‘The Big Bang Theory’ season 10, episode 6 review: Penny’s past comes back; Howard’s minivan
We’re not going to tell you that anything incredibly significant happened on Thursday night’s new episode of “The Big Bang Theory.” However, we’re not going to pretend that we hated it. “The Fetal Kick Catalyst” proved to be a rather funny half-hour, and one that introduced a few different storylines that we’ve been waiting to see coming.
First and foremost, we had Penny starting to embrace more of her past as an actress, in particular her starring role in “Serial Ape-ist.” She participated in a Comic-Con to earn some extra money on autographs, and eventually founding herself taking money from guys who either A) hated her movie or B) watched it mostly to see a certain part of her anatomy. Eventually, though, we saw the show take an interesting turn when she started to tell some of the guys in attendance as to how she managed to end up with Leonard. This was ridiculous, but also funny at the same time.
Meanwhile, Sheldon ended up throwing his first-ever brunch party with Amy, but things took an awkward turn when Stuart started to realize that he, Burt, and the downstairs neighbor were only invited because they were the bottom of the barrel when it comes to friends and were being used as a trial run. It was nice to see Stuart in this capacity, standing up for himself somewhat rather than being the pathetic sometimes-loser who will take any affection handed down to him. This showed a little more of a backbone.
Finally, Howard ended up buying a minivan with Raj (and a crib!) after he realized that he is not anywhere near ready for a child. This was probably the weakest part of the episode, mostly because it feels like the show is having a hard time giving Howard and Bernadette much else to do other than talk about her pregnancy. It is an important part of their lives now, but this story was perhaps a little too expected.
Overall, though, we’d say that this episode was a worthy return for the show to Thursday nights. Grade: B.