The Big Bang Theory was back this Thursday, with a hilarious episode called The Earworm Reverberation. In this episode, Sheldon had an epiphany about Amy (Mayim Bialik) when a song got stuck into his head, and he began to understand her a little bit more. Also, Amy invited her ex-boyfriend, Dave (Stephen Merchant) over despite their previously awkward date, though it is just temporary, and she and Sheldon (Jim Parsons) end up kissing. In a humorous subplot, Raj (Kunal Nayyar) and Howard (Simon Helberg) go on a quest to find the only fan of their band, Footprints on the Moon.
The Big Bang Theory began with Sheldon in the dark, in his bedroom, holding a flashlight so it is shining directly on his face, kind of like in the movie, the Blair Witch Project. “Sheldon Cooper’s Descent Into Madness: Day 2,” Cooper said, out loud.
“It’s…2:25 a.m, and…I feel the urge to urinate,” Sheldon continued. “My normal urination time, is 7:10 a.m. But, here I am, in the middle of the night, trying to keep my mind sharp, and my pajamas dry. It’s only a matter of time before my tenuous grasp on reality fades, and I forget what a toilet even is.”
Two days earlier, in the morning, Leonard is before a sketch board, filled with equations, and there is another one, behind him, in the kitchen, where Leonard is standing, humming a song to himself. Leonard turned around, and asked Sheldon what was up with the humming.
“Are you sure I was humming?” Sheldon replied. “I mean, sometimes when I really get going, my brain makes a humming sound.”
“How does your brain feel about calculating the surface tension of the domain walls?” Leonard asked him.
Sheldon began humming again. “Hey! I was humming!” he said. “What song was that?”
Leonard said, “Hum it again.”
Sheldon did just that. Then, Leonard asked, “Is that the Spongebob song?”
Sheldon tried singing the words to the Spongebob Squarepants theme song to the melody he had been humming. It did not work out right, at all. “Nope,” Sheldon said.
“Whatever,” Leonard told him. He added, “Can we get back to this?”
“I’m sure I know what the song is, but I just can’t put my finger on it,” Sheldon said. “My country ’tis of thee,” he began singing, but that was clearly not the right song, either.
“It’s an earworm,” Leonard told Sheldon. “It’ll come to you.”
“Okay,” Sheldon replied. “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” Sheldon then said. “No.”
“Is this what we’re doing the rest of the night?” Leonard asked him.
“I’m — Sur-prised you — have to ask,” Sheldon sang, to the tune of the song as he tried to recall the name.
Next, on The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon still was trying to dredge up the name of the song. Penny, Leonard’s wife, was in the apartment with them now. Leonard had his arms leaning on the kitchen table, looking out into the living room, where Sheldon was standing.
Sheldon was speaking into his phone, and he said, “What song is this?” He hummed, and went, “La la, la la la la. You don’t know? How dare you call yourselves the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame! Do you sing along to the Greatest Hits of Elvis Presley with that mouth? They were no help at all!” he told Leonard, finishing the call.
“Which is crazy, as rock ‘n’ roll is all about good customer service,” Leonard sarcastically told him.
Penny mentioned, “You’ve got a song stuck in your head. It happens to everybody.”
“Well, I’m not everybody!” Sheldon protested. “I have an eidetic memory. I should be able to remember what song this is, but I can’t! Something’s wrong with me.”
I told you if we were patient, he’d figure it out for himself,” Penny told Leonard.
“I was always afraid this day would come,” Sheldon dejectedly said. “This might be my first step into my descent into madness…where I gradually test the limits of public nudity.”
“Public nudity?” Penny said, looking at Leonard.
“That just means going barefoot,” Leonard explained.
Amy was in her apartment. She dialed up a number, and called her boyfriend, Dave. He said he was kind of surprised that she had called.
Amy said, “Yeah, well, you gushed over my ex-boyfriend like he was Leonard Nimoy and my ex-boyfriend was gushing over him.”
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked her.
“Well,” Amy began, “I was wondering if you would like to get dinner again?”
“Yes please! He said, like a man who was checking his schedule, as if he had things on his schedule to check,” Dave said.
“How about Saturday?” she asked him.
