- Phil and Claire's Valentine's plans land Claire in the emergency room, Jay and Gloria try to be intimate for the first time after the baby, and Mitchell has a wild Valentine's night after drinking and blacking out at his party.
- It's Valentine's Day and love is in the air. For Phil (Ty Burrell) and Claire (Julie Bowen), that can only mean one thing: time for Clive and Juliana. Actually, they're celebrating a day early so they can babysit Joe for Jay and Gloria so they can get back to doing what couples do six weeks after having a baby. (PHIL: I can only imagine what Jay's going through.) Phil even tied a cherry stem with his tongue (which I assume turns women on the same way women doing that turns men on). They're ready for a big night. So big in fact, Juliana starts spinning. And faints. And is not answering Clive. Nor is Claire.
It turns out, Claire had an issue with her heart. Phil blames himself for being too sexy, but the doctor is certain that wasn't it. Phil wasn't. Anyway, she had Wolf-Parkinson-White Syndrome, a heart arrythmia that is hereditary. The doctor suggested rest for a few days. Phil suggest cancelling the babysitting, but Claire didn't want Jay and Gloria to make a big deal of it. In fact, she dressed up in a skimpy iceskating outfit because Phil promised her a few laps on the ice. Phil thought the doctor said she should take it easy, but Claire thought that was something doctors always said...like not drinking when you're pregnant. Phil suggested an in-home couples massage, since stress from sex might not set her off, but the kids coming home with a bunch of their friends because they assumed Phil and Claire were out might do it. Phil, I have to admit, did a very good imitation of Claire, particularly when he found out Haley (Sarah Hyland), Luke (Nolan Gould), and even Alex (Ariel Winter) were in on it and it wasn't the first time. (PHIL: Everybody whom I did not create, get out of my house right now!) The kids demanded answers, and Phil's policy of honestly made them panic. It went from Mom had a heart problem to almost dying of a heart attack in three sentences. Phil says she just had an episode...probably caused by him...and she needed to rest. Phil assured them everything was normal.
PHIL: And if two Cambodian guys show up, send them to our bedroom.
Claire, not ready to give up on having sex, convinces Phil to get into bed. They get interrupted by the kids, who were worried sick. Then Phil got up to see Claire covered in blood. It was from Phil's nosebleed but try telling the kids that. Claire was livid for the kids knowing.
CLAIRE: The one thing I asked from you is not to make a big deal of this and you couldn't even do that! We are fine! We are all fine. (Alex faints) Haley, revive your sister.
Phil was mad as hell for not only Claire being nonchalant about it, but the fact that she knew she had this condition inherited from her mother and she never told him in twenty years. Phil wants to be able to take care of her for once.
PHIL: This house isn't going to collapse into dust if you let yourself be vulnerable.
CLAIRE: We don't know that.
Gloria (Sofía Vergara) decided she wanted a little early action with Jay (Ed O'Neill), despite Jay having an early meeting and Manny (Rico Rodriguez) coming in to declare his favorite holiday. ("It's the one day of the year where the world tries to be as romantic as I am all the time. Good luck, world.") He promises to be back in two hours to continue their 'conversation', only he got a ticket for running a red light and Joe is being a real Pritchett. (JAY: We've gotta come up with a better term for that.) That being the baby cried whenever Gloria tried to put him down. But Jay had the magic touch and Gloria was all over him. Oh, did we mention Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) was over because Cameron and Mitchell were having a party?
LILY: Are you two kissing?
JAY: Bit of a mood killer.
LILY: My daddies kiss a lot.
JAY: ...and flatlined.
Jay had the same solution our dad had: the TV remote. (Well, we didn't have a remote; he just kicked out out of wherever he was and let us have the TV. That didn't work so well with all those Irish-Catholic kids.) But Jay didn't have a chance because the guy was over to babyproof the house. Jay decided he'd help and towed in a huge box to get those foam bumpers and cabinet locks in place, wondering why he needed all of this stuff when he used to let Mitch and Claire ride on the hood of his car to the supermarket. But Jay in a suit with his take-charge, blue-collar, get-it-done attitude was really turning Gloria on.
GLORIA: (horny as hell) And the drilling...all the drilling.
But the gate at the stairs does work. Lily proved that. And Manny comes home to get dressed for a Valentine's party a secret admirer invited him to. Jay wants him to keep his clothes-changing under a half-hour. (MANNY: You're funny.) Jay became suspicious when the 'secret admirer' wanted Manny to wear a fedora and bring poetry to recite. Jay suspects Manny will be humiliated at a party the popular kids were throwing. Gloria's very revealing outfit entices him upstairs (tearing the gate off in the process), but Jay felt guilty about letting Manny go to the party without warning him. Gloria was equally concerned because Manny told her the same things, but they couldn't protect him from everything.
JAY: That's the hardest part. When you realize you can't stop the world from hurting them.
Gloria offers to get some champagne. Which she used as an excuse to check on Manny, while Jay used that as an excuse to check on Claire and offered to take her to the doctor. The good news is, best Valentine's Day ever for Manny, but Jay wanted to get to his bedroom first so Manny could tell both of them at the same time.
Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) threw a Lonely Hearts party for their single friends as a goodwill gesture because Cam felt they were always waving their love in their friends' faces. (MITCHELL: There's got to be a better way to say that.) Well, the party got going...then it REALLY got going when Mitch decided to hit the booze to prove to Cam he could be "party fun" as much as "stay at home fun." Well, he got a little tipsy. Like Mad Men (2007) tipsy. And their cat was now pink. (Could have been worse; remember Mr. Bigglesworth?) To his credit, he helped take Bert and Dottie Winchell's Christmas decorations down...and put them in their house. And Pepper and Longiness were as hammered, as Prancer became the belle of the ball according to the pictures on his phone. (MITCH: No surprise there. Oh, and you must be Vixen.) Cameron was upset, but Mitchell insisted he didn't do anything that couldn't be undone...except for letting Dylan move in with them. They don't want him to stay, but if you guessed that Dylan's mother kicked him out of the house for her new boyfriend on the same day he loses his limo driver job and Haley goes to a party without him, then you must be one of the writers. (Yes, there was crying, too.) And there was a song. About the house with the tiny pink panther. But give Dylan credit; in the time it took them to wash the cat of her cherry Kool-Aid dye job, Dylan had cleaned the house to within an inch of its life. This was actually enough to convince Cameron to let him stay for a while. That, and Dylan breaking his arm falling off the roof when he put the reindeer up there by mistake. But Mitchell was drunk when he invited him and Cameron was sober, so now he had to fix it. Or just wait for Lily to do it for them.
Mitchell was still upset that Cameron didn't think he was fun, and Cam apologized. They needed to shoot for a happy medium. Mitchell had an idea about that he heard from somewhere, which involved a bar and a guy named Clive. (so that made Mitch Juliana? OK, whatever floats your boat.)
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