The Big Bang Theory: The Friendship Turbulence (7x17)

Plot! Let's do this!

Penny gets offered a role in the sequel to the bad gorilla movie she made years ago, but decides to turn it down because she feels like it's a step backwards. However, her car breaks down and she has a crisis of faith in herself. She decides she has to go back to being a waitress to afford to fix the car. Leonard buys her a car to help her get to auditions, so she can continue pursuing her acting career.

Cute! Anything that's Penny-centric is adorable to me. I love the fact that Leonard still makes mistakes in their relationship - he's trying to be supportive, but he's not necessarily that great at it. However, when they do get in a fight, he is willing to accept that he's done wrong, and he supports Penny even though he could have pulled the "I told you so" card. The car was sweet, too. I do hope that Penny gets her big break soon, though. Pretty soon, I'll start to feel like we're getting repetitive with her constant inability to get out of her rut.

While the group is sitting around at dinner, Bernadette asks Sheldon and Howard why they're always so antagonistic towards one another. Sheldon is constantly making fun of Howard's career, but he says that Howard was actually the one who started it by pulling mean pranks when they first met. Bernadette wants them to try being better friends. Howard therefore invites Sheldon to come with him to Houston to tour NASA. Sheldon agrees. On the plane, they go through some very bad turbulence which scares them both, but strengthens their friendship.

This was a lovely little plot thread... I hadn't thought much about the animosity in Sheldon and Howard's relationship. Howard has a hard time dealing with Sheldon sometimes, and here we saw that interesting dynamic addressed. The stuff on the plane was funny, especially when neither one of them wanted to stop holding hands.

The last plot involved Raj trying to find someone on a dating site again. He finds a girl, Emily, who seems perfect, but he's too shy to contact her. Amy ends up doing all of the talking, and Emily is put off by Raj's reluctance to talk to her directly. Amy and Emily get coffee, since they actually hit it off a lot. Raj interrupts to try to show his assertiveness, but he just scares Emily off.

Yeah, this was not a good plot thread. It was repetitive, for one thing. Raj is awkward around women. Ooh how original. Also, Raj made a very distasteful and transphobic joke. I was just not a fan. (It was cool to see Jane from The Lizzie Bennett Diaries, though!)

So, there you have it. Two of the plots were quite lovely, and one was not.

7/10