'Modern Family': Claw and order

The law was confronted in three major subplots of last night's "Modern Family" episode, titled "When a Tree Falls."

For Cam (Eric Stonestreet), it was time to take a stand to save his favorite tree, "Tree-ona Elmsley," the one in the park that he and Mitch (Jessie Tyler Ferguson) like to picnic under.

Cam climbs Tree-ona to occupy it and teach his daughter a lesson about principles. (Unlike Mitch, he points out, he is a doer. Sean Penn would play him in a movie about this -- "or Anne Hathaway.")

That's when Cam gets the call he momentarily forgot he's been waiting for -- to understudy for the lead in his school's play. His lesson about taking a stand will need to be taught by Mitch, after Cam guilts him into it.

When the police arrive, Mitch explains that he's only a tree-sitting understudy for his partner. In the middle of his explanation, however, he talks himself into the cause. The tree is beautiful and he's not coming down.

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Claire (Julie Bowen) takes Gloria (Sofia Vergara) shopping, because she can't go herself due to "pregnancy brain." (Symptoms include attempting to exit a moving vehicle, standing in the frozen food aisle and not knowing why, and closing the hatchback on your relatives' heads.)

Security approaches the awkward pair as they exit the store. A sweatshirt has been shoplifted. It’s Claire who's the absent-minded thief, however. She forgot she tried the sweatshirt on. ("Why would I buy hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise and then steal a twenty-dollar sweatshirt?" Claire asks the guard.)

Unfortunately, the guard isn't buying their story any more than they bought the sweatshirt. He hauls them to his office and demands that Claire sign an admission of guilt. Otherwise, he's calling the cops. Claire refuses.

Gloria solves the problem by screaming, secretly spilling a bottle of water underneath her dress, and loudly blaming the stress of being falsely accused for inducing labor. The guard walks them out, begging forgiveness.

But there is no escaping the law of karma. Just as Claire pulls away, she blows through a red light and cues the sirens.

It is with considerably more dignity that Haley (Sarah Hyland) faces her debt to society. (Remember, she assaulted a police officer, accidentally, by falling on top of him at college?) But the real justice will be done once Alex (Ariel Winter) shoots, then posts to Facebook, a humiliating photo of her older sister performing roadside community service. This will retaliate for the photo Haley snapped last summer of Alex in her headgear that has so far earned 873 Facebook likes.

Perfectionist that Alex is, however, she doesn't like her initial photos and moves closer to the garbage-picking action. That's when he drops her cell phone down a sewer. Alex removes the grating and fishes through the mud to find it -- only to watch it get run over by a sports car in which Haley is riding as a passenger. Noting how muddy Alex looks, Haley snaps a humiliating photo for Facebook.

Finally, an obnoxious classmate of Manny's (Rico Rodriguez) throws a sport-themed birthday party, dubbing it the Doug-lympics after himself. Suffice it to say, sports isn’t Manny's thing. (He wears wingtips around the house.) And Manny suspects he's invited just to be the token Latino. ("Look, I'm Mexico again," he says. "Does anyone care that I’m not from Mexico?")

Ultimately, Manny wins his classmates over and has a blast. The real story at this party is the boiling over of serious repressed anger between Phil (Ty Burrell) and Jay (Ed O'Neill). After a game of who is less manly -- which Phil wins after Jay recalls the time his son-in-law renamed the Olivia Newton-John song "Let's Get Phil-sical" and "did a little dance to it" -- the two step into the Doug-lympics boxing ring. In his reality-TV confessional, Jay tells the camera: "Here’s something I thought I would never say -- I’d rather box my daughter’s husband than my son’s."

Phil smashes his father-in-law to pieces, then apologizes, admitting that he "may have been holding on to a tiny bit of anger against Jay."

Cam arrives back at the park and relieves Mitch of his tree-sitting shift. He is in full "Cats" makeup. He waits out the police, who admit defeat -- at least for the day.

"I want you to remember this moment," Cam tells Lilly (Aubery Anderson-Emmons), "the day your daddy made you proud."

As the words exit his whiskered lips, Cam falls but his costume snares on a branch that dangles him helplessly. Ultimately, firefighters must rescue the largest cat that has probably ever seen stuck in a tree.