Odd.
My season finale involves Amy finally convincing a drunken Penny to participate in some oiled “fertility rituals,” with Bernadette assisting…
A couple months back there was some controversy in the recap thread when someone suggested she has a drinking problem.
The show does seem to be going out of its way to confirm that. But that doesn’t mean it will ever be taken to the next level as something that has to be dealt with instead of just being a source of funny (I don’t believe Two and a Half Men ever viewed Charlie’s drinking as something to be treated).
…or someone who just wants to quickly throw in a couple of Western/Fantasy fusion gags without wasting any of their 20 minutes on stuff that would necessarily be as dull as an actual trading card game for most viewers.
I don’t think it’s meant to be a true CCG and instead plays more like a War variant.
Look, just because you guys don’t know the rules doesn’t mean there aren’t scads of people enjoying the game on a daily basis.
(And it doesn’t mean there are, either.)
I don’t think it was early on in the series, but by the time this season’s premiere rolled around, it seemed clear (to me) that the writers have this in mind. I never really noticed her drinking until either last season or the first episode this season (can’t remember.)
There is that bit in the season 4:7 episode (“The Apology Insufficiency”) where Sheldon asks her something like “Penny, you face failure on a daily basis. How do you cope?” Penny: “I drink.”
So it’s been at least that long.
I’m not suggesting they detail the rules of this game or focus on it for any longer than they have. They can make the same gags (or better ones) if there’s something more to this game than just naming the cards and throwing them on the table in turn. Even something as simple as “I attack your Billy the Kobold with my 6-shooter wand.” (while he pushes a card on the table toward an opponent.) “Aw man, my Flaming Spitoon only blocks 5 shots” (whatever, I’m not trying to write an episode here, just give an example of how it could actually seem like CCG and not War or Gin Rummy with funny names.)
I saw an episode where some hunky physicist she was dating (played by the guy that played Anders on BSG) turned out to be married, and she was sitting on the couch drinking egg nog with rum in it that turned to be nothing BUT rum. That was episode 11 of season 2, so it’s been going on for a while. I’m coming around to the “she has a drinking problem” POV.
The earliest show that I know of that has Penny getting drunk enough to be a concern is season 1, episode 6 “The Middle Earth Paradigm”. The one with the Halloween party. Penny gets drunk and starts making out with Leonard. It’s only Leonard’s nerdish ethics that prevents it from going further.
A one time binge does not imply someone is an alcoholic. But then it happens again and again.
For example, does anybody here not remember the season 4 finale and what Penny did with Raj (or tried to do, Raj did not manage to … do his part)?
A person has a substance abuse problem when they routinely use it and it’s effects cause a problem. Like doing things one regrets.
She’s been an alcoholic since season 1, if not before. Substance abuse people usually have a suite of problems. Penny has bad boyfriend issues, money issues, etc. So she has probably been like this for a while.
I also want to point out a personal observation of mine: People who deny that someone else has a drug issue when clearly that person does, also tend to have drug issues. If they admit the other person has a problem, then they have to admit they have it, too. Food for thought.
Whacha shootin’ for, Tex? :dubious:
It was simultaneously tragic and hilarious.
Yeah…I never thought I’d see a worse portrayal of a CCG than the appearance of Duel Monsters in the YuGiOh manga (well before the actually rather fun real card game was created, and also before the series became all about DM), which would be completely unplayable. But Mystic Warriors of Ka’a has it beat pretty bad (though, to be fair, it would actually be playable, just not at all interesting).
BBT, however, has the advantage of playing Ka’a just being a series of short gags, even in the episode where the existence of the game drove the plot, whereas in YGO, the gameplay is a significant part of the storyline, so it’s not as painful to watch. Just pretend there’s some arcane rules that everyone understands and don’t need to explain, and they can usually intuit what the other player is doing.
This season, Penny also advised Amy that if she felt sad, she should drink to feel better.
This great big Mallet…let me hit you with it.
Totally agree. Most of the games they play don’t look like games actual nerds play. More than once they’ve played some sort of fantasy-themed Candyland, that involved nothing more than rolling dice, moving their piece, and reading what the space said. That’s a game for 5 year olds. The CCG is laughably simplistic. (Although it doesn’t seem to be an actual CCG, given that it seems to come in expansion packs, not boosters, and everyone who buys it gets an identical set. Maybe it’s more of a Dominion clone or something.)
I am getting sick of the “Amy hinting at lesbian thing” with Penny. It’s not funny anymore.
I like the idea of making Sheldon more human. Like when they gave Ted (Mary Tyler Moore Show) Baxter, a girlfriend. Georgette made Ted behave like a real person.
I think that’s the cultural difference. In many places binging itself is not a sign of being an alcoholic, instead the question is that of dependence. It is about addiction. Needing alcohol to get through certain things, hell even to get through the day. Someone getting hammered, even it is fairly regularly, doesn’t get anywhere close to alcoholic on my personal meter (otherwise half of the UK’s students would be alcoholics).
And that is why I changed my opinion after the most recent episode. The way it was portrayed seemed to show a developing dependence so as to deal with certain things, rather than “let’s have a laugh, let’s get hammered”.
But drunks used to be funny. We all laugh at Otis from Mayberry and the Mr Whipple playing the drunk guy on Betwitched. I learned what “Make it a double” means by watching reruns of that show.