The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady

Theme music: “Big Bang Theory Theme” by Barenaked Ladies

• 000. Unaired Pilot – 5/2006
  • After donating sperm to a High-IQ bank, scientists Leonard and Sheldon take their earnings and head out for an Italian dinner, running across an attractive girl named Katie (Amanda Walsh) crying in the street. Katie’s boyfriend has dumped her when he revealed that he is married, and Katie’s mother will not let her stay with her because Katie had slept with the man that her mother is now married to. Much to Sheldon’s irritation, Leonard invites her out to eat with them and then to stay with them for a while until she gets on her feet. Leonard’s research partner Gilda (Iris Bahr) has designs on Leonard and is clearly jealous of Katie. Katie goes out for drinks and stops at home when a guy spill beer on her, only to be questioned by Leonard as to how she can partying given her situation. Katie tries to break it down into a scientific equation citing several external forces contributing to her condition. Leonard corrects her in that she is the constant in the equation, deducing that is her own stupid choices that got her to where she is. She gets angry and moves out. Leonard visits her at her job where she is working as a cosmetician and apologizes. She doesn’t seem receptive, but later shows up and moves back in with them, then takes the guys and Gilda out for a night on the town. Vernee Watson is Althea, the sperm bank secretary. 1/24/16 (online)

• 001. Pilot – 9/24/2007
  • Two young genius but socially awkward physicists, Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), live with each other in an apartment in Pasadena, California and work together Caltech. They are the epitome of two geeks, both into science fiction, comic books, and are neat and orderly and like things their own way. Suddenly an attractive but friendly new neighbor named Penny (Kaley Cuoco), who has just broken up with her boyfriend, moves into the apartment across the hall. Leonard immediately becomes attracted to her, but Sheldon is skeptical that he would ever have a chance. Their equally dysfunctional friends Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), a wannabe ladies man, and Raj Koothrapali (Kunal Nayyar), who is unable to speak around attractive women, also are attracted to her. After Penny uses Leonard and Sheldon’s shower, she asks Leonard if he would be willing to retrieve her TV from her muscular ex-boyfriend. The boyfriend ends up de-pantsing both Leonard and Sheldon when they try, and Penny feels so bad that she takes them and their two friends out to dinner. 5/11/13
    
• 002. The Big Bran Hypothesis – 10/1/2007
  • Penny asks Leonard if he would be willing to sign for her new shelf that is being delivered and he agrees. After he and Sheldon manage it to haul it up several floors to her apartment, Sheldon becomes obsessed with Penny’s messy apartment. That night Leonard wakes up and hears Sheldon across the hall straightening up her apartment as she sleeps. He first tries to convince him to leave, but when that fails, he assists in cleaning. When Penny wakes up she is furious and takes back her spare key. Leonard attempts an apology, but Penny has already forgiven him. Leonard, Sheldon, Raj, and Howard all assist in putting together the shelf, but as they argue on how best to do it, Penny works on it herself, somewhat happy that her apartment now is neat and orderly. 5/11/13
• 003. The Fuzzy Boots Corollary – 10/8/2007
  • After Leonard sees Penny on a date, he decides to give up on dating her and tries some other options including his co-worker Leslie Winkle (Sara Gilbert) and group salsa classes. These prove unsuccessful so he builds up the courage to ask Penny to dinner, telling her that his friends will also be there. They end up having dinner alone which goes reasonably well, despite the fact that Leonard bumps his head on the table and gets sick in Penny’s car. At the end of the date, Penny asks Leonard if he had intended for their evening to be a date, and he denies it. 5/12/13
• 004. The Luminous Fish Effect – 10/15/2007
  • After insulting new department head Dr. Eric Gablehauser (Marc Harelik), Sheldon gets fired from his job at the university. He initially gets involved in a number of projects at home including perfecting scrambled eggs, developing a glowing fish, and weaving, but soon his funk becomes obvious enough that Leonard calls Sheldon’s mother Mary (Laurie Metcalf) to come and cheer him up. She spends a lot of time with his friends, but Sheldon refuses to come out of his room, so she eventually demands that he go ask for his job back. Dr. Gablehauser seems interested in Mary, so he lets Sheldon keep his job. 5/12/13
• 005. The Hamburger Postulate – 10/22/2007
  • Leonard is getting mixed signals from Penny, and continues to wonder if she is interested in him. While he and his friends are eating at the Cheesecake Factory where Leslie works, Leslie shows up and invites Leonard to play in the Physics Department Orchestra with her. Penny seems curious as to whether they had dated before. After the practice ends, Leslie sticks around and she and Leonard end up sleeping together. Sheldon looks to Penny to interpret the tie that Sheldon has put on his door, so Penny hears them having sex. Leonard continues to be fixated on what Penny thinks about it when she lets it slip that she knows, but then decides to pursue a relationship with Leslie. Leslie however makes it clear that it was just a one-night stand. Penny tells Sheldon that there is someone out there for him, confusing him even more. 5/20/13
• 006. The Middle-Earth Paradigm – 10/29/2007
  • Penny is having a Halloween party and invites Sheldon and his friends. They are intrigued by the thought of dressing up in costume so agree to go. Each of them dresses as The Flash, but then all agree to change costumes. Leonard dresses as Frodo, Raj is Thor, Howard is Robin Hood (but everyone thinks he is Peter Pan), and Sheldon is the Doppler Effect, which no one understand. Penny’s ex-boyfriend Kurt (Brian Patrick Wade) shows up at the party and has a confrontation with Sheldon that embarrasses him. Sheldon leaves sheepishly, but later Penny shows up trying to avoid Kurt. She kisses Sheldon, but he stops her because she is upset and drunk. She leaves, but kisses him one more time, this time in view of Kurt. Meanwhile, Raj gets lucky with a drunk girl named Cheryl without saying a word; she thinks he’s a ‘good listener.’ 5/20/13
• 007. The Dumpling Paradox – 11/5/2007
  • Penny has a friend named Christy (Brook D’Orsay) visiting from Nebraska and once she starts getting on Penny’s nerves, Penny comes over to the guys’ apartment and ends up playing the video game Halo with them. Once Howard finds out the Christy is quite promiscuous, he spends the night there and eventually asks her to move in with him and his mother. With Howard busy with Christy, the group starts to fall apart as Penny has to be the fourth member of the Halo team, and the Chinese food is not equally divisible by four. Fortunately, since Howard’s mother and Christy can’t get along, Christy leaves and Howard returns to his slot among the four guys. James Hong stars as Chen, the waiter at the Chinese restaurant. Carol Ann Susi is the voice of Mrs. Debbie Wolowitz. 12/22/13
• 008. The Grasshopper Experiment – 11/12/2007
  • Through video messaging from India, Raj’s parents (Brian George, Alice Amter) fix him with another Indian girl named Lalita (Sarayu Rao). He is reluctant until he realized that by drinking alcohol, as Penny practices her bartending skills, he is finally able to talk to women. This doesn’t help him however, as she finds him dreadfully boring and obnoxious, and is more interested in Sheldon who compares her to a folklore Indian Princess. Sheldon ends up leaving the bar with her, which greatly upsets Raj – although Sheldon has no intention of seeing her again. Sheldon apologizes to Raj, but when Raj’s parents find out that he was drinking, the force him to take his laptop into the apartment hallway so that they can scold him. 12/22/13
• 009. The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization – 3/17/2008
  • When Sheldon and Leonard are invited to present a paper that they wrote on super-solids, Sheldon is uninterested, but Leonard wants to proceed with it. This causes a rift between the two that Penny tries to mend, but inadvertently makes worse. The argument culminates with Sheldon crashing the presentation and the two getting into a physical altercation in front of the crowd, which is captured on video by Howard and put onto YouTube, for the world – and their Chinese counterparts – to enjoy. 12/25/13
• 010. The Loobenfeld Decay – 3/24/2008
  • Leonard tells a white lie in order to get out of seeing Penny perform in the play Rent, at which she is terrible. Sheldon is concerned about the credibility of the lie, so he concocts a different story about being busy with an intervention in Long Beach for his cousin Leo. Becoming more obsessed with being discovered, Sheldon has his friend Toby Loobenfeld (DJ Quallis) portray a real-life version of Leo. It is all for naught though when Penny then invites Leonard to watch the video of her performance. 12/25/13
• 011. The Pancake Batter Anomaly – 3/31/2008
  • Penny returns from Nebraska and mentions that there was some sickness in her family, causing Sheldon to panic about becoming sick…which he does. Leonard slips out the second that he hears of the sickness and warns all of his friends not to take his calls, knowing that Sheldon will drive them crazy with his neediness. The guys hide out at a Planet of the Apes marathon, leaving Penny to take Sheldon when he shows up at The Cheesecake Factory. Leonard breaks his glasses at the movie and has to return to the apartment where Penny is now singing Sheldon Soft Kitty and rubbing vapor rub on his chest. Penny catches him crawling through the apartment planting a motion sensor, and turns the care of Sheldon back over to Leonard…who then gets sick himself. 1/14/14
• 012. The Jerusalem Duality – 4/7/2008
  • Gablehauser turns over a 15-year old prodigy named Dennis Kim (Austin Lee) to Leonard and Sheldon to show around at the university lab. Sheldon in extremely threatened when Dennis questions the validity of his work, and has seemingly accomplished everything at a younger age than Sheldon. This drives him to want to collaborate with and annoy the other guys, so they hatch a scheme to drive Dennis away. They invite a bevy of teenage girls to Dennis’ welcoming party so that they will detract his focus away from academics. It works and he runs off to them mall with a girl named Emma, restoring Sheldon to his role in the academic world. 1/14/14
• 013. The Bat Jar Conjecture – 4/21/2008
  • The gang decides to enter the University Physics Bowl, but during practice Sheldon behaves so obnoxiously with answering all of the questions that the team votes him out. Sheldon then forms his own team “The Army Ants” using the janitor, the lunch lady, and her son (or butcher) to round out the team of four. Leonard’s team, The Perpetual Motion Squad (PMS) chooses Leslie, who agrees because she wants to defeat Sheldon. The teams compete neck and neck with PMS up by just 25 points when the final question is presented in the form of an equation. Neither PMS or Sheldon can get the answer, but the janitor on AA gets it correctly. Sheldon however refuses to submit it, so the victory goes to the PMS team. In the end, Penny tests Sheldon and Leonard to see who is smarter by reading pop culture Trivia Pursuit questions, and the both perform abysmally. 2/2/14
• 014. The Nerdvana Annihilation – 4/28/2008
  • Leonard is surprised to get the winning bid on the original time machine prop from the 1960 film The Time Machine. He can’t afford the $800 for it, so all four guys go in on it. When it arrives, they are forced to move it up the stairs, which causes Penny to have to take another way out to get work, ultimately making her lose her shift. In anger she chastises all of the guys for being so childish and wasting their lives on junk. Leonard then decides to sell off his collection of toys, and his friends end up in a bidding war. Penny then apologizes and says that his hobbies make him who he is, but he thinks it is time to move on and get rid of them anyway. However, as he’s about to ask Penny out, another guy shows up to pick her up for a date, so Leonard decides to keep the collectibles and continue playing with the time machine. Sheldon has a dream about being attacked by Morlocks. 2/2/14
• 015. The Shiksa Indeterminacy (aka The Pork Chop Indeterminacy) – 5/5/2008
