It may well have more to do with The Vampire Diaries being a rerun last week than the show itself, but because I didn’t have vampires turning over in my brain when I sat down to watch TBBT, I thought this episode was the funniest so far this season. Leonard had a fairly light night and we were thankfully Shamy-free. Most of the heavy lifting went into two parallel stories: Raj wanting (and getting) a desk in Sheldon’s office and Wolowitz turning to his fantasy advisory team of Sackhoff & Takei to help him woo Bernadette back.
The Sheldon/Raj arc takes off when Sheldon shuts down Raj’s request for a desk because, ostensibly, there’s no budget for him to have one. Raj offers to buy his own, and Sheldon can’t really argue against it, so of course Raj procures the most ostentatious, obnoxious (Sheldon says it’s “Brobdingnagian”) desk possible, leaving Sheldon a might miffed and more than a little curious about how he got it into the office (Raj says that’s for he, Ramon, Julio, Jesus, and Rodrigo to know and Sheldon to find out). They soon commence with one-upping each other as Sheldon tries to run Raj, and his big badass desk out. He finally succeeds (with an unintentionally explosive mix of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia and Raj’s cinnamon candles). A soot-covered Raj departs (with his parakeet) and vows that it’s not over.
Wolowitz’s story begins with him prepping for some alone time and settling into bed alongside Katee Sackhoff, who wants to know why she’s wearing her Starbuck flight suit in this fantasy (the last time we saw them together, she was in the tub with him). Before long, George Takei appears and there’s some back and forth about Wolowitz’s team affiliation. When the gang gathers at The Cheesecake Factory, Penny gives Wolowitz a heads up that Bernadette is starting her shift and he dives under the table to avoid her.
He later turns up at Penny’s, hilariously playing a recording of Sheldon’s pleading “Penny. Penny. Penny.” while knocking to get her to open the door. She’s not amused, but she lets him come in anyway and he confesses that he and Bernadette ended because she caught him having online sex with Glissinda the Troll. His reasoning was that he and Bernadette weren’t having sex, and Bernadette’s reasoning was they could have been. So, they have a sit down and decide to try dating again (with Penny racing back and forth to the table trying to smooth things and not doing it very well). In a tossed off line as Leonard and Wolowitz witness Sheldon and Raj’s shenanigans, Leonard mentions that the department janitor was Glissinda. (Hee!) When we next see Wolowitz and Bernadette on their date, Sackhoff and Takei are advising from the backseat and it turns out that Sackhoff’s suggestions to be more aggressive are off the mark and Takei’s to be more reticent are spot-on because Bernadette wants to start everything over again.
I was glad to see Raj have a little more to do this week and his drunk-with-power is almost as funny and snarky as his girl-ready drunk. I like that he can exasperate Sheldon so easily and relish in it. I also like that Wolowitz is sort of an admitted screw up and he’s very “take what you get” about it. Points to Sackhoff and Takei for coming in and just being as goofy as everybody else.
Photo Courtesy of CBS