‘The Big Bang Theory’ season 9, episode 7 review: Sheldon’s engagement ring enters the fray again

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Who knew that an episode of “The Big Bang Theory” about Spock and his son would end up being so poignant and powerful in the end? “The Spock Resonance” was a strange half-hour of television, but it may be the most important one for the series in some time, or at least since the wedding of Leonard and Penny.

We suppose that at the moment, the top story from the episode is seeing Sheldon realize that Amy was actually dating other people, right when he claimed he was going to put his money where his mouth was by giving her a full-fledged marriage proposal. Do we think that it was going to work? Probably not, since he still has to learn to treat her with respect before she should say yes to spending the rest of her life with him. This was still a huge emotional blow, and the uniqueness and greatness of this character helps in some ways to compensate for the happenstance of him seeing her say farewell to her date, something that occurs on almost every sitcom known to mankind.

We feel for Sheldon in a way, even if he did put a lot of this on himself. We still didn’t think he would deserve having his personal meltdown coming right in the middle of filming Adam Nimoy’s documentary with Wil Wheaton in the room. (By the way, we love the callback to the Spock napkin, a wonderful scene from many years ago.)

Elsewhere, we have the story of Howard and Bernadette, and further questions regarding whether the two will have children someday. It was in character for Bernadette to lie to her dad about whether or not Howard wanted children, since she did not want to face her own problems. It was nice to have a window into this character’s soul for a change. For the most part, she is a woman who spends much of her time having to keep Howard in line that we don’t see her vulnerabilities or her flaws. Also, having it channeled through an appearance from the great Casey Sander was icing on the cake.

These stories, coupled with funny moments about wall safes and Raj pestering Howard, made for a great episode of the show. Pound for pound, it may be the best of the season in terms of combining humor with significant character revelations. Grade: A-.

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