- The Dunphys try to persuade the perfect couple to move in next door, Manny dates the granddaughter of Jay's biggest nemesis, and Mitchell and Cameron try to get Lily a new teacher.
- Phil is selling the house next door and he and Claire are excited by the prospect of having wonderful new neighbors, but that quickly turns into panic when a loud and obnoxious couple come to look at the house. Jay forbids Manny to see his new girlfriend when he realizes she's the granddaughter of his biggest business rival, leading to a clash of the closet titans. Elsewhere, Mitch and Cam are determined to switch Lily out of Mrs. Plank's class since she is known to rule with an iron fist - not to mention she scares them too.
- When Phil gets the chance to sell their old neighbors house, Claire and him take it as a chance to choose their new neighbors. Jay banishes Manny from seeing his new girlfriend when he relizes she is the grand-daughter of his arch rival. And Cam and Mitch get in a predicament when they think Lily is being wade down by her new teacher Mrs. Plank. (Or Mrs. Crank as Cam calls her.)
- The Dunphys were about to get a new neighbor. Phil (Ty Burrell) was handling the sale of Jerry's house due to his divorce. Phil had to make sure he got Jerry a great deal, but he also wanted to make sure he got Claire (Julie Bowen) some really good new neighbors. Phil was confident "he could satisfy both of them simultaneously" and actually found a really nice couple to move in. Claire and the kids even did a little pretend gardening to show how good of neighbors they are. Although someone should tell Luke (Nolan Gould) when he grabbed that little hoe, he shouldn't hug Haley (Sarah Hyland). (HALEY: I don't think that's what she meant. Is it?) But Claire certainly liked the couple moving in. The husband was a wine connoisseur and the wife worked at a P.R. firm who had a shoe company as its biggest client. Haley was practically in tears at all the free shoes. But then, they also had some competition. Who drive up in an eight-foot high pick up truck. And apparently the daughter makes out with her boyfriend so she doesn't have to re-take his class. These are people Jerry Springer guests would look down on. But apparently they had the money, as the parents, Ronnie and Amber (Steve Zahn and Andrea Anders), owned 8 medical marijuana stores throughout the area. Which might explain why Haley thought they looked familiar. And he loved the place so much, he went $50,000 over the bid of the other couple. No help from Alex (Ariel Winter), either, given their son thought she was hot.
Jay (Ed O'Neill) got to meet Manny's (Rico Rodriguez) new girlfriend, who was quite impressed with his line of work, to say nothing about Jay's invention of a box for holding rolled-up socks so you kept them in order and didn't wear the same ones all the time. He called it Sock it to Me. But the reason she was impressed was closets ran in her family, too. In fact, her grandfather was Earl Chambers, Jay's ex-partner in the closet business. Earl left Jay one day in the early years with half of the clients and even their one celebrity client (Larry Hagman, great guy, big heart), forcing Jay to start from scratch. Naturally, Jay forbade Manny from seeing this girl again, but that was enough for Gloria (Sofía Vergara). She put the two of them in a restaurant and told them to work out their differences.
GLORIA: You two are acting like two little boys, so I'm going to have to handle this the way my mother handled my two little brothers. (Slams two knives into the table, points first!) Either you two work this out, or you kill each other.
Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) were worried about Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons). She was stressing out at all the homework her teacher, Mrs. Plank (Tyne Daly), was giving her. In fact, she made a tiny spelling error on her timeline poster and she ripped the thing to shreds. Well, Mrs. Plank was kind of a mean teacher. So mean, in fact, when Mitch and Cam went over to see if Lily could transfer to the easier Miss Sparrow's class, Mrs. Plank decided the word of the day for the board was "buffoon." That was actually nicer than the frowny-faced stamp she had to special order from Germany. They tried to say Lily had enough pressure on her being an orphan from Vietnam being raised by two gay parents.
MRS. PLANK: Are you trying to say Lily is at a disadvantage because she is being raised by gay parents?
MITCHELL: (sheepish) Is it working? (She made buffoon plural, so no.)
But Mrs. Plank actually didn't care, so she let Lily transfer. It turns out, that wasn't such a good idea because Lily already knew grammar and mathematics, and her friend in Miss Sparrow's class thought that 2 + 7 = 27 and the colors blue and yellow combined to make blellow. Obviously it was time for Mitch and Cam to apologize and get her back in.
MRS. PLANK: I'll take Lily back if you are able to tell me the object of this sentence: Lily's parents were wrong about Mrs. Plank.
MITCHELL: I think the object is to humiliate us?
MRS. PLANK: Correct. See, I can teach anybody.
The talk between Jay and Earl was going down like the 18-year-old scotch both of them were having. Only, the complete opposite of that. Jay wanted an apology from him, and Earl wanted an apology from him for sabotaging his booth at ClosetCon '98. (JAY: That thing was cheap and made in the Orient, like your wife!) Jay wants Sophie to stay away from his house because Jay thought Earl sent her there to spy. Earl was quite surprised that she was dating Manny. (JAY: Oh, he's dating her. He's dating her REAL good.) Earl was flabbergasted and wanted it to stop, only Jay didn't really tell him that's what he wanted, too.
EARL: (desperate) I banged your ex-wife!
JAY: If you banged DeDe, I really do owe you an apology.
However, Earl went over to the house to apologize to Jay in order to get Sophie to stop dating Manny and discovered Manny was really a gentleman, in spite of Jay trying to make him out to be some sort of lothario. Earl gave his blessing to the two...and took Jay's idea for the sox box. Only he'd call it the Sock N Roll. (JAY: Damn, that's a good name!)
Desperate to keep the first couple in the house, Phil and Claire have them over and act about as desperate as you possibly can. I mean, Claire talked about the guy have tickets to the gun show and Phil acted like...well, Phil. They were out, so Phil went to Jerry to get him to pass on the better offer (he was required by law to show all offers). Jerry thought it would be good to take because he could get that colonoscopy he needed and get away from his apartment neighbors...who judging by the marks in the wall liked to get drunk and play with their nail gun. Phil admitted they wanted to get a better neighbor in there than Reefer Madness (1936) and Jerry understood that. He would wait for a better offer...and then he scalded his hands on the pickle jar of hot tea he just poured. Phil told him to take the offer and Claire and he put up with their new neighbors, who apparently sensed the tension between all four of them (wink, wink).
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