While The Big Bang Theory's storyline was never particularly hard to follow,
it can still be helpful to have an overview. That's why we're running down the story of
Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, Raj, Penny, Amy, and Bernadette for anyone who just can't get enough.
The Big Bang Theory takes place in Pasadena, California, and the action's confined almost
entirely to a few apartments. It centers around the misadventures of physicists
Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper, as well as their fellow Caltech scientists, neighbors,
and romantic partners. Sheldon is a theoretical physicist with a genius level IQ, who has trouble
grounding himself in the real world. At the beginning of the series, he holds an incredibly
condescending view of non-scientists and believes himself to be an unparalleled intellect.
Leonard has a much kinder view of the world. However, both he and Sheldon have
trouble interacting with ordinary people, particularly women. Throughout the series,
romantic partners and other people bring the two of them and their friends, astrophysicist
Raj Koothrappali and engineer Howard Wolowitz, out of their respective shells. The catalyst
for this introduction to the outside world is waitress and aspiring actress Penny, who moves
in across the hall from Leonard and Sheldon in the pilot episode. She makes friends easily,
and her proximity to the scientists helps to drag them out of their insular lives.
Sheldon and Leonard were already living together before the series began,
and thus plenty of resentment already exists between them when the pilot airs.
Sheldon is frequently a tyrant, stubbornly refusing to adjust his routine or consider
the feelings of others. This leads to frequent fights during which Leonard seeks refuge in
Penny's apartment. One such fight happens at the beginning of the season 3 episode "The Staircase
Implementation," which goes on to reveal the story of how Sheldon and Leonard first came to
live together. Leonard is shown seeking a roommate after first arriving in town to work at Caltech.
He meets Sheldon, who quizzes him on sci-fi trivia before allowing him to enter.
"Original Series over Next Generation, but Picard over Kirk."
"Correct. You've passed the first barrier to roommate-hood."
At this point, the apartment features a spare living room that indicates an otherwise occupied
mind. Instead of the couches and chairs that the main characters spend the majority of their time
gathered around, the layout is simply lawn chairs around a card table. When Leonard
enters his future bedroom, he discovers that Sheldon's former roommate has painted "Die
Sheldon Die" on the wall as a parting gift. Undeterred and in need of a room,
Leonard decides to stay. He gets an early glimpse of Sheldon's temperament when he's forced to sign
an incredibly detailed roommate agreement that will be used to arbitrate many future disputes.
This origin story leads Penny to ask the obvious question: why is Leonard still living with
Sheldon? Leonard reveals that despite Sheldon's cold demeanor, he's frequently defended his
roommate from potentially harmful situations. For example, there was the time that they discovered
that Leonard's former girlfriend Joyce Kim was a North Korean spy attempting to get information
about an experimental rocket fuel that Leonard was developing. Leonard could've easily been
facing treason charges, but Sheldon promised to defend him should the government come looking.
There was also the time that Leonard's enthusiasm for his rocket fuel experiments
nearly turned deadly. Egged on by Howard and Raj, they attempted to use his fuel in a
rocket that Howard had built. But Leonard got the proportions wrong and accidentally created a bomb.
Sheldon then correctly calculated how long they had before the fuel detonated.
He pushed a panicking Leonard away from the mixture, placed it in the building's elevator,
and closed the door right before it exploded, unquestionably saving Leonard's life. Sheldon
promised to keep mum about the cause of the destroyed elevator, which remained broken
for almost the entire series. Sheldon's ability to protect his friends, and the
multiple times that he kept Leonard from serious harm, demonstrate his true value as a roommate.
Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj all have trouble deviating from their regimented schedules.
They've divided their weeks into a routine of visits to the comic book store, gaming nights,
and TV viewing parties. But this pattern is eventually broken up by romantic interests.
Over the course of the series, Leonard's life is shaken by his on-again, off-again relationship
with Penny. Howard is reeled in and reformed by his girlfriend and eventual wife Bernadette.
Raj and Sheldon, meanwhile, prove to be tougher nuts to crack.
Raj is clinically terrified of women. His phobia is so intense that even though he desperately
wants to be in a relationship, he loses the ability to speak in the presence of any woman.
He's eventually able to get over this intense fear after he dates a
dermatologist named Emily, who proves to have a particular taste for gory movies.
"They kind of turn me on."
"And play."
As with most parts of life, Sheldon is the notably difficult to budge when it comes to romance.
His changes in this area are gradual and hard-won, but they do indeed come,
thanks to the efforts of Amy Farrah Fowler. She's remarkably similar to him, and probably the only
person on the show who can fully understand his worldview. She had previously avoided romantic
relationships her entire life to focus on her work in neurobiology. Sheldon did pretty much the same
thing, but unlike Sheldon, Amy had always desired a romantic partner. So she turns her relentless
planning energy and desire for a regimented schedule toward the concept of marriage.
