Episode 16 – The Cushion Saturation (216)
A paintball game leads to a romance for Wolowitz and Leslie (Sara Gilbert). At the apartment, Penny accidentally shoots the paintball gun at Sheldon’s couch cushion (his “spot”, his “only point of consistency in an ever-changing world”), and she and Leonard have a hard time getting it cleaned. They try just turning it over but Sheldon still notices the difference and turns it over to find the green stain. Penny has the cushion dry-cleaned, but it takes a week and Sheldon goes through withdrawal during that time. After Sheldon refuses to sit on the dry-cleaned cushion, Leonard reveals that the Szechuan Palace (the only place Sheldon has his cashew chicken from) closed 2 years ago and that he has been bringing home Chinese food from a different place and putting them in Szechuan Palace containers, of which he bought 4000 before the restaurant closed. Sheldon collapses onto the couch cushion but still doesn’t like it. Meanwhile, Leslie and Howard start sleeping together at Howard’s home, which lead to funny exchanges with Mrs. Wolowitz. Leslie is able to give Howard’s work project some much-needed funds, although it turns out to be her way of controlling him. She asks him to come to her sister’s wedding, he says no and she threatens to take away a trip to the CERN Large Hadron Collider project in Geneva. After getting over his initial reluctance to be in that sort of relationship, Howard accepts his “sex toy/arm candy” role. Sheldon finally gets his revenge by shooting Penny at the beginning of the group’s next paintball game, which she decides to join. Penny then shoots Sheldon, who protests she’s dead. Leonard agrees and shoots Sheldon himself, who promptly fires back. The others leave to surrender and then go to Denny’s.
The episode portrays all cast members playing paintball without face masks, presumably to aid their recognition (which is a major inaccuracy: paintball fields almost universally require eye protection to be worn at all times, due to the risk of severe eye injuries from stray projectiles.)
Directed by Mark Cendrowski.
Written by Bill Prady & Lee Aronsohn based on a story by Chuck Lorre.
Originally aired on March 2, 2009.
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