Recap / The Big Bang Theory S 1 E 12 The Jerusalem Duality

The Jerusalem Duality is the twelfth episode from Season 1 of The Big Bang Theory.

Dennis Kim (Austin Lee) is a 15-year-old physics prodigy who escaped from North Korea. The boy seems to be even more of a genius than Sheldon. And Dennis is definitely as arrogant as Sheldon: Dennis calls Sheldon's research a dead end.

Feeling upstaged, and shunned by Leonard then Howard and then Raj, Sheldon decides to turn his attention to an easier problem: peace in the Middle East. Sheldon's solution is to recreate Jerusalem in the Mexican desert and transplant the Jews there.

Howard, Leonard and Raj decide to help Sheldon out by finding a pretty 15-year-old girl to distract Dennis. Department Chair Gablehauser (Mark Harelik) announces a reception for Dennis. Somehow the event falls on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. At the reception, Dennis hooks up with Emma (Emma Degerstedt), they leave the reception to go to the mall.

Later, at a park, Howard, Leonard and Raj spot Dennis and Emma drinking out of a bottle in a paper bag among a group of teenagers. Looks like things will return to normal for Sheldon.

Tropes

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Sheldon, who is a fan of Terminator movies claims that cyborgs will rise up and usurp humanity in the future. He actually hopes that'll happen just so Dennis won't live to outshine him.
• Always Someone Better: Dennis Kim to Sheldon.
• An Aesop: Being intelligent isn't all that's important to you; you also need to be polite and considerate to other people. Despite being a teen prodigy smarter than even adult physicists, Dennis got his career killed off by Leonard for being a dick.
• Artistic License – Geography: Sheldon claims that the Sonoran Desert is in the middle of Mexico. This is incorrect; the Sonoran Desert constitutes the northern west region of Mexico in addition to California and Arizona.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Dennis can get easily distracted because of his young age to things like chocolate milk or attractive women, which Leonard discovers is his weakness and ultimately uses that against him.
  Dennis: The string theory research being done here is nothing but a dead end. [Gablehauser has Dennis sit with Leonard and Sheldon for lunch, then leaves]
  Sheldon: [angrily] What the hell do you mean dead end?
  Dennis: I mean the whole landscape of false vacuums in string theory could be as large as 10 to the 500th power. In addition.. ooh, look! Chocolate milk! [walks away]
• Bittersweet Ending: While Sheldon gets a great ending, Leonard, Howard and Raj are consumed with guilt over the fact that they just paired Dennis up with a girlfriend who influenced him to drink alcohol in public and give up studying and work all for sex. There's also the issue of Dennis's grandfather still stranded in Pyongyang, North Korea and Dennis gave up working to raise enough money to smuggle him into the United States.^note Also, for North Korean citizens, if you defect and escape from North Korea into any foreign country, your family members could be arrested and thrown into a detention camp or even executed.
• Didn't Think This Through: Sheldon insists that his plan to relocate Israelis to the Sonoran Desert and christen it as New Israel is pure genius and flawless. Though he didn't consider the fact that the Israelis don't want to relocate. In real life, most Israelis claim that their holy land was granted to them by God Himself. Also, did Sheldon consider just how big of a budget is required to transport all Israelis into the desert by boat or plane and create new homes and synagogues? Also, the Sonoran Desert is virtually too hot for human settlement. In real life, civilians in Mexico who have tried to illegally immigrate into the United States through this desert died because of the heat.
• Distinction Without a Difference: Sheldon calls Howard's invention "a shelf". Offended, Howard tries to explain the purpose, and when he realizes that it describes what a shelf does, he concedes Sheldon was right.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Leonard conducts a plan to get Dennis too occupied with a beautiful girl (Emma) to focus on his studying and contributions to the physics field.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: Howard assumes that Dennis can be distracted from his studies by a 15-year old hot Asian girl. Instead, Dennis picks Emma, who is a white blonde girl.
• Foreshadowing: Probably not intended at the time, but Dennis' comment that string theory is a dