Big Bang Theory - The Platonic Permutation

Sheldon has an extra ticket to an aquarium dinner on Thanksgiving, because he bought one for Amy but then they broke up. Too bad everyone else already has plans!

So he has to take Amy instead - this is shaping up to be hella awkward.
Bernadette, Emily, Raj, and Howard show up to help at a soup kitchen, which is nice of them, and hey, now we've established how close Emily and Bernadette are!

Apparently Penny doesn't know Leonard's birthday! This is an embarrassing twist.. Penny's birthday is December 2nd, by the way, this is news. His is in May but she doesn't know when!

Howard will do nothing but complain. He's a greedy bugger. Amy's steering wheel seems comically large, and Sheldon wants to know if she's had coitus with any other men.

Leonard knows everything there is to know about Penny, which is hella impressive - but he read her journal! Sneaky bastard! But within like 10 seconds there, there were two things that reminded me of How I Met Your Mother - hatred of the word 'moist', and the mention of a slutty orange vegetable.

Moist. Moist. Moist. 

The rest of the gang at the soup kitchen abandons Howard to go work 'up front', while he's stuck doing the dishes. That can't be fun. It's the worst job in the world and now he doesn't even have his friends to talk to.

I feel you Leonard, I often use the word 'GAAAHHH' when I'm excited. I will admit it sounds weird out loud, though. 

Elon Musk is randomly at the soup kitchen, because that's what famous people do (also I had no idea what Elon Musk looked like) and Howard starts sucking up to him because he's a big fan, and he lies about being there voluntarily. 

Ohhh Amy, the game is totally 'fuck marry kill' but I get it, you had to keep it PG for TV. And oh hey, Spongebob reference! 

Any Spongebob reference is a good one. 

OH MY LORD LEONARD IS WEARING THE ORANGE SLUTTY CARROT LINGERE!!!! MY EYES!!! 

Poor Amy, she was doing so well and now suddenly she's all confused in the feelings department and now she wants to be Sheldon's girlfriend again. And he rejects her and now she's sad and now I feel sad too. Poor Amy. 

But hold on, isn't Howard going to be exposed to Elon Musk as a big fat phony?? This is the problem with these damn 19-minute episodes, I always feel like one of the plots doesn't get wrapped up properly.

And would you look at that, now I'm all caught up! 

Big Bang Theory - The Mystery Date Observation

Here's the thing - I have a grievance with the fact that this show has been whittled down to 19 minutes of actual content because of stupid commercials, but then they used a whole minute for a recap that didn't need to be nearly that long (they included unnecessary punchlines when they could have just hit the major plot points. Chuck and Friends used to be so good at that.)

Sheldon decided he needs a new girlfriend so that he will focus on his work again. He asks Howard and Raj to find him one and they get distracted, because that's what they do.

Jon recognizes this trope

Amy is wearing a short dress - all the way to her knees! And she finally gives Penny and Bernadette a few details about her new beau, and OH MY GOD PENNY AND BERNADETTE ARE TOTALLY LIKE MY ROOMMATES WITH THE SQUEALING and now they're planning to spy on Amy on her date - I hope mine would never do that...

Raj and Howard plan out a bunch of puzzles that a woman needs to solve before she can get his contact information. Funny - but in the real world I'm sure something like that would sit around for months if not years before anyone took a crack at it.

Oh my god! Amy's date is Stephan Merchant!! That British dude who you may all remember as the spindly-legged fellow from this video who is not Joseph Gordon-Levitt:

(But you should definitely watch that video because yes, JGL is the best part of that video, as he is in all the things)

Bernadette would make an excellent spy. She's got the equipment, but hardly the subtlety. It still seems weird to think of Leonard and Penny as married.

And OF COURSE Amy's date has heard of Sheldon! And he's a fanboy. Just wants to know everything about him. And meet him. This is the second time in three episodes that Bernadette has taken off on someone she was supposed to drive home. But she backed into Dave's car, and they came out and saw them, and freaked out over Leonard because apparently he's famous too.

Sheldon really didn't want the girl who solved the puzzle to be Jennifer Lawrence. Because she's not too busy to be solving puzzles on the Internet. But hey, it's another girl with similar hair! Played by Analeigh Tipton! I did not know she cut her hair... But he shuts the door in her face because she missed the deadline by less than a minute (and found electronic spectroscopy boring). There is officially no hope for Sheldon.

