S10.E18: The Escape Hatch Identification

[rmontro]

19 hours ago, MissLucas said:

Stuart isn't quite that lonely - he still has one living parent who calls him on his birthday. But I agree he needs to be needed and at least he is willing to defend his surrogate family.

Yeah, that "not on my watch" scene with Lucille was kind of sweet, when you think about it.

[BlossomCulp]

I just watched this episode and I thought it was possibly the strongest one of the season so far.  And it's been a pretty good season.  Several laugh out loud moments and I liked that it was made clear once and for all that Beverly is a sadist who likes messing with people.   One thing though I didn't form the impression that Raj couldn't afford to live on his own, just that he could not afford to live well on his own.  I can't blame him for wanting to live with friends and press the re-start button on his life and pay off some bills and maybe save some money.  Makes sense.  And of course it also helps keep the cast all in one (or at most two) place(s).  

Edited March 11, 2017 by BlossomCulp

[Accidental Martyr]

23 hours ago, Cowgirl said:

 

Yeah, they mentioned his art school education when they first introduced him (not that it was all that memorable), when he was confident enough to try to date Penny.  I miss that version of Stuart.  

 

Me too. They totally ruined Stuart's character. 

[Chit Chat]

I'll say it again.  This show has run it's course. YMMV.    I don't buy it that Raj can't afford his apartment.  How much could that cost?  It wasn't some swanky apartment.  It looks smaller than Penny's old place.   I really don't like having Sheldon & Amy living in Penny's apartment either.  He belongs in his original place.  That's where most of his stuff is.  It is so out of character for him to be okay with this move, especially since Raj might possibly move into his old room.  I'm assuming that all of his stuff (comic books in particular)  is still in there since we don't see it in Penney's old apartment.   I don't see Sheldon boxing up those prized comic books.   I agree about Stuart's character.  He is a sad sack, indeed.  I really wish they'd let him be more successful where he can at least support himself. 

[Keywestclubkid]

Stewart has become beyond annoying and just needs to get less screen time .....

[CherryAmes]

Aw I kind of like sad sack Stewart.  I found him pretty funny in this episode.  Sure he's pathetic but I'd rather have a peripheral character fill this standard Lorre role than one of the main characters.  Lorre always has to have at least one guy be a total screw up who lives off others (Alan Harper being the classic example of this).  But in a way I also found Stewart to be a realist in this episode.  He knows he's got a sweet deal going on, $6.00 worth of cold cuts in a sandwich! planning to use Bernie and Howard's house as his retirement home.  I found that funny.  Sad of course but funny.  

[Keywestclubkid]

I get what hes supposed to be but hes coming across has selfish and annoying .... Im going to use these people has long as i can I'm never leaving comes across has creepy and makes him less sympathetic and more a user and wanting bad things to happen to him 

[dungeonwriter]

Beverly has been flanderized. She used to just be oblivious to her cruelty, but now it's clear she sees it, knows it, and revels in it. I miss her more benign cruelty, which at least felt defensible because one could see she tried to help but just failed. Now, she grins as she hurts people. 

Stuart's patheticness is a black hole. It just sucks in enjoyment. It's hard watching a human being suffer for laughs. 

Raj's poverty is seriously hard to swallow. He can ask his mother for money, but have it placed with Sheldon so it is managed correctly. And his patheticness makes me feel like the show really wishes they could cut him, but contracts forbid it. 

It's getting hard for me to understand the two least expensive actors getting half a million dollars an episode (and the other actors getting 900k per episode) but the writing seems like it's being outsourced. 

The only thing I loved was Cinnamon being loose in the building. That was funny. Mean, but funny. 

[CherryAmes]

5 minutes ago, dungeonwriter said:

Raj's poverty is seriously hard to swallow. He can ask his mother for money, but have it placed with Sheldon so it is managed correctly.

IT bothers me that as far as I can remember since the big drah-ma of Raj cutting himself off from his father's money it has never been mentioned that he was getting at least as much, if not more, from his mother. I can totally understand sitcoms not wanting to be held to stuff they wrote about the characters in the first year of the show - they are feeling their way and I can see making changes.  But not totally changing things that happened years into the series and that happened very recently!  They must know the fans notice stuff like that and don't like it!

[shapeshifter]

It seems wrong to me that Sheldon casually sits on Penny's small, blue, fabric couch, which is the opposite of his "spot" on the large brown leather couch. I realize that at the start of the series, he was hesitant to move from his lawn chair to the couch, but that was over 10 years ago. Maybe I'm forgetting a line in which Sheldon showed he had found a new "spot" on Penny's old couch?

[Snarklepuss]

ITA, @shapeshifter.  I also found it wrong that Sheldon felt "replaced" thinking that Raj would occupy his old bedroom and not even worry about who was sitting in his "spot"!  He's been waaay too well adjusted about the change in living arrangements in general and to get fired up about that one thing out of nowhere was as contrived to me as Raj being unable to support himself and in massive debt.  I hate it when a show thinks it has to resort to constantly more unbelievable, implausible scenarios.  There's really no need for it, IMHO.  This show has been good enough not to need to do that for over a decade, why cheapen it now?  Have they really run out of ideas or just don't care anymore?

[rmontro]

14 hours ago, ChitChat said:

I really don't like having Sheldon & Amy living in Penny's apartment either.  He belongs in his original place.  

Agreed, why should Sheldon move across the hall.  Why didn't Leonard just move in with Penny?  It's two people in an apartment either way (well, before Raj moved in).  Sheldon is much more resistant to change, it makes no sense that he got pushed across the hall.  He was living in that apartment before Leonard did.

