"Good Cop Bad Dog" is the 22nd episode of the American comedy television series Modern Family's second season and the 46th episode overall. The episode originally aired on May 11, 2011, on American Broadcasting Company (ABC). The episode was written by Abraham Higginbotham & Jeffrey Richman and was guest directed by former child star Fred Savage. It guest starred Lin-Manuel Miranda as Guillermo, the Grocery Store worker who tries to convince Jay to invest with him.
In the episode, Jay advises a dog trainer, while Phil and Claire switch parenting duties to the kids' chagrin. Mitchell has an extra Lady Gaga ticket when Cameron ends up sick. The episode introduces the Pritchetts' new dog that will appear for the rest of the season and for a majority of the third.
"Good Cop Bad Dog" received positive reviews from critics with many praising Ty Burrell's performance. The episode was viewed by more than 10 million viewers and received a 4.2 rating/11% share in the 18–49 demographic, marking an 8 percent rise in the ratings from the previous episode, "Mother's Day". The episode was also the highest-rated scripted program of the original week it aired among adults between the ages of 18 and 49. Burrell eventually received an Emmy for his performance in the episode.
Plot
In the Dunphy household, Alex (Ariel Winter) and Haley (Sarah Hyland) are furious at Manny (Rico Rodriguez) and Luke (Nolan Gould) for barging into their room while they were changing. This leads to their mother, Claire (Julie Bowen) to yell at them, while their dad, Phil (Ty Burrell) attempts to push himself away from Claire's anger behind her back. Annoyed, Claire confronts Phil about how he always makes her play the 'bad cop' role in their family and keeps the 'good cop' role for himself. He reluctantly agrees to switch roles with her. Claire takes Manny and Luke go-karting (although Phil had been quite keen to go), while Phil has to stay and make the girls clean their bathroom. The go-karting goes horribly as Claire, whilst trying to be fun, crashes her kart into the boys, and pushes them into ordering large quantities of food. While driving home, Luke gets sick from drinking a milkshake he hadn't even wanted. At home, Phil goes berserk when the girls lie to him about cleaning the bathroom and jumps on their car to stop them from leaving. He then forces them to clean both their bathroom and his, under his direct supervision, whilst duct-taping their laptops shut. That evening, Phil and Claire admit that they cannot handle each other's natural parent roles, and agree to go back to normal.
Meanwhile, Gloria (Sofía Vergara) wants to help a grocery-store worker, Guillermo (Lin-Manuel Miranda), so she convinces Jay (Ed O'Neill) to let Guillermo pitch him a business idea: a dog-training system labeled "The Good-doggy / Bad-doggy Training System", which consists of two sets of dog treats, one of them being bland and the other a tastier one with bacon. The pitch goes wrong when Guillermo's dog, Stella (Brigitte), chews on Jay's pillow and seems to prefer the bad doggy treat. Seeing that Gloria's blind encouragement is doing him no favours, Jay adopts a firm, frank tone with Guillermo and tells him that, while he has obvious presentation skills, enthusiasm and charisma, his idea has no legs. Guillermo, who had invested five years of his life in this idea, leaves in tears. Gloria follows him to apologize, but Guillermo admits that he found Jay's honesty refreshing, and has decided to reorganize his life, which means moving back in with his sister to go back to school, but it also means that he must give the dog away. Gloria allows the dog to stay with them much to Jay's anger, which is increased when Manny walks in and believes the dog is a present for him. Jay drives the dog to the pound, but Stella's sweet face makes him take her back home.