so she can be the ‘fun’ parent for once. The girls pretend to clean the bathroom, but they start to head out after doing an exceptionally lackluster job. Phil gets really angry at being taken advantage of, so he becomes a tyrannical taskmaster for the entire day, depriving them off food, and making the do a precise job…then adding even more chores. Claire, on the other hand, goes overboard and forces Luke to eat copious amounts of junk food and then takes them to a roller coaster… all in the name of fun. Phil and Claire decide to swap their roles back making her the ‘bad cop’ again. Gloria has another one of her charity cases over again, and although Jay tries to steer clear of him, this Guillermo (Lin-Manuel Miranda) from the grocery store, wants business advice from Jay. He tries to get Jay to invest in his invention, and toy dog called Good Dog, Bad Dog, which contains treats to give your dog depending on their behavior. The ‘Bad Dog’ food is more bland. Jay thinks it is a terrible idea and tells him so. Based on the rejection, he decides to leave town and go back to school. Gloria again takes pity on him, and takes his dog Stella (Brigitte the Dog) home to give to Manny. Jay adamantly refuses, and explains how you have to be strong and resolute not to be taken advantage of. Jay then goes to take the dog home, but it looks so sad, and the area where it lives look so terrible that Jay decides to take the dog home and give it to Manny after all. 9/8/21
• 047. See You Next Fall – 5/18/2011
  • Alex is at her Junior High graduation giving her commencement speech, but her parents have not yet shown up to the graduation. Four days earlier as the family is getting ready for the big event, Alex is practicing her speech, which is a scathing indictment of her snobby classmates. Haley tries to talk her out of it, but she is determined to delivery it. Phil is expecting Claire to have an emotional meltdown any day, which he fears will interfere with his upcoming Las Vegas trip with his friends. His goal is to trigger her into the meltdown early, so it will be done in time for the trip. Jay gets a Botox treatment that goes wrong, but is embarrassed to admit it to anyone who asks what is wrong with his melty eye. When Cam accidentally falls into the kiddie pool at their house, Mitchell can’t help but laugh. It seems that everyone agrees that it was not funny… until Cam bumps into a patio door glass, and then walks through the screen and Mitchell, Jay, and Claire all laugh at him. On the day of the graduation, the gate at Jay’s house won’t open, trapping everyone inside the property. Phil and Claire try to get there on a tandem bicycle, but the chain falls off. Phil finally uses his Spanish to ask a Mexican worker (Martin Morales) to get them to the school. He agrees to take them there, even though he speaks English fluently. Haley makes one final plea for Alex to change her speech. Phil and Claire arrive just in the nick of time as Alex is starting her speech, but they both tumble down a big hill to get there. When Cameron laughs at them, Mitchell tells him he is no longer credible in his irritation of him. At the last minute Haley changes her speech and receives a standing ovation… even though it is completely generic. Phil and Claire offer to take her out to eat, but she says she’s been invited out with friends. They see this as a harbinger that they’ve lost her, but they are thrilled with Haley tells them she’s like to eat. Gina St. John is Principal Kaizler. 3/8/22
• 048. The One That Got Away – 5/25/2011
  • Jay’s birthday is coming up, and all he wants to do to celebrate is to have a day alone on the lake with his sausage of the month. Claire and Mitchell decide to re-create a childhood photo for his birthday, but when they break into the backyard of their old house, they wind up getting chased up a treehouse by the homeowner’s dog. They spend the afternoon drinking the wine that they bought for Jay. Cam and Mitchell have a horrible day with Lily, so they drop her off with Gloria and she takes her shopping for Jay’s gift. Phil is also shopping at the outdoor mall and runs into his old college rival Glen Whipple (Rob Huebel). Phil also runs into Gloria, and when people at the mall think that they are Lily’s parents, Phil tries to get Gloria in eyeshot of Glen so he can impress him with his ‘wife’. The ruse works, but Glen tells him that he had always been jealous that Phil was dating Claire and wandered who was lucky enough to get her. From that point on, Phil can’t stop telling her how lucky he is to have her. Manny is trying to impress a girl named Tara by learning how to play baseball since she is on the