Fellas, please.
Penny, come on. We were just finding our sound.
You found it.
It's the sound of a cat being run over by a lawn mower.
I'm really very busy.
Is there any way that we can put this off
until I have more time to prepare?
Of course. But, you understand my trepidation.
- What's that about? - Not a clue.
Can't we just postpone it till the spring?
Maybe next summer?
This should be fairly easy to deduce.
He's holding the phone to his left ear.
Ears do not cross hemispheres, so he's using the analytical
rather than the emotional side of the brain,
suggesting that he has no personal relationship with the caller.
No, I didn't realize it had been so long.
Sure, I guess there's no other choice but to just go ahead and do it.
He's referring to an activity he has done before.
It's unpleasant and needs to be repeated.
This suggests some sort of invasive medical test,
like perhaps a colonoscopy.
Aren't there any other options? There's not a lot of room.
- It's gonna be uncomfortable. - Yes, yes.
I'm definitely going with colonoscopy.
Okay, bye.
My mother's coming to visit.
How about that, you were right.
Subtitles: sub-way.fr Transcript: YYeTs
It's out of order.
Yes, I can read the sign. I'm just pondering the implications.
I think it implies that the elevator doesn't work.
Again, I can read the sign.
But the sign and the tape are covered with a layer of dust,
which indicates that the elevator has been nonfunctional
for a significant amount of time.
Which suggests either a remarkable passivity
among the, I assume,
24 to 36 residents of this building,
based on the number of mailboxes
and given typical urban population density
or a shared delusion of functionality.
You must be Leonard's mother.
I don't know if I must be, but yes.
I'm Penny. I'm his neighbor.
Dr. Beverly Hofstadter.
Nice to meet you.
You're a hand shaker. Interesting.
Come with me. I'll walk you to the apartment.
Would you like to exchange pleasantries on the way?
- Yeah, sure, I guess. - All right, you start.
I've always been curious. What was Leonard like when he was little?
I think you mean young. He's always been little.
Right. What was he like when he was young?
You'll have to be more specific.
Okay, like, five or six.
Five.
At that age, he was well enmeshed
in what Freud would call the phallic stage of psychosexual development.
An outmoded theory, of course, but the boy did spend
most of his waking hours with a tight grasp on his penis.
Leonard mentioned you were a psychiatrist.
That is one of my degrees. My primary field is neuroscience.
Well, I'm an actress.
Why?
What do you mean why?
There are studies that suggest that many who go into
the performing arts suffer from an external locus of identity.
Yeah, I don't know what that means.
It means you value yourself only as others value you,
which is often the result of unmet childhood emotional needs.
I had a wonderful childhood.
Tell me about it.
I know my dad wanted a boy.
I tried being good at sports, but I hated getting dirty!
And then, I'm assuming, you entered adolescence.
He called me Slugger until I got my first training bra.
And then he just stopped playing catch with me.
I wasn't Slugger anymore.
Your mother's here!
If you want to have intercourse with that girl,
find out what kind of cologne her father wore.
Good to see you, Mother.
Here's your tea, Mother.
Oolong?
Loose, not bagged?
Steeped three minutes?
Two-percent milk?
Warmed separately?
One teaspoon sugar?
Raw sugar?
It's cold.
I'll start again.
I have the same problem with him.
My theory is that his lack of focus stems from an over-developed sex drive.
I don't know where he would've gotten that.
Aside from a pro forma consummation of our marriage,
his father and I only had intercourse for the purposes of reproduction.
That seems a fairly efficient arrangement.
Yes, we think so. We've both done papers on it.
Mine from the neuroscientific point of view
and his from an anthropological.
Mine, of course, was the onlyne worth reading.
Of course.
I would very much like to read about your sex life.
It's all online or you can order it from the Princeton University Press.
Here's your tea, Mother.
So, what are you guys talking about?
The frequency with which your parents had intercourse.
Swell.