  • Leonard, Raj, and Howard are surprised to see a tall, attractive girl in Sheldon’s office and even more so when they learn that she is his twin sister Missy (Courtney Henggeler) in town for a wedding at Disneyland. Leonard talks her into staying at their apartment during her visit. Raj agrees to be a test subject for a drug combating pathological shyness, thus all three guys proceed to hit on her. Leonard tells Sheldon that he should be concerned about who beds his sister because she is carrying the DNA for another genius in her. This backfires when Leonard forbids all three from dating her. Missy tells Sheldon that she has no right to say who she can and can’t date, and enforces this by injuring him in the crotch. Sheldon gives the guys the go-ahead to pursue her at Penny’s, where she is now staying after they all drive her crazy. She shoots down Leonard and Howard, but seems to be interested in Raj…whose drug has worn off and rendered him unable to speak a word to her. 3/4/14
• 016. The Peanut Reaction – 5/12/2008
  • When Penny finds out that Leonard was never given a birthday party, she arranges a surprise party with his friends. Sheldon has not gotten him a gift so Penny takes him to an electronics store, where Sheldon ends up helping the customers there. In order to get Sheldon away from his game of Halo, Howard fakes eating a peanut to which he is allergic, and Leonard has to take him to the hospital. Since Penny can’t get Sheldon out of the store, she appeals to Howard to keep Leonard at the hospital longer, promising to introduce him to her loose friends if he does. Howard actually eats a peanut and swells up, having to undergo treatment. They are so late in getting back, Leonard finds Sheldon and Penny asleep and Raj drunk on the Karaoke machine. Penny gives Leonard a big kiss to celebrate his birthday. 3/4/14
• 017. The Tangerine Factor – 5/19/2008
  • Penny furiously breaks up with her boyfriend Mike because he reported details of their sex life on his blog. Leonard tries to comfort her and accidentally talks her into giving Mike a second chance. This doesn’t go well when she visits him and finds him with another woman, and Leonard gets the blame. When Penny mentions that she needs to date nicer guys, Leonard suggest that she go out on a date with him. Both Leonard and Penny have second thoughts about dating, and both turn to Sheldon for advice. He can only relate their situation of Schrödinger’s cat, an abstract thought experiment by which a cat in a room with a poisonous gas set to be released at a random time is both dead and alive. When he arrives for the date, Penny says they should talk, but Leonard simply goes in for the kiss, declaring “the cat is alive.” Meanwhile, Howard tries to teach Sheldon Mandarin Chinese so Sheldon can find out if the Chinese restaurant is really using mandarins in their mandarin chicken. 6/2/14

SEASON 2

• 018. The Bad Fish Paradigm – 9/22/2008
  • The end of a Leonard’s date with Penny is a bit rocky, with her saying that she wants to slow things down. Leonard is afraid that he has done something wrong, but Penny confesses to Sheldon that she felt intellectually inferior and lied about graduating from community college. Sheldon has such a problem keeping the secret that he is forced to move out, first with Raj, and then with Howard, who ends up drugging him with Valium and returning him back to Leonard. Under the influence, he tells Leonard the secret. Leonard is relieved that he hasn’t done anything wrong, and then suggests a local community college to Penny, who becomes offended that Sheldon thinks she’s not smart enough to date him and slams the door in his face. 6/2/14 
• 019. The Codpiece Topology – 9/29/2008
  • As they are returning from the Renaissance Festival – which Sheldon cannot stand because of its historical inaccuracies – they run into Penny on a date with a guy named Eric (Travis Schuldt), which proves awkward for Leonard. When Leslie proposes that they give their relationship a try, this time with full commitment, Leonard is willing to give it a chance. Sheldon cannot stand Leslie, but gets advice from a slightly-jealous Penny that he should stand by his friend. Sheldon declares that he will support Leonard and Leslie’s relationship – but when the conversation turns to quantum physics, Leslie cannot accept Leonard’s theories, worrying about the future of their children, and breaks off the relationship. 8/17/14
• 020. The Barbarian Sublimation – 10/6/2008
  • When Penny sticks her car key in apartment door and gets locked out, Sheldon invites her to stay at the apartment while she waits for the locksmith. He shows her how to play the video game Age of Conan, and she quickly becomes addicted and constantly bothers Sheldon for advice. Leslie tells him that it is Penny’s sexual frustration that is keeping her addicted to the game, so Sheldon signs Penny up for online dating. She completely ignores the first guy who shows up, – Tom (Mark Hames) – but once she accepts a virtual date during the game with Howard, she immediately recognizes her need for help and quits the game. 8/17/14
• 021. The Griffin Equivalency – 10/13/2008
  • Raj is named one of People Magazine‘s “30 to Watch Under 30” because of the planetary mass he discovered. Sheldon dismisses him, but Leonard convinces him to support Raj that they should all celebrate with dinner. Gablehauser is thrilled for the publicity it will bring the college, so he gives Raj a bigger office and an assistant. Raj starts to get cocky so all of his friends decline going to the People Magazine party. Penny feels sorry for Raj so she agrees to go with him. Raj gets drunk and acts obnoxiously with her, even introducing her to his parents as his new ‘squeeze.’ Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard discuss finding a new friend. The day after the party, Raj is able to muster one high-pitched word to Penny: “sorry.’ Leonard witnesses her hugging Raj and fears the worst. Charlie Sheen has a cameo as himself. 9/17/14
• 022. The Euclid Alternative – 10/20/2008
  • When Leonard is up all night using the free electron laser at school, Sheldon needs another ride to work. He plays the ‘favor’ card with Penny so she takes him, but he irritates her so much, she drops him off on the way. Sheldon freaks out on the back of Howard’s motorcycle, and Raj won’t take him to the extra places he demands. His friends end up staging an intervention and insist that he get his license. He ticks off the lady (Octavia Spencer) at the DMV so much that she simply gives him his temporary license. Leonard sets up a driving simulator for him, but he does so poorly that he simply ‘transcends’ learning, stating that he’s developed into a higher being. The solution is for him to live at the school, which he does…even for a week after Leonard has secretly finished his project. 9/17/14
• 023. The Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem – 11/3/2008
  • Sheldon is approached by an attractive graduate student named Ramona (Riki Lindhome) who is interested in his work and wants to bring dinner to him. Everyone is curious how he will handle the situation, which quickly escalates into Ramona being with him 24-hours a day. At Ramona’s insistence, Sheldon gives up all fun activity so that he can concentrate on his theorem. Eventually it becomes too much and although he doesn’t know the nature of their relationship, he asks for Penny’s help to get him out of it. Eventually he solves the theorem which reconciles the black hole information paradox with his theory of string-network condensates, and recognizes Ramona’s help in pushing him. However when she asks for a co-credit to the theorem, he throws her out. Later at lunch, a girl named Kathy (Emily Happe) approaches him exactly as Ramona did, but Sheldon is unaware of the parallel. 10/20/14
• 024. The Panty Piñata Polarization – 11/10/2008
  • Penny and Sheldon get into an escalating war when Penny first takes a bite of his onion ring then sits in his spot. This gives her ‘three strikes’ (after previously forwarding joke email), so he bans her from the group. Leonard tries to make peace between them, but Penny then bans him from the Cheesecake Factory, which causes him to block her from using their internet. Penny occupies all of the washing machines on laundry night, so Sheldon steals her clothes and hangs them on a telephone line. Finally Sheldon steps in and gives Penny Sheldon’s ‘kryptonite’ – Sheldon’s mother’s phone number. Sheldon receives a call from her and is ordered to apologize, which he does, noting that she played well. Meanwhile, Raj and Howard track down the address of the home used in America’s Next Top Model, and visit it posing as cable repairmen. Analeigh Tipton and Samantha Potter appear as themselves. 10/21/14
• 025. The Lizard-Spock Expansion – 11/17/2008
  • When Howard’s scheme to use an eye patch to get women fails, he picks up a girl named Dr. Stephanie Bennett (Sara Rue) by telling her she can operate NASA’s rover on Mars in their control center. He panics and calls his friends to help him, but their only solution is to wipe out the memory and surveillance videos. Leonard takes Stephanie home and they end up making out and continuing to date, although Howard still thinks that she is his girl. When Stephanie finally tells Howard that she is seeing Sheldon, Howard declares them dead to him. But he changes his mind when they set him with Stephanie’s friend Elisa…which he proceeds to blow quickly. Meanwhile, they see on TV that the hard drives that they erased potentially contained information about life on Mars. 11/17/14
• 026. The White Asparagus Triangulation – 11/24/2008
  • Sheldon finds Stephanie more palatable than any of Leonard’s previous girlfriends, so he does all he can in order to make sure that she stays with him – including interrupting his dates at home and the movies, asking Penny ignore her urges with Leonard, and trying to make Leonard look tough by having appear to be the ‘alpha male’ when it comes to opening a jar of asparagus. This backfires when Leonard can’t open it, breaks the jar, requires stitches, and throws up in front of Stephanie, who is the doctor who stitches him. As a last ditch effort Sheldon changes Leonard’s Facebook status to ‘in a relationship.’ Leonard berates Sheldon, but then feels better when Stephanie accepts the relationship on Facebook. 11/18/14
• 027. The Vartabedian Conundrum – 12/8/2008
  • Sheldon invokes the fine print in his roommate agreement with Leonard to convince him that Stephanie is in fact now ‘living with’ them. Stephanie meets Penny for the first time in an uncomfortable encounter, and then Penny convinces Sheldon the same thing. She proceeds to advise him that if he wants to slow down the relationship he should communicate it to Stephanie, but every time he tries to approach her, they end up sleeping together. Raj and Howard advise Leonard to tell Stephanie that she should move out via text, but her response sends him back to her for more sex. Meanwhile Sheldon is having Stephanie check out his various hypochondriac ailments, and she convinces him that he has a swollen larynx and shouldn’t talk any more. 1/1/15
• 028. The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis – 12/15/2008
  • Leonard develops a man-crush on a physicist colleague named Dr. David Underhill (Michael Trucco), who he deems his superior, but while dragging Leonard back home after David’s motorcycle falls on him, he meets Penny, who is immediately attracted to him. Leonard becomes visibly jealous when Penny seems to take a sudden interest in science, and especially David. By the time Leonard confronts her, she has already called it off because she finds out he is married. Meanwhile Sheldon enlists the help of Raj and Howard to find a reciprocal Christmas gift for Penny, ending up buying six fragrant gift baskets, planning to give her the appropriately sized one when he finds out what she has given him. When her gift turns out to be a napkin that Leonard Nimoy has signed and used to wipe his mouth, Sheldon is so excited to own his DNA that she gives Penny all of the baskets. Penny give Leonard a gift certificate for motorcycle lessons and he gives her a Chemistry set for children. Michael Hyatt is store clerk Charlotte. 1/2/15
• 029. The Killer Robot Instability – 1/12/2009
  • The guys have created the ultimate killer robot named M.O.N.T.E. (Mobile Omnidirectional Neutralization and Termination Eradicator) that they are planning to enter into a robot fighting invitational. But when Howard, who is the robot’s engineer, makes a pass at Penny and refers to her as ‘doable,’ she berates him, telling him that he’ll never get a date and will die alone. Howard ends up depressed in his room for days, while the guys accept a challenge from co-worker Barry Kripke (John Ross Bowie) to have a robot fight before the competition. Leonard is concerned they will lose and sends Penny over to apologize to Howard, who ends up opening up to Penny and having a normal conversation. However when he tries to kiss her, she gives him a black eye. M.O.N.T.E. loses miserably and is destroyed. 2/18/15
• 030. The Friendship Algorithm – 1/19/2009