softball team. He enlists Cam to help him learn, and then also has Cam tell her what he should say to her. He gives Manny the quotes to say, but the people at the bakery where he is picking up Jay’s cake think he is talking directly to an 11-year old and throw him out. Manny’s day is a success, and Tara invites him to the batting cages. Cam hints that he could take him to the cages in advanced, and his feelings are clearly hurt when Manny says he’ll ask Jay to take him. Jay’s afternoon is interrupted when he gets a phone call to pick up the dog from the groomer since he accidentally took Gloria’s phone, then Cam calls him to pick up the cake, and finally he has to rescue Mitchell and Claire. He winds up not being able to spend his time on the boat, but comes home for dinner and cake with the family. Unfortunately, the cake has been destroyed by the dog. Haley and Alex had collected videos throughout the year of people giving their thoughts on Jake, but mostly it was them telling the girls they are too busy to do it right now. Luke edits the video so they are at least saying Happy Birthday, even if the video is less than 30 seconds long. Manny sets up the boat in the pool and invites Jay to join him, and the new good-humored Jay goes along with it. Mitchell reflects on the day with his sister and tells Cam that he’s like to have another baby, and Cam suggests having a boy this time Mim Drew is the shopper who thinks Phil and Gloria are married. 3/8/22

SEASON 3

• 049. Dude Ranch – 9/21/2011
  • For various reasons, the entire blended Dunphy/Pritchett family decides to visit a Dude Ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for the week. Jay and Cameron would like to get some macho pictures of themselves to include in a photo album that they plan to use to shop around to adopt an American baby boy. Phil would like to show Jay that he too can be macho, and has been practicing shooting for months in advance. Haley wants to spend time with Dylan, although Claire can’t stand him. Phil tries to get her to ease up because he knows what it’s like for the love of his life to have parents who hate him. The family’s guide for the week is Hank (Tim Blake Nelson), a trail hand who has his eye on Gloria and refers to her as ‘Cactus Flower’, while referring to Jay as ‘Old Timer’. Gloria is oblivious to this, mostly because her ears haven’t popped since the flight and she can’t hear anything. Luke has a giant firecracker he wants to use to blow something up. Alex meets a crude boy named Jimmy Scrivano (Matthew Gumley), who unexpectedly kisses her. She later confronts him and tells her that he stole her first kiss, so he takes it back…by kissing her again. She responds that she doesn’t want it, and kisses him, completely confused by why she is doing it. By the time they leave, she gives him her address to contact her. Claire decides to try and make amends with Dylan, but he thinks she is coming on to him. That night, he proposes to Haley in front of everyone, but Claire steps in and forbids it, causing to Dylan to take off in the middle of the night. Hank sends everyone to look for him, taking Gloria with him, and sending Jay and Phil on a separate trail. Mitchell start to feel inferior and clumsy, and doubts that he can raise a boy, leading to a fight between him and Cam. Luke comes to Mitchell to help him find something to blow up. At first he takes the firecracker away, but the decides to help Luke blow up a birdhouse. He is thrilled that he did something manly, and decides he can raise a boy after all. Phil confronts Jay about the way Jay still doesn’t respect him, so Jay asks Phil to let him ride on his horse since he can’t control his own in order to find Gloria and stop Hank from hitting on her. While Haley and Claire are searching for Dylan, Hayley scolds her not letting her answer Dylan on her own, even though she ultimately said no to his proposal. They wind up finding Dylan, who met a transsexual named Jake in a stable, who hired him to become a ranch hand in Wyoming. Jay catches Hank putting his hand on Gloria’s butt, but Hank says it’s all part of the package in order to make Jay look like a hero. Phil tells Hank he’ll only check ‘somewhat satisfied’ on the comment card. Lily is now being played by Aubrey Anderson-Emmons. 7/10/22
• 050. When Good Kids Go Bad – 9/21/2011
