The Big Bang Theory, Season 10, Episode 17 (February 23, 2017) -- "The Comic-Con Conundrum"

That’s become our mantra too.

But it was a nice touch that they incorporated Raj in his Aqua-Man suit into the green screen footage behind Leonard’s car.

I’m just sick of all the Raj story lines. Over the years, all of their attempts to make him an interesting, quirky character have all fallen flat. His entire purpose seems to have been providing relief from the actual humor of the other characters.

How dare they refuse to be totally realistic and boring and not funny!

I liked this episode. It believably showed the guys trying to grow up a bit - Raj because he’s trying to stand on his own two feet, and the others not putting a comic book convention first and foremost in their lives. Except for Sheldon.

I liked the compare-and-contrast scenes of how Howard tried to butter up his wife to try to manipulate her, and then Sheldon trying the same tack. Howard never fooled Bernadette for a minute, but Sheldon had Amy almost persuaded and didn’t realize it because he was so clueless. She’d have gone to a two-week Comic Con for a little action.

If no one else in the group wants to go to Comic-Con, Sheldon could always go with his good pal James Earl Jones.

They’ve shown Raj spending money on lots of stupid stuff before. Also, Raj started out last week’s ep by telling his father his credit card bills would be higher than usual that month, and I got the impression that he maxed out some cards with pretty high limits, and then took the responsibility for them immediately, so he may have had something like $10,000 right there.

And remember, Raj just had whatever Sheldon was paying him that was left from his grant, not a full salary from the university.

Raj’s trying to stand on his own is at it’s heart a scheme to get a girlfriend, though.

She’d have gone to a two-week Comic Con dressed as the back end of a bantha.

Look how long it is!

This episode didn’t do much for me. It wasn’t terrible, but way too Raj-centric. For me, Raj has never been funny…too pathetic to laugh at and the writers seem to know it, but their solution seems to be to just try to find a new gimmick (unable to talk to women, having a weird relationship with his dog, his romance with Stu, etc.) rather than trying to make him a person.

I’m really, really enjoying watching Sheldon start to grow up though.