  • Sheldon thinks that if he becomes friends with Kripke, he will be able to get time on the Open Science Grid computer that Kripke manages. However, Sheldon has no idea how to make friends and searches for a scientific formula by distributing a 200-question quiz to his current friends.. He and Leonard head to a book store to look for books on the subject, and Sheldon finds the children’s book Stu the Cockatoo is New at the Zoo, from which he derives a flow chart. This helps him arrange to go rock climbing with Kripke, which causes Sheldon to pass out. Nonetheless they become friends. Sheldon thinks having five friends will be too much so he boots Raj because he missed Sheldon’s favorite amino acid on the quiz. However when he finds out that Kripke has no control on scheduling computer time, he abandons Kripke and lets Raj back in. 2/20/15
• 031. The Financial Permeability – 2/2/2009
  • When Penny is short on her rent money after her hours get cut and her car breaks down, Sheldon loans her money from his stash. Although he is not worried about getting it back, Penny interprets anything he says as badgering. Leonard gives her some financial advice and finds out that her ex-boyfriend Kurt owes her $1800. He summons his courage and takes his friends to confront Kurt, but Kurt only ends up writing an I.O.U. on his head in magic marker. Later Kurt voluntarily pays the money back to Penny, stating that he just felt bad… and Penny agrees to have dinner with him. Sheldon gets his money back and thinks that Leonard’s mission was successful, although Leonard is justifiably disappointed with the results. 4/3/15
• 032. The Maternal Capacitance – 2/9/2009
  • Leonard’s stuffy and academic mother Beverly (Christine Baranski) comes for a visit and soon she is diagnosing Penny’s issues with her father, pegging Raj and Howard as living an ersatz homosexual lifestyle, and embarrassing Leonard. However she hits it off with Sheldon and they end up singing Any Way You Want It on their Karaoke machine. Having driven Penny and Leonard to drink, they end up getting drunk, making out, and winding up in bed together, but Penny throws Leonard out when he mentions that his mother would diagnose them as compensating for issues with his mother and her father. Beverly leaves the next morning and continues her therapy of Penny as they walk down the stairs together. 4/3/15
• 033. The Cushion Saturation – 3/2/2009
  • During a paintball game, Howard and Leslie end up stranded in a shed and they end up getting together and having sex. She soon begins favoring him in the distribution of grand money at the school. When she asks him to attend a wedding with her, she threatens to pull the favoritism if he doesn’t comply. He is offended at first, but then goes along with it because he likes being thought of as ‘eye candy.’ Leslie says she is only controlling him because she is scared of the prospect of being in a real relationship. Meanwhile Penny accidentally shoots a green paintball into the cushion of the seat of the couch that Sheldon has become emotionally connected to. He struggles to find other places to sit while waiting for it to be dry-cleaned. When it comes back, he doesn’t think it is right, but Leonard diverts his attention by telling him that the favorite Chinese dish has been coming from another restaurant than he thought. 6/26/15
• 034. The Terminator Decoupling – 3/9/2009
  • The guys take a train to San Francisco to see the Nobel Prize winner Dr. George Smoot (himself) speak at a conference. After giving a rundown of the history of the Coast Starlight train, Sheldon realizes that he has forgotten a flash drive with a paper that he wanted to present to Smoot. He reluctantly lets Sheldon talk him into having Penny enter his room at home and find the hidden drive. She gets it for him, but not before going through the letters from his grandmother. Meanwhile the guys notice that Summer Glau (herself), star of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is on the train. Raj and Howard argue on who can win her over. Raj gets drunk so that he can talk to her and is somewhat successful in charming her. When Howard points out to him that he is drinking non-alcoholic beer, Raj immediately clams up. Howard has not luck, and Summer ends up destroying his camera. Leonard gives her a try as well, but she exits the train just as he starts talking to her. When they arrive at the San Francisco, Sheldon tries to convince Smoot to partner with him, but Smoot suggests that Sheldon is on crack. 6/26/15
• 035. The Work Song Nanocluster – 3/16/2009
  • Penny considers going into business creating ‘Penny Blossom’ hair barrettes and looks to Sheldon for ideas how to maximize her efficiency and profit. Sheldon all but takes over the operation and the two of them begin creating them in a mini-assembly line. The other guys join in the business with their ideas on marketing and distribution, whit Leonard creating a web page for customers to place their orders. They immediately get an order for 1000 units for the East Rutherford, New Jersey LGBT Luau. They all work through the night to get them completed, only to find that the group has ordered an additional 1000. Penny tries to rouse them all to action, but everyone is too tired… except for Sheldon, who has drank his first cup of coffee and is bouncing off the walls. Meanwhile the guys play a rousing game of Secret Agent Laser Obstacle Chess, and later Secret Agent Laser Obstacle Lunch. 8/25/15
• 036. The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition – 3/30/2009
  • Sheldon panics when the apartment above them becomes empty because he is scared of the unknown. Initially Howard tries to rent the apartment but he bails after an argument with his mother. Attractive aspiring actress Alicia (Valerie Azlynn) ends up with the apartment, and Sheldon eventually lends him approval after interrogating her. Leonard, Howard, and Raj all end up with a crush on her and tending to her every need. Penny becomes jealous not only of the fact that she is having success in acting by landing a job on CSI, but also is garnering all of the attention of her friends. When it becomes clear that Alicia is merely using the guys to do things for her, Penny confronts her and they end up in a physical fight. Bruised and swollen, Penny now gets some attention from the guys, who are depressed that Alicia is now sleeping with one of the producers of CSI. 8/27/15
• 037. The Hofstadter Isotope – 4/13/2009
  • On ‘anything can happen Thursday’ the guys go to the comic book shop for the second night in a row, and Penny comes along to get her nephew a comic book. While Sheldon and Howard are fighting over a comic book, Penny begins chatting with store employee and aspiring artist Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman), who eventually gets a date with Penny. Leonard is beside himself with jealousy, and when the two go to an art show where Stuart’s work is featured, Leonard gets Howard and Raj to take him out to a bar on ladies night. Howard’s technique is pathetic, so he and Leonard get no women, but after Raj has drinks, he winds up going home and sleeping with a large woman. Back at the apartment, Penny invites Stuart in after their date, but he spends the evening debating Batman with Sheldon while Penny falls asleep. Ian Scott Rudolph is Captain Sweatpants. 11/21/15
• 038. The Vegas Renormalization – 4/27/2009
  • When Howard’s ‘friend with benefits’ Leslie Winkle dumps him, he is so distraught that Leonard and Raj take him to Vegas. After Raj drinks, he nearly accepts a date with a prostitute named Mikayla (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe), but he and Leonard end up hiring her for the ‘Jewish girlfriend experience’ for Howard. Although Howard quickly catches on since she is so perfect, he has no qualms about sleeping with her. Meanwhile Sheldon is excited to have the apartment to himself until he locks himself out and is forced to spend the evening and night with Penny. She allows him to have her bed since he is too tall for the couch, and when he can’t sleep, she sings Soft Kitty to him. When Leonard returns home, Sheldon tells him that he now understands the concept of ‘friends with benefits.’ 11/21/15
• 039. The Classified Materials Turbulence – 5/4/2009
  • Stuart and Penny have another date scheduled, and both look to Leonard for advice. Jealous of the date, Stuart gives both bad advice, and tells Stuart to go ‘glacially’ slow. He starts to feel bad and worries about bad karma so goes to both to confess his deed. Penny refuses to talk about the date at all, and Stuart says the advice was actually good and led to them making out in the car. However things went wrong when Penny called Stuart ‘Leonard’ in the middle of it. Meanwhile Howard has sent up his specially designed zero-gravity toilet on a space station, and then realizes after the fact that it has not been engineered correctly and will reverse the waste after ten flushes. He enlists his friends to help re-design it using only materials that the astronauts would find on board, simulating human waste with his mother’s meatloaf. He gives them the design, but apparently it fails because the astronauts notify ground control that all the astronauts need to make an unscheduled stop. 1/24/16
• 040. The Monopolar Expedition – 5/11/2009
  • President Siebert from the University leaves a message for Sheldon to meet him the next morning. Sheldon can’t wait so he visits him in the middle of the night and is asked to go on a three-month North Pole expedition to search for slow-moving magnetic monopoles to confirm stream theory. Sheldon asks his friends to go along, and although Howard is against it, the others recognize that the research is exciting, so they all agree, and begin training for it in the freezer at the Cheesecake Factory. Leonard doesn’t think Penny cares that he is leaving, but when she buys him a Snuggie, tells him that she’ll miss him, and gives him an extra long hug, he starts to have second thought about the trip.  He visits her to clarify the meaning behind her actions, but she just blows it off… then acknowledges to herself that she wishes he wasn’t going. The guys all go forward with the trip. 1/24/16

SEASON 3

• 041. The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation – 5/11/2009
  • The guys, now bearded. return from the North Pole and Penny instantly kisses Leonard and reveals how much she missed him. Leonard and Penny keep trying to find alone time together, but they are interrupted constantly when Sheldon finds out that his friends falsified his finding on magnetic monopoles by using the static of a can opener to simulate the readings in order to appease the angry and tyrannical Sheldon. Although Penny attempts to calm Sheldon down, the razzing he gets at work for sending ahead the false date of their discovery, particularly from Kripke, drives him to move back to his mother Mary’s (Laurie Metcalf) home in Galveston, Texas. Penny urges Leonard to accompany his friends to go after him, and they are finally able to convince him to return… especially after Sheldon has butted heads with his religious mother. Sheldon and Penny are finally able to sleep together, but they end up disappointed that it has had a weird affect on their friendship. 4/5/16
• 042. The Jiminy Conjecture – 9/28/2009
  • Leonard makes the mistake of telling his friends that sleeping with Penny was just ‘fine’, and Sheldon then blabs about this to Penny, who storms out of the apartment. Leonard follows and the two decide to drink some wine to loosen up, but end up drinking tons of alcohol to the point of both of them throwing up. Sheldon suggests to Penny that the two of them could always return to just being friends. Both are receptive to this, but in the course of agreeing to this, they both become passionate again. Meanwhile Sheldon claims to be able to identify a cricket that is loose in their apartment from its chirp. He claims that it is a snowy tree cricket, while Howard is skeptical and bets that its just a regular field cricket. Each puts up a prized comic book in the bet, and then Raj and the two of them spend the evening tracking down the bug. The finally find it and name it Toby, but still can’t agree on its identification. They take it to Caltech’s entomologist Professor Crawley (Lewis Black), who has just lost funding for his lab, and he identifies it as a field cricket. Sheldon has a hard time getting over his loss. 4/5/16
• 043. The Gothowitz Deviation – 10/5/2009
