The Closet Reconfiguration

• Title: The Big Bang Theory – The Closet Reconfiguration
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While rearranging Howard (Simon Helberg) and Bernadette’s (Melissa Rauch) closets during the pair’s dinner party for the gang Sheldon (Jim Parsons) discovers an unopened letter to Howard from his father with whom the engineer has neither heard from nor spoken to since he was 11 years-old. Rather than read the letter Howard decides to burn it, but taking Amy’s (Mayim Bialik) suggestion, a curious Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and Bernadette trick Sheldon, who read the letter before showing it to Howard, into divulging its contents.

Inspired by Howard and Bernadette’s successful evening, Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny decide to attempt to throw a  formal dinner party themselves. Despite not being asked Raj (Kunal Nayyar) offers his help as a party planner. Aside from Sheldon’s complaining, the party is a modest success, at least until Howard discovers the entire group knows the contents of his father’s letter except for him.

After he storms out, the group follows him home and comes up with an unusual, and surprisingly sweet, solution to the problem by offering their friend six possible readings of the letter’s contents and letting him choose for himself which one he’d prefer to believe. Although the episode ends with Sheldon making an embarrassing discovery of “what appears to be a battery operated chew-toy” while organizing Penny’s closet, it’s the gift that each of Howard’s friends offer him, and his choice to believe all six possibilities, that gives the season’s best episode unexpected emotional weight.