MODERN FAMILY Recap: My Hero

On Modern Family Cam and Mitchell run into Teddy, Mitchell’s first significant boyfriend. He is hosting a fundraiser at the local roller rink for his hospital, he’s a doctor, and he wants Cam and Mitchell to go. Mitchell seems a little bit hesitant but Cam agrees to be there.

Before the fundraiser, Over at Jay’s house Claire is babysitting and when Jay gets home he says he needs to talk to Claire for a moment. Since Claire has been looking to get back out there and get a job Jay thought maybe she would like to work with him. Claire says she needs the night to think about it. Claire gets home to talk to Phil about how she does not want to work for her dad. She does want a job and being groomed to take over some day would be nice but Jay is a terrible boss. Phil says she has to come clean to Jay and be honest.

Cam, Mitchell and Lily get to the roller rink to do some skating. Mitchell just can’t believe Cam is okay with hanging out with his ex-boyfriend. Cam assures him he is fine. Cam really does seem okay with it and as he is about to put his own skates on the Dunphy’s show up. Teddy invited them. The kids gush about how great Teddy is as Phil and Claire skate by. Jay, Gloria and Manny show up as well. Cam has a moment of jealousy but he manages to rein it in.
Teddy and Claire and holding hands and skating around talking about how Claire used to work at the roller rink back in the day when Cam comes up to the edge of the rink. He comments on how cozy they are and Claire says it has been a whole month since they have talked. Apparently Teddy comes by for dinner, checks in when the kids are sick and Phil has helped him buy his last two houses. Cam is getting less and less okay with how close Teddy is to the Dunphy’s.
Across the rink Manny is standing with Luke. Luke is binge eating but he doesn’t want to talk about what he is going through.
Phil finds Gloria sitting off to the side and asks her if she wants to skate with him. She admits she doesn’t know how to skate. Phil is a natural teacher, or so he says, and he offers Gloria his hand.
Phil has Gloria out on the skating rink. She barely gets going before starting to fall over. Wouldn’t you know Teddy is there to catch her? Cam see this and has had enough, he heads over to an arcade game with a punching bag and give it one hell of a punch. Mitchell sees this and pulls Cam aside to talk. Mitchell assures Cam he doesn’t have any feeling left for Teddy but that isn’t Cam’s problem. He doesn’t like how Mitchell’s family is cheating on him with Teddy. Cam wants Mitchell to make it right; he wants Mitchell to get his family to break up with Teddy.
Gloria is fussing over looking stupid on the rink and Phil suggests they go outside and practice where no one can see them. Claire is still hiding from her father so she doesn’t have to tell him she doesn’t want to work for him. She turns her back for a moment and when she turns around Jay is there, and he wants to talk. Before they can do anything though Mitchell joins their little circle, he wants to talk to them about how close they are to Teddy. He wants them to stop seeing Teddy. They think that is a ridiculous idea.
Out in the parking lot Phil is trying to teach Gloria to skate and it is not going so well. She is grasping for his hair, pinching his side, doing anything to stay upright in the skates. She even pushed him into a car side mirror leaving a pretty serious bruise on his face.
Luke finds Claire at the snack counter; he threw up from all of the binge eating. She makes sure he is okay and it turns out he is stressed, and binge eating because he had to write an essay about the person in his family that is his hero. He didn’t pick Phil and Phil assumed he did and now that he wants to read it Luke is worried. Luke says he wrote it about Claire. He says a hero is strong and not afraid of anything, which is her. Claire takes this as a sign she needs to suck it up and tell her dad she doesn’t want the job. She tells Jay and he is very disappointed in her. She just nods her head like she saw that coming. She feels terrible after confronting her dad. She decides she isn’t done with that conversation and skates off to find Jay.

Cam is still sitting off to the side of the rink pouting about how much everyone loves Teddy when Jay sits down. He muses that it is strange Teddy is still single, must be something off with him. He goes on to share that he did not bring out the best in Mitchell. Now he really has Cam’s attention. Jay says when they were together Mitchell just wasn’t really happy like he is with Cam. He just wants his kids to be happy and Cam clearly makes Mitchell happy. Cam could not be more pleased to hear this. Claire overhears this conversation and asks her dad if he wants to skate with her.

While the entire Modern Family cast pair off and skate with each other we see Claire take the job offer from Jay and Phil finally gets Gloria to skate by herself The we hear Manny in voiceover:
What qualifies someone as a hero? Obviously a hero has to be someone who we respect, a person we look up to, a person who is generous of spirit, who is willing to grow and learn. Maybe it is the person who you love most in this world or the guy who makes the most out of life, no matter what anyone thinks. For me though, the hero in my family is my family because of who we are together.

Modern Family airs Wednesday 9/8c on ABC