... Or for Amy.

Big Bang Theory - The Spock Resonance

Wil Wheaton is back! And so is Leonard Nimoy's son - who is doing a documentary they want to interview Sheldon for.

Bernadette wants to redecorate the house, and Howard is resistant. Now he's guilt-tripping her because his dad left and his mom died and he doesn't want to change anything because everything reminds him of them.

Aww... Nimoy's son looks just like him! And Sheldon loved Spock because he lived in a logic-based world without irrational emotion. Did you know there was a wall safe behind the whiteboard behind the giant DNA model? And a floor safe? And a security camera in Aquaman?? (Cos Leonard didn't).

No, apparently Adam doesn't count as Nimoy DNA. Only the napkin does! I'm so glad they did a callback to that, that episode was one of my favourites ever. The dialogue about Sheldon having a Wil, (a miniature Wheaton) and an actual will, 'in which he wills his Wil back to Wil' was pretty great!

Look, it's little Wil! 

OH MY GOD I FORGOT PENNY AND THE GUYS DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS GOING TO PROPOSE TO AMY!!!! They found the ring in his safe and he told them, all matter-of-factly, and Penny lost her shit, much like I did when it was revealed in the season 8 finale.

Instead of 'What would Jesus do?', Sheldon decided to model himself after 'What would Spock do?' - so maybe he isn't naturally devoid of emotions, it's a learned behaviour. And he gets upset when Penny points out that he has emotion, just like the half of Spock that was human. Bravo, Penny.

Not all houses have a space to crawl under them from the outside, some have foundations that are built into the ground... And Howard wants kids, but Bernadette doesn't, and he tells her father that WHILE they're under the house. Not a smart move.

Raj is hilarious. So is Bernadette's dad.

Sheldon decides he's off to propose to Amy, but then he sees her kiss some guy outside her building. So he turns around and leaves.

Big Bang Theory - The Helium Insufficiency

Apparently telling someone their face is 'pleasingly symmetrical' will soften the blow of bad news. Note to self.

There's a worldwide helium shortage - how the hell does that happen?! And Sheldon and Leonard need some or else a Swedish team will perform the same experiment before them. Oh dear. Also, Barry Kripke won't give them any of his because he's an ass, but we already knew that.

Stuart is using some kind of non-name-branded Tinder. Now Amy's using it. This is funny, everyone else is making her choices for her.

Oh my god, the sketchy guy they're buying helium off of is played by Michael Rapaport!! The blonde cop guy who Phoebe dated on Friends! The guy with the most Brooklyn-iest accent I've ever heard!

Weirdly enough, I remember the actor's name more often than the character's. (It was Gary)

And Sheldon gives him a vocabulary lesson - "All these years I've been using 'stalemate' when all along I meant 'impasse'. I feel foolish."

Also, because everything reminds me of The Princess Bride, this scene reminds me of The Princess Bride, because that's the movie that taught me the word 'impasse'.

"We are at an impasse"

Amy and her friends are sitting around making fun of all the guys who come up on her app - and for some reason they're all really unattractive. Are there no hot douchebags on this app?! Also Stuart - whose name appeared onscreen and reassured me that I am, in fact, spelling it right.

For some reason Sheldon and Leonard dressed the helium tank up as a person in order to sneak it into the lab... Because that's super convincing. Also they think it was stolen from the government, so Sheldon starts freaking out.

Turns out Amy already went on a date!! And they're right, Tinder would make a great drinking game!! Penny squealing over Amy's date sounded like my roommate when they found out I met a cute guy at a bar and got his number. (It was Halloween. He was dressed as a Power Ranger. Good times were had by all.)

Sheldon and Leonard decide to give the helium back to the guy, and he charges more money for it, but then Kripke wants to get partial credit on their paper if he gives them his helium, so they go back and get it again. And now they're buddies with him, because he's one of those adorably smart bad guys. That was a nice ending.

The Big Bang Theory - The Perspiration Implementation

I still can't believe they're on Season 9 of this show already. It seems like just last year Amy was being introduced (and that was Season 4).

