The Skank Reflex Analysis

The Skank Reflex Analysis is the first episode of fifth season of the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. It aired on September 22, 2011 as a back-to-back follow-on episode with The Infestation Hypothesis.

Summary
Penny worries that her behavior has screwed things up permanently with her friends, while Sheldon takes command of the paintball team.

Extended plot
The episode starts just a couple of hours after the previous season 4 episode, with Sheldon trying to solve a "puzzle" presented by what Penny said in the last episode ("It's not what it looks like...").

Howard and an embarrassed Raj arrive and Sheldon informs them about the University's interdepartmental Paintball Tournament. Sheldon begins to ponder about his rank within his team, and ultimately decides that he will be Captain. (Good enough for Kirk, Crunch, and Kangaroo.)

Later, Penny grabs some wine and can't find a glass, so she improvises and uses a measuring cup instead. Amy arrives saying that she knows that Penny had sex with Raj. Just as they are about to exit the apartment, they bump into Leonard and Sheldon. Penny asks Amy if she can sleep at her apartment for a while and Amy delightfully welcomes her, exclaiming about how she can finally experience a traditional girl's sleepover (though she had one with Penny and Bernadette in The 21 Second Excitation).

At their apartment, Leonard is showing Sheldon his camouflage suit for the Paintball Tournament which he cites as unnecessary, while Sheldon pretends the camouflage is extremely effective. Sheldon has called up Leonard's mother; Beverly Hofstadter to console Leonard. After Leonard tells her his troubles, her sole piece of advice is "Buck up, sissy-pants."

Later, Raj is seen drinking beer in his apartment, just as an angry Bernadette bursts in knowing that he told Howard about his love for Bernadette, Raj asks her if he has a shot with Penny, to which Bernadette reassures him that he does.

Back at Amy's apartment, Amy is combing Penny's hair, following girl's sleepover tradition. Raj enters and Amy leaves them alone. Penny says that she had intercourse with Raj purely because she was drunk.

Raj explains that they actually did not have sexual intercourse, but in fact, when Raj was putting on the condom, he had a "premature" start. Penny is both shocked and relieved by this. They also agree not to tell the others.

The boys are discussing strategies in a paintball shack, Sheldon shows an overhead display of the paintball field via Google Earth and explains his plan to take out the Geology Department. Leonard, Howard and Raj are not in the mood to play paintball. Sheldon blames himself for his team's lack of motivation and tries to rip off the Captain insignia he had sewn on, but he is unable to do so.



Sheldon begins to exit the shack, and when Leonard asks him where is he going, Sheldon replies that he is "following the footsteps of Kirk, Crunch and Kangaroo." Sheldon leaves the shack and provokes the enemy by saying "Geology is not a real science!", in turn sacrificing himself; he is shot at least 20 times. Angered, Sheldon's team attacks the enemy and emerge victorious.

thumb|left|300px|Penny's hemorrhoid commercial

Back at the apartment, the boys are celebrating their victory and toast their Captain, who has promoted himself to Major Sheldon Cooper. Penny enters the apartment, proclaiming that she is going back to Nebraska because her acting career is failing - at that exact moment her agent calls her telling that she got a part in a commercial for hemorrhoid cream. In the final scene, the gang watches the commercial in which Penny stars.

Quotes
Leonard: (After Howard claims Penny would've slept with him instead of Raj) ''Please! Sheldon would’ve been before you, and he might not even have genitals!''

(One minute later, after much conversation)

Sheldon: ''For the record, I do have genitals. They’re functional and aesthetically pleasing.''

Penny: You heard what I did?

Amy: Well, I heard who you did.

Bernadette: (Furious with Raj for confessing his fleeting feelings for her to Howard) What the hell is wrong with you?!

Raj: You were always so nice to me, I thought maybe you liked me.

Bernadette: I’M NICE TO EVERYONE!

Amy: (After finding Raj at her door while Penny staying with her) ''A guest in my trundle bed and a boy at my door? I wish I could tell 13-year-old me, it does get better!''

Penny: ''We should have never slept together. It's what ruins friendships.''

Raj: ''You can't ruin a friendship with sex. That's like trying to ruin ice cream with chocolate sprinkles.''

Raj: (To Penny, after confessing that they didn't technically have sex) Can I say I ruined you for white men?

Sheldon: (During a paintball game against the Geology department) Geology isn't a real science!

Trivia

 * This is the third of four episodes to have a "Previously on The Big Bang Theory" review of past events. It includes clips from The Herb Garden Germination and The Roommate Transmogrification, and it is narrated by Johnny Galecki.
 * Sheldon and Beverly Hofstadter think Leonard likes to point out the obvious since he was a toddler.
 * Beverly has written books about parenting, which are (not in real life) available on Amazon.com.
 * Sheldon thinks he follows in the footsteps of Captains: Kirk, Crunch, and Kangaroo.
 * Amy has a secret language, which she dubs "Op." In the language she spells out every word (except for the first in a sentence) and adds 'op' to the end of each consonant. For example, instead of "sounds great," its "sounds gop rop e a top!" It is probably a tribute to Oppish, a language similar to Pig Latin.
 * Sheldon still takes things literally. For example, when Penny tells the guys in the season 4 final that her sleeping with Raj is "not what it looks like," he spends the rest of the day trying to figure out what she meant. He comes to the conclusion that Penny was checking Raj's anal region for pinworms because of what it looked like to him and because Raj is from India; a third-world country. Leonard then clarifies that they did have sex and she lied.
 * Contrary to popular belief the guys previously had, Sheldon does have genitals. He says they are functional and aesthetically pleasing.
 * Howard claims Penny would've slept with him before Raj if he wasn't engaged to Bernadette. Leonard believes Sheldon would have a better chance with Penny than him.
 * Penny is willing to drink wine out of anything. She thinks that after drinking wine from a measuring cup, that wine glasses should have handles. Amy mentions that is good that she is now measuring her alcoholic intake.
 * Raj is always "packing" condoms.
 * This episode is the first of a three-episode whiteboard arc continued in The Infestation Hypothesis and The Pulled Groin Extrapolation. The calculations on the whiteboards refer to attempts to create axions in an artificial Sun generated by focusing 192 lasers onto a small pellet at the National Ignition Facility of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. As shown on the whiteboards’ Feynman diagrams, electrons in the Sun's core could produce a detectable number of axions. Axions are particles originally conceived in the late 1970′s to give a natural explanation in quantum chromodynamics of why the strong nuclear force obeys certain symmetries.
 * When Sheldon fall to his knees after being shot numerous times in the paintball match he strikes the same pose as Sgt. Elias from the movie "Platoon".
 * Penny let Raj tell other people that their love burned too brightly, but not that he ruined her for white guys.

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thumb|300px|left|The Skank Reflex Analysis Sneak Peek

Gallery
The Skank Reflex Analysis