S07E09 - The Thanksgiving Decoupling

No: 144  |  Season: 7   Episode: 9  |  Air Date: 2013-11-21  |  Runtime: mins

Sheldon: Like we're on a ship. Coming from Africa to America. Amy: Sheldon, that's completely inappropriate. You can't keep comparing yourself to a slave. Sheldon: Yes, Miss Amy.

Previous Next

Summary

The gang spend Thanksgiving at Mrs. Wolowitz's house. Howard tries to bond with his father-in-law, and a mistake from Penny's past comes back to haunt her.

Director and Writers

Director: Mark Cendrowski
Writers: Story by: Eric Kaplan & Steve Holland & Maria Ferrari / Teleplay by: Steven Molaro & Jim Reynolds & Jeremy Howe

Script

Script: S07E09 - The Thanksgiving Decoupling

Quotes

Mr. Rostenkowski: What's wrong with your mother?
Howard: Oh, her gout's acting up. Turns out an apple pie a day does not keep the doctor away.
Mrs. Wolowitz: How can one little toe hurt so bad?
Howard: Maybe because that little piggy is being *crushed by the barn!*

Howard: My mom went to Arizona. She rode one of those mules at the Grand Canyon. Long story short, they had to shoot it. 'Cause she's fat.

Bernadette: Hey. Howard says that you've been making fun of him all day. Now both of you apologize right now.
Sheldon: She's so tiny! It's funny when she's mad.
Amy: All right, mister. I think you owe Howard and Bernadette an apology.
Sheldon: Perhaps you're right. I'm sorry for my behavior. I've had alcohol and it's caused me to be inappropriate.
Bernadette: Okay.
Howard: Don't worry about it.
Amy: Thank you.
Sheldon: Ain't she great?
Amy: Sheldon.
Sheldon: Now, hows about you get us a couple of beers?
(Sheldon swats Amy on the rear; she first looks shocked, then leaves smiling)

Leonard: Why won't you sign it?
Zack: I just think splitting up can be rough on kids.
Penny: We don't have any kids!
Zack: Are you sure? Cause you didn't know we were married until this morning.

Raj: My, my. The plot, like my gravy, thickens.

Leonard: It would actually be nice to not hear Sheldon complain about *my* cooking all day.
Sheldon: Yeah, uh, excuse me, but every year you prepare a terrible meal and every year I criticize it. Do our traditions mean nothing to you?

Penny: Sheldon, you can have a nice Thanksgiving anywhere. I spent one in Vegas.
Leonard: You did?
Penny: Yeah. Back when I we dating Zack. It was actually more fun than I thought. We gambled, went to one of those cheesy wedding chapels. We had a really good turkey dinner which was surprising since we were at a strip club.
Leonard: What? You went to a chapel?
Penny: Yeah.
Leonard: Why?
Penny: We had one those silly fake weddings.
Leonard: Penny, you know those are real, right?
Penny: (laughing it off) No, they're not.
Leonard: Yeah, they are.
Penny: (Looking worried) No, they're not.
Leonard: Yeah, they are.
Sheldon: He's right.
Amy: They're real.
Penny: (quietly) But it didn't feel real.

Sheldon: But if her food is delicious, Thanksgiving is ruined, and it's on you.

Sheldon: I just vomited on a lot of clowns.

Mr. Rostenkowski: I know I'm hard on you, but you're not the worst son-in-law in the world.
Howard: Mike, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.
Mr. Rostenkowski: Well, I'm drunk.

Leonard: How am I the bad guy? She the one who married someone else. I'm the victim.
Howard: Sounds like Zack's the victim. You're sleeping with his wife.

Amy: I can't believe Penny is married to Zach.
Raj: Wonder what she saw in that guy?
Bernadette: I don't know. He's sweet, he's tall, he's handsome...
Amy: ...Broad shoulders, good hair...
Raj: Huh. Wonder what she sees in Leonard?

Mr. Rostenkowski: Do you remember the Thanksgiving game when it snowed in Dallas?
Sheldon: 1993. Leon Lett blew the game in the final seconds and the Dolphins emerged victorious. Then I finally got to do my calculus.
Mr. Rostenkowski: I was so pissed, I wanted to shoot my TV.
Sheldon: So was my dad. And then he did.

Sheldon: (belching) ... 2,3,8,4,6...
(then quickly covers his mouth)
Sheldon: That's as far as I can get without throwing up.
Mr. Rostenkowski: (laughing) Well, that's not what was I was thinking when you told me you could burp *pie*.
Mrs. Wolowitz: Did somebody say pie?

Sheldon: Do we really need to go to Mrs. Wolowitz's home for Thanksgiving dinner?
Amy: We do, and I expect you to be on your best behavior.
Sheldon: Now I know how the African slaves felt. Being dragged from their homes to work under the yoke of the white man.
Amy: Are you honestly comparing going to Thanksgiving dinner at Mrs. Wolowitz's house to one of the worst tragedies in human history?
Sheldon: Yes.

Mr. Rostenkowski: So if your dad died when you were 14, you were never old enough to have a beer with the man.
Sheldon: No sir. He did try to give me one for my high school graduation, but I was eleven and my mom said no.

Mr. Rostenkowski: So is your dad still living in Texas?
Sheldon: My father died when I was fourteen.
Mr. Rostenkowski: I'm sorry to hear that.
Sheldon: So was the guy who ran the liquor store. He cried and cried.

Mrs. Wolowitz: Howard, the medicine's not working!
Howard: You just took it. At least let it reach your *first stomach*!

