The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition is the 19th episode of the 2nd season of The Big Bang Theory.
A new tenant moves in to the apartment above Leonard and Sheldon, a sexy young actress named Alicia (Valerie Azlynn). While Leonard, Howard and Raj go ga-ga over her, Penny thinks she's just using them and is not jealous of her at all, while Sheldon worries that she'll be too noisy.
Tropes
- Always Someone Better: Alicia pulls this off on Penny. Alicia is even more skilled (and more ruthless) at taking advantage of Leonard, Howard and Raj's generosity than Penny, plus she has already established a firm acting career with a recurring role on a soap plus national commercials as while Penny has bombed all her auditions. The ending also implies Alicia is a better fighter than Penny.
- Attention Whore: Both Penny and Alicia over Leonard, Howard and Raj's tech-savvy knowledge and physical assistance in helping her move into the apartment.
- Bad News, Irrelevant News: For Penny. The bad news is that Leonard, Howard and Raj keep ignoring her to go do tasks for Alicia and so Penny can't get Leonard to do all the favors she asks of him such as setting up her printer. The irrelevant news is that she got Sheldon the wrong mustard.
- Be a Whore to Get Your Man: Penny dresses up in a very revealing, promiscuous dress to win Leonard back from Alicia. Though of course Alicia was also wearing something similar, so it doesn't work. Penny then buys Chinese food for the guys to win them back, only for Alicia to offer them Chinese food as well in exchange for helping her move her things into her apartment room right above theirs.
- Cat Fight: Penny and Alicia finally get in a brawl on the hallway. The guys come upon them and Howard preemptively stops Leonard from breaking it up. The majority of the fight is off-screen with only Penny seen afterwards. Penny got a black eye and a busted mouth, while Alicia is apparently in good enough shape to have sex with a producer. Howard's comment to Raj that "this filly’s been broken" also implies Penny lost the fight.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- Penny claims it's typical for Leonard, Howard and Raj to be used for their services by a beautiful young Gold Digger woman like Alicia. Sheldon claims it's not typical because Alicia just moved in.
- Related to Straw Hypocrite listed below, Penny complains that Sheldon is making an unrelated analogy, even though she's the one clearly doing so, not Sheldon.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Leonard, Howard and Raj.
- Dude, Where's My Reward?: Sheldon complains that his reward for helping Howard move all of his belongings in boxes from Howard's house to the apartment room above theirs should be more than just a pizza, even though this would benefit Sheldon moreso in the long run than Howard because Sheldon can't stand noisy neighbors. To calm him down, Raj lies to Sheldon that instead the reward will be a choice between a mountain bike or a PlayStation 3. Sheldon eagerly goes for the PS3.
- Evil Counterpart: Alicia is this for Penny. Both are attractive, blonde, aspiring actresses. However, although Penny does accept some disproportionate favors from the guys (especially Leonard) she does actually see them as friends, and does give back in return. Nor does she (intentionally) lead them on in order to gain those favors. Alicia has no such compunctions; She openly flirts with and uses the guys to get them to do her bidding, including several favors far beyond anything Penny asked them to do. Additionally, one conversation between Penny and Alicia, in which the latter asks how much a physicist makes per year, suggests that Alicia is a Gold Digger who's willing to go even further than that. Finally, their fight at the end shows they’re both pretty handy in a fight.
- Foreshadowing: Sheldon worried Alicia would be noisy. Turns out he was right.
- Gold Digger: Implied with Alicia. She suddenly asks Penny when they were doing laundry how much she thinks physicists make.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Although she won't admit it, Penny is clearly jealous of Alicia for taking the guys' attention and also for having a successful acting career (Penny's never started).
- Hypocrite: Penny has no right to call out Alicia for how she treats Leonard when she takes advantage of Leonard all the time too. When Alicia points this out, Penny stays silent for a bit (being unable to think of a suitable comeback obviously) then says Alicia is way out of line. However, while Penny may accept Favors for the Sexy she does genuinely see the guys as friends, while it's established Alicia is a Gold Digger quite unapologetically taking advantage of them.
- Insane Troll Logic: Howard's mother is completely against the idea of Howard moving out to live on his own in the vacant apartment room right above Leonard and Sheldon's room yet she tells him to "fly out of the nest" already.
- It's All About Me: Penny and Sheldon as usual, as they spend the whole episode and spend most of their screen-time complaining about Alicia. Penny resorts to even getting into a physical fight with her at the end.
- Mama Bear: When Alicia fully shows her true colors and reveals that she has no empathy whatever for the guys, and is completely willing to hurt and take advantage of them so long as they continue doing favors for her, Penny snaps and drags her into an all-out Cat Fight.
- Momma's Boy: Howard prioritizes appeasing his loud, obnoxious and selfish mother over his as well as Leonard and Sheldon's best interests by agreeing to stay with her just to keep her company rather than take up the vacant room so that a noisy neighbor can't do so.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: Sheldon.
- Shadow Archetype: Alicia shows what Penny would become if she completely gave up her morals and only saw people for what they can do for her even if she does take advantage of the guys.
- Shout-Out: Leonard mocking Sheldon with "They're heee-ere" as the new tenant above their room has moved boxed packages in is a take on Carol Anne from Poltergeist.
- Suicide as Comedy: After Howard and his mother's argument which led to him staying with her rather than moving into the vacant apartment, Leonard called Penny and told her she could take her head out of oven.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: Leonard, Howard and Raj all abandon the Chinese food Penny bought for them just to help out Alicia who offers them Chinese food as a reward.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Conversed.Raj: I like Green Lantern, I'm just saying it's pretty lame that he can be defeated by the color yellow.
Sheldon: Only the modern Green Lantern is vulnerable to yellow.
Leonard: Golden Age Green Lantern was vulnerable to wood.
Raj: Great. So I can take them both out with a number 2 pencil? - What Happened to the Mouse?: Alicia is never seen or mentioned again after this episode. The guys presumably decided to stop doing favors for her and stop talking to her after her fight with Penny or because she hooked up with an executive from CSI.
