S11.E23: The Sibling Realignment

[SmithW6079]

On 5/5/2018 at 11:15 AM, kariyaki said:

The problem was that Sheldon had originally NOT invited Georgie. And if he had, Georgie would’ve accepted and gone to the wedding. By pointedly not inviting him, Mary said she wouldn’t go if he didn’t. Georgie was saying no to the later invite because he knew this was the case. 

So none of this was on Mary or Georgie, Sheldon brought it all on by being his usual self. Sure, Georgie could’ve made it easier by just accepting the invite but I would imagine that he’s grown tired of a lifetime of making things easier for Sheldon. 

Yes, exactly. Sheldon had decided not to invite his brother. 

On 5/5/2018 at 2:46 PM, Lovecat said:

Well we first met Missy when she brought Sheldon some papers pertaining to their father’s estate (though why would there still be legal matters pending so many years later?...details ::handwave::),

And in another episode, when Mary meets Dr. Gabelhauser, she blurts out: "His father's dead." "Recently?" he asks. "Long enough," she replies, which indicated to me George was fairly recently dead, not 20 years before.

8 hours ago, BlossomCulp said:

Having just rewatched this episode I think it's very clear he meant Penny, Which irritates me no end.  If he was thinking SHeldon but said Penny I didn't see any indication of that in the way he spoke or his body language.  I think he said Penny because he meant Penny.

Yeah, on my rewatch, there was no hesitancy either, which bugged me too.

[BlossomCulp]

12 hours ago, CherryAmes said:

And one has to wonder why Mary hadn't intervened up to now. I know, I know -- TV show :).

If we're pretending this is real I'd suggest Mary finally intervened because she realized the brothers were never going to grow up and make peace themselves unless she did.  I don't expect them to explain what happened that caused them to stop speaking but it's a little silly that Georgie's main beef with Sheldon seems to be over his behavior at 14 when he was kept in the dark about how difficult Mary was having things after George died.  Reading between the lines I felt that what it really all came down to was Georgie still resenting the attention Sheldon got, the "specialness" of Sheldon and of course Sheldon being Sheldon.  I can't blame him for that.  I really liked that they didn't pretend Georgie had never bullied Sheldon - but I totally did not buy for one minute that Leonard thought sitting on Sheldon's head because he wanted to watch Star Trek was "hilarious"  It kinda wasn't.

Edited May 7, 2018 by BlossomCulp

[DarkRaichu]

Damn, that was a strong episode of BBT in quite a while.  Mary broke down after George Sr died + Georgie took care of the family made a lot of sense.  This reminded me again what we know of Sheldon's family came from Sheldon's properly constructed and biased POV.

Looking forward to how all of these revelations will be handled in YS.

Was Jerry O'Connel actually that tall or did they use some optical illusion to make him look as tall as Jim Parsons??

[BlossomCulp]

7 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

Was Jerry O'Connel actually that tall or did they use some optical illusion to make him look as tall as Jim Parsons??

According to IMDB (for what that's worth)  he is actually taller than Jim Parsons.  Parsons at 6' 1¼" (1.86 m)  and O'Connel at 6' 2" (1.88 m).  Tall though Jim Parsons is I suspect we think of him as being MUCH taller given the average heights of the rest of the cast!

Edited May 7, 2018 by BlossomCulp

[ItCouldBeWorse]

1 hour ago, BlossomCulp said:

According to IMDB (for what that's worth)  he is actually taller than Jim Parsons.  Parsons at 6' 1¼" (1.86 m)  and O'Connel at 6' 2" (1.88 m).  Tall though Jim Parsons is I suspect we think of him as being MUCH taller given the average heights of the rest of the cast!

Plus, very slim tall people appear even taller.

[OtterMommy]

2 hours ago, BlossomCulp said:

According to IMDB (for what that's worth)  he is actually taller than Jim Parsons.  Parsons at 6' 1¼" (1.86 m)  and O'Connel at 6' 2" (1.88 m).  Tall though Jim Parsons is I suspect we think of him as being MUCH taller given the average heights of the rest of the cast!

