S05.E13: A Lot of Band-Aids and the Cooper Surrender

[Chit Chat]

3 minutes ago, Sarah 103 said:

Yes, Missy hurt herself, but her goal/intention was not to cause herself pain and injury.

I thought Missy had enough sense to know to quit shaving if she was continuing to cut herself.  After the second or third time, I'd be done!  It's at that point she should go ask her MeeMaw for instructions.  Honestly though, it's not that hard to figure out!  If she's ever seen Mary's shaving cream, the instructions are on the can.  I didn't have much instruction either, but I didn't butcher myself.  

[LisaM]

Really liked seeing Sheldon making friends with the college kids who also enjoyed playing D&D. 

[shapeshifter]

12 minutes ago, LisaM said:

Really liked seeing Sheldon making friends with the college kids who also enjoyed playing D&D. 

Yes, but, realistically, it could have not been a safe situation for a 12-year-old.
I wish the D&D session had taken place at a table in an open lounge area on that floor of the dorm.

[Driad]

Does George teach phys. ed. as well as coach football?  Does his fellow coach teach phys. ed. and coach other sports?

[Bort]

7 minutes ago, Driad said:

Does George teach phys. ed. as well as coach football?  Does his fellow coach teach phys. ed. and coach other sports?

Usually, the varsity coaches just do that one sport. Most of them also teach other regular classes. My sophomore English teacher was the girls basketball coach and my environmental science teacher was the girls soccer coach. I’m pretty sure the varsity football coaches did not teach regular classes. Varsity football is very important in Texas, they’re paid to just do that.

[SusanM]

34 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

Varsity football is very important in Texas, they’re paid to just do that.

Is it important just because it's football in Texas or is their a financial benefit to the school with regard to a successful football team?

[Bort]

21 minutes ago, SusannahM said:

Is it important just because it's football in Texas or is their a financial benefit to the school with regard to a successful football team?

Both? It’s certainly financially beneficial vis a vis football games that people go to.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, snarkylady said:

I didn't like Missy cutting herself so badly and I complained to CBS about it.  There are enough stories and ideas without heading into having a young girl hurt herself.   I didn't like the vomiting either,  Not funny in the slightest. 

Based on what we saw she didn’t cut herself that badly. She had a lot on of bandaids on but it was probably just the shallow small cuts that frequently happen with shaving and razor burn.  Cutting yourself while shaving is just a fact of life and it is no way related to self harm. If anything it will teach girls not to just grab a razor and start shaving. 

4 hours ago, ChitChat said:

I thought Missy had enough sense to know to quit shaving if she was continuing to cut herself.  After the second or third time, I'd be done!  It's at that point she should go ask her MeeMaw for instructions.  Honestly though, it's not that hard to figure out!  If she's ever seen Mary's shaving cream, the instructions are on the can.  I didn't have much instruction either, but I didn't butcher myself.  

Meemaw was only treating the lower part of one leg so it doesn’t look like she continued for very long. 

[OlderThanDirt]

But I think we need to remember we're reacting to a comedy scene written for laughs, not what a real middle school girl would have done after cutting her leg while shaving.  IRL, I think she would have stopped as soon as she drew blood. I know I did.  No way she would have required all those band-aids. That was some script writer's idea.

[possibilities]

I'm surprised Sheldon is open to fantasy games. Not scientific! He complains about so many things because of that. But somehow this is okay with him. He's so unimaginative in some ways, but this area is an exception.

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, OlderThanDirt said:

But I think we need to remember we're reacting to a comedy scene written for laughs, not what a real middle school girl would have done after cutting her leg while shaving.  IRL, I think she would have stopped as soon as she drew blood. I know I did.  No way she would have required all those band-aids. That was some script writer's idea.

Right. But that script writer had to be familiar with "cutting" among young teen girls, which is never funny, and which the extent of Missy's repeated cuts invoked.

[Yeah No]

4 hours ago, Dani said:

Based on what we saw she didn’t cut herself that badly. She had a lot on of bandaids on but it was probably just the shallow small cuts that frequently happen with shaving and razor burn.  Cutting yourself while shaving is just a fact of life and it is no way related to self harm. If anything it will teach girls not to just grab a razor and start shaving. 

I remember something similar happening to me when I was new at shaving.  Before I knew it I had little tiny nicks all over my leg.  The blood comes out slowly after you've already done the damage.  It can especially happen to women with coarse, dark hair and soft, sensitive skin.  My mother solved the problem by loaning me her "lady" electric razor.  That worked for a while until I mastered the knack of shaving.

I think Meemaw's reaction with the band aids was supposed to be endearing and funny to show how she would go overboard to dote on her granddaughter.  

