“I gave up the gift of sight for you! What more do you want?” – Leonard
Leonard and Priya are doing well as a couple, but Priya is concerned that the fact that Penny hangs around so much means Leonard isn’t moving on properly. He assures her that he is, and says he’ll tell Penny to heave-ho if that’s what it takes. Which it does. But when he tries to tell her, Penny doesn’t understand his science-speak, and he doesn’t force the issue. When Priya finds out he didn’t talk to her, she gets mad. Leonard goes to talk to Penny again, and she figures out what’s going on after he tells her she should move to another city and not ask questions about why. But Leonard doesn’t want to tell her to go– he offers to still hang out “on the down low”, and Penny points out that that’s not who he is, and bows out gracefully.
Meanwhile, Sheldon can’t figure out how Howard’s new magic trick works, and it’s driving him mad. He tries all sorts of experiments to work it out, tries reverse-engineering it, even tries “improving” it with barcodes and a code-reader in a magician’s wand, but he can’t get it. In the end, it’s revealed to us that it’s a scam and that everyone is playing a trick on Sheldon, but they decide to never tell Sheldon, because it’s too much fun when he’s freaked out, and so rare that he doesn’t understand something.
This was a really sweet episode. Almost just the original cast, which sort of pulls all the crazy back together. It looks like a little growth for Penny continues as she decides to be the grown up and stay away, even though she’s upset that Leonard has moved on. And Leonard wanted to go after her when she left (though he was stopped by running into a door), which proves that no matter what he tells Priya, there’s still conflict going on there, too. There’s not that many episodes left for the season, and it looks like this is going to be the big emotional ending– who will Leonard choose?
At least the end of the world isn’t involved in his decision (cough-Fringe-cough).
The show should be like this. Sweet, silly, balanced, emotional enough to connect to the characters, but not so emotional that it’s a soap opera. Everyone gets their part, and it all plays well without any of them getting too broad, too caricatured.
More thoughts on “The Prestidigitation Approximation”:
* Dear CBS, It would be really great if you’d be on Hulu like everyone else, thereby allowing me to watch your shows on my iPad, and perhaps keeping me from missing them. Barring that, it would be nice if yours weren’t the only shows that didn’t consistently record on my DVR. Barring that, it’d be nice if you allowed embedding from your site’s viewer. It’s like you have a problem with letting people access your shows. Love, Me.
* ” ‘Not knowing is part of the fun’, what is that, your community college motto?” – Sheldon
* “I’m saying, believe in magic, you muggle!” – Howard
* “Hypothetically, if I were to have access to a Lt Uhura outfit, would you wear it?” – Leonard
* “Are you familiar with Darwin’s observation of the finches in the Galapagos Islands?” “Did they make a movie about it?” “No…” “Then, no.” – Leonard and Penny
* “Where am I going to find Uranium 235 this time of night? C’mon Craigslist…” – Sheldon
* The picture above is totally from a different take than is actually in the show– Penny’s hair and clothes are all different.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.