I can’t say I’m a Sheldon/Penny ’shipper myself, so I’m not entirely sure whether last night’s episode was cause to rejoice or not for those rather insistent Big Bang Theory fans who subscribe to the notion that the otherwise asexual quantum physicist should shack up with the rather sweet blonde Cheesecake Factory waitress who lives across the hall. True, Sheldon quite clearly, if accidentally, got to second base with Penny. And a drug-addled Penny did coyly joke at the end of the episode about Sheldon helping her to bed. But the vibe between them felt pretty much little sister/big brother all the way to me, right up to the climactic moment when Penny asked Sheldon to sing “Soft Kitty” with her. Then again, their in-the-round duet of Sheldon’s “when you’re sick” song did cause the studio audience to explode with such rowdy excitement that I can only attribute it to some serious pent up sexual tension.
And I’ve gotta concede there was certainly some sort of frisson when Sheldon first came upon Penny, clad only in her shower curtain, lying in her bathtub, wet from a running shower, looking like a character out of a Skinamax flick. He’d raced there after hearing her calls for help — not before partaking in his regular three-knocks-and-a-”Penny?” ritual, of course — and when he finally saw her, helpless and compromised, the way Jim Parsons paused and uttered a quizzical “Hello” made it clear he and Penny were entering brand new territory.
Thanks to Penny’s dislocated shoulder, Sheldon had no choice but to help her get dressed before driving her to the emergency room. I gotta hand it to Parsons again for somehow finding a way to say the line “Which panties do you wear on Mondays?” and not make it sound like a greasy, Wolowitzian come on. Meanwhile, when Sheldon accidentally cupped Penny’s boob while trying to help guide her injured arm through its sleeve, I gotta hand it to Kaley Cuoco for finding a way to say the line “Is that my arm?” with just the right mix of annoyance and resignation. And yes, I do think that was an accident, althougth I already know that there are some of you out there convinced Sheldon secretly handled Penny’s merchandise on purpose. I’m much more convinced that Sheldon had never actually touched a breast before in his life, given how earnestly he responded to Penny’s question with, “It doesn’t feel like an arm….”
Other than the revelation that Penny unwittingly had the Chinese character for “soup” tattooed on her right buttock thinking it meant “courage,” her ride to the ER was surprisingly uneventful. Sheldon simply acted with his customary fastidiousness, obsessively adjusting his mirrors and seat, and driving slower than a 95-year-old grandma. By the time they reached the hospital, however, Penny was so frazzled by his Sheldon-ness that she pretty much begged him to “take a break from being you for just a minute and try to be, I don’t know, comforting?” Sheldon’s response was no less than an aria of subtle physical comedy, his efforts at compassion quickly dissolving into a kind of neurological episode — his arms and face, so unaccustomed to expressions of empathy, twitched and contorted into a hysterical series of increasingly freaky and creepy poses straight out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. If I’d been Penny, I may have simply run screaming from the room. The big question going forward, of course, will be how much the writers decide last night’s episode was a one-off Shenny adventure, and how much of it will actually bleed back into Penny’s relationship with Leonard.
Ah, poor Leonard. Out camping with Raj and Howard to watch the Leonid meteor shower (which, by the by, actually did streak through the sky last night, a pretty killer nugget of nerdery, even for the Big Bang writers), Penny’s actual boyfriend ended up inadvertently partaking of some pot-laced cookies Howard scored off of “two not unattractive middle-school teachers who reek of desperation.” High as a fighting kite, Leonard blurted out that he hates his name: “It has ‘nerd’ in it! Len-nerd!” (I loved his alternative, Angelo. “That has ‘angel’ and ‘Jell-o’ in it!”) But at least Leonard didn’t confess to losing his virginity to his cousin. No wonder Wolowitz is so keyed up all the time about getting laid; he’s perpetually trying to bone his way out of the guilt for getting his cherry popped by a blood relative.
Other than that ookie addition to Wolowitz’s already disturbing biography, the pot cookie camping scenes kinda defy recapping, since they were not much more than a strung together series of stoned non sequiturs. Raj has a thing for ruling rabbits; they ran out of pudding just as their munchies were beginning to peak; Howard saved the day thanks to his mom’s “I love you brisket,” which they all ate with their hands, causing them to miss the meteor shower. Out of all of it, my favorite moment was early, after Leonard exclaimed, “I can feel the Earth moving! It’s moving too fast! Raj, slow it down!” Raj obliged, making a I’ve-gotta-take-a-massive-dump face, and thereby slowing the world to Leonard’s satisfaction. Of course, once Leonard learns his roommate copped a feel from his girlfriend while he was gone, he may wish Raj had stopped the world from spinning altogether.