I personally think reading anything into it about self harm is going too far.  She was clearly upset that this happened to her so reading any kind of intentionality into it is in my opinion misplaced.  I don't think the show even needs to "know better".  Just my opinion.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Yeah No

[Neiman]

I feel the Missy plot was excessive and intentionally vague. Somewhat interesting to know other kids made fun of her as a contrast to the way she’s usually the one putting down others, but odd it’s included since this show is supposed to be Sheldon’s reflection and he wasn’t even there. I could see Missy going either way: self-harm or overtly dramatic. It means so much to her to be part of the in crowd, so this sort of teasing could have pushed her to be aggressive and later regretting what she’d done. Kid’s got some issues and sure isn’t going to talk about it with her mother at this point in her life. 

Not sure why the show decided to go in that direction. I would have been fine eliminating the Missy story and expanding on what’s going on at college with Sheldon.  At least there was some reprieve from the laundromat. 

[SusanM]

8 hours ago, possibilities said:

I'm surprised Sheldon is open to fantasy games. Not scientific! He complains about so many things because of that. But somehow this is okay with him. He's so unimaginative in some ways, but this area is an exception.

It's an interesting part of Sheldon that gets carried through in BBT as well.  There are a lot of references over the years from others about how "a brilliant man shouldn't be wasting his time on comics (Star Trek, D&D, WofW etc etc etc).  He's also an expert, or thinks he is anyway, on Lord of the Rings.  I like that they are planting the seeds now for what Sheldon will become.

Edited January 30, 2022 by SusannahM

[ams1001]

 

9 hours ago, possibilities said:

I'm surprised Sheldon is open to fantasy games. Not scientific! He complains about so many things because of that. But somehow this is okay with him. He's so unimaginative in some ways, but this area is an exception.

He likes both sci-fi and fantasy; as we saw in the episode where he was looking for a club to join, his problem is when they get labeled the wrong thing. He didn't join the Science Fiction club because they were watching Star Wars, which is fantasy ("the force is basically magic"). If it was the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club he would have been fine with it.

1 hour ago, SusannahM said:

He's also an expert, or thinks he is anyway, on Lord of the Rings.

Now I want to see him go up against Stephen Colbert on a LOTR trivia contest...

 

Edited January 30, 2022 by ams1001

[Guest]

11 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Right. But that script writer had to be familiar with "cutting" among young teen girls, which is never funny, and which the extent of Missy's repeated cuts invoked.

Cutting is serious but it shouldn’t be conflated with a normal thing that happens in most girls. What happened to Missy is not even remotely close to cutting. Can we really not show something normal and clearly not cutting just because it was vaguely similar? We saw a young girl have a normal experience and go to an adult she trusted for support and guidance. That’s not a bad message to send. 

10 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I remember something similar happening to me when I was new at shaving.  Before I knew it I had little tiny nicks all over my leg.  The blood comes out slowly after you've already done the damage.  It can especially happen to women with coarse, dark hair and soft, sensitive skin.  My mother solved the problem by loaning me her "lady" electric razor.  That worked for a while until I mastered the knack of shaving.

I think Meemaw's reaction with the band aids was supposed to be endearing and funny to show how she would go overboard to dote on her granddaughter.  

I personally think reading anything into it about self harm is going too far.  She was clearly upset that this happened to her so reading any kind of intentionality into it is in my opinion misplaced.  I don't think the show even needs to "know better".  Just my opinion.

Exactly. Even now I can nick myself and not be certain if or where the cut is because they are slow to bleed. On a bad day I can’t have 2 or 3 of those stupid small cuts and it is far from my first time shaving. 

[Yeah No]

12 hours ago, possibilities said:

I'm surprised Sheldon is open to fantasy games. Not scientific! He complains about so many things because of that. But somehow this is okay with him. He's so unimaginative in some ways, but this area is an exception.

Sheldon is pattered after real life brainiac science geeks/nerds who as a group have a tendency to love fantasy games.  I know this first hand from having gone to the Bronx HS of Science where dungeons and dragons was played in the school yard almost 24/7 and comic books and Lord of the Rings discussed on a regular basis.  It is a bit of a head scratcher but a real phenomenon, pretty much exclusive to males.  More about that was touched upon in BBT.

[theredhead77]

A couple of points

In the 80s there was a huge backlash against D&D. Mary would 110% be on that bandwagon. Here is the Wiki about it. Loved Sheldon making friends and being included in D&D. He's still 12, gorging on junk and getting sick was great writing. College boy sexisim made an appearance and good writing for the girl to not just jump into the "mother" role, because she has ovaries. 