Leonard: The math is all there; it's not real
Penny: Yes, it is!
Sheldon: Yeah, uh, look. It is scientifically impossible for a person tip a cow. Even you with your stocky build and lumberjack shoulders, you couldn't do it.
Raj: It's horrible. Why would you push a cow over? They're sacred.
Penny: Oh, stop it. I've seen you eat a million hamburgers.
Raj: Hey, an animal can be both sacred and delicious.
Penny: I'm telling you I've done it, okay? I clearly remember the cow standing up and then the cow on its side.
Leonard: Were you drunk?
Penny: I was sixteen in Nebraska, what do you think?
Leonard: I think you're the one who fell over.
Penny: That would explain why the sky was also on its side.

Penny: Howard. Cow tipping. Real or not?
Howard: I'm gonna say not. But that's just based on me trying to turn my mother over when she snores.

Sheldon: My father loved football. He always made me watch it before I was allowed to do my homework.

Bernadette: Why don't you go keep my dad company?
Howard: He doesn't want me in there; I'm the creepy little guy who has sex with his daughter.
Bernadette: Don't be silly. He loves you.
Howard: Does he?
Bernadette: He, he cares about you a lot.
Howard: Really?
Bernadette: I do crap for you all the time. Get out there!

Raj: Where does your mom keep the Crisco?
Howard: I don't know. Maybe in a wad under her cheeks.

Penny: Why are you making this such a big deal?
Sheldon: Oh, I have a reason. It could be because you said yes to marrying Zack, but every time Leonard's proposed he's gotten a resounding no. That's just off the top of my head.
Penny: How do I undo this?
Leonard: I'm just hoping you can get a annulment which is like it never happened.
Penny: Great. Well, what do I have to do?
Amy: It's says here you can get an annulment if any of the following conditions are met. Were you unable to consummate the marriage?
Sheldon: (Sheldon laughs) Penny? Next.
Amy: Is there any evidence of fraud, bigamy, want of understanding?
Penny: Want of understanding? What does that even mean?
Amy: Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

Sheldon: (to Penny, regarding her initial belief that her wedding to Zach wasn't real) At some point while you were there was Las Vegas also on its side?
(Then tilts his head)

Amy: I know how you feel. Sheldon ignored me for a week when he got that Roomba vacuum. I kick it w he's not looking

Penny: You know neither of us thought this was real. I mean, we were married by an Elvis impersonator.
Zack: Of course it was an impersonator. We could never afford a real Elvis.

Penny: Here.
(gives Howard a bottle)
Penny: Thank you for having us.
Howard: What's with you?
Leonard: Well, she's mad at me because she just found out she's married to Zack.
Howard: Really? That dumb ass you used to date? That's,
(laughs)
Howard: that's hysterical.
Penny: (grabs bottle back) I can't believe I felt bad for opening this in the car.

Mr. Rostenkowski: I don't know what's scarier: the bathroom clowns or the woman that put 'em there.
Sheldon: All I know is you can only fit one of her in a car.
(Howard enters from the kitchen)
Sheldon: And there's the clown that came out of her.
(Howard turns right around and goes back in the kitchen)

Raj: It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without an Indian providing the food.

Bernadette: Thanks again for cooking.
Amy: Yeah, everything was delicious.
Raj: Well, I couldn't have done it without my two favorite girls...
(Bernadette and Amy beam)
Raj: Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray.

Mr. Rostenkowski: I've kept a marriage together for 35 years. Can I weigh in here?
Leonard: Sure.
Mr. Rostenkowski: I'm trying to watch the game. Shut up.

Sheldon: I've been told that a bald refusal of an invitation is rude and one must instead offer up a polite excuse so, di, I'd love to go but unfortunately that sounds awful.

Notes and Trivia

Contrary to popular belief, Jim Parsons did not improvise smacking Mayim Bialik on the backside. Bialik later said that although the smack wasn't in the original script, it was added a few days into rehearsals.

Contrary to the premise of this episode, many wedding chapels in Las Vegas offer pretend wedding ceremonies "for the thrill of a wedding without the lifetime obligation". Even in Las Vegas a wedding license is required for a legal ceremony (available at City Hall from 4 am to midnight), so unless Zach and Penny made the trip downtown to get a license they could very well have gone through a fake wedding ceremony.

The legal definition of "want of understanding" is "the person did not know what a marriage was or understand what was going on" and is one of the most common reasons for annulling a marriage in the state of Nevada. This actually is appropriate for Penny and Zack, as neither one realized the marriage was real.

The mathematics that Leonard and Sheldon do in order to prove to Penny that cow tipping is impossible was previously done by the University of British Columbia. They reached the conclusion that one single person would never have enough strength to tip over a full-grown cow; depending on body type, it would take at least 2 to 4 people to muster enough force to do that, and then only if the cow doesn't adjust its footing or run away. Concerning the latter: cows don't sleep standing up (horses do that). A standing cow at night will be alert and hard to surprise, especially while being approached by 4 people. Even if it doesn't run away, it will shift its weight to prevent from falling over.

The Thanksgiving Day football game Mike and Sheldon discuss (where Mike wanted to shoot his TV and Sheldon's dad did) was the 1993 game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Miami Dolphins. In that game, which was played in a rare snowstorm in Dallas, the Dolphins squibbed their attempt at a game-winning field goal, leaving the ball spinning on the ground with members of the Cowboys surrounding it waiting for it to stop in order to declare it dead. However, Leon Lett ran up to try to grab it, but slipped and inadvertently batted the ball away, which made it a live ball again. The Dolphins recovered, tried the field goal again, and were successful, winning the game.

We come in on Sheldon beer belching Pi and hear the numbers "2,3,8,4,6". That means he had gotten 21 digits into PI.

Goofs

None

Cast

Privacy Policy | Affiliate Link Disclosure | Contact Us