"Virgin Territory" is the sixteenth episode from Season 3 of Modern Family, it aired on February 22, 2012.
Plot Summary[]
Jay finds out Mitchell has ruined his greatest golf moment. While on the way to fix Lily's doll, Alex spills a surprising secret about Haley to Phil, leaving him heartbroken, while Gloria discovers a secret of Claire's. Cam's desperate to get everyone out of the house so he can investigate an issue and prove Claire wrong, and Luke helps Manny to impress a girl he likes.
Episode Description[]
Phil and Claire are hosting brunch for everybody...well, Claire is. Cameron still wants to know where his Tupperware is that he loaned to Claire. Jay tries to remember the weatherman whom DeDe didn't listen to and ruined his old convertible. Lily tells Grandpa to just eat his eggs, which everybody thinks is so cute. On the subject of true confessions, it was actually Claire who ruined the convertible and DeDe took the bullet for her. Although in her defense, she was trying to get the cigarette smoke out of the car of her platonic male friend. Yeah, that's the ticket. But of course, the statute of limitations has expired on this. Of course, Jay couldn't get to one of Mitch's ice skating competitions because he was hammered at the golf course. And Mitchell decides to tell Jay the hole-in-one he got on the golf course wasn't one because he kicked the ball in the hole out of boredom. Oops. Jay didn't take too well to that.
LILY: Great, Daddy. You ruined brunch.
Although everybody finds Lily's frank statements adorable, Luke and Manny are feeling a bit of jealousy about Lily getting all the attention. So much so, Luke decides to set a trap for Lily so she gets yelled at by Claire. The trap works perfectly...on Cameron, who slips on the spilled milk and threw out his back, breaking Lily's doll in the process. Phil feels guilty for the milk since he left some out earlier and offers to take Lily with the girls to the mall to get a new doll. Haley and Alex, naturally, start to argue, and Phil tries to play peacemaker by taking them to the food court, over Haley's protests.
PHIL: Don't worry, girls. We're not going to deprive ourselves of food just because of Haley's aversion to...
ALEX: (laughing, then suddenly stops) Oh, Haley's AVERSION. I thought you said Haley's a....never mind.
Cam is on the couch recovering from throwing out his back, and he sends Claire on her way to yoga. Gloria wants to go with and bond but Claire gives her the cold shoulders. Cam convinces her to go as well. Mainly because he was faking his bad back and intended to find the Tupperware bowl Claire borrowed. Of course, he has to get Mitchell out of the house, who was feeling guilty about telling Jay about his non-hole-in-one. Cam figured Mitchell marred a great father-son experience for Jay since he took him out to dinner and bought Mitch his first beer that night. Mitch heads for the golf course to unmar that memory.
Haley was upset at Alex, of course, for blabbing to Phil she wasn't a virgin, even though Claire already knew. But Claire had promised not to tell Phil until Haley went away to college. Alex thought their dad may not have heard her. But, he heard it loud and clear.
Claire had told Gloria about going to yoga, who promptly followed her on Cam's advice, so Claire had to pretend to have a headache and head back home. Gloria watches her leave and is none too happy with her. Gloria stakes out the yoga studio and sees Claire return. She confronts Claire, who explained she had a 'sacred space' she had to come to in order to unwind. She agreed to let Gloria join her if she never said where they were going. To the massage place? To the nail salon? Nope, the gun range. Nothing like relieving the stress of four teenagers in the house like plugging a paper target with a Sig Sauer. Gloria thinks it's crazy...that Claire isn't a better shot, and proceeds to plug the target center mass on her first shot.
At the golf course, Jay is serenaded with some primo BSing from his golfing buddies, so he figures he can keep his lie up since they were sticking to theirs. Mitch comes in and confesses Jay didn't know anything about him kicking the ball into the hole. And that Jay was coming down to confess the whole thing to them. Only he didn't have to since Mitch just did it for him.
Following Manny and Luke's failed attempt at revenge on Lily, they go down to see the girl Manny likes, Miranda. Only he chickens out, and Luke can't handle his incessant whining about it. He takes Cam's keys, since the guys were being paid to wash the car, and they drive down the block to Miranda's house. Luke drives by first and then convinces Manny to do it. After much prodding, he successfully drives by Miranda's house. Except now he has to drive backward because he doesn't know how to make a U-turn. On the good side, they don't feel the need to get back at Lily; she can be the cute one; they're the bad boys.
As Alex tries to fix Lily's doll, which Lily finds pretty because the doll looks just like Alex, Phil tries to get Lily's regular doll repaired by the doll doctor. Lily's doll can be repaired, although it won't be quite the same as it was before.
PHIL: I'm just saying I like her the way she was. She was such a sweet little doll, and now she's just broken.
Haley doesn't miss the message and tries to say she's the same person, just changed a little bit, but Phil's not having it. In the interview, he wanted to say to Haley he knew she was almost 18 and he was trying to be cool about such things, and he trusted her to be safe about it and make good decisions. However, he wasn't in the interview and it was hard for him to look at Haley right now, so Haley offered to go get the table at the food court. But he did manage to give her a hug.
Mitch apologized for marring his day, but Mitch thinks the day was still great even without the hole-in-one. For Jay, it was about hitting the ball from a tee very far into a tiny hole. It's especially bad since that wasn't the first day Mitch had a beer. He forgot about the time he was 14 and tried to take a sip of his dad's beer, only to have DeDe say he was just a baby in front of all of his friends and leave him in tears. Jay grabbed a couple of beers and gave him one outside. And he finally remembered the name of that weatherman: Storm Stevens.
Oh, by the way, Cameron did find the Tupperware...by using the cutlery drawer as a step. And yes, he really threw out his back this time. Alex purchased the doll Lily played with, and Phil thanked Claire for keeping him in the dark about Haley for three whole months.
Main Cast[]
(The characters striked out do not appear in this episode)
- Jay Pritchett
- Gloria Pritchett
- Manny Delgado
- Claire Dunphy
- Phil Dunphy
- Haley Dunphy
- Alex Dunphy
- Luke Dunphy
- Mitchell Pritchett
- Cameron Tucker
- Lily Tucker-Pritchett
Trivia[]
- This marks Miles's first appearance.
Continuity[]
- This episode aired five years exactly before Heavy is the Head.
Guest Starring[]
- Ernie Hudson as Miles
- Will Greenberg as Dr. Goodall
- Jack Laufer as Frank
- Marc Vann as Stan
- Hollis Robinson as Miranda
- Tim Monsion as Waiter
- Jess Allen as Claire's Friend