S08.E16: The Intimacy Acceleration

[CherryAmes]

Raj is second only to Penny in the "character the writers mess with most" department.  Sometimes he comes across as sweet and vulnerable but a lot of the time he's as big a creep as Howard ever was.  That he's good looking and rich can't fix that.

[Nightbreak]

Based on a quick google search some airlines do not permit  cremated remains to be taken on the plane in carry-on luggage.  Those that do will require the remains to pass through security so depending on the kind of container it could be a problem.   I don't remember if we ever saw the urn but if it was metal, stone or ceramic there's  chance it would not pass the security screening.  I doubt the writers thought about all this too deeply though - the point was to lose the ashes after all!

 

 

I transported my father's ashes in my backpack through three different airports in an aluminium tube.  Regulations vary, but as long as the urn can be scanned, they don't have a problem.  Sure, the writers didn't care, because it's funnier, but the airline wasn't at fault, as the luggage did arrive in LA.

 

Howard and Bernadette just didn't watch their bags closely on the conveyor belt, probably.

[WickedTuna]

Oh come on show writers, it's totally unbelievable that none of the gang went to the funeral. At the very least, Raj should have gone.

That bugged me too. They should have been there for Howard.

I'm constitutionally incapable. That's why I was refused clearance for a very prestigious government research fellowship at a secret military supercollider located beneath a fake agricultural station 12.5 miles southeast of Traverse City, Michigan.

[pause] Which you did not hear about from me.

And when you lie you have more tics than a Lyme Disease Research Program it can make it hard to keep a secret.

I loved that scene. Sheldon was so proud of coming up with the joke on his own.

[Shermie]

Why did they have the funeral on Florida? She had just gone there, presumably for the first time as a winter resident or maybe to retire? It wasn't her home. Normally, Howard would go there to retrieve the body or,ashes and have a service back home in California, where his mother had lived for many years. Did I miss something?

[Miss Scarlet]

I don't know... I usually like Penny and Sheldon together, but that felt like Shenny fan service.

ITA. It felt like pandering. Not even to the Penny/Sheldon as a couple fans, but fans of them as a platonic pair too. And I feel like a lot of the times the Sheldon/Penny stuff is too reliant on "look, opposites can get along!" rather than the actually quality of the material. A lot of what they covered was so repetitive. We get it. Penny is not as intellectual as the guys, but she's street smart. At least we can say yay for continuity I guess?

I loved the Sheldon-Penny scenes, but found Penny's laughing at the end very distracting.  I know Kaley Cuoco often breaks character and laughs, but it is usually at a time that Penny would find something humorous (like someone is actually making a joke - or says something but it has a double menaing).  But I don't recall Sheldon saying anything that Penny should find funny - it may be funny to someone watching a scene, but wouldn't be funny to someone in a conversation with him.  

 

 

 

 

In addition to the above, I am relieved that the "Leonard wants to have dinner with Penny" and "Penny never mentions Leonard in her perfect day" didn't turn into a re-hash of the "does Penny really love Leonard" storyline.  

 

 

Me too.  He kept it a secret for a reason, and she promised to keep it a secret.  She should have kept it.

I've thought the same thing about her breaking.

 

I was glad that the comment didn't turn into a "Penny/Leonard having problems storyline", but this really is another example of how it might be played for laughs, but they are the worst written couple.

 

I do like the the show takes on very interesting and topical subjects. The experiment was a good idea and they've had a few episodes with good ideas like that, such as the one with Bernadette in the science magazine (which is very timely with all of the gender issues being discussed in the media) etc. It's just the execution that is lacking.

[SmithW6079]

He's rich and successful and throws a great party.  What's not to love?

 

He's an emotional Black Hole of Calcutta. He's a jerk to women when he's drunk. He's judgmental and dismissive to those women who don't meet his standards (i.e., aren't supermodels). And how do we know he throws great parties? The gang seems to avoid them like the plague. Raj could leave and I wouldn't miss him. 

[LoneHaranguer]

 

He's a jerk to women when he's drunk.

I'm reminded of this 4th season exchange:

 Penny: God, he's an ass when he drinks.

 Howard: Oh, he's an ass when he doesn't. You just don't hear it.

[Calamity Jane]

Count me in regarding the lack of fat jokes.  Before the preview last week showed that Mrs. W had been cremated, I was worried that Howard would say he had to buy two plots and an extra big casket.  Then I expected jokes about the huge urn and how heavy it was.  "You lost my mom's ashes?" could have been taken to new levels of low, but wasn't.  Spilling the ashes has been done to death, but usually when the character or the actor wasn't well liked.  It's usually followed by someone thoughtlessly vacuuming them up.

