Tony receives anonymous, artistic death threats, seemingly from a convict he'd helped to convict. Stan tries to prosecute a deer poacher with failed results until protests outside the department building give Tony an idea. Rachel's special-needs class gives a poetry reading. Tony learns the hard way it wasn't the convict sending him the death threats.

Tony discovers one of Rachel's colleagues, a popular and much-honored teacher, is a child molester. Stan tries to catch a robber who left his hat at the scene. Tony scrambles to get ballet tickets in time for Rachel's birthday while also learning about the molester's own childhood abuse and trying to convince the parents of one of the molester's victims to let their daughter tell her story in court.

A man in a Santa Claus mask is committing home invasions. Worried about his fitness, Tony volunteers to partner up with different officers on night patrol – and gets a surprise or three while learning night patrol isn't quite what he remembered from his years as a Brooklyn beat officer.

Tony and Rachel consider buying a new home in an exclusive area of town. After being arrested by Ricky and Carmela on a possible DUI, the son of a wealthy and well-connected attorney dies in police custody, but the attorney refuses to accept either his son's life in a rough part of town or that his death was a suicide. Stan tries to solve a series of convenience store robberies. Tony learns how the young suspect got the belt with which he hanged himself in his holding cell and that the boy was blackmailed over his law school failure, which may have driven him to end his own life.

Claire makes an effort to take a new family portrait. Gloria and Manny go with Phil and Alex to a Lakers game and share an awkward moment on the jumbotron. Cameron gets a job as a wedding singer while Mitchell takes care of Lily and battles with a pigeon that entered the house. Luke interviews Jay for a school project. After many mishaps, the family is barely on time for the portrait but Claire's perfectionism gets on Jay who starts a mud fight. The portrait is not as perfect as Claire was imagining it but she admits that she loves the result.

Jay's plans to do nothing but relax on vacation are interrupted by an unwelcome reality check that leads him to work out instead of having fun. Meanwhile, Phil tries to give Claire the romantic honeymoon and wedding they never had the chance to do due to Claire being pregnant with Haley then. Mitchell and Cameron disagree on whether they should go sightseeing or not since Mitchell wants to but Cameron just wants to have fun. The kids get themselves into trouble when Haley gets drunk and Luke and Manny do not get along sharing a room.

it is Phil's birthday and Claire wants to buy him an Apple iPad, excited about buying him a good gift for the first time but she meets some difficulties still she manages to get one. Meanwhile, Mitchell wants to toughen up and Cameron hears a neighbor's marital difficulties over the baby monitor. Cameron tries to help his neighbors not to get a divorce and is pleased when he succeeds. Jay faces off with Manny and Gloria over chess.

Gloria invites the whole family on a getaway to Hawaii for Jay's birthday much to Jay's chagrin. While waiting for their flight, Mitchell realizes that he does not have his wallet - which includes his ID - with him and he has to go back and get it. Phil offers to drive him back home, something that upsets Claire because Phil leaves her alone while he knows how much nervous she is when they are about to fly. Manny is kept for questioning after his name matches a name on a no-fly list and Haley flirts with a boy while Dylan is trapped inside the Dunphy's house.

Luke and Manny's hot-tempered basketball coach quits in the middle of the game after Jay and Phil argue with him, causing both to jockey for the position. Claire and Gloria each struggle with the adolescence of Alex and Manny, respectively, and try to find a solution together. Mitchell takes Cameron along to meet a potential boss but they end up wrecking his Ferrari.

Phil's father visits unexpected bringing a dog, named Scout, with him. Claire is angry with him because he is planning to leave the dog with them but when he finally leaves and takes Scout with him, Claire is upset because she has bonded with it. Jay takes Manny with him to the movies to watch a movie that an old friend of Mitchell is playing in, but he does not know that is a horror movie, leading Manny to be scared causing troubles at home. Cameron joins Dylan's band as a drummer, since the drummer has to move to Portland, Oregon.

Phil and Luke decide to search the dark place under their house to discover if there is anything hidden there that is worth their attention but they only find some Halloween decorations. Haley finally passes the test and gets her driver's license after the third time and Alex decides to go to a dance. Mitchell and Cameron invite Lily's pediatrician for a brunch but they end up doubting their worth as parents when Lily says "mommy" in the pediatrician's presence. Gloria wants to make Jay and Manny face their fear of roller coasters and forces them, in her way, to ride one.

Claire and Phil meet up at a bar to celebrate Valentine's Day, and they indulge in role playing. Claire decides to take off her clothes and put on only her coat to seduce Phil, but things take a wrong turn when the two of them become trapped on an escalator. Before that, Gloria and Jay were at a comedy club to watch David Brenner perform. Mitchell and Cameron try to help out Manny with a girl he likes.

