Moms came to town and anxieties hit the roof in The Big Bang Theory season 8, episode 23.
Meeting the parents
Leonard and Sheldon are getting an award on their paper, and both of their mothers come to California for the ceremony. Sheldon’s mom, Mary, arrives first, and he asks her to tone-down the religious chat in front of Leonard’s mom.
“I love you,” he says. “I’m just embarrassed by the things you believe, do, and say.”
Leonard’s mother Beverly arrives, and wants to know why he and Penny haven’t set a wedding date yet. He asks her not to psychoanalyze Sheldon’s mother or insult her religion.
Mary and Beverly are introduced; things start to go sour almost immediately. Leonard steams as Mary tells stories about young Sheldon’s genius, but his mother continues to be disdainful of him.
Penny arrives and gets a cold welcome from Beverly, and a warm hug from Mary. She shows Beverly her engagement ring, and Leonard streets Sheldon away for a talk after he reveals that it came from an internet drill-bit salesman.
Penny has to watch as Mary and Beverly start to argue about religion and psychology, while Leonard accuses Sheldon of hogging the attention from his mom.
That loving feeling
Later, Sheldon and Beverly go out for coffee. Beverly apologizes for upsetting Mary, but Sheldon says she’ll forgive her.
“She has to, or she goes to Hell,” he says.
Beverly observes that Sheldon turned out amazingly well, even though Mary raised him with unconditional love. She, of course, raised Leonard with a system of highly-conditional approval. Sheldon points out that Leonard’s siblings are extremely successful, while his own are idiots.
Meanwhile, Leonard vents about Beverly’s cold parenting to Mary and Penny. Mary assures him that Beverly loves him very much. Probably. She decides to apologize for their feud, even though Beverly started it.
“A good Christian would have turned the other cheek!” she declares. “On the other hand, a good Texan woulda shot her. So I’ll split the difference.”
When Beverly and Sheldon get back, the two moms give each other a cool but heartfelt farewell. Beverly announces that she would like to initiate a protocol of showering Leonard with unconditional love. They awkwardly hug, embarrassing everyone.
It’ll come out tomorrow
Bernadette gets fed up with the sloppiness of Howard, Raj, and Stuart — who is still living in Mrs. Wolowitz’s house. She demands that they clean the kitchen, which they reluctantly do.
While cleaning, Raj and Stuart point out to Howard that Bernadette babies him, and treats him like Mrs. Wolowitz used to. Howard’s attempt to man up and take out the trash leads to a torn mess of garbage on the floor; the resulting clean-up leaves a few abnormally sticky spots behind.
Howard, Raj, and Stuart continue cleaning and burst out in a rousing chorus of “Hard-Knock Life” from Annie. Bernadette is appalled, but it’s pretty fun.