Young Sheldon – Pongo Pygmaeus and a Culture that Encourages Spitting

By starrymag | November 21, 2019

By: Ujjyani Banerjee

 

 

George (Lance Barber) takes Missy (Raegan Revord) and Sheldon (Iain Armitage) to Missy’s first baseball practice. Sheldon wishes that they went to Radioshack instead. They meet Coach Dale (Craig T. Nelson) who sends Missy off to warm up. Given he and George didn’t get to a good start, he invites George for beer. Geroge knows that Connie would hate it. He next takes Sheldon to Radioshack to buy him a direct-connect modem. Sheldon explains to his dad how it works and how it’d allow him to connect to and share his ideas with academicians all across the globe. George wonders how much it will cost. Sheldon adds that he’d be using his allowances and that Clark’s (Miller Tai) giving him a healthy discount for helping him with his medical school application. After reaching home Connie (Annie Potts) and Mary (Zoe Perry), who are excited to know about Missy’s first practice, learn that she handled the mean boys well. George next reveals how he’ll be going for a beer night with Dale. Connie is mad.

 

Georgie (Montana Jordan) is watching the TV and he gets a call. It’s Lisa (Kerri Medders) from English class. She wants him to come help her with homework. They flirt and the line gets disturbed due to the modem connection. Sheldon asks Georgie to hang up. He tries to explain how he’s helping someone with homework. Sheldon calls it a joke.

 

Dale and Connie go for their date. She brings up the topic of him going out for drinks with George. Dale senses that she’s not in support of it and wonders if George has been a troublesome son-in-law or does she have secrets that could get spilled.

 

Thanks to his modem Sheldon can now post his theories on the physics bulletin board and check other’s comments. Someone called his work flawed and Sheldon finds it rude. Missy, who’s in baseball gear, asks him to hit back without fear as its all anonymous. This fires Sheldon up for his first ever Internet flame war.

 

At home Connie tells Mary that she was trying to call her but her phone was busy. Mary shares about Sheldon’s modem connection. Just then George comes excited about his after-work drinks night with Dale. Connie gets mad and George loves it.

 

Sheldon shows Tam (Ryan Phuong) the new world of physics bulletin board in his school library computer. Tam compares it to the blowup in War Games. Sheldon says he’s just interested in blowing up the other guy’s flimsy argument. Soon the bulletin loads and shows the whole bunch of scientific arguments. Sheldon calls this magic!

 

Missy gets to her class in baseball attire and the other girls start to make fun of her calling her a boy. Hurt, she gets home and asks Sheldon to vacate the room as she needs to change. She asks him what he does upon getting picked on by friends. He reveals that he thinks about how much smarter he is than them and even thinks of himself as a positive charge ion, which makes all the bad comments bounce off him and stick on the naysayers themselves.

 

Georgie is at the lockers when Lisa comes up to him and starts to flirt. This catches Veronica’s (Isabel May) attention and she looks jealous. Georgie meets her after school reminding her of how she made it pretty clear in the past that she’s not interested in him and asks if she’s okay with him moving on. She says yes, but truly doesn’t seem to be.

 

Dale and George are at the bar. They talk about the perks of being grey and single, Dale’s journey to being a baseball coach and finally to him dating Connie. Dale worries if this is some fact-finding mission. George says it could be the other way round and this piques Dale’s interest. He orders more beer for his buddy to know more.

 

Missy is upset about being picked on and is thinking of opting out of baseball. Mary vows to support her decision, no matter what. She soon gets a call from Brenda (Melissa Peterman) who thinks Missy being on the baseball team is crazy, given that she’s a girl and it’s a boy’s game. She reveals that Billy (Wyatt McClure) is on that team too and that the Coopers should really think before adding another weird kid to their title. Mary gets annoyed. She hangs up and instructs Missy to continue with baseball.

 

As the beers continues George shares how easy it is to live with Connie. He even realizes that he’s got a lot in common with her than with Mary. Dale asks about John (Wallace Shawn). George mentions his physicist status, his good nature and resemblance to a cartoon owl. Dale wonders why they broke up and if he’s got something to worry about. George doesn’t reveal anything specifically and calls Connie rock-solid in that respect.

 

The next day Sheldon calls Dr. Sturgis to get some help in his bulletin argument. John wonders if they’ve resorted to name calling yet. Sheldon reveals that he has called the opponent Pongo Pygmaeus. John’s happy as those creatures cannot possibly be good at science.John helps him out and also suggests him calling the opponent “dung beetle” in Latin. Sheldon admires his mind.

 

Connie serves George some coffee and wants to know what all he found out about Dale. First George mentions that he didn’t reveal anything about her and next spills about Dale’s hobbies and family. Connie calls him useless since she already knew all of that.

 

The Coopers go for Missy’s first baseball game. Sheldon is at home fighting an internet war. George gets assurance about Missy’s safety from Dale before the game begins. Mary’s praying while Connie has got bets on Missy’s win. The game begins. Missy misses the first two balls. The opponent purposefully aims for her face on the third ball and Missy breaks loose. She pounces upon him and hits him left and right as the whole family, along with the coach, start to cheer for her. At the same time, after a long slew of arguments, the internet war opponent says that there’s some validity to Sheldon’s theory. Sheldon cannot believe his eyes. He jumps up in joy! Adult Sheldon (Jim Parsons) recollects how on that day both the twins rose to victory.