Mitchell tries to offer his legal advice to Gloria after a car crash she was involved, believing that it was not her fault. Claire meets an old friend from work, Valerie, and thinks that Valerie pities her for leaving her job years back to raise her family. Claire wants to prove to her that she made the right decision. Jay and Cameron go to the gym to play racquetball but an incident in the locker room does not allow Jay to concentrate on the game.

Gloria is annoyed at Jay's reaction to Javier, Manny's unreliable dad, but manages to let Jay allow Javier to stay for the night. Jay is seduced by Javier's manner, leading Gloria to take action. Phil suffers from kidney stones and Claire calls the firemen to rush him to the hospital. Mitchell and Cameron try to train Lily into sleeping alone but they have a hard time doing it, especially Cameron.

Claire finds a photo of a topless woman on her computer and believes that it is Luke's, while in reality is Phil's. Haley believes that Alex has read her journal and the two girls fight, while Luke was the one who did it. Jay buys a statue of a dog dressed as a butler and brings it home, but Gloria does not like it at all. Mitchell and Cameron try to help their Spanish gardener who seems upset but the lack of understanding his language, causes confusion.

Claire and Phil threaten to take away Christmas when they discover that one of the kids tried a cigarette but none wants to admit it. Alex takes the blame to save Christmas but it is revealed that they were all saying the truth from the start. Cameron and Mitchell take Lily to get her first picture with Santa at the Mall, but they complain to the management that Santa is not jolly enough for the kids, which leads to Santa losing his job. Jay wants to introduce Manny and Gloria to some Christmas traditions while they want to do the same to Jay with Colombian Christmas traditions

Phil and Claire try to throw a party for Luke's birthday. Cameron decides to dress up as his clown character Fizbo to attend, Manny has a hard time impressing a girl after taking advice from Jay and Haley gets jealous of Dylan who talks to the animal handler of the party ignoring her. Everything seems to go fine but after Haley frees the scorpion, things go wrong and the family ends up to the emergency room.

Claire wants to make a special gift to Phil for their anniversary since she always picks the worst presents for him, while he chooses some amazing ones. All the kids are gathered at Jay's house for a sleepover, in a night that Jay calls "Jay's night". Haley does not want to be there and wants to go to a party with Dylan, but Dylan ends up being part of the sleepover with all of them. Mitch and Cameron go out to meet their party friend, Sal, so they can have fun for the first time in a long time only to realize that Sal is jealous of Lily.

Manny takes up fencing and he is quite talented. Jay is very proud of Manny, something that causes Mitchell's childhood ice skating trauma to resurface. These feelings cause Mitchell to confront Claire about it, whom he finds responsible for it. Phil tries to find Luke's hidden talents after Manny's success but without any luck.

The whole family gathers at Jay and Gloria's to watch the football game. Mitch, who does not know much about football, decides to learn some things about it so he can enjoy the game. Luke and Manny make up after fighting at school, but when Manny says that Luke calls Gloria a "coal digger" (a term he has heard from Claire), things get worse, with Gloria leaving the room. Eventually, Claire apologizes and the two women make up.

Mitchell and Claire's mother visit the family months after she embarrassed Jay in front of his family on his wedding day. Phil and Claire try to judge whether Haley's boyfriend is acceptable to take her to a concert or not. Mitchell goes to his father's house to tell him that they are inviting his ex-wife to a party, but he does not tell Gloria. At the reunion, Gloria and Jay's ex-wife begin to fight, but Haley's boyfriend stops them.

The pilot introduces viewers to three sets of people who make up a single family. The episode is shot in a mockumentary style, with a cameraman following the characters around their everyday lives and interviewing them at various intervals. It cuts between the experiences of the three separate units before they all come together at the end of the episode. In the episode, Jay's family tries to function despite the age difference between himself and his wife. Claire's family tries to punish their son and watch over her daughter and her new boyfriend. Mitchell tries to hide the fact that he and his partner Cameron have adopted a daughter in Vietnam from his family until Cameron invites Mitchell's family without consulting him

Jay tries to spend some time alone with his model airplane, but Phil ruins it for him. He hits Phil in the nose with his model airplane on purpose and claims it was an accident, but later apologizes when Claire calls him on it. Alex and Gloria go to a mall and Gloria tries to convince Alex to wear a dress to a wedding. Mitchell goes to Costco for the first time in his life and while he thinks he will not like it, he gets excited.