Raj’s best non-stoned line: [To Leonard, about Penny joining their camping trip] ”That would’ve been great — you and Penny having sex in the tent while I sit out here and watch Howard hump a cactus.”
Raj’s worst non-stoned line: [To Howard, about his discovery of two 50-something female middle school teachers] “Ooo, menopause — nature’s birth control!”
Completely out of context portion of Howard’s I-slept-with-my-second-cousin confession that’s probably just as true for many other people: “I can’t look at pickled herring without being aroused and ashamed.”
So Big Bang theorists, do you think Penny and Sheldon are headed down a slippery slope to the boudoir, or is their platonic friendship merely growing? Were you as unnerved to see Howard’s tiny shirtless torso as I was? Would you get in a car that Sheldon was driving? Is it me, or is Raj starting to emerge as the season’s MVP? And is WALL•E the best Pixar character to describe Sheldon, or would you choose someone else? (I’d personally go with either Remy the rat from Ratatouille, or Slim the walking stick from A Bug’s Life.)
Image Credit: Monty Brinton/CBS
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My husband and I cracked up the whole episode, one of the funniest yet. Sheldon filling out the medical forms was classic. What about the kitty song sung “around”. Great episode, loved all of it.
It was sung as a round, not “around”.
At least you’re not a buzzkill or anything.
Do you always go “around” correcting people????
Sorry it is an expression I hear all the time and never actually read about on paper. Thanks for correcting me in front of thousands of people.
I just thank Brooke is embracing her inner Sheldon because he would have corrected Carol without question.
“thousands of people” ha ha.
Only if the article is about twilight and even then, rare.
Brooke-Why don’t you hang “around” somewhere else?
Chill, Carol. If you’ll notice one of the main perks of commenting on blogs is to correct people. Jeez, don’t take the fun out of it. Most first graders know what a round is. Row, row your boat, anyone?
Ha, true, I was just being a bit sarcastic in my reply, I guess it didn’t come off well in print. Anyway, I loved that part. The whole episode was my favorite this season.
I agree – that was my favorite part too – especially the answer to the “menstrual” question – “in progress” !!!
Haven’t really gotten into this season. Last night was my first s3 episode and was a bit surprised at how much I did not laugh. The pot cookies plot was lame, Sheldon triple-knocking at the door was a joke stretched too long, Jim Parsons was obviously trying to do the best he could with the tired plotline which I feel I have seen before on Friends. What happened to this show?
Have you”dislocated” your funny bone? You didn’t laugh the whole episode? I’m glad I’m not you.
I did laugh for probably the first third of the episode. Sheldon-Penny were charming till the car ride. But the pot cookies and the boys starving plot just came off as really lazy writing like they didn’t know what to do with the rest of the cast while they advanced Sheldon & Penny’s relationship.
Yeah Lynne, I agree. I just haven’t been laughing that much lately this season. Last night’s was the first one I missed and the preview for it looked ok. Penny’s finally starting to bug me and I feel that a lot of it is wearing thin on me too.
It struck me as pretty lazy writing, especially the “accidentally eating pot” story which is older than the hills. (Not that the accidentally seeing someone naked story is much younger.)
Funniest episode this season I laughed out loud the whole time. Kudos to the writers and actors
I was thinking the exact same thing, best episode since Lenord Nemoy napkin! Love Nov Sweeps!
Love the Leonard Nimoy napkin episode. Sheldon and Penny are just funny together.
Absolutly agree. Best episode this season and one of the best period.
I really don’t want the writers to make a relationship out of sheldon and penny. I laughed so hard I cried when he tried to comfort her with his creepy hand gestures.
Funny episode as usual, but Penny didn’t seem to be in much pain and I know from experience that when you dislocate a joint it freakin’ hurts!!! Raj gets the best lines.
