TV-Reviewed

Another episode of The Big Bang Theory has come and gone and once again it has left me laughing my butt off. The episode was in large part a Koothrappali episode and those always tend to be funny. Every season Raj gets a couple episodes that put him in the lime light and pull him away from his usual role as Wolowitz’s partner in crime. The shift in focus from Penny and Leonard to one of the other characters really helps the show from getting too boring or repetitive. “The Pirate Solution,” did move a little slower than most episodes and the storyline was a little light. It did however have enough laughs to still keep it hilarious. 

So the episode basically starts with the whole gang celebrating Columbus Day by sitting around watching Chris Columbus movies (Goonies, Gremlins, etc.) It doesn’t take long for it to come out that Raj is probably going to get deported because the research project he was running ran into a dead end. When the university finds out, they’ll fire him and his visa will be revoked.  Raj, not wanting to return to India because he has grown to love his friends and the taste of beef, asks the group or ideas. Everyone agrees that Raj should try to get another job at the university except for Sheldon who thinks Koothrappali should “wander the high seas as a stateless pirate.” 

Raj attempts to get another job in the astrophysics department. However, his nervous disorder that keeps him from speaking to women presents a problem when one of his other colleagues is a woman. Needless to say he doesn’t get the job after making an ass out of himself by drinking alcohol to dumb down his nerves. Luckily, or not so luckily depending how you look at it, Sheldon comes along to save the day by offering Raj a job to work with him. Correction ‘for’ him. To which Koothrappali responds, “Okay, please don’t take this the wrong way but I’d rather swim butt naked across the Ganges, with a paper cut on my nipple, and die a slow agonizing death from a viral infection, than work with you.” Despite his big words he takes the job out of desperation. 

Meanwhile, with Raj now driving Sheldon everywhere, Leonard and Penny get to enjoy the apartment Sheldon-free. However, it doesn’t take long for a new pest to present itself. Wolowitz, who is used to spending all his free time with Koothrappali, has now found that he is alone and bored and begins to intrude on Penny and Leonard’s alone time. He goes into full suffocation mode until they finally snap but then they feel bad for hurting his feelings and begrudgingly decide to just put up with him.  

Things are similarly worked out for Sheldon and Raj when Raj quits working for Sheldon because of Sheldon’s superiority complex. After realizing that the equation he and Raj were fighting over was right only after Raj fixed it, Sheldon asks Raj to return to work for him. Koothrappali still desperate for a job accepts Sheldon’s half-assed apology and the two return to sitting around starting at a dry erase board. 

One thing that did get a little old was all the Indian jokes. It was like as soon as Koothrappali had more than a few lines to say the writers had to make sure to get in as many jokes about India as they could; overcrowded, cow gods, outsourcing. Some were really funny but it started getting old. Okay we get it, he’s from India, move it along. Another thing that was kind of a let down was how uneven the storylines seemed. The main storyline overpowered the side story so much, there really didn’t seem to be a point in having it. Luckily this episode still generally had good dialogue to fall back on. This wasn’t by any means one of the best episodes the show has produced, but it was entertaining none the less.

Rating: 7.7