The
Big Bang Theory: Night of the Alpha Males
The small, impish Leonard Hofstadter of the CBS sitcom
The Big Bang Theory has had a crush on next-door neighbor Penny
since the day they first met but his shy demeanor—coupled with
the fact that the attractive Penny is drawn to tall, muscular men—has
prevented him from acting on his infatuation. In the season one episode,
“The Middle Earth Paradigm,” Leonard sees an opportunity
to flame the ambers of his romantic desire when Penny throws a Halloween
party and invites Leonard as well as his companions Sheldon Cooper,
Howard Wolowitz and Raj Koothrappali. While love does not blossom, the
scenario still allows Leonard to assert himself in a battle of intellectual
superiority versus physical strength against Penny’s ex-boyfriend,
Kurt.
When Penny
first tells the guys that she is having a party their initial reaction
is to pass, especially when she describes it as “we’ll have
some beer, do a little dancing.” Apparently “dancing”
is something the group does not do. But when she then explains that
it’s a Halloween party—with costumes—they begin to
reconsider. “Are the costumes random or genre-specific?”
Sheldon asks to help solidify their decision. When Penny explains that
there is no theme, Sheldon still asks for clarification in regards to
what they can dress as: “What about comic books? Anime? TV, film,
D&D, manga, Greek gods, Roman gods, Norse gods?” When the
answer is yes, the gang agrees to attend.
Unfortunately,
all four of them decide to dress as the Flash. As they stare at each
other in disappointment, Leonard says that it’s not a big deal,
that they all have other costumes they could wear. “Or we could
walk right behind each other all night,” Raj offers as an alternative.
“It will look like one person going really fast.” In the
end, Leonard goes as Frodo from Lord of the Rings, Raj as Thor,
Howard as Robin Hood (although everyone mistakes him for Peter Pan)
and Sheldon as the Doppler Effect.
“I
don’t care if anybody gets it,” Sheldon explains to Leonard
in regards to his black outfit streaked with vertical white lines. His
roommate, however, has other concerns. “This party is the perfect
opportunity for Penny to see me as a member of her peer group,”
he explains to Sheldon. “A potential close friend and perhaps
more.” He then adds, “I don’t want to look like a
dork,” while using a kitchen spatula as a mirror and fiddling
with his hobbit ears
Dressed
and ready to party, the foursome make their way across the hall to Penny’s
apartment. They apologize for being late—the party was to begin
at seven o’clock and it is already 7:05—but she explains
that when you say a party begins at seven, nobody actually shows up
at seven. “It’s 7:05,” Sheldon again comments, at
which point the not-yet-dressed Penny allows them into her apartment.
“This
party is just going to suck,” Sheldon blurts out when Penny explains
that there isn’t going to be a costume parade or prizes for the
best outfits. She also doesn’t understand what Sheldon is supposed
to be. “It’s the apparent change in the frequency of a wave
caused by relative motion between the source of the wave and the observer,”
he explains of the Doppler Effect to a still non-understanding Penny.
As Penny
goes off to get ready, the four guys take seats in her apartment. Later,
once other people have shown up and the party is in full force, they
are still seated in the exact same places. “We’re socializing,
meeting new people,” Leonard explains to Sheldon in regards to
why they came to a party that doesn’t have a costume parade. “Telepathically?”
Sheldon replies back.
Howard
notices a girls dressed as a sexy nurse. “I believe it’s
time for me to turn my head and cough,” he tells the others. Raj
asks how he plans on approaching her, and Howard responds, “I’m
going to use the mirror technique. She brushes her hair back, I brush
my hair back. She shrugs, I shrug. Subconsciously she’s thinking
we’re in synch. We belong together.”
While Howard
goes off to impersonate a nurse, Leonard is at a loss on how to socialize
with the group at large. Sheldon, however, suggests that he might be
able to assist. “Like Jane Goodall observing the apes, I initially
saw their interactions as confusing and unstructured,” he explains.
“But patterns emerged. They have their own language, if you will.
It seems that the newcomer approaches the existing group with the greeting,
‘How wasted am I?’ which is met with an approving chorus
of ‘dude.’” Unfortunately, that’s as much as
he’s been able to ascertain.