 

I didn't mind not seeing the funeral, but I wish that it had taken place in California so the whole gang could attend.  It would have been OK to show the after-funeral gathering, held at Mrs. W's home and hosted by Howard and Bernadette. 

 

It would have been a good time for Stuart and Howard to renew their friendship after it's discovered that Stuart is still staying at the house (although he's looking for a new place), and he's torn between attending the gathering while trying to hide from Howard, or just stay hidden in his room.  Howard finds out and heads up to Stuarts room intending to toss him out on his ear, but barges in and finds Stuart holding a picture of Mrs. W and crying. 

 

A few lines about how Mrs. W lifted Stuart out of his depression, she loved having someone on hand to help her and who appreciated her doting.  A mention that Mrs. W was aware of how intrusive she was in Howard's life and was happy to have someone she could focus on so her little boy could finally be a grown man, how she talked about Howard all the time and was very proud of him, how she loved Bernadette, and she was hoping that they'd have a couple of kids someday.

 

Together they go downstairs and deal with all the craziness that happens whenever their friends are forced into social situations with other people.  Sheldon notices that a lot of people are asking the same questions "When are Howard and Bernadette going to have kids?"  "What are they going to do with the house?", so he gets a whiteboard from Howards old room and writes all the questions and answers down and makes everyone read them before they're allowed to talk to anyone.  Penny keeps getting hit on by Howard's lustful cousins.  Amy's cruising the rooms making notes on how people are dealing with bereavement and forming her next chimp study.  Raj is showing everyone a picture of his hot girlfriend.  Leonard is rushing around trying to keep his friends from taking things too far while also trying to stare down Penny's admirers.  Bernadette is staying near Howard and smiling encouragingly when someone is saying nice things to him, and giving the evil eye when someone tries to sell him life insurance or make a ridiculously low offer on the house.  (When my FIL died, a neighbor showed up at the gathering and asked my MIL if he could start parking his motor home in her driveway since she didn't drive and would obviously sell the family car [makes very low offer on said car].  Then he grabbed a paper plate and filled it with enough food to feed 4 people and left, taking a bottle of soda with him.)

 

And every other minute someone drops off a food item.  "This is your mother's brisket recipe, Howard.  I made it in honor of her."  "Your mother made the best lasagna when my husband was in the hospital and she knew I didn't have it in me to cook.  So I made a lasagna for you.  If you already have enough food put it in the freezer to eat another time.  You really are too skinny!  Your mother always said so."

 

Naturally there's a large framed photo of Mrs. W, but we only get to see the back of it.

Please, please, would you go write for the show?  Please??

[The Kings Foot]

He's an emotional Black Hole of Calcutta. He's a jerk to women when he's drunk. He's judgmental and dismissive to those women who don't meet his standards (i.e., aren't supermodels). And how do we know he throws great parties? The gang seems to avoid them like the plague. Raj could leave and I wouldn't miss him. 

 

This thread is probably over but...

 

You have noticed  that Emily is quite attractive ? So I suspect Raj's attitude is quite different when he's with her than when he's with his friends. Like most people.

 

We also saw  on their first date he rapidly  dialed down his talking  whenever she made a face. So he is capable of adjusting to suit his audience.

Raj is second only to Penny in the "character the writers mess with most" department.  Sometimes he comes across as sweet and vulnerable but a lot of the time he's as big a creep as Howard ever was.  That he's good looking and rich can't fix that.

 

Ahh but you do agree he's good looking.  :-). And in real life  good looks cover up a lot of crap.

[theatremouse]

Why did they have the funeral on Florida? She had just gone there, presumably for the first time as a winter resident or maybe to retire? It wasn't her home. Normally, Howard would go there to retrieve the body or,ashes and have a service back home in California, where his mother had lived for many years. Did I miss something?

Pretty much because they didn't want to write/show the scene of the funeral. They wanted it over/offscreen. I don't think it was more complicated than that.

[CherryAmes]

I agree that the reason for having the funeral in Florida was because they didn't want to show it but it's also not like she had been in Florida among strangers.  She was visiting her sister wasn't she?  If you want to create a backstory to explain it I think a plausible explanation may be that she was among family and friends down there and we've pretty much been told time and again that she had very few friends in her own home area partly because of her personality and also because it's hard to make and keep friends if you rarely leave the house.  I don't think Howard and his family would plan a funeral just so Howard's circle of friends could attend!

