Trama

Claire and Cam clash over a fountain as they try to flip a house, Mitchell confronts a playground bully, Jay spends the day alone with Joe, and Phil tries to teach the girls about home repairs.

Lots to do around the Dunphy-Pritchett houses. Claire (Julie Bowen) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) are working on the house they plan to flip, Phil (Ty Burrell) wants to teach Alex (Ariel Winter) and Haley (Sarah Hyland) how to be independent, Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) wants to help Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) with a bully at school...with Luke's (Nolan Gould) help, and Jay (Ed O'Neill) and Gloria (Sofía Vergara) have to figure out who will hang out with whom when they split up parenting duties for Manny (Rico Rodriguez) and Joseph. (I'm taking these one at a time because going back and forth will just be confusing.)

Claire and Cameron get along just fine when it comes to remodeling. Of course, each has a strategy for dealing with the other. Cam always shows Claire something insane first before "negotiating down" to the thing he really wanted, and Claire confuses Cam with a lot of numbers. Of course, this doesn't last long, so they need to bring in a third party when Cam wants to build a huge fountain (with a fire background). Pam, who's son plays with Lily, was a contractor, and despite the fact she hated Cameron and had the hots for Claire (damn she looked good in that shirt), offered a neutral opinion. The fountain was too much for someone who was just flipping a house. But Cam wouldn't hear the end of it, so he built a fountain with musically-timed waterspouts. Claire and Pam were quite impressed. They even loved the little goldfish he added. And if you're thinking you shouldn't put goldfish in the same water with a large pump, you would be correct.

Phil was alarmed at how little Alex and Haley knew about doing maintenance in the house. (Alex not knowing how to use a broom? Really?) So the day was a little lesson for the two courtesy of Dad. He showed them how to replace a burned-out light bulb (which later fell on him), and he even showed what to do if the hot water heater wasn't working. However, the pilot light wouldn't start up for him and he sent them on their way to get a torque screwdriver. He had a method to his madness: he could then Skype his father, who stepped him through the process of fixing the heater. Of course, hearing how glad his father was when he called because it made him feel needed, Phil figured he'd let the girls slide because then they would always need him.

Lily and the other kids were getting bullied quite a bit on the handball court at their school. (the outdoor kind, with a dodgeball...the school isn't THAT fancy) Mitchell wanted to help with the bully, so he took the little boy on in handball...and got so humiliated, Lily refused to acknowledge him as her father. It turns out Luke was quite the handball player, so Mitchell decided to get some lessons from him. Despite Luke making El don del coraje (1979) look like Robert Young, Mitchell came back to challenge the bully, saying he couldn't stay on the court if he beat him. Mitchell did defeat him, trash talking the entire way. To a five-year-old. And now Cam will have to drive Lily to school every day.

Jay and Gloria had to divide parenting duties for the day. Jay figured he'd take Joe and 'convince' Gloria that she needed some bonding time with Manny because he was feeling left out with a younger brother around. The fact that Manny wanted to go to a reading of Moby Dick had NO effect on this plan whatsoever. However, Joe was crying only 20 minutes into it, but Jay took Joe to his playtime date anyway. However, with Joe being completely asleep and Jay not wanting to waste $50 on a "hippie with a puppet" when Joe would never see it, he instead took Joe to bond. James Bond, that is. Jay took Joe to see Skyfall (2012) thinking he wouldn't wake up. But of course, like every Bond villain, he gave too much of the plot away and Joe woke up. Thankfully, an old friend of Claire's happened to be there and didn't want to be in the theater...once Daniel Craig has his shirt back on...and offered to calm Joe outside the theater. Just in time for Gloria and Manny to pass by. Needless to say, Gloria was absolutely livid with Jay, and no amount of promising to take Manny to the Moby Dick reading the next day would make up for it. But Manny blew the whistle on her, saying she told him the reading was sold out and they went shopping instead. The reading wasn't sold out. But Jay definitely made up for it by reading the book to both Manny and Joe.