  • Mitchell and Cam are getting ready to have a family gathering so they can announce they are getting ready to adopt a baby. Meanwhile, while Phil is flirting with a shopper (Amanda Musso) in a grocery store, he inadvertently causes Claire to knock over a display of cans. While she tries to blame him, he says he didn’t do anything. He and the kids all notice how she always seems to feel the need to be ‘right’, and start poking fun at her. Cam and Mitchell start to become worried when Lily starts rebelling against the idea of them having a new baby, even going so far as to say that she is going to kill it, and then topples over the little boy of their friend Laura (Annie Tedesco). Mitchell blames it on the fact that she and Mitchell are attached at the hip and his coddling of her, so Cam promises to start backing off. Jay overhears Gloria screaming on the phone at Manny’s principal for stealing another girl’s locket in school. Jay can tell by Manny’s expression that he actually did it, and he admits to Jay that he only wanted a keepsake from her since she’s leaving school. Haley and Alex are tired of living in the same room, so they try and trick Luke into wanting to move into the attic. He knows they’re doing so, but he wants to move up there anyway, despite warnings from Claire that he won’t like it. Jay makes Manny admit the truth to his mother about the locket, and agree that he needs to go confess to the principal. However, at the last minute, Gloria breaks into the girl’s locker and returns the locket, and then they rush out of the school. Jay can once again tell that Manny never talked to the principal, despite Gloria lying to him. When Mitchell takes Lily to pre-school, the teacher Ms. Elaine (Laurel Coppock) mentions that it is not always coddling that causes Lily’s jealous behavior, but also the desire not to share with others. Mitchell recognizes that trait in himself. At the gathering at Cam and Mitchell’s house, Mitchell admits that his selfish behavior could also be a cause of Lily’s issue, which leads to a fight between them, causing Mitchell to reveal too early that they plan to adopt a son. Jay makes a toast to Manny for owning up to his crime by admitting it to the principal, but Manny’s conscience can’t take it, so he admits that he lied. When Jay bellows out that ‘he knew it!’ – everyone realizes where Claire’s desire to always be right came from. Claire is correct about Luke not wanting to stay in the attic because it is cold and scary. 7/10/22
• 051. Phil on Wire – 9/28/2011
  • Gloria starts to get angrier and angrier as Jay keeps pampering their new dog Stella, even as she keeps destroying Gloria’s shoes. As revenge, she tries to get Stella to eat one of Jay’s shoes by crawling around and starts nibbling on it herself. When Jay and Manny catch her in the act of this, they finally sit down and talk about it. Gloria admits that she is upset because the dog usually comes last in her country rather than first. Jay sees it her way and locks Stella out of their room at night. Meanwhile, Cam decides to go on a juice fast, and so that he doesn’t get blamed when Cam ultimately fails, Mitchell joins him as well. They clear the house of all junk food and take it over to Claire’s house, where Luke gets first crack at it, hides it in his room, and eats it all. Cam goes through several ranges of emotions during the course of the fast, to the point that Mitchell is afraid to see what comes next. He suggests that Cam does not attend the animal fundraiser benefit party of Mitchell’s boss Charlie Bingham, but that just brings further resentments from Cam. During the party, when Cam snaps at the server (Andres London) offering him food, Mitchell suggests that Cam eat some food. Exhausted from not eating himself, Mitchell blows a gasket while Charlie is presenting a story about a sea lion named Snorkles, who drowns in the ocean because he is tied up in plastic trash. Cam helps him exit the party and follows him into the ocean, where Mitchell starts calling for Snorkles… all in view of Charlie and the other party guests. While watching the documentary Man on Wire, Phil decides that he would like to try this as well. He gets new wire-walking shoes – actually jazz shoes – and stretches a wire across the yard a few inches from the ground. Phil can’t seem to make it more than a few inches along the wire. After Phil retrieves Luke from school where he has been throwing up because of the junk food, Luke suggests that he raise the wire high off the ground so he has a bigger risk if he falls. Phil thinks it is a great idea. When Alex gets elevated to one of Haley’s classes, they are at each other’s throats, so Claire tries to use reverse psychology to get them to want to stay together so that Alex can tutor Haley, and Haley can help Alex socially. Eventually, the girls do come to a similar agreement, with Alex doing Haley’s homework and giving her test answers, while Haley lets Alex sit at the ‘cool table’. When Claire drops them off at