MODERN FAMILY Recap: Career Day

This week on Modern Family we have a few distinct stories.

Tooth Fairy: Cam and Mitchell are excited because Lily lost her first tooth.
Cam: When I had my first loose tooth my momma tied one end of a string to it and the other to the tail of a Guernsey Cow, fired off a twelve gage shot gun and the cow went running out of the room.
Lily however is smart, too smart. She fakes being asleep and has a butterfly catching net with a flashlight under her covers to catch the Tooth Fairy when she gets to her room. This is going to be harder than Cam and Mitchell thought.
The next morning Lily wakes up to find an envelope from the Tooth Fairy. It contains fairy dust, stickers a tooth brush and a hundred dollar bill. Lily is pretty excited, obviously. Cam is sorry, in the dark last night he made a mistake. They don’t want to be the parents of a six year old who got $100 from the Tooth Fairy.
Later that day Lily gets another letter from the Tooth Fairy, this time in the mail. She is surprised because she doesn’t get much mail. Seriously, she is way too smart for her parents good. She hopes it is more money but the letter is telling her the Tooth Fairy made a mistake. Lily needs to leave the $100 under her pillow and it will be exchanged for $1. Lily is really not loving this idea. Cam thinks they need to give the Tooth Fairy the money back but Lily says no, she is keeping it.
Mitchell: I’m scared she is the one who will be taking care of us when we’re older.
Desperate to get the money back Cam and Mitchell have roped Haley into playing the Tooth Fairy. She is decked out in a pink outfit, a pink wig and a masquerade mask to hide her identity. Did they just have this outfit laying around I wonder? Haley aka the Tooth Fairy wakes up Lily. Lily wants to know if she is really the Tooth Fairy and Haley assures her she is, but then Haley makes a grammatical error and Lily says she knows it’s Haley.
Haley takes off her mask and says Lily is pretty smart. Mitchell says the Tooth Fairy made a mistake, so put the money under the pillow. Lily wants to buy a scooter though and she isn’t budging. Somehow Haley comes through with the right thing to say. She tells Lily she would probably keep the money too, she doesn’t care what Santa thinks. After further questioning, Haley says Santa sees everything and keeping the money will probably put Lily on the naughty list. What does Lily care though about getting presents every year, she has $100. Cam and Mitchell look on in grateful awe. Lilly wants some time to think about it. Eventually before going to bed for the night she puts the $100 under her pillow.

Career Day: It’s Career Day at Luke and Manny’s school and Phil is excited. Very very excited.
As things get under way Phil starts his spiel when Gil Thorpe, his nemesis, arrives. Phil tries to shrug Gil’s interruptions off and instead starts his presentation. Unfortunately his presentation is a video of himself dressed as a kid who Phil talks to about his life. I say unfortunately because it is completely ridiculous. “Kid Phil” uses words like “Cray-Cray”. It’s not good.
Gil interjects in the presentation throwing Phil’s timing off. Phil gets frustrated and leaves. Gil finishes his pitch and they have some time left. Claire is still in the classroom having been there to support Phil. The teacher wonders if Claire will talk to the class about her job as a stay at home Mom. Claire gets up and starts talking about what she does with her days. The kids ask why she didn’t go back to work after her children got older and Claire says she always thought she would but it’s not easy to get back into the work force. Gil stands up for Claire against the rude interrupting student and says stay at home moms are heroes.
Out at the car Gil makes sure Claire is okay and apologizes for cutting into Phil’s Career Day time. Then he offers her a job. He needs someone to liaison with the planning commission on a project he has in the works. She needs a few days to think about it.
Phil is not okay with Claire working for Gil. He reminds her Gil is his nemesis and Claire reminds him he isn’t Batman. Apparently only Batman can have a nemesis. Phil thinks Gil is only using her to get to him. Claire thinks Gil might want to hire her for her. She storms out.
Phil and Luke are driving around later in the day when Gil calls. He rubs in the job offer he gave Claire. Despite Luke being in the care Gil makes a number of inappropriate references about Claire.
Claire is at home getting her briefcase out for her first day of work tomorrow. Phil tries to tell her about Gil and his phone call but Claire says she has been happy all day. Someone finally values her. Phil and Luke say they value her but she says this is different. She knows Gil isn’t the greatest guy but she needs this. Phil tells her he wants her to take the job. When she runs out of the room, to take her shoulder pads out of all of her old suits, Phil tells Luke if it makes Claire happy he can handle a few rude phone calls from Gil. Just then Phil gets a text from Gil he reads it and gets teary eyed before leaving the room himself.

The Great American Novel: Jay and Manny are talking about Career Day as well. Manny didn’t ask Jay to participate because he figured he didn’t want to, which he doesn’t. It’s one of those, it would nice to have been asked, moments. Besides, this isn’t what Jay wanted to do with his life, but it pays the bills. What he really wanted to do was write thrillers, spy thrillers. Gloria has never heard him mention anything about writing, she thinks he is just being ridiculous.
Gloria finds Jay’s typewriter and some paper for him. She puts it in front of him and tells him if he wants to write he should write. Jay says he has a busy day but Gloria says she cleared his schedule. Write.
Jay is typing away on his novel, he only gets a few sentences typed before drawing a blank. This blank leads to Jay finding a spot on the table that needs to be cleaned. The spot was food so that leads Jay to remembering it is lunch time. Eating lunch gets mayo on the typewriter which ends the writing for the time being.
Manny gets home from school to talk to Jay about his book. Jay says it isn’t going well to which Manny counters self-doubt is part of the process. When Manny looks at what Jay has written though he can’t come up with a single compliment. Jay tells Manny what is happening in the plot and Manny starts spit-balling. It is so good Jay gets up and lets Manny type out his ideas.
When Gloria gets home Jay kicks Manny out of the chair and pretends to be the one who did all of the typing on the novel. Gloria asks to read it and as she makes constructive criticism Manny starts to get defensive over his story. Jay says the point is he can write and he has proved it. Manny says it was his story and stomps out of the room.

Voiceover (Manny): We all weave a web of lies. Some we tell to try to help the ones we love. Some we tell to try to fool ourselves, and some we tell because when you are out of bullets and staring down the barrel of a Kalashnikov, the only weapon you have left is guile.
Jay: She’s nuts. That’s fantastic.

This episode of Modern Family ends with Phil rallying the kids to clean up around the house before Claire gets home from her first day of work. Haley is to laundry, Alex is on kitchen and vacuum and Luke is on bathrooms. Claire gets home almost immediately after Phil finishes giving the kids their chores. Phil wonders why she is home so early. Claire says Gil is a pig, he treated her like a servant and was shown no respect. Phil choses that moment to ask Claire what is for dinner. She glares at him and storms into the house.

Modern Family airs Wednesday 9/8c on ABC