Episode 22 – The Staircase Implementation (322)
Leonard tells Penny the story of how he first met Sheldon. This episode is told mostly in flashback. Leonard starts out by explaining how Sheldon’s previous roommate ran out and warned him about Sheldon’s idiosyncrasies. Leonard runs into their transvestite neighbor and eventually Sheldon. Sheldon quizzes Leonard on science fiction trivia and allows him to enter after he answers correctly. Sheldon gives a series of interview questions to verify whether or not Leonard is a good and worthy roommate to have. Penny wonders why Leonard continues to live with Sheldon and it is revealed that Sheldon inadvertantly kept Leonard from revealing a top secret rocket fuel to a North Korean spy (the previously unseen Joyce Kim (Ally Maki) who was mentioned in previous episodes) and saved his life when he calculated Leonard did not have enough time to travel down the elevator with a batch of incorrectly mixed and unstable rocket fuel. This also destroyed the elevator which forces them to use the stairs. We also learn how Leonard and Sheldon first met Wolowitz and Koothrappali, and how Sheldon came to claim his ‘spot’ on the new couch.
This episode also includes the first appearances of the previously unseen characters of Joyce Kim, a North Korean spy who dated Leonard for 27 days before defecting back to her country, and the pair’s original neighbor, Louie, the “two hundred pound transvestite with a skin condition”. Additionally, Sheldon makes two blatantly wrong predictions in flashbacks: Firefly would run “for years” and the Apple iPod would dwindle in popularity after the release of the competing Microsoft MP3-Player.
Directed by Mark Cendrowski.
Written by Chuck Lorre, Dave Goetsch & Maria Ferrari based on a story by Lee Aronsohn, Steven Molaro & Steve Holland.
Originally aired on May 17, 2010.
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