Bernadette and Howard are about to get into their outdoor pool for some relaxation when they're shocked by their neighbor's bright lights. The neighbor's building an upper deck for his house. That's got to be some kind of zoning violation. So they call on Sheldon, who inspects the site and finds that his friends have zoning violations of their own.
This puts Sheldon in a moral dilemma. After a mostly one-sided discussion with a clerk at the zoning office, Sheldon decides to report the neighbor but not his friends.
Meanwhile, Leonard wants to show off to his friends the laser he obtained from the administrative fund (see 'The Grant Allocation Derivation'), but Howard and Raj are distracted when Bert (Brian Posehn) comes into the laser room to tell them he's got a meteorite he's going to cut with a diamond saw. Howard and Raj leave with Bert.
Leonard looks for support at the comic book store, telling Stuart (Kevin Sussman) and Denise (Lauren Lapkus) that a laser is a better tool for cutting a meteorite than a diamond saw. Instead of saying they agree with him, Stuart says Leonard has just purchased comic books he's sneezed on (it's just allergies, Leonard claims), and Denise is concerned that cutting a meteorite will unleash the destruction of the world.
Leonard decides to steal the meteorite fragment from Bert's lab to cut it with his laser. Some purple energy emanates from the meteorite as the laser cuts into it, giving Leonard superpowers and likely endangering the world.
Things are quiet at the comic book store, too quiet. Fearing the worst has happened with the meteorite, Stuart tells Denise that the two of them will have to repopulate the species and rebuild civilization.
Tropes
- All Just a Dream: Leonard taking the meteorite and getting infected with a space virus was just a fever-induced nightmare.
- Dream Within a Dream: Leonard dreams that he got infected by the meteorite, got possessed by a space virus and attacked Bert and Raj. He wakes up in his sofa, and then attacks Penny. Then he wakes up for real.
- Mistaken for Apocalypse: Stuart sees no one outside the comic book store and thinks Leonard has unleashed a plague that killed everyone except him and Denise. So they decide to go in the back and "repopulate the Earth." Sheldon arrives, only for Stuart to tell him they're closed.
- Out of Focus: Sheldon is mostly reduced to a supporting role for the first third of the episode, left with little to do because nothing has changed in his and Amy's Nobel Prize conflict. It's only when Howard and Bernadette ask him for help with investigating their neighbor's code compliance that he becomes an integral part of their plot.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: In Leonard's dream, his eyes glow purple upon being infected.
- To Be Lawful or Good: Sheldon is conflicted about whether or not he should report his friends illegally built backyard deck and ultimately doesn't go through with it.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Stuart and Denise are apprehensive about Leonard wanting to open the meteorite due to all the comic books they've read where it turns out badly. Given the show is a Sitcom about regular life, their fears end up being groundless.