Also, Parson's build--relatively thin-framed, plus *as Sheldon* he sort of slouches--I think gives him the allusion of being taller than he actually is (although 6'1" is what I would consider tall!).  

I'm going to go out on the UO limb here and admit that I was not wild about Jerry O'Connell as George, formerly known as Georgie.  I can't really put my finger on why, other than it just didn't seem like a very authentic performance.  

[Bort]

7 minutes ago, OtterMommy said:

I'm going to go out on the UO limb here and admit that I was not wild about Jerry O'Connell as George, formerly known as Georgie.  I can't really put my finger on why, other than it just didn't seem like a very authentic performance.  

I could’ve done without the wig, to be honest. I don’t think it’s stretching reality to assume that someone might not have the same haircut they had when they were 14.

[LoneHaranguer]

15 hours ago, SmithW6079 said:

And in another episode, when Mary meets Dr. Gabelhauser, she blurts out: "His father's dead." "Recently?" he asks. "Long enough," she replies, which indicated to me George was fairly recently dead, not 20 years before.

She was hiding her age.

[DarkRaichu]

1 hour ago, OtterMommy said:

I'm going to go out on the UO limb here and admit that I was not wild about Jerry O'Connell as George, formerly known as Georgie.  I can't really put my finger on why, other than it just didn't seem like a very authentic performance.  

It was like he was trying to project young Georgie character from Young Sheldon, instead of how Georgie would look in his 40s.

Edited May 7, 2018 by DarkRaichu

[aemom]

When Leonard referred to Penny as a bully, I didn't take it that he was referring to how she treated him, but the fact that she used to bully people.

We saw an episode way back when where they addressed that she was a bully and that she wanted to make amends.

Edited May 8, 2018 by AEMom
Spelling counts

[CherryAmes]

10 hours ago, AEMom said:

When Leonard referred to Penny as a bully, I didn't take it that he was referring to how she treated him, but the fact that she used to bully people.

Leaving aside that I totally reject that Penny was ever a bully and I loath the writers for going there this still makes no sense in the context of that scene.  I wish it did.  I hope it was just the writers going to a cheap , and typically Lorre, joke and not that they are setting things up for later shows.  Because they've messed up Penny more than enough over the years if they start turning her into Beverly or another form of Bernadette this time I'm done with BBT.

[LoneHaranguer]

34 minutes ago, CherryAmes said:

Leaving aside that I totally reject that Penny was ever a bully and I loath the writers for going there this still makes no sense in the context of that scene.

I would draw a distinction between a bully and the people in their entourage who go along to get along. Penny is in the latter group; she participated in bullying, but isn't going to initiate anything herself, especially after Amy and Bernie called her out for what she had done. They did not make the same distinction. I'm sure Leonard knows what real bullying is, and it's not caving to what Penny wants so that he can get sex.

[Katy M]

29 minutes ago, LoneHaranguer said:

I would draw a distinction between a bully and the people in their entourage who go along to get along. Penny is in the latter group; she participated in bullying, but isn't going to initiate anything herself, especially after Amy and Bernie called her out for what she had done. They did not make the same distinction. I'm sure Leonard knows what real bullying is, and it's not caving to what Penny wants so that he can get sex.

I feel like we had this discussion already, but I disagree.  The person who didn't come up with the plan, but willingly drives the getaway car, is as much of a bank robber as the rest of the gang.  If you know something is wrong, but go along anyway, that makes you just as wrong.  Now, I'm not saying that you can't change and be forgiven, obviously, and I'm not saying that people can't do the occasional thing that is out of character,, but I'm just saying that in the incident she described, yes, she was a bully.

[CherryAmes]

3 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Now, I'm not saying that you can't change and be forgiven, obviously, and I'm not saying that people can't do the occasional thing that is out of character,, but I'm just saying that in the incident she described, yes, she was a bully.

