What Ails Her?

“It’s sweet that he thinks there’s a story?”

Now that March Madness is over (far, far over) and April lurches spring into summer, I can say for certain the Big Bang Theory is regaining its story again. Sheldon dropped String Theory…until he picks it up again, probably. Amy might be ready to move on in their relationship! Raj has a girlfriend! Penny has a movie!

It makes me wary of the season finale. How many more seasons can we expect? FRIENDS only had 10.

In the midst of Anything Can Happen Thursday, Sheldon, Penny, and Leonard find Bernadette and Amy having drinks with out them. For mature and responsible reasons! The nerve! Frustrated by her movie and their behavior, Penny drags Sheldon along with her to continue their night. She leaves Leonard behind…for some reason.

She and Sheldon wind up at a fortune teller’s quarters, where the needlessly patient medium tells Sheldon that if he invested in his relationship, the rest of his pursuits would fall into focus. Small chance. We’ll see if the storyline heeds her words; judging by the post-episode clip, the forecast seems cloudy.

Howard and Raj, tending to Howard’s mother, conversely watch a gore flick so Raj won’t lose his cool in front of Emily the following evening, where they will watch the same film. Although, Emily seems a little more than prepared for the probability. Too prepared.

I have to say, a) Raj had a great idea, and b) he handled himself far better than I expected. No nausea quips or running from the room. In fact, the writers added in thought-provoking questions anyone might ask of themselves should they like watching controversial material. Are they mentally unstable? To which, I say, no! No, I’m not unstable for enjoying the socially variant. Yes, I can sit here and watch the How I Met Your Mother finale as many times as I want to!

Next week: Star Wars Episode VII. And the casting decisions surprised everyone.

Why?

It’s a little hard to say if this episode served a long-lasting purpose, or if it really was just filler. As of late, the writers address and re-examine recurring issues within the sitcom. This time around, they slide Howard and Sheldon’s relationship under the microscope. It’s a rather cramped petri dish.

On the other side of the viewfinder: Amy and Raj, spotlighted in their own plot. When Raj decides to retry online dating and respond to a profile, Amy offers to chat up the lucky lady in question before Raj’s antics take center stage. I’m also not sure if the romantics are his front anymore—he may require a very, very amorous partner. Nevertheless, his plan backfires when the woman misreads (or reads perfectly) Amy’s gesture to mean Raj is too shy and passive. A Raj of five seasons ago, potentially. Nowadays, he’s more than happy to burst down the door of a coffee shop to prove his date wrong and ruin Amy’s budding friendship in one fell swoop.

Howard takes steps to rectify his 9-year-11-month-and-3-week-old transgression by starting afresh with Sheldon on a weekend trip to Houston, where he will speak at NASA headquarters. We never see them make it. No, they don’t detour to South America. On the flight over, Howard and Sheldon hit a second rough patch—of turbulence, that is. Nothing says bonding like hasty apologies on death’s doorstep. And would you look at that? Neither of them needed that bag. A little disconcerting if you ask me.

Penny, still living her full-time acting plot, turns down the Serial Apeist sequel to hold out for a more IMDB-worthy role, just in time for her car to break down. Not one to be unsupportive, especially after he’s said more than one thing that sounded very unsupportive, Leonard replaces her totaled car in a very sweet gesture and plot twist. Now Penny can afford to become the next Meryl Streep.
She should really consider modeling.

Chaos Theory

Chaos theory: the edition of a dining room table could cause a cataclysmic end to life as we know it. Learning science every day on the Big Bang Theory. In other news, IKEA is a thing.

I wonder how slow the writer’s room was that they thought, say, let’s finally get Leonard and Sheldon a dining room table! Somehow the notion strikes Leonard’s fancy (or was Penny manipulating him?) and he refuses to budge on the matter, despite Sheldon’s protests. Nothing short of taking up the extra space makes Leonard cease and desist and—when he does purchase the table and coordinating table settings, Sheldon’s forced to face the music and realize change doesn’t always spell chaos. It didn’t with his Spot, and it didn’t with Amy…no matter what Amy tells him. Get it, girl.

While Raj and Howard share a magic wand TV remote, Howard gets a call from NASA inviting him back into space to fix the equipment he installed on his previous venture. He accepted the offer immediately…unfortunately. He failed to remember how he lamented the previous months of work, unlike Raj and Bernadette who remembered only too clearly. (And he really SHOULD know better than that—he did tie the knot before he left!) Their own persuasion unsuccessful, they host a brief intervention to knock him off the idea. As it turns out, the most convincing element to keep his roots planted right here happened to be Survival Training. Still, the thought doesn’t make his blood-pressure skyrocket quite like a phone call home to Mom.

Next week, Sheldon and Howard strive for faster friendships. Now that I finally remembered to wait for the previews, I really wish I knew where they were going.

“This is so much better than watching TV like a muggle!”

--Every Big Bang Theory TV commercial

--Not really, it’s Raj

Aye Aye Aye

I wondered how long it’d take for The Big Bang Theory to address con culture directly. They’ve yet to attend an all-in-out con, but that might be more a finale piece.