I felt so bad for Missy.  It tooks months of me refusing to wear shorts and coming home in tears before my mom let me shave. Missy was in no way self-harming with her dry shaving. She had no idea how to shave, tried, didn't know that what she was doing was wrong, or that it shouldn't hurt and went to her Meemaw for help when she realized something was wrong.

The hug between George and Mary was on point and completely reflects where their marriage is. 

[babyhouseman]

I cut my leg when I first used a razor as a teen. I think it just show an inexperienced young girl not knowing what she is doing.

[hoodooznoodooz]

They showed Missy contrabanding “Sassy” at the church teen lockdown. She had probably read “Seventeen” magazine, which includes ads/articles about shaving legs. 
But I always looooove a Missy plot B. Paula Abdul!

Edited February 1, 2022 by hoodooznoodooz

[Tom Holmberg]

On 1/28/2022 at 7:36 PM, Dani said:

When Mary first walks in on Sheldon, Tam and Billy playing they are a quest involved Baalzebul. The similarity to Beelzebub and cover @highway61 mentioned is probably what led her to the conclusion. Although Tam did say that he wasn’t the devil but a monster who didn’t wear pants. She wasn’t convinced. 

Moral panic over D&D was a thing back then.  If you remember Mary said Pastor Jeff had warned about D&D in church and he said he'd gone to an anti-D&D program at a pastors conference.

[Tattooeddancer]

17 hours ago, theredhead77 said:

A couple of points

In the 80s there was a huge backlash against D&D. Mary would 110% be on that bandwagon. Here is the Wiki about it. Loved Sheldon making friends and being included in D&D. He's still 12, gorging on junk and getting sick was great writing. College boy sexisim made an appearance and good writing for the girl to not just jump into the "mother" role, because she has ovaries. 

I felt so bad for Missy.  It tooks months of me refusing to wear shorts and coming home in tears before my mom let me shave. Missy was in no way self-harming with her dry shaving. She had no idea how to shave, tried, didn't know that what she was doing was wrong, or that it shouldn't hurt and went to her Meemaw for help when she realized something was wrong.

The hug between George and Mary was on point and completely reflects where their marriage is. 

In the 90s even! I remember a conversation with my dad after he found out I had tried to play it (try being an operative word-I had no idea how D&D actually worked so I was actually LARPing) that led to several spankings. So I totally buy Mary freaking out about it. But again, I’m shocked she had no comments about Georgie reading his horoscope.

And a weird dichotomy (made obvious above, my parents were hyper religious), my mom actually forced me to start shaving my legs when I was 10. For some reason I was terrified and convinced I would slice up my legs like Missy did. I agree that the storyline was not self harm related, and it was nice to see sweet, doting MeeMaw again after her last few storylines focused on her less admirable qualities.

[aemom]

It's true that Sheldon is probably 6-10 years younger than the students in the dorm next door.  But, they are honestly good kids.  There was nothing inappropriate about their behavior in the dorm and they didn't try to get Sheldon to do anything bad.

It looks like they do enjoy his company - or they wouldn't invite him to play games and it's a good opportunity for Sheldon to be exposed to others without Mary helicoptering around him.  They were even trying to help him get to a bathroom and didn't just throw him out into the hall to fend for himself.  We'll see if they're still friends with them after this, but it's almost like a Big Brother relationship right now and overall probably really good for his development.

Edited to add: Just for clarity, when I say Big Brother, I don't mean George Orwell 1984, but the Big Brothers association.

Edited January 31, 2022 by aemom
Clarification

[peacheslatour]

2 hours ago, hoodooznoodooz said:

They showed Missy contrabanding “Sassy” at the church teen lockdown. She had probably read “Seventeen” magazine, which includes ads/articles above shaving legs. 
But I always looooove a Missy plot B. Paula Abdul!

Plus the approx. ten million tv commercials about it.

[kwnyc]

1 hour ago, aemom said:

It's true that Sheldon is probably 6-10 years younger than the students in the dorm next door.  But, they are honestly good kids.  There was nothing inappropriate about their behavior in the dorm and they didn't try to get Sheldon to do anything bad.

 

It's also the first chance that Sheldon has to have a posse of people around him who like the same things he does. He functions as an adult with a close cohort of people who explain things to him, take him places, and accept him as he is.

(I also wonder if  maybe Wally Shawn is not available for the show as much because he's NYC-based. Before the pandemic, he could probably fly in and shoot the show in a couple of days, and it's much harder to do that these days.)

[proserpina65]

On 1/28/2022 at 1:34 PM, HouseofBeck said:

Wish it could have been a “you do you” teaching moment instead, somehow.

That would've been nice, but kinda unlikely in 1990s Texas.