  • With Penny spending more time at Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment, Sheldon starts to become irritated with her quirks more and more. Leonard suggests that he try to get along with her, and soon he notices that Sheldon is being more friendly and giving her chocolate frequently. He then realizes that Sheldon is using the chocolate as positive behavior reinforcement. Sheldon claims that he can also eliminate her undesirable behaviors using negative reinforcement… and manages to get her to lower her voice to a lower octave. When Penny’s offer of noisy sex gets Leonard to help put Penny’s new bed together, Sheldon realizes that sex is an even more powerful reward than chocolate. Meanwhile Howard and Raj head to a goth bar, both wearing fake tattoo sleeves, and Howard in full goth regalia. They meet two goth girls Bethany (Molly Morgan) and Sarah (Sarah Buehler), and charm them just enough for the girls to take them to a tattoo parlor, where Howard is willing to get a tattoo so that he has the chance to sleep with one of them. However the pain of the needle touching him is too great, so they admit they were faking being goth. The girls walk out on them, and Howard and Raj plan out the story they’ll tell to make the evening seem more exciting in their favor. Andy Mackenzie is tattoo artist Skeeter. 7/6/16
• 044. The Pirate Solution – 10/12/2009
  • As Penny plans her Thanksgiving dinner, Raj runs out of the room crying because six months earlier he ran into a dead-end on his testing of the predicted composition of trans-Neptunian objects, meaning he will be departed back to India if he isn’t gainfully employed. He interviews to work with Professor Laughlin (Oliver Muirhead), but when he has to speak with his colleague Dr. Catherine Millstone (Elizabeth Bogush), he is forced to drink so he can speak in her presence and ends up inviting her to his hot tub… thus not getting the job. Sheldon offers to let him apply for a job to be his assistant, and although extremely resistant, he goes to work with/for Sheldon. However when Raj corrects one of Sheldon’s formulas and Sheldon won’t listen, Raj quits. Sheldon later realizes that Raj’s formula was correct, and asks Raj to come back, so Raj reluctantly returns to the job. Meanwhile Leonard and Penny quickly get tired of Howard hanging around with them in Raj’s absence, but don’t have the heart to force him to go hang out with his mother. 7/6/16
• 045. The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary – 10/19/2009
  • Howard reminds Leonard that he had once told Howard that if he got a hot girlfriend, he’d set him up with one of his girlfriend’s friends. Leonard reluctantly asks Penny, who sets him up with her friend Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch). Meanwhile Raj convinces Sheldon to team up with him for a Mystic Warlords of Ka-ah tournament at the bookstore, but Sheldon only agrees because he fins out that Wil Wheaton (himself) is going to be in the tournament. Wheaton had once disappointed a young Sheldon when he had planned to meet him at a sci-fi convention, but Wheaton cancelled after Sheldon had traveled ten hours on a bus to get there. Sheldon and Raj make it to the final round to play against Wheaton and Stuart. Sheldon is poised to win, but then Wheaton apologizes for missing the convention, and explains that he only missed it because his grandmother had passed away. Sheldon feels bad and hrows the game in Wheaton’s favor, only to be laughed at by Wheaton who had lied about his still-living grandmother. Howard and Bernadette have absolutely nothing in common, making the evening uncomfortable for everyone… until they both realize that they have overbearing mothers that they can’t stand. Owen Thayer is Lonely Larry. 9/26/2016
• 046. The Cornhusker Vortex – 11/2/2009
  • They guys head out for an afternoon of kite fighting, while Penny has a group of friends over to watch the football game. Leonard beings to get a complex that Penny doesn’t want him to meet her friends, so she invites him to watch the next football game. Meanwhile Raj loses his prize kite in the fight because Howard abandons him to chase after a girl. Leonard bones up on the rules of football, using Sheldon as his tutor since Sheldon’s father had pounded football into him since he was a kid. Leonard makes a fool of himself at Penny’s during the game as he over-emphasizes quoting every rule of football as the game unfolds. Penny lets him off the hook and tells him to go with Sheldon to fly the kite he won from Raj. Howard tries to make it up to Raj by taking him for an afternoon at the La Brea Tar Pits, but Raj ultimately tells him it will be okay for him to go chase after a girl. Zachary Abel is Todd. Jason Mesches is Denny. 9/27/16
• 047. The Guitarist Amplification – 11/9/2009
  • While playing Sheldon’s game invention “Research Lab,” Leonard and Penny get into an argument when Penny tells Leonard that her guitarist friend Justin is coming into town and plans to stay with her. Sheldon tries to intervene to get each to apologize to the other because he can’t stand the fighting. However he makes their fighting more intense when he tells Penny about all of the transgressions that Leonard had overlooked because she is too sensitive. Sheldon then seeks solace with Raj, but find him fighting with his parents via Skype, and with Howard, who is naturally fighting with his mother. Leonard and Penny become concerned when they realize Sheldon is missing and find him cowering by himself in the comic book store. Penny makes Leonard buy Sheldon and toy and comic book and they promise to stop fighting. Penny finally decides to have Justin stay somewhere else… on the Sheldon’s couch. 12/25/16
• 048. The Adhesive Duck Deficiency – 11/16/2009
  • Leonard, Raj, and Howard camp out in order to see the Leonid meteor shower, while Sheldon remains at home to complete his paper. When the guys go looking for women, they meet a hippie teacher who gives them pot cookies. They spend the night stoned and chatting about nonsensical topics, culminating in a ravenous hunger. They finally find that Howard’s mother has packed him brisket and while they are shoveling it in, they miss the shower. Meanwhile Penny falls in the bathtub and dislocates her shoulder. Sheldon is forced to help her get dressed and drive her to the hospital despite never having operated a vehicle before. He drives her crazy as usual, but once she gets doped up and he helps her home and into bed, she sees him as having a big heart… and makes him sing Soft Kitty to her… as a round. 12/26/16
• 049. The Vengeance Formulation – 11/23/2009
  • Bernadette is ready to sleep with Howard but wants him to tell her where their relationship is heading, which he can’t do. Since he lives in a dream world where he can think about Katee Sackhoff (herself), he wants to hold out for a perfect woman, so he doesn’t call her for weeks. Meanwhile Kripke fills Sheldon’s office with helium while he is doing an interview with Ira Flatow (voiced by himself) on NPR. Leonard talks him into enacting revenge, which he does by filling Kripke’s office with foam. Unfortunately he does it while Kripke has the Dean and Board of Directors in his offices, and then plays a video of himself taking credit, also acknowledging the help of Leonard and Raj. Howard realizes that Bernadette is probably the only real woman he can get, so he proposes to Bernadette at the Cheesecake Factory. She thinks he’s insane and blows him off again. He is able to win her over again by singing his version of Bernadette in front of all of the customers. 4/5/17
• 050. The Gorilla Experiment – 12/7/2009
  • Howard brings Bernadette over to meet Sheldon and Raj, and soon both Penny and Howard end up getting jealous when Bernadette takes an interest in Leonard’s tests in quantum mechanics. Penny talks Sheldon into tutoring her in Physics so that she can surprise him by discussing the topic with Leonard, which Sheldon equate to teaching a gorilla sign language. Naturally he goes overboard in forcing her to take notes and starting his tutoring with the discovery of physics in ancient Greece. Howard demands that Leonard not allow Bernadette to come see his experiments, so Leonard texts her and tells her so just as she and Howard are about to get intimate, causing Bernadette to storm out. When Bernadette comes to see Leonard’s experiments anyway, Howard follows her and apologizing, admitting his insecurities. Penny learns enough to spout off a couple of intelligent sentences about physics to Leonard. 4/6/17
• 051. The Maternal Congruence – 12/14/2009
  • With Christmas approaching, Sheldon’s mother Beverly (Christine Baranski) comes for a visit, and Penny is upset when she finds out that Leonard hasn’t told his mother about her… most likely because he doesn’t think she will meet his mother’s haughty expectations. Upon picking her up, Leonard finds out immediately that Sheldon communicates with her far more than he does, and in the course of the visit he learns that his mother has had surgery, his dog has died, his brother is engaged, and his parents have separated. Leonard withdraws from everyone, so Penny takes her back to her hotel and they stop for drinks along the way and end up getting drunk. Barbara ends up being okay with Penny dating Leonard, and they both confront him about why he kept it a secret. Leonard and his mom end up discussing keeping a more open relationship with each other. In her drunken state, she also kisses Sheldon. The next day, as the girls nurse their hangovers, Leonard decides that they communicate plenty, after his mother coaches him on how to keep Penny sexually satisfied. 11/5/17
• 052. The Psychic Vortex – 1/11/2010
  • Leonard and Howard double date with Penny and Bernadette, leaving Raj and Sheldon behind at home. The date goes sour when Leonard laughs at and embarrasses Penny when he finds out she sees a psychic. Meanwhile Raj gives Sheldon his Green Lantern lantern to bribe him to attend a school mixer with him. They actually end up meeting two girls, Abby (Danica McKellar) and Martha (Jen Drohan), with whom they hit it off immediately. After his fight with Penny, Leonard returns home to find them partying in the apartment. Howard advises Leonard to make up with Penny, so he reluctantly agrees to see the psychic, and gives up the notion of convincing her that psychics are bogus. When Raj gets invited out by Abby and Martha, he is surprised to find that Sheldon isn’t interested even though he had a great time. he bribes them with giant Hulk hands autographed by Stan Le and they spend another evening in the apartment. Raj makes out with Abby, but Sheldon cannot take the hint that Martha is interested in him. She talks her way into Sheldon’s room… but then he leaves to sleep in Leonard’s room. 11/5/17
• 053. The Bozeman Reaction – 1/18/2010
  • While the guys are out to dinner together, Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment is robbed, causing Sheldon to become petrified about staying in the apartment alone while Leonard is at Penny’s. He interrupts them at Penny’s and keeps them up all night, and then even when Leonard and Penny stay in Leonard’s room, Sheldon hears a noise and climbs out onto the ledge and disturbs them as they are ready to be intimate. After getting caught in an electrified net that they put up for intruders, Sheldon finally decides to find somewhere else to live, and chooses Bozeman, Montana. After saying goodbye to his friends, he heads out, but upon arrival finds it freezing cold and immediately is robbed of his luggage by a young man (Artie O’Daly). He heads right back to Pasadena. Julio Oscar Mechoso is Officer Hackett. 6/10/18
• 054. The Einstein Approximation – 2/1/2010
  • Sheldon is having trouble with a formula that he is working on concerning why electrons have no mass when passing through graphene. As he struggles to work through it, Leonard and Howard take their girlfriends roller skating, only to find upon their return that Sheldon has spread marbles all over the apartment. Bernadette is the only one who can get through to Sheldon and tell him to take time out and get some sleep. However in the middle of the night, Leonard gets a call from security guard Glen (Kevin Brief) reporting that Sheldon is in the House o’ Fun ball pit, trying to visualize the the molecules. Taking a cue from Albert Einsten, Sheldon later decides to get a menial job that may trigger his thought process, so he applies with Sandy (Yeardley Smith) at a job agency and ends up getting thrown out. He winds up working with Penny at the Cheesecake Factory even though they didn’t hire him. After serving his friends and breaking some dishes, he realizes that the electrons are behaving like waves instead of particles. Howard takes Raj rollerskating since Raj didn’t have a date to go with before. 6/12/18
• 055. The Large Hadron Collision – 2/8/2010