You’re right about dislocation pain, Teresa, and that kinda bugged me about this episode. I know we don’t demand complete realism from TBBT, but Penny was clearly in no pain at any point, and at the end was given strong drugs to treat the pain…that she obviously wasn’t in. Great jokes as always, but this nagged at me a bit.
So, it wasn’t just me! Ha! I was also thinking there’s no way in hell they would have gotten her arm through the armhole of her shirt. I’ve seen my mother with a dislocated shoulder, so it was hard to suspend my disbelief last night.
You guys know it’s a sitcom, right?
As someone who has dislocated his shoulder 17 times, I can definately say from experience, it is actually not painful. It’s scary, unnerving, and feels weird, but it doesnt hurt…unless you try to move it. The real pain comes the next day. Oh my does it come.
Hopefully the SNL powers-that-be watched this episode and are on the phone at this very moment contacting Jim Parson’s agent about a hosting gig.
THIS.
Needs to happen.
Oh, I don’t know if I want that. I’m afraid what they would do to Jim to take the pop out of his comic ability. Aside from Taylor Swift, they are comedy neutralizers.
I don’t know if you guys have seen it, but Jim has co-hosted G4’s Attack of the Show. It gave a taste of how Jim would be on a show like SNL. Pretty good IMO
SNL might want to book Jim Parsons, but I guarantee that the suits at NBC will veto it. They won’t want to give free publicity to a non-NBC show. Look what happened when the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade folks tried to book the cast of Glee.
I’d kind of hate to see someone so talented and funny on that horribly unfunny show. SNL seems to take a lot of potential and just toss it out the window to do more of their unfunny sketches. I would like to see more of Parsons and all the rest. They’re a great cast.
one of the funniest episodes yet!! laughed the wholte time! the boys accidentially getting stoned was hysterical! loved Sheldon singing Soft Kitty at the end…I knew Penny was going to ask him to sing!
My roommie and I howled through the whole episode, and clapped and screamed at the end of “Soft Kitty” along with the studio audience. One of the best episdoes of a fantastic season so far. Interesting that some people are shipping Penny and Sheldon. I never even thought of them together. Loved the ER scene too. Jim Parsons is phenomenal; the whole cast is great!
Definitely my favorite episode of the season. The “Soft Kitty” was the best! No way would I ever want to see Sheldon and Penny in a relationship.
I thought this was one of the funniest episodes yet! I laughed so loud I scared myself when Sheldon got to 2nd base!! I do love them together, but not at all as a couple. I’d like Penny to stay with Leonard so that there will be many more times that her and Sheldon end up in scenes together. I definitely see it as more bro/sis. The guys stoned was a riot.
I do not believe there is anything going on between sheldon and penny however, the scenes between them were the best of the night to the accidental boob grab, to the scenes in the E.R waiting room to the soft kitty duet…good lord I could not stop laughing, however I welcome the possibilty of forcing sheldon out of his asexual comfort zone a bit….to go to that place with him is an untapped well of hilarity
Maybe if this show were on HBO or Cinemax, but since it’s on CBS, I think Sheldon should stay happily asexual.
The funniest thing is that Sheldon really wasn’t that uncomfortable about any of this – bonus of being asexual, I guess. I think Penny could have been walking around starkers, and he’d have been fine with it.
That was the funniest episode yet. I hope they don’t try to hook up Sheldon and Penny. They are funnier as adversaries. The “Soft kitty” part was great. And I think Jim Parsons deserves an Emmy. He is a 1000 times better than Jon Cryer. His facial/body movements alone are hysterical.
we need to start the Emmy campaign for Jim Parsons
I don’t see Penny or Sheldon as anything other then the older sister and the genius, but annoying little brother or sheldon is Leonard’s little brother, folowing them around. They will never “get together”.
I am in the minority here but I hope Sheldon and Penny do hook up down the road. Based on the contortions he has to go through just to get out a simple comforting phrase, watching him try to navigate the tricky waters of actual romance is going to be HILARIOUS.
Except for the fact that Sheldon is asexual and has no interest in a relationship or sex at all.
I don’t know now… he admitted he peeked at her butt.
Only because “the hero always peeks”!!!
Completely asexual! He peaked becuase he was the hero and he had to peak and how funny if he were sexual he would have not been so obsessed with the tatoo, he would have been excited to see her butt lol
He also grabbed her boob.
