S02E17 - The Terminator Decoupling

No: 34  |  Season: 2   Episode: 17  |  Air Date: 2009-03-09  |  Runtime: mins

If you married the famous rock guitarist Johnny Winter, you'd be Summer Winter.

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Summary

On a train to San Francisco, Howard, Raj and Leonard fight for the affections of sci-fi star Summer Glau, while Sheldon is forced to turn to Penny for help when he leaves his flash drive behind.

Director and Writers

Director: Mark Cendrowski
Writers: Story by: Bill Prady & Dave Goetsch / Teleplay by: Tim Doyle & Stephen Engel

Script

Script: S02E17 - The Terminator Decoupling

Quotes

Howard: Hi. I'm the small package good things come in.

Howard: Do you believe him? Normally around women he has the personality of a boiled potato. Put one beer in him, and he's M. Night Charmalarmalan.

Penny: Have a good flight.
Leonard: Yean, I wish.
Sheldon: We're not flying; we're taking the train.
Penny: Oh, cool.
Howard: Yeah, cool. Seven times as long as flying and costs almost twice as much.
Penny: Well then, why are you doing it?
Leonard: Well, we had a vote. Three of us voted for airplane; Sheldon voted for train; so, we're taking the train.

Sheldon: It's Sheldon.
Penny: Oh, hey, Sheldon! How is San Francisco?
Sheldon: I'm not in San Francisco. I'm on a train. Were you even listening to me?
Penny: Uh, no, I was talking to my friend, but what's up?
Sheldon: What's up? I'll tell you what's up. I'm in a crisis situation, and I need you to marshal your powers of concentration, limited as they may be...
Leonard: Give me the phone. Hi, Penny. It's Leonard.
Penny: Hey, Leonard. What's going on with Dr. Wackadoodle?
Leonard: He's calling to ask you a favor. You might be confused because he didn't use the words, Penny, Sheldon, please or favor.

Penny: Okay, I found the box. Now what?
Sheldon: You're holding a Japanese puzzle box, which takes ten precise moves to open. Okay, first locate the panel with the diamond pattern and slide the center portion one millimeter to the left. Then, on the opposite end of the box, slide the entire panel down two millimeters. You'll hear a slight click.
Penny: Hang on. Sheldon, do you have any emotional attachment to this box?
Sheldon: No, it's a novelty I ordered off the Internet. Did you hear the click?
Penny: Not yet.
(she sets the box on the floor and stomps on it)
Penny: There it is.

Leonard: This conference is kind of a big thing. The keynote address is being delivered by George Smoot.
Penny: Oh, my God! *The* George Smoot?
Leonard: Ah, you've heard of him?
Penny: Of course I haven't.
Sheldon: George Smoot is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, one of the great minds of our time. His work in black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation cemented our understanding of the origin of the universe.
Penny: It's kind of a funny name, though. "Smoot".
Sheldon: (to the others) It's like talking to chimp.

Penny: Okay, I got a box, but there's no key in here, just letters.
Sheldon: That's the wrong box. Put it back.
Penny: Oh, Sheldon, are these letters from your grandmother?
Sheldon: Don't read those letters!
Sheldon: Oh look, she calls you Moonpie. That is so cute.

Sheldon: I'm confused. I thought you were involved in some sort of socially intimate pairing with Leslie Winkle.
Howard: Sheldon, let me explain to you how this works.
Sheldon: All right.
Howard: That's Summer Glau.
Sheldon: Yes.
Howard: That's it.

Sheldon: I'm back.
Penny: What up, Moonpie?
Sheldon: No one calls me Moonpie but Meemaw.

Sheldon: (after forgetting his flash drive) Oh, this is an unmitigated disaster!
Leonard: There's nothing you can do about it, so relax. Sit back, enjoy the clickety-clack of the steel wheels on the polished rails!
Sheldon: (in rhythm with the wheels) You-forgot-your-flash-drive, you-forgot-your-flash-drive, you-forgot-your-flash-drive, you-forgot-your-flash-drive, you-forgot-your-flash-drive...
Leonard: (looking at his watch) Only 10 hours, 55 minutes to go.

Sheldon: I forgot my flash drive!
Leonard: So?
Sheldon: So we have to go back!
Leonard: Ok, Sheldon, I'm gonna say "why?" and your answer cannot be "because I forgot my flash drive".

Leonard: Well, it seems once again you're caught between a rock and a crazy place.
Sheldon: Oh, I hate when that happens!

