Creepy Candy Coating Corollary

Creepy Candy Coating Corollary
Writers	Bill Prady, Chuck Lorre, Steven Molaro (teleplay), Lee Aronsohn (teleplay)
Director	Mark Cendrowski
Starring	Wil Wheaton as himself, Kevin Sussman as Stuart, and Melissa Rauch as Bernadette
Air Date	19 October 2009
Vanity	Card #263
Guide	Episode #305
Quotes	Episode #305
Forums	Discuss Episode

Season 3, Episode 5 (0305)

Pirate Solution . . . << Creepy Candy Coating Corollary >> . . . Cornhusker Vortex

Summary

While Sheldon enters a Mystic Warlords of Ka'a tournament to settle a score with his nemesis, Wil Wheaton, Wolowitz begs Leonard to get Penny to set him up with one of her friends.

Episode Outline

I. Living room

• Howard, Raj, Leonard and Penny are playing Mystic Warlords of Ka'a, while Sheldon works and reveals his eidetic memory.
• After Penny left, Howard reminds Leonard of a pact they made in 2004.

Titles and opening theme

II. Cafeteria

• Sheldon explains his four-napkin-system, while Howard insists that Leonard sticks to the pact they made.
• Raj tells Sheldon that there will be a Mystic Warlords of Ka'a tournament at the Comic book store, Sheldon doesn't want to team up with him.

III. Leonard's bedroom

• After having sex, Leonard reluctantly asks Penny whether she has a friend that would go out with Howard.

IV. Comic book store

• Sheldon finds out that Wil Wheaton will participate in Stuart's Mystic Warlords of Ka'a tournament. He tells Raj and Stuart how he idolised Wil Wheaton when he was young, but that he does now rank six on this all-time enemy list. He teams up with Raj to participate in the tournament.

V. Leonard's car

• Leonard, Penny and Howard are on the way to pick up one of Penny's friends. Howard tries to find out what Penny told her friend about him.

VI. Comic book store

• Sheldon and Raj win their first round in the tournament. Sheldon more and more impersonates the role of Star Trek's villain Khan.

VII. Leonard's car

• Howard struggles to start a conversation with Penny's friend Bernadette.

VIII. Comic book store

• Sheldon and Raj beat Captain Sweatpants and Lonely Larry in the next round of the tournament.
• Sheldon threatens Wil Wheaton in Klingon, leaving the latter to wonder "what is wrong with him".

IX. Restaurant

• Howard still struggles to find a topic for a conversation with Bernadette, when his mother calls. Surprisingly, Bernadette reveals that she also suffers from a too-close attachments with her mother.

X. Comic book store

• Raj and Sheldon face the final round of the tournament against Stuart and Wil Wheaton.
• When Sheldon has Wil Wheaton cornered and almost certainly won the game, he reveals how his admiration for him turned into hatred.
• Wil Wheaton offers an explanation, which turns out to be a trap. Sheldon, however, walks into it and loses the game.

XI. Earth viewed from Space

• Sheldon yells "Wheeeeeeatooooon" as a homage to Kirk in Wrath of Khan.

Resources

List of entries from this episode

David Saltzberg's science blog for this episode

Wil Wheaton's four blog entries about the taping of this episode: [1], [2], [3], [4]

Notes and Trivia

This episode was filmed after Cornhusker Vortex but was shown first. The week after this episode, 26 October 2009, a rerun of Vartabedian Conundrum was aired.

Timeline

This episode takes place one and a half months after the return from the North Pole, since Howard states that Leonard and Penny have been together for this time now. It starts at an evening, depicts the discussion in the Cafeteria on one of the following days at the University and ends on a Saturday night.

Title

The title refers to a dialogue between Leonard and Penny, when she is reluctant to introduce Howard to one of her friends:

Leonard: You know that deep down inside, Howard's a really nice guy.

Penny: The problem isn't what's on the inside. It's the creepy candy coating.

A 'corollary' is something which follows logically from a previously proven fact. In this case, the 'corollary' refers to the logical progression from Howard's weird relationship with his mother to a relationship with someone else with a similar problem. It also applies to the way Sheldon's insists on defining his competition with Wil Wheaton in "Wrath of Khan" terms, leading to his defeat by Wheaton and subsequent shouting of his adversary's name to the heavens (a play on the similar scene in the film when Kirk hollers "Khan!!" into his communicator when defeated.