“Hmm…. let me see…umm…Friday, Framer’s Market with Jay-Z,” he mentioned something about Sunday, also, then added, “Saturday works.”
Raj and Howard were in a laboratory, and Howard had some sort of goggles on. Raj was looking something up on his phone. He told Howard, “Did you know that in the United Nations, there is a department for Outer Space Affairs?”
“Really?” Howard asked. “Why?”
“It exists in case we ever make contact with an alien civilization,” Raj answered.
“Boy, that is one of those jobs where it’s boring, boring, boring, the…OH, MY GOD! What do we do now?” Howard said.
Raj looked at his phone, again, He said, “This is cool! So, a few weeks ago, a set up a fan page on Facebook for our band, and I…”
“Hold on, wait a second,” Howard said. “How could you not consult me?”
“It only took about 5 minutes,” Raj told him.
“That’s not the point!” Howard replied. “when we created Footprints on the Moon, we agreed that every band decision would be mutual. Now, you’ve gone and taken over the whole thing! You know, maybe we should go solo.”
Raj got up, and followed Howard, who had taken off his goggles and walked away. Raj said, “Dude, someone joined our page! We have an actual fan!” He walked over to where Howard was, and showed him the screen of his cellphone.
“All right, this thing is bigger than you and me,” Howard then said. “The band’s back together.” He walked back to the table where he had been working with gadgets at, and Raj followed him.
“Listen to what he wrote. ‘I saw you playing at the Comic Book Place and you guys really rock,’ and, there’s a Smiley Face, raising the roof, like this,” Raj went on, motioning “raising the roof,” with his own hands.
“We did raise the roof that night!” Howard said, looking back with pride on the memory.
Raj agreed, saying, “We totally did!”
“Why do rock stars do drugs, when this feels so great?” Howard said to Raj.
“Why can’t I recall this song?” Sheldon sang, playing on his keyboard as he sat on the couch. Leonard was trying to concentrate at his computer.
“This is taking…far too long,” Sheldon sang, to the same tune he had been singing or humming to earlier. “The urge to bang my head against the wall…again, and again, and again, and again, is strong!”
“Put on some headphones,” Leonard told him, in exasperation.
“No, they make…my earlobes sweat,” Sheldon sang, as he continued playing his keyboards.
Penny told Sheldon, “Why don’t you take a break, and do something else for a while?”
“There was a project I’d been thinking about starting,” Sheldon began.
“Okay, great,” Penny said. “What is it?”
Sheldon told her, “I’ll show you.” He reached over the arm of the couch, and got his cellphone. He held it at arm’s length, and spoke, while filming himself. He said, “Dear Crazy Future Sheldon: You were driven mad by an earworm. Your mind, once your most trusted asset, is now a sack of parrots and monkeys. So, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know. First, music is dangerous. The movie, Footloose, tried to warn us, but we wouldn’t listen. No, wait — ‘Everybody — cut footloose,’ No.”
Penny told Sheldon, “I’ll give you $1,000 for whatever you cut footloose.”
Sheldon turned his camera on his phone around to show Penny. “This is Penny,” he said, “She is your friend. If she offers you food, it is safe to take it. You probably paid for it, anyway.”
Bernadette and Amy talked about Amy’s romantic plans. Bernadette sat on the couch, and Amy was standing. Bernadette asked Amy, “Are you really going out with Dave again?”
“Why not?” Amy said. “He’s really a nice guy.”
Bernadette told her, “He spent the entire date talking about how much he likes Sheldon.”
“It’s nothing that Sheldon hasn’t done before,” Amy replied, trying to keep an open mind.”Dave’s just a big fan of his work. Besides, he said he wouldn’t mention it again.”
“So, where is he taking you?” Bernadette asked her.
“Oh, he’s coming here. I’m actually going to make dinner,” Amy said.
“That’s a big step,” Bernadette replied.
“It is?” Amy asked, looking puzzled.
“Yeah,” Bernadette explained. “You’re inviting him into your home! It’s intimate. It’s where your underpants live.”
“You know what? Good!” Amy said. “I tried to get back together with Sheldon, and he shot me down. Dave likes me. Maybe intimate is what I need.”
Bernadette looked down, thinking about what Amy was saying. “Are you sure? You’ve…never been with a man. Do you really want to start with one that’s 6′ 7”? Bernadette said.
