TBBT: So who told the real story about Howard's letter?

Cafe Society
1

A couple of season’s ago, Sheldon read a previously unopened letter from Howard’s father, and read it. Howard had received the letter when he was 18, around his birthday.

Each of the gang learned what was in the letter, and told Howard a different story, so he could both know and not know what was in the letter.

Here’s a summary:

Raj: a birthday card with a Far Side cartoon
Sheldon: a map, and basically the plot of Goonies
Amy: father was in the auditorium at Howard’s HS graduation, and cried because he was so proud
Penny: Howard’s father had some secret that caught up with him, and had to leave to keep Howard and his mother safe
Leo: Family is the most important thing, and he (father) was wrong to throw it away
Bern: it was a picture of father, and Howard as a baby, and said Howard, my son, my greatest joy

In light of developments since this episode, like Sam Wolowitz (Howard’s Dad) having another family, and further guesses as to which is right?

Raj: I reject this, because Howard seemed to know it was a letter, not a card. Cards feel different.

Sheldon: Rejected. The plot to Goonies

Amy: Consider this highly likely. If Josh, Howard’s 1/2-brother had been recently born, Sam might have been moved to do something like this, and to try to reconnect with Howard, but when Howard did not reciprocate, gave up.

Penny: Used to think this was #1, since father disappeared, didn’t just leave, but given that he went on to have another family, tend to reject it. Also thought it was to creative for Penny to have come up with, but she could have borrowed it from any of a dozen scripts she’s read.

Bern: likely, but Howard might notice it had a picture in it.

Leo: Likely; similar to Amy’s-- Josh may have just been born, moving Sam to want to reconnect with Howard, apologize, and tell him not to ever do what he did.
Other opinions?

PS: I searched for another thread, including the weekly thread for this ep, and couldn’t find it.

2

My money’s on Amy or Bernie. Both are kind of schmaltzy, but, IMO, more realistically so than Leonard’s (Sheldon’s is pure nonsense, Raj’s is kind of lame for a ‘all these years later’ contact…Penny’s isn’t impossible, but it’s improbably dramatic.)

3

It does sort of make sense the gang would have picked his wife to tell him the true story. On the other hand, Amy is the one who has trouble coming up with stories, so maybe it is Amy’s. Maybe they all took five minutes to come up with a story, and Amy froze, so they just gave her the real one.

4

Leonard is the one who can lie with a straight face with the least difficulty, so I’m going with him.

5

Leonard is telling the truth, because it’s established (in another episode) that his voice gets higher when he lies. Plus, it’s a message that Howard’s father would have realized, with his new family.

6

Raj. He’s Howard’s closest friend, and as for the different “feel” of a card and a letter, I write letters on notecards all the time. And yes, a birthday card is “lame” after all those years, but just abandoning his wife and son like that was pretty lame too.

7

I’m going with Leonard’s story. It’s easy to imagine a father later regretting having thrown his family away; however, crying with pride over a son he never knew or referring to him as “My greatest joy” both feel a bit too over-the-top.

8

Exactly.

Stupid manipulative episode. I bawl every time I see it, and have to step out so my husband doesn’t notice.

9

Furthermore, all the others (even Sheldon’s, in its own weird way) are the kinds of thing Howard might want the message to be, to make him feel better. Unfortunately, that’s not the sort of thing that happens much in real life. I think if one of the others were true, Raj would have come up with something a whole lot better.

10

I like this, but I still can’t get over him referring to it as a “letter.” I think if it were a card, he would have called it a card. Also, remember, Raj never actually saw it-- Sheldon is the only one who saw it. I have my doubts that Sheldon would recognize The Far Side enough to refer to it that way.

That’s another point for Leonard. His is kind of vague compared to the others, which it would be if he were summarizing what Sheldon told him.

Also, I think Raj is not that imaginative. He might not have come up with something better than what sounds like Raj’s personal favorite Far Side cartoon.

[hijack]Another example of the age discrepancy between the writers and the characters. Often the characters seem more familiar with pop culture of the 1990s than what is current. Like Raj recognizing a particular Far Side. Raj was a small child in India when The Far Side was current.[/hijack]

11

So? You ever walk down a office hallway at a university? There are about a million Far Side cartoons on every door and bulletin board. Raj would be intimately familiar with the work. For all we know, he has the Ultimate Far Side Collection on his bookcase.

12

Knowing the characters, they’d probably roll a die to make sure that the choice of who told the true story was completely random. Doing otherwise would contaminate the experiment.

13

Good point.