[anna0852]

Sheldon didn't get pushed across the hall. When the whole 'live with Amy' thing came up, it was Sheldon's idea to use neutral territory rather than *his* or *hers* apartment. I'm guessing that since the cohabitation experiment was deemed successful Sheldon is fine staying there to keep the variables consistent. He and Amy seem fine in the space. And it looks like week to week that more of their *stuff* is being moved in. Bedroom really no longer looks like Penny lives there.

Given that most of the socialization takes place at L and P's place, Sheldon may be more comfortable where he is now with only Amy and himself there most of the time. 

Edited March 13, 2017 by anna0852

[BlossomCulp]

Agreed.  It was Sheldon himself who proposed moving to Penny's apartment to give the experiment a fair try and it's been Sheldon since then who's brought up moving out of the building even moving out of the immediate area.  It's another example of his growth.  If you prefer early Sheldon I can understand not liking the changes but while I do prefer the earlier seasons overall I like the way they've let Sheldon grow and mature.  There's still enough quirky Sheldon to make me happy.

Edited March 13, 2017 by BlossomCulp

[CherryAmes]

He has had his moments when it's made clear this is a work in progress for him.  He is his usual self when it came to sharing their mutual collectibles and he still seemed to think he had sovereignty over the room even once it had been decided that he was moving out permanently.  I liked that Penny pointed out to him that he no longer paid rent or lived there so what they did with his room was none of his business - I think that was the same episode where he dreams Penny and Leonard have turned it into a sex dungeon :).

Edited March 13, 2017 by CherryAmes

[LoneHaranguer]

15 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Maybe I'm forgetting a line in which Sheldon showed he had found a new "spot" on Penny's old couch?

He picked it in the last episode of the first season.

On 3/12/2017 at 10:49 AM, ChitChat said:

I'm assuming that all of his stuff (comic books in particular)  is still in there since we don't see it in Penney's old apartment.

Sheldon may have divided the apartment into separate areas for Amy and himself, and his stuff could be mostly where we can't see it, like where Amy's painting had been hanging. Also, Sheldon rents a very large storage unit, as well as at least one safe deposit box for comic books. Anything that didn't fit neatly in his portion of the smaller apartment would have gone there.

[DarkRaichu]

I am tired of Sheldon always getting what he wanted like a life sized (Affleck!) Batman statue at the end of the episode

[iMonrey]

Quote

 I don't buy it that Raj can't afford his apartment.  How much could that cost?  It wasn't some swanky apartment.  It looks smaller than Penny's old place. 

It could easily be upwards of $3,000 a month in Pasadena. (That's where they live, right?) Still - maybe he's not raking it in at the University but he has to be making a somewhat decent salary there. I take it we are to assume he has such massive debt he can't pay his bills on his University salary but that seems like a stretch if he's been living off his parents' dime all this time. Dumb writing, really.

Quote

I hate it when a show thinks it has to resort to constantly more unbelievable, implausible scenarios.  There's really no need for it, IMHO.  This show has been good enough not to need to do that for over a decade, why cheapen it now?  Have they really run out of ideas or just don't care anymore?

Probably both those things. And Chuck Lorre seems to think pathetic losers are hysterically funny. At the very least it's his cheap go-to when he runs out of ideas and/or doesn't care anymore.

[rmontro]

On 3/14/2017 at 4:44 PM, iMonrey said:

Probably both those things. And Chuck Lorre seems to think pathetic losers are hysterically funny. At the very least it's his cheap go-to when he runs out of ideas and/or doesn't care anymore.

Yeah, and for some reason ALL the characters seem to delight in ridiculing Stuart.  He's almost like the show's version of Meg from Family Guy.  Watching the main cast bully some guy who has confirmed depressive issues is not entertaining.

[shapeshifter]

On March 16, 2017 at 6:10 PM, rmontro said:

Yeah, and for some reason ALL the characters seem to delight in ridiculing Stuart.  He's almost like the show's version of Meg from Family Guy.  Watching the main cast bully some guy who has confirmed depressive issues is not entertaining.

But do they really bully him any more than they do each other? I'm at least pretty sure that Stuart ridicules himself more often than the rest of the gang ridicules him.

[Cowgirl]

One thing regarding Stuart that I don't like is the lack of continuity -- Raj became great friends with him while Howard was in space. Then Howard got back and noted that, but soon Stuart was excluded again and there just seemed to be no closeness anymore between him and Raj.  And now this season they seem to have set them up as rivals for Howard and Bernie's attention. Ugh.  

[CherryAmes]

I have a hard time drumming up any sympathy for Stuart.  He reminds me too much of a girl I went to high school with who was always hanging around the 'cool kids' desperately trying to be part of their inner circle.  He is the one who, for the most part, wants to be their friend.  If he's prepared to put up with never really being "besties" with any of them and occasionally being the butt of their jokes than that's down to him.  I suspect Stuart would rather be picked on than ignored.

[Driad]

Poor Stuart doesn't even have a thread in this forum.

[rmontro]

On 3/20/2017 at 1:39 PM, CherryAmes said:

I have a hard time drumming up any sympathy for Stuart.  He reminds me too much of a girl I went to high school with who was always hanging around the 'cool kids' desperately trying to be part of their inner circle.  He is the one who, for the most part, wants to be their friend.  If he's prepared to put up with never really being "besties" with any of them and occasionally being the butt of their jokes than that's down to him.  I suspect Stuart would rather be picked on than ignored.

In real life, I agree with you.  He should have more self respect.  He shouldn't be such a mooch.

But, speaking for myself anyway, on the show I sort of see him as a "victim of the writers".  The writers are doing him a disservice, especially since we've seen him being written in a better light in the past.  And when most of the main characters ridicule him, I take that to mean that the writers think it is funny.