Christmas got a little dirty on The Big Bang Theory season 8, episode 11! Read our recap and share your thoughts on “The Clean Room Infiltration.”
Raisin plans
Raj’s father is coming to Pasadena for Christmas, so Amy volunteers to host dinner. Her dream of a traditional English dinner — just like Jesus had — appalls Sheldon; he doesn’t want to attend.
Cuckoo
Leonard and Howard are about to leave the university’s “Clean Room,” but someone leaves the loading door open and a pigeon flies in. This is bad.
They try to work together to get the bird, but tension quickly grows. Howard and Leonard call for help, and Raj is forced to leave his extremely bitter dad at Amy’s apartment with Penny.
Howard tries to lure the pigeon down with a Slimjim, but Leonard wants to get the cleaning staff — which means they’d have to confess to contaminating the Clean Room. Both Leonard and Raj — when he shows up — are convinced that Howard let the bird in.
Kill ’em with kindness
On the way to Amy’s, Sheldon decides to get revenge on Amy for making him celebrate a quaint and lovely Christmas. His plan is to buy her a surprise gift, thus inspiring feelings of guilt when Amy doesn’t have anything for him.
Sheldon and Bernadette go shopping for Amy’s guilt-gift. Sheldon muses about the things he loves about Amy, excited to make her feel “small and worthless.” He takes a picture of himself on Santa’s lap to give her.
Miracles
Howard, Leonard, and Raj construct a plan to scare the bird out of the Clean Room. Howard straight-up murders the pigeon with a blast from the fire extinguisher, but then revives it with CPR. They are about to take the pigeon outside when a crow flies into the room.
“Someone should really close that loading door,” Raj observes.
The guys are all bummed about contaminating the room, which will get them into trouble with the university.
Penny calls, bored out of her mind because Amy is making her and Raj’s dad play “Blow the Wool Across the Table.” (Seriously.) Penny suggests that the guys just erase their names from the sign-in sheet and bail; Leonard, Howard, and Raj are soon happily bellowing “Jingle Bells” as they drive over to Amy’s Christmas dinner.
Sweet
Amy’s dinner is a success. Sheldon pulls out his gift — a framed picture of him on Santa’s lap, which plays a touching message. Amy is overwhelmed at Sheldon’s “thoughtfulness,” thrilling Sheldon with her imminent misery.
But Amy, as always, is one step ahead of Sheldon. She has baked his Mee-maw’s special Christmas cookies — and done it perfectly.
“It tastes like her hugs,” he says wonderingly, and considers that celebrating the holidays might not be such a bad thing… though he won’t share the cookies.
The evening comes down a bit later with more of Amy’s Victorian parlor games, but hey, let’s call it even.