What bothers me was that Penny acted completely out of character when they had her talk about that incident.  So irritating.  It was going for the cheap joke and bore no resemblance to the Penny that was introduced onto the show or the Penny she became as the show progressed,  I have no idea why the writers thought it would be funny other than to show Penny, once again, being so stupid she couldn't even see that doing what she did actually was bullying!  Aargh.  And now in this episode we have Leonard saying he lives with a bully and IMO clearly meaning Penny not pulling her name out of the air when he was really thinking Sheldon.  Again why did the writers do that??  Another "throw Penny under the bus" moment or is there more going on?

[LoneHaranguer]

8 minutes ago, CherryAmes said:

I have no idea why the writers thought it would be funny other than to show Penny, once again, being so stupid she couldn't even see that doing what she did actually was bullying! 

Not stupid. Willful avoidance of the truth, telling herself that they weren't causing any real harm, and if anything happened she was just following orders.

[CherryAmes]

35 minutes ago, LoneHaranguer said:

Not stupid. Willful avoidance of the truth, telling herself that they weren't causing any real harm, and if anything happened she was just following orders.

I'd have to watch the episode again but my remembrance of it was that they presented Penny as being stupid.  Just plain stupid.  

[OtterMommy]

2 hours ago, CherryAmes said:

Leaving aside that I totally reject that Penny was ever a bully and I loath the writers for going there this still makes no sense in the context of that scene.  I wish it did.  I hope it was just the writers going to a cheap , and typically Lorre, joke and not that they are setting things up for later shows.  Because they've messed up Penny more than enough over the years if they start turning her into Beverly or another form of Bernadette this time I'm done with BBT.

Maybe I'm being too forgiving of the writers, but I'm writing this whole thing up to a bad performance by Galecki (and/or the director, whoever that was, in charge of the episode).  If you look at the actual *words* of that scene, it could very well have been played as if Leonard answered "Penny" because he wasn't going to call Sheldon a bully to his face.  That scenario makes sense in the episode and in the show as a whole--whereas Leonard all of sudden calling his wife a bully in what seems like all seriousness doesn't fit in anywhere.

[Katy M]

1 minute ago, OtterMommy said:

it could very well have been played as if Leonard answered "Penny" because he wasn't going to call Sheldon a bully to his face. 

Leonard's never really hesitated to call Sheldon out before.  Usually passively aggressively.

[OtterMommy]

Just now, Katy M said:

Leonard's never really hesitated to call Sheldon out before.  Usually passively aggressively.

This is true.  However, if he had sarcastically answered that Penny was the bully *to Sheldon,* I would probably take that as a passive aggressive message to Sheldon.

[Mystery]

On 5/5/2018 at 8:15 AM, kariyaki said:

Sure, Georgie could’ve made it easier by just accepting the invite but I would imagine that he’s grown tired of a lifetime of making things easier for Sheldon. 

I know how he feels.

[BlossomCulp]

I can see Georgie's resentment when Sheldon was a child/teenager but I'd have understood things better if the writers had made an effort to show how adult Sheldon affected Georgie because based on what we know the only thing I can see is that Georgie is jealous that Mary will always be prouder of Sheldon than she is of him.  Totally understand his feelings but that's not really Sheldon's fault.  Georgie holding that against Sheldon comes across as petty and childish.

Edited May 8, 2018 by BlossomCulp

[shapeshifter]

10 hours ago, BlossomCulp said:

I can see Georgie's resentment when Sheldon was a child/teenager but I'd have understood things better if the writers had made an effort to show how adult Sheldon affected Georgie because based on what we know the only thing I can see is that Georgie is jealous that Mary will always be prouder of Sheldon than she is of him.  Totally understand his feelings but that's not really Sheldon's fault.  Georgie holding that against Sheldon comes across as petty and childish.

My 35-year-old, Sheldon-like daughter still resents her 29-year-old sister ostensibly for things her little sister said when she was 19 (which makes me feel like a terrible mother). So all of the sibling drama in the episode seemed realistic; I'm just not sure that they should've tried to make it funny. If Young Sheldon didn't exist, maybe adult Georgie could've been more fun in some kind of slapstick way, but the writers had to tread lightly with the adult personna of a character whose childhood is still being developed in a successful new sitcom that could earn billions over the next decade. 