For now, we just get…oh, I don’t know…how about James Earl Jones?

When the boys try and fail to score the notoriously popular Comic Con tickets, Sheldon immediately decides upon the next simple and feasible course of action: building his own con from the ground up. Therein lies the irony: Leonard, Howard, and Raj mock Sheldon’s own efforts while they play into a con of their own, finding and purchasing tickets from a scalper. A risk indeed, but the best heroes always take risks.

Perplexed by their excitement and subsequent disappointment—although, at least, she understood why they were upset when the tickets ran dry—Penny, Bernadette, and Amy decided to counter the Comic Con enthusiasm of their respective partners by doing something “adult” and “sophisticated.” When the afternoon tea they expected actually catered to a younger target audience, Penny asks the hard-hitting questions every twentysomething asks: am I an adult yet? What makes a person an adult? Myself a twentysomething, I vouch in Penny’s stead that we all have our moments of feeling particularly adult…or not. I got my own groceries, yeah! I spent five hours playing Flappy Bird, no!

The women of the show question their own ascent from childhood and the remaining Con-less gentlemen hide from a sketchy Scalper. This is just about where the plot of the whole episode stops.

Why? Because Sheldon found James Earl Jones for his would-be convention.

While it was cool of the network to list Mr. Jones for the episode—and cooler still he played, well, a cool guy (at first)—it certainly detracted the spotlight from the rest of any kind of plot. But Blogger! It’s James Earl Jones. He can be a plot in and of himself, right?

Some may enthusiastically agree. Some may be chanting “filler” in the back of their heads as I type. What do you think? Trot it out while we wait for next week’s Valentine’s Day-themed installment. All aboard!

And now...

And now we enter in the episode of quickly wrapped plot twists.
No, not really. I chalk this episode up to be the funnier of the seasons’ and NOW see why this ended up something like a mid-season twist. Leaves me guessing what’s to come for the days ahead, however.

Sheldon makes use of his vacation days by latching onto everyone’s shoulder for the duration of the storyline. Really, with all the video games in his collection, I’m a little surprised.
Nevertheless, we see more signs that Sheldon, as a character, both deviates from the formula and adheres to the formula even more, one scene after another. Would anyone have seen him play ‘dog’ in season one, or even two or three? On the other hand, would he have as gracefully seen eye-to-eye with Penny during their car ride talk? Hardly.
I don’t know what to make of New Sheldon, but I hope we get some sort of indicator before Bert takes more advantage of Amy.

Speaking of, I hope Amy gets out from Bert’s shadow soon. He’s a walking social manipulator: someone who uses ones’ sympathy at the expense of their comfort, for their own pleasure. It’s too early to tell if they played off the scenes between them for laughs, or because laughter communicates the undercurrent issue a bit better for audiences. Hopefully, the audience took away that there’s a real issue when women have to consider a man’s emotions over her own; that it isn’t okay to not be interested in someone else; or that it isn’t okay that “no,” and no alone, isn’t reason enough not to pursue a person.

Although, if they do bring Bert back again, it could spark more…let’s call it ‘kinesthetic’ action from Sheldon Cooper. To be continued.

Lastly, a nod to Josh Peck for showing up on primetime TV once again! I picture Jesse as having an avid Vine in this universe, too.

I literally do not know what to expect from next week. This means the end of holiday hiatuses…on with the show!

“An animal can be sacred and delicious.”

Sitting and anticipating my own Thanksgiving holiday, I must say I love the time of year all the TV specials begin airing. There’s Thanksgiving Charlie Brown. Home Alone.

Tonight, 8PM EST on CBS, we get Sheldon throwing up on a lot of clowns.

Happy turkey day.

No, no, I’m kidding. As one #CoolTVProps fan put it, this episode was the funniest aired in some time. Lots of poking fun, but what’s a holiday where a distant relative (or neighbor) doesn’t bruise someone’s feelings? Even if that relative happens to be a three-years distance husband you didn’t know you had.

Penny, en route to Mrs. Wolowitz’s house for Thanksgiving dinner with the group, discovered happenstantially that, yes, Las Vegas wedding chapels were real and licensed. And thus, for three years (or however many years now, on this show), she’s been married to her ex-boyfriend Zack. During the episode argument to follow, we see yet again Leonards’ failure to recognize what anyone else might be feeling past himself, and again Penny’s failure to communicate what she’s feeling. But I liked the sneak peek at the end over coffee—sounds like there might be more bridal bells in the future. For love this time. Or money.

While the girls and Raj prepare the meal, Bernadette sends Howard to try and warm up to her cold-as-ice father. He however, creature of habit, bonds instead with the only other person who didn’t want to be there: Sheldon. Sheldon so much so he broke PC the whole car ride across town. Get a couple beers in the Texan genius, and he’s no better, but he at least demonstrates a different…almost kinder?...side to his nature. Sheldon, bonding with anyone. Imagine!

And so, as many Thanksgiving specials should relate, they agree that family is family, no matter how broken or small. But always blame the husband if he’s never around. It’s faster.