- Things become tense when the Dunphys temporarily move into a hotel, Gloria is suspicious of Manny's new girlfriend, and Mitchell discovers that he has jinxed Cameron's football team.
- The Dunphys move into a cramped hotel room while their house is getting treated for mold and Phil sees this as an opportunity to spend some quality time together but Claire and the kids are less than enthused. Gloria becomes over protective when Manny starts dating an older, popular girl, and Cameron is under a lot of pressure to maintain his team's winning streak but when he realizes Mitchell may be a jinx, emotions run high.—ABC Publicity
- The Dunphys have to head to a hotel because their house must be treated for mold. And of the thousands of hotels in California, they get one room (with a single full-sized bed, no less) at a place that makes a Motel 6 look like the Waldorf-Astoria. Still, Phil (Ty Burrell) figures they can survive one night. And five nights later, everybody is ready to kill each other, they have to leap over Claire (Julie Bowen) to get to the bathroom with the drain hair that doesn't match any of them, and they had to contend with Luke (Nolan Gould) drowning himself in body spray. It was called Sex Grenade, and it would be lucky if 62% of the time it worked every time. Particularly when the bottle broke and started spraying everyone. Fortunately, Phil threw himself on the Grenade to ave the family. Alex (Ariel Winter) and Haley (Sarah Hyland) were going out of their minds, and that was before Luke pulled out a second bottle and continued spraying.
The good news for Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) was that the football team was up to 5-0. It was unprecedented at the school, so Cam picked up a few superstitions, such as wearing the same hat, forgetting his keys before the first game, even tripping on Lily's (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) roller skate on the porch as he left. Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) was getting a bit tired of it, even stopping Cam from his traditional "hurt his shin on the coffee table" move. But Cam insisted he didn't ask Mitchell to get involved with football, he didn't even had to go to the games. Just let him have this because football was the first place Cam was accepted when he was in school. Cam left, leaving Mitchell to deal with all the good luck gifts Cam got (and the only chocolate was on the sun-dried tomato). Mitchell complained to the only person listening (Lily) that his hatred of sports stemmed from his father and how he always got picked last. Like Lily did the other day...and then got thrown in the ball bag by some mean girls who threatened to kill her dads if she ratted them out. Not that Mitchell was listening to it. Although he did realize he had to be more supportive and sit for three hours getting splinters from the wooden planks you sit on (even though Cam said those were aluminum now).
Jay (Ed O'Neill) and Gloria (Sofía Vergara) were worried about Manny's (Rico Rodriguez) new friend. And by Jay and Gloria, I really meant Gloria. Particularly about the fact that Manny's new friend was a senior and he was a sophomore. And even more so when Manny's friend turned out to be a girl who liked to kiss Manny. To humor Gloria, Jay went and had a talk with Sam. He didn't want Sam to go too fast...in her Mustang. OK, this wasn't going the way Jay wanted.
JAY: Young people have urges. It's natural. Hey, I have urges. The point is, you're 18 and I have my eye on you.
How was the hotel for the Dunphys? For Claire, it was going OK, actually. Mostly because she found a room for herself and had been sleeping there for a few days. Phil felt betrayed. (PHIL: There's no easy way to say this. Your mother's leaving us. She found a room that makes her happy.) And now Haley wondered why some of them couldn't stay with her. Yup, it was time to decide whom the kids should live with. That didn't take long. She had a much nicer room, so they all went over there.
At the football game, the team was up once again, and Gloria was up in arms over Manny dating a senior. Jay did try to defend her by showing that Sam made a sign for Manny and was waving it at the game (she even used glitter). But then the story unraveled. Actually so did the game, since Mitchell's arrival turned the fortunes of the team. While Cam berated Mitchell for showing up and jinxing the team, Jay caught Sam making out with what appeared to be her ex boyfriend. He couldn't tell Manny; it would break his heart. And he couldn't tell Gloria; she would break Sam. So he kept it all to himself until after the game. Which, thankfully, the team won. Mitchell had left, and Cameron was upset with himself when he turned back to the stands and didn't see him. He called to apologize for what he said, and Mitchell was on the fence. (CAMERON: I don't blame you. I feel stupid making you think this was all your fault.) But Mitchell was actually on the fence at the far end of the stadium. He tried to take a shortcut to get back to his car and got stuck. Thankfully both of them apologized to each other for how they behaved. Although Mitchell getting a Gatorade shower from the team didn't help his vicuna sweater.
Back at home, Manny tried to sneak up to bed, but Jay caught him, inviting him to have a sip of scotch. Manny admitted Sam dumped him. Actually, she was just using him to make her ex-boyfriend jealous. Manny couldn't believe his first girlfriend was just using him, but Jay pointed out that if Sam picked any old slob, she wouldn't have gotten her boyfriend jealous. She had to pick someone worthy of being a damn good boyfriend. It hurts, obviously, but that's what you have to get through in life.
JAY: I just wish I could give you some magic words or a hug to make it all...(Manny hugs him).
OK, Jay can tolerate a hug, particularly when he has to wave off Gloria from doing it...and having the scotch then wouldn't have worked well.
JAY: (opening the scotch bottle) Beautiful 18-year-old, full-bodied.
MANNY: (crying again) Sam!
Phil was upset that Claire left him and so did the kids. He had some room-swipe wine from the hotel's "bar." (if you've stayed in cheap hotels, you know how this goes) The other divorced guys there felt his pain, and they thought he should have a little fun with the cute Nigerian lady who wanted to go to the pool with him. But Phil thought he'd be OK. That is, until he tried to teach the nice lady and the rest of her family the pool game of Marco Polo. Yeah, that didn't work so well. Thankfully, Haley and Alex found out that the hotel was half-full all week and that Phil lied to them so they could all spend time together. They relented and headed down to the pool to play Marco Polo with them.
As for the Nigerian family, perhaps Phil shouldn't have used the phrase "stop by anytime" with them so loosely. They were there a few nights later. In the middle of the night. With two not-so-domesticated dogs.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content