Recap / Young Sheldon S 6 E 11 Ruthless Toothless And A Week Of Bed Rest

"Ruthless, Toothless and a Week of Bed Rest" is an episode of Young Sheldon that first aired on February 2, 2023.

Sheldon and Prof. Sturgis (Wallace Shawn) have the search algorithm for the grant database all set on the blackboard. The biggest problem right now is that they still don't have a mainframe computer to put the actual database on. Gary O'Brien (Dave Foley), who is funding the endeavor, is out of the country but on the phone, something about eluding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Gary gets hung up on naming the database, and his awful ideas for the name include such bad suggestions as "Grant Canyon." Sturgis prevents Sheldon from hanging up on Gary.

Sheldon goes to Prof. Linkletter's office at the university, where he's annoyed to find that Linkletter (Ed Begley Jr.) and the university are proceeding with the database idea without Sheldon. Linkletter has hired Toby (Hermie Castillo) to program the database.

Then Sheldon goes to confront President Hagemeyer (Wendie Malick). The university has a mainframe computer and a cool name for the database: Granted. Sheldon admits that's a good name.

Sheldon goes back to Hagemeyer's office with Sturgis. Hagemeyer is not convinced by their arguments, and instead puts pressure on Sheldon. The university has given Sheldon lots of perks, like his own one-person dorm room.^note see 'An Expensive Glitch and a Goof-Off Room' These perks could be revoked if Sheldon doesn't get on board with Hagemeyer's plan.

Rather than take that lying down, Sheldon and Sturgis offer Toby more money to leave Linkletter's team and come to their team. Toby immediately accepts. Sheldon's worried that someone else might offer Toby still more money later on. But Sturgis explains that even if that happens, Linkletter losing Toby is still a setback for Linkletter that might give Sheldon and Sturgis the edge.

Gary encourages Sheldon and Sturgis to be ruthless like that. "If you're not ruthless, you're toothless," Gary's fond of saying. Both the boy genius and his mentor actually like that saying.

Gary comes through for Sheldon and Sturgis with a mainframe computer. Unfortunately it's too big for Sturgis's office. Since Hagemeyer is turning Sheldon's dorm room into a three-person room, Sheldon decides to take the mainframe to the room so as to crowd out his potential roommates. Later, when Sheldon plugs the mainframe in, it causes a campus-wide power outage.

Meanwhile, Mandy (Emily Osment) is under doctors' orders to take a week's bed rest on account of her high blood pressure. While setting Mandy up for bed rest, Connie gets down on the floor to retrieve a remote control but then hurts her back. So Mary then looks after Connie and Mandy. Mandy's relationship with her mother, Audrey (Rachel Bay Jones), is as chilly as ever. Mary goes to talk to Audrey and insists Audrey call Mandy right away.

With Connie and Mandy sidelined, Georgie's shorthanded at the video store, the laundromat and the secret gambling rooms. So Georgie calls on George and Missy to help. Missy asks to work the video store, so Georgie sends George to the laundromat. Missy gets along well with the video store customers, while George at the laundromat gets accused of sniffing women's panties.

George goes back to the video store and makes sure to tell Charlie (Matthew Thorson Benavides), a young man Missy's flirting with, that Missy's in the seventh grade. In the ensuing argument with her father, Missy hints that she knows about George's not exactly affair with Brenda. And later, she reveals that she also knows about Mary and Pastor Rob.

Tropes

• Accidental Pervert: George is put in charge of the laundromat, but when he asks a customer if she needs help, she immediately assumes he wants her panties.
• Celebrity Paradox: At the video store, Missy recommends The Princess Bride to a young man browsing the videos. Missy says the movie's title sounds "kind of girly," but also that the movie does have a swordfight. Missy does not mention that the movie's cast includes Wallace Shawn, who on this show plays Sturgis.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • On both sides of the dispute over Sheldon's database idea.
    • Since Linkletter claims he and Sheldon came up with the idea together and Linkletter is an employee of the university, Hagemeyer decides she can move forward with the idea with Linkletter and without Sheldon.
    • Sheldon lists all the electrical devices he's not allowed to plug in to the AC outlet in his university dorm. That list does not include a mainframe computer. However, after the mainframe blows out power to the entire dorm and a good chunk of the city, Sheldon concedes that the list of prohibited devices should include mainframes after all.
  • Also, at the secret gambling room, Georgie's still paying winners their winnings in teddy bears, which he then buys back with cold, hard cash — so technically, it's not gambling, it's winning teddy bears. This is a Continuity Nod to 'Stuffed Animals and a Sweet Southern Syzygy', in which Georgie first proposed the teddy bear payments and buybacks.
• Obviously Not Fine: Connie strains herself getting the remote from under the bed and is unable to get back up, but insists that she doesn't need any help.
• Previously on…: We're quickly reminded of what has happened with Sheldon's grant database idea so far prior to this episode.
• Shout-Out:
  • To Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act: Trying to convince a hesitant customer so he can get back to the secret gambling room, Georgie says Goldberg as a singing nun in that movie's enough to make it worthwhile, and rings up the customer.
  • When Connie is unable to get off the floor, Mandy points out Connie looks like the "I've fallen, and I can't get up!" lady from the LifeCall medical alert bracelets commercials.
• Western Zodiac: In regard to how they might be able to get a mainframe computer, Gary mentions a friend who is a Sagittarius who might be able to give him a discount on a used mainframe.
• Who's Watching the Store?: When Georgie arrives to Mandy's doctor, Connie asks him who is running their businesses (the laundromat, the video store and the secret casino, which the doctor knows about).
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Missy says that Mary was in highschool while George was "like, twenty five" when they got together. According to The Big Bang Theory, George was fifty years old when he died and Sheldon was fourteen when it happened. Sheldon and Missy were born in February of 1980, placing George's death in either 1994 or early 1995, meaning that George was born in 1944. Georgie was fourteen in the first season of Young Sheldon, which takes place in 1989, placing his year of birth in 1975. George would have been thirty-one years old when Georgie was born. Since it was stated that Georgie was conceived out-of-wedlock, and that George and Mary were more or less forced to get married because of it, it's unlikely that they were together for years before having Georgie. So unless George's age has been changed or Missy was wrong and George didn't bother correcting her, this doesn't add up.
  • Missy may have based this on a photo she saw. George says that “people looked older back then”, so he was probably a similar age to Mary but looked a bit older than he was. He’d also served in the army which can “age” people.
    • Missy is obscenely dumb, so it's more of a "Missy Cannot Do Maths" rather than the writers.