The Infestation Hypothesis

 The Infestation Hypotesis is the second episode in fifth season of the TV series The Big Bang Theory. It aired on September 22, 2011 in a back-to-back episode with The Skank Reflex Analysis.

Summary
An argument between Sheldon and Penny over a chair she found in the street leaves Amy caught in the middle, while Leonard tries to spice up his long-distance relationship with Priya.

Extended Plot
Leonard is having a dinner date (or a "dinfast" date, as Sheldon calls it, due to it being 8am in Mumbai.) with Pryia. Sheldon, believing Leonard doesn't have a chance at a long-distance relationship, goes over to Penny's place to read his copy of the monthly, peer-reviewed scientific journal, American Journal of Physics. With the way they act, Penny and Sheldon joke they are like an old married couple. Sheldon then complements Penny on the new chair she has acquired, saying it's very comfortable. Penny says she found it on the curb outside and she payed a homeless guy to help bring it up. Sheldon then completely freaks out and takes his clothes off to take a shower, but runs back home to shower when he finds a wet band-aid on the floor.

At the university, Leonard, Howard and Raj are using the $175,000 hydraulic thermoforming press to make paninis, when Howard asks how the Long-distance relationship with Pryia is going. When Leonard mentions that they just talk, Howard tells him that they've gotta do cyber-sex or Pryia is just going to find some " fancy guy in a turban who grew up with Kama Sutra colouring books". Soon, Sheldon comes to Leonard so he can check for "chair" lice. Leonard says no and thinks of it as nothing but another one of Sheldon's paranoias. That evening, Sheldon then goes to Penny's to check on the chair. She says she had it completely cleaned out, so he goes to sit on it. However, after Sheldon flicks a bug off his arm, a big bunch of bugs start to crawl all over Sheldon. He suddenly snaps out of this scenario in a way that makes Leonard jump and he quickly goes over to Penny's to demand she remove the chair from the building. But every attempt he tries, is unsuccessful as Penny refuses to move it. The last time he tries, Penny brings the chair's cushion to the door and he freaks out.

In bed, Leonard is chatting with Pryia and is unsuccessfully trying to do dirty talk. Priya decides to guide him with it and asks him to get naked. Just as she is taking her shirt off to reveal her breasts, the screen freezes up, much to Leonard's dismay. Sheldon calls from his room to reset the TCPIP stat, then asks to hurry it up as he is streaming a movie on netflix.

Sheldon goes over to Amy's for help and asks her to ask Penny to remove the chair. She initially refuses, unless she is kissed where she is never kissed before by Sheldon. After he doesn't understand, she agrees to do it.



Back at the university lab, Howard has invented a device for Leonard and Pryia to stimulate kissing, after refusing to participate, Raj agrees to try it and Leonard looks on at their unknown "Homoerotic" moment.

Amy is at Penny's place and comments on the chair. Penny suddenly realises what is going on and is upset at Amy for doing Sheldon's work. But Amy immediately apologises and asks Penny to stay friends with her. To prove she is loyal to Penny, she sits on the chair, but finds something biting her toushy. She gets up to find something moving inside the chair and the girls run out of the apartment screaming. Amy promises Penny to not tell Sheldon about this as long as she can tell her doctor, saying she will need shots. Meanwhile, in Leonard's bed, he is starting to talk dirty to Pryia again from a handwritten note, until she informs him that her parents are with her and they stare at him sternly. Outside the building, Howard and Raj find Penny's discarded chair out on the curb. They decide to take it up to Leonard's and Sheldon's apartment, so Raj doesn't have to sit on the floor anymore, and they don't even feel the thing moving inside the chair.

Trivia

 * Amy plays the harp and knows two songs to it, a Bossanova standard or the "Different Strokes" theme song.
 * When Sheldon jumps and makes Leonard jump, he says its like living with a Chihuahua.
 * Leonard is terrible with Cyber-Sex.
 * Like Leslie Winkle way back at the start of season 1, Howard and Raj use the university's resources for their own food purposes.
 * Sheldon fixates on a crazy idea and takes it way out of proportion. Leonard mentions four times Sheldon has done this: the time when he put GPS trackers in the garbage because he thought North Korean spies were stealing his doodles, when he thought chicken nuggets were human nuggets, the strangely shaped cloud that followed him around town and when he put on Leonard's shirt by mistake and thought he started growing again.
 * Sheldon dislikes the sound of the harp because due to it's overuse in classic TV sitcoms, it makes him think that he will experience an episode from his past. Sure enough, the moment Amy plays her's, Sheldon recalls a moment where he got in trouble as a little boy, saying, "I'm sorry Mommy, don't be mad at me".
 * Amy seems aware that Sheldon may have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as his ritualistic knocking behaviour is symptomatic of it. She also points out that he is in denial over it.
 * Amy describes her and Penny as Best friends, Besties, BFFs, Peas in a Pod or Sisters who would share traveling pants.
 * This episode continues the axion calculation saga on the whiteboards began in The Skank Reflex Analysis.

Quotes
Leonard: (Referring to his Skype date with Priya) You know, some people might say that it’s great that we’re trying to make things work long distance. They’d say things like, “Love is stronger than the miles between you.” Sheldon: When I rise to power, those people will be sterilized.

Penny: (After Sheldon's three successive triple-knocks at her door) What’s up, buttercup? … What’s the word, hummingbird? … What’s the gist, physicist?

Leonard: (To Priya, attempting cyber sex, after he removes his shirt) Tah-dah! Man nipples!

(Amy is playing her harp to a Bossanova standard)

Amy: 5, 6, 7, 8... # ''Tall and tanned and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking. And when she passes, each one she passes goes...''

Sheldon: (knock knock knock) Amy, (knock knock knock) Amy, (knock knock knock) Amy.

Amy: ...aww #

(Amy stops playing and goes to answer her door for Sheldon.)

Amy: You are aware that your ritualistic knocking behaviour is symptomatic of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Sheldon: Is not. Is not, Is not.

Amy: Denial. Denial, Denial, come in.

Sheldon: (Trying to get Amy to help him with his disgust with Penny's chair) Name your price.

Amy: Kiss me where I’ve never been kissed before.

Sheldon: You mean like Salt Lake City?

Amy: Never mind, I’ll talk to Penny.

Sheldon: (To Leonard over his Long-Distance relationship with Pryia): I miss the old days when your romantic partners could be returned to the video store.

<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 12px; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20px;">(Penny and Sheldon are reading magazines together.)

<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 12px; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20px;">Penny: We're like an old married couple.

<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 12px; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20px;">Sheldon: If we were and old married couple, the wife would be serving iced tea and snickerdoodles.

<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 12px; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20px;">Penny: I don't have any iced tea or snickerdoodles.

<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 12px; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20px;">Sheldon: A good wife would go to the store.

<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 12px; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20px;">Penny: I want a divorce.

<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 12px; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20px;">Sheldon: Good, on the way to the lawyer, go pick up some iced tea and snickerdoodles.

<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 12px; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20px;">(Both laugh over the fact)