The Big Bang Theory: A CAT-astrophic break-up

Is Amy Farrah-Fowler here to stay? I sure hope so, because I like what she’s doing on The Big Bang Theory. She delivered so many zingers on Thursday night’s episode that I couldn’t manage to write them all down. She’s actually more insufferable than Sheldon, and the reaction of the group to her presence (and then to her lack of presence) is hilarious.

After four seasons, I think the introduction of a new female character was a welcome change on The Big Bang Theory. After all, we’ve already seen Leonard pine for Penny. We’ve seen him date Penny. We’ve seen him and Penny break up. And date again. And break up again. Now he’s back to pining for her. Something needed to break that cycle. Amy’s presence on the show also lessens my worry for what will happen when Penny’s not around. Since Kaley Cuocu broke her leg, she’ll probably be absent for a couple episodes, and scenes between Penny and Sheldon are usually my favorites. But based on this episode, it looks like Amy knows how to ruffle Sheldon’s feathers as well.

“She’s not my girlfriend”

The episode started off with Shamy playing a hilarious game they invented called “Counterfactuals”, where one person reads a ridiculous question based on “In a world where…” and the other person has to defend his/her answer. Leonard tried to play, but the game was too specific to Sheldon and Amy’s peculiar minds for anyone else to understand it. Amy suggested they play something more Leonard’s speed, like Hide and Go Seek, which set the tone for the rest of the episode – that Amy is even more obnoxious than Sheldon.

When Leonard tried to tell Sheldon how much the group dislikes Amy, Sheldon countered with all the ways he’d had to “suffer in silence” because of Penny. Like watching “night after night of uninformative TV documentaries about the Jersey shore.” Point to Sheldon.

However, when Amy turned her obnoxious, egotistical critiques to Sheldon and demeaned his work by saying “Compared to the real-world application of neuro-biology, theoretical physics is…what’s the word I’m looking for here…hmm…cute.” And thus, Shamy was no more. It appeared to be the most unemotional break-up that has ever occurred, but a break-up it was. Because what happened next, no one predicted.

Sheldon “Crazy Cat Lady” Cooper

Sheldon replaced his loss and loneliness with cats. First one, then several, then a gaggle. Or a glimmer. Whatever the word was for a bunch of cats. All the cats were named after physicists, except one called “Zazzles”, because it was so “zazzy”. When the situation became worrisome, Leonard called in the one and only person who could help…Sheldon’s mom.

I love Sheldon’s mom. In fact, I love any reference at all to Sheldon’s conservative Texan upbringing. Sheldon despises his childhood, but still adheres to whatever his mom says – I caught a rerun the other night of when Penny and Sheldon were at war, and Penny won by calling Sheldon’s mom and having her make him apologize. It was great. Sheldon tried to introduce his mom to his 25 cats, but she cut him off saying “Yes, I get it. You got a lot of cats and you gave them cute Jewish names.”

Mama Cooper fixed the situation by having Amy come over for dinner and declaring that it was for the best that Sheldon and Amy no longer saw each other, because they were clearly not suited for one another. Well played, Mama Cooper. Well played. I feel like she would get along really well with Penny.

I did have one problem with the episode – it suddenly got very “Outsourced” with a lot of ha-ha-Raj-talks-funny jokes. When did this happen? The show was not always like that! The jokes weren’t that funny, and when I’m not laughing I notice the laugh track more, which is not OK. Please do not go down this road, Big Bang Theory peoples. Cultural jokes can be done well, but they weren’t in this episode.

Still, that’s a pretty small complaint about an otherwise great episode. Here are some more hilarious moments and quotes from “The Zazzle Substitution”: