The Big Bang Theory 4.13

TBBT 4.13 The Love Car Displacement
It was nice to get a non-Sheldon centered episode for once, as much as I love our pet mantis.
All the main characters got good scenes in and it was a pretty funny episode, too. All in all, very good.

Summary:
Amy asks Penny as her +1 to a panel where everyone save Penny is speaking. (Pretty convenient, considering their varied fields). The group gets to the conference, and Bernadette meets her old boyfriend. Howard gets jealous and drives Bernadette away, leading to her bunking with Penny and Amy. Amy, however, turns out to be a rather unpleasant bunkmate to Penny, and she runs to Leonard and Sheldon. Sheldon finds the former couple in bed together and uses Occam's razor on the situation and goes to Raj. They disagree as well, and Raj comes and interrupts Penny and Leonard's hook up.

The next day, they go to the panel and Sheldon asks Bernadette to speak (now we know her last name. If only I could still remember it..). She obliges, and gets some payback from Howard's earlier insult. Howard fires back, and Leonard and Raj chime in, only for the panel to be highjacked by Penny, who just wanted to go home. Glenn tells her he could take her, and Bernadette introduces them, leading to Leonard yelling 'NO!'

All in all, it was pretty funny. I didn't personally get why Bernadette's ex was supposedly so goodlooking, but he looked pleasant enough to make me believe what the others were saying. And besides, it's the context that counts.

Sheldon was funny but contained, and this episode showed that TBBT works even without Sheldon running the show, which is good to notice. Amy had some good scenes that were sprinkled throughout the episode, one being at the very beginning ("that does seem like a valid concept"[sic]). Penny was sadly mostly in the position of just reacting to what Amy was saying, but she got hers by the end too. I think Bernadette should dump Howard for what he said, but I'm afraid she would leave the show it she did. Maybe she could date Raj, I read a preview of the next episode saying that Raj is going to be dreaming about his bff's gf. I was surprisingly OK with Leonard and Penny hooking up, for once it didn't feel nasty to me. Probably because it wasn't even remotely romantic, but still. The panel was great. Leonard's 'NO!' was awesome. Sadly, this episode didn't include any nerd-stuff, save for Leonard's Star Trek references.


In conclusion, I thought it was an 85% episode and I found it delightful that they found a way to use all characters. I would've hoped for a stronger story for Penny, but she is generally a largely under-appreciated character by the writers, so I'll settle for what I got.