Episode 16 - The Cushion Saturation
3 September 2009
Review
Synopsis: Penny accidentally shoots Sheldon’s sofa cushion with a paint ball gun. He is deeply disturbed by this turn of events and is not happy with the cushion even once it has been dry cleaned. Meanwhile Howard starts sleeping with Leslie Winkle. She uses her control over university grant money to make him do things that she wants.
The Good: The show’s well crafted jokes are still present. I particularly liked Raj’s suggestion that they use a plan called “Hammer of the Gods” while playing paintball. As he explains “We hide behind the dumpsters in the parking lot and ambush people when they come to pee.” Then there is Howard explaining to Leslie that his excitement in bed is partly due to her and partly his “transient idiopathic arrhythmia.”
It was good to see Leonard standing up to Penny for once and in between complimenting her ass he said “You had your chance to be ‘we’ for like a year and a half now. Right now you are you and you’re screwed.”
If Leslie and Howard stay together for form a relationship then this episode will have served a purpose.
The Bad: But otherwise this is dull. Just plain dull.
Howard and Leslie are two undeveloped characters and they get almost no time to establish what their new relationship really mean to either of them. It seems odd that she needs to use university perks to cajole him into doing what she wants. Why doesn’t she just withhold sex to get it? The last time she was involved with Leonard (202) she said she was ready for a real relationship. So it’s not clear if her manipulation means she actually likes Howard or if that was purely an attempt to get some humour out of this episode.
Meanwhile Sheldon’s seat cushion gets way too much attention here. It’s just a dull pointless plot. Seemingly nothing could be less interesting and as a viewer you know next week it won’t be mentioned. Yes it is consistent that Sheldon likes “his” spot (from 101 onwards). Yes it is consistent that he is like a semi-autistic child who only feels comfortable in a completely controlled environment. And yes he does play the physical comedy pretty well (seeing him crouch in his cushionless sofa spot). But none of that can make up for how boring the story is. Much of the humour is just – Sheldon is a “wackadoodle” – which is hardly news.
Comic Highlight: The global recession has hit the university it seems with cutbacks in all departments. Sheldon, with brutal honesty says “Unacceptable. It baffles me why they don’t simply let some of you go so that there’s money available for my research.”
In Conclusion: Just dull, one to skip.
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