school, she runs afoul of the traffic security Officer Blevin (Lusia Strus) when she has a discussion with the girls while dropping them off. When she goes to pick them up, she gets a call from the principal that the girls were caught cheating on the exam, with Alex giving Haley the answers. She again is yelled at by Officer Blevin, and then issued a citation. When Claire yells at Blevin and rips the ticket up in her face, she is handcuffed by her. When the girls come out, she and the girls agree, it was not a great day for the Dunphys. However, the family is vindicated somewhat when they get home and see Phil successfully complete the tightrope walk seven feet in the air. Later, Cam and Mitchell come off their fast at Claire’s house, when they eat some of Stella’s dog cupcakes. Jeneca Bergere is Janet, one of the school mothers. 11/5/22
• 052. Door to Door – 10/5/2011
  • While gossiping in the van with Haley and Alex, she nearly hits another car at an intersection without a stop sign, and then actually hits Phil who is out power walking. He is okay, but Claire decides that the intersection needs a stop sign. Jay warns Gloria to make sure that she closes the gate to the yard, but she makes fun of him for worrying about it in such a wealthy neighborhood. Manny is fundraising for a trip to see Les Misérables by selling Christmas wrapping paper. Instead of just cutting him a check, Jay thinks Manny should try selling it door to door. Meanwhile, Cam has written the time of the visit of a home check from the adoption agency on a magazine, but the date is illegible. Cam has also made crepes with Lily and left a huge mess in the kitchen, so Mitchell insists that he Cam clean it up this time instead of leaving it for him. When Phil arrives home that night, Luke throws a basketball to him, which hits him in the head and then goes into the basket. Luke wants to try it again and capture it on film, but Phil has been told to change light bulbs. Luke pokes fun at him for doing whatever he is told. Claire then asks the entire family to help gather signatures for the stop sign she wants to put in, but everyone seems to have an excuse but Phil. Gloria lets Stella the dog out, but since the gate is open, she gets out. She calls Cam to help her canvass the neighborhood and find her. Cam uses this as an excuse not to clean the kitchen, and also finds that he is wearing an undershirt and is yelling for Stella just like in A Streetcar Named Desire. Mitchell is furious when he gets home and sees the kitchen, and he refuses to clean it himself… which takes everything he has. Phil decides to work with Luke to try and recapture the basketball video, but they just keep getting shots of the ball hitting him in the head. Since Manny has no luck on his own with the wrapping paper, he and Jay go door to door together but keep getting turned down. Likewise, Claire is canvassing for signatures and getting turned down. When she gets home, she is disappointed to find that no one in the family has collected any signatures to make up the fifty needed. Nevertheless, she goes to the traffic commission where the commissioner Duane Bailey (David Cross) is celebrating his birthday with a cake, which he is disappointed is not ice cream. When she doesn’t have enough signatures, she is instantly dismissed, but then her family show up with enough signatures to turn in the request, as well as a video created by Phil and Luke of a kid getting hit by a careless driver. Phil warns them that once his wife gets something in her head, it is going to happen. Having failed at selling wrapping paper, Manny laments that he will never be as good of a salesman as Jay, leading Jay to say he’ll just buy it all since Manny tries so hard. Manny admits that he knows how to manipulate Jay by complimenting him. Cam and Glora find Stella being walked by a little girl named Blanche (Paleigh Knight), more fodder for Cam’s Stanley Kowalski fantasy, but she refuses to give up the dog until all three of them getting in a screaming match. When Cam gets home, he is surprised to find that Mitchell never cleaned up. He starts to do it through tears, and Cam realizes that he had no intention of cleaning it up himself. Cam throws a fit and starts making an even bigger mess, spraying whipped cream on Lily and Cam. Just then the lady (Michelle Anne Johnson) from the adoption agency arrives. Phil and Luke start to rake in hits to their video simply captioned Man hit in the head by a basketball. Jordan Feldman is the commissioner’s assistant Olson. Bob Levitan is the eco neighbor. Robin Krieger is the Jewish neighbor. Michael D. Cohen is the carving neighbor. Murray Gershenz is the elderly neighbor. 11/5/22
