However, Gloria (Sofía Vergara) manages to turn the tables on him when she obliges him to taste one of her mother's blood sausages, something with which he is not comfortable.
They all agree to do it simultaneously, and when they do, they are all disgusted, but at the end of the day, Gloria pets Stella's belly when no one is around, and Manny sneaks into the kitchen to eat a pickle.
Meanwhile, Haley (Sarah Hyland), Alex (Ariel Winter), and Luke (Nolan Gould) find a box that contains their parents' old mementos.
They decide to trick them when they discover that Claire (Julie Bowen) left a message on Phil's (Ty Burrell) old answering machine in which she said she was pregnant.
Claire comforts him by saying that he is always here to make her laugh, and she reminds him of the day when he and the kids created a soap fight when they had to wash the car and says she would not like to be anywhere else.
Cam (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitch's (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) wedding day is approaching, and they are thousands of dollars over their budget.
The episode ends with Haley, Alex, and Luke listening to an old message from Mitch, who explains to Phil that he is sorry that Jay did not have a better reaction when he learned that Claire was pregnant.
She opened her review by saying, "Modern Family took a sharp turn this week", and went on to praise the episode's emotional conclusion.
He stated, "Average would be a perfect word to describe 'Message Received', an episode that squanders its interesting plots with contrived story beats".