The Septum Deviation, episode nine of season eight of The Big Bang Theory, is another fun, entertaining episode overall that also touches on something more serious.
Like usual, there will be spoilers for people who haven’t watched yet so read at your own risk.
Leonard arrives home with Penny after having gone to the doctor about his breathing problems - trouble breathing, lots of sinus infections, and snoring. It turns out he has a deviated septum. When Leonard mentions that he is having surgery to fix it the next week, Sheldon does not react well and thinks it is a very bad idea even though he has complained about Leonard’s snoring for years. Sheldon now claims he won’t be able to sleep without hearing Leonard snore. Sheldon is also freaking out a bit and is convinced that Leonard will die in surgery. Sheldon has even done research and discovered that one in 700,000 die from general anesthesia.
Sheldon keeps obsessing, all but guaranteeing that Leonard will die because of math that he has done. Since he won’t stop it, Leonard and Penny try to cover up the surgery, telling Sheldon they are going swimming. Sheldon finds out while Amy is driving him to work by badgering her until she tells him. He wants to go to Leonard - so he can be at Leonard’s bedside when he is dying to say “I told you so.” He makes a point of calling Penny a liar before wanting to talk about Leonard’s funeral preparations. When there is a small earthquake and the lights go out in the waiting room, Sheldon insists he is going to check on Leonard and no one can stop him. He was sort of right - a glass door that wouldn’t open stopped him. At home, Sheldon and Leonard have matching bandages - Sheldon broke his nose on the door - and Penny finds it funny. Sheldon is still annoyed that Leonard had the surgery.
Raj is trying to figure out what to get his parents for their fortieth anniversary. He is shocked when he learns they are splitting up when he dad calls to say he is moving out. Raj acts all right at first, but then breaks down. Later, Howard and Bernadette stop by Raj’s office to try to cheer him up and end up making nasty cracks to each other about their parents. That evening Bernadette talks about how she doesn’t want her and Howard to end up like Raj’s parents. They start sharing things they like about each other before it spirals out of control into a sort of passive aggressive type argument before Raj arrives for dinner.
The last little bit of the episode is at least a few days later - the bandages are much smaller - and Sheldon has received something he ordered before Leonard’s surgery. He bought matching engraved urns for himself and Leonard. The one for Leonard says that he thought he was right but he was wrong and it was his roommate that was right. Sheldon’s says “I’m with stupid.”
At the very end, after the credits and a promo for another CBS show, there is a very nice tribute to Carol Ann Susi, the actress who provided the voice for Mrs. Wolowitz who passed away a few days before the episode originally aired. Mrs. Wolowitz isn’t mentioned at all in this episode, but that isn’t exactly unusual. There have been many other episodes where she wasn’t in or mentioned. I haven’t heard how the writers plan to deal with this in the show yet.
It is funny, as well as a bit sweet, to see Sheldon worrying and fretting so much about Leonard having surgery, though he goes way, way overboard about it. I get being worried about someone having surgery, no matter how minor because, well, it is surgery. I haven’t dealt with the best when my mom had a knee replacement or her gall bladder removed - though there were some extra complications with the gall bladder surgery that added to the stress of the situation. I did, while alone, have small meltdowns each time, but then I was fine. I didn’t obsess over every tiny thing that could go wrong like Sheldon did, though that does seem believable for him. I do get why Leonard and Penny tried to keep the surgery from Sheldon as well. It was really funny when Sheldon ran into the door at the hospital.
The other storyline going on in the episode is tied to Raj learning that his parents are splitting up just before their anniversary. This part of the episode stays more serious. It has been a while since we have seen them talking to Raj with some kind of video chat. There have been hints in at least one or two of their most recent video chats that things are not happy between them, so their separation isn’t exactly a surprise. Raj seems all right at first, which makes sense since he’s even made remarks about their marriage before, though he does have a bit of a meltdown. Later in the episode, he is better about it while Howard and Bernadette end up having an argument about their marriage. Some of what came out has come up before - like how Howard won’t do anything around the apartment - and there were a few new things as well. It is good that they sort of discussed those things, but nothing is really settled.
Probably the coolest thing that came up in the episode is when Howard was telling Raj how he found a fencing school that gives lightsaber lessons. Unfortunately, that was at the time that Raj learned about his parents, so he couldn’t properly appreciate it.
The Septum Deviation is another fun, entertaining episode of The Big Bang Theory. It will be interesting to see if more comes out about Raj’s parents, and if he and Howard follow up on the lightsaber fencing.
The episode is available at the CBS website and through various streaming services.
The Big Bang Theory Season 8 Recaps/Reviews
The Locomotion Interruption and The Junior Professor Solution ~ The First Pitch Insufficiency ~ The Hook-up Reverberation ~ The Focus Attenuation ~ The Expedition Approximation ~ The Misinterpretation Agitation ~ The Prom Equivalency ~
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