  • Leonard is offered a trip from the university to see the CERN laboratory in Switzerland to see the supercollider on Valentine’s Day. He is allowed to bring one guest and Sheldon, having wanted to see this for years, assumes it will be him. Leonard however offers the trip to Penny, feeling it will be a perfect romantic opportunity. Sheldon has a roommate agreement that they had both signed when the moved in together which spelled out a plethora of scenarios – including one that stipulated if one had a chance to go see the supercollider, they would take the other. Leonard still refuses to take him, causing Sheldon to at first give him the cold shoulder and refer to him as a traitor, then to try and butter him up with breakfast in bed. When all else fails, he turns to Penny to tell her how important this trip is to him, so she says she’ll talk to Leonard… leading to a rare hug from Sheldon. Now confident that he will be able to take the trip, he seems to be walking on air, but hen Leonard tells him that he is still going to take Penny. On the eve of the trip, Penny comes down with the flu… so Leonard finally and sadly asks Sheldon to go. Sheldon is giddy at the chance… but he too is suffering from the flu. Leonard ends up taking Raj. 1/12/19
• 056. The Excelsior Acquisition – 3/1/2010
  • Stuart has arranged to get Stan Lee (himself) to come to the comic shop to sign autographs. Everyone is thrilled and preparing to go… until Sheldon realizes that one of his unopened letters among his unopened checks is a court summons for that particular day for a traffic violation. This had resulted when Sheldon drove Penny’s car to take her to the hospital when she fell in the bathtub, at which time he only had a learner’s permit, and she had advised him to run a red light to get her there. When she received the ticket, she declined responsibility and named Sheldon as the driver. No one else will skip the Stan Lee signing, but Penny is obligated to go with him on that day. Sheldon coaches Penny on exactly what to say, but when he comes before Judge J. Kirby (Steve Paymer), he is so obnoxious that the judge throws him jail for contempt. The guys all get their comic books signed, although Raj has clearly irritated Stan Lee by questioning on the alliterative names that he chose, and get to go out for Gelato with him after the signing. When Sheldon finally apologizes to the judge – mostly because he refuses to use the metal pot to go to the bathroom in the jail cell – and is released, he feels even worse when hears about the guys’ experience and blames Penny. She feels bad and is able to finagle Stan Lee’s home address from Stuart, and takes him to see him. Lee is irritated by the intrusion and is sarcastic with them. Sheldon misunderstands, and think he has been invited in… and wanders into the house. When he returns home, he is on cloud nine, saying that he say the inside of Lee’s house, got him to autograph a request for a restraining order, and says they have plans to meet again… in court. Marcus Folmar is the guard. 1/12/19
• 057. The Precious Fragmentation – 3/8/2010
  • The guys think they spot Adam West and when they follow him, they wind up at a garage sale where they buy entire box of nerdy memorabilia collectibles for $60. When they go through it, they discover a Lord of the Rings ring that was actually used in the film and had been stolen. Everyone has different ideas on what to do with the ring. Raj wants to sell it and buy a jet ski, Sheldon wants to keep it, and Leonard wants to return it to the director Peter Jackson. Until they decide what to do with it, they give it to Penny to hold. Sheldon attempts to steal it while Penny is sleeping and gets punched in the face. Raj gets his cousin and lawyer Venkatesh (Frank Maharajh) to try and negotiate via satellite Raj getting jet skis to relinquish his right to the ring. Eventually it comes down to all of them holding onto the ring, and the last one to let go gets to keep it. Consequently they are forced to drive home from work while holding it so they can catch The Bug movie marathon. Leonard drops out right when they get home when Penny brings home a Victoria’s Secret bag. The remaining three start insulting each other’s mothers and grandmothers, then decide they all have to pee together. Sheldon dreams that he has retrieved the ring, but then turns into Gollum. When he wakes up, all three are asleep and the ring is gone. Leonard says that it was on its way back to Peter Jackson. Later however, Sheldon sneaks in his room while he is sleeping and finds it on him, leading to a fight all over again, much to Penny’s irritation. 1/9/20 
• 058. The Pants Alternative – 3/22/2010
  • Sheldon is notified that he is receiving the prestigious Chancellor’s Award for Science, but that he will have to make a speech when he accepts it. This is a major problem for him because he has an intense fear of public speaking to large groups. Some of the gang agrees to help him overcome the fear in various ways. Raj pledges to teach him Indian mediation, but Sheldon irritates him too badly when his ‘happy place’ is in a SimsCity in a town he built called Sheldonopolis. Penny takes him clothes shopping, and after Sheldon tries on a number of loud and obnoxious suits, he settles on a simple back one. Leonard attempts to play psychologist and delve into what is causing the fear, but the tables are quickly turned and Sheldon has Leonard in tears when Leonard starts talking about how his mother embarrassed him during a science fair. On the night of the award ceremony, Leonard acts as emcee and can barely refrain from talking about his own mother issues, but finally introduces Sheldon, who has overcome his fear with Penny’s help… by getting drunk. Sheldon turns the speech into a joke-telling, song-singing performance. The next day he wakes up with a hangover and no pants, and by watching a YouTube clip of the event, finds out that he removed them during his speech and then mooned the crowd. 1/10/20
• 059. The Wheaton Recurrance – 4/12/2010
  • After making love, Leonard tells Penny that he loves her, but she avoids returning the sentiment. Leonard is later visibly upset in front of his friends but won’t tell them what is wrong, causing them to come up with some wild speculations. Meanwhile Stuart has challenged the gang to a bowling match and brings along Sheldon’s arch nemesis Wil Wheaton to play on his team against them. During the game, Penny remarks that she loves French fries, prompting the argument as to why she didn’t return his ‘I love you.’ She says that he can’t dictate when she is comfortable saying it and storms out, causing an automatic forfeit. Sheldon wants a re-match the next day, so pleads with Penny to talk to Leonard about it so that they can both play in the next game. Leonard apologizes and Penny explains that she has just said it to early in previous relationships, so they agree to drop it and also to re-matc the Stuart and Wil Wheaton team the next night. However during the game, Wil Wheaton tells Penny that he once had a girlfriend who couldn’t say she loved him and eventually dumped him, causing him to wish that she had just done it sooner. Penny takes this to heart and breaks it off before the end of the game, then leaves crying. Since the victors get to humiliate the other team, they are forced to dressed like female superheroes. 4/24/20
• 060. The Spaghetti Catalyst – 5/3/2010
  • Following the breakup, Leonard is down in the dumps, so his friends try to cheer him up and keep him busy. Sheldon however invites himself to eat spaghetti with Penny, offering to bring the hot dogs that he likes cut up on them. When Raj mentions that it is not cool to hang out with your friend’s ex, Sheldon tries to keep it secret and has Chinese food with Leonard before going to Penny’s place, carefully rationing the amount he eats. He then lies and says he’s going for a walk, sneaking the package of hot dogs out with him. He has to get around walking down with Howard as he leaves the building, then runs afoul of a dog who wants his hot dogs. He manages to save one for the dinner he has to force down because he is mostly full. He eventually feels guilty and wakes Leonard up in the middle of the night to tell him what he did. Leonard gives him the go-ahead to be friends with Penny. However Leonard and Penny begin to treat the situation like they are divorced parents handling their child. Penny takes Sheldon to Disneyland, but ignores Leonard’s warnings about filling him with junk food and letting him ride Space Mountain. Eventually they put Sheldon to bed and agree that they can be friends. Leonard request that they remains friends with benefits, but Penny scoffs at the notion. 4/24/20
• 061. The Plimpton Stimulation – 5/10/2010
  • Everyone is surprised when Sheldon announces that he is friends with Princeton cosmological physicist Elizabeth Plimpton (Judy Greer) and that she is coming into town and will be staying with him. Leonard is a huge fan of her work and when he meets her, he can barely muster a proper hello. Elizabeth late asks Sheldon if Leonard is single, and then that night she sneaks into his room and seduces him. The next morning, Penny can tell that they slept together and she expresses her disappointment that he moved on so quickly. At lunch the next day, Leonard starts to brag to the Raj and Howard about his conquest when Elizabeth joins them and begins hitting on Raj, who is suffering a cold and is drunk enough on Nyquil to speak to a woman. That night when Howard arrives at Raj’s apartment to play Halo, Raj has Elizabeth there and tries to get rid of him. However Elizabeth is more interested in role playing with both of them and having a threesome. Leonard then shows up for Halo as well, and Elizabeth asks him to join in. Howard is excited at the notion until Leonard points out that they would need to be naked together. Raj rushes the other guys out so he can be alone with her. When Leonard gets home, he tries to find the words to explain his affair to Penny, but the best he can come up with is that she let him. 8/5/20
• 062. The Staircase Implementation – 5/17/2010
  • As Penny tries to paint her toenails, she can hear the bickering going on between Leonard and Sheldon, as Leonard has violated the Roommate Agreement and adjusted the temperature setting. Leonard comes over and asks if he can crash on Penny’s couch. She questions why Leonard ever agreed to live with Sheldon and he explains the situation via flashback. He ignored several of the red flags when he first answered Sheldon’s ad for a roommate, including a former roommate named Sebastian (Stephen Yeun) who warned him when they passed in the elevator, and huge red graffiti in his room-to-be that said “Die Sheldon Die!”. Leonard is quizzed on numerous topics in order to pass three barriers before Leonard is deemed worthy to live there. At that point Sheldon introduces Leonard to the official apartment flag and they go over the entire Roommate Agreement. Although Sheldon is annoying in every way possible, when Sheldon interrupts Leonard in bed with a girl named Joyce Kim (Ally Maki) who he just met, he saves Leonard a lot of legal grief as it turns out she was a North Korean spy trying to get information on the rocket fuels Leonard was working on with the government. Sheldon meets Leonard’s friends and co-workers Raj and Howard, and immediately gets on their bad side when he claims his new seat on the couch that Leonard brought home to replace the lawn chairs in the living room. They wind up going to Howard’s house, where Howard’s mother immediately embarrasses him. Leonard also tells the story about how Sheldon also redeemed himself, which involves the still-broken elevator. While at Howard’s house, Leonard spots the rocket that Howard has been building and takes him back to his new apartment to help mix up some rocket fuel for him. Sheldon maintains that he is doing it wrong, but Leonard cockily maintains that he’s mixing it correctly. When it starts to smoke, Leonard attempts to take it downstairs in the elevator, but Sheldon takes it from him and forces him off the elevator… and within seconds, it explodes. Bearing in mind that Sheldon saved his life and never reported him, Sheldon returns to the apartment and apologizes to Sheldon for breaking the Roommate Agreement. Sheldon questions what Penny had been doing seven years ago, she says she was in high school keeping her nose to the grindstone, but in reality she was with her boyfriend, relieved that here pregnancy test was negative. Ajgie Kirkland is Louie, the cross dresser who formerly lived in Penny’s current apartment. Ed Lieberman is the TV announcer. 8/9/20
• 063. The Lunar Excitation – 5/24/2010
  • The guys are on the roof preparing to bounce a laser beam off the man-made shields that were left on the moon, and Leonard decides to invite Penny to join them. Much to his surprise, she has a man named Zack Johnson (Brian Thomas Smith) at her apartment, who is more excited then she is to see what they are doing. Unfortunately, he asks the dumbest questions and makes the stupidest statements imaginable, and doesn’t understand the thrill in what they are doing. That night Penny comes over to Leonard’s house drunk, and tells him that he has ruined dating for her, because now all she can see is how dumb Zack is. She demands that he sleeps with her, and he happily obliges. The next morning after she sobers up, she tells Leonard that it was a mistake. He is bitter about this and returns to Leslie to see if she’ll sleep with him again, but she slams the door in his face. Leonard gets drunk himself and then tries to demand sex from Penny but she throws him out, while he notes the double standard. Meanwhile Raj and Howard plug Sheldon’s name into a computer dating site and he gets matched with a neurobiologist named Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik). Sheldon wants no part of it, but Raj tells him that he has hidden a dirty sock that they found on the roof in the apartment, and if he doesn’t go, he will leave it there forever. Sheldon goes to a coffee shop and meets Amy, and they are exactly alike. As Sheldon takes a liking to her and buys her coffee, Howard and Raj wonder what they’ve done. Lauri Johnson is neighbor Mrs. Gunderson. 11/20/20