Amy looked her in the eyes, then, and said, “Why not?” Amy asked.
“Because it’s like taking your Driver’s Test in a bus!” Bernadette said.
Meanwhile, Raj told Howard, “Maybe we should post a comment back to our fan and thank him.”
Howard, still tinkering with whatever he had been working with, looked up and said, “What should we write?”
Raj answered, “How about…’We might be Footprints On the Moon, but your kind words sent us over the moon?”
Howard looked up at Raj, shaking his head, and told him, “Someday, you’re going to make an amazing grandma!”
“Well, what do you want to write?” Raj asked.
“Something bad-a*s!” Howard told him. “Like, ‘Thanks for digging our vibe! We’ll keep rockin’, if you keep rolling.”
Raj said, “If I was wearing a bra, I’d throw it at your head right now!”
Howard told Raj, “I’ll keep rockin’. You…don’t do that.”
“There..I posted it,” Raj said.
“So, who is this guy?” Howard asked him.
“Let’s see…his name is, Trent Monaco,” Raj said.
“Cool name!” Howard said.
“Yeah! He’s 24,” Raj continued, “He’s a DJ, he brews his own beer, he’s got awesome tattoos….he’s got a hot girlfriend, too!” Raj showed Howard a photo of Trent’s girlfriend, on his cellphone.
“I don’t know if he’s our biggest fan, or I’m his!” Howard said. Raj’s phone made a sound.
Howard said, “Hey, Trent just liked our comment!”
“He is so cool!” Raj exclaimed. “No hard feelings, but I’m throwing my bra at…him.”
It was nighttime, and Leonard and Penny were lying in bed, trying to sleep. They both heard Sheldon, still banging away on his keyboards, trying to come up with the name of the song.
“My God! He won’t stop!” Penny complained.
“Why does he keep coming up with more ways to be annoying?” Leonard muttered.
“Nobody knows!” Penny replied. “that’s why he’s number one!”
“Would you please go talk to him?” she asked.
“Come on!” Leonard said. “I take care of him all day long! You do it for once.” He was talking as if Sheldon was their child.
“What?” Penny said, exasperated. “Who got the gum out of his hair?”
“What do you want, a medal?” Leonard asked. “It was your gum!”
“Fine!” Penny said, getting out of bed. Leonard had a smug smile on his face. “I love you!” he said.
“Who cares?” she angrily said, leaving the door open as she walked to Sheldon’s room.
Penny did not knock. She just walked right into Sheldon’s bedroom. “What are you doing in my bedroom?” Sheldon said. Leonard was listening, and then he heard the keyboards making a terrible cacophonous sound, as Penny apparently grabbed them away from Sheldon.
Leonard, still listening, heard Sheldon telling Penny, “Why are you so strong?”
Penny came back to the bedroom, slammed the keyboards, now in a case, onto the carpet, and said, “Problem solved!” She got back into bed.
Then, both Penny and Leonard heard what sounded like a tuba coming from Sheldon’s room, playing the exact same tune over and over again. Leonard told Penny, “Oh, yeah…he got a tuba,” and he rolled over in bed, facing away from her.
The episode was back to the start of the show, when Sheldon had been filming himself talking about going crazy. He said, “Dear Crazy Future Sheldon, this…is a thermostat.” Sheldon turned the camera to show the thermostat. “It controls the temperature of the apartment.
“The ideal setting is 72 degrees,” Sheldon went on. “If you find this too cold, put on a jacket. A straight jacket because 72 is the best, and you’re crazy.”
Leonard was in the kitchen. Sheldon walked, with the phone, to the couch. He said, “This is your spot. You’re very protective of it. whenever anyone else sits here, you berate them relentlessly. It sounds mean, but somehow, you make it adorable.” Leonard, from the kitchen gave Sheldon a look, like maybe he did not think it was so “adorable.”
“People are also delighted by your love of pranks,” Sheldon continued. “For example…Leonard has no idea what I did to his coffee. It wasn’t replaced it with Folgers Crystals, I can tell you that much.”
“Hey, can we please get back to work?” Leonard asked.
Sheldon walked over to Leonard, saying, “This is Leonard. He’s your best friend in the world.”
