Young Sheldon – A Baby Tooth and the Egyptian God of Knowledge

By: Ujjyani Banerjee

Sheldon (Iain Armitage), Missy (Raegan Revord) and Mary (Zoe Perry) visit the dentist. Dr. Bowers (Ryan Stiles) lets Mary know that Sheldon needs to undergo a milk tooth extraction to prevent his other teeth from growing crooked. Both try coaxing each other to break the news to the patient. Ultimately, Mary bears the brunt and lets her son know on their ride home. Sheldon gets scared thinking about the anesthesia, the needles and the blood while Missy enjoys the show.

Dale (Craig T.Nelson) and Connie (Annie Potts) spend most of their date night at the store as Dale is still working. Bored, Connie suggests a weekend getaway. Dale decides to have Georgie (Montana Jordan) in charge of the store while he’s away. Sheldon, who’s looking for alternatives to anesthesia, goes to the library to find answers. He seeks help of Ms. Hutchins (Sarah Baker) to issue a Lamaze book which isn’t otherwise available in the library. Missy is clueless as to why Sheldon’s practicing Lamaze and is made to believe that if it can help women deliver babies, it’d surely help with tooth extraction. However, she vows to never have kids and if she does she’d prefer drugs! Dale informs Georgie about his weekend plans and that he’s to handle the store for those two days. Georgie is thrilled. In order to kick-start his managerial stint, he starts with changing the “grandpa” music at the store.

Mary and Sheldon are back at the clinic. Even though Mary isn’t keen, Dr. Bowers insists for her to be present while they do the extraction. Sheldon lets Dr. Bowers know that he would do Lamaze breathing instead of taking anesthesia and insists on a “no poking with needles” policy. However, upon being shown the spanner-like tooth extractor, Sheldon chooses anesthesia over Lamaze.

Connie gives a heads up to Dale on being a regular at the casino so that he doesn’t freak out later. Dale calls himself a non-gambler, but given that he put Georgie in-charge of the store Connie believes otherwise. Dale feels that his date underestimates her grandson way too much but Connie calls him naive. Dr. Bowers and Mary struggle to get Sheldon to count backwards from one hundred while they administer anesthesia. Sheldon believes that it’s way too easy for him and decides to calculate the matrix coefficient for Unified Field Theory instead. Back at the store Georgie aces at getting customers to have a great shopping experience as he personally attends to each one of them. Once under, Sheldon starts dreaming about being escorted into a carnival tent by Dr. Sturgis (Wallace Shawn). Once inside the tent, Sheldon meets Thoth, the Egyptian God of Knowledge. He asks him about the universally sought-after explanation of the Unified Field Theory, but before he can get his answers Sheldon finds himself back home on the sofa yanked out of his delirium.

As the day goes by Georgie happily hops back to the cash counter only to find all the money stolen in broad daylight! Meanwhile, Connie and Dale are enjoying themselves at the casino, pulling lucky strides. The couple soon hit the bar. In order to extrapolate his unfinished dream, Sheldon asks Mary about his under-anesthesia mumbles. Mary doesn’t quite remember as his words were random and weren’t making any sense. At the bar Connie asks Don to start thinking about retirement and have some fun. The couple laughs as Don still doesn’t consider himself old. Suddenly, he asks Connie to marry him and even professes his love for her. Connie, who is taken aback by his sudden proposal, doesn’t reciprocate as he expected her to. Thwarted, Don leaves. Georgie calls 911 to report a robbery worth four hundred dollars, but drops the idea as he doesn’t want things to get messy. He decides to let go of his own stash that he was saving up to buy his dream car in order to make up for the loss.

Sheldon tries various ways of getting back to his unconscious state, from the sauna and self-hypnosis to “spin till you hurl,” but nothing works. Ultimately, despite being warned against what he was about to do, Sheldon prepares a highly concentrated chamomile tea syrup in his makeshift laboratory. He drinks the solution and lays down on his bed waiting for the potion to work its magic. Meanwhile, Connie remains amused by Don’s childish reaction to her not wanting to marry. She repeatedly says that it’s nothing personal but Don, who devoted so much time to her and helped her family in ways more than one, feels otherwise. Sheldon, who’s still lying down, starts hearing sounds in his empty room. He finds Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, Richard Feynman, Professor Proton and Cyndi Lauper speaking to him through their posters. While Sheldon’s desperate for that Unified Field Theory answer, the prodigies explain to him that a true scientist would enjoy the quest more than being given the answers ready on a platter. Sheldon realises that they are right and makes peace with not knowing Thoth’s answers. He also realizes that the chamomile concentration might have been a little too high as his gut begins to retaliate forcing him to deploy “Bathroom Emergency” protocol.

Georgie returns to the store the next day and is shocked to find the door unlocked. He is even more shocked to find Dale inside. He returned early! Dale asks him on how the earlier day went. Georgie fills him on the good parts and the worst part. Dale is furious to know about the theft. Georgie gives his own money to make up for the loss. Dale takes it and without saying another word fires Georgie.