SEASON 4

• 064. The Robotic Manipulation – 9/23/2010
  • Penny finds out for the first time that Sheldon has a girlfriend after they’ve been communicating for four months. It is mostly by text message, but Sheldon is ready to procreate with Amy since they feel their child would be a gift to the world. Penny suggests that they might actually get to know each other first by going on a date. Still claiming she is not his girlfriend, he is finally sold on the idea of getting to know his future baby’s mother. He imposes on Penny to take them on the date since he doesn’t drive. Penny tries to maneuver them into having a meaningful conversation instead of sitting in silence. The conversation finally livens up when Sheldon mathematically figures out how many dates Penny has had, and extrapolates that she has slept with 31 men. Sheldon enjoys the date, but Penny tells him that if they have a baby out of wedlock in a petri dish, she is going to tell his mother so he decides not to move forward with a baby. Meanwhile Howard sneaks the robot arm he has developed for NASA out of the facility. He uses it to serve Chinese food, massage his back, and then gets the idea to use it to masturbate. It gets stuck clamped onto his penis, so he calls his friends to help. They get him to the hospital where the nurse Althea simply reboots the computer to get it off of him. It isn’t long before Leonard gets a call from Howard that it has happened again. 11/20/20
• 065. The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification – 9/30/2010
  • Sheldon works on calculating his life expectancy but fears he will come up slightly short and will miss the opportunity to merge his consciousness with a machine.  He tries to start living healthier to achieve the goal, but the Brussels sprouts gives him gas bad enough that Leonard mistakes it for appendicitis. He tries to go jogging with Penny but winds up falling down the stairs before they even leave the building. Believing he is too fragile for the world, Sheldon decides to stay in bed and send himself into the world via a virtual presence consisting of a monitor on a pole. He forces Leonard to take him to work like that, and help him overcome his obstacles… like opening a door. The guys take him to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, where Penny refuses to wait on him. While trying to complain to a manager, Sheldon spots Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (himself) and his wife Janet Hill (herself) at the restaurant. The real Sheldon tries to run his 1977 Apple 2 computer to the restaurant to get it autographed, but he falls down the stairs again. He later sends his virtual presence over to Penny’s to have her sing Soft Kitty to him. Meanwhile, Leonard starts making Penny contribute to the dinner bills since they’re no longer dating. So far he’s covered her for $1400. 3/11/21
• 066. The Zazzy Substitution – 10/7/2010
  • Sheldon and Amy continue to get closer in their own way, playing a made-up game called “Counterfactuals”, driving Leonard crazy. When Sheldon and Amy join the guys for lunch at Cheesecake Factory, her judgmental, sanctimonious, and obnoxious behavior starts to wear on their nerves. Leonard talks to Sheldon about it, but Sheldon simply brings up Leonard’s relationship with Penny as defense and blows him off. All of the guys start hanging out a Penny’s place in order to avoid ‘Shamy’, but Raj really gets on her nerves by getting drunk and acting rude. The next day at lunch, Sheldon and Amy have a disagreement over Sheldon’s theoretical work vs. real-world physics. They amicably agree to part way, but Sheldon claims he feels nothing from the ‘breakup’. However, he quickly adopts a cat that he names Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, and then later adds another eight or more cats to his collection. Leonard can see that he is silent suffering from the breakup, so he call in Sheldon’s mother Mary to come see him, and they also arrange for Amy to come to the apartment. His mother then tells them that they’re not suited for each other, which makes Sheldon instantly rebel and defend Amy. They agree to continue their relationship. Leonard congratulates Mary on her well-played plan. Sheldon and Amy then give away the cats along with $20 to each taker. 3/11/21
• 067. The Hot Troll Deviation – 10/14/2010
  • Sheldon and Raj are collaborating on a project, despite the fact that they can’t seem to get along. Raj wants to put a desk in Sheldon’s office where they are working, but Sheldon tells him that it is not in the budget and adamantly refuses. Leonard then suggests that Raj could pay for his own desk, and Sheldon has no recourse but to agree to that condition. In order to get back at Sheldon’s stubbornness, Raj gets the largest desk he can find, which nearly fills the entire room. He refuses to move it, and refuses to help Sheldon move his own desk so that he can move Raj’s desk out. The two wind up in an escalating war of pranks, and when the gas that Sheldon releases combines with the fire used in Raj’s scented candle, they cause a minor explosion. Meanwhile, Howard spots Bernadette at the Cheesecake Factory, and suddenly finds that she invades the fantasy he has with actress Katee Sackhoff (herself), and inexplicably George Takei (himself). Howard imposes on Penny to ask Bernadette to meet with him in hopes of getting her back. She agrees to meet him, but is still upset with the reason they broke up: Howard was having simulated sex with a troll in a World of Warcraft game. Howard explains that he was lonely because he and Bernadette weren’t having sex. She tells him that they could have, but he never made a move. This time he follows the advice of his fantasy Katee, who tell him to rush forward in making his movie, while George Takei cautions against it. It turns out that George is right, and Bernadette tells him they need to get to know each other again, and that he should be patient. 7/8/21
• 068. The Desperation Emanation – 10/21/2010
  • Leonard makes fun of Sheldon because he spends to much time texting Amy Farrah Fowler, and so little time actually in her presence. Sheldon suggest that he is jealous since he has no one. When he finds out that not only do Sheldon and Howard have significant others, Raj and Stuart are also seeing women… even though Raj’s is deaf so that he can talk to her. He finally stoops to asking Howard to ask Bernadette to set him up with one of her friends. She turns out to an obnoxious girl named Joy (Charlotte Newhouse), and Sheldon is pretty much done with her by the end of the meal. He plans to cast her aside, until she invites him to attend a wedding with her, and promises she’ll likely be so drunk that she’ll be giving herself away, at which point Leonard suddenly become interested. Meanwhile, Sheldon follows Leonard’s advice and starts having Facetime dates with Amy. But when she asks him to meet her mother, Sheldon gets extremely cold feet and tries to distance himself from her. He goes so far as to change the address on their building, but since she’s been there before, she has no problem tracking him down. Eventually, she tells him that she only wants him to meet her mother (Annie O’Donnell), so the mother will be off her back. Sheldon then agrees, and the proudly lies and boasts about all of the sex they have, completely unaware that the mother aghast at the information. 7/8/21
• 069. The Irish Pub Formulation – 10/28/2010
  • Raj’s sister Priya (Aarti Mann) is in town from New Dehli, and Raj makes Howard renew the pact that he made with Leonard not to hit on his sister. Regardless, Leonard has already broken the pact and hooks up with her immediately. He has to sneak Priya into his apartment to hide her from Sheldon, but when he tries to sneak her out the next morning, Sheldon catches them. Leonard suggests to Sheldon that it would be better if none of their friends knew about Priya staying over. Sheldon has a hard time lying, so he comes up with an alibi for Leonard about him going to an Irish Pub and hooking up with a different girl. At lunch the next day, Howard and Raj become suspicious when they find out he didn’t watch Caprica on TV the night before. Leonard tries to go with the Irish Pub story, but can’t continue the lie, so he admits to Raj that he slept with Priya. An argument ensues among the four, and each finds out about things that others had done to them: Howard had dropped Raj’s cell phone in the urinal, Sheldon had fed Leonard insects in his food, Raj had used Sheldon’s toothbrush, Howard told Raj that it is customary to buy gifts for Americans on Thanksgiving, etc. When Leonard tells Raj that Priya had snubbed him when he suggested he might move to New Dehli to be close to her, Raj is quick to forgive. Sheldon is ready to break off his friendship with Raj for using his toothbrush, but when Raj tells him that he got him a Thomas the Train engine for Thanksgiving, Sheldon reconsiders. He later uses one of Raj’s previous gifts to make a papaya grasshopper Sno-Cone for Leonard. 1/2/22
• 070. The Apology Insufficiency – 11/4/2010
  • As Leonard tries to work on his confidence with women, Howard brings along the good news that he has been chosen for the team for the Defense Department Laser Equipped Surveillance Satellite. However, he warns his friends that they might be getting questioned by an F.B.I. agent who will be looking to give Howard security clearance. Sure enough, Special Agent Angela Page (Eliza Dushku) soon comes around to speak to Raj, but since Raj can’t speak to women unless he’s drunk, he quickly forces down some rum cake. He also nearly folds under questioning because he is terrified of being deported. Next she goes to see Leonard, who is more interested in trying out his new confidence techniques to ask her out for a date… only find out she is already married. Lastly, she visits Sheldon, who mostly complains about all of the ways that Howard has wronged him, but also lets it slip that Howard had crashed the Mars Rover while trying to impress a woman. The next day, Howard announces that he didn’t get his clearance. Both Leonard and Raj believe it might have been caused by the way they behaved. Although Sheldon admits no fault, that night he has nightmares brought on by the guilt he feels inside. He tries to visit Agent Page and tries to recant his testimony, but it makes no difference. He finally meets with Howard and officially apologizes, but Howard won’t accept it. Sheldon goes to see Penny at the Cheesecake Factory for some advice. As they talk through the situation, Sheldon uses a Star Trek analogy, and decides to try and re-program Howard. He brings Howard the cushion to the couch in his apartment, and tells him that he is giving him his space on the couch. Although it officially only lasts for 94 seconds, it is enough for Howard to finally forgive him. Astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson appears as himself. 1/2/21
• 071. The 21-Second Excitation – 11/11/2010
  • The guys are planning to see a special screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark with 21 seconds of additional footage, but stop to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory first. Amy is planning to along with them, until she finds out that Penny and Bernadette are having a girls’ night. She invites herself since she is a girl. Sheldon is getting antsy because it is 5pm and movie starts at midnight, and finally demands that they leave to head to the theater. When they arrive, they find a very long line, which Raj calculates might be too many people to fit in the theater. Wil Wheaton shows up with his entourage and the theatre doorman Joey (Eric Andre) lets them in right away and gets them the best seats, to Sheldon’s consternation. When they get to the front of the line, Joey closes it off and tells them that they’ve sold out. Meanwhile back at Penny’s, she struggles with Amy’s personality as she takes everything literally. When Bernadette expresses concern about drinking too much and driving home, Penny suggest that she sleep over, and the night turns into a slumber party. Amy checks Wikipedia to familiarize herself with the conventions of one, and they naturally wind up playing Truth or Dare. When Bernadette and Amy ask questions about why she broke up with Sheldon, and what will happen if she later is ready to get serious and he has moved on, Penny abruptly ends the game and leaves the room. Not knowing what else to do, Amy consults other slumber party tropes, and winds up on lesbian experimentation. She goes in to see Penny, and before Penny can get an apology out for getting upset, Amy starts putting the moves on her. Back at the theater, Sheldon is furious and insists they sneak into the theater through a side door. He disappears for a while inside, then comes out with the cans of film. As he’s stealing them, he runs into Wil Wheaton, who assembles a mob to chase them down the street. 5/15/22