If you're lucky, maybe she'll show you the PowerPoint presentation.
I'm sorry, it's on my other laptop.
So, Mother...
- what's new? - You'll have to be more specific.
All right. What's new with you?
Well, I've been having some fascinating menopausal symptoms recently.
Maybe something less personal.
Your Uncle Floyd died.
Oh, my God. What happened?
His heart stopped beating.
I have to urinate.
What a remarkable woman.
Yeah, I-I thought you guys might hit it off.
I envy you your childhood.
I hate to tell you, but the only warm memories
I have of my childhood are of my Uncle Floyd.
You're clearly misremembering. Your mother is brilliant,
analytical, insightful.
And I'm betting she never hit you with a Bible
because you wouldn't eat your Brussels sprouts.
You don't give your mother enough credit.
She's warm, she's loving,
she doesn't glue electrodes to your head
to measure your brain waves while potty training.
You were lucky. When I was a kid, if I wanted an EEG,
I had to attach my own electrodes.
So, Dr. Hofstadter, Leonard rarely talks
about his incredibly successful brother and sister.
Please, don't go there.
I understand that,
unlike Leonard, they're at the top of their respective fields.
Boy, you suck.
Leonard's younger brother, Michael, is a tenured law professor at Harvard,
and his sister just successfully grew
a human pancreas in an adolescent gibbon.
So, she's close to curing diabetes?
Why else would you grow a pancreas in a teenaged gibbon?
You must be very proud.
Why? They're not my accomplishments.
I have to urinate.
- Why are you doing this? - You know the rules.
You brought your mom to work... you must suffer.
I had no idea your siblings were so much more successful than you.
You're like the Jar Jar Binks of the Hofstadter family.
Oh, mesa think yousa lookin' so so sad.
Rather than mock me, my friends might realize
that this is difficult and try to help me through it.
Nope, I think mocking you is more fun.
Next time, don't yousa bring mama to work. Okee-day?
- That was fast. - The middle stall was occupied.
I'll have to try again later.
That's totally understandable. In bladder voiding, as in real estate,
it's location, location, location.
- So, where were we? - Howard lives with his mother
and Raj can't speak to women unless he's drunk. Go.
That's fascinating. Selective mutism is quite rare.
On the other hand, an adult Jewish male living with his mother is so common
it borders on sociological cliché.
It's just temporary; I pay rent.
He lives in the same room where his bassinet was.
Both selective mutism
and an inability to separate from one's mother
can stem from a pathological fear of women.
It might explain why the two of you have created an ersatz homosexual marriage
to satisfy your need for intimacy.
Say what?
That's basically what I just said.
You brought your husband to work. You know the rules.
Mesa thinking yousa looking pretty sad now too, betcha, betcha.
Leonard, it's 1:00. Weren't you going to show me your laboratory at 1:00?
There's no hurry. Tell them more about their secret love for each other.
But it's 1:00. You were going to show me your laboratory at 1:00.
Her reasoning is unassailable. It is 1:00.
Fine. Let's go.
I think you'll find my work pretty interesting.
I'm attempting to replicate the dark matter signal
found in sodium iodide crystals by the Italians.
So, no original research?
What's the point of my seeing it?
I could just read the paper the Italians wrote.
Just for the record, we're not in an ersatz homosexual relationship.
- Then why didn't you say that to her? - Why is it always my responsibility?
It's not always your responsibility.
I swear, this is the same thing you did at the comic book store last week.
I can't believe you're bringing that up.
- I didn't bring it up. You did. - We'll talk about this later.
You always say that, but you never do.
You went to the comic book store without me?
- You got alcohol? - Your mom still here?
Come on in.
Wait, she's not gonna come here looking for you, is she?
Relax. She took Sheldon to the hospital to get a brain scan.
Oh, my God. What happened?
Nothing. Mother likes looking at brains
and Sheldon likes getting his brain scanned.
Geez, what a fun couple.
She's only been here a day and a half
and I'm seriously considering alcoholism as a new career path.