• 053. Hit and Run – 10/12/2011
  • When Claire runs into Duane Bailey campaigning for Town Council and he mocks their previous encounter when she wanted a stop sign, she decides to run against him. Meanwhile, Cam criticizes a moviegoer father (Gary Kraus) who brings his daughters (Lily Mae Silverstein) to see a disturbing movie and won’t let up on him, only to realize that they were in The Muppet Movie, the wrong film. Gloria gets upset when Manny won’t let her help him with his project on the mafia, while Jay also won’t take any advice when he has to deal with a young client named Josh (Samm Levine) who wants to be ‘wowed’ by Jay’s closets. Haley starts asking her sister and brother if they will loan her $900. Luke secretly has the money but has frozen it in ice. Phil tells Claire that he will take care of the kids while she is campaigning, but it isn’t long before he’s accidentally given Luke a black eye while trying to open a band-aid and has all but knocked out Alex when he gives her nighttime allergy medicine. While Claire is trying to file paperwork with the city clerk (Gwen McGee), she gets a call that Alex was trying to buy fake IDs for herself and her friends. She also runs into Bailey, who taunts her about running. She decides not to run after all and blames it on Phil’s inability to take care of the kids. On the way to Jay’s house for dinner, Mitchell and Cam are rear-ended by a careless driver named Bruce (Michael Yurchak), who then flees the scene. Cam wants to chase him down, while Mitchell just wants to call the police. After everyone gathers together, Haley admits that she tries to buy the IDs from a guy named Peter (David Neher) who stiffed her on the deal. Against Mitchell’s wishes, Jay, Phil, and Cam all decide to go confront Peter. When they get to his house, Mitchell stays at the car. Peter tells them he will get the money and then tries to flee the scene himself. Mitchell catches him and tackles him, and ultimately the guys come home with the money. Gloria, tired of being turned down when she wants to give advice, insists on giving some to Claire. When Claire admits that she is scared to run for office because she is afraid she will lose, Gloria tells her that she is strong enough to win, and also strong enough to be able to handle losing. This inspires Claire to run after all. Jay takes a cue from Claire and decides to listen to her advice on how to handle his client Josh. He has Gloria present the closet to Josh while wearing a low cut blouse. This does in fact elicit a ‘wow’ response from Josh, even though he is looking at the same closet that Jay had already shown him. 4/5/23
• 054. Go Bullfrogs! – 10/19/2011
  • Phil takes Haley on a tour of his alma mater where he was once a proud Bulldog – which Claire keeps referring to as ‘Bullfrog.’ Claire is thrilled when both Alex and Luke go to sleepovers with friends, so it will give her the chance to have a fun night out. Luke’s friend’s mother Holly (Andrea Savage) was an old high school friend of Claire’s, and she invites Claire to watch Gone with the Wind with her and some friends. Claire lies and says she’s already seen it so that she can go out instead. She gets Cam and Mitchell to take her out, but she is surprised how boring they’ve become and more interested in a restaurant that serves pot pies. However, when Mitchell lets it slip that their friend Longinus invited them to a boutique opening, so they get their pot pies to go. While Phil is having barbecue with Hailey, one of the girls (Mandi Kreisher) she met invites her to a student mixer, and Phil insists that she go. He stays back and plays darts with some undergrads (Cory Knauf), but tracks Haley on her phone. When he finds out that she is at one of the fraternities, he barrels over and embarrasses her in front of a boy named Ben Ford (Jordan Nichols), who Phil had once coached for t-ball and whose parents are also there, his father being Phil’s doctor. He gives a heartfelt apology to Haley and the two re-live one of Phil’s memories of going down a hill on a cafeteria tray. When Cam and Mitchell get too exhausted when it hits 9:30pm, they head out, but Claire decides to stay out with Longinus’s trainer Julian (Gilles Marini). When Claire had to stop back at Holly’s place to give Luke his retainer, she and her friends stop Claire to find out how Gone with the Wind ended since their DVR conks out. Not only can she not explain it, but she is clearly drunk after telling Holly that she was sick. While they are judging Claire, Julian reveals that he is not gay and never was, much to her surprise and disgust. Mitchell and Cam realize that the valet gave