• 072. The Boyfriend Complexity – 11/18/2010
  • When Leonard goes over to Penny’s to let her know that their pizza arrived, he meets her father Wyatt (Keith Carradine) for the first time as he is visiting from Pasadena. Penny surprises him with a big kiss before shuffling him back to his apartment. He has no idea what is going on until Penny comes over and explains that her father never liked any of her boyfriend until she started dating Leonard. She asks him to pretend that they are still dating while her father is visiting. Leonard takes full advantage of the scenario and makes sure to kiss her whenever possible. He also accepts Wyatt’s invitation to go out for dinner with him and Penny, during which Leonard takes delight in listening to Wyatt bash all of her exes. Meanwhile, Raj is planning to spend an all-night shift monitoring a telescope in Hawaii as it scans the galaxy for hidden planets. He invites Howard to stay at the office with him, and Howard brings Bernadette so she and Raj can get to know each other. In order to do this, Raj has to drink wine in order to be able to speak around a woman. Howard goes through the various stages of drunkenness, and makes prank calls to Hawaii, then gets depressed about the sad state of having no relationship. Bernadette tries to assure him that he is a great girl and someone will kiss him someday soon. Raj takes that as a cue to kiss Bernadette, but Howard jumps between them, and it is he and Raj who end up in a full kiss. Penny gets tired of the ruse with Leonard, so she tells her father that their relationship was all a like for his benefit. He is upset, and tells Penny that he wants her to know he’ll support her no matter who she dates, but he doesn’t want her to be dishonest. He pretends to read the riot act to Leonard, but secretly begs him to keep pursuing Penny to keep the losers away. At lunch the next day, Raj and Howard are especially awkward and touchy about their night together. 5/15/22
• 073. The Alien Parasite Hypothesis – 12/9/2010
  • While the girls are enjoying a night out together, they run into one of Penny’s old boyfriends named Zack Johnson. Amy finds hers heart rate increasing, her mouth going dry, quivering in her genitals, and the uncontrollable urge to say ‘whoo’. Meanwhile, Raj and Howard discuss a colleague who was bitten by a radioactive rat, and the subject of becoming a superhero come up. They wind up arguing over who would be the sidekick if one of them were to become a superhero. Howard challenges Raj to keep his hand in a jar containing a giant spider longer, and Raj finally puts his hand in there once he sees the spider crawling up Howard’s arm. Sheldon joins Amy for lunch while she is dissecting a cadaver brain, and they discuss the ailment that she encountered and begin speculating what might have caused her to feel that way. Some of their options based on the symptoms are hyperthyroidism, premature menopause, hosting an alien parasite, and sexual arousal. Sheldon gets irritated when Amy puts down Star Trek as cheap science fiction, and Amy proposes that Sheldon is actually jealous of her attraction to Zack…but Sheldon rejects the theory. He winds up annoyed, and leaves the lunch, almost inadvertently taking the brain instead of his sushi. He discusses with Penny the fact that he might have to let Amy go as a friend, since she is obviously susceptible to her base instincts and isn’t as evolved as he is. He states that is all due to her hormones and there’s nothing he can do about it. Penny suggests that there in fact is something he can do about it when she gets horny. Sheldon agrees, and he tries to get her hooked up with Zack so she can fulfill her needs. Although she still finds him attractive, when he shows his stupidity, and she notices the blank, apelike expression on his face, she loses her sexual interest and walks out of their meeting. On the way home, she holds onto Sheldon’s hand to see if she feels anything… but doesn’t. Howard and Raj decide to settle their argument by wrestling, but as they circle the mat, trash talking each other, they never actually make any contact. Sheldon, who has been spending his Friday night watching this, goes to sleep. 9/8/22
• 074. The Justice League Recombination – 12/16/2010
  • Leonard is annoyed when Penny starts dating Zack Johnson again, and he and his friends all make fun of how stupid he is. Penny thinks they are acting like bullies and is disappointed with them. Leonard decides they should apologize to him, so they go across the hall and Sheldon wins him over by giving him some Milk Duds. They invite him to go with them to the comic book store, and he is all about it in order to get the new Archie comics. Penny, on the other hand, is irritated that he left with them. Stuart reminds everyone about his New Years costume party at the comic book store. Sheldon suggests that they substitute Zack in for Leonard as Superman in their Justice League group costume, so he is relegated to be Green Lantern instead of Raj, who gets stuck with being Aquaman. They return home and announce to Penny that she can be Wonder Woman. Penny reluctantly plays along, but refuses to put on the black wig that goes with the costume. She is clearly not happy about the whole thing, and gets annoyed with Zack and everyone else and decides not to go. Neither Zack nor Sheldon have any luck talking her into going, so Leonard talks to her and tells her that he put in a lot of effort to be friends with Zack since it is hard watching them date. Penny admits that she only got with Zack so she had something to do on New Years Eve. She decides to go for Leonard’s sake. They wind up winning the contest, and Sheldon tries to make a speech as everyone else is counting down to the New Year. Leonard is clearly hurt when Zack kisses her at midnight, and her expression indicates she doesn’t want to be doing it. On the way home, they all see some thugs breaking into a car, and as the Justice League, they all decide to turn around and slowly walk away. Later, when Leonard turns down the thermostat, Sheldon imagines he is the Flash, and runs to the Grand Canyon to yell and express his annoyance with Leonard. 9/8/22
• 075. The Bus Pants Utilization – 1/6/2011
  • Leonard comes up with the idea for a smart phone application that will use handwriting recognition to take a photo of an equation and run it through an engine to solve it. Sheldon and the guys think it is a great idea, but Sheldon wants to make sure that Leonard doesn’t tell anyone, including Penny, about it. It isn’t long before Sheldon tries to take over the entire development of the project, then mocks Leonard when he won’t do everything Sheldon’s way. He tries to garner votes from the others to take over the project, so Sheldon finally fires him from the development. Sheldon thinks he will have to start wearing his bus pants and taking the bus to work, but Leonard tells him that they are still roommates and friends. Sheldon then begins working on a concurrent, similar project, and when he tells Leonard that he has a Napoleon complex, Leonard then tells him to put on his bus pants and take the bus. Sheldon tries to convince Raj and Howard to abandon Leonard and join him on his project, but the guys can’t be bought, and the continue to work on the newly christened Project Lenwoloppali. When Sheldon insists on playing his theremin while they are trying to work, Leonard kicks him out of the apartment for the evening. Sheldon heads to the lobby with his theremin and plays Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen. Penny offers to let Sheldon work on the app she though of: to take pictures of people’s shoes and then find the stores where they can be purchased. This idea doesn’t stimulate Sheldon, so she invites him up for hot cocoa. Eventually, she gets tired of his theremin and begs Leonard to take him back. She promises Leonard that Sheldon will apologize and promise to behave. Sheldon refuses to apologized but tells Sheldon that he can use his sarcasm with Leonard. Sheldon likes this idea, but his apology doesn’t even hint at sarcasm, even though he believes he’s using it. They start to work again, but Sheldon is immediately ready to discard everything they’ve worked on so far and start from scratch. He winds up back over in Penny’s apartment, where they begin work on the shoe project. 12/28/22
• 076. The Love Car Displacement – 1/20/2011
  • Amy asks Penny to be her plus-one at Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies symposium, where she will be speaking with Sheldon, Leonard, Bernadette, Howard, and Raj. Penny is quick to say she is busy, but when she finds out that it is being held at a four-star spa and resort in Big Sur, she just as quickly changes her mind. Penny learns that, according to her blog, Amy is her best friend. As Travel Supervisor, Sheldon gives a briefing and quiz before the trip. Leonard’s Red Leader car consists of Sheldon, Penny, and Amy, while Bernadette, Raj, and Howard take the second car, Red 5. Penny asks why everyone allows Sheldon to be a bully during the trip, and she soon finds out when she is sent to the Red 5 car, also known as the Love Car, where Bernadette and Howard sing I Got You, Babe constantly. Howard is anxious to get to the hotel so that he and Bernadette can take a ‘nap’ together. When they reach the lobby, she runs into an ex-professor named Glenn (Rick Fox) whom she dated for a year. When they get to their room, Howard becomes very insecure by the fact that he is 6 foot 7 inches. When he says he never though he’d have to worry about a girl like her having dated someone like that. She is insulted by this, so she asks if she can stay with Penny and Amy in their room. Due to Amy’s night terrors, Penny then asks if she can stay in the room with Leonard and Sheldon. They wind up in the same bed, but both agree to respect the ‘neutral zone’ between them. Raj is perfectly happy to room alone and watch Bridget Jones’ Diary, but then Sheldon barges in to stay with him, and eventually sends him to Leonard’s room. Leonard and Penny take separate beds, but then decide to forget the neutral zone for one night. However, as they are about to get romantic, Raj barges in to see if they want to watch Bridget Jones’ Diary, and then goes to sleep in Sheldon’s bed. The next day at the seminar, the topic seems to revolve around the fight between Bernadette and Howard, Leonard’s irritation with Raj, and Penny yelling from the audience that she and Leonard were not getting back together. Penny then asks the audience if anyone could take her back to Los Angeles. Glenn volunteers, much to Leonard’s annoyance. Raj drinks mimosas so that he can speak, and it leaves him sick the next day during the drive home. Howard throws the walkie-talkie out the window, so he doesn’t have to respond to Sheldon. Leonard is so distraught by the fact that Penny went home with Glenn, that he has the car throttled up to 120 mph, just as he realizes that cop is closing in on him with his sirens blaring. Ed Lieberman is the TV announcer’s voice. 12/28/22
• 077. The Thespian Catalyst – 2/3/2011
  • Sheldon starts working as a guest lecturer at the university which leads a rash of Twitter reviews making fun and criticizing his teaching skills. They all take delight in showing him the reviews, which upsets him that he starts to feel depressed. Amy suggests that he might consider taking some acting classes since teaching is a form of a performance art. Raj equates Sheldon’s reaction to how he felt when he walked into a gay bar and didn’t get hit on. Howard tells Bernadette that Raj desperately needs a date with a woman. She tells Raj that he would be a good catch and that he has a lot of sex appeal. Sheldon turns to Penny and offers to pay her to teach him to act. Raj starts having fantasies about Howard alternately moving away or getting into a fatal accident, and then asking Raj to step in and fulfill her sexual needs, leading him to the conclusion that he’s definitely not gay. Penny and Sheldon do some improvisation, which quickly gets on Penny’s nerves. Sheldon asks if they can act out some Star Trek fan fiction that he wrote called Where No Sheldon Has Gone Before. Sheldon wants to play Mr. Spock while Penny plays Sheldon’s mother Mary. Penny wants to get him out of his comfort zone by playing Spock herself, while he plays his mother. During the reading, Penny tells Sheldon to put some emotion into his role as “Mary” lets Sheldon go along with Mr. Spock to be transported to the future. This brings out some true emotion in Sheldon, so Penny has him call his mother to tell her that he loves her. Raj has yet another fantasy of himself and Penny performing a Bollywood-style novel in the cafeteria. This seems to confirm again, dance number aside, that Raj is straight. 6/18/23