Howard: Sheldon, I owe you an apology. Taking the train was a stroke of brilliance; I've actually got a shot at a Terminator.
Raj: Oh, please. When it comes to Terminators, you've got a better shot of scoring with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Sheldon: So I'm thinking, you won the Nobel Prize, what, three years ago? So you must deal with a whole lot of "what has Smoot done lately?" My thought is we continue my research as a team; you know: Cooper-Smoot - alphabetical - and when we win the Nobel Prize, you'll be back on top.
Dr. George Smoot: With all due respect, Doctor Cooper, are you on crack?
(he walks away)
Sheldon: Fine, Smoot-Cooper. Wow, what a diva.

Sheldon: Of course, if SkyNet actually did exist in the future, a perfect way to infiltrate and destroy mankind would be to send Terminators back posing as actors who have played Terminators in popular films and television series, lulling us into a false sense of security, i.e., that's Summer Glau from The Sarah Connor Chronicles. No, Summer, don't kill me! I'm pro-robot! Ahh!
Leonard: At least he's off the train crap.
Sheldon: Whee!
Howard: Sheldon, I owe you an apology. Taking the train was a stroke of brilliance! I've actually got a shot at a Terminator.
Raj: Oh, please.When it comes to Terminators, you've got a better shot of scoring with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Howard: You're overlooking something. I have 11 hours with her in a confined space. Unless she's willing to jump off a moving train, tuck and roll down the side of a hill, she will eventually succumb to the acquired taste that is Howard Wolowitz.
Leonard: My money's on tuck and roll.

Penny: I love San Francisco; I wish I was going with you.
Sheldon: I understand your envy; this is a can't-miss symposium. There are going to be discussions on bio-organic cellular computer devices, advancements in multi-threaded task completion, plus a round-table on the non-equilibrium green function approach to the photo-ionization process in atoms.
Penny: When I go, I usually just get hammered and ride the cable-cars.

Sheldon: Okay, now you're going to insert the flash drive into the USB port... She calls me Moonpie because I'm nummy-nummy and she could just eat me up... Now please, put the flash drive in the USB port... The one that looks like a little duck's mouth.

Leonard: Hi, Penny, it's Leonard.
Penny: Hey, Leonard. What's going on with Doctor Wackadoodle?
Leonard: He's calling to ask you a favor. You might be confused because he didn't use the words "Penny", "Sheldon", "please", or "favor".

Howard: It's hot in here. Must be Summer.

Howard: Okay, Raj, hand me the number six Torx screwdriver.
Sheldon: Stop! We can't do this; it's not right.
Raj: Sheldon, you have two choices; either you let him put a bigger hard drive in the TiVo, or you delete stuff before we go out of town.
Sheldon: But once you open the box, you've voided the warranty. The warranty is a sacred covenant we've entered into with the manufacturer; he offers to stand by his equipment, and we in return agree not to violate the integrity of the internal hardware. This little orange sticker is all that stands between us and anarchy.
Leonard: Okay, then we won't touch the hard drive; we'll just erase the first season of 'Battlestar'.
Sheldon: (Tears off orange seal) There, we're outlaws.

Notes and Trivia

Earlier, in episode 1.10 The Loobenfeld Decay (2008), Sheldon (Jim Parsons) poses the following riddle to Leonard (Johnny Galecki): "Assuming all the good Terminators were originally evil Terminators created by Skynet, but then reprogrammed by the future John Connor, why would Skynet, an artificial computer intelligence, bother to create a petite hot 17-year-old killer robot?" He is referring to Cameron from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008) who is played by Summer Glau. In this episode, Glau guest stars as herself.

George Smoot is one of the three Nobel Prize winners to appear in this series. George Smoot had written to the producers of the show and requested to be featured on the series. Smoot, who received Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006, is an admitted fan of the series. The scene involving Smoot was shot at the Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California on February 18, 2008. Most broadcasts of this episode in the UK cut Dr. George Smoot's only line, because it refers to crack.

In a future episode during a flashback, the guys mention Firefly (2002) as being a show they would sit down and watch together via the roommate agreement. Summer Glau played River Tam on Firefly.

On their way, Sheldon (Jim Parsons) talks about meeting George Smoot. Leonard (Johnny Galecki) is reading a book, "Wrinkles in Time", which Smoot co-wrote with Keay Davidson.

Penny tells a friend that she only has one shot to play Anne Frank in a one-night play. Kaley Cuoco, who plays Penny, has previously played Anne Frank in the 8 Simple Rules (2002) Season 2 episode Merry Christmas: The Story of Anne Frank and Skeevy (2003).

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008) went off the air in 2009. Its finale would air on April 10th, 2009, one month after 'The Terminator Decoupling' came out.

The episode was originally intended to feature Katee Sackhoff. Sackhoff would make her first appearance on the show in The Vengeance Formulation (2009) instead.

Goofs

None

Cast

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