I also can't believe how freaking far behind I am. Ugh. Might have to do one of those 'catching up' posts because I don't have the energy.

Howard is lazy, and attached his FitBit to a robot arm so that it would fool Bernadette into thinking he's exercising. Leonard has a Scrabble Dance.

I, too, am very fond of the word 'touche'.

As are these lovelies.

Stuart wants there to be more girls in the comic book store. Not likely to happen while your creepy regular customers are still there, buddy.

The guys decide to take up fencing, and Barry Kripke(!!) is their instructor. But it's serious business, apparently, not glamourous like in a movie. RAJ LOVES THE PRINCESS BRIDE!!!!!! I LOVE THE PRINCESS BRIDE!!!!!!

Best. Movie. Ever.

Congratulations, Raj, you are now my favourite.

Apparently Stuart himself is the problem with his store. Makes sense. And now Howard and Raj are both making Princess Bride references and I AM SO GIDDY! Sheldon wants to slap people across the face with his glove when they insult his honour - which, honestly, I think is a policy that should be resurrected.

Kripke is interested in Amy, and Sheldon gets mad and challenges him to a duel - but three years from then.

Poor Stuart, we all know he's a nice dude but he lacks the confidence to master social graces that wouldn't scare them away. And now Amy's trying to make him feel better but kinda accidentally made him think she was hitting on him. Sheldon randomly decides to pick up a woman at a bar, because literally he went 'oh there's a girl'.

Barry asked Amy out via text - AND sent her a dick pic. BAD Barry. BAD! But she said no. Good Amy. Making smart choices. Leonard and Bernadette are bad friends, abandoning Amy and Sheldon together in the hallway so that they have to talk.

That's just awkward...

Bones - The Promise in the Palace

OH MY GOD IT'S THE TODD!!!!! From Scrubs!! In the opening scene! He's one of the guys who was biking through the forest and found the body.

That dude. Whose underwear I have seen entirely too many times.

Christine lost her first tooth, but Brennan doesn't want them to pretend to be the Tooth Fairy - BTW when I was a kid, my Tooth Fairy was hella cheap. She only gave me a dime per tooth, and a quarter for molars. These kids are getting whole DOLLARS?!!

Angela's handsome photographer mentor friend is handsome. And Cam thinks he might be interested in *something more* than just a mentor-mentee relationship. Oh great, another reason for Hodgins to be jealous.

The victim was not a magician, but rather an escape artist, and yet she still worked at a place called the Magic Palace, which I swear is the same name all TV shows use when they need a name for a secret magician's clubhouse.

I'm pretty sure, when they were scrolling through faces very rapidly on the Angelatron, that one of those was just Olivia Wilde...

She could totally be the dead girl, right?? 

Clark is back. He likes magic - Brennan does not. Aubrey thinks that Brennan might have a point about the Tooth Fairy thing, simply because she's smart and an advanced thinker.

OK I know the whole 'zoom and enhance' thing on crime shows is ridiculous, but right there it was also unnecessary - Angela and Aubrey were looking at security footage from an ATM, and they saw the victim go into a building directly across the street. So Angela 'zoomed and enhanced' the building's address number - BUT YOU KNOW WHERE THE ATM IS, SO YOU COULD HAVE JUST USED A MAP!!! Oy vey.

Clark is trying to do magic tricks to impress Brennan, but she doesn't give a damn.

The son of the guy who owned the Magic Palace got jealous because his dad taught Clarissa, the victim, his old tricks, but he thought they were supposed to be passed down to him. So he stalked her for a few days, and saw her kissing some random dude.

OMG hahaha Cam had her signals crossed - Angela's hunky photography mentor wasn't crushing on Angela, he was crushing on her, Cam!! And he's British! But she says no-go, cos she just got out of a long relationship with Arastoo... Awks. But she smiled! Good for her!

You go, Cam! Be happy!! Move on!!

Wait, are you telling me Booth sits reading in a chair beside, and slightly lower than, the bed, rather than, oh, I don't know, ON the bed?? Beds are the most comfortable place to sit reading, hands down. But I guess you'd better not rumple those perfect sheets, eh?

