The Big Bang Theory: The Empathy Optimization (9x13)

This was mostly a good episode, but it had a really icky opening moment that just made me cringe. Let's jump in.

Cons:

The episode opened with a brief joke that was just so stupid and sexist. The girls are sitting around talking about superhero movies, commenting on Batman, Iron Man, Superman and more. It cuts to Howard and Leonard staring on in amazement as they watch their wives discuss "nerdy" stuff. Then they switch to talking about romantic movies and how they should have a girl's night and watch all the romances, and the guys are like "ah, yes, that's back to the status quo." The implication is that women are never interested in pop culture nerdy stuff. And I, for one, am freakin' sick of it. This show has been making the same tired sexist jokes from the very beginning. WOMEN SOMETIMES LIKE COMIC BOOKS. This joke is stupid and boring.

Pros:

Despite that inauspicious beginning, the bulk of the episode was quite good. Sheldon has recovered from the flu, only to discover that he has insulted everybody while sick - he thinks he should have license to be a jerk because he wasn't feeling well, but he upset a lot of people. The rest of the gang plan a trip on a party bus, and decide that Sheldon will not be invited - they need a bit of time away from him. Sheldon, not wanting to be left out, decides to apologize to everybody for his bad behavior so they will forgive him and invite him along. The apologies all go very well, except for his apology to Emily, Raj's girlfriend. She's the holdout, and she says she won't go on the party bus if Sheldon is coming. When Sheldon and the uninvited Stuart show up to surprise everybody, Emily is upset. But Sheldon apologizes one last time to her, with great sincerity, and he is forgiven and invited to stay. Stuart gets booted out, though.

There were a lot of funny jokes contained in this rather simple premise. It felt very in character to have Sheldon take his apologies so seriously. Once he's decided to do something, he needs to do it right. And I really admired the fact that Emily stood up for herself. The others were willing to take Sheldon's apologies at face value, and return things to the status quo. But Emily wasn't about to let Sheldon insult her profession, the way he often insults Howard and the others. She demanded real respect from him, and in the end she got it.

Stuart's continued isolation was used to great effect this week too, although I was a bit annoyed that they didn't bring up the recent move-out from Howard and Bernadette's place. You would think that would have been a continuing plot point, but not so far. In any case, I loved the moment when Sheldon came to apologize to Stuart and said he was doing it because he was really sorry, not because he just wanted to go on the trip. Stuart, of course, wasn't even invited to go in the first place.

Normally I'm annoyed when this show sets up a cool idea and then never gets to it - like when they planned a prom but didn't show us the actual prom, for example. This episode ended up actually showing them on the party bus, even if it wasn't for very long, and I appreciated that we got some follow-through.

I think that's all I'll say for this one. The opening joke really knocked the episode down a few pegs, but the overall plot was pretty fun.

7/10