S03E01 - The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation

No: 41  |  Season: 3   Episode: 1  |  Air Date: 2009-09-21  |  Runtime: mins

Raj is it? You still having trouble talking to the ladies?

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Summary

After returning from the North Pole, a conflict among the guys sends Sheldon back to Texas and interferes with Leonard's reunion with Penny.

Director and Writers

Director: Mark Cendrowski
Writers: Steven Molaro

Script

Script: S03E01 - The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation

Quotes

Penny: Soft kitty, warm kitty...
Sheldon: That's for when I'm sick. Sad is not sick.
Penny: Oh, sorry. I don't know your sad song.
Sheldon: I don't have a sad song. I'm not a child.

Howard: Hey, how's Sheldon doing?
Leonard: Well, he came out of his room this morning wearing his Darth Vader helmet and tried to choke me to death with the Force, so I'd say... a little better.

Leonard: I don't want to go to Texas!
Howard: Oh, right, and I do? My people already crossed the desert once. We're done!

Leonard: Oh, thank God we're home!
Howard: I can't believe we spent three months in that frozen hell.
Raj: It was like a snowy nightmare from which there was no awakening.
Sheldon: I don't know what Arctic expedition you guys were on, but I thought it was a hoot and a half.

Leonard: How about that? I finally caught a break.
Penny: Uh-huh.
Leonard: You know how they say when friends have sex it can get weird?
Penny: Sure.
Leonard: Why does it have to get weird?
Penny: I don't know.
Leonard: I mean, we were friends, and now we're more than friends. We're whatever this is. But why label it, right? I mean, it is what it is and...
Penny: Leonard?
Leonard: Yeah.
Penny: It's weird.
Leonard: Totally.

Howard: (about his moustache) I call it the Clooney.
Raj: I call it the Mario and Luigi, but whatever.

Leonard: It was the only way to make him happy.
Penny: Why did you have to make him happy?
Leonard: Because when he wasn't happy, we wanted to kill him. There was even a plan! We were going to throw his Kindle outside and when he went to get it, lock the door and let him freeze to death.
Sheldon: That seems like a bit of an overreaction!
Leonard: No. The overreaction was the plan to tie your limbs to four different sled dog teams and yell "mush!"

(repeated line)
Leonard: (trying to get intimate with Penny) Man, I cannot catch a break!

Leonard: Will you please take that stupid hat off?
Howard: No, I want to blend in.
Raj: To what? Toy Story?

Sheldon: I realize you're currently at the mercy of your primitive biological urges, but as you have an entire lifetime of poor decisions ahead of you, may I interrupt this one?

Sheldon: While I do not currently have a scathing retort, you check your email periodically for a doozy.

Mary: (Sheldon is about to take some food) Ah ah! We pray in this house. This is not California, home of the heathen. Gimme.
(Sheldon somewhat reluctantly puts down the food, wipes off his hand, then takes Mary's hand)
Mary: By His hand we are all...
Sheldon: Fed.
Mary: Give us, Lord, our daily...
Sheldon: Bread.
Mary: Know that we are truly...
Sheldon: Grateful.
Mary: For every cup and every...
Sheldon: Plateful.
Mary: Amen. Now that wasn't so bad, was it, Shelly?

Leonard: I can't believe you bought a red cowboy hat.
Howard: Hello? I'm wearing a red turtleneck. Plus it was the only boys' large they had.

Mary: If you recall when you were little, we sat right here at this very spot and we talked about some of the problems you had getting along with the neighbor kids.
Sheldon: That was different. They were threatened by my intelligence and too stupid to know that's why they hated me.
Mary: Oh, baby, they knew very well why they hated you.

Sheldon: (to his "spot" on the couch) Hello, old friend.
(Sits down)
Sheldon: Daddy's home.

Leonard: (Whispering) Do not make a sound.
Sheldon: Whispering "do not make a sound" is a sound.
Leonard: Damn his Vulcan hearing!

