*Spoiler warning for The Big Bang Theory season 12, episode 20.
Amy finds Sheldon on the stairs trying to figure out what to say to Leonard on The Big Bang Theory. Photo courtesy of CBS, screenshot by Linda Maleh.
Taking a little break from the big Nobel prize storyline, this episode dealt with Leonard’s indecisiveness. Leonard has often been the member of the group who tailors what he does according to whatever everyone else wants – especially what Sheldon wants. After Leonard goes to see Avengers: Endgame with his friends, but sees it in 3D and too close up and he gets a migraine, Penny pushes him to do what he really wants to do, rather than whatever everyone else wants to do.
At first Leonard is paralyzed with what to choose, but then he gets a little taste for it. It starts out small, deciding to have sex with his wife, ordering barbecue on Chinese food night, sitting in Sheldon’s spot, watching Star Trek with Penny, but it starts to become a problem when Leonard decides to go for something big at work. He decides to demand that he be designated a principal investigator on a plasma physics study. That wouldn’t be such a big deal, except he decides he’s going to quit if they don’t give it to him. In a true act of selflessness for once, Sheldon is worried that his friend is going to lose his job, and tries to talk Leonard out of doing it. He recruits Penny, and she also tries to talk Leonard out of quitting if it doesn’t work out, but Leonard is now determined.
It all winds up okay, because even though President Siebert laughs in Leonard’s face and tells him no straight off the bat, and Leonard quits and walks out, Siebert winds up calling him back in and putting him on a different, but still desirable project.
Meanwhile, Raj gets some flak for not ruling out alien life as reason for something in a paper of his. Someone accuses him of believing in aliens at one of his astronomy lectures at the planetarium, and it all snowballs. Every time Raj tries to fix it, even though he actually is making sense, it only makes it worse, and he becomes a laughing stock.
This was a lukewarm episode, and it kind of felt like filler, but with only four episodes left to the final season, we’re sure to get some big episodes coming up.
