I don't know about anyone else, but the level of product placement was too much. I'm fine with flashing a brand or even entering a franchise. When an entire episode is centered around a new product, I have to balk at it. Advertising should never consume a show no matter how funny the lines are--and there were many funny lines. If there hadn't been the iPad promotion, I'm guessing there would have been April Fools pranks all over the place, and the show is ripe for pranking as we've seen before.
But I digress, it was still a good episode. All Phil wants for his birthday is an iPad, and plans on waking up at 5 in the morning. Since it's his birthday, Claire says she'll do it. She doesn't make it of course, and scrambles the entire day to get one to no avail. Phil goes to the batting cages and is overjoyed to hear Phil's birthday on the speakers. He rushes over, expecting to find Claire's party. Instead, it's little Phil's birthday, but big Phil gets some cake as consolidation.
Mitchell and Claire get thrown out of line at the Apple store, and come back empty handed. Luke, as useless as he was in the beginning of the episode, sucking the helium while the others helped, comes out the hero. He told Phil's geek friends Phil died, so they got him an iPad. After that, it was all about touting features of the iPad. We get it.
Cam and Mitchell hear voices on their baby monitor and soon find out that a wife suspects her husband of cheating. Later, Cam learns the husband is learning Italian, so he rushes over to save their marriage. He succeeds, but also comes out looking like a creep.
Manny hustles Jay playing chess, winning a nice watch. Gloria told Manny to lose, and he does the first time, but after Jay challenges him, there's no turning back. Gloria is also better at chess than she seems, but lets Jay win because he's a sore loser.
Score: 8.8/10
