I don't know how many of you have ever had a life-changing experience, or at least an experience so uniquely cool and special that you can't explain it to anyone who wasn't there, but I have. Just over a week ago, in fact. And while my experience can't even hold a candle to the profundity of a journey to space, I would be lying if I said to you that I couldn't understand Howard's desperate desire to keep talking about his experience. In fact, I may have one-upped him: I cried off and on the entire way back to my "regular life" because returning to it meant that that amazing, special experience I'd just had was over. I wasn't amazing or special anymore. I was just me. And for someone like Howard, who has had so many downs in his life until quite recently--for someone like me, while I'm at it--being "just Howard" suddenly feels like not enough in a way it never quite did before.
I don't blame his friends for being annoyed with him constantly bringing his experience up, just as I don't blame my friends for being annoyed with me. But I completely understand why he does it.
Elsewhere in the episode, the writers still haven't figured out what to do with Leonard and Penny--after having her decide to break up with Leonard a few weeks ago and then have sex with him instead, their shenanigans in this episode should've been a positive sign that they were on the mend, but without any insight into why Penny has changed her mind, it just feels hollow. It feels almost as if she's just using him for sex, or else only sleeping with him because otherwise she'll remember why she wanted to end the relationship.
Sheldon and Amy, for their part, spend the episode arguing over what to wear as a couples costume, after a failed venn diagram (there was no overlap between "couples I like" and "couples you like"). But after Amy rightfully points out that she has compromised time and time again for Sheldon while he hasn't done the same for her, they finally arrive at the party as Raggedy Ann and Raggedy C-3PO and maybe it's just me but I strangely thought the combination worked. (If there is a Star Wars hell, I'm sure I'm going to it.)
The party, by the way, was thrown by Raj at the comic book store after he offered to pay for the entire thing. On top of the fact that he's already basically paying for everything of Stuart's already. You know, I'm suddenly remembering the Big Bang Theory panel at Comic Con, where someone asked if Raj would get a love interest this season and Chuck Lorre said yes--only to shush the audience once they began to applaud, whereupon he issued the caution that they shouldn't get too excited, once they saw who it was. Considering the fact that Raj is basically Stuart's sugar daddy at this point (not to mention the entire "holes" discussion last week and the "I could do worse" line in the premiere), I'm left to wonder... is Stuart the love interest? And if so, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that, given the way they've been portrayed so far. Time will tell, I guess.
All in all, a fairly solid episode that left me feeling wistful and over-relating to Howard Wolowitz, which I assure you is not something that happens often. See you after the next episode!
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