“Just stop! This is ridiculous!” Leonard said.
“Sometimes he gets cranky,” Sheldon said. “But, you can trust him with your life, and he does more things for you than I can even begin to list.” Leonard looked at Sheldon, with an amazed and pleased look on his face.
“Thank you,” Leonard said, taking a sip of his “coffee.”
“Oh, no,” Sheldon said, laughing to himself. “He’s drinking it!”
At Howard’s house, he and Raj were sitting on the couch, looking on Howard’s phone as Bernadette walked behind them, carrying a load of laundry in a basket. “Look at this!” Howard gushed. “Trent’s rebuilding a vintage motorcycle!”
“That’s so cool!” Raj said. “Old broken things are so much cooler than new things that work.”
Bernadette paused, and asked, “Who’s Trent?”
“He’s our fan,” Howard explained.
“Fan of what?” she asked him.
Howard laughed, and turned to look at her, saying, “Did you forget? We’re in a band.”
“Just because you played one time, at a comic book store?” she asked.
Howard said, “And, at the Children’s Hospital…until they asked us to leave.”
“Dude, Trent just check into the coffee shop on Fair Oaks!” Raj exclaimed.
“Really?” Howard said. “You want to go down, and meet him?”
Bernadette could not believe what she was hearing. She said, Are you stalking him? That’s creepy!”
“It’s not creepy!” Raj insisted. I built a Footprints On the moon fan page, Trent joined it…”
“After that,” Howard said, “I just got his Profile, went back into the Archives of his feed, until I found his Twitternet…”
“…and from there, it was easy to find him on Instagram and SnapChat, and pretty much track his every move,” Raj continued.
Howard told her, “If you think that’s creepy, you married the wrong guy!”
“Maybe I should marry Trent,” she said, starting to walk off.
“Yeah, like she could get Trent!” Raj said, laughing.
“This is delicious!” Dave told Amy, as they sat at a dinner table at her place, eating.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It’s been a long time since I had a home-cooked meal,” he said.
“Didn’t your wife cook?” Amy asked him.
“No, but when she started cheating on me with a French chef, she became quite the wiz in the kitchen,” Dave replied.
“So, it’s all silver linings,” Amy said.
“I suppose, yeah,” Dave said. “Nothing takes the sting out of a shattered life, than a bowl of properly seasoned onion soup. How long have you lived here?” he asked.
“Oh, about five years,” Amy replied. “I’m actually thinking of moving to a better place, now that I don’t have to be so close to…” She stopped herself, but it was too late. She said, “Well, you know.”
Dave said, “I do. The brainy physicist guy who lives in the area. Not that I care.”
“Yeah, well, he doesn’t drive,” Amy went on, “so, I pretty much had to take him everywhere.”
“‘Had’ to, or ‘got’ to?” Dave asked her.
“My fault,” Amy said. “I ran amuck.”
“Let’s change the subject,” Dave said. “No more mentions of…you know who. That’s a cool train!” Dave said, seeing a train Sheldon had bought Amy. “Where did you get that?”
At the breakfast table in the kitchen, Amy and Leonard were on one side, and Sheldon was on the other. He was eating, and still humming the stupid song out loud. He chewed some food, and hummed again, as he chewed. Sheldon took a drink of water, gargled with it, and hummed as he gargled.
“This song is never going to stop!” Sheldon said. “Have you ever dealt with something that was so relentlessly irritating?”
Leonard looked at Penny, sitting next to him, saying, “That’s a trick question, isn’t it?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Sheldon said. “There’s a rich history of brilliant minds descending into madness.”
“Come on, Sheldon,” Penny said. “They’re plenty of smart people who don’t have mental problems.”
“She’s right,” Leonard said. “For every Newton who had psychological problems, there was an Edison, who was a total jerk. that could totally be you.”
Sheldon mentioned various examples of brilliant people who went crazy. One was Tesla, who he said “thought he loved a pigeon, who loved him back.”
Penny said, “Maybe he just had some bread in his pocket.”
“Let’s go outside the field of Science. Painters, like Van Gogh, and Polack, chess champion Bobby Fisher, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys…” Then, Sheldon had a sudden realization. In his brain, neurons fired. He heard the song he had been humming, saying, “I remember the song! It’s called Darling, by the Beach Boys! Oh, thank goodness! I’m not crazy! I don’t have to take a pigeon as my bride!”
