This review contains spoilers.
6.4 The Re-Entry Minimization
In this week's episode of The Big Bang Theory, Howard finally returns from space and finds himself not quite connecting with his friends. It's yet another episode with a fairly loose plot that features absolutely no resolution, but as I said in my review last week, when this show gets that format right, it really does work in its favour.
Howard bounces from place to place during the episode after coming home to find only Bernadette waiting for him at the gate. And though she is excited to see him, she is sick and eventually unconscious, leaving him bored and lonely.
It's interesting, considering the final two places Howard's journey takes him, given that his loneliness here parallels the loneliness we've been seeing from Raj for quite awhile. A huge part of that was his sadness that Howard no longer had time for him and had found someone more important to him, and now the tables are, in a way, reversed.
When Howard turns up at Raj's place, he finds out that Stuart has moved out of the comic book shop and into Raj's apartment, where Raj is "spoiling" Stuart with presents and taking him on outings. If Howard and Raj used to be a "bromance," then I honestly don't even know what to call what is happening now with Stuart, as it goes far and above anything we've seen before. I have no idea where this plotline is going, though I can't deny that it makes me laugh.
At any rate, Howard slowly realizes that he's been replaced by Stuart, and eventually he heads to a diner where, finally, someone recognizes that he is an astronaut. It's a sweet ending to the episode for him, given that he spends the entire time just wanting to be as important to these people as his experience in space has made him feel.
Meanwhile, Sheldon, Amy, Leonard, and Penny are having a double date game night that ranges from Pictionary to pie-eating, and I have no shame in admitting that this trope is one of my favorites. When done well, it never fails to amuse, and this was no exception. Everything from Leonard's insistence that if it were easy to find Waldo, then the book would be called There's Waldo! to Penny pinning Sheldon down during a wrestling match while she and Amy proceeded to kiss him, to Sheldon getting a blueberry stuck in his nose during the pie-eating contest, it just made me laugh.
It is troubling, though, that there's been no mention of the Leonard/Penny drama since she decided to break up with him and then chose to sleep with him instead. Is there a reason they didn't mention that?
All in all, this episode had plenty of laughs and a sad take on Howard's temporary loneliness now that the tables have turned. Now I just really need answers about what's going on with Leonard and Penny. Or Raj and Stuart, for that matter.
Read Kaci's review of last week's episode, The Higgs Boson Observation, here.
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