The Big Bang Theory season finale recap: Leonard, Priya, Penny, and Raj, oh my!

It is true that in the annals of season finale cliff-hangers, last night’s The Big Bang Theory ranks nowhere near, say, the season 3 finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation (Picard goes borg!), or the season 1 finale of Lost (“Waaaaaaaaaalt!”). But still, in Big Bang terms, the final scene of the final episode of Big Bang‘s fourth season was one humdinger: Leonard and Priya on the precipice of breaking up after he learned she’s planning on going back to India; Howard reeling from his fiancée Bernadette’s wild professional and financial success; Raj possibly supplanting Leonard as Sheldon’s roommate; and, oh right, Penny and Raj drunkenly falling into (Leonard’s) bed together, and everyone else discovering them the morning after. “It’s not what it looks like,” Penny lied, before scooting herself out of the apartment. “What does it look like?” asked Sheldon. Cut to Chuck Lorre’s title card, and see ya in September!

It was a great way to end a great season, even if it means Lorre & Co. are going to continue to force Leonard and Penny to dance the will-they-or-won’t-they, off-and-on-and-off-again tango for the foreseeable future. Although now that Penny’s realized what a catch Leonard truly is (the man is the king of foreplay, after all), maybe things will work out after all—oh who am I kidding she slept with one of Leonard’s closest friends. Things will never quite be the same, or at least they shouldn’t be.

So how did we get here? It started, as things often have recently on Big Bang, at the Cheesecake Factory, where Penny and the rest of the gang (including Priya) made good sport of Leonard’s lactose intolerance. Even Sheldon joined in on the fun, albeit unintentionally, when he noted that Penny’s “gas-filled Macy’s day” balloon joke was inaccurate: “Macy’s balloons are filled with helium, whereas Leonard produces copious amounts of methane.” Everyone laughed, and only then did Sheldon realize he’d made a funny. (I’m not the only one instantly reminded of Lt. Commander Data, right?) (Yes, that’s my second TNG reference; this is a Big Bang Theory recap, I’m entitled.) Then Bernadette showed up with great news: She’d landed her Ph.D, and a pharmaceutical company snatched her up for a “buttload” of money. Which allowed Leonard to shift the spotlight of ridicule from his noxious buttload onto Howard’s lack of a doctorate and lowly status as his relationship’s secondary breadwinner. Emasculation is always hilarious!

This particular story line remained in the background for most the episode — much like Howard himself this season — but I did quite enjoy the bedroom scene in which Bernadette told Howard she had volunteered for the premature ejaculation project. (“I mean, it’s not like either one of us has heart disease.”) Then she gave him a gold Rolex, and when he asked how much it cost, Bernadette just shook her head. “Oh, you let me worry about the money. I just want my baby to have pretty things.” Try as he might to be the secure, supportive fiancé, this proved to be too much for Howard, and he eventually ended up at Sheldon’s to lick his wounded pride.

This rift between Howard and Bernadette was a mere scratch, though, in comparison to the seemingly irreparable fissure growing between Leonard and Priya. Once again shooed away from the prospect of meeting Priya’s parents via video chat, Leonard nonetheless overheard Mama Koothrappali mention that her daughter was returning to India the following month. This was news to Leonard, so he crashed the web chat, introducing himself as Priya’s boyfriend. “What difference does it make?” he protested. “If you’re moving back to India, we’re obviously breaking up!” Rather than deal, Priya just bailed. The writers left just enough room here for the couple to miraculously patch things up, but I doubt it — and, more to the point, I sincerely hope they don’t. Aarti Mann has done a fine job as Priya, but as a character she’s simply too normal (read: boring) for Big Bang‘s kooky universe, and I have zero investment in her and Leonard as a couple. These two kids should just move on.

NEXT: Raj moves in with Sheldon, and in on Penny

Things weren’t always quite so tense between Priya and Leonard, of course. At the beginning of the episode, they were happily partaking in some costumed Star Trek sexual roleplaying, with Leonard as Kirk and Priya as Uhura — within earshot of Priya’s brother Raj. “Open the landing bay doors,” cooed Leonard. “Shuttle craft approaching!” Yeah, if I were Raj, I’d’ve transported myself out of there too, and thus began the central, and by far most satisfying story line of the night.

Raj first tried to crash at Howard’s home, but he was on his way out to see Bernadette, and the prospect of “playing doctor” with Howard’s mother proved to be a dealbreaker. By the way, it just struck me how long it’s been since Howard and Raj shared a story line together; I suppose Raj’s quietly unrequited crush on Bernadette is keeping the two seeming besties apart? ‘Tis a pity.

So Raj instead found himself crashing at Leonard and Sheldon’s, in Leonard’s bed, but not before Raj signed a form indemnifying Sheldon from the consequences of sleeping in Leonard’s bed, and became fully acquainted with the emergency exit system. (Of course Sheldon used glow paint to create lighting directing occupants to the exits in case of a power outage. And of course someone in the comments is going to point out that said lights were missing the last time the lights were shut off, much like Sheldon Cooper would if he were a fan of this show. And thus life comes full circle.) The arrangement worked out so well that when Leonard came home the next day, he and Raj quickly agreed to swap apartments until Priya “gets her own place.” (Oh, Leonard, you adorable fool.)

