‘The Big Bang Theory’ season 10, episode 12 review: How everyone spent the holidays
One of the great things that “The Big Bang Theory” has avoided over the years (at least on multiple occasions) is a recap show, and we appreciate that. What made Thursday night’s new episode all the more interesting is that it have a structure that was similar to one of those shows, but all of the content was new. There were a series of flashbacks that got us to know what happened since the series last aired on CBS, and some of the updates were interesting given that they gave you some valuable (and rather funny) insight.
Amy and Sheldon – The two parties traveled to Texas in order to spend some time with his mother, and as you would expect, it didn’t go well … but not how you would have imagined. The two announced to her that they were living together, and she was actually okay with that. However, Sheldon was not okay when he realized that his mother was only okay with it because she thought he would end up alone. Then, he wasn’t okay with it even further because Amy had gone behind his back to tell his mother in advance that they were together. In her mind, she was trying to help Sheldon with his greatest shortcoming: Relating to other people. However, she still should’ve told him in advance what she was doing.
Also, Sheldon put underwear on his head to act out over his mother saying what she did. Also, he pierced his ear before getting it removed a mere matter of moments later. This all was funny in the way most Sheldon stories were, but what made it rise above many others was that Amy showed a flaw of her own, and that was a similarity between her and Sheldon’s mother we did not previously know existed.
Leonard and Penny – This was a grumpy Christmas if there ever was one. They fought over getting a Christmas tree, they fought over carrying the tree up the stairs, and then apparently there was an animal living within the tree. This was short, ridiculous, but also funny.
Howard and Bernadette – This was a pretty painful exercise for Bernadette, as she struggled with the idea that Stuart was somehow a better mother than she was, mostly because Stuart could get Halley to go to sleep when she couldn’t. The fact that this baby was ridiculous loud made it all the worse. Bernadette simply needed support, and eventually she got it with the help of some of her friends … and also sleeping in the crib with the kids. We suppose this is one of the merits of being small!
Overall – This episode did not alter the world of the show in the same way as the last one, but there was a nice mixture of humor and meaningful moments. Interestingly, we had probably more sentimental moments when it comes to Howard and Bernadette here than we did in most of the winter finale. Episode Grade: B+.