The Maternal Capacitance
- Episode aired Feb 9, 2009
- TV-PG
- 21m
Sheldon hits it off with Leonard's psychoanalyst mother, but she drives Leonard and Penny to the bottle.Sheldon hits it off with Leonard's psychoanalyst mother, but she drives Leonard and Penny to the bottle.Sheldon hits it off with Leonard's psychoanalyst mother, but she drives Leonard and Penny to the bottle.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaChristine Baranski received an Emmy nomination for her performance as Leonard's icy mother in this episode.
- GoofsPenny mentions that her father stopped calling her 'Slugger' when she got her first training bra, after which point she "wasn't slugger anymore", however in The Bachelor Party Corrosion (2015) while on the phone with him he calls her 'Slugger' repeatedly so he has apparently reversed his position on this matter.
- Quotes
Sheldon Cooper: Leonard, I had no idea your siblings were so much more successful than you.
Raj Koothrappali: Yeah, you're like the Jar-Jar Binks of the Hofstadter family.
Howard Wolowitz: [Imitating Jar-jar] Oh, meesa think yousa lookin' so-so sad.
Leonard Hofstadter: You know, rather than mock me, my friends might realize that this is difficult and try to help me through it.
Raj Koothrappali: Nope, I think mocking you is more fun.
Howard Wolowitz: [imitating JarJar Binks] Next time, don't yousa bring momma to work, Okee-day?
[Raj and Howard laugh]
Leonard Hofstadter: [Leonard's mother comes back] That was fast.
Beverly: Oh, the middle stall was occupied, I'll have to try again later.
Sheldon Cooper: It's totally understandable. In bladder voiding as in real estate, it's location, location, location.
Beverly: So where were we?
Leonard Hofstadter: [to his mother] Howard lives with his mother, and Raj can't speak to women unless he's drunk. Go!
Beverly: Well, that's fascinating. Selective mutism is quite rare. On the other hand, an adult Jewish male living with his mother is so common it borders on sociological cliché.
Howard Wolowitz: It's just temporary, I pay rent.
Leonard Hofstadter: He lives in the same room where his bassinet was.
Beverly: You know, both selective mutism and an inability to separate from one's mother can stem from a pathological fear of women. It might explain why the two of you have created an ersatz homosexual marriage to satisfy your need for intimacy.
Howard Wolowitz: Say what?
[Raj whispers in Howard's ear]
Howard Wolowitz: That's basically what I just said!
Leonard Hofstadter: [to Raj] You brought your husband to work, you know the rules.
[imitating JarJar Binks]
Leonard Hofstadter: Meesa thinkin' yousa lookin' pretty sad now too, betcha betcha.
- Crazy creditsCHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #240 A wise man once told me that we are all God in drag. I like that. Sometimes when I'm in a public place or sitting at a stop light, I'll watch people walking by and I'll silently say to myself, "He's God. She's God. He's God. She's God." Before long I always find myself feeling a warm sense of affinity for these strangers. The experience is even more powerful when I do this while observing a person who is clearly suffering. On occasion I'll test my little spiritual practice by turning on Fox News. Within minutes I become an atheist.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The 61st Primetime Emmy Awards (2009)
- SoundtracksUnder the Bridge
(uncredited)
Written by Flea, John Frusciante, Anthony Kiedis, and Chad Smith
Performed by Kunal Nayyar
[With Sheldon and Howard has his musical backups, Raj sings the song on Garage Band in Leonad and Sheldon's living room]
The deadpan delivery of the guest actress, and her interactions with all the regular characters we had gotten to know well change the way we think of all of them. Or more precisely, how more precisely we think of each character's particular traits.
It was rather clever to make Leonard's mom more like Sheldon, rather than an obvious extension of Leonard. And this allowed us to squirm with Leonard, instead of going for obvious cheap laughs as the parent struggles to get along with Sheldon, like a lesser writer would have thought to do.
The line "I think I'd like to do the math" is one of the hardest I've laughed out loud at a TV show in the last decade.
- grimjack-2
- Dec 9, 2016
- Permalink
Details
- Runtime21 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 16 : 9