The Expedition Approximation

"The Expedition Approximation" is the sixth episode of the eighth season of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory. The episode aired Monday, October 20, 2014.

Summary
Raj and Sheldon test themselves to see if they can handle an underground scientific expedition; and Leonard and Penny worry about money in their marriage.

Extended Plot
During takeout dinner in apartment 4A, Penny is wearing her new while Howard comments how good she looks while going out on sales calls and ing with s. Leonard stays at home just looking y. Penny disagrees that she is flirting to make sales, though she does agree with Amy that is good that she is showing her  when she leans over. Bernadette asks Sheldon how his work in dark matter is going and he remarks that it is the most exciting time to work in it since HE is now working in it. Raj mentions that the is funding the dark matter field by sending teams down into a  to conduct s. Raj suggests that he and Sheldon apply since they could be on the ground floor of something big. Penny tells Sheldon that he shouldn't go down into a mine since he had a while going through a. They others start making fun of them going down into a mine, while Sheldon complains that he liked it better when he didn't know they were making fun of him.

At dinner, Leonard tries to tel Penny about a new version of an old he was playing; however, Penny is thinking about her new job as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. She says she has some good and hands Leonard an  full of. She tells him she was given a, so she sold the car Leonard gave her. He agrees that she didn’t need two s, but seems hurt that she sold the first one without telling him. Penny says, "What should I have done? Taken a picture of it and put it in a frame with little hearts and puffy letters that say 'Best Ever'?" "Well, that doesn't sound so bad," Leonard pouts. "Good," Penny says, "because that's what I did!!"—and indeed, she pulls out a framed photo of the car just as she described it. They then spend a while passing the envelope of money back and forth, trying to get the other to accept it.

Raj enters Sheldon's and asks if he is busy. Sheldon's mind is always. He is working on a complex problem, composing his acceptance speech for solving that problem and trying to figure out how  have. Raj says that they just lay on  which means that Sheldon's mind can now work on another problem. Raj wonders if their friends were right that the conditions would be too harsh for the two of them down in the mine. It would be, , live , since it is a working mine, twelve hour shifts underground and the facilities would be a. Sheldon was fine with everything except the last condition. Raj still wants to test themselves under conditions to see if they can do it since it is such a great opportunity. Sheldon wants to try it and goes to his to check for hot, dark moist places and finding a bunch of  video sites.

Leonard comes into Penny's apartment with the money to work something out. Last night Penny felt that it was really weird for Leonard to leave a large envelope of money on her after they had sex. Leonard wants them to put it in a joint to use for their  expenses which Penny thinks is a great idea. Leonard realizes that Penny feels great about being financially independent and he is nothing but proud of her. Penny tells Leonard that her making money means that she is not as dependent on Leonard, while he thinks that she has a problem with her control issues. They finally agree not to fight and that the money belong to both of them..

Raj and Sheldon dressed in mining gear and carrying a bucket arrive with Amy at a access  to the university  s. Amy had stayed in one for three days to pledge a, but they forgot she was down there. The conditions there are more consistent than in the and there are no  men. Amy is very proud of Sheldon for facing up to all his, about a dozen of them. In case of an, she has to rescue him first and then come back for Raj. Down in the tunnel, Sheldon starts his mine simulation log and quickly finds Raj's stating of the obvious very tedious.

Penny and Leonard are visiting Howard and Bernadette to discuss how they handle s in their marriage. Howard thought that they wanted to swing together and change partners as couples. Howard and Bernadette sometimes do fight about money. She makes a lot more than him, though Howard claims to have brought assets into the. Like his incomplete set of Star Trek collectible plates? Howard replies that he just got the last one on without telling Bernadette. Then Howard brings up all the s from not paying the bills on time. Bernadette retorts that she would if she wasn't spending all her time the apartment. Howard grabs his chore chart and shows her all the s he has though Bernadette berates the quality of his work. Howard runs into the after she mentions his. Bernadette apologizes and tells them that the pressure to be the provider is tough on Howard. Penny worries about them; however, he grew up in a home where his mother earned more and also emasculated his father in every way. Penny and Leonard decide to work things out before they are married and to use the Wolowitzes as an example of what not to do.

