Modern Family Season 3 Episode 17 “Leap Day” Recap
In this week’s episode it is all about celebrating Leap Day. For Phil, it is the one day he can just have fun and let go. He and his family, including Manny have decided to celebrate by taking trapeze classes. Except when the day finally arrives Claire, Alex and Haley are all incredibly moody and emotional, bring about one of Phil’s greatest fears that he dubbed the “Satan’s Trifecta” to life. Apparently, the Dunphy women’s cycles have finally synced together creating a three “monsters” hell bent on scaring the crap out of Phil. Phil decides that he and the boys need a plan of action, so he gets Luke to act that he isn’t feeling well describing how tired and confused he feels, hoping that Dunphy women will take the hint and stay home. They trio gets the hint, but because Luke is supposedly not feeling to good either they decided he should stay behind as well. Phil won’t leave a man behind, while Manny just gives up and makes his way back to his house.
Meanwhile, Leap Day just so happens to be Cam’s birthday! This will be his actual tenth birthday, while Mitchell reminds him he is turning forty. Mitchell has been preparing for this day for months, going so far as hiring a personal party planner to transform their house into a Wizard of Oz themed Extravaganza. Mitch has the house dolled up as different scenes of the movie with the staff from the catering company dressed up as the different characters. He even went so far as to get Cam ruby sequined loafers especially made for him bid day. As Mitchell is still setting things up, he sees Cam drive up into their drive way which is odd since he shouldn’t be arriving home until another couple of hours. He gets Cam outside, trying to get him as far the house as possible going. Cam explains to Mitchell that he remembered that he left his phone in the other car as he was heading to see his mom about taking care of the insurance on his grandpa’s farm. As Cam further explains to remind Mitchell, his grandfather’s farm was disseminated in a tornado and how his family believes that this might be the right time to rebuild. Hearing this freaks out Mitchell, because he completely forgot how much Cam hates tornadoes. So with quick song and dance in the middle of the street to keep Cam distracted as “Tin-man, The Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow” all run outside trying to catch dog playing Toto from running into the street. As soon as Cam leaves, Mitchell walks back into the house informing everyone that there has been a change of plans and they need to come up with a new theme. One of the waiters suggests a cruise experience and with only two hours to go it seems like that is their only option left, so Mitchell agrees and has the party planner book the cruise, hoping this idea turns out better than his last.
As for Jay and Gloria they are head out to a local bar to watch some sports. Gloria is there to watch the soccer match between the Columbians and the Netherlands, while Jay just wants to watch an actual sport. Gloria and Netherlands soccer fan get into an argument as he starts telling her that she is obnoxiously loud and that maybe she needs to quiet down. Gloria doesn’t take this suggest to well and starts yelling louder and the two almost look like they are going to get into a fight, until Jay steps in to rectify the situation. Jay and the guy almost start something as well, but Jay offers to buy him a pitcher of beer and tells him that Gloria will sit by him on the other side of the bar to resolve the situation. Gloria tells Jay that she thought he was going to start a fight and tries to imply that she would of like him to defend her in such a manner, instead of being of so calm and level headed all the time. Jay seems to understand the underlying hints, but in reality he doesn’t. It takes him having a conversation with Manny, to see that maybe Gloria would like Jay to be the guy from the stories he has told from his youth, a tough, rebellious, and spontaneous man. Jay believes he can be the “bad boy” for Gloria once in a while if it would make her happy.
Back at the Dunphy house, Phil has put a plan together to help “rescue” Luke from the clutches of the “monstrous” women of the household, while Claire just wants Phil to stop tiptoeing around the “cycle” issue and just talk to her. Phil is able to get Luke alone and tells him that once he leaves the bathroom, Luke will pretend to have cut himself, using the bottle of fake blood Phil found earlier in the garage to coat his hand. Phil will offer to take him to the doctor’s office, where the two can escape and take the trapeze lessons they had planned to do so earlier. The plan falls into place, but the plan quickly starts to fall apart because Luke accidently dropped the entire bottle of fake blood all over himself, more looking like he was run over by a tractor instead of having a simple finger cut. Claire, Alex, and Haley all rush in after Phil and start screaming when they get a chance to look at Luke. Claire notices the fake blood and gets Luke to confess that it was all Phil’s idea. Claire, Haley, and Alex all look towards Phil for an explanation and the best he can come up with is to say he is sorry and still afraid of them, which just pisses them off even more.
Everyone meets at the dock to surprise Mitchell for his birthday and Cam is pleasantly surprised, but as they start walking towards the cruise a strong pungent order starts filling the air, due to an apparent dead whale floating by the cruise. Once the reach the ship, the captain informs Mitchell that he has to many guests as he exceeds the fire code for the boat. Mitchell tries to get him to change his mind, but the captain lets slip that if he had more than two hours’ notice he could of came up with a better solution. After hearing this remark, Cam is upset with Mitchell thinking that Mitchell planned this party only two hours ago; even though Mitchell promised him he had been planning this for months. Gloria tries to make the captain see reason, but all it does is cause an argument to being the two of them. Jay intervenes trying to stick up for Gloria and getting in the guy’s face, but Gloria tells him that he doesn’t need to act all tough, because she likes him just exactly the way he is. This gets Jay to calm down, but the captain just calls him “grandpa” and Gloria is the one to punch the captain in the face. He tells everyone that the cruise is off and this just provides more fuel to the fire and Cam just gets angrier and angrier with Mitchell.
At the dock, Phil tries to reason with Dunphy women, but all it does is makes matters worse. Finally, Phil snaps saying that he is tired of trying to explain himself and that he is so confused and angry and hungry among a list of other emotions and this gets the girls to pity him and forgive him because now he understands a little of what they have been going through. Mitchell on the other hand is not having that much success with Cam as he thought he would. He explains to Cam about his original Wizard of Oz themed party and how he had to change it at the last minute. Mitchell still angry starts ranting how this was supposed to be his tenth birthday party, Mitchell corrects him that he is actually forty and that’s when Cam breaks down. The real reason Cam was so touchy about his birthday was because he was scared of turning forty years old. So Cam decides to take the entire family to the circus carnival down the street to celebrate Cam’s birthday like it was meant to be, having fun.
In the end, Mitchell and Cam ride the twirl-a-whirl, while Phil tries to get to his trapeze lesson. The overseer of the lessons tells him that he is too late, but the Dunphy women take charge and basically berate the man to give Phil his lessons. Phil is beyond thrilled and is completely excited to have this chance. He even gets the girls and Claire to play Whack-a-Mole which really seems to help relieve their tension. Phil even asks the operator of the game to see if he could rent this machine monthly, to have a way for the girls and Claire to deal with their emotions instead of scaring him. As for Mitchell and Cam the finish out their night with a ball throwing game and they win a giant stuffed bear. Mitchell wishes Cam a Happy 10th birthday, saying that he doesn’t even look ten years old, more like a sexy eight year old. Mitchell’s statement causes Cam to blush, but also frightens a mom with her young son nonetheless, into moving swiftly and quickly away from them. Cam tries to give them the overstuffed bear he won to apologize, but it just makes the two more look like creepers than anything else and the pair decides to leave them be and continue having fun.
Originally posted on Affairs Magazine