I expected the next scene in this story line to be Sheldon strenuously objecting to the roommate change on the grounds that he is generally terrified of any and all change. Instead, Sheldon dove in to the prospect of Raj as a “roommate pro tem” with gusto; it seems he’d already taken the liberty of acquiring a blood sample from Raj the previous night. We learned that Sheldon’s roommates not only have to sign a roommate agreement, but also a living will and durable power of attorney. On the plus side, they get to pull the plug on Sheldon too, and a super neat ID card and lapel pin. (Any eagle-eyed viewers get a good look at that pin, by the way? It looked vaguely like an unadorned Christmas tree to me, but that just does not seem that Sheldon Cooper-esque.) And if Raj has any questions, explained Sheldon, “I do a live web chat called Apartment Talk on Tuesday nights.” Paging FunnyOrDie…

It turns out Raj is a pretty fabulous roommate. He arranged their Thai dinner like a self-described “brown Martha Stewart,” complete with candlelight and red wine. “Remarkable!” Sheldon raved. “I’m just realizing how much Leonard’s been skating by all these years.” Into this tableau marched Penny seeking Sheldon’s new WiFi password (“pennygetyourownwifi”). She was surprised to learn that Leonard and Raj had swapped places, plopped herself down to join the dinner, and promptly got herself good and sozzled with Raj.

From the start of this scene, it seemed baldly obvious where the plot was headed, and then Penny went and proferred this confession to Raj: “I screwed up. Leonard’s a great guy. Never should have broken up with him.” Raj, in turn, offered his own self-pity party: “Well, to paraphrase Shakespeare, it’s better to have loved and lost than stay home every night and download increasingly shameful pornography.” Yep, I thought, these two are totally doing it, and yet it was still rather shocking to see Raj’s arm draped over Penny as the two slept together in Leonard’s bed. One question: I laughed out loud after Raj was still unable to speak to Penny here, and yet don’t you think this was the perfect time for Raj to finally be rid of his selective mutism? That could have been a great exclamation point to their besotted rendezvous, and helped further complicate the fantastic knot the writers have left for themselves to untangle come the start of season 5. Ah, well.

NEXT: Amy teaches Sheldon to touch himself

BEST SCENE

It’s a tie. Sheldon, Penny, and Raj’s drunken dinner was pretty near perfect (see best lines and exchanges below), but I also have to acknowledge the hilarious mini-scene between Sheldon and Amy Farrah Fowler (who we met one year ago!), as she guided Sheldon on how to work out a knot in his own neck. At first Sheldon thought the notion “sounds like a lot of unnecessary touching,” but quickly, under Amy’s tutelage, Sheldon was in ecstasy: “Amy, I’ve never been touched like this before! My hands are magic!” Just like that, the Big Bang writers got to have their cake and eat it too. Sheldon remains technically unspoiled, and yet Amy still somehow got to second base with him. (For Sheldon, a neck massage over video chat is second base.)

BEST SCIENCE

Easy. This line, from Penny to Raj: “You know, if we weren’t friends…I would be on you like the speed of light squared on matter to make energy.” (That is, E = mc2.)

BEST GEEKERY

You may think I’d go for Leonard and Priya’s Star Trek sex, but instead I was tickled by Raj’s reaction to it.

Leonard: “We’re 10 miles above Earth in a starship.”

Raj: “Really, 10 miles? You’re orbiting inside the atmosphere? Moron.”

BEST LINES AND EXCHANGES

Howard’s mom, about Raj: He’s a doctor too, right? Like Leonard and the skinny weirdo?!

Penny: Wow, Priya and Leonard are living together? That’s big.

Sheldon: No. Origami napkin swans? That’s the headline.

Sheldon: Man is not the only species that ferments fruit in order to become intoxicated. Can you guess what the other is? Hint: Sometimes they pack the alcohol in their trunks.

Penny: [Beat] Monkeys!

Sheldon: When does a monkey have a trunk?

Penny: When a suitcase just won’t do!

Leonard, to Priya’s father, awkwardly trying to make conversation: So, hot in India?

Priya’s father: Of course it is. It always is. It’s India!

Sheldon, to Leonard: What are you doing here?

Leonard: I live here!

Sheldon: I have paperwork that says differently.

What did you make of “The Roommate Transmogrification,” fellow Big Bang theorists? Was it a satisfying season finale? Do you hope Priya and Leonard are dunzo? Will Howard get over Bernadette’s superior status? Should Raj and Sheldon make their roommateship permanent? How are you feeling about all these plot lines that have been left to dangle all summer? And could you have done without learning that “mouth-to-mouth Mona” had once “dated” Howard?

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