them the wrong car, and they notice that the couple in this car seem to live much more exciting lives since they have receipts and tickets of fun events all over the car. They decide to use the GPS to take them to the car owner’s home, hoping to become friends with them so they can attach themselves to their exciting lives. However, when they arrive, an embittered wife (Anastasia Basil) beats the car with the bat thinking it is her husband. Manny gets a package in the mail but won’t tell his mother what it is. While Jay becomes obsessed with a Mexican soap opera, it is killing Gloria that Manny is keeping secrets from her. Jay warns her not to pry too much as it might be something like dirty videos or magazines. She insists that Jay find out what it is, but he refuses to get involved. However, when Manny cries for help from his room, Jay rushes in to find that it is a Lengthenator kit to help Manny heighten and he is stuck hanging upside down in his closet. He was doing it for a girl who preferred taller men. Jay promises to help Manny start working out so he can be more successful with the ladies. The owner of the car Danny (Danny Zuker) brings back Cam and Mitchell’s car and when he sees the condition of his car, he realizes that they’ve met his wife. Claudia Choi is Holly’s friend. Rico E. Anderson is the policeman. NOTE: Nika Williams aka Nika King is credited as a shopper but does not appear in the episode. 4/5/23
• 055. Treehouse – 11/2/2011
  • Phil brings home wood to start working on a treehouse in the backyard for Luke. Haley has to write an essay for her college admission about the time she had to overcome an obstacle. Meanwhile, Jay and Gloria have dinner with their friends Shorty (Chazz Palminteri) and Darlene (Jennifer Tilly), and Gloria notices how exciting their relationship seems compared to theirs. They invite Jay and Gloria to go salsa dancing, but Jay is resistant much to Gloria’s irritation. While Cameron and Mitchell are out together with Crispin, Cam thinks that the waitress (Jessica Makinson) is flirting with him. Mitchell bets him that he can’t get a woman’s number, so Cam approaches a girl named Katie (Leslie Mann), and everyone is surprised when she does in fact give him her number. As Phil struggles to put together the treehouse, he tells Luke how much he should appreciate this time in his life before family responsibilities kick in. Haley criticizes her mother for giving her everything, so she never had any obstacles. Claire tells Haley that she is no old enough to know the truth and takes her for a car ride. Cam starts to feel bad that he’s never going call Katie, so he tells Cameraon that he needs to let her get on with her life. He calls her, but feels too bad to tell her the truth, so the make plans to get together. Gloria decides to go dancing with or without Jay, so he has Manny help him learn to salsa dance. When Mitchell hears what Jay is doing, he gives him a pill that he says will loosen him up and make it easier for him to let loose. Claire and Haley arrive at their destination, a tree in the desert, and when Haley gets out of the car to look at it, Claire drives off and leaves her stranded there without her phone, giving her an obstacle to overcome. When Katie shows up for her meeting with Cam, she tells him how much she likes him and thinks about all of the things they can do together. When Cam tells Katie that he is gay, Katie is not remotely surprised, and tells him that all she wanted was a gay friend. He confesses that it was just a bar bet and now will look stupid in front of his boyfriend. When Mitchell comes home, Katie acts heartbroken to find out that Cam is gay, much to Mitchell’s utter surprise. Hailey arrives home, furious with her mother, but she tells Haley that she can now writer her essay, although Haley thinks she is psychotic. Jay shows up at the salsa nightclub, and the pill has made him as loose as can be. Darlene is annoyed that Shorty never surprises her like that. However, it turns out that the pill Mitchell gave his father was baby aspirin. Phil meets his neighbor Andre (Kevin Hart) for the first time since he moved in eight years ago, and they bond and become friends over the treehouse. Alex Quijano is the guy at the club who hits on Gloria. 8/17/23 
• 056. After the Fire – 11/16/2011
