TBBT 6x10: The Fish Guts Displacement

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Two plots this week. In the first, Sheldon agrees to attend a memorial service with Amy, but when he gets to her apartment to pick her up, she's too sick to go. Thus, by the terms of their relationship agreement, he is legally obligated to take care of her.

Legally obligated caring is the best kind of caring.

His bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired, so at first Amy wants him to leave her alone to let her get some rest. However, his care regimen involves rubbing Vapo-Rub all over her chest and bathing her, which is the only physical contact she'll be able to get from him, so she quickly changes he mind and really starts enjoying herself. Unfortunately she gets better before she's done having fun, so she has to fake it. Sheldon's no fool, though, so he takes a cheek swab when she's sleeping and when the results come back negative, her ruse is exposed, and he decides she needs to be punished.

And she's been a very bad girl.

In the second plot, Howard and Bernadette have dinner with her parents. I was actually under the impression that her mother was dead, so maybe it's her stepmother or something. At any rate, Howard and Bernadette's dad don't really related to one another all that well, so Bernie suggests that Howard tag along on her dad's upcoming fishing trip. Unfortunately, Howard doesn't know how to fish and neither do any of the other guys, so they have to go to the manliest person they know for advice.

It's her femininity that brings all the boys to the yard.

Penny teaches them how to put a worm on a hook and gut a fish, so Howard's ready to go. He still doesn't want to, and Bernadette's dad doesn't want to take him. They're only doing it because their wives made them, even though Howard's an astronaut and Bernie's dad is a big, scary cop. They cancel the trip, but since their wives still expect them to be gone all weekend, they head to an Indian casino near Palm Springs to shoot craps. That's some good male bonding.

What I Liked
-Spider-Man can't have sex with a spider. Yeah, that theme song was highly inaccurate.
-Howard is willing to eat raw chicken to get the awkward dinner over with more quickly. That's an excellent plan, and I shall have to remember it.
-The only father-son time Raj had was when his dad would take him to his gynecology office. Best father ever.
-Sheldon's dad had driving whiskey. That's something they just don't let you have these days. Damned conservative fundamentalists ruin everything.
-Bernadette's dad likes to use a big shell when he's duck hunting so he can watch them blow up. It's the simple pleasures that make life worth living.

What I Hated
-The first place Sheldon goes to when trying to pick a punishment for Amy is physical violence. I know it was just for a gag, but that still seems a bit wrong.

Final Thoughts
The plots weren't terribly memorable, but they actually managed to squeeze in a little bit of character development this week. Sheldon genuinely cares enough about Amy that he wouldn't violate a contractual agreement to get out of it, and Howard and Bernadette's dad got to find some common ground. Even Amy got a little bit of growth as we now know she has a bit of a kinky side; not all women like to be spanked.

Normally, I wouldn't rate this quite so highly, but thanks in large part to Mayim Bialik's hilarious acting, this episode hit 39 on the "Who am I kiddng?" Laugh-o-Meter. That's impressive, and it must be recognized. I think it's a one-off, though because they can't really go back to the "Amy needs some lovin'" well too many times before it becomes stale. They're definitely getting to the point where she and Sheldon are going to need to have legitimate intercourse, though. Relationships either progress, or they die, and I don't think they'd be able to keep Amy on the show if she weren't dating Sheldon.