Modern Family Episode 2.17 Two Monkeys and a Panda

Cameron lets out a cheer whenever the word "adopt" pops up in conversation. He's trying to offset the word's negative charge for Lily's sake. He's also putting together a little storybook titled Two Monkeys and a Panda. Lily is the panda and her dads are the monkeys (because Cam can draw monkeys). During the research phase, Cameron discovers that Lily's adoption document reads "Lily Tucker Pritchett." There's no hyphen!

The lack of dash means Lily has Mitchell's last name only. Cameron believes this was done intentionally. Mitchell denies it, but later fesses up to his premeditated move. He was worried that Cam was going to freak out at the idea of parenthood and leave them both. Ouch.

Mitchell begins the process of getting a hyphen placed into Lily's name. He also takes a whack at the narrative for Two Monkeys and a Panda. The subtext of the story is all about the undeniable love in their family. Cameron appreciates Mitchell's take on the life they have with their adopted baby girl. By the way, Lily now claps whenever she hears the "A" word. Kinda makes for a nice little story, doesn't it?

The valuable spa certificates that Phil and Claire picked up at an auction expire in one day. Phil says, "If you don't use them then all our money just goes to charity." The horror! Unfortunately, Claire is totally swamped. There's no way she can make the spa thing happen. But if you think those certificates will just go to waste…then you don't know Dunphy.

Alex ruins Haley's sweater as Claire embarks on her busy day. In an effort to avoid a big blowup, Claire travels many miles to buy a replacement sweater. Phil offers simpler solutions to the problem, but Claire doesn't want to hear it. We should mention that all of Phil's suggestions are done via speaker phone as he pampers himself during a luxurious spa day.

Phil's female spa buddies let him know that Claire doesn't want him to solve her problems. It's better to support her as she does things for herself. Later, Claire returns home with a brand new sweater that gets ruined when the ink from the security tag explodes. Haley's furious and Claire's feeling defeated. Fortunately, Phil's there to give her nothing but support. Of course, he's a little miffed when his wife doesn't notice his sparkling new manicure and super-clean pores.

Jay is totally jazzed about the two primo crypt spots he picked out. They're just four spots down from Bugsy Siegel! Gloria, however, would much rather be buried in the ground. A couple of their future crypt neighbors express concern. They are worried that if Jay dies, his much younger wife may sell her spot to a complete stranger. Gloria sees this as opportunity to ditch the whole creepy crypt concept. It's a dead issue.

Jay always figured Gloria would remarry should he die. That never bothered him. Even if Gloria did find someone else, Jay always felt the guy would suffer in comparison to him. Now he's not so sure. But Manny says his mom fell in love with Jay during their first fight because she had finally met her match. That kind of makes Jay irreplaceable. Nice.