The Barbarian Sublimation

The Barbarian Sublimation is the third episode of the second season of The Big Bang Theory.

Plot Summary
Penny becomes obsessed with The Age Of Conan game, she won't stop asking Sheldon  for advice on the game and Sheldon  can't take it anymore.

Extended Plot
Sheldon becomes distracted from playing Age of Conan by Penny who has accidentally attempted to use her car keys to open her apartment door. Sheldon learns that Penny is frustrated by her failures in life specifically her not getting into any of the parts in plays she's tried out for, not having sex for six months, not receiving a raise at work and on her way up the stairs, she swallowed a fly. Sheldon invites her into his apartment to wait until the locksmith arrives to open her door. Penny notices Sheldon  playing his game, and curiously inquires. Leonard comes back to see a cat eating Penny's  ice cream outside her house, when he enters his apartment he sees Penny  who is now obsessed with the Age of Conan and Sheldon  who is helping her. By Leonard's request, Sheldon  catches Leonard up on how Penny  got there. The boys are having some fun with a simple Non-Newtonian fluid : (Corn Starch and Water mixture) when Penny interrupts them to seek Sheldon's  advice on the game. Penny's obsession for the game grows as she interrupts Sheldon  again, this time in the middle of his sleep to ask him for advice on the game. The next morning, Sheldon confronts Eric Gablehauser (Mark Harelik ) to mediate his problem with Leslie Winkle (Sara Gilbert ), suddenly Penny  calls his cellphone, but Sheldon  refuses to answer. Soon, Gablehauser's office phone rang. It was Penny calling, and she proceeded to ask for Sheldon advice on the game again. Because of this call, Sheldon lost his argument with Leslie. Sheldon returns home frustrated by Penny. He has exhausted all his methods in getting Penny to leave him alone, so he turns to Leonard  and claims that he will be in a foul mood if Leonard  doesn't succeed. So Leonard went over to Penny's  and tries to reason with her, and, after failing to do that in person, he tries doing it in the Age of Conan game world, but Penny's character inadvertently chopped off Leonard's  character's head. The next day, the boys are eating at the cafeteria when Leslie comes by and mocks Sheldon. He then tries to retaliate but is too tired to do so. Leonard explains the reason, then Leslie  postulates that Penny  is escaping into the game world because she is not having sexual intercourse. Sheldon accepts her hypothesis and proceed to ask the first guy (Credited as Blaine, portrayed by Tyler J. Olson ) he sees if he is interested in a sexual relationship and his phone number. Sheldon doesn't realize that Blaine is probably gay as he accepted Sheldon's  requests. Later, Sheldon tries to find a mate for Penny  by filling out a form with Penny's  details for online dating. When Leonard came back to his apartment and bumps into Tom (Mark Hames ) who is the result of the online dating algorithm, but when Penny  came by, she was not interested in Tom at all, after that Tom said that Penny  did not look anything like her picture. In the final scene, Penny's character meets Howard's  character in the game and she agreed to go on a quest followed by a drink at a tavern with him, suddenly Penny  realized she needed help.

Trivia

 * Penny's key got stuck because her door lock is a Baldwin brand, using edge-mounted cylinders, while her Volkswagon key uses center-mounted cylinders. In other words, the door key has notches on the top/bottom, while the car key has groves on the sides (and flat top/bottom).
 * Sheldon and Penny are playing Age of Conan (Conan the Barbarian) as the characters "Sheldor, The Conqueror" and "Queen Penelope", respectively, and to the psychological concept of sublimation - transformation of sexual energy into non-sexual endeavors (in this case, into online gaming).
 * Non-Newtonian fluids (like equal parts cornstarch and water) do behave in that unusual way on a bass speaker (though do protect your speaker with something like plastic wrap as the guys did if you try this at home)
 * The fake online dating service Sheldon signs Penny  up for is "Headoverheelz.com"
 * It's interesting to note that while Leonard and Penny's relationship disappeared after one date (The Bad Fish Paradigm), in the previous episode (The Codpiece Topology) both started seeing other people, but clearly tried to make the other jealous of that fact. Now both intermediary relationships dissolved but throughout this entire episode, Leonard never steps up to help Penny learn more about Age of Conan (he has a virtual character in the game as well), nor helps her break her habit, and it's instead Sheldon who's her mentor throughout this episode.
 * When Sheldon is signing Penny  up for online dating, if you look at her profile, for her name it just says Penny, no last name.

Chuck Lorre Productions, #219
On a recent trip to Las Vegas I watched a grim, beer-bellied man row a gondola filled with tourists through the "canals of Venice." This was his job. At some point he had to have filled out an application and undergone an interview process to determine if he had the necessary skills to be a pretend gondolier eight hours a day, five days a week. As he glided past me I found myself imagining him walking into his house at the end of a long day, tossing his keys into the cheap ceramic bowl by the front door and sadly calling out to his wife, "I'm home." To which she would cheerfully respond, "How was work today, sweetie?" But instead of saying "fine," which was how he answered that question every other day, he paused and considered the day's events, and all the events that had led him to this point in his life. Then he crossed to the hall closet, took down a shoe box from the hat shelf, removed a small caliber pistol that he'd bought for home protection, and immediately blew his brains out all over the badly framed photograph of him rowing Barry Manilow. Waking from my brief reverie, I found myself suddenly filled with compassion and respect for this stranger of the inland sea. Compassion for his quiet determinism. And respect that he chose not to take his cheerful wife with him.

I don't know about you, but Vegas always does this to me.

Critics
"The writers are making great attempts to be funny and they largely succeed. But they are ignoring proper character development and the show is much weaker for that. I’m glad they address Penny’s frustration here but will it be forgotten next week?." - The TV Critic's Review