By now
Leonard has decided to just go for it and drags Sheldon along in his
quest to socialize. This turns out to be a bit of a detriment as nobody
understands his roommate’s costume, even when Sheldon provides
sound effects. “A brain-damaged choo-choo train?” one person
guesses, while another responds, “If that is some sort of learning
disability, I think it’s very insensitive.”
“Why
don’t you just tell people you’re a zebra?” a frustrated
Leonard eventually suggests, albeit pointlessly.
Penny’s
ex-boyfriend, Kurt, shows up at the party—a tall, large muscular
man, he is wearing nothing more than a fur-lined loin cloth. While Sheldon
believes that Leonard now has no hope of wooing Penny, his roommate
feels he is on equal grounds with her ex. “Yes, but you’re
much closer to it than he is,” Sheldon remarks. “Look, if
this was fifteen thousand years ago, by virtue of his size and strength
Kurt would be entitled to his choice of female partners,” Leonard
explains. “But our society has undergone a paradigm shift. In
the information age, Sheldon, you and I are the Alpha Males. We shouldn’t
have to back down.”
“Why
don’t you text him that and see if he backs down?”
Sheldon offers as a suggestion, but Leonard decides to confront Kurt
face-to-face. “Face-to-face?” Sheldon asks. “Are you
going to wait until he sits down or are you going to stand on the coffee
table?”
The two
of them eventually do indeed approach Penny and her former boyfriend.
The hostess of the party asks if they are having a good time and Sheldon
remarks, “Given the reaction to my costume, this party is a scathing
indictment of the American education system.” Kurt doesn’t
understand the comment since he believes Sheldon is dressed as a zebra;
he also thinks Leonard is dressed as an elf. After the difference between
an elf and a hobbit is explained, Kurt tells the two roommates to leave
because he wants to be alone with Penny. Leonard, however, stands his
ground.
“I
understand your impulse to try to physically intimidate me,” he
tells the much-larger Kurt. “You can’t compete with me on
an intellectual level and so you’re driven to animalistic puffery.”
The baffled Kurt thinks Leonard just called him a “puffy animal,”
but Leonard explains that was not the case. “Of course we’re
all animals,” he continues, “but some of us have climbed
a little higher on the evolutionary tree.”
Unfortunately
Kurt understands that comment. “I’m unevolved?” he
asks Leonard. “You know, you use a lot of big words for such a
little dwarf.” Leonard again points out that he is a hobbit. “Are
misfiring neurons in your hippocampus preventing the conversion from
short-term to long-term memory?” he mockingly asks Kurt. But Leonard
does not stop there. “A homo-habilis discovering his opposable
thumbs says what?” he inquires next. Both he and Sheldon then
laugh when the target of the insult indeed asks, “What?”
Eventually
Kurt has had enough and literally picks Leonard up and dangles him off
the ground. That’s as far as he gets, however, as Penny intervenes
and tells Kurt to put him down. The ex-boyfriend complies, then angrily
stomps away. An embarrassed Leonard excuses himself from the party as
well.
“If
it’s any consolation,” Sheldon tells him as they walk back
to their apartment, “I thought that homo-habilis line really put
him in his place.”
Later that
night, Penny sneaks away to apologize to Leonard. She explains that
she bumped into Kurt the week before and invited him the party because
he told her that he had changed and was no longer the jerk from when
they used to date. Now, of course, she realizes he had lied. Leonard
tries to console her, and in the process the two of them kiss. He understands,
however, that she is simply drunk and upset with Kurt and puts a halt
to it.
“Leonard,
you are so great,” Penny gratefully tells him. “Why can’t
all guys be like you?”
“Because
if all guys were like me the human race couldn’t survive,”
he replies back, fully realizing the opportunity he has just passed
up.
Although
the night didn’t go the way Leonard had planned, it wasn’t
a total disaster for everyone in his little group. Despite a literal
inability to speak with woman, Raj Koothrappali still ended up getting
lucky and having sex with an attractive girl from Penny’s party.
“I have to say, you are an amazing man,” she tells Raj as
they lay in bed together. “You’re gentle and passionate.
And God, you are such a good listener.”
Raj simply
puts his hands behind his head and smiles in triumph.
Anthony
Letizia (March 15, 2010)
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