The Scavenger Vortex is an episode from Season 7 of The Big Bang Theory. It originally aired on October 3, 2013.
After (deliberately) missing the dinner murder mystery party that Raj invited all his friends (minus Stuart) to, Raj decides to make something they're much more receptive to: a scavenger hunt of his own making. Divided into teams of two, the group must travel all around Pasadena for clues to find the "golden coin", but it soon becomes apparent the competition may do much more harm than good...
Tropes:
- An Aesop: "When we're all having fun together, we're already winners!" Deconstructed as, by the end of the game, neither Penny, nor Bernadette, nor Leonard are left in any mood to appreciate Raj's intended moral.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Sheldon, due to his OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), finds it more necessary to assort and pre-soak his laundry than help Penny win the scavenger hunt.
- Butt-Monkey: Leonard suffers tremendously due to having to work with Bernadette, who gets aggressive and even violent during games.
- The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: Sheldon suspected that the bowling alley would be part of the scavenger hunt. Turns out he was right, and celebrates the fact that he brought along his very own bowling ball.
- Commonality Connection: Howard and Amy bond over their mutual love of Neil Diamond.
- Competition Freak: Bernadette. She will do anything, including lie viciously, if she thinks it'll help her win.
- Crazy-Prepared: Sheldon packs a knapsack with everything he might need to win, most prominently a bowling ball. It turns out the scavenger hunt does, in fact, lead to a bowling alley (though we don't see if he actually needed the bowling ball for anything).
- Death Glare: A truly remarkable one from Penny to Raj at the very end of the scavenger hunt:Raj: Some of those puzzles were really hard and I didn't know who was gonna get Penny!
Penny: [slowly turning her head toward Raj, seething] Run.
Raj: Okay, okay, that came out wrong, but you have to admit: you all had a wonderful time!
Penny: [even madder] Run to India. - Downer Ending: After a disappointing end to the game where Raj announces he never intended to pick a single pair of winners for the game, Leonard, Penny, Bernadette, and Raj do not resolve their issues with one another (Penny and Bernadette for being aggressively competitive, Raj for killing the purpose of the game, and Leonard for just getting caught in the middle of Penny and Bernadette's competition) and the former three are left sulking in the apartment after Raj runs off in tears.
- Drives Like Crazy: Bernadette, when she's competitive.Leonard: Um, I'm okay with you driving my car; I'm-I'm not okay with you flying my car.
- Freudian Excuse: Bernadette blames her hyper-competitiveness on her growing up with five brothers and sisters.
- The Friend Nobody Likes:
- Stuart never gets invited to anything Raj hosts.
- Nobody wants Penny on their team, with them all trying to backhandedly start a game of Hot Potato on who gets her, because everyone is afraid that, as (comparatively) the least intelligent person in their group, she would slow her partner down.
- The Friends Who Never Hang: Lampshaded by Amy when she gets paired with Howard. She theorizes that they don't have much in common outside their friends (as well as Penny warning her "never to get into a car alone with" Howard when she first joined the group).
- Get Out!: "Run. Run to India."
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Sheldon complains he doesn't want Penny as his teammate because she'll just slow him down. When the game commences, the reverse happens: Sheldon slows down Penny by forcing her to wait until he can conclude the jigsaw puzzle is pointing to the comic book store and not the train store.
- Another moment involves Sheldon trying to explain how he got the riddle just three words in, but isn't interested in allowing Penny to reveal how she solved the next clue, telling her that "no one likes a know-it-all".
- Amy also has a moment of this:
Amy: Penny's not a liability!
Penny: Thank you! Do you wanna be on my team?
Amy: Maybe we pick names out of a hat? - Instantly Proven Wrong: Leonard attempts to calm down Bernadette's competitiveness by explaining to her that the puzzle will take a while to solve, only to be shot down by Sheldon deducing the riddle just a few words in, with Amy and Howard not far behind in solving it moments later.
- It Was with You All Along: Raj had slipped a golden coin on the pockets of each member of the group, so that "when we're all having fun together, we're already winners!" None of them take this well, except for Sheldon, who arrived late and had already found the coin, assuming he was the winner.
- Karaoke Bonding Scene: Amy and Howard singing a Neil Diamond song at a karaoke bar.
- The Load: Everyone is afraid Penny will be this, even Raj, the creator of the scavenger hunt. Sheldon is upset when he is the one who gets paired with her. However, in practice, Sheldon is more of this than Penny, since he ends up wasting time on tasks they don't need to finish when they already know the answer. During the final sprint, he would rather rinse his shirts out to clean them than join in on the race to the coin. The only assistance Sheldon is of to Penny is when he immediately figures out the Riddler's clue at the comic book store.
- Only One Finds It Fun: Raj is the only one who enjoys the murder mysteries he plans. Given the resulting scavenger hunt and the murder mystery a few episodes later, it's not hard to see why the others hate them. Thankfully, his friends are substantially more interested in the scavenger hunt.
- Parenthetical Swearing: Bernadette tells Leonard that Penny called him "a big willow." She could have also said "a big cat." Sheldon thought she said "ninny".
- Rule of Three: "Let's go", following each sentence:Sheldon: To the planetarium!
Penny: Let's go!
Leonard: To the tar pits!
Bernadette: Let's go!
Amy: There's a Neil Diamond concert next month!
Howard: Let's go! - Scavenger Hunt: The premise of the episode. Raj sets up a scavenger hunt featuring puzzles that take everyone across the city of Pasadena, the objective being to find a golden coin.
- Shout-Out: To The Beatles, Eminem, "Weird Al" Yankovic and Neil Diamond: It looks like Amy and Howard are going to have a tough time agreeing on what music to play in Howard's car. Amy finds the Beatles boring and Eminem scary. Weird Al prompts Amy to ask Howard "How old are you?" But then it turns out that they're both big fans of Neil Diamond.
- Something We Forgot / Sudden Musical Ending: In the course of the scavenger hunt, Howard and Amy find that they both like Neil Diamond. As the rest of the players progress through the hunt, Howard and Amy wind up conspicuously absent. It is not revealed until the end that they abandoned the scavenger hunt in favor of going to a karaoke bar singing and dancing to Diamond's "Cherry, Cherry".
- Suddenly Shouting: When Sheldon finds out the bowling alley is on the scavenger hunt.Sheldon: Yes. Yes! My brain is better than EVERYBODY'S!!!!! [pulls out his bowling ball]
- That Came Out Wrong: Raj, when he tries to explain the ending of the hunt to Leonard, Penny, and Bernadette. He throws in a sentence where he "didn't know who was gonna get Penny". Penny, already pissed off, is now less amused than ever.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Bernadette is much more hostile when being competitive (as Howard experienced before), and she treats Leonard like total shit throughout the episode.Leonard: You're really mean, you know that?!
- To The Bat Noun: Parodied by Amy, who exclaims "To the Neil-Mobile!" in reference to her and Howard's mutual like of Neil Diamond music.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Leonard, Penny, and Bernadette have this reaction when Raj announces that he had slipped coins in everyone's pockets earlier so that everyone would win the game.Leonard: Are you kidding me?
Penny: That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard!
Bernadette: You suck...so hard!