Back in the tunnel, Sheldon is feeling a bit and starts singing a miners song which described all the bad conditions. Raj switches over to, though Sheldon doesn't know who he is. Raj starts to describe her "" show, Sheldon wonders how just a could hide her alter ego. But then what about Superman and his disguise? Amy asks if they need anything since she's going to the. Sheldon gives her a long list. Sheldon's claustrophobia gets worst as does his need to use the bucket which he refuses to do. He is also struggling with his work. He is now in his and starting over with studying dark matter where he used to be at the top of his field. This scares him. When Raj is scared he thinks of. Not the series which Sheldon found terrible. The mission was all ready over after he was born, but the probe just keeps going still sending back data from outside our. Sheldon then sees some rats behind Raj and heads up the. As Amy is returning as Sheldon yells that everything is falling apart and it's too late for Raj. Amy shrugs, looks at her thinking that it had been eleven minutes which was longer than she thought it would last. Raj is shouting from inside the tunnel as the rats crawl into his shirt.

Leonard and Penny decide to spread the money all over the bed and on it. Penny thinks that that is the most fun someone can have with money, but won't say if it's only the first time she's done it. Bernadette apologizes to Howard after sex and tells him that she wants them to handle their money as equal partners. Then they change the subject to Howard's and he wants to have. Amy is busy Sheldon's mine simulation log for future generations who obviously want to hear about his melted  bar. Raj comes charging to yell at him that Sheldon left him there to fend off a family of rats. s don't do that.

Critics

 * Jesse Schedeen for IGN - The Expedition Approximation" started off on fairly weak ground as it focused on the latest bit of Leonard/Penny drama. The good news is that things picked up quickly as the couple paired up with Howard and Bernadette. Meanwhile, Raj and Sheldon's latest wacky escapade was consistently amusing. Running beneath both story lines was a sense that these characters really are evolving and maturing in various ways, however slowly. The older this show gets, the more important that quality becomes.
 * Dhruv Rao of The DR Club stated that the episode "brought the show's game back" and gave the episode an A-
 * IMDb user reviews

Trivia

 * The car that Penny sells is the one Leonard bought her in "The Friendship Turbulence" (S7E17).
 * Howard's money allowances were first mentioned in "The Cooper/Kripke Inversion" (S6E14), when he and Raj bought a 3D printer. Howard is clearly insecure and embarrassed about being supported by his wife, but will nonetheless still take the money (though he prefers the term stipend to allowance), even though he should be perfectly able to support himself financially (all the other guys do with roughly equivalent jobs, plus Howard had been living, presumably rent-free, in his mother's house for years, suggesting he may have decent savings).
 * Sheldon attempts to prove the Penrose Conjecture, an open mathematical problem in related to the asymptotically defined mass of an astrophysical system, and envisions giving a Nobel Prize acceptance speech for solving the Penrose Conjecture problem in this episode.
 * The Penrose Conjecture is a highly advanced statement in spacetime geometry which has to do with the minimum area of space that can contain a mass (why area and not volume is considered is rather involved; the answer can be found in the work of Stephen Hawking). The Penrose Conjecture has been proven for 3 dimensions in 1999 (Bray); however, proof for arbitrary number of dimensions is still pending. Proving that the conjecture holds would be an important step towards a quantum mechanical theory of gravity, and given the problem's notoriety and importance, it is quite possible that a general solution would be awarded the Nobel Prize.
 * Sheldon and Raj want to collaborate on dark matter research again, last arguing about the topic in "The Hot Troll Deviation" (S4E4). Their initial foray into this field was in "The Pirate Solution" (S3E4).
 * The group previously survived a field scientific expedition's hardships in "The Monopolar Expedition". It is in fact mildly puzzling that Sheldon and Raj would avoid the mines when they -- Sheldon in particular -- held up quite well on a prolonged trip to the equally hostile conditions of the Arctic.
 * "Lenny" can handle their marriage financial issues better than "Howardette". Howardette 's issues stem mainly from Bernadette making "a lot more" than Howard, which tends to be hard for men to take due to psychological and social archetypes, and Howard likely being somewhat insecure about his maturity, having lived with his mother until recently and probably being worried that he may be viewed by his peers as a "mama's boy". On the other hand, Penny probably does not make more than Leonard even with her new sales job, even though Leonard would probably enjoy being in a position of perceived inferiority no more than Howard, given the former's high-achieving family and distant, overly demanding mother.
 * This marks the second time Sheldon unknowingly performed an innocent web search with potentially compromising keywords ("hot, dark, and moist... let's see what comes up"). The first was "The Contractual Obligation Implementation".

Quotes

 * Bernadette: Speaking of new careers, how are things going with dark matter, Sheldon?


