Modern Family season 9, episode 19 recap: CHiPs and salsa

In this week’s episode of Modern Family, Haley is trying to convince her boss to buy Gloria’s salsa. Meanwhile, Mitch and Cam go for a ride-along. Featuring guest star Mira Sorvino.

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Haley has been working for her eccentric boss Nicole (Mira Sorvino) at NERP for a while now and has yet to come up with a single good product suggestion. When Nicole suggests that she wants to harness the power of the Pepper, Haley finally has her chance. She suggests that her boss buy Gloria’s salsa. Now she has to convince Gloria to sell.

Meanwhile, Mitch uses his friend in the D.A.’s office to land he and Cam a ride-along with a police officer. This has been Cam’s dream for a long time but things do not go exactly how either of them expected.

Haley

When Haley suggests that Gloria sell her salsa to Nicole, Gloria is hesitant. Haley explains that Gloria will likely make a ton of money out of the sale but Jay lets Haley know this won’t be easy. He’s been pushing Gloria to sell for some time and has been unsuccessful. He does manage to convince Gloria to take the meeting so there is a chance.

The ride-along

As Cam and Mitch put on their vests in preparation for the ride-along, Cam is trying way too hard to impress the cop. He’s trying to show that he “speaks the language” but his approach is backfiring. The officer puts Cam in the back of the car while inviting Mitch to ride shotgun.

Mitch did not tell Cam that along with setting up the ride-along, his friend also offered him a job as a prosecutor.

During the ride-along, Mitch spots a bad driver cutting someone off and the officer lets him turn on the siren to mess with the guy. Then, while typing in license plate numbers, Mitch finds a driver who is skipping out on his child support. This leads to a chase where the officer and Mitch take off, forgetting Cam is locked in the back of the cruiser. When they return to the vehicle, the officer is calling Mitchell “Pritch.”

Back at the police station

When they arrive at the station, Mitch and the officer are having a grand time, making jokes like they’ve been friends forever. Mitch’s friend arrives and asks if he’s ready to accept since he had such a good time and this is how Cam finds out about the job offer.

Mitch says that the ride-along proved to him that he doesn’t want the job though Cam thinks that he proved he has a passion for justice.

The salsa meeting

When Gloria and Jay meet Haley’s boss they waste no time getting down to business. Jay is going all out complimenting Nicole as he tries to push her into buying the salsa. He pretends that he love NERP, even though he has no idea what they do. Nicole notices Gloria is quiet however and asks her what she’s thinking.

Gloria goes into a long story about how this salsa has always been in her family and there’s a magical river that wraps around the garden where the peppers are grown. She goes as far as to pull out a photo album showing pictures of ancestors farming the peppers. It’s working. Nicole wants the peppers badly, but before she can commit Jay shuts down the meeting. Apparently, Gloria’s story worked too well and convinced Jay that Gloria shouldn’t sell.

Communication is key

After the meeting, Gloria is irate. She tells Jay she was trying to sell and he tells her he was trying to protect the legacy. Gloria then tells him that the album was a fake. She cut pictures out of national geographic and pasted them into the book. She didn’t tell Jay that she was ready to sell because she didn’t want to admit she was wrong. The salsa business was the first thing she has done as a married woman and she didn’t want to admit she failed.

Haley thinks that they’ve blown it because Nicole doesn’t do second chances. When they walk back in, things appear to be worse as Nicole has a huge rash on her face. She isn’t aware of it however as she’s glad their back. She couldn’t stop eating Gloria’s salsa.

The interrogation

Back at the station, Cam has decided he’s going to convince Mitch to take the job. He has him in an interrogation room and gets into character grilling him about having a good time. He shows him a picture of his smiling face during the ride-along. Things then get a bit intense which gets Mitch to open up.

Mitch says that he was excited to chase the deadbeat when he was thinking about the kid who isn’t being supported, but when he saw the man’s face he saw he was scared. He feels like he’ll be a bad prosecutor because he’s soft. Cam however tells him that this will make him a great prosecutor, because he’ll be fair.

Mitch is coming around to the idea, but when he tells Cam that it’ll be a pay-cut, Cam suddenly doesn’t want him to rush this decision.

End scene and additional stories

At the very end of the episode, Haley is relaxing at work when Nicole calls her into her office. Before Haley is able to get up to go in, Nicole mentions that something happened to her face. This is how the episode ends so we just have to assume she won’t figure out it was the sauce.

Next: Black-ish recap: Dog eat dog world

The other stories in this episode involved Claire and Phil coming to the realization that they aren’t a fit couple anymore. Claire hasn’t been working out since she went back to work and Phil has been doing robot wars on the basketball courts, not playing basketball.

Meanwhile, after taking a year off between high school and college, Luke is thinking that maybe college isn’t for him. After meeting with the school counselor he thinks he doesn’t need college but his tune changes by the end of the episode.

Modern Family returns next Wednesday at 9/8 Central on ABC.