[LoneHaranguer]

 

I don't think Howard and his family would plan a funeral just so Howard's circle of friends could attend!

I could see Howard capturing some of it on video for when he gets back.

[SmithW6079]

You have noticed  that Emily is quite attractive ?

 

That kind of proves my point. Raj wouldn't date anyone he considered beneath him. They did a whole episode (or plot B of an episode) where he's out with the "girls," and while he admits he developed crushes on Penny and Bernadette, he never did on Amy. Why? Because as presented in the show, Amy is unattractive. I stand by my dislike of Raj.

[CousinOliver]

I agree that the reason for having the funeral in Florida was because they didn't want to show it but it's also not like she had been in Florida among strangers. She was visiting her sister wasn't she? If you want to create a backstory to explain it I think a plausible explanation may be that she was among family and friends down there and we've pretty much been told time and again that she had very few friends in her own home area partly because of her personality and also because it's hard to make and keep friends if you rarely leave the house. I don't think Howard and his family would plan a funeral just so Howard's circle of friends could attend!

My husband passed unexpectedly when we were in Florida last year. Since he had friends there, my parents live there, and his siblings neither live in Florida nor our (my) current state of residence (ironically, California), I had his funeral in Florida. When you're going with cremation, and immediate family has to travel anyway, it makes sense. This part was completely believable, with the exception of, possibly, Stuart and Raj not traveling to Florida. That said, I was surprised at some of the close friends that didn't come to my husband's funeral; it think it's something some people are sometimes very uncomfortable with, regardless of their relationship with the deceased.

[chocolatine]

CousinOliver, I'm so sorry for your loss! Funerals are hard for many people to attend. I hope the friends who didn't make it to the funeral found a different way to honor him.

Edited March 6, 2015 by chocolatine

[okerry]

>>>By the way, I'm pretty sure the woman who ushered them into the locked room with the Zombie was played by the same actress who played Howard's Goth girl "date."

 

Well, sure, she probably was -- but that didn't bother me at all. I mean, what better place for a Goth girl to work than in something like an escape room? It actually made pretty good sense to me.

[okerry]

>>>I think what bums me about all that is that they once presented Amy and Leonard as getting along well and respecting each other. Didn't he once take her out on a date to a wedding or some other occasion because Sheldon didn't want to go? I recall they had a great time together. So it bothers me that the writers now treat their relationship as if that never existed and now they have some sort of annoyance with one another (especially on Amy's part toward Leonard).

 

Yebbut -- Leonard is now engaged to marry Penny, and Sheldon and Amy are much farther along on their path towards a relationship than they were at the time of A&L's wedding attendance together. They are no longer interested at all in anyone else, which was still a possibility when they went to the wedding, and I think the episode took the chance to show that.

[Actionmage]

I think what bums me about all that is that they once presented Amy and Leonard as getting along well and respecting each other. ...So it bothers me that the writers now treat their relationship as if that never existed and now they have some sort of annoyance with one another (especially on Amy's part toward Leonard).

 

They are no longer interested at all in anyone else, which was still a possibility when they went to the wedding,

 

I believe that the first poster was bummed because the writers have seemed to have jettisoned the friendship that Amy and Leonard were starting to show in that earlier episode. I believe they are more enamored of Neil Diamond-loving Amy/Howard than any kind of Amy/Leonard friendship..

 

Do the writers actually like Leonard?

[KatWay]

Raj is the asshole who had daydreams about Howard dying so he could go and bang Bernadette. And while fantasies are fantasies, he's also the asshole who could barely contain his glee when he thought Bernadette was about to break up with Howard (and break his heart), so....he can be rich and good looking all he wants, he still doesn't qualify as a catch to me.

 

 

Do the writers actually like Leonard?

Sometimes I doubt it.

 

The Sheldon/Penny stuff was nice, but rehashed and felt a bit like fanservice. Also, I'm kind of tired of Sheldon's vulnerability moments, especially when they have him act as a straight up jerk one episode later. The thing is Sheldon can be plenty sensitive about his own feelings, but not about other peoples' (not usually, anyways). Which actually makes him more unlikeable to me than just being insensitive period.

[Oldernowiser]

I finally saw this episode and for the first time, really, I didn't find Simon at all convincing. Maybe it's just the difficulty of trying to deal with tragedy in a sitcom, but his sudden devotion to his mother's urn was odd, given their conflicted relationship when she was alive.

