7.17 The Friendship Turbulence

[Jislane35]

When watching the show these days, I keep looking at this dumb, childish, hyperactive man-boy on my screen and try to figure out who he is. I know he is not Sheldon. He can't be. He just doesn't look like or act like Sheldon anymore. Why is Jim Parsons playing him like this? Has he been told to do it this way? Or is this an acting choice by himself? It's strange, and baffling.

I may be wrong about this, but after watching this episode, I got the feeling that this might have been damage control for 7X13. In S7XE13 they made Leonard too douchey towards Penny and her decision to quit the Cheesecake Factory, while Sheldon was very supportive and called them 'dreamers'. Leonard's lack of support and Sheldon's understanding of Penny and of her dream got a lot of reaction and coverage not just in the fandom but in the media as well. If I am not mistaken, some websites wrote about it.

So in this episode, they had Sheldon make fun of Penny's failed acting career and had Leonard be more supportive. Yes, he did make some douchey comments at first, but in the end he was like why don't you take the role and here is a car to take you to auditions, which I think is supposed to show he is supportive of Penny and her acting career now.

If all that was not enough, they had to do destroy and get rid of Penny's old car when Sheldon was in it with her.

Call me paranoid, but I do feel this episode was yet another effort to play down the depth of Sheldon and Penny's friendship.

Just how offensive were Sheldon's comments about Penny's career? We're they just as bad as Leonard's?