 * Sheldon: Oh, I have to say it's the most exciting time in the history of the field.


 * Bernadette: Oh, what's going on?


 * Sheldon: I started doing it.


 * Penny: Hang on. You guys are going to work in a mine?


 * Sheldon: Why not?


 * Penny: You had a panic attack when we went through the car wash!


 * Sheldon: Are they making fun of us?


 * Raj: Yep.


 * Sheldon: I miss the old days when I couldn't tell.


 * Amy: Sheldon, I'm really impressed you're willing to try this.


 * Sheldon: Admittedly, this brushes up against my well-known aversions to heat, small places, going below floor level, dampness, hatches, ladders, darkness, echoes, and eliminating in Home Depot buckets. That last one is quite new, but I have a feeling that's going to rocket to the top of the list.


 * Bernadette: Well don't come crying to me when you don't get your allowance.


 * Howard: It's not an allowance. It's a stipend! And we said we weren't going to call it an allowance in front of my friends.


 * Penny: If I do well in sales, I could end up making a lot more money than you.


 * Leonard: Not a problem. I grew up with a mother who emasculated my father financially and in every other aspect of his life, so really it's what I think love looks like.


 * Sheldon: "Sheldon's Mine Simulation Log, entry 4: My KitKat has melted. All is lost."


 * Howard: How does it feel to know your fiance's job is to go out and flirt with doctors looking like that, while you sit here, you know, looking like this?


 * Raj: So I did a little research on what the conditions are like in the mines, and the guys might be right. It sounds pretty rough down there. For starters, it's very humid and about a hundred degrees.


 * Sheldon: I'm from Texas and you're from India. We're no strangers to the fragrant arm pit. Next.


 * Raj: It's also a live mine, so there'll be dynamite explosions going off in the distance.


 * Sheldon: I have a lactose-intolerant roommate with a taste for ice cream. Next.


 * Raj: You have to be down there for twelve hours at a time.


 * Sheldon: Have to be somewhere.


 * Raj: There's no toilet, so we'll have to do our business in a bucket.


 * Sheldon: So it's settled? We're not doing it.


 * Leonard: Hear me out. I know things got a little weird last night.


 * Penny: Well, leaving an envelope of cash on my night-stand after sex would count as weird.


 * Penny: Or maybe, now that I'm no longer an out-of-work actress who can't pay for her own dinner, that makes you a little insecure.


 * Leonard: I can't believe you would say that. You know how insecure I am about my insecurities.


 * Raj: All this time, I never knew there were steam tunnels down here.


 * Amy: Most universities have them. When I was an undergrad, I spent three days in one pledging a sorority.


 * Raj: Did you get in?


 * Amy: No, they forgot I was there. But it really opened up my pores.


 * Leonard: Thanks again for having us.


 * Howard: Of course. What do you guys want to talk about?


 * Penny: Well, now that we're engaged, we have some questions about how you handle money as a couple.


 * Bernadette: Told you they weren't going to ask us to swing with them.


 * Sheldon: Miners often sang mining songs to keep their spirits up.


 * Raj: You know any mining songs?


 * Sheldon: Just the hits.


 * Raj: Okay. How about a little Miley Cyrus next?


 * Sheldon: Who's he?


 * Howard: Oh, you're saying I don't do anything around here? Look at my chore chart!


 * Leonard: She made him a chore chart.


 * Penny: I see it!


 * Howard: "Do the dishes", there's a star right there.


 * Bernadette: That was a pity star. Putting water in the roasting pan and putting it in the sink is not doing the dishes.


 * Howard: That pan had to soak and you know it!


 * Sheldon: We'll take some Funions.
 * Amy: Anything else?
 * Sheldon: Some York Peppermint Patties, a couple of Dr. Peppers, and run to Best Buy and see if they have a portable DVD player and Season 1 of a show called Hannah Montana.
 * Raj: Have her get Season 2. In Season 1 it was still finding itself.


 * Raj: You call yourself a friend? I was trying to help you. And at the first sign of trouble you ran away, leaving me to fend off a family of rats! You're a completely selfish human being and a physical & moral coward.


 * Sheldon: His statements of the obvious continue to annoy.


 * Raj: Sheldon, you busy?


 * Sheldon: I'm always busy. This mind is capable of advanced multi-tasking. Currently, I'm attempting to solve the Primrose Conjecture, I'm composing my Nobel acceptance speech for when I've solved the Primrose Conjecture, and I'm wondering how mermaids have babies.