The hero also ALWAYS gets the girl. He never stated exactly WHY he chose to peek at her butt. He just said basically that he told her ahead of time that the hero always peeks, as if she wasn’t allowed to be upset with him for doing so.
To be honest, I can’t imagine that being funny at all. I think we’re just all trained by TV writers that male and female characters always become lovers; it’s really cliched. Any sexual interaction between these two would completely invalidate their characters, and I’d stop watching. Penny isn’t like to sleep with someone to whom she had no physical attraction and sees more as a brother figure. Sheldon certainly isn’t going to copulate – for any reason – with someone he sees as intellectually inferior, and Sheldon sees everyone as intellectually inferior. I love them as they are.
Hysterical episode. I loved Sheldon’s reaction when Penny wanted to do the Soft Kitty song as a “round.” She dared to mess with the Soft Kitty song? But like the doped-up Penny said, there’s that nice person under the annoying robot.
I think that he sang it because he knew she would keep bugging him until he did.
He looked so surprised, I think he finally caught on to the irony of the situation. He also seemed to be enjoying it, especially toward the end of the song.
That was clearly the funniest episode of the season. And no, I don’t think Sheldon should be with Penny, and I also just don’t see it happening on any level as she thinks of him as a robot and he sees her as just slightly smarter than a dog. They’re both funnier this way. But, i was happy to see them add some humanity/maleness to Sheldon when he admitted to “peeking.”
I couldn’t agree more. Let it go, people. Not only are Penny and Sheldon not going to happen, it really shouldn’t happen! It’s perfect just the way it is now. Sheldon is way to stiff to be with Penny.
Agree completely though I believe his peeking was purely scientific…as it would be with our Shelly. He certainly wasn’t looking for any prurient reason. I did howl when he admitted peeking since, as he’d told her, the hero always does.
While last night’s episode was hilarious and deftly performed, I am a little concerned that the show is devolving into “The Sheldon Show.” He is a funny character, to be sure, but Johnny
Galecki is the stand-in for the audience, and we should see things through his perspectiv. I hope the show does not make the mistake HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER has made of spotlighting secondary character Barney at the expense of the focus of the show, Ted. The slippery slope from amusing farce to standard sitcom sidekick shtick is very slippery, indeed.
Leonard’s character has never been a stand in for the audience, Penny is. Leonard is a self hating nerd and most fans don’t even like him.
Please don’t speak for me, I love Leonard!! How could you not like him??? All four of the guys and Penny are great together, all of them are great!! This was the best episode this season, I love sweeps
Please don’t speak for me either. I love all the guys but Leonard is my favorite. Walking the line between “nerd and normal”, his yearning to be something more has been endearing. I really enjoyed this episode, and I doubt Leonard will have a problem with the inadvertent boob-grab…he understands Sheldon well enough.
You’re an idiot. I’d love to know that fans don’t love Leonard and exactly where you’ve obtained this scientific analysis of the fan base. I love all of these characters, each for his/her different personalities. You, I’m no fan of.
I can’t fathom why you as an individaul speak for the millions of us who tune in every week. From what I can tell, we love all the charactes and Leonard, in fact, is my family’s favorite character. Just because he is the straight man of the series and can’t act ridiculous and out there all the time like some of the others doesn’t make him not likeable.
I said the same thing recently – I didn’t want Sheldon to become the Urkel of the show. They are a great ensemble and I want it to stay that way. Johnny Galecki was my reason for watching the show in the first place (who didn’t love him on Roseanne) so I don’t want Leonard to be pushed into the background.
Actually, I didn’t love him on Roseanne, but only because I wanted his character to stand up to Darlene more. He had no backbone with her and it used to ruin the show for me.
bootsy, I would have loved Dan to stand up to Roseanne as well, but that wasn’t going to happen (unless he was dead). Darleen was her mother’s daughter…ruined the show for me as well.
…I wouldn’t even know where to begin with this episode; it was so funny, everything in it! I don’t think of Sheldon and Penny as a romantic couple, or that hey’re headed that way; what they have, or have been developing, IMHO, is a type of brother-sister bond…my favorite line was from Raj: “I would be kind to my rabbit subjects…at first”…one of the best episodes so far…
I love Sheldon, but Raj is a close second for me.
Yeah, even the mention of “at first” makes me laugh. Such a closet despot is our Raj.