S08E05 - The Focus Attenuation

No: 164  |  Season: 8   Episode: 5  |  Air Date: 2014-10-13  |  Runtime: mins

Summary

The girls head to Las Vegas, while the guys try to invent something cool, but only come up with new ways to procrastinate.

Director and Writers

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

Script

Script: S08E05 - The Focus Attenuation

Quotes

Amy: I'll show you the divot in my spine.
Bernadette: What?
Amy: No, no, it's okay. I was born with it. If you put a AA battery in there, it makes my leg kick.

Amy: (while tipsy, to Bernadette) Scientist to scientist, how big are those Hadron Colliders?

Howard: My cousin has a cabin out in the woods.
Sheldon: I'm not going to a cabin in the woods. Did you see the movie Cabin in the Woods?
Leonard: Then we'll go to a hotel.
Sheldon: A hotel? Did you see The Shining?
Raj: We could go up to Big Bear and get a house on the lake.
Sheldon: Did you see The Lake House?
Raj: Nothing bad happens in The Lake House.
Sheldon: Yeah, well, no, not to them. To me. Time traveling mailbox. The only time that traveled was an hour and half of my life down the toilet!

Leonard: Negative reinforcement isn't working.
Sheldon: I think you mean positive punishment. Negative reinforcement is the removal of a positive stimulus. It's a common mistake.
Howard: Negative reinforcement is really wrong?
Sheldon: Oh, it's used incorrectly all the time. Even Bill Murray makes that mistake in the first scene of Ghostbusters.
Raj: No way. Not Bill Murray!

Leonard: (Looking at their invention journal) Boy, I haven't looked at these in years. Let's see... robot girlfriend...
Howard: That was mine.
Leonard: Robot prostitute...
Howard: Also mine.
Sheldon: I'm confused. Why would you have both a robot girlfriend and a robot prostitute?
Howard: There are some things you don't do with your robot girlfriend.
Raj: Boy, when Howard married Bernadette, the field of robotics really took a hit.

Penny: I'm going downstairs and fill up on margaritas until I vomit all over the roulette wheel and watch it go everywhere.
Amy: What if we don't want to vomit?
Penny: You have to vomit. That's why they give you the bucket.

Sheldon: I have long suspected that the idea of an African-American President was stolen from the movie Deep Impact.

Howard: Hold on. Pause. Something doesn't make sense.
(drawing on the whiteboard)
Howard: Look, in 2015, Biff steals the sports almanac and takes the time machine back to 1955, to give it to his younger self. But as soon as he does that, he changes the future, so the 2015 he returns to would be a different 2015, not the 2015 that Marty and Doc were in.
Leonard: This is Hot Tub Time Machine all over again. If future Biff goes back to 2015 right after he gives young Biff the almanac, he could get back to the 2015 with Marty and Doc in it. Because it wasn't until his 21st birthday that 1955 Biff placed his first bet.
Sheldon: Wait. Whoa, whoa. Is "placed" right?
Leonard: What do you mean?
Sheldon: Is "placed" the right tense for something that would have happened in the future of a past that was affected by something from the future?
Leonard: (thinking) Had will have placed?
Sheldon: That's my boy.

Leonard: Okay, so, it wasn't until his 21st birthday that Biff had will have placed his first bet and made his millions. That's when he altered the timeline.
Sheldon: Yeah, but he had will haven't placed it!
Howard: What?
Sheldon: Unlike Hot Tub Time Machine, this couldn't be more simple. When Biff gets the almanac in 1955, the alternate future he creates isn't the one in which Marty and Doc Brown ever use the time machine to travel to 2015. Therefore, in the new timeline, Marty and Doc never brought the time machine...
Leonard: Wait. Is "brought" right?
Sheldon: (thinking) Marty and Doc never... had have had brought?
Leonard: ...I don't know. You did it to me.
Sheldon: Oh, I'm going with it. Marty and Doc never had have had brought the time machine to 2015. That means 2015 Biff could also not had have had brought the almanac to 1955 Biff. Therefore, the timeline in which 1955 Biff gets the almanac is also the timeline in which 1955 Biff never gets the almanac. And not just never gets. Never have, never hasn't, never had have hasn't.

Raj: Hey, I read that someone invented a way to convert your footsteps into electromagnetic energy so you can charge your cell phone while walking.
Leonard: We had that idea years ago. How come we never did anything with it?
Howard: Probably because we left the diagram of it in the restaurant, and none of us wanted to walk back.
Sheldon: I know the real reason you never made progress with that idea. You thought of it September 22, 2007. Two days later, Penny moved in, and so much blood rushed to your genitals, your brain became a ghost town.

Howard: Can't argue with him, it's right there on the screen. Austria really does look like a wiener.
Raj: Forget that, check out how hung Florida is.
Leonard: I'm sure Mrs. Florida walks funny. Can we get back to work?

Amy: Hey Penny, let's go. We found a place that has Australian male strippers.
Bernadette: We want to see if they twirl their junk in the other direction.

Penny: (planning weekend to Vegas) I'll check flights.
Bernadette: I'll check hotels.
Amy: I'll check my underpants. I'm so excited, I think I peed.

Bernadette: (watching striptease) Have you ever seen a body so fine?
Amy: We had some pretty hot corpses in my anatomy class, but none of them moved like that!

Notes and Trivia

At the start of this episode, Sheldon mentions that they never made any progress with their electromagnetic energy idea that they had on 22nd September 2007 because two days later, Penny moved in. The series indeed started on 24th September 2007, opening with Penny moving in in Pilot (2007).

Sheldon again mentions the horror of having watched The Lake House (2006); in The White Asparagus Triangulation (2008), Sheldon complained that Penny made him watch it.

Goofs

None

Cast

Johnny GaleckiLeonard Hofstadter
Jim ParsonsSheldon Cooper
Kaley CuocoPenny
Simon HelbergHoward Wolowitz
Kunal NayyarRaj Koothrappali
Mayim BialikAmy Farrah Fowler
Melissa RauchBernadette Rostenkowski