Leonard told Penny, “There goes our shot at him living on the roof!”
At the coffee shop, Raj and Howard sat down, with cups of coffee. Raj said, “Alright, there he is! Should we introduce ourselves?”
“No!” Howard said. “Let him spot us!” Trent had headphones on.
“I wonder,” Raj said. “If he’s listening to our music right now.”
“Can you imagine?” Howard said. “What a cool way for us to meet, with him listening to our song. He looks up, and there we are, his favorite two piece acoustic SciFi novelty rock band?”
“And, he’ll be like, ‘Aren’t those the guys from Footprints On the Moon?” Raj said. “What is he doing?” Raj looked over, and saw Trent, looking as if he was picking his nose. Raj was disgusted.
“I can’t watch!” Howard said.
“It’s okay,” Raj told Howard. “He’s done.”
Howard said, “Why is he looking at it?”
Raj asked, “He’s not going to eat it, is he?”
Howard said, “Come one, Trent! you’re better than that!” He grimaced, as he was watching Trent.
Let’s go!” Howard said. They both made for the front door, but Trent spotted them leaving. “Hey, hey! Aren’t you the guys from…” Trent began.
“No! they both yelled, leaving the coffee shop as quickly as possible.
At the apartment shared by Penny, Sheldon, and Leonard, Sheldon asked, “I don’t know why it was this particular song that was stuck in my head.”
Leonard said, “I don’t know. It’s kind of catchy.”
Penny asked, “Do you even like the Beach Boys?”
“They have ‘Beach,’ right in their name, what do you think?” Sheldon asked.
“Well, now you can focus again, why not get back to the surface tension of the walls?” Leonard asked.
Sheldon agreed, saying he could already see “the way of taming the ultraviolet…” He stopped walking, and said, “I know why the song was in my head.
“Why?” Penny asked.
“It’s about Amy,” Sheldon told her.
“Okay, look,” Penny said. “I know Amy’s like an old lady, but she’s not old enough to have a song from the 60s written about her.”
“Its about how she made my life better!” Sheldon insisted. “Consider the lyrics! ‘I was living like half a man.'” He continued saying out loud some other lyrics, that he said were really about him, and how Amy had changed his entire life for the better.
“She did soften my life! She’s like the dryer sheets of my heart.” Sheldon said. He hurried over to Amy’s apartment.
Amy and Dave were sitting together on the couch. Amy asked him about his tie clip. He explained what the meaning was behind it. she leaned over to look at it, saying she thought it was neat. Dave kissed her, then apologized, saying, “No one’s ever shown interest in my tie clip before. I lost all control.”
Amy was nervous, she said. Dave told her, “I’m just a harmless giant from a foreign land.”
Sheldon and Amy profess their love for one another on The Big Bang Theory
“I’m just being silly,” Amy said. “I don’t know what I’m waiting for.’
Sheldon knocked on Amy’s door. He explained, saying, “I’m your heart worm. Not the poodle-killing kind.”
Dave said, “He wants you back.”
“Amy, if you want to be my girlfriend again, I really want to be your boyfriend.”
“I want that, too!” Amy said. He told her he “loved,” her, and she said she loved him, also.
“Kiss her, you brilliant fool!” Dave said.
Sheldon kissed Amy, then said, “Well, I’ll let you get back to your date.” They then kissed each other, again.
They continued kissing, even following the last commercial break of The Big Bang Theory. “Well, okay then. I’ll see myself out.” Dave said, rather awkwardly.
Whew! Tonight’s episode covered a lot of ground, and it was also pretty darn funny, all in a 30-minute-long show. Sheldon could not get a song out of his head, an earworm, and he thought he was going crazy. He bugged Leonard and Penny with his constant humming and other odd behavior, and he finally realized how important Amy really was in his life. He ultimately kissed her, they confessed their love for each other, and the ending was a very cool one, with them back together again. Also, Raj and Howard became enamored about how cook their one Facebook fan was…until, that is, they saw him in a coffee shop, picking his nose in public.
By John Samuels
Photo Courtesy CBS