The Big Bang Theory series finale review: A prize, a pregnancy, and a guest star
Tonight, The Big Bang Theory series finale delivered humor, major revelations, romance, and also change — plenty of change.
Where do we begin? We do think that a lot of it began tonight with simply this: Sheldon and Amy won a Nobel Prize! That motivated a lot of the story, especially when Sheldon realized that this prompted a wave of unexpected change. Reporters started to hound them, Raj gave Amy a makeover, and all of this caused him to panic. Then, there was also this: The elevator was fixed! It was such a silly little thing, but it’s been such an important part of the series over the years. It was strange to see it back, but it was nice to see that Penny, of all people, was the one who helped calm Sheldon down. She’s been a surprising conduit for him before and here, she was once more as he started to accept the present and prepare for what’s next.
Then, in part 2 of the series finale, the next big surprise dropped: Penny was pregnant! She and Leonard didn’t want to tell everyone right away, as they were on the way to Stockholm in order to celebrate Sheldon and Amy’s big Nobel Prize victory. Unfortunately, this was not a secret they could keep all that long. After Penny started throwing up, Sheldon’s not-so-subtle detective skills led to her cluing him in on the truth. Then, he was a jerk about it. He didn’t congratulate her at all on her pregnancy, and that led to one of the larger fights that the two parties head.
While all of this was going on, Howard and Bernadette were having a major crisis of their own — they were getting worried about their kids and were in constant debate about if they should go back home or not. After Sheldon downplayed their importance, they decided that they should go home … and the same went for Leonard and Penny. They strongly considered heading back to California, but eventually, they decided to stay just because 1) they cared for Amy and 2) they’d also been on this journey for so long already.
The speech that Sheldon gave at the end of the episode, in front of everyone in the Nobel community, was deeply moving. He actually did recognize that it was his friendships, in addition to his genius, that really got him to the place that he was it. It wasn’t just all about him and his science. We didn’t expect to be choked up watching this series finale, but this quickly proved to be the case the moment that this speech really got moving.
Your random celebrity guest star
It’s … Sarah Michelle Gellar? Apparently, she met Raj on the airplane and decided to go the ceremony with him … we guess? We’re not sure she was all that happy to be there, so we think Raj just must’ve begged her as a favor.
CarterMatt Verdict
While executive producer Chuck Lorre hasn’t exactly had the best luck with series finale (check out Two and a Half Men), this series finale totally delivered. There was a lot of humor in here, great callbacks to some things in the past, and also a recognition of one of Sheldon’s greatest flaws and also some sort of work on his part to fix it.
What did you think about tonight’s The Big Bang Theory series finale? Be sure to share in the comments.