Spring Break

"Spring Break"
Season	6
Episode	18
Total Episode Count	138
Written By	Paul Corrigan Brad Walsh
Directed By	Gail Mancuso
Production Code	6ARG17
Air Date	March 25, 2015
Episode Guide
← Previous	"Closet? You'll Love It!"
Next →	"Grill, Interrupted"

Plot Summary

Spring break has Claire doing some spring cleaning, while Phil struggles with not being a spring chicken when Luke starts outperforming him at seemingly everything. Haley takes Alex to a music festival to take her mind off of colleges, and Gloria and Jay challenge one another to give up Spanish soap operas and cigars respectively. However, when Gloria accompanies Cameron to his faculty talent show, she projects the soapy drama she craves onto Cam's rivalry with Señor Kaplan, and Jay tags along with Mitchell to pick up Lily from camp so he can sneak a smoke.

Episode Description

It is Spring Break and Alex (Ariel Winter) is busy checking her e-mails to see if Harvard have accepted her. Under Claire's (Julie Bowen) instructions, Alex goes with Haley (Sarah Hyland) to a Music Festival so she can relax a little and take her mind away from colleges. After Haley gets Alex drunk, Haley is on the phone with Claire learning that Alex did not get accepted to Harvard and she understands why Alex behaves so weird outside the fact that she is also drunk. Haley talks to Alex, and manages to convince her to put things to perspective. Returning home, Alex looks better and admits that Haley made her proud of herself while heading to her room rejecting Claire's help.

Phil (Ty Burrell) decides to spend time with his son. However, Luke (Nolan Gould) begins to outperform his dad in every activity they practice together, like playing the banjo and trampolining. When Claire gets excited of how fast Luke learn to play the banjo and how good he is at trampolining, Phil's feelings get hurt. Later on, Phil finds a bra under Luke's pillow and berates him as he is still "a kid who lives under his Dad's roof, and should follow his rules". While Phil is yelling at Luke, an accident with the banjo injures Luke in the eye, and Phil has to escort him to the hospital. Phil apologizes for his behavior, which Luke accepts and reveals that the bra actually belongs to him because he has trouble un-doing it on girls and he wants to practice. When a nurse comes to see Luke, he takes the opportunity to un-do her bra.

Jay (Ed O'Neill) and Gloria (Sofia Vergara) try to give up one of their bad habits that annoys each other. Gloria has to stop watching her soap operas while Jay has to quit smoking. Jay gets the opportunity to leave the house and smoke when Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) believes that Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) is miserable at her scout camp and decides to pick her up. Jay goes with him and on their way there, they disagree on the fact that parents should always be there for their kids as Mitchell believes, while Jay supports that children have to learn to be independent. When the arrive at the camp, Mitchell realizes that he was wrong and that Lily enjoys her time there. He tries to apologize by narrating a scary story he heard during the time he was at camp but fails until the moment the scouts see Jay in the woods, who they mistakenly believe is the ghost from Mitchell's story.

Back in the town, Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) has to participate in a talent show that his school is organizing, and Gloria accompanies him. At the talent show, Cameron meets Senor Kaplan (Will Sasso) and begrudgingly lets him sing his song. However, after an accident, Cameron is wrongly blamed by the others who think that he deliberately injured Senor Kaplan in order to take his place. Cameron feels bad knowing what everyone believes he did and his performance is not good. After the performance, Kaplan reveals to Gloria that he was the one responsible for the accident because he knew he could not perform the song, unaware that Gloria had turned his microphone on in order to reveal the truth and help Cameron. When everyone hears of Kaplan's plan, they turn their favor and Cameron fights him, much to Gloria's pleasure as she finally found a real soap opera to watch without commercial breaks.

Guest Starring

• Will Sasso as Señor Kaplan
• Alyson Reed as Angela
• Aubree Young as Sydney
• Perry Anzilotti as Stan
• Grace Rowe as Mrs. Bay
• Troy Blendell as Dennis
• Marshall Givens as Roger
• Greg Thirloway as Kurt
• Ayumi Iizuka as Den Mother
• Ashlyn Faith Williams as Girl Scout #1
• Rigel Blue as Girl Scout #2
• Wayne Alon Scott as Security Guard
• Rachel Sterling as Nurse
• Emma Loewen as Little Girl

Continuity

• Señor Kaplan and Angela's second appearance ("Spring-a-Ding-Fling"). Interestingly, both episode began with the word "spring" and did'nt feature Manny.
• Sydney's second appearance ("The Cold").
• Alex mentions her summer vacation, when she built houses for the poor in "The Long Honeymoon".
• Phil's trampoline reappears from "A Slight at the Opera".
• Jay mentions the time when his dad tossed him in a lake, a story he spoke to Manny in "The Day We Almost Died".
• Cam sings a song from Cats, like in "When a Tree Falls."
• In Connection Lost, Haley was pissed because her family invaded her private life. Here, she apparently accepts that Alex's privacy was invaded by Claire.

Trivia

• Aside from a few interview scenes, the Pritchett-Tucker household does not appear in this episode.
• Manny and Joe are absent in this episode.
• According to Phil, he may suffer from Nocturnia as he has to go to the restroom at night, so as Marty in Playdates.

Cultural References

• Phil mentions Earl Scruggs and Kermit the Frog.
• Cam sings "Memory" from Cats.
• Luke plays "Turkey in the Straw" on the banjo.
• Claire called him "Ban Jovi", punning on Bon Jovi.
• Mitch criticizes Todd Jansen's Artful Dodger.

Gallery

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