S10E23 - The Gyroscopic Collapse

No: 230  |  Season: 10   Episode: 23  |  Air Date: 2017-05-04  |  Runtime: mins

Summary

After celebrating the completion of the top-secret Air Force project, Leonard, Sheldon and Howard get an unwelcome surprise; Amy receives an offer for a summer position at Princeton as a visiting researcher.

Director and Writers

Director: Anthony Rich
Writers: Story by: Chuck Lorre & Steve Holland & Alex Ayers / Teleplay by: Steven Molaro & Jim Reynolds & Saladin K. Patterson

Script

Script: S10E23 - The Gyroscopic Collapse

Quotes

Leonard: Are you excited to have your own place again?
Raj: I am, but I'll miss you guys.
Leonard: We'll miss you too.
Raj: You could try saying that without smiling.
Leonard: I'm trying. This is the best I can do.

Leonard: Sir, I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. You came into our lab in the middle of the night and took our prototype and all of our research and didn't even tell us?
Colonel Williams: Sounds like you get it.
Howard: Why would you do that?
Colonel Williams: You guys completed Phase One, we'll take it from here.
Sheldon: Where did you move it?
Colonel Williams: I can't tell you that.
Leonard: Are you implementing Phase Two?
Colonel Williams: I can't tell you that.
Sheldon: Wait, so you're just going to take all the work we've done for the last year and toss us aside?
Colonel Williams: That one I can tell you: yes.
Howard: This is all very upsetting.
Colonel Williams: I'm sorry to hear that. As you know, the primary focus of the United States Military is people's feelings.
Sheldon: If that's sarcasm, please save it for our enemies.

Sheldon: I've never really lived by myself. What if I become strange and eccentric?
Amy: I'll love you no matter what,

Sheldon: (Walks into an empty apartment by mistake) The Air Force did it again! They're erasing our lives!
Leonard: (Sees number on door) Third floor. Wrong apartment.
Howard: Although, if anyone's gonna clean out your apartment and disappear, it'd be Penny.
Leonard: She might disappear, but she's definitly not going to clean anything.

Computer: Leonard Hofstadter. Access granted.
Leonard: I don't care if this thing's burning out my retinas. Makes me feel special.

Penny: Listen to me. Your relationship can handle being long distance for a while. It's not like you two are very physical.
Amy: Hey, you don't know what goes on behind closed doors.
Amy: A lot of lectures?
Amy: Alright, so you know.

Howard: How can you work on something for a year and they just take it?
Leonard: I can't believe the Air Force would treat us like that.
Sheldon: You know, I have a good mind to stop paying my taxes. It's too bad I enjoy doing them so much.

Sheldon: All my life I thought Uncle Sam was a friendly uncle who brought you presents. Turns out he's the other kind.

Amy: This might cheer you up. I made your favorite oatmeal: plain.

Sheldon: Princeton. A fine institution. It's where Einstein taught. It's also where Leonard got his PhD, so it may have gone downhill since then.

Penny: Champagne, champagne, and for the world's tallest second grader, apple juice.
Sheldon: No bendy straw. Some party.

Sheldon: Besides, Princeton is in New Jersey, so it's not like you're gonna want to stay'

Sheldon: I got the blues. My baby done left me.

Bernadette: So what happens next?
Howard: It's phase two. We test it, perfect it, and hope to live long enough to see the movie based on our lives starring more attractive versions of ourselves.

Sheldon: If you find yourself working with a male scientist who's as smart as me, as tall as me, and has hair like Thor, well then I want you to step away from the situation and call me immediately.

Raj: Come on, Sheldon. Amy's only gone for a few months. And now that I'm moving out, your old room is empty, so you can stay there whenever you want.
Leonard: Raj, could I talk to you on the hall for a second?
Raj: Sure.
(Raj steps out, Leonard closes the door behind him and locks it)

Notes and Trivia

Apartment 3A (the apartment below Leonard's) is shown to be empty. This implies that Mrs. Gunderson, who appeared in The Lunar Excitation (2010), no longer lives there.

It turns out that Zack (Brian Thomas Smith), Penny's dimwitted ex-boyfriend, was right for a change, when he told the boys in The Fermentation Bifurcation (2016) that the military might try to take control of the their guidance system, and expressed disbelief that the boys hadn't considered this scenario.

The story in this episode has similarities to the story of the film Real Genius (1985). In both stories a group of young scientists invents a small device which they hope will be used for good but which is scooped up by the military for use as a weapon. In both stories it is an outsider of each group that suspects the government's intentions. The conclusions of the two stories are very different.

Title reference: Leonard, Sheldon and Howard's gyroscope project ends when the government takes it out of their hands.

Goofs

None

Cast

Johnny GaleckiLeonard Hofstadter
Jim ParsonsSheldon Cooper
Kaley CuocoPenny Hofstadter
Simon HelbergHoward Wolowitz
Kunal NayyarRaj Koothrappali
Mayim BialikAmy Farrah Fowler
Melissa RauchBernadette Rostenkowski
Dean NorrisColonel Richard Williams
Kimberly BrooksComputer