(S03E06) So Sheldon knows football. That is amazing. I have no idea if the character of Sheldon was originally conceived as being from Texas, or they just wrote him that way because Jim Parsons was raised in Houston, but I absolutely love when his Texas comes out. The entire sequence of Sheldon teaching Leonard about football and recounting the time he spent with his father watching games was absolutely the highlight of the episode for me.
As much as I adore the cast, sometimes you just have episodes that are about Sheldon and Jim Parson's performance. If you take that out of this one, nothing really stands out to me too much. I wasn't particularly fond of the Wolowitz/Raj storyline, and Leonard meeting Penny's friends was just bizarre.
Given the framework of the show, I've never found it too difficult to believe that Penny and Leonard would fall for each other. However, in this episode, when we see Penny outside of the group of guys, it's a little more difficult to believe. It's not as if we didn't understand that Penny has "cool" friends somewhere out there -- but when they're all gathered in a room and we see Leonard's tiny frame in his football cocktail dress retreat from her apartment so he can go fly kites with Sheldon, and she says, "so yeah, that's my boyfriend," it just seems... weird.
As for the Raj/Wolowitz storyline, I'm so tired of this device that seemingly every television show and movie has been using lately. Why can't dudes just be friends anymore? Why do they have to be in a "bromance?" Guys have been friends with each other since the beginning of time. I don't understand why now, all of the sudden, they're all married. You'll excuse me if I sound like an unholy mix of Carrie Bradshaw and Kevin Smith here, but do all men have to be hetero life-mates? What happened to just friends?
In all, this definitely wasn't the best episode of the season overall, but the look of disgust on Sheldon's face as he looked at Leonard's Football for Dummies book automatically negates anything negative I have to say about anything else that happened. Because that was amazing.
Some of my favorite lines from this episode:
"Leonard just realized that Penny's been hiding him from her friends because he's a tiny little man who flies kites." - Raj
Raj: "The only thing I've learned in the last two hours is that American men love drinking beer, pee too often, and have trouble getting erections."
Leonard: "Focus on the game, not the commercials, Raj."
Raj: "I'm just saying, maybe if you people cut back on the beer, you could get out of the bathroom and satisfy your women without pharmaceutical help."
Wolowitz: "Sheldon knows football?"
Leonard: "Apparently."
Wolowitz: "I mean, Quidditch, sure. But football?"
"If you're interested, I also know all about frying meat that isn't chicken as if it were chicken." - Sheldon
Sheldon: "Is that what you're wearing to watch football over at Penny's?"
Leonard: "What's wrong with a football jersey?"
Sheldon: "Nothing. That, however, appears to be a football cocktail dress."
"That seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for intercourse. Don't you have access to women who will do it for money?" - Sheldon
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-03-2009 @ 12:14AM
stg said...
the indian music video raj was watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GjvvcUPoRM
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11-03-2009 @ 12:20AM
Steve said...
I just about fell off the couch after this line frim sheldon
"That seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for intercourse. Don't you have access to women who will do it for money?"
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11-03-2009 @ 12:56AM
Kim S said...
"As much as I adore the cast, sometimes you just have episodes that are about Sheldon and Jim Parson's performance." This is so true, and why every episode of this show makes me laugh at least a couple of times. Even their least successful epis have a glimmer of Sheldon!
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11-03-2009 @ 3:35AM
bruce said...
I love this show and it quite often cracks me up, but am I the only one who feels as though nothing ever really happens on BBT? In three seasons, the only thing to happen is Leonard finally getting together with Penny. That's it. I'm not knocking the show, and maybe I feel this way because this is the only half-hour sitcom I watch these days, everything else being hour-long serials like Dexter. But as much as I like the humor and geekiness, I really wish there would be more plot to this show. Is the show about nothing more than Leonard getting together with Penny, breaking up with her, and getting back together with her? I mean, we all know they'll be broken up by the end of this season, for whatever reason (not a spoiler, it just seems obvious to me).
For the record, while I generally dislike the fact that nothing ever changes, I do like the fact that the elevator never gets fixed (I'm surprised nobody points out that their apartment is not compliant with the ADA due to the broken elevator).
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11-03-2009 @ 7:08AM
wulfn1 said...
I think the underlying plot is actually what makes sheldon attractive to penny and vice versa. I get the feeling before the show wraps for good, the two will realize their attraction to each other and the tension that creates will keep the show going for at least one last season.(no not saying it's going to end anytime soon. In fact I think the lead up to this conclusion will help the show to stay on air for at least a few more seasons. The characters are endearing and comical and interact well.)
