Sheldon gets a lot of negative responses about his physics lecture. After talking to Amy, he decides to take acting lessons from Penny because he believes it will help him entertain his audience. Meanwhile, Raj, who is without a girlfriend, is having daydreams romantically involving Bernadette.
Tropes:
- Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: When Sheldon sees Tweets about his lecture and discovers that everyone hated it (and him), rather than it being a "triumph" like he believed, he spitefully declares "I didn't want to teach those poopy heads, anyway!" before storming to his room.Howard: FYI, I think that's what Darth Vader said just before he started building the Death Star.
- Comforting the Widow: In one of Raj's fantasies, Howard is seriously hurt in a car accident, and in his dying words, tells Raj to satisfy Bernadette's "sexual needs."
- Daydream Surprise: Raj's fantasies towards Bernadette are presented this way.
- Disney Acid Sequence: The Bollywood dance number in The Stinger, the last of Raj's fantasies.
- Flipping the Bird: There are pictures of Sheldon's lecture where everyone is flipping him off while his back is turned.
- Foreshadowing: Both of the Daydream Surprise sequences have Raj talking to Bernadette without alcohol, hinting that they are not real.
- Fun with Acronyms: One of the Tweets about Sheldon's lecture has the acronym "KMN". Sheldon is unfamiliar with it, but Leonard says he and the others think it means "kill me now".
- A Glitch in the Matrix: You can tell when Raj is dreaming because he can talk to Bernadette. (Raj still has selective mutism towards women at this point; he isn't cured until later.)
- I Think You Broke Him: After Sheldon gets emotional in the middle of the fan script they're practicing with, Penny calls Mrs. Cooper and tells her that she thinks she broke him.
- Platonic Declaration of Love: Penny suggests that she play Spock and Sheldon play his mother in the fan script to stretch both their acting muscles. During the rehearsal, she nudges him to play his mother's reaction to Spock taking him to the Enterprise more emotionally. Sheldon has a breakdown and when Penny gets Mary on the phone, he expresses his familial affection for her:Sheldon: Mommy, I love you! Don't let Spock take me to the future!
- Self-Insert Fic: Sheldon wrote a Star Trek play as a kid in which he's taken away by Spock to serve in the Enterprise.
