Recap / Young Sheldon S 3 E 10 Teenager Soup And A Little Ball Of Fib

"Teenager Soup and a Little Ball of Fib" is an episode of Young Sheldon that first aired December 12, 2019.

Sheldon pretends to be sick to get out of taking a swimming class at school, but the guilt over the lie traumatizes him; he attempts to actually get sick before confessing to Mary, and in the end does get sick.

Meanwhile, Prof. Sturgis (Wallace Shawn) meets Connie's new boyfriend, Dale (Craig T. Nelson), at Dale's sporting goods store. Sturgis buys an athletic cup.

Guest starring Bob Newhart as Prof. Proton, Diedrich Bader as Batman and Kaley Cuoco (uncredited) as the pool.

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Tropes

• Blatant Lies: Sheldon does this to avoid swimming, but it comes back to bite him later.
• Continuity Snarl: In The Big Bang Theory episode "The Friendship Algorithm", Leonard says Sheldon learned to swim on the floor of their apartment, and apparently this is correct because Sheldon says "I just have no interest in going in the water." Yet in this episode, reminiscing about the events of this episode, old Sheldon says:
  The following day, I returned to school. I had no choice but to fulfill my swimming requirement. Much like Batman, I suited up and faced my fears. Unlike Batman, I did it with a doggy-paddle across the shallow end of the pool. Uh, regarding pool sanitation, it turned out I was right. It was teeming with germs. Only I was the one who put them there. As it happens, my interaction with Billy Sparks did get me sick. I, in turn, created a small epidemic taking down 128 students, four teachers... and one principal.
• Getting Sick Deliberately: Sheldon fakes being ill so he doesn't have to attend school the day mandatory swimming tests happen. After a while, he feels so guilty for lying to his mother that he decides to visit his sick neighbor, Billy Sparks, and make his lie true. He catches the illness, but not until after he's confessed and returned to school.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Sheldon fakes being sick to get out of swimming in school; by the end of the episode, he actually does get sick. Not only that, but his friends, teachers, principal, his family, and Dale caught it as well.
• Shout-Out:
  • To Charles Darwin and Jane Goodall: Sheldon compares Sturgis to these two famous scientists.
    Observation is an important part of the scientific method. Darwin observed the finches, Jane Goodall observed the chimpanzees, and for some reason, Dr. Sturgis wanted to observe my Meemaw's new suitor.