The theme of this episode was facing or owning up to the truth.

In the Dunphy family plotline, the family has a notion to go see a movie, but Phil opts out due to conflicting plans on meeting an ex-girlfriend. Claire discovers that he’s been talking to her via Facebook for a year, and suspects Denise’s plans even if Phil doesn’t. Phil believes it to be merely friendship, but shortly after Denise pays a visit, he discovers that Claire has been correct.

In the Pritchett family plotline, Jay tries to urge Manny that failure doesn’t necessarily make a person weak. He gives Manny a Successories poster but Manny doesn’t really accept it. Jay decides to place the poster on Manny’s wall to help reinforce his idea. Unfortunately, the poster falls into Manny’s terrarium, killing the pet turtle Shel Turtlestein. Jay creates an elaborate alibi by faking a break-in by a raccoon. Gloria sees through the falsehood and urges Jay to confess. Jay spends the day justifying the deception by relating a similar incident where he owned up to the truth when he accidentally killed Mitchell’s pet bird and it wounded their relationship. Ultimately, Jay’s conscience wins and he confesses – Manny tells him he had it figured out the entire time.

In the Pritchett-Tucker family plotline, Mitchell has been missing significant moments in Lily’s development and is increasingly agitated about it. Cameron urges Mitchell to review his priorities and Mitchell subsequently decides that on his days off, his priorities are his family and that he hates his job. He tells his boss he’s not going to work on the weekend; his boss tells him if he goes home to consider himself fired. Mitchell leaves for home and initially is ecstatic that he stood up for himself but starts having anxiety attacks once he’s home regarding the future of the family. Later, Jay tells Mitchell that he will help out while Mitchell looks for a new job.

“Truth Be Told” is the name of the sixteenth episode of the series Modern Family’ season one. It premiered on American Broadcasting Company on March 10, 2010.

Join the Modern Family fan group on Yahoo

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License