Phil and Claire swap parenting roles for the day - Claire will be the fun loving good cop and Phil the disciplinarian bad cop - and it's literally a shock to each kid's system. Meanwhile Gloria is at it again, taking in every sob story and stray she comes across, Jay finds himself dispensing business advice to an overzealous entrepreneur about his dog training business scheme, and Cameron is bedridden with the flu -- leaving Mitchell torn about the Lady Gaga concert tickets they have for later that night.

Jay wants nothing more than to have a quiet birthday out fishing on the lake, but the family take that as him wanting a big celebration, and in their frantic scramble to put everything together, Claire and Mitchell wind up trapped in the yard of their childhood home; Phil runs into his old college nemesis while at the mall with Gloria and Lily; Cameron gets himself into some hot water at the bakery, and the kids frantically do some creative editing on grandpa's birthday video, all of which leaves Jay with a headache.