Jay (Ed O'Neill) begins to worry that he does not have a conventionally masculine son, as Manny (Rico Rodriguez) mourns his girlfriend's loss and Gloria (Sofia Vergara) dresses and makes up Joe (Pierce Wallace) like a girl.
Phil (Ty Burrell), who runs errands with him in order to get Lily's (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) Princess Castle for Joe, is upset too as Claire (Julie Bowen) refuses to let him buy a new Pac-Man game.
On the road, the two men bond over their respective difficulties and exchange advise with each other, until Phil misinterprets Jay's words and unties the castle from the car.
Luke (Nolan Gould) feels bad because Manny's girlfriend hit on him, but Claire misinterprets his mood as him having trouble in accepting the fact that Alex (Ariel Winter) receives medals from their school while he gets nothing.
Claire decides to visit Principal Brown (Andrew Daly) who, though he remembers Alex and Haley, has no recollection of Luke and does not seem to know who he is.
Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) have the desire to adopt another child but because they think that the other one might not be ready, no one says anything and they try to make each other understand their wish by babysitting Joe and looking happy while doing it.
Lily feels excluded but Mitch and Cameron notice that Joe can be quite a handful, especially when he begins to break and damage their possessions.
Kudos to Ariel Winter for providing the episode’s biggest laugh with Alex’s multiple acceptance speeches over the credits.
[...] I’m not saying the show is required to dive into a thesis on gender dysmorphia, but you’ve never seen fear on a dad’s face like when his boy grabs a pink bike.