Well, I am pleased to report that ‘The Big Bang Theory’ seemed to get things reasonably back on track this week, delivering an episode that, while not exactly one of the best of the series, or even this season, was much better than what we got last week, and had some excellent laughs, and a lot more for the characters to do, all of which I enjoyed.
Jumping in, the episode began with Penny interrupting Chinese food night by coming into the gang’s meal with a Pastrami sandwich from the food truck parked in front of the building. This annoys Sheldon immensely as it is CHINESE FOOD NIGHT and Penny should know better than to mess with his schedule. Amy makes the case that technically the Chinese invented the sandwich and she and Sheldon get into a heated argument, driving everyone else out of the room, an argument that ends with Sheldon admitting she was right when he looks down at his bread wrapped Mushu Pork, though Amy is sad to see no one else is around to see that admission from her fiance.
The food truck continues to drive Sheldon crazy as he can smell its contents from his apartment and its temptations distract him from work, so he complains to the Tenants Association and has the food truck banned from the street. Penny and Leonard find out and Penny, in particular, is pissed as she loved the truck. She sends a complaint email to the Tenant’s Association and is shocked when it goes straight to Sheldon’s phone, and they realize Sheldon IS the Tenant’s Association. Since he was the only one to show up for the meeting, he voted himself president and has been running things for years. In the end, SHELDON was responsible for all fines, rules, and regulations that have tortured the group over the years, including a noise violation for when they sang Happy Birthday to Sheldon, which shocks Penny and Leonard, though Sheldon said as their friend he did appreciate the sentiment.
They demand an emergency Tenant’s meeting and try to vote Sheldon out, but Amy is present and Sheldon demands her loyalty (offering her a chance to shower together if she sides with him) and she cannot resist. Feeling bad, she visits Penny and Leonard later while pretending to be at the market and gives them a plan: get other tenants onto their side and they can vote out Sheldon. Sadly for them, the other tenants cannot be swayed, as they are either afraid of Sheldon, unable to understand English, angry at Penny and Leonard for avoiding housewarming parties, or have a restraining order from Sheldon for locking him on the roof 3 times.
Sheldon, incensed that Leonard is out campaigning against him, shows off his cruel new rules about to be imposed to Amy, and she is alarmed at his fascist leanings. Later, Penny and Leonard come over victoriously, having clearly gotten a new plan from Amy, and say that since Sheldon is not on Amy’s lease and was removed from Leonard and Penny’s apartment’s lease, he is not legally a “tenant” of the building and cannot be president. 
Sheldon admires their loophole, but points out a California law that says after 30 days of living somewhere he is technically a tenant, and at this point Amy finally breaks her silence and votes against Sheldon, saying she sees he cannot handle the power, and should relinquish it to Leonard.
Sheldon does not understand until Leonard uses an analogy from ‘Ant-Man’ about how Michael Douglas’s character hands down the suit to Paul Rudd when his time was over, and suddenly Sheldon gets it, much to Amy’s chagrin as she cannot believe ‘Ant-Man’ made him see the light. Sheldon then realizes that he can now be the opposition, fighting with and complaining to Leonard about every little thing, a position Amy knows he will be good at and a realization which makes Leonard suddenly very nervous, wondering if becoming the new president was a huge mistake.
In the B-Story of the night, after a hot-tub hang-out session, Raj and Howard find a crashed drone in the bushes and proceed to repair the drone, spending little to no time trying to find the proper owner as it is a very nice and expensive drone. When it is fixed Bernie spots them playing with it and says they should try to find the owner, and suggests looking at the SD card of the camera to see if the owner is on there, and Howard reluctantly agrees, sad that he might not get to keep the drone. The owner turns out to be a beautiful woman, so Raj is all about getting the drone back to her. Bernie points out she is wearing a pin from the comic-book store (how convenient), and they ask Stewart if he knows her, which he does, having hit on her with his creepy new grin recently.
He gives Raj her address from his mailing list, and Raj returns the drone to her, even getting her phone number in the process, a very slick move for the once immensely awkward Raj. After Howard congratulates his friend on getting the number, Raj says he thinks this might be something special, especially since it would be such a fun story to tell people when they ask how they met. Sadly for him, the woman watches the drone footage of Howard and Raj, and on the footage Raj overshares his plans for his first date with the woman, including the type of underwear he would wear on the date (none!) and other intimate details, and she is instantly turned off.
QUOTES OF THE NIGHT:
LEONARD: (Realizing who got the food truck banished from the neighborhood) “Who would complain about something everyone loves… oh.”
SHELDON: (reading Penny’s complaint email) “Tell your wife there’s no “y” in pastrami.”
LEONARD: (after Amy steals their food so she can keep up her lie to Sheldon about going to the market) “Sometimes you don’t see it ’cause she’s next to Sheldon, but she’s pretty weird.”
SHELDON: (enraged at Leonard for running against him) “If leaders just stepped aside every time they didn’t have the consent of the governed, what would we have!?!”
AMY: “…Democracy.”
AMY: (Trying to maintain her cover even as she helps Penny and Leonard) “As a woman in love I want to stand by my man…too bad that’s been rendered bureaucratically impossible.”
I’ve said it before while reviewing this season, and I’ll say it again, the best stuff right now is with Amy and Sheldon. The show would be smart to continue to lean on their relationship for storylines and laughs. Pitting them against each other like in tonight’s episode makes for a lot of fun, especially since they compliment each other so well, and I really like seeing Amy’s weird side come out, especially next to the relatively boring characters of Penny and Leonard (they really bring very little to the show nowadays). I’m glad to see the show bounce back a little this week, and I hope they manage to keep it up for next week, see you then!
