Man With A Plan – The Talk

By: Julie Mante

Adam (Matt LeBlanc) and Don (Kevin Nealon) are hanging out in the living room when Andi (Liza Snyder) complains about her son Teddy (Matthew McCann) not putting away his iPad. She is stunned to find a picture of a topless woman on his iPad. She shows the picture to her husband Adam, but he is not convinced that Teddy was searching for naked women online. While she is horrified that her young son is exploring sexual content online, Andi decides that Adam should give him the “birds and bees” talk. Adam does not want to, but Andi lays down the law. She is in charge of giving the talk to their two daughters so it is his responsibility to give their only son the talk. Andi gives him a book that he can use as an aid when he talking to Teddy. The book comes with “educational body buddies,” which are two anatomically correct male and female dolls named Sandy and Randy.

When Adam goes to Teddy’s room to talk, he decides to let his young son lead the conversation. Teddy believes that when a man and woman lie together on a bed, a golden egg appears between them. The woman eats the egg and a few months later she has a baby. The man falls asleep and the woman yells at him. It is obvious to Adam that Teddy is still innocent when it comes to sex so he decides not to correct Teddy and leaves his son’s room.

When Don asks his brother how it went, Adam tells him that Teddy seemed clueless about the topic and he left. Adam does not feel it is a big deal because no one gave him the talk. Don reminds him that he told Adam that babies came from the butt. Adam remembers that he was afraid of using the bathroom because he was concerned of having a baby every time. He decides to suck it up and tell his son the truth about how babies are made. He asks Don to come upstairs to talk to Teddy with him because it will seem like a regular conversation and not a serious talk. Don agrees. As Adam walks up the stairs to Teddy’s room he sees Don walk out the door. Don is thinking “not my son, not my problem.”

Adam goes back to Teddy’s room and tells him that his golden egg theory is wrong. After he uses Randy and Sandy to explain sex to his son, Teddy is completely traumatized. Feeling guilty, Adam leaves ten dollars for Teddy and walks out. When Adam goes downstairs, Andi is home and Adam is angry. When she asks him why, he says he is upset because he “put on a pornographic puppet show for his only son.” Adam tells his wife that Teddy was silent for most of the talk so Adam filled the awkward silence with more information that Teddy did not need to know. When he asked Andi how her talk with Kate (Grace Kaufman) went, she said it was fine because it is easier between mothers and daughters. Both parents are confused why Teddy would be so clueless if he is seeing things online. Andi says that Teddy needs time to process everything and he will be fine. Andi tells Adam that she is proud of how he handled the situation. When Andi leaves for work, Teddy comes out of room and tells his dad that he wished he did not know about sex. When the young boy asks his father why he told him those things, Adam admits he knows Teddy has been looking at stuff online. Teddy tells him that his older sister Kate was using his iPad last night. Oops.

Adam confronts Kate about using Teddy’s iPad to look at topless women. At first she denies it, but comes clean when Adam threatens to ask Teddy again. She says that when she was changing for gym at school, she noticed other girls had different breast sizes and she wanted to know what average breasts look like and compare them to hers. It’s an awkward conversation so both want to end it so Adam also gives his daughter ten dollars. As he is ready to leave, he tells Kate that she is perfect the way she is. He puts the money back into his wallet and encourages her to talk to Andi. He knows the two had the talk so Kate should feel comfortable talking to her mother about these things. Kate tells him that she and Andi never had the talk and she learned everything in health class.

When Andi comes home, Adam is waiting. He tells her that it was Kate, not Teddy, looking at the pictures and confronts her on not having the talk with Kate. Andi had planned to do it but she chickened out. She felt the best thing to do was wait until Kate came to her with questions but it never happened. Then, she saw the health class permission slip so let the school take care of it for her. Andi knows her husband is not upset because she lied but because she got out of it and he did not. She is right. Adam lets her know that she is not off the hook. He had the awkward conversation with Teddy so she will have one with Kate. Besides, Kate actually has questions about her breasts and that is only something a mother can help a daughter with. Andi agrees to talk to Kate tomorrow.

The next day, Andi goes into Kate’s room to talk about her breasts. Kate is horrified and she screams at her mother to stop talking. Downstairs, Adam is reading to Emme (Hala Finley), their youngest, and hears everything. It is music to his ears. Later when Andi comes down, she is worried about how badly these talks are going. She is worried that the kids will not want to talk to them when they have questions so she and Adam decide to try talking to Teddy and Kate again. The second puppet demonstration is less awkward but it is still pretty bad.

After the talk, Adam is reading the book that came with the dolls and he wants to try some of the moves with Andi. They talk and say lovey-dovey stuff to each other and the lights go off.

In the closer, it is show-and-tell in Emme’s kindergarten class and it is her turn to present. She shows her classmates her mommy’s and daddy’s special dolls – Sandy and Randy. She opens Randy’s flap and exposes his penis and Mrs. Rodiguez (Diana Maria Riva) tells the class to avert their eyes.