Princess Party

Plot

At the Dunphy home, Claire becomes frantic over the impending visit of her mother, DeDe. Phil tries to keep the children out of the way and instructs Luke to be especially charming to prevent any awkwardness. DeDe has run into Robby Sullivan, Claire's old high school boyfriend, and brought him to dinner without telling him Claire is now married with children. Robby, a limo driver who has retained his good looks, taunts Phil and recounts stories of Claire's wild youth, surprising Phil and amusing the children.

After dinner, Claire and Phil catch DeDe kissing Robby as he walks her to his limo. Meanwhile, Gloria returns home with a children's book that has a recorder for reading aloud. She has the whole Pritchett-Delgado family record the roles, with disastrous results as Jay predicted. Gloria is anxious about attending Lily's party the next day because she wants to avoid DeDe.

Jay uses this as an excuse to skip a friend's first communion party, claiming the father dislikes him. His plan fails when Gloria decides not to let DeDe keep her from important family events, knowing Jay will support her as she will support him at the first communion.

Production

Elaine Ko wrote the episode, her first writing credit for the series, and Michael Spiller directed it, his tenth episode for the show. It aired on ABC on February 16, 2011, as the fifteenth episode of the second season and the 39th overall.

Filming took place on January 11 and January 13, 2011. The episode marks the second appearance of DeDe Pritchett, played by Shelley Long, who first appeared in the season one episode "The Incident." It also features the return of Fizbo the Clown and Matt Dillon as Claire's former high school boyfriend and DeDe's new boyfriend. Entertainment Weekly announced Dillon's guest spot in December 2010, and he filmed his appearance on January 11, 2011.

Reception

The original American broadcast was seen by an estimated 10.453 million households and earned a 4.3 rating/12% share among adults 18-49, meaning 4.3% of all 18- to 49-year-olds and 12% of that demographic watching television at the time tuned in. This represented a 16 percent drop from the previous episode, "Bixby's Back." Despite the decline, it was the most-watched scripted show of the week among adults 18-49 and the twentieth most-watched show overall.

Reviews were mixed. TV Squad's Joel Keller called it "one of the funniest episodes of the season," praising the subtle return of Fizbo and Long's performance for avoiding a standard sitcom mom. Rachael Maddux of New York found it a "bit of a letdown," saying no plotline received enough time. Alan Sepinwall criticized the show's use of multi-camera-like humor, comparing it to a bad episode of 30 Rock.

Paste's Christine Ziemba gave it 7.0/10, calling it "respectable" but noting Long and Dillon did not add an extra spark. John Teti of The A.V. Club gave it a B+, expressing relief that Fizbo was not heavily featured.

Did You Know?

• This was Elaine Ko's first writing credit for the series.
• Gloria gets drunk at the party because she ingested a Xanax with a shot of tequila.