Death doesn't magically solve all things...if anything, it can make a complicated and ambivalent relationship even more so.

I always enjoy Penny and Sheldon, but agree that the birthday surprise was a shitty way to treat a confidence, especially since she said she wouldn't tell anyone.

Emily...meh. She creeps me out.

[CherryAmes]

I finally saw this episode and for the first time, really, I didn't find Simon at all convincing. Maybe it's just the difficulty of trying to deal with tragedy in a sitcom, but his sudden devotion to his mother's urn was odd, given their conflicted relationship when she was alive.

 

 I thought the way Howard reacted to his mother's death was perfectly in character for him.  The fact that their relationship was complicated didn't really change that deep down he loved his mother and for good or for bad (often for bad) she was the centre of his life until he married Bernadette.

Edited March 25, 2015 by CherryAmes

[adhoc]

I just caught this episode during the past week, and came to read this thread.  Okay, I'm confused about something.

 

Haven't there been episodes where Sheldon has had to be taken (by one or more of the gang) to the doctor/emergency room/Dept. of Motor Vehicles?  For some reason, I cannot believe that no one caught his birthday on the paperwork (which, if I recall correctly, one of them may have even once had to help him fill out).

 

And God knows, as often as Sheldon feels a need to see a doctor, I totally do not buy that Leonard would not have caught him calling the doctor at some point and then stating a month, day, and year, since the person on the other end of the phone would normally respond "What is your date of birth?"

 

AFAIC, there are just a million reasons why "no one knows Sheldon's birthdate" is an unbelievable plot point.  

 

 

[CherryAmes]

AFAIC, there are just a million reasons why "no one knows Sheldon's birthdate" is an unbelievable plot point.

 

Another reason I thought of is that Sheldon has always believed he's going to win a Nobel Prize, have books written about him and have children learn about him in school.  It's a little hard to believe that he's ok with the idea of that much fame, attention and adulation but doesn't think that the little matter of his birthdate is ever going to come up.

[anna0852]

I just caught this episode during the past week, and came to read this thread.  Okay, I'm confused about something.

 

Haven't there been episodes where Sheldon has had to be taken (by one or more of the gang) to the doctor/emergency room/Dept. of Motor Vehicles?  For some reason, I cannot believe that no one caught his birthday on the paperwork (which, if I recall correctly, one of them may have even once had to help him fill out).

 

And God knows, as often as Sheldon feels a need to see a doctor, I totally do not buy that Leonard would not have caught him calling the doctor at some point and then stating a month, day, and year, since the person on the other end of the phone would normally respond "What is your date of birth?"

 

AFAIC, there are just a million reasons why "no one knows Sheldon's birthdate" is an unbelievable plot point.  

Well they drive him there. But there's never been any indication that he's incapable handling his business with doctors or the DMV or that any of them are doing paperwork and such for him. 

[whatsatool]

Agreed that the real relationship in the show has always been Shelden Penny.

[LoneHaranguer]

 

And God knows, as often as Sheldon feels a need to see a doctor, I totally do not buy that Leonard would not have caught him calling the doctor at some point and then stating a month, day, and year, since the person on the other end of the phone would normally respond "What is your date of birth?"

I have never had anyone ask for that over the phone. Generally speaking, one's phone number currently seems to be the most commonly used identifier.

[CherryAmes]

I've never been asked that over the phone but I do get asked that every time I am actually in the doctor's office waiting for my appointment.  I guess it's a way they confirm that they've got the right 'Cherry Ames's' chart.  In all the years that Sheldon has required drives to appointments I agree it's stretching believability that no one has ever heard a medical professional say this - or that they've never seen any paperwork of any kind that has a birthdate.  It was a dumb "go for the laugh" moment on the part of the writers that doesn't stand up with scrutiny!

[califred]

I have to give dob for all doc appts made, it's the next question after name.

[adhoc]

califred - me, too! I call one of my doctors for anything--even just to cancel an appt--I give my name, and they immediately ask for date of birth. 

[LoneHaranguer]

Does Sheldon use doctors other than for emergency treatment?

[Oldernowiser]

I'm too lazy to go back and watch the ep where Penny insists they throw Leonard a " kick ass surprise party," but I seem to recall Sheldon giving a fairly detailed description about the birthday parties of his childhood. If this were real life, surely someone would have said, "when is your birthday, anyway?"

Besides, it's implausible that his mom, meemaw, or sister wouldn't have called or sent him something to mark the occasion in what, seven years, supposedly?

But then, it's a sitcom.