I talked to her for 5 minutes yesterday and I've been half bombed ever since.
You can't let her get into your head.
- My head, what about yours? - It's too late for me.
My head is her summer house.
She was right.
The locus of my identity is totally exterior to me.
Yeah, there she is. Hi, Mom.
Do you know where I was all morning?
Auditioning with 50 other blondes
for some stupid antidepressant commercial.
And for what?
So I'll finally get my daddy's approval?
- Did you get the part? - No, they said I was too perky.
You want to talk about not getting love from a parent.
You know what I used to do when I was little
to have some sensation of human contact?
Yeah, you grabbed your penis and wouldn't let go.
Your mother told me.
Of course she did. That's not what I was gonna say.
When I was ten years old, I built a hugging machine.
A hugging machine?
I got a dressmaker's mannequin,
I stuffed it with an electric blanket so it would be warm,
and built two radio-controlled arms
that would hug me and pat my back.
That is so sad.
You know what the saddest part was? My father used to borrow it.
Your scan data will be very helpful to my research.
You have a remarkable brain.
I know.
Although I've always hated
how my right frontal lobe looks in pictures.
Common complaint among men.
Nothing's ever big enough.
Except when they get a tumor. Then you never hear the end of it.
I'd love to see a scan of your brain sometime.
I'll send you a link, but its physiology is fairly unimpressive.
I can't believe that.
Your unwillingness to accept empirical evidence
suggests an attempt at flattery.
My apologies.
I've been living with your son too long. Gotten into some bad habits.
Understandable.
- Can I make you a cup of tea? - I doubt it,
but if anyone has a chance, it's probably you.
I feel very comfortable around you.
I feel very comfortable around you, too.
It's surprising
because I generally don't feel comfortable around...
well, anyone.
Nor I.
What are the odds that two individuals
as unique as ourselves would be connected
by someone as comparatively workaday as your son?
Is that a rhetorical point or would you like to do the math?
I'd like to do the math.
I'd like that, too.
Now this time,
you're gonna lick the salt...
off my neck...
do the shot...
and then...
bite the lime.
I'm sorry, I didn't hear anything after "lick."
Neck, shot, lime.
- Shot, lime. - Right.
Where's the lime?
We're sharing.
So, what do you think?
I'm very tempted.
I'm just not sure it's appropriate with my son's roommate.
Normally, I'd feel the same way.
But based on everything I've observed about us,
I can't help but speculate we'd be very good together.
True. I've had a similar observation.
It's certainly something I could never do with my husband.
I was hesitant the first time I tried it,
but I experienced an unanticipated
and remarkable release of endorphins.
It's quite satisfying.
I see what you're doing.
You're appealing to the neuroscientific researcher in me.
You see right through me, don't you?
Only when you're in a CAT scanner.
This is actually gonna happen.
Honey, shush, shush.
You shush, I'm happy. I want to talk about it.
You know what my mother would say? She would say
because you weren't loved by your father and I was not loved by my mother,
that having sex is our way of making up for the intimacy
we didn't get as children.
Why would you bring that up right now?
I don't know.
Foreplay?
So you're saying you're not having sex with me,
you're having sex with your mother?
I'm gonna go with "no."
That is the sickest thing I've ever heard.
Come on,
you're trying to have sex with your father and I'm okay with that.
Get out!
She said shush. I should have shushed.
All right, Mother.
Have a nice flight.
That's not really in my control, is it?
- Good morning. - Morning.
- I was just coming over to talk to you. - You don't have to.
Ever.
Gotcha.
- Good-bye, Mother. - Good-bye.
So, Slugger, shall we pick up where we left off last time?
I mean, my mom could've just said,
"Bob, get over it, she's a girl, move on."
- But she didn't. Not one word. - Interesting.
Would you be willing to fly to New Jersey
and discuss your relationship with your parents during a brain scan?
- Would it help? - Well, it would help me.