Patriot Games

"Patriot Games" is the twenty-second episode of the sixth season of the American sitcom Modern Family, and the series' 142nd episode overall. It originally aired on May 6, 2015. The episode was written by Vali Chandrasekaran, and directed by Alisa Statman. In the episode, Phil, Claire and Alex get a call to meet Alex's principal, where they learn that she must settle for co-valedictorian with Sanjay, Alex's competition at school for many years. Gloria studies to become an American citizen, something that Jay supports but Javier (Manny's father) tries to prevent. Mitchell and Cameron join a protest against a restaurant they love, in order to prove to their friends that they are still very political about gay rights. "Patriot Games" received positive reviews from the critics. Plot Alex (Ariel Winter), Phil (Ty Burrell) and Claire (Julie Bowen) are called into Principal Brown's (Andrew Daly) office and they assume that the principal wants to announce to them that Alex is going to be the valedictorian of her class. Alex's rival though, Sanjay (Suraj Partha), also gets called with his parents and the principal announces them that they are going to be co-valedictorians, something that they refuse to accept. Alex and Sanjay convince the principal to let them compete over one last grade, for gym class, and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet), being the gym teacher, will decide which one deserves to be the valedictorian. One day before the competition, Sanjay goes to Alex's house and tells her that he likes her and that she is the reason he can attend college because she was always pushing him to study more and become better. Alex believes that he only said those things to distract her from winning the race but the next day, Sanjay forfeits the race to prove to her he was telling the truth and the two of them end up kissing in front of their parents.