  • When the Rands’ house burns down in the neighborhood, Claire mobilizes the neighborhood to have a drive to help them start over. This causes Cam to not be able to sleep, but Mitchell won’t let him take medication because it makes him dress up like a clown. The whole family works together to gather donations, but Jay throws his back out while carrying a box. This disables him from picking up a company truck, so Cam gets the task, making it a point to show off that a gay man can drive a big rib. Jay is resistant to letting Phil massage his back. Gloria donates a drone helicopter for Reuben Rand, who is one of Luke’s friends. They decide they deserve to play with it too, so they take it out for a flight and lose it. Luke couldn’t care less, but Manny makes him help him find it. Claire pokes fun of Gloria’s accent to Mitchell, but he ardently defends her, and admits to having coffee with her regularly. Haley and Alex pretend to get into a fight so that they can get out of helping. It almost works, but she winds up sending them with Cam to pick up the truck. Haley makes fun of Alex for dressing like a tomboy. Cam’s feelings get hurt when the girls say it is surprising that he can drive Jay’s big truck. When Phil’s massage proves to be incredibly helpful, Jay accidentally tells Phil that he loves him. Phil seems to be overtaken by emotion and runs out of the room and tells him he needs a minute to himself. When Mitchell tells Gloria that Claire broke a vase, she gets annoyed and tells Mitchell that he is turning Gloria into their mother. Jay worries about how much Phil will overreact to what he said. However, in reality, Phil got a text from two of the guys who just left his farm, asking him if would leave the firm and come be a third partner in their new business. Cam continues to try and get the truck home, and accidentally drives up a little dirt hill. Cam wants to know why they assumed a gay man couldn’t drive a truck, and they tell him it had nothing with him being gay and was just because he is who he is. The girls get another gay trucker (Josh Latzer) to give them a hand getting off the dirt, and Cam refers to the trucker as a girl. Claire complains about Mitchell to her father, and suddenly realize that she has as many Daddy-issues as Mitchell may or may not have Mommy-issues, and that it is actually her who is making Gloria into their mother. Manny and Luke find a group of nerds led by one named Abraham (Mikey Reid) who have the helicopter and refuse to give it back. Just then Cam and the girls pull up, and Alex gets out of the car and takes back the helicopter. Andew and the other nerds are smitten with her and tells Haley that one day her fans will be working with Alex’s fans. Jay tries to hide from Phil, but then realizes he only wants business advice. Jay encourages him to follow his gut and gamble on himself and take the job with the two partners. All of the family members tell what the one thing would be they would save first in case of a fire. Claire says she’d be happy as long as she had her family, purposely making the others feel petty. Mitchell brings Haley and Alex to his house, as they all laugh at the difficulties that Cam had with the truck that day. Having just awakened, he comes out of the bedroom dressed as a clown. Kiva Jump is the neighbor Cindy. Tyler Mann is the second nerd. 8/18/23
• 057. Punkin Chunkin – 11/23/2011
  • As the family prepares for Thanksgiving, Phil invites an old neighbor Kenneth Ploufe (Josh Gad) over to visit for dinner, although Claire doesn’t care for him because he used to stare at her too long. Meanwhile, Cam insists on telling their friends Andy (Aaron Krebs) and Natalie (Gretchen Morgan) at the park the story of how he and his friends once slingshot a pumpkin across a football field that winded up landing through the sunroof of a preacher. Manny makes a horrible Thanksgiving centerpiece, and although Jay thinks they should be honest about how terrible it looks, Gloria would rather tell him that it is great. Clair gets more annoyed when she finds out that Kenneth has been a tremendous success without going to college, and he credits Phil for the support he gave him. Haley goes to pick up Alex and hits a trash can that dents the car’s driver’s side front door while the girls are looking at Alex’s phone. Mitchell tries to convince Cam to take the ‘punkin chunkin’ story out of his rotation, and also insinuates that it can’t be a totally true story. When Claire walks to the car to go get marshmallows, Haley distracts her by talking about college so that she doesn’t notice the dent. Phil tries to let his creativity loose by creating napkin origami and creating several small tables for dinner. Jay continues to press Gloria to be honest with Manny, especially after he criticizes Jay’s rice pilaf. As the guests arrive for dinner, Haley and Alex distract everyone from seeing the car. Jay privately tells Manny that his centerpiece isn’t his best work and tells him how to identify how his mother says the word ‘great’ when she’s lying. When he gets inside, he throws the centerpiece away. Phil says that Jay crushed his dreams because that is what Pritchetts do. Phil blames Claire for killing his dream invention head scratcher. Cam takes a poll as to who believes his ‘punkin chunkin’ story and determines that there are two groups: the dream squashing Pritchetts and the dreamers. To end the argument, Cam offers to prove that his story is possible. Claire initially tries to keep them at home to eat, but when Phil calls her a chicken, she gets on board with heading to a football field. When they launch the pumpkin, it only goes about ten yards and then falls apart. Jay, Claire, and Mitchell are victorious, but they all admit that they were hoping that it would work. They all get on board with stealing a batch of pumpkins off of porches. Although they never get it to fly all the way across the entire football field, one of the pumpkins hits the side of the dented car… just after Alex makes the confession that she distracted Haley and they caused the accident. 12/13/23
• 058. Express Christmas – 12/7/2011
  • As the entire family hangs out at the pool on the December 16th before Christmas, Mitchell announces that their mother isn’t coming for Christmas this year. Cameron wants to go visit his family in Missouri, while Jay thought they were getting together on Christmas Eve, as they are heading to Mexico on Christmas day. The Dunphy’s are going on a trip until December 21st, so they figure out they won’t be together until after the holiday. Phil suggests that they all get ready and have their Christmas that very night for an ‘Express Christmas.’ Mitchell volunteers to get the tree, Phil plans to get the turkey, Cam volunteers to set up a wrapping station, and Mitchell sends Gloria to get the angel that is up in their attic. Gloria is petrified of the attic, so she takes Luke to help look for the angel and he winds up stepping through the ceiling. Claire and Haley go Christmas shopping at Target, and Haley rises to the challenge. Mitchell and Alex find they get along remarkably well when they take Lily to find a tree. She even lambasts a tree salesman (Eric Petersen) when she thinks that he’s suggest a pink tree since Mitchell is gay. It turns out he was pointing to a truckful of new tree arrivals, and not the pink tree after all. Cam and Jay work on wrapping gifts, and in an attempt to get closer to Jay, Cam gives him a wrapped package that contains a cork from a bottle of wine they once drank together. When Jay can’t remember it, Cam gets his feelings hurt, and recognizes that he expects too much and feels too much. Haley finds the final toy for Lily at Target, but another boy (Kamen Edwards) grabs it before she can. She tries to seduce him, but then realizes he is gay. She then puts on a Target shirt and ask him if he’s like her to hold his merchandise at the checkout while he shops. As Claire stalls the cashier, Haley finally gets the package back to the checkout. Phil meets a guy (Ron Rogge) from Craigslist to pick up a Joe DiMaggio card for Jay’s gift. When he wants more money for the card, he decides that he’ll take their Butterball turkey instead. Manny thinks that man is going to kidnap him so he attempts to taze him, but winds up taxing Phil. Once the guy gives him the mint condition card, Phil is shaking so badly that he destroys the card in his hands. Mitchell and Alex get the tree tied to their car, but while exiting the lot, Mitchell slams on the breaks, causing the tree to slide out into the street. Gloria and Luke are driving by and run over the tree. Gloria then finds a spider on the angel and throws it out the window and it gets run over as well. As they all arrive back at the Dunphy house, Mitchell and Alex bring in the piece of the tree, Gloria tries to repair the angel with gum, Phil brings home Cornish Game Hens that he tries to defrost with the taser, and Cam is still sulking over being so overzealous with Jay. Everyone is ready to give up on the holiday, but Gloria insists they all stay and tell Mitchell and Claire that they clearly miss their mommy. Gloria tries to act like their mother and give them a hug. Jay makes the call that they should all go out to a Chinese restaurant for a Jewish Christmas. They are all surprised when they encounter a guy making fake snow in the front yard who Jay hired. Cam is touched, and Jay allows him to hug him from four to five seconds. Claire and Mitchell video message their mother, and everyone has a great time in the snow. Phil gives Jay his backup gift: a dog antler headpiece that Jay actually loves. 12/13/23

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