‘Modern Family’ RECAP: Season 5-Episode 3 - Dead ‘Larry’s Wife’
Phil (Ty Burrrell) discovers the benefits of tapping on the veins of the new clients, the recently divorced moms. He is being the sweet, charming realtor and it almost sounds and looks like, Phil is wooing the divorced moms. While Phil is tapping on the new client base, his son Luke (Nolan Gould) is having his poker-game in the basement.
Claire (Julie Bowen) has to go to her father's place to close-up the monthly. She gives a list of things to do to Phil, which include grocery shopping, checking in on the kids and clearing the branches in the front yard. Phil assures her that all the things will be done though he is hardly paying attention to what Claire is saying. When Claire returns, she finds that Phil has done nothing and that the kids are acting weird. She tells Phil that he is juggling the divorcees and he is not that "good a juggler."
Luke's friend Rubin kisses Alex (Ariel Winter) on the mouth, which is Luke's way of paying-off the poker debt. Haley (Sarah Hyland) wants to join the poker-game but it has no girls policy. Later, she joins the boys and does something for the money. Luke and Haley seek out Alex's help when they lose everything at the poker-game and call it a bloodbath.
Claire catches Phil helping out one of the divorcees with the grocery shopping and later two more of his clients appear, questioning him about what he told them. Claire pops-up and tells the clients that they are in great hands and Phil helped her, too -- morning, day and night. "Phil taught me how to trust a man, again," Claire says to the ladies. Phil brightens-up but then Claire starts talking about the negatives of her husband and his ways, and that he never said sorry and that Claire you are right.
At Jay ((Ed O'Neill) and Gloria's (Sofia Vergara) place: Gloria is acting like a perfect, overly-worried mother. She tells Jay that she has bad news as their little one Joe was thrown out of the gym body because he pushed her. "Joe plays very rough and we know why," Gloria says and adds, almost whispering "its the curse." According to Gloria, there is a "mark of the devil in my family." Jay rubbishes all the theories of the family curse and the history of her great-great-grandfather. Gloria tells Jay that if it is not the curse then it is known that her family has a "very dark side" such as fixing a soccer game and stealing.
Jay and Manny (Rico Rodriguez) are out for an afternoon outing, to watch the old movie "Death Wish." At the theatre, a boy bumps into Jay and does not apologise. Jay loses his cool and tries to drill some etiquette lessons into the kid. He also pulls up the kid's jeans, which embarrasses Manny as he goes to school with the kid. Manny tells Jay that judgemental, temperamental and loud are his least favourite things about him.
Jay tells Manny why he loses-his temper, while Manny tries to be the elder-wise-man in the relationship and asks him to let it go. However, when a boy in the back row comments about Mary Poppins, Manny loses his cool as "you got a problem with Poppins, you got a problem with me." Marry gets kicked out when he picks-up a fight at the "Sound of Music," and Jay is proud of that.
Gloria seeks out professional help for Joe, calling-up a Padre. The padre does not find anything wrong with the sweet, little boy but it is hard to convince Gloria. Padre assures Gloria that Joe is growing-up in a great family environment and that it is parents who shape-up the kids. Soon that illusion of a great family environment is shattered when Manny and Jay enter the house discussing about the events of the afternoon.
At Cam (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitch's (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) place: Mitch has given Cam the complete responsibility of the wedding, after they hear the tragic news of one of the couples breaking-up because of the wedding arrangement stress and squabbles. Mitch feels that the best thing about his relationship with Cam is "the trust" but his obsessive cleaning behaviour suggests that it is not all good.
Mitch is finding it difficult to cope-with the loss of the control and is cleaning his office spaces and objects like a maniac, which results in him getting stuck in the ventilator. He cannot let the control go and it's freaking him out.
Cat Larry goes missing and Lilly (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) is looking for him. Cam believes that he is "definitely" dead. Later Cam tells Lilly that Larry is probably not coming back because he met someone, fell in love and got married, and went away to live in the forest. But, Larry returns and without a wife, which makes Lilly question about the missing wife. Cam comes-up with the excuse that Larry's wife died, and he throws a funeral for the dead cat wife. The big-funeral, with kids in attendance turns out to be big fiasco.
Both Cam and Mitch realise that they need to do the wedding planning, together as they are better together.