Spoilers follow!

This week's "Friday Night Lights," a show often ahead of the pack on being realistic about teen life, featured one of the most rational "birds and bees" talk between parents and child I've ever seen on TV.

The plot arc started with a bit of humor, as gruff, harried Coach Eric Taylor accidentally walked in on his daughter Julie in bed with her newly-rekindled love interest, quarterback Matt Saracen.  

"FNL" fans know that Julie and Matt are the show's "golden couple" - both of them sweet and fairly well-behaved by conventional standards. They decided together to postpone having sex in the first season because neither felt ready. So it's clear to viewers that Eric and his wife, Principal Tami Taylor, are lucky their daughter is in such a healthy relationship. 

But for Eric and Tami, it's a shock that the slightly-younger Julie is entering the world of the town's older kids, so many of whom come from broken homes and turn to the Taylors for help with wrenching problems. It's clear that Eric and Tami, much as they respect those other kids, want their daughter to be different, and this is the last in a series of moments which shatter that illusory hope: they can't stop her from becoming a teenager. 

Nonetheless, they handle it well. When Eric tells his wife exactly what he walked in on, Tami immediately gets up to confront their daughter.

"Wait. Before you go in there, you'd better know what you're going to say," he says.

"I have no idea!" she replies, with a shocked expression on her face (it's a funny moment, as her character rarely doesn't know what to say). And so they silently decide to hold up, which is a wise move. Neither of them will lose their tempers and Tami can ponder over how best to handle it. 

Later, when Tami first broaches the subject with Julie, Julie glumly asks what her punishment is. 

"Your punishment is you have to have a talk with me," says her mom. 

And then, at last, they have that talk. The video is embedded below and I transcribed the whole thing while watching it so you can judge for yourself how effective it is:  

Tami: "So, umm. Do you love Matt?"

Julie: "I love Matt."

Tami: "Does he love you?

Julie : "Matt loves me."

Tami: "He does...And what about birth control?"

Julie: "Mom, I don't want to talk about it.

Tami: "Hon, that's the conversation."

Julie: "Yes, we're using birth control."

Tami: "What kind specifically?"

Julie: "Condoms. We're using condoms."

Tami: "Do you know how to use them properly?

Julie: "Yes, I know how to use them."

Tami: "You, know you have to use them every time, because you know sometimes boys try to tell you..."

Julie: "Yeah, Matt's really good about it."

Tami: "And you know, just cause you're having sex this one time doesn't mean that you have to all the time, and you know if it ever feels like he's taking you for granted, or you're not enjoying it you can stop anytime... and if you ever break up with Matt it's not like you have sex with the next boy necessarily."

[She tears up]

Julie: "Why are you crying?"

Tami: "Because I wanted you to wait...but that's just because I want to protect you because I love you, and I want to make sure nothing bad ever happens to you. And I always want to you to always be able to talk to me even if it's about something so hard like this."

Julie: "I didn't want to disappoint you."

[Tami shakes head, hugs Julie.] 

Later on, Eric's "talk" with Matt is far more succinct: 

"I know your father is in Iraq but if he were here we'd agree on one thing,: Women are to be respected," Eric says. And then he pauses. "That is my daughter," he adds.

Matt's only response is a series of "yes, sir"s. 

The episode effectively mined the awkwardness and humor in the situation: shockingly, teens and their parents on TV can talk about sex without being either cavalier or hysterical. The talk also demonstrated how Tami, who has been hard on Julie in the past, and indeed urged Julie to wait when she was first dating Matt, has matured and accepted the reality of her daughter's growth.  It's also rare to have such an explicit, physically and emotionally realistic sex talk on TV, going into the nitty-gritty of condom usage. Often on teen dramas, the characters are unrealistically verbally and physically mature, have nearly nonexistent parents, and seem to have lots of sex without protection being mentioned.  

One other show in my memory, which I consistently compare to FNL for its nuanced view of teen life, featured a long "sex talk." Compare Tami and Julie's conversation to this one between Angela Chase and her mother Patty in the short-lived drama "My So-Called Life": 

Patty: Ah, this is hard. We need to talk.

Angela(voice over): When I was twelve, my mother gave me my sex talk. I'm not sure either of us has fully recovered.

Patty: Now that you and Jordan are, ah--

Angela [looking pained]: Oh my God. Mom, please.

Patty: Angela. I can accept that you have a boyfriend.

Angela: I don't have a boyfriend.

Patty: Fine. A pal. A male pal. Whatever word you want to choose. The point is--I'm your mother, and I don't think you're ready.

Angela: Mom, pleeease.

Patty: I don't think you're ready. But, I have to know if this is what's happening because--I don't think that I-I keep you from--

Angela [covering her ears and curling up in a fetal position]: Mom, I beg you to stop.

Patty: I need to know that you are using - I mean, I remember how this feels. I do. But - but - it's the times that we live in, it I-

Angela: Mom, please--

Patty: Honey. I know you don't want to think about these things. I know you think that you're invulnerable, but--

Angela: I don't think that. You have no idea--

Patty: You have to use some kind of protection if you are going to be--

Angela: Mom, I'm not having sex, alright. Really. I'm not even close. To an embarrassing degree.

Patty (relieved): Oh, ah. Ok. I'm sorry honey, I just--I just want you to be prepared when the time comes. Whenever the time comes.

Angela: It will never come. Not with Jordan.

Patty: Is that's what's bothering you?

Angela: No, nothing's bothering me.

Patty: Something's bothering you.

Angela: Mom, you couldn't possibly understand or help, so please. I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but just please.

Patty [hugs Angela]: I'm here if you need me. You know that.

[Patty leaves. Angela sits on her bed with a pained expression on her face.] 

The primary difference between the two scenes, besides the clear gap in characters and context, is that Patty starts out by assuming that she knows what her daughter's up to, while Tami begins by asking more open-ended questions. Even though the answers she receives are monosyllabic, Tami gets the information she needs so she can give Julie advice on how to be emotionally and physically safe. Although her "I wish you would have waited," feels like a nod to the right wing, it's not inconsistent with Tami's character. She makes sure that Julie understands that her desire for her daughter to postpone sex came from her own maternal protectiveness, not some kind of absolute moral judgment. 

Patty Chase, on the other hand, starts out by being judgmental - "you're not ready" - and ends up making her daughter Angela feel bad about herself for not having sex. And although she also urges safety in the sense of using protection, she's less concerned with her daughter's emotional well-being and more with going through the motions of the talk, and basically getting it over with. The show took a realistic approach as well, but its parent character handled the situation more poorly. Perhaps if Patty, like Tami, had been given another chance later on, she would have fared better. 

Of course, on the opposite extreme from both these "talks" are characters like "Big Love"'s Barb, who is Sarah's mom, and "Beverly Hills, 90210"'s Felice Martin, who is Donna's mom. Both these characters throw fits and get angry at their daughters when they discover they're sexually active. Barb actually shouts Sarah, "You need to stop!" Needless to say, neither are effective at influencing the behavior in question, nor should they be. 

While there's no perfectly right way to talk to kids about sex, Tami's method of waiting until she's calm, being honest about her own feelings without projecting them on her daughter, and covering the bases of physical and emotional safety is a surprisingly good model. And it's a good model without being a preachy one or being inconsistent with the show's tone or characters. 

Do you remember any other notable talks about the "facts of life" between parents and kids on TV dramas, sitcoms or even reality TV? Are there any "talks" you recall between dads and sons that stood out? Please share them in comments!