Sitcoms tend to depend on familiarity and a slow sense of growth,
as viewers come to love the characters. The Big Bang Theory adhered to this strategy over
the course of 12 seasons. There's romantic tension early on between Leonard and Penny,
who seem to be constantly on the verge of a relationship. Once they do couple up,
the ups and downs of their journey carry the series forward. Their relationship builds,
explodes, and recombines throughout the show's run, as Penny guides Leonard and his friends
toward a happy life outside their bubble. The couple fall apart in the fourth season,
but Leonard ultimately realizes that he cares enough for Penny to pursue a relationship.
They nearly break up again at the end of the eighth season while traveling to Las Vegas.
But they then make an impulsive decision to get married and see it through even after Leonard
admits that he kissed a coworker. Rather than wrap up the season with their wedding
in typical sitcom fashion, the ninth season begins with them married and explores the
hard work of keeping it together as they deal with Leonard's infidelity. They end the season planning
a wedding do-over with family and friends, and they remain together through the series' end.
Sheldon's frequently callous attitude toward Amy's feelings leads the two of them to split up and
reconcile several times throughout the series. They go on their first date in the Season 4
premiere and eventually get married in the Season 11 finale, after Sheldon finally realizes that
there's no one else on Earth he could envision spending the rest of his life with. Sheldon isn't
the only character who shows significant growth on his path to married life, as Howard starts
the show as an unrelenting creep whose off-putting behavior sabotages any attempt at a relationship.
"Howard, where are you going?"
"I'm going home to live my creepy, pathetic life."
This is even true in the early stages of his relationship with his eventual wife Bernadette.
She breaks up with him in season 4 after finding out that he had cyber relations with his fellow
World of Warcraft players. But they ultimately reconcile, and she's able to pull him out
from under the thumb of his domineering mother and help him become his own man.
They go on to have a daughter and a son, and both of them realize their professional goals.
Howard travels to space as an astronaut, while Bernardette earns a PhD in microbiology.
It's worth noting that among all the main characters, Raj is given the least to do.
Considering how the show develops characters through relationships, his perennially single
status leaves him nowhere near as much room to change as everyone else. That doesn't mean he's
entirely static, though. For much of the series, he suffers from selective mutism. Whenever he
gets near women, he loses the ability to speak due to overwhelming anxiety. His mutism can go
away when he's drunk, or at least thinks that he's drunk. Eventually he grows out of this condition.
There's also occasional speculation that Raj is gay, thanks to his style of dress,
love of women-targeted entertainment, and constant close companionship with Howard. Weirdly enough,
though, he's often seen having more success with women than Howard. He's actually able to win over
some ladies via his uncomfortable silence. He almost ends up married in the final season,
as the show finds him in a relationship with a woman named Anu. But that storyline comes to
an end when she's offered a job in London, and he opts to stay behind in Los Angeles.
Throughout the series, Penny keeps the other characters grounded. Most of the other women
are brought into the show via their connections to Penny, and the men become fully functioning adults
thanks in great part to her frequent lessons about the real world. Just like other characters,
Penny also matures, as she settles into a comfortable adulthood. She follows her friend
Bernadette into the world of pharmaceuticals, leaving behind her precarious life as a
waitress and aspiring actress for the solidly middle-class existence of a sales representative.
The possibility of Penny becoming a mother bookends the series, as she's shown in a flashback
at one point fretting over a pregnancy test. That test way back when was negative, which greatly
relieved her at the time. The accumulated changes in her life and a much more stable existence
are reflected in the way that she reacts to a similar situation at the very end of the series.
"Well, we can't get more pregnant."
"We'll see about that."
The Big Bang Theory closes with quite a few conclusions and at least one beginning.
Leonard and Penny finish the show celebrating a positive pregnancy test,
ecstatic at the idea of being parents. Raj's romantic life is left up in the air,
but it's implied that he's gone from someone who couldn't even speak in the presence of women
to someone who might now be dating a world-famous actress. Howard and Bernadette have been settled
down in marriage for a while, so the finale more or less just lets them be.
Amy and Sheldon achieve their lifelong goal of a Nobel Prize in physics, highlighting
the way that it's always been about the work for them. However, after a big blow-up with everyone
else over Sheldon's incredible stubbornness, he delivers the most shocking moment of the finale
by realizing that there's more to the world than himself. From the Nobel ceremony stage,
he thanks his family and then acknowledges his friends for their incredible patience.
"I was under a misapprehension that my accomplishments were mine alone.
Nothing could be further from the truth."
Though The Big Bang Theory has come to end, fans can still get their fix, as CBS has continued to
mine Sheldon Cooper for ratings gold, in the form of the prequel series Young Sheldon. It focuses on
Sheldon's early life with his family in Texas, and don't be surprised if it ends up sticking around
just as long as its predecessor, as it's been a top 10 ratings hit its first three seasons.
For anyone who wants to catch a glimpse into how The Big Bang Theory was made
and the genuine love the cast has for each other, there's the behind-the-scenes documentary
Unraveling The Mystery, which aired the same night as the series finale. Hosted by Johnny Galecki and
Kaley Cuoco, it features clips from the series, reflections on particularly beloved moments,
and a look at how the sitcom sausage was made for 12 seasons. And of course,
the original series itself provides plenty of material on its own to devour. For anyone
whose in the mood for a rewatch, it's there for whenever the mood is right.
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