Claire Dunphy Is Traumatised After Near Death Experience In 'Modern Family' [RECAP]

"Modern Family," which returned from its holiday break this week, tackles the issue of making the most out of life in the episode titled "The Day We Almost Died." Members of the three different, but related, families re-evaluate the way they deal with their lives after going through a near-death experience.

Claire and Phil Dunphy and their kids Haley, Alex and Luke decide to go out for a nice pancake breakfast. They pick up Manny from the Delgado-Pritchett house on what look like is a typical, uneventful morning.

The kids indulge in their usual banter in the car while Claire calls her brother Mitch on the phone and asks him to get their mom a birthday card. As neither one of them is close to mom, they both are not, too, interested in doing that. Claire gets annoyed when Mitch refuses and starts shouting at him. Just as she hangs up, their car goes through an intersection and a truck barrels through the road, right in front of them. Phil swerves to avoid the truck and the car comes to a stop after skidding.

Claire is clearly shaken, as it could have been a big accident. She decides to call off her meetings for the rest of the day. She goes over to Mitchell's office and persuades him to take the day off with her. She apologises profusely for shouting at him earlier and takes him out for the day so she could make up for it.

The two end up at the beach near the boardwalk where Claire insists they should roller skate just like they did when they were kids. Mitch plays along with her and lets her re-live her childhood memories because she is clearly traumatised by the incident. As they are about to skate under a tunnel, Mitch decides to turn around but Claire insists that they should continue. She recalls an incident that happened when they were kids. At the time, Mitch was tagging along with her and her friend as they were skating and instead of holding his hand through the dark tunnel, she left her scared little brother alone. She says that it's finally time for her to make it up to him and forces him to go through the tunnel. As they are entering the tunnel, they get separated and when they emerge at the other side, Mitch is more traumatised than ever. He has been mugged inside the dark tunnel and is also late for an important deposition at work. Mitch ditches Claire and decides to skate all the way back to work.

Claire decides not to sweat at the small stuff and simply find joy in everything around her. She decides to go home. When she arrives, she sees Alex throwing Haley around with her judo moves and Luke is making a mess while doing some experiment with cola. She decides to let it go and sits in the family room but sees an alpaca walk by. It turns out, everyone in the family has chosen a different way to cope, with the traumatic experience, and they all decide to hug and be thankful that they are all alive.

Contact the writer at: c.caparras@ibtimes.com.au