TBBT 7x02: The Deception Verification

A beardless Leonard returns a couple days early to surprise Penny, but he doesn't tell anyone else that he's back so the two of them can have a few days alone to themselves. Which is actually kind of a dick move since Sheldon's really missed him. So much so that he goes to see Stuart at the comic book shop to find an appropriate 'Welcome Home!' gift. Stuart suggests an Aquaman statue.

It's pretty cool.

Despite his lack of success and hatred for life, Stuart's actually a devious businessman and manages to talk Sheldon into buying the statue for himself for $1200 and getting Leonard a 'rare' Batman squirt gun.

After making his purchase, Sheldon returns home with Chinese food just as Penny is paying the pizza delivery dude. She and Leonard are having a 'romantic' dinner, and he's adjourned to the bathroom for a moment. When he flushes the toilet, Sheldon realizes that Penny has company, although she tries to deny it. He also notices the two wine glasses on the table, and that her Chinese takeout containers from the previous night are actually in the trash can. She insists that she's alone, and he believes her, but later, when he's having tea with Amy, he starts to think that Penny might be cheating on Leonard. Amy doesn't think Penny's capable of that, but when Sheldon tells her about the takeout containers, she sees no other explanation.

The two of them go over to listen at Penny's door, and when they hear the sound of kissing, they burst in to catch them in the act.

Ah-Ha!

Sheldon's pissed that Leonard thinks so little of their friendship that he would hide from him for two days. So, Leonard apologizes by giving him a sailor hat he got while he was away.

It looks pretty good on him.

It doesn't work, though, and on their way to work the next day, Sheldon is still testy. So testy, in fact, that Leonard's unwilling to drive him to work because he's so annoying. Which means Amy has to come over and give him a ride. They bump into Penny in the hall, and he's snippy to her, too.

Meanwhile, Howard is acting like a whiny bitch. He's sensitive, and he's feeling fat. Bernadette figures out that it's because the ointment he's been applying to his mother's back is a very powerful estrogen cream and he's been absorbing it for weeks. Once he knows what's going on, Howard researches the effects of estrogen and invites Raj over to ask him if his boobs have gotten bigger.

Much groping ensues.

When the guys all meet at the university for lunch on Monday, the roommates fight, but sensitive Howard convinces them to call a truce, and later that week, Sheldon and Leonard have a rollicking good time at the Los Angeles Bureau of Weights and Measures.

What I Liked
-Howard complains that they put Doc Ock's brain in Spider-Man's body. They've done some stupid things at Marvel, but that was certainly in the top five.
-Sheldon's uncle used to wear the same cologne as the weed-reeking pizza delivery guy. Hee-hee.
-The sailor hat looks so good on Sheldon that he decides to change his Halloween costume, which means Amy has to be Olive Oyl, and thus needs to lay off the doughnuts. She has one for breakfast the next morning, anyway.

What I Hated
-Penny cheaps out on the tip and threatens to bust the delivery guy for smelling like marijuana. Not cool.
-Howard on estrogen is little more than a caricature. I know it's a little funnier, but they basically made him a super-PMS woman rather than just slightly feminine. It's a bit of unnecessary sexism on a show that's occasionally been derided for being unnecessarily sexist.
-Jiggling man boobs. They're funny, but no one wants to see that. Also, damn Kunal Nayyar needs to work on his pecs.

Final Thoughts
It turns out the Batman Water Gun actually is relatively rare, and I couldn't find a store that sells it, or even find it on eBay. The Aquaman statue was likewise difficult to locate, although I can't imagine why anyone would want to buy one in the first place. Aquaman sucks. That's right, I said it.

I didn't like this episode as much as the first one, even though it was funnier and only had two plots, rather than three. Probably because the plot about Howard and his boobs just plain wasn't that good. Man jiggling aside, there really wasn't much to like about it. These sorts of 'man gets in touch with his feminine side' stories almost always turn into caricatures of super-whiny women, and there's nothing terribly new or interesting about them. This show's really good at mining the old sitcom tropes for new gold, but this particular one's just never been funny or compelling.