photo: cbs

Original Air Date: Oct 27, 2011

Kym – TwoCents Reviewer
kym@thetwocentscorp.com

My first thought on this episode – I wonder if Sheldon’s equation would also explain why I’m fairly useless before 10am. My next thought – I love Halloween, it’s my favorite holiday. So I especially love it when my favorite shows embrace it with such enthusiasm. And I don’t care what Sheldon was saying, he was at the very least a little scared during the opening sequence. Yes, he managed to explain everything away after a moment, but there was at least a little initial fear. Then when he saw Leonard behind him in the mask – priceless.

The fun of the boys trying to scare each other is a nice contrast to the more serious threat to Leonard’s relationship with Priya.

Leonard becomes everyone’s hero this week by picking up a girl in the comic book store. She’s an artist, cute, different and actually makes the moves on Leonard, setting up a major conundrum for him. He’s clearly attracted to her, but he has a girlfriend – who’s halfway around the world. What’s a nice guy to do? The first time he gets together with Alice, they just kiss and exchange comic books. According to what he tells Penny, he never got around to mentioning Priya because there were “too many tongues” in his mouth. Remember, don’t visualize. His problem, as he further explains, is that although he is a good guy and doesn’t sleep around, he wants to be “one of those guys” that do. He completely misses what Penny tells him and what he really should be examining in this dilemma. It’s not whether or not he’s a good guy – he is, as evidenced by his inability to go through with things on his second “date” with Alice. It’s whether he really loves Priya enough to maintain a long distance relationship in the hope that it will all work out in the end. The reality is that he has far more in common with Alice than he ever will with Priya and has now ruined his chances with her by picking the worst possible time to confess about Priya. I’m not saying he should have cheated. I’m saying he should have realized the full implications of his attraction to Alice and the reality of his situation with Priya before he did anything. I think it would have been a better move for him to see this as his sign that Priya wasn’t going to work out and to jump at the chance to have a relationship with someone who would also be a friend. Instead, he blows it completely with Alice only to find out that Priya has already cheated on him, with her ex-boyfriend even. I kind of hope it’s not really too late to salvage things with Alice.

Now let’s talk Halloween pranks. Sheldon declares it “on” with the others after the scare in his office – warning them that he’s not only a genius, he’s from Texas. He tries, and fails, to get each of them in turn. It’s obvious that they were keeping tabs on him and were able to turn each of his pranks back on him. Leonard re-rigs his mailbox prank and obviously gets him good. Yeah, I’m from Jersey too – we’re sneaky. Raj is also obviously not scared by snakes, so that was a complete flop. The absolute best though was Howard’s fake heart attack. I’m surprised Sheldon even managed to try to get the needle into his heart. I guess it shows he really does care about Howard to be able to fight past his squeamishness for him. I think if he hadn’t hit himself on the head with the shocker, he might have really killed Howard for that one. He finally manages to get Leonard in the end, with his zombie bursting from the couch routine, but the timing was off. Leonard needed his friend then, not a “Bazinga”. I do hope he had the sense to apologize for that one later.

So, I’ve made a lot of comments already about my opinions on what Leonard should or shouldn’t have done, it’s your turn. Where do you think he and Priya are going now? Should he try to work things out? Or should he dump Priya and try to fix things with Alice?