On 1/28/2022 at 6:52 PM, peacheslatour said:

'm confused. There is no "devil" in D&D.

There was a demon which Mary naturally interpreted as something from hell.

On 1/29/2022 at 4:34 AM, possibilities said:

I'm a woman and I've never shaved. I'm 56. I know plenty of women who don't shave, either. But we are definitely a rarity in the overall population.

When I was in high school, I got weird looks but no one actually bullied me. I wore opaque tights or long pants when I got older and worked in an office, because I figured it would be hard to get hired if I didn't blend in.

Both in high school and as an adult, when I let my bare legs be seen, I did get a lot of rude questions about why I don't shave and I just always said I never felt a need to, and would ask the querent why they did it. Not one person ever had an answer. They always would just kind of stammer and go silent. 

The peer pressure to shave is really strong, so I felt bad for Missy. I liked Meemaw's way of comforting her and helping her patch herself up and reclaim her sense of self. But I wasn't thrilled with her acceptance of the idea that men are gross and women need to resign themselves to "grin and bear it" in the cause of endless hair removal in service to their relationships, which require inebriation to tolerate. I mean... go ahead and shave if you want to, but if the situation makes you need to drink, that's kind of a bad advertisement for the practice, and a terrible message to give your teenager.

 

I'm the same age, and where I went to school there was a lot of pressure from late middle school on to have shaved legs.  I wore pants a lot but in the summer I shaved my legs because everyone wore shorts and bathing suits.  And I was bullied enough for being fat and having an overbite, so I wasn't giving the mean girls (and yes, it was always the girls) any more ammunition.

So Meemaw was just reflecting the general idea in society that women shave their legs.  Expecting something more progressive from a show set in Texas in the 90s isn't realistic.

 

On 1/30/2022 at 2:20 AM, shapeshifter said:

Right. But that script writer had to be familiar with "cutting" among young teen girls, which is never funny, and which the extent of Missy's repeated cuts invoked.

To you, I guess, but nothing in that scene invoked the idea of cutting to me at all.  I had no problem at all with the scene, other than to feel sorry for Missy.

[proserpina65]

On 1/30/2022 at 1:49 PM, Dani said:

Exactly. Even now I can nick myself and not be certain if or where the cut is because they are slow to bleed. On a bad day I can’t have 2 or 3 of those stupid small cuts and it is far from my first time shaving. 

Yep, when I shave my legs for the pool/beach, I'm guaranteed to have at least one nick, usually on an ankle.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 1/29/2022 at 6:48 PM, ChitChat said:

I thought Missy had enough sense to know to quit shaving if she was continuing to cut herself.  After the second or third time, I'd be done!  It's at that point she should go ask her MeeMaw for instructions.  Honestly though, it's not that hard to figure out!  If she's ever seen Mary's shaving cream, the instructions are on the can.  I didn't have much instruction either, but I didn't butcher myself.  

Maybe Mary shaves in the shower with soap.

On 1/30/2022 at 3:20 AM, Yeah No said:

I remember something similar happening to me when I was new at shaving.  Before I knew it I had little tiny nicks all over my leg.  The blood comes out slowly after you've already done the damage. 

Exactly.  Still happens that way when I nick my leg.

 

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 1/28/2022 at 12:12 PM, freeser said:

Missy cutting her legs, Sheldon barfing up Skittles, George possibly getting fired, etc.  I want more laughter and fun from my comedy shows.  There were a few chuckles this week, but overall it seems to have taken a pretty dark turn from what it was in the beginning of the series.  

The kids are getting older.  They are bound to have new experiences.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 1/28/2022 at 1:23 PM, Sarah 103 said:

I liked that Mary's objection to the clothes wasn't based on her own religious beliefs but on the school's dress code.

 

On 1/28/2022 at 1:48 PM, Tattooeddancer said:

I would imagine it was a mix of both. She objected to length before the mention of the school/finger test, and also insisted that she wear leggings under it even on the weekends

The dress code allows Mary to not have to mention her religious beliefs about clothes, which I'm sure are at least as strict as the dress code.

Edited February 2, 2022 by ItCouldBeWorse

[CattyK]

I really liked the Missy subplot. Nothing about it made me think of self harm.  Those little nicks that others mentioned that don’t seem that bad till blood starts oozing, obviously that’s what Missy did.  The many bandaids were Meemaw’s way of comforting her.   I’ve been shaving my legs for decades and I still get nicks.  

Sheldon getting sick on junk food was funny.  He’s not in any danger, the other kids treated him well.  Funniest line of the episode:  Do you have a coaster?  Yeah it’s in the China cabinet.

I feel bad for George.  I think the actor is doing a really good job with the character.  I was glad Mary gave him a genuine hug.