Line #40 Recap/TheBigBangTheoryS3E15TheLargeHadronCollision


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lhc.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Leonard observing his hotel room in Switzerland on his trip to see the Supercollider]]
3	'''The Large Hadron Collision''' is the 15th episode of the 3rd season of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''. It is a Valentine's Day themed episode.
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5	'''Plot Synopsis''': Leonard is invited to see the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland and is allowed to bring one (only one) guest. Sheldon overhearing this thinks Leonard will pick him, but is shocked to hear Leonard is taking Penny. Sheldon does everything from cheap blackmail to bribery to change Leonard's mind.
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7	On a side note, Raj keeps lamenting about his loneliness and that he won't have a girlfriend/love interest on Valentine's Day.
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9	!!Tropes
10	* AlienAmongUs: Penny jokes Sheldon must be this, as he is spying on humans to report intel back to his superior. Her sarcasm is so off-putting and poorly delivered even Sheldon, who's usually SarcasmBlind, can tell she was making a bad joke about him.
11	* AloneAmongTheCouples: Raj next to Leonard-Penny and Howard-Bernadette.
12	* BittersweetEnding: Penny is sick, Sheldon is sick and although Leonard avoided getting sick and made it to Switzerland in a luxury hotel room, he didn't want to be alone there and reluctantly took Raj with him to Switzerland. In the end, only Raj is happy, Leonard has mixed feelings, Penny and Sheldon are ill and heartbroken.
13	* TheBully:
14	** Howard to Raj for mocking his loneliness and lack of girlfriend.
15	** Sheldon becomes a major one to Leonard as retaliation for refusing to take him to Switzerland.
16	* CrazyPrepared: Sheldon's Roommate Agreement actually did make specific regulations for Leonard in case he got invited to Geneva, Switzerland to see the Large Hadron Collider - not that Leonard gives two shits about it. The Roommate Agreement is meaningless because it's not an enforceable law.
17	* DoWrongRight: Leonard begs Howard for advice on how to deal with Sheldon pestering him to take him to Switzerland.
18	-->'''Howard''': I'd take Sheldon to Switzerland.\
19	'''Leonard''': Seriously?\
20	'''Howard''': Absolutely. And I'd leave him there.
21	* EatingLunchAlone: Raj claims that because he has no date for Valentine's Day, he's going to eat rotisserie chicken bought from the grocery store [[JabbaTableManners like an animal]].
22	* EntitledBastard: Sheldon feels he is entitled to go to Switzerland with Leonard and see the supercollider there because it was his lifelong dream to do so since boyhood. He begins using every underhanded tactic he can think of to get Leonard to change his mind, including bullying Leonard, bribing him, and trying to guilt Penny into telling Leonard to take him. Each attempt just makes Leonard more frustrated until he tells Sheldon he would rather go alone than take him. Sheldon then threatens Leonard that if he doesn't take him they won't be friends anymore, not that Leonard cares since Sheldon has always been a crappy friend anyway.
23	* ExplainExplainOhCrap: As Sheldon asks how could he have gotten sick as he's very good with personal hygiene and avoiding touching people. Penny doesn't know what to tell him. Then it dawns on him that he touched Penny just before she was coming down with the flu and realizes she infected him.
24	* FoodAsBribe: Sheldon tries luring Leonard into taking him to Switzerland by giving him a breakfast of orange juice, coffee and pancakes shaped like [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Frodo]] (coconut shavings for his feet hair, butterscotch scone) and then bribes him again with cholermus, which is of course a Swiss type of pancake.
25	* GroinAttack: Penny threatens to pour Sheldon's hot chicken soup over his lap for pestering her with his demands for how the soup should be specifically prepared.
26	* {{Hypocrite}}: After Sheldon makes Penny make them both soup while she is sick like him and begins pestering her on the details, he tells her not to be mean when she snaps at him, saying he is sick. Penny reminds him she is sick too, and he dismisses it as not being his problem.
27	* InsultToRocks:
28	-->'''Sheldon:''' This game is called "Traitors." I will name three historical figures, you put them in order of the heinousness of their betrayal: UsefulNotes/BenedictArnold, [[Literature/TheFourGospels Judas]], Dr. Leonard Hofstadter.\
29	'''Leonard:''' Do you really think I belong with Benedict Arnold and Judas?\
30	'''Sheldon:''' You're right, Judas had the decency to hang himself after what he did.
31	* LaserGuidedKarma:
32	** Sheldon when Leonard refuses to take him to Switzerland mainly because he's a crappy person and a roommate to Leonard. Then, Leonard states he would rather go to Switzerland alone rather than take Sheldon because the latter's been a crappy roommate to him for multiple years now and he wants the Switzerland trip to be a break from Sheldon, with or without Penny.
33	** Sheldon catching Penny's flu so that he wouldn't be able to go to Switzerland. For extra irony points, it's heavily implied the only reason he got it from her at all was because of all the time he spends trying to talk her into letting him go instead. Had he simply put up with Leonard's decision, he may well have been able to go once Penny gets sick. As Sheldon calls her out on it, she simply tells him in mockery, "Happy Valentine's Day".
34	* NeverMyFault: Sheldon blames Penny for Leonard refusing to take him to Switzerland. If it weren't obvious enough, it's Sheldon's own fault for mistreating, bullying, exploiting, exhausting, and insulting Leonard.
35	* NoYouHangUpFirst: At the start of the episode, Howard says this to Bernadette over the phone. She promptly does so much to his confusion.
36	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Sheldon gives one to Penny in the form of a Powerpoint Presentation. Penny just [[ShutUpHannibal completely ignores it and ends up stopping it before Sheldon is finished]] since it is nothing she hasn't already heard from him and tells him to deal with not going to Switzerland.
37	* ThrowTheDogABone:
38	** The writers do this to Raj after torturing the ''hell'' out of him for most of the episode by breaking his heart with loneliness on Valentine's Day to making him Leonard's guest to Switzerland.
39	** Leonard gets one too by the writers by being able to take a break from Sheldon with the Swiss trip, but at the end the writers clip half of that bone off by infecting Penny with the flu and pairing him with Raj instead.
40	* ValentinesDayEpisode: Or preparation to. The plot is based on what Leonard wanting to take Penny to his trip, and Sheldon trying to interfere.
41	* VomitDiscretionShot: Late at night, Penny starts to feel the effects of the flu hitting her, with sneezing and nose blowing. Later, she's awake at night vomiting loudly in the toilet. As Leonard goes to tell Sheldon about the trip to Switzerland, Sheldon is heard vomiting loudly from the toilet and claiming that he can see the cholermus he had eaten earlier.

Context Recap / TheBigBangTheoryS3E15TheLargeHadronCollision