Leonard: Hey. Listen, since we got, you know, interrupted last night, I didn't have a chance to give you this.
Penny: Oh, Leonard, you shouldn't have. Oh, boy! What is it?
Leonard: It's a snowflake. From the North Pole.
Penny: Are you serious?
Leonard: Uh-huh. It'll last forever. I preserved it in a one percent solution of polyvinyl acetal resin.
Penny: Oh, my God. That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me that I didn't understand.

Sheldon: No, Mother, I could not feel your church group praying for my safety. The fact that I'm home safe does not prove that it worked. That logic is post hoc ergo propter hoc... No, I'm not sassing you in Eskimo talk.

Sheldon: Did Leonard know about this? Leonard's my best friend in the world. Surely, Leonard didn't know.
Howard: Actually, it was his idea.
Sheldon: Of course it was. The whole plan reeks of Leonard.

Sheldon: I just want you both to know when I publish my findings, I won't forget your contributions.
Howard: Grace.
Sheldon: And of course, I can't mention you in my Nobel acceptance speech, but when I get around to writing my memoirs, you can expect a very effusive footnote, and perhaps a signed copy.

Penny: Leonard, you're back!
Leonard: Yeah, I just stopped by to...
(Penny grabs Leonard and kisses him)
Leonard: (taken completely by surprise) Yeah, so, hi.
Penny: Hi!
(Penny pulls Leonard into her apartment and slams the door)
Howard: Damn it, I should have gone over and told her we were back.
Raj: (sarcastically) Yeah, it was first come, first serve.

Penny: Well, wait a second, Leonard, come on, how can you not go? He's your best friend.
Leonard: Well, I already saw him naked. Come here.
Penny: No. I promise I will be here when you get back. Just go help Sheldon.
Leonard: Really?
Penny: Yeah. We waited a few months. We can wait a few more days.
(they kiss)
Leonard: Maybe *you* can.

Howard: Sheldon, you remember the first few weeks we were looking for magnetic monopoles and not finding anything, and you were acting like an obnoxious giant dictator?
Raj: I thought we were going to be gentle with him.
Howard: That's why I added the "tator".

Raj: (Whispering) We have to tell him.
Sheldon: Tell me what?
Howard: Damn his Vulcan hearing.

Raj: I'm sorry, this does not look like Texas. Where's the tumbleweeds? Where's the saloons?
Leonard: Saloons?
Raj: Yeah, like in the movies I saw growing up in India. You know, Four For Texas, Yellow Rose of Texas...
Howard: This neighborhood is more Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Raj: I was really hoping to see a cattle drive.
Leonard: What can I tell you? They probably have steaks on sale at that big-ass Costco over there.

Sheldon: This is my home now. Thanks to you, my career is over and I'll spend the rest of my life here in Texas, trying to teach evolution to creationists.
Mary: You watch your mouth, Shelly. Everyone's entitled to their opinion.
Sheldon: Evolution isn't an opinion, it's fact.
Mary: And that is your opinion.
Sheldon: (to the others) I forgive you. Let's go home.
(leaves)
Mary: Don't tell me prayer doesn't work.

Penny: You know, I do understand what you're going through.
Sheldon: Really? Did you just have the Nobel prize in waitressing stolen from you?

Notes and Trivia

Howard previously referred to cyanoacrylates in episode 2.18, The Work Song Nanocluster (2009), as Leonard attempts to define them in this episode.

In the commentary for this episode on the DVD release, the actors actually grew real beards for filming, but they were told to shave them so that the make-up department could put fake ones on. It is never stated why this decision was made.

Just before the first shot of Sheldon with his mother in Texas, there is one of the shots of atoms used to separate scenes. One of the electrons orbiting the nucleus is decorated with the Texan flag.

Leonard preserves a snowflake in a solution of polyvinyl acetal resin (also known as Formvar or Vinylec). This is a real thing. The trick was invented in 1940 by a General Electric researcher in Schenectady, NY, who adapted a technique used to cast copies of aluminum crystallization patterns. Before then, snowflake patterns could only be captured with microphotography.

The title refers to the appliance that Leonard, Howard and Raj used to give Sheldon false results in lieu of killing him.

Goofs

None

Cast

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