11-05-2009 @ 10:31AM
Galley said...
What's the big deal about nothing happening? There was once a pretty famous show about nothing.
11-03-2009 @ 7:52AM
Donna said...
Goodness, they nailed the whole Texas-football thing perfectly! I can relate well to the whole Texas football thing. (I'm also from Texas, born and raised.) Every Friday during middle school and high school, we'd wear the school colors and have the pep rallies, and this was to cheer on the football team -- we never played anything up that big for the basketball and baseball teams. I live in North Texas. I like baseball. I am not a football fan at all (for which I may get things thrown at me if I admitted that one in public here in the Lone Star State.) But not a day goes by, even during the off-season, when I don't turn on the news and hear the latest on what the Cowboys are doing, whether I want to hear about it or not. And that Texas-OU thing every year? Don't get me started. I just hide then. And high school football is HUGE! The high school games are as big, if not bigger, than the NFL. (And they are televised, too.)
It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized football wasn't seen all over the USA the way it is down here.
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11-03-2009 @ 8:23AM
bruce said...
I've lived in texas my whole life, I hate it here, and all that matters is Football, Jesus, and Beer - in that order.
And when they get all three mixed up at the same time - drinking beer at a football game started off with a prayer to Jesus - it's the holy trinity of texas life. The people here are fucking nuts.
11-03-2009 @ 8:03AM
James Sparks said...
"so yeah, that's my boyfriend," made me happy for Leonard. That she would not diss him once he was out of the room meant to me that Penny really cares for him.
And Sheldon ALWAYS has the best lines. He is the Fonz of the 21st century.
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11-03-2009 @ 9:27AM
Kristi said...
Does anyone else think that the show going into two different storylines is weakening the show?! I love when all the characters are together, they can build off one another then. BUT so far this season we get them separated into smaller groups, with more cliche stories and it's not as funny as it could be?
http://www.orble.com/teevee-2-fav-sitcoms-on-cbs-mondays-112/
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11-03-2009 @ 9:28AM
miles said...
I think the elevator is not broken. One of the tenants put up the out-of-order signs so as to not listen to the sound of it.
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11-03-2009 @ 10:16AM
Aaron said...
I thought her line was "My boyfriend is REALLY smart" And because of that line, for the first time it made sense to me. That Penny likes him because he's so smart, and its something all those other guys don't have.
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11-03-2009 @ 4:31PM
Kona Gallagher said...
See, I saw the "he's really smart" line as an answer to the unasked question of, "what do you see in that guy?"
11-04-2009 @ 5:39AM
shellorz said...
I agree w/ Kona. I even think that it's more like a "he's not such a loser you know" or even a "he's not like us, forgive him"
11-03-2009 @ 1:59PM
Emily said...
Exactly! Penny knows that Leonard will never be like the other guys. He tried to fit in because he cares about her, and she let him go fly kites because she cares about him. That "really smart" line shows that she's proud of him as he is, even if their differences make things a bit awkward sometimes.
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11-03-2009 @ 2:10PM
SISSERS said...
I grew up in Nebraska, and totally get the whole Penny and her friends watching the game, and Leonard not getting it! Only the they would have a been a whole lot louder, not just sitting there. Funny how she found so many Husker fans in California, and they were all guys.
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11-04-2009 @ 5:19AM
shellorz said...
I totally thought the same. It's college football. Penny's not at the uni but at the Cheesecake factory. Granted, she met Nebraskians who are studying in LA, wouldn't they instead support their own college team ?
Still, there were girls/girlfriends, but, as she explained to Leonard, they were in the kitchen part of her appartment.
11-04-2009 @ 5:41AM
shellorz said...
I was a bit surprised by Raj's "son of a bitch". I mean, it's CBS, not HBO or Comedy Central.
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11-04-2009 @ 4:34PM
Dave said...
We actually had news articles here in Nebraska about how the producers contacted the University of Nebraska for permission on this episode: http://www.omaha.com/article/20091102/LIVING/711029895. Glad NU didn't have a problem with this. We love the show!
GO BIG RED!
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11-06-2009 @ 3:17PM
Jim Kosmicki said...
another Nebraskan here - if you are a true-red Cornhusker, you may GO to another school, but you still follow and root for the Huskers. Heck, other schools in Nebraska often schedule their games around when the Husker game is so that people will come to their game instead of staying home to listen to the Huskers (or watch if they're on TV).
Raj and Wolowitz are not as interesting by themselves as the producers think. In fact, the parts of the show that focus on those two by themselves is, quite frankly, what I assumed the whole show would be like and why I avoided it for the first 6 months or so.
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