Clarissa's roommate's boyfriend is a caterer, and he was using some kind of fancy truffle oil (which Booth only knew about because Mr. Foodie Aubrey pointed it out) which Clarissa had a reaction to, because truffles are a fungus, and Clarissa was allergic to fungi.

Sucks to be her, because mushrooms are a fungi and they are delicious

The roommate doesn't have an alibi for the night of the murder, but they quickly brush over that, because she was moving to Las Vegas to work in a casino, so the owner of the Magic Palace got ad because he'd invested so much in her and she was taking off... So he killed her. But he was so sad when they arrested him, kept screaming 'Why did she break her promise?'. I almost feel bad for him.

Bones relented on her Tooth Fairy stance, and gave Christine a dollar. Awww... And Booth did a fancy trick thing that I don't understand and Bones doesn't understand, but he somehow replicated a paper that had 'three US attorney's signatures on it'

And Cam called the British guy!! Yaaay!!! 

Bones - The Senator in the Street Sweeper

Nooo don't run over the little raccoon! Oh, it ran away. OK. We're good. Except there's a dead body in the street sweeper - as promised by the title. Ewwww.

So, wait, the murderer just left a dead body on the side of the road? Where anyone could have stumbled upon it? That's dumb.

Duh. Everyone knows this. 

Booth wants to put a TV in their bedroom, and Brennan disagrees because she thinks it'll get in the way of their sexytime.

Jessica (the redheaded intern) has apparently been watching Battlestar Galactica with Aubrey, which first made me say 'awww' but then made me roll my eyes because they're just instilling all of Sweets' traits in him - he was a sci-fi nerd, too. But she swears that's all that's happening, no Netflix and chilling for them, I see.

Brennan is, for some reason, comfortable talking about their sex life in front of Caroline. Hahaha love Caroline so much.

As implied in the title, the dead guy was a senator. Aubrey wants to be a politician and I love it. He's so ambitious!! He also mentioned Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, a classic movie that has been at the top of my 'movies to watch' list forever.

How can you not love Jimmy Stewart?! 

Caroline's boss wants Aubrey to run a background check on Jessica, which is kind of awkward being that she's kind of almost his girlfriend (I think?) and hopefully he doesn't fund anything too sketchy.

Brennan does an imitation of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, and I'm starting to wonder if the writer of this episode is a fan of classic movies. 

Oh dear. Jessica was a member of Greenpeace and was present when a bomb exploded near a protest  - even though they hadn't planted it - and also was on the road with the band Phish, where there were a lot of drugs, and she says "I know, I had a great time" and he made this face

This is one of the great facial expressions in the history of facial expressions

So Aubrey seems all uncomfortable about the fact that she's being all honest and that it's technically his job to tattle on her, but they he's like 'OK let's just pretend this never happened' and oh Aubrey I'm so disappointed in you... 

Then he tells Caroline (half of) what he found out, realizes that she assigned him this task to show him what he's getting himself into and what followed is the funniest conversation I've seen in a while. I couldn't find it in GIF format, so bear with me.  

Caroline: You have a bright future ahead of you, but first you need to find yourself the right kind of woman

Aubrey: You asking me out? 

Caroline: Chere, you couldn't handle me.

Aubrey: *awkward snort/laugh*

Can we get a spinoff of these two, please??

The senator ran on a platform of supporting coal miners, and then was about to sign a bill about reducing coal emissions. Which naturally upset a lot of coal miners, including a big giant dude that Caroline tried to prosecute for something before, but the witness disappeared.

Bennan is all proud of herself because she figured out that Jessica and Aubrey were seeing each other but now having problems. The senator made a sketchy 2000$ withdrawal every month and also used to go see a young lady at a restaurant on a regular basis, including the night he died. They think he was having an affair, but Brennan figures out the girl is his daughter!!

The senator's wife is somehow now going to take over his seat, because apparently that's a thing, and she's been accused of poisoning him, since she was a diabetic and had access to the kind of needle that had been used to poison him. And the axe used to hack up his body. as was the senate majority leader.

Apparently if you cut yourself on coal, your skin will turn blue. The senator was going to vote against the party, and his assistant was having an affair with his wife so he was the killer.

Brennan got Booth a TV! It's a nice big one, now they're bickering over the remote cos they're adorable.

Speaking of adorable, let's see that Aubrey face one more time