S03E17 - The Precious Fragmentation

No: 57  |  Season: 3   Episode: 17  |  Air Date: 2010-03-08  |  Runtime: mins

Howard: I'm sorry, Ma, I have to stay late at the office. Raj: No, he doesn't! He's lying to you!

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Summary

The guys' friendship is threatened when they find a ring from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Director and Writers

Director: Mark Cendrowski
Writers: Story by: Lee Aronsohn & Eric Kaplan & Maria Ferrari / Teleplay by: Bill Prady & Steven Molaro & Richard Rosenstock

Script

Script: S03E17 - The Precious Fragmentation

Quotes

Sheldon: Where's the ring?
Leonard: It's in a FedEx box on its way back to where it came from.
Raj: The fires of Mount Doom?

Sheldon: (Takes the ring) Mine!
Leonard: No, it is not yours. We all went in on the box together.
Sheldon: Yes, but I found it in the box, and the laws of maritime salvage clearly state that the finder of a sunken treasure is the owner of the treasure.
Leonard: How is this maritime salvage?
Sheldon: Other than the lack of water, how is it not?

Raj: Look, let's be reasonable. We all want to do different things with the ring, but your ideas are stupid, and I want a jetski.

Penny: Okay, just to be clear, the first piece of jewelry my boyfriend gives me is a prop from a movie and I don't even get to keep it?
Howard: If you had gone out with me three years ago, by now you'd have my great-aunt Ida's brooch that she smuggled out of occupied Belgium in a cat.
Leonard: How am I looking now?

Leonard: Why do I always have to carry the heavy stuff?
Sheldon: Well it's very simple. In our ragtag band of scientists with nothing to lose, I am the smart one, Wolowitz is the funny one, and Koothrappali is the loveable foreigner who struggles to understand our ways and fails. That leaves you, by default, as the muscle.
Leonard: One more floor and I'd be the pulled muscle.

Sheldon: I would advise the three of you that resistance is futile. I have endless patience. I once spent two and a half hours on hold with Hewlett Packard customer service just to complain about their customer service.
Leonard: You want to talk about endless patience? Penny made me watch all five seasons of "Sex and the City".
Raj: There's six seasons, dude.
Leonard: Aw, crap!

Sheldon: (Penny hits Sheldon when he tried to get the ring from her neck in her sleep) You hit me! I'm bleeding!
Leonard: What was that?
Penny: Sheldon tried to take the ring and I punched him.
Leonard: That's my girl.

Sheldon: (Leonard refuses to let Sheldon have the ring) I don't understand why, in this group, I never get my way.
(Leonard does a double take, unable to believe what he just heard)
Leonard: You *always* get your way!
Sheldon: I'll stipulate to that if you give me the ring.

Howard: So, Sheldon. How's it feel to be beaten up by a girl?
Sheldon: It's not the first time. I have a twin sister whose assaults began in utero. If only I'd had the presence of mind to re-absorb her. Then I'd have a mole with hair in it, instead of a tedious yearly Christmas letter.

Howard: Look at the markings inside. Those are production markings. nine rings were made for use in the Lord of the Rings movies; three were given to members of the cast; the rest were destroyed. Except one. One was stolen. Gentlemen, this *is* the One Ring.

Sheldon: Give us the precious.
Leonard: Never!
Sheldon: (they fight) Give it to me!
Leonard: Get off of me!
Sheldon: Give me the ring!
Sheldon: It's mine!
Penny: OK. I gotta go back to dating dumb guys from the gym.
Sheldon: Give it to me! I said give it to me!
Leonard: Mi-i-i-i-i-ne!

Penny: Who's Adam West?
Sheldon: "Who's Adam West"? Leonard, what do the two of you talk about after the coitus?

Sheldon: If you're suggesting that that is the actual Ring of Power forged by Sauron in Mount Doom, I look at you with an expression of exhaustion and ever-so-slight amusement.

Penny: Okay, I'm just going to go home and make a grilled cheese and window-shop on eHarmony.

Sheldon: We can't sell it. We have to keep it and love it and polish it and only take it out occasionally when we go to the park and re-enact our favorite scenes form the movies.
Howard: It's sad how great that sounds.

(Dream Sequence: Raj, Howard and Sheldon are sleeping. Raj lets go of the ring to snuggle up against Howard. Sheldon wakes up to discover he is still holding onto the ring)
Sheldon: (surprised and triumphant) I did it. The ring is mine. I've done it!
(rushes off to the bathroom with the ring in his hand)
Sheldon: (shouts triumphantly) The ring is mine! IT'S MINE!
(Sheldon enters the bathroom, turns on the sink and begins to clean the ring)
Sheldon: (as he cleans up the ring; he talks to himself) We're going to clean it up. And make it pretty.
(Camera focuses on the ring in his hands)
Sheldon: (ecstatic) My Own, My Love...
(His voice suddenly becomes a gutteral hiss like Gollum)
Sheldon: My *Preciousss*.
(Camera reveals that Sheldon has transformed into Gollum as he looks at himself in the mirror, shocked. Sitcom audience bursts into laughter as he screams at his reflection... and out of the dream)

(rummaging through the junk they bought at a yard sale, Raj comes across an Aquaman action figure)
Howard: It looks like someone drew a penis on him.
Raj: That will come off.
(licking his thumb, Raj begins to vigorously rub the action figure's crotch)
Howard: You see what you're doing? Stop that.

Penny: Whatcha doing?
Leonard: Last one holding the ring decides its fate. I know it sounds silly.
Penny: No, no, no no no no, you are my boyfriend; nothing you do is silly to me.
Leonard: Thank you.
Penny: FYI, this is a bag from Victoria's Secret.
(goes into her apartment)
Leonard: (long pause) I'm out.
(follows her)

(Leonard, Sheldon, Raj, and Howard climb the stairs of the apartment building all still holding the ring)
Howard: You know, there comes a point where this becomes idiotic.
Leonard: It wasn't when we were driving like this?

Notes and Trivia

Apart from the scene where Sheldon realizes that he has changed into Gollum from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), there is another parallel from that movie where Sheldon (like Gollum) tries to take the One Ring from the sleeping Penny and Leonard (Frodo and Sam), but they wake up and attack him.

Sheldon's "ketchup" spiel was almost a word for word recitation of a portion of the "ketchup" entry on Wikipedia at the time, with the only difference being that a few other flavorings had been omitted.

The number of prop rings made, as well as what happened to them, as quoted by the characters, actually mirrors the setup of Lord of the Rings as well. Howard claims that 9 prop rings were made (the 9 rings given to the race of Men), 3 were taken home by members of the cast (3 rings were given to the Elves), and the rest destroyed, leaving just this ring (the One Ring). In actuality, many more replicas were made over the course of shooting the films.

Goofs

None

Cast

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