Episode 23 – The Engagement Reaction (423)
When the guys and Priya are dining at the Cheesecake Factory, Priya asks Bernadette and Howard about their marriage plans. While they already have figured out the location, they reveal that their parents have not been informed about their engagement yet. Howard, who has been waiting for the right moment to tell his conservative Jewish mother that he is marrying a Catholic girl, then arranges a lunch for his fiancé and his mother and they end up getting along well. After Howard hears the good news while talking to his mother, who is in the bathroom, he decides to make the move and tell her. To his horror, she collapses and apparently has a heart attack because of her son’s engagement. Howard is injured while breaking down the bathroom door, but nonetheless takes her to the hospital as fast as he can. When the others hear about this, they rush to the hospital. Sheldon, being extremely mysophobic (a psychosis that has been aggravated due to Sheldon drinking out of Leonard’s glass at the restaurant), is initially reluctant to visit the hospital and only agrees to come after Penny pressures him to go. When Bernadette finds out that Howard was telling his mother about his engagement before she collapsed, she is very upset, as she believes that she is the reason all this happened. When Mrs. Wolowitz finally wakes up, the doctor informs them that it hadn’t been a heart attack and that she wants to see Bernadette before anyone else. It is revealed that she actually had food poisoning from the restaurant she and Bernadette ate at and was worried about Bernadette’s well-being, whom she actually likes a lot. Bernadette ends up being very mad at Howard, as he led her to believe that it was all her fault.
While in the hospital, Priya and Penny, not liking the coffee in the waiting room, start searching for the cafeteria and bond in the process. They mainly discuss Leonard’s skills in the bedroom and his never ending foreplays, a disorder caused by his cold mother, who never gave him any sort of approval and made him desperate to please women. Sheldon has other things to worry about, as he tries to avoid contact with anything in the hospital and, when he has to go to the restroom, is locked in there, waiting for someone to open the door for him. When he tries to avoid a coughing patient on the way back, he seeks shelter in a random room. Much to his horror, it turns out to be a bio-hazard room, where he is exposed to a deadly disease. Sheldon is eventually forced to stay in the hospital under a 2-week quarantine after the exposure, with his friends keeping him company in hazmat suits.
Recurring character: Aarti Mann as Priya Koothrappali.
Note: In the “The Adhesive Duck Deficiency” episode, Sheldon took Penny to the hospital without displaying the reluctance and discomfort he had in this episode.
Title reference: Mrs. Wolowitz’s reaction to the news of Howard and Bernadette’s engagement.
Directed by Howard Murray.
Written by Story: Bill Prady, Eric Kaplan & Jim Reynolds / Teleplay: Chuck Lorre, Steven Molaro & Steve Holland.
Originally aired on May 12, 2011.
