- Howard plans something special to celebrate the anniversary of his first date with Bernadette. Sheldon is conflicted when he makes a major scientific breakthrough but some details have to be corrected.
- The anniversary of Howard and Bernadette's first date is approaching, and Howard wants to do something special and romantic for the occasion, namely write a song for her which he wants to perform for her with the help of their friends. This gesture makes Penny come to the realization that with the exception of having sex with him, she does nothing romantic for Leonard ever, while he does romantic things for her all the time. She tries to come up with her first ever romantic gesture to make Leonard feel good. But what she ends up doing doesn't quite have the effect she wants, while romance has been sitting in her closet all along. Meanwhile, Sheldon has been zoned out of all his friends' goings-on while he works on something. That something ends up being a breakthrough, namely the discovery of how to synthesize a new, stable super heavy element. This discovery takes the scientific world by storm. After receiving all this well deserved attention, Sheldon discovers that the attention is not well deserved as he made an error in his calculation based on misreading a table, meaning that he accidentally stumbled across his discovery rather than came by it from a purely scientific standpoint. Sheldon has to decide if his error will make him feel bad about what he nonetheless accomplished.—Huggo
- Howard wants the gang to play together the song he is writing Bernadette to celebrate the anniversary of their first date, inspiring Penny to show Leonard romance. Sheldon is too busy creating a formula to synthesize a new super-heavy element. When a Chinese lab uses his formula and finds an element, Sheldon basks in fame, grabs cookie from pal's lunch plate, and goes over memorabilia to donate to the Smithsonian. In a book of tables, he misread kilometers for meters, so his formula is out by a factor of 1000. Despite embarrassment, he complains but cannot take back what the internet has taken, preferring a sex tape because he does not know what a sex tape is. He sees Amy's disappointment as "romantic" and puts her on his exclusive tree house club member list. Bernadette's work calls the restaurant where the gang await with their musical instruments. She is in quarantine at the hospital after carrying ten too many vials of raccoon virus in one trip, so Howard takes his electronic keyboard there and sings while the others chorus "He would still live with his mom" and "We don't know what we'd be without you, Bernadette". After unsuccessfully consulting Raj, Penny makes Leonard a romantic dinner, finally including the flavor packet for instant noodles, strews the way to the bedroom with rose petals. He already has her gift, a first edition of his favorite childhood book, Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but is impressed at all the trivia she has saved: the 11-page thank-you letter after their first sex, a rose from her windshield, a pregnancy test - just the first one.—AnneToronto
- At the Cheesecake Factory Penny asks Sheldon who is very engrossed in his calculations/ what he's doing and he tells her to not bother him since he is "in the zone". Amy comments that the last time he was this involved, he figured out electron transport in Graphene and who should get into his tree fort in case he ever gets one. She adds that she didn't make the list. Bernadette has some exciting news about the raccoon virus she has just acquired which is that the virus could jump species and infects humans. Howard makes her go wash her hands and then tells everyone about the song he is writing for Bernadette for the anniversary of their first date.
Walking up the stairs, Penny wants to know why Leonard doesn't do something romantic for their first date anniversary. Since they had broken up so many times, Leonard doesn't know which first date they are talking about. He has done lots of romantic things for Penny, but it seems she hasn't done anything for him and Leonard feels that sex doesn't count. Penny then becomes determined to romance his ass off.
In apartment 4A, Sheldon is still deep in his whiteboard calculations. Leonard looks at his work and is astounded that Sheldon has figured out how to synthesize a new stable super-heavy element. Sheldon starts dancing around the apartment chanting about his marvelous brain.
At work, Howard tells Raj and Leonard that he is almost finished with his song. Leonard agrees to play the cello. Raj agrees to play his ukulele, the "tiny ridiculous guitar". Howard congratulates Sheldon and Raj called the discovery inspiring. Some scientists in China have tested his work on a cyclotron and got promising results. Leonard is impressed by this news. Howard asks what comes next. Sheldon replies: more testing, more success, and more fame..
Penny asks Raj to come over and help her plan a romantic evening for her and Leonard. Raj tells her that the way to a man's heart is through his.. "Pants," Penny says finishing his sentence. Raj then tells her that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Penny is reluctant to cook for him since he's such a picky eater. Too salty. Too dry. Too burned and frozen at the same time. Raj then describes the end of the movie "Dirty Dancing". He also mentions standing outside his window holding up a boom box which turned out to be from from the movie "Say Anything".
While Sheldon is busy saving all his souvenirs from his discovery, Amy is helping him catalog them. Sheldon gets a message that they are writing an article about him in the journal "Physics Today". Amy is very proud of him. Next he picks up his copy of "The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics" he used in his work. Looking at it he realizes that the reaction rates he used were wrong. Instead of square centimeters, he used the units of square meters. Sheldon was off by a factor of ten thousand. Amy points out that the Chinese team did find the element. Sheldon concludes that there must be some resonance between the elements that he didn't know about. He isn't a genius; he is a fraud.
The next day on the way to work, Leonard tells him to stop beating himself up. Sheldon thinks that he is getting credit he doesn't deserve and that it's going to haunt him for the rest of his life. The next day at the cafeteria, Howard is going over the final details of their performance for Bernadette. Sheldon again asks everyone not to celebrate his bone-headed mistake. Raj asks if they did not find the element. Sheldon replies that they did find the element as applause again breaks out.
In a private dining room, everyone is getting their instruments ready. Howard has a keyboard, Raj has his ukulele, Leonard has his cello, Sheldon has a recorder, Amy has her harp, and Penny has a tambourine. Howard wonders what is taking Bernadette so long so he goes to check on her. Sheldon finds out that the National Science Foundation wants to give him a big grant and wonders when this nightmare is going to end. Howard comes in and explains that there was an accident at his wife's laboratory and she is in the hospital in quarantine just in case. Otherwise she is fine. Sheldon adds to the bad news that he just got a raise.
Howard finds Bernadette behind glass and asks what happened. She tried to move too many Petri dishes of the raccoon virus at once and dropped one, but she is fine. The gang shows up with the keyboard in hand and Howard announces that in honor of their first date they are going to celebrate with a song "If I Didn't Have You". Howard plays a song about how lost he'd be without her. The gang provides backup and sings the refrains. Bernadette finds it amazing and says that she is shaking. Sheldon takes that as a sign that she is sick and leaves.
At Penny's she and Leonard are having a candle light dinner. Her dinner tastes delicious because she has discovered the flavor packet that went with it. Penny turns on some romantic music and Leonard thinks that she is pretty confident. She spreads out rose petals on the floor as she walks toward her bedroom. She gave it a lot of thought and she bought him something to show him how much she loves him, a first edition of "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Penny remembered that it was his favorite book growing up. They had seen it together and Leonard had already bought it. Penny then calls herself the worst. Penny pulls out a box of everything he has ever given her. Some of them are a plane ticket he bought her when she was too poor to go home for the holidays, a rose he left on her windshield, just because, the eleven page letter he wrote to her after they first time they had sex. Leonard cannot believe that she saved all this stuff. She saved it because it was him.
Finally, Amy and Sheldon are in his apartment. Sheldon still can't believe that he read the table wrong and blames her. She has been a distraction to him since he first met her. She apologizes and Sheldon says that all he wants to do is kiss her, not on the cheek, but on the mouth like mommies and daddies do. Amy is getting a little breathless. She says, "Oh, Sheldon." As they lean closer to each other, she hears her name called and comes back to the Cheesecake Factory. Sheldon asks her if she heard what he said. Amy replies that she can't talk because she is "in the zone".
Title reference: The very different ways that the three couples express romance are examined.
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