 

On May 7, 2018 at 10:50 PM, AEMom said:

When Leonard referred to Penny as a bully, I didn't take it that he was referring to how she treated him, but the fact that she used to bully people.

We saw an episode way back when where they addressed that she was a bully and that she wanted to make amends.

I seem to recall Penny admitting even more recently to having been a bully, but we haven't seen her act that way, have we? Maybe Leonard's line was supposed to be funny because Penny really isn't a bully? She just has bully guilt? And so it was supposed to be funny that Leonard didn't really know what it was like to live with a bully? But it fell flat for me because the elephant in the fictional sitcom room was that Leonard's mom was (and is) an emotional bully. 

Edited May 9, 2018 by shapeshifter
Italics

[BlossomCulp]

4 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

So all of the sibling drama in the episode seemed realistic; I'm just not sure that they should've tried to make it funny.

Maybe that's why this rings false to me.  Georgie and Sheldon haven't talked for 10 years - what happened 10 years ago?  It just struck me that the writers weren't really trying.  They needed an excuse to bring the two brothers together so they decided "hey let's have Mary force them to meet up" but they never addressed what happened 10 years ago when presumably they last spoke.  Instead they roll the years back to a time when Georgie had (at least in his own mind) legitimate grievances against Sheldon.  But the problem with the main grievance was it was over something Sheldon had no control over.  Given that Sheldon is Sheldon they could have done better than that!  But of course that's not what the show is about so I need to let this go :).

[Bort]

I don’t think there needs to be any sort of catalyst for why Sheldon and Georgie haven’t spoken. They have no interests in common, there’s not much they would talk about. I have a brother I rarely speak to, not to the extreme of never in ten years, but we almost never call each other or text. There was no falling out, we just don’t have anything to talk about.

[Anakerie]

I've always had a soft spot for Georgie.  YS has shown that while he may not be a genius like his brother, what Georgie has in spades is charm and determination. He's pretty tenacious when he wants something, and I can see him having the grit to become a successful salesman and the charisma to keep it going. I thought his comment to Sheldon about "Yes, it was hard for you, but it was hard for the rest of us too" was telling.  Georgie got a lot dumped on his plate at a young age. If he made mistakes along the way, he learned from them and became a good man in the end. Also, I'm stealing "I'd rather swallow a pregnant wild cat and crap out a litter of kittens."  

[Driad]

14 minutes ago, Anakerie said:

YS has shown that while he may not be a genius like his brother, what Georgie has in spades is charm and determination.

Yes.  It might have been interesting if Georgie and Sheldon had been the twins.  Something like when Captain Kirk was split into two men with opposite personalities in ST:TOS.

[3 is enough]

21 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

If you look at the actual *words* of that scene, it could very well have been played as if Leonard answered "Penny" because he wasn't going to call Sheldon a bully to his face.  That scenario makes sense in the episode and in the show as a whole--whereas Leonard all of sudden calling his wife a bully in what seems like all seriousness doesn't fit in anywhere.

That was my take on it too.  

[LoneHaranguer]

43 minutes ago, BlossomCulp said:

Maybe that's why this rings false to me.  Georgie and Sheldon haven't talked for 10 years - what happened 10 years ago?

That's when Missy visited, so I presume their talking had something to do with the settling of their father's estate.

[BlossomCulp]

If that's where the writers were going I'd expect them to have said something.  I guess what it really came down to in the end is that both Sheldon and Georgie were presented as being petty and holding grudges from childhood.  Well whatever I'm still glad they didn't whitewash Georgie and turn him into some angel child when he most definitely wasn't! But they also let him have some success as an adult.  It would have made watching YS really hard if they'd gone down that particular road!

