The Big Bang TheoryThe Maternal Capacitance
Original Air Date: February 9, 2009
Theresa – TwoCents Staff Writer
theresa@thetwocentscorp.com
Raj singing “Under the Bridge” while he does a dance akin to the Running Man is the best opening ever. Of course, as soon as Penny comes in, it's all over, and instead the focus is on the very unpleasant phone conversation Leonard is having. Turns out Mama Hofstadter is coming for a visit.
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[photo: CBS.com]
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Raj singing “Under the Bridge” while he does a dance akin to the Running Man is the best opening ever. Of course, as soon as Penny comes in, it's all over, and instead the focus is on the very unpleasant phone conversation Leonard is having. Turns out Mama Hofstadter is coming for a visit.
ReplyDeleteChristine Baranski is awesome as Leonard's stoic psychiatrist/neuroscientist mother. I think she actually out-Sheldons Sheldon, who at least occasionally emotes. Her first scene is with Penny, where she shames her for being a non-specific conversationalist and a hand-shaker, and then makes her cry about her childhood. While Leonard grows more uncomfortable, Mrs. Hofstadter gets along well with Sheldon, letting him know where he can find the scientific papers on the efficient sexual arrangement of her marriage.
Leonard takes his mother to the university, where the whole gang has lunch in the cafeteria. At the urging of Howard, Mrs. Hofstadter relates how successful Leonard's siblings are (his brother is a tenured law professor at Harvard, and his sister is curing diabetes). To retaliate, Leonard exposes Howard and Raj's psychological shortcomings, and Mrs. Hofstadter announces that they've created an “ersatz homosexual marriage” to deal with their fear of women. Howard and Raj's hilarious conversation afterward about their disagreement at the comic book store last week seems to prove the point.
Mrs. Hofstadter continues to get along well with Sheldon, as he agrees with all of her logic-driven idiosyncrasies. They spend the day getting Sheldon's brain scanned together, so Leonard goes to Penny's apartment to drink off his misery. While there, he reveals that he was so starved for affection as a child that he built a hugging machine. They get drunk and end up in bed together, but then Penny kicks Leonard out for bringing up their respective parent issues in the middle of foreplay. As she should have.
Back at the boys' apartment, Sheldon and Mrs. Hofstadter seem to have a creepy foreplay of their own going, though their strange comfort with each other only culminates in playing Rock Band. While it's obviously sitcom writing that makes their coy conversation seem flirty, I'd like to imagine that these two are so far removed from emotion that they actually see no subtext in their discussion.
So let me know what you thought of this episode (which I laughed the entire way through), and how you liked Christine Baranski as Leonard's mom!
Best Lines
Penny: It's out of order.
Mrs. Hofstadter: Yes, I can read the sign, I'm just pondering the implications.
Penny: I think it implies that the elevator doesn't work.
Mrs. Hofstadter: Your Uncle Floyd died.
Leonard: Oh my god, what happened?
Mrs. Hofstadter: His heart stopped beating.
Leonard: Sheldon, you don't give your mother enough credit. She's warm, she's loving, she doesn't glue electrodes to your head to measure your brain waves while potty training.
Sheldon: You were lucky! When I was a kid, if I wanted an EEG, I had to attach my own electrodes!
Sheldon: Can I make you a cup of tea?
Mrs. Hofstadter: I doubt it, but if anyone has a chance, it's probably you.
Sheldon: You see right through me, don't you?
Mrs. Hofstadter: Only when you're in a CAT scanner.
Christine Baranski outdid herself on this guestspot! She was A.MAZING. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to pop my stiches!
ReplyDeleteSheldon & Mrs. Hofsteduentgor (seriously convoluted name!) they were funny in a creepy "something about this picture is just wrong" kind of way. But still, funny.
Poor Leonard ~ he was soooooo close! He was in the bed & still managed to screw it up.
The “ersatz homosexual marriage” was hilarious. I've often thought the same thing of Sheldon & Leonard.
Speaking of which ~ whatever happened to Leonard's girlfriend?