I’m surprised there isn’t a thread yet.
This was kind of a weird episode for me. It was OK, but not OK. It was kind of just there.
Will be interesting to see how the Penny/Leonard thing plays out now.
I’m totally bored with the Penny/Leonard thing. I think it went downhill after Leonard said “Our babies will be smart *and *beautiful.” I don’t expect this show to last much longer.
My TV guide implied it was not a new episode. Glad I recorded it.
I said it before and I will say it again, I prefer the non pathetic Stuart. Though I kinda liked the mall scenes.
Leonard’s reluctance was perfectly understandable, but maybe a better response would have been “ask me tomorrow”
Brian
I paused to read the vanity card. Lorre wrote that this was a life imitates art episode, because an actress’s scene in the mall had to be cut. He said they’ll try to work her into a future episode and that it’ll make a funny story when she gets famous, goes on Letterman, and talks about it.
IMHO Leonard doesn’t love Penny, never did, he’s just awed that an attractive woman slept with him and stuck around. On the show, they have nothing in common, they annoy each other. Sometimes he looks at her with thinly veiled contempt, other times like she’s a troublesome puppy that he barely tolerates. And she looks at him like “what am I doing with you?” They can’t hide it. The actors have zero chemistry and their romance has never been believable. I can believe them as friends, that’s all.
I liked Sheldon showing some empathy. If he was faking, he did a good job. But I don’t think he was faking.
I think this was one of the best episodes of the series. The characters seemed like humans, even Sheldon.
You mean other than Raj, right? Because he’s been a completely unbelievable character all season (and more).
I have really come to like Amy. I wouldn’t necessarily want her for a girlfriend (though she could be made up to look a helluva lot more attractive than she is on the show), but she is definitely the one I’d most like to spend an evening with.
I choose Bernadette both romantically and platonically. Raj surprisingly would be my #2 choice for friend. Sheldon comes in 3rd.
Another poor episode. The two secondary stories were horrible.
Stuart and Raj at the mall. What? Stuart demonstrated early on that he could pick up Penny at the comic book store, and date her at least twice. He’s in retail sales after all. He can talk to strangers. If he’s friends with Wheaton and Stan Lee, he’s not a complete social loser. Raj isn’t as bad around strangers as they depicted him either.
Sheldon trying to “learn” humor. Again, doesn’t fit at all with Sheldon’s many examples of jokes he’s played over the years. Remember the Halloween one where he came out of the couch to scare Leonard (Season 5, The Good Guy Fluctuation)? The man can do a good bazinga at times.
The main story: Leonard and Penny. Had some promise but just went south. Leonard knows how to handle a drunk Penny. E.g., the costume party episode in Season 1 (The Middle Earth Paradigm) where Penny started kissing Leonard was Leonard was a gentleman and stopped it. This is not how it would have played out back in earlier seasons.
Nebraska is two hours, 3 in TV scheduling time, ahead of California. Penny would have known even before she started watching that wasn’t in it. But this isn’t the first time the show has declared all broadcasts occur at the same time regardless of time zone.
In the vanity card, Lorre mentions an actress Lexie Contursi ironcally cut from the episode for time. She’s a real person. Not sure at all if the story is true.
The long term storyline is not good. Not good at all.
Good point. I guess I blocked that out 
Still really enjoyed the episode.
Leonard and Sheldon’s now ex-assistant Alex would have made a good couple, I think.
The show has its leather jacket on and is on the water skis heading for the ramp. Enough with channeling Ross and Rachel. And let Raj and Stuart become lovers already.
Meh. Penny’s “proposal” should have been passed off with a simple “ask me again when you’re sober” from Leonard. Also getting tired of the whole “Penny’s a borderline alcoholic” schtick. I don’t really get all of her angst over her part being cut from the NCIS broadcast. Pretty sure she would have known about (and been paid for) it long before the episode aired.
Tired of the Raj and Stuart battle for most pathetic man in the universe thing, too. Raj is semi-famous for an astro-nerd, having been featured in People, and was laying more pipe than Wolowitz back before Bernadette came on the scene. Stuart could have nailed Penny…and actually would have, had Sheldon not caught him up in a Batman argument after their date.
Sheldon appears more clueless now than he was when the show started. I’m really supposed to buy he has a Data-like inability to grok humor?
Sigh. This season has been bad. Like final season of Battlestar Galactica bad.
When Penny confronts him afterwards, there’s the line from PHILADELPHIA STORY, roughly: “Because you were the worse for drink, and there are rules about that sort of thing.”
Yep. Someone’s who’s rejected Leonard’s proposal’s repeatedly. Heck, her depressed drunken proposal should have prompted a fight - it was pretty insulting to him even if she was inebriated. If the show drags out this subplot, I’m dropping the show - this season’s been marginal and a rehash of the previous years of Pennard drama won’t help.
No, because all of the comments Raj makes are funny if he’s an oblivious straight man, but not funny if he’s just a closeted gay man.
They’re not funny either way.
I’m just tired of Penny period. I’d like Leonard’s hesitation to be the first sign of his coming to a realization that while Penny may be pretty and all, does he really want to be eternally tied to obnoxious, alcoholic white trash?
Penny does not want to be with a smart man. Penny wants to be with an idiot who will fill her with platitudes and agree with everything she says. It’s a good thing she’s pretty. She needs to call Zack so they can have beautiful, brain damaged children together.
Agreed. She showed her contempt for him with the look on her face when she agreed “at least I have you”. His turning down her drunken proposal was a first sign of self-respect in him. And, in spite of his evil, should be burned at the stake mother, he should have self-respect. He is competent in his field, has friends, and has decent instincts. He has had some intelligent, decent girlfriends.
Penny is totally alcoholic white trash, a slander on all Nebraskans. Why should he stick with her?