The Big Bang Theory Review: The Locomotion Reverberation (Season 10 Episode 15)

On The Big Bang Theory Season 10 Episode 15, “The Locomotion Reverberation,” Howard and Leonard’s plan to distract Sheldon fails as they notice that they actually need him to keep working on their classified project.

At the same time, Amy, Bernadette, and Penny try to have a girls night out.

My favorite kind of episodes of The Big Bang Theory are the kind which feature Sheldon geeking out about something. When I saw the promos to “The Locomotion Reverberation” and heard that it was all about Sheldon and his obsession with trains, I had a hunch that it would be good.

And I was right! When it comes to Sheldon’s storyline, “The Locomotion Reverberation” is among the strongest of the season so far.

Sheldon: I have a girlfriend — I am already the kind of the train store.

The way Jim Parsons is able to express the enthusiasm Sheldon feels for the things he is passionate about is done so brilliantly. The moment Leonard hands him the envelope containing information on the trip, Sheldon just lights up.

And we even get a classic Sheldon hug. He does not give those out often, but usually, when they make an appearance, hilarious and entertaining scenes tend to be just around the corner.

When Sheldon gets excited about something, he has a tendency to take that excitement a bit further than many others would. This is exactly why episodes like this are so much fun to watch.

While he begins his preparation for the trip by doing research on his iPad, very quickly the situation escalates and suddenly there is a massive train engine in the living room of Amy and Sheldon’s apartment.

And get this… Sheldon is wearing denim overalls and working on the engine saying that he might want to be an engineer instead of a theoretical physicist. 

Howard: The kid with the two shirts screwed us again.

Most likely, this surprising decision to suddenly change his job won’t be mentioned again, but if you know how Sheldon usually tends to talk about engineers, you probably understand why a scene like this is both absurd and hilarious.

While Sheldon is preoccupied with trains, Bernadette, Amy, and Penny decide to have a girls night out. Bernadette, whose is already working on Halley’s pre-school applications, is definitely in need of some relaxation.

After Amy’s suggestion about going to a concert/dance featuring a Renaissance choir is discarded, the ladies find themselves from a parking lot of a building that used to be a club but is now a bookstore. I had a feeling that their plan for a night out would not go quite as they hoped it would, but I didn’t expect that the night would end with Penny opening up about some of her worries.

Has her relationship and day to day life with Leonard changed at all after they got married? Should she feel pressured about starting a family?

While the scene ends on a positive note with Bernadette and Amy reminding Penny how lucky she actually is, I think the questions Penny poses are ones that the viewers of the show might have thought about too.

I certainly have wondered what Penny and Leonard’s future looks like. For such a long time, their relationship was all about a kind of “will they, won’t they” dynamic, but obviously, as a result of their marriage, things have changed.

Now that they have decided that “they will,” what happens next?

After having a proper storyline of his own on the previous episode, Raj is back to babysitting duty. He is paired up with Stuart, and while the banter between the two is fairly funny at times, their storyline feels flat and forced in comparison to the two other storylines introduced on the episode.

Stuart is such a bland, overly stereotypical character, and it is just increasingly easy to lose interest in him. While last week’s episode featured a good amount of scenes involving Raj, I am still hoping that the writers come up with something interesting for him before the end of the season.

Luckily there are still a fair amount of episodes left.

Before I conclude this review, I must say that Amy’s daydream featuring Sheldon shirtless and sweaty, pouring water over himself like some character from a cheesy romance novel is TOO GOOD.

Something like that actually happening within the narrative would be incredibly strange, but having a chance to peek into Amy’s thoughts for a while definitely ends the episode on a high note.

What did you think of this episode of The Big Bang Theory? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Big Bang Theory airs Thursdays at 8/7c on CBS.

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