• 078. The Benefactor Factor – 2/10/2011
  • The president of the university Dr. Siebert (Joshua Malina) stops by the cafeteria and asks the guys to attend a fundraising event for the university. Sheldon is resistant to it, but Siebert insists that he come and explain some of his research to the old people in the room. On the night of the event, Leonard, Raj, and Howard all dress up and get ready for the event, but Sheldon still refuses to go. When they arrive, Dr. Siebert introduces the guys to one of the abrasive benefactors Mrs. Latham (Jessica Walter). She takes delight in intimidating them all. When Sheldon facetimes Amy, she tells him that he might have made a mistake by skipping the fundraiser, as without him pushing for their research, Leonard and Raj could screw it up and the funding could go to the Liberal Arts. Leonard tries to win over Mrs. Latham, but she says she no longer cares and only enjoys making smart people feel ill-at-ease. Sheldon shows up finally but refuses to shake anyone’s hands since he is a germaphobe, causing Dr. Siebert to tell Sheldon he doesn’t want him to come back to any fundraisers. Mrs. Latham calls Leonard the next morning and invites him to talk about his research over dinner. After the dinner, Mrs. Latham tells Leonard that he has made a persuasive pitch for his department and that she’s considering taking things to the next level… then grabs him and kisses him in the back of her limo. Leonard goes home shell-shocked and tells everyone what happened. Howard thinks he’s lucky, while Sheldon wants him to go through with it for the money. Leonard accepts another dinner date with her for the next night but says he’s simply going to make one final pitch for the money and then leave. When Leonard gets in the car with her, she tells him that she is going to make the donation to his department no matter what happens with them. Leonard is surprised, and when she flatters him and tells him that he would remember a night with her for the rest of his life because of how good she is in bed. Leonard decides to go for it, and winds up having a wild night and staying out all night. Penny makes fun of him, and Sheldon is thrilled and congratulates Leonard on selling himself. When he returns to work, Dr. Siebert also publically congratulates Leonard for taking one for the team. Leonard again protests that he didn’t do it for the money! 6/18/23
• 079. The Cohabitation Formulation – 2/17/2011
  • After sleeping together at her place, Howard tells Bernadette that he has to head home so that he can help his mother with her hair and makeup in the morning. She gets annoyed that he can never spend the night because of her. When he gets home, his mother starts to belittle him and preach to him about passing around sex diseases. Consequently, he leaves the house on the spot and goes to stay with Sheldon and Leonard. While Sheldon tries to be a sympathetic tertiary friend, he tells Leonard to serve Howard a hot beverage. He then asks Howard why he didn’t go to Raj’s place since he is his best friend, Howard tells him that Raj’s sister and Leonard’s ex-girlfriend Priya is staying with him. Leonard is shocked to hear this and immediately rushes over to see her. Raj tries to lay down the law and forbids them to speak, especially in her room… with the door closed. Much to his annoyance, the two of them decide to start seeing each other again. When they all go out to eat, Penny meets Priya for the first time, and it is slightly awkward when Sheldon feels compelled to tell Priya that Leonard and Penny used to sleep together. That night, Amy shows up at Penny’s apartment to help comfort her since she believes they are best friends, and also wants to find out what part of her brain has activity when she inevitably cries, so that she can then try to replicate a crying emotion in a Rhesus monkey. Later, Penny comes over the guys’ apartment to mooch off of their pizza while Priya is there. Amy starts to like Priya more and more and regrets being catty about her, while still trying to comfort Penny, who claims not to need comfort. When Bernadette lays down the law with Howard and tells him that he needs to choose between her and his mother, Howard ultimately emails his mother to tell her that he is moving out. He moves his things into Bernadette’s place, but she quickly realizes that he wants her to do his shopping, cooking, and laundry just like his mother did. When he acts like this is perfectly normal, he finds himself right back at her house, with her never having read his email. He ultimately gets grounded for running away. Penny finally does have a breakdown when she realizes how good Priya is for Leonard and doesn’t bat an eye when Amy hooks her up to the electrodes to her head. Penny later stops by at the apartment while Sheldon is alone, but on video conferencing with Amy, who tells Sheldon to get her some tea. Penny tries to decline, but Sheldon tells her that it is not optional. 10/14/23
• 080. The Toast Derivation – 2/24/2011
  • Although the group usually has pizza on Thursdays at Leonard and Sheldon’s place, Leonard has decided to go to Raj’s for dinner so he can be with Priya. Sheldon balks at the change of plans, but ultimately agrees to go along since everyone will be there. Although he tries to tolerate the lack of assigned seats, the dead pixels on Raj’s plasma TV screen, the self-assembly of the burritos, and the margaritas that Priya serves. Eventually, he can take no more, so he heads over to the Cheesecake Factory where Penny is working. Amy calls and video-conferences Sheldon, and also checks in on Penny to see how she is holding up now that Leonard is dating the perfect woman. The next Thursday, Sheldon refuses to go Raj’s place for dinner, and this time he decides to have his old social gathering, which will consist of Stuart Bloom, Barry Kripke, Penny’s ex-boyfriend Zack Johnson, and actor LeVar Burton… although he admits that LeVar was merely invited on Twitter, so it is not definite. Once all of his guests other than LeVar Burton arrive, they all go around and introduce themselves and saying what they hope to get out of the evening. Stuart, who is currently living in his comic book store, has come in order to get a hot shower. Barry is there for the raffle prizes. Zack has nothing to say about himself. Meanwhile, across the hall, Amy and Bernadette show up to take Penny out for a night on the town. She reluctantly agrees to go if they will leave her alone about Leonard. After Zack tells his story about sleeping with a girl in a hot tub, they all decide to take a break while Barry goes to get a Karaoke machine, Zack goes on a beer run, and Stuart takes his shower. Over at Raj’s place, they all celebrate that Sheldon isn’t there for a change, but it isn’t long before they realize how much they actually miss him. The girls want to go out to a meat market bar where Penny is sure to find someone to hook up with. She tells them that just because Leonard has found someone doesn’t mean that she needs to hook up. However, after she sees an encased snowflake from the North Pole, she decides to find a guy for the night. Sheldon can only endure so much of the guys singing Don’t Got Breaking My Heart, so he leaves everyone behind and heads to Raj. They give him a warm welcome, even though he wants to argue withy Priya about whether what she is serving is actually chili since it has beans in it. Back at the Sheldon and Leonard’s, while the guys are performing Walkin’ on Sunshine on Karaoke, LeVar Burton (himself) joins the party for about two seconds, departing before the guys even see him, and mumbling about how he is done with Twitter. 10/14/23
• 081. The Prestidigitation Approximation – 3/10/2011
  • Priya and Leonard are having a lot of sex, and Leonard soon starts taking everything she says to heart. When she suggests that he gets contact lenses, he does so, even if it means he winds up bumping into everything. She even gets him out to get a new wardrobe, which Penny finds impressive. It is clear that Penny has a little jealousy, even though she likes Priya. Unfortunately, Priya does not like Leonard hanging around his ex-girlfriend Penny. Leonard agrees to tell her that they can’t hang out any longer. When Leonard and Penny run into each other in the laundry room, and Penny warns him about washing silk with his clothes, Leonard tells her about Darwin’s observation of the finches in the Galapagos Islands. Although this means nothing to her, Leonard considers his job done of hinting that they can’t be friends any longer. Later, while Leonard and Priya are out eating Indian food, Penny sees them through the window and comes inside to say hello, telling Priya about how she saved Leonard’s silk shirt, eating off his plate, and drinking from his glass. Priya sends him back to tell her again that they shouldn’t hang out, so Leonard simply tells her to do him a big favor and move out. Penny thinks he is being ridiculous, but infers that Priya is jealous of him and agrees that they will stop seeing each other. Leonard suggests that they remain friend on the down low, but Penny doesn’t think that would be a good idea and say goodbye to him. Leonard tries to stop her but bumps into the door jamb, since he is half-blind without his glasses. Meanwhile, Howard does a magic trick for Raj, which is scoffed at by Sheldon. However, Sheldon becomes obsessed with figuring out the trick, doing his own simulations, reverse engineering the trick, and plugging into the Oak Ridge National Lab’s supercomputer illegally. He then plans to find a radioactive tracer and some uranium. Eventually, he tries the trick by adding bar codes to the cards and using a scanning wand, which then interprets the card and sends it as a text to his phone. Howard and Raj quickly figure this out, and then confound him even more by joining forces to make Sheldon think that Howard can name any card picked. Sheldon eventually gets caught by the Department of Homeland Security, who tells his mother that he was trying to purchase uranium. 2/15/24
• 082. The Zarnecki Incursion – 3/31/2011
  • Leonard comes home to find police officer Shin (Lanny Joon) with Sheldon, who is hyperventilating and saying that he has been robbed. What was stolen was his weapons and ostrich Glenn in his game of World of Warcraft. Initially, Raj says that the cyber thief completed the theft in fifteen minutes and left no digital footprint. Penny stops by and bring Sheldon a day-old cheesecake to try and make him feel better. They guys explore different areas in the video game, including a tavern where black market weapons are often traded. They find a red-headed troll named Grumley and question him about the theft. On her way out, Penny runs into Priya as she arrives to meet up with Leonard. Priya gets frustrated when Leonard won’t leave his friends and insists on help Sheldon track down the cyber thief and leaves to go home, telling Leonard that he is a boy trapped in a man’s body. Meanwhile, Penny has Bernadette and Amy over and complains about how she worked with Leonard for so long to make him datable, and now Priya is reaping the rewards, and she is left out in the cold. As Amy gets drunk off the liqueur on her ice cream, she becomes more and more vindictive toward Priya. The next day, Raj reports to Leonard that Priya was up all night long Skying with her ex-boyfriend Sunjay. Howard reports that he has finally tracked down the thief, a guy named Todd Zarnecki (Chris Reed), who lives in Carlsbad near San Diego. Sheldon decides he wants to go find him in person, and the guys all agree to go, with Leonard lying to Priya and telling her that he has to work late. Priya calls Raj to see if he can verify Leonard’s story. Raj doesn’t turn him in but warns her that if she wants to date him, she will need to believe every cockamamie story that he tells. Sheldon brings along his Klingon bat’leth to threaten Zarnecki, but when Zarnecki sees it, he simply steals it from Sheldon as well. The guys all head back home but run out of gas along the way. Penny is surprised that Leonard turns to her rather than Priya to pick them up, but he admits that she thinks he is working. When the guys tell Penny that Zarnecki was a big bully, she turns her car around and returns to Zarnecki’s house. She kicks him in the balls until he agrees to return Sheldon’s things. 2/15/24

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