[OtterMommy]

48 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

I don’t think there needs to be any sort of catalyst for why Sheldon and Georgie haven’t spoken. They have no interests in common, there’s not much they would talk about. I have a brother I rarely speak to, not to the extreme of never in ten years, but we almost never call each other or text. There was no falling out, we just don’t have anything to talk about.

Agreed.  Also, if I remember correctly, it wasn't stated that Georgie stopped talking to Sheldon, but they just haven't spoken.  From what we know of Sheldon, dropping someone from his life who does't really "fit" with his world view, or someone who he sees as inferior, is not out of character--thus, it could have been Sheldon who just ceased to communicate with his brother for no other reason than he just didn't have anything to say.

[chaifan]

What struck me as odd about Sheldon not inviting Georgie absent some big falling out (that would have been explained) is that Sheldon actually understands some social niceties, like offering someone a hot beverage when they're upset.  Yes, it's a learned behavior.  But I'd have to assume that when Georgie didn't show up on the invite list, Amy would have said "you need to invite your brother".  "Why?"  "Because he's your brother, and that's what you do."  Sheldon wouldn't have fought that, he would have accepted it as standard protocol and put his brother on the invite list.

I'd rather the writers gave a better explanation, a real incident that led to not just them not talking for 10 years but Sheldon not wanting his brother at the wedding.  Or, for Georgie to have been invited, but declined to go simply because making the trip (being away from business, cost, etc.) wasn't worth it for a brother he's hardly known for a decade, prompting Sheldon to go out for the visit. 

[SmithW6079]

On 5/8/2018 at 10:45 AM, CherryAmes said:

Leaving aside that I totally reject that Penny was ever a bully and I loath the writers for going there this still makes no sense in the context of that scene. 

If I recall the episode, Penny didn't realize her behavior qualified as "bullying" until Amy and Bernadette pointed it out, so I believe Penny -- as a popular girl -- was a bully, even if she didn't mean to be. 

I had stopped watching "30 Rock," but I think there's an episode where Liz Lemon goes to her high school reunion. She discovers everyone thought she was a mean girl bully, but she had thought of herself as shy and awkward.

[Reality police]

On 5/5/2018 at 10:48 AM, CherryAmes said:

Given the way all the sibling relationships have been presented on BBT the only siblings I can think of who seem close at all are Penny and her brother!  Bernadette seems to have a very distant relationship with her siblings, Leonard never sees his brother and sister that we know of and Sheldon is close enough to his sister that he did go home for the birth of her child but you do wonder if Mary wasn't in the picture if the siblings would stay in much contact ongoing. 

That said the sibling relationship I find oddest is Bernadette.  The others can be excused to some degree by geography.  As far as we know all Bernadette's siblings live in California and yet there is no contact that we are ever told about and the few references we have to her siblings makes it sound like she resents them and if she doesn't actually dislike them she certainly has no strong love or family feeling for them.  

I think one explanation is that the writers don't want to muddy the waters bringing in a whole bunch of peripheral characters. We as viewers sometimes get upset when a character is brought on, we like them, and they are never heard from again. 

[Zoe]

42 minutes ago, Reality police said:

I think one explanation is that the writers don't want to muddy the waters bringing in a whole bunch of peripheral characters. We as viewers sometimes get upset when a character is brought on, we like them, and they are never heard from again. 

Well one of the things I like about the show is stuff actually happens off screen.  Penny had already met Leonard's father by the time we met him.  Leonard had already met her mother.  Sheldon's met Amy's family. 

Not everything needs to be a TV event.

[Cherokee2000]

20 hours ago, Zoe said:

Well one of the things I like about the show is stuff actually happens off screen.  

Totally agree with you, @Zoe.  After all, 99.9 per cent of what we know about Howard’s mother happened off-screen. :)

 

Not it to mention our knowledge of the Wolotots....

[anna0852]

 I was watching this episode again last night and realized when Sheldon made that crack about George only having a half semester of Community College that it was most likely due to the fact that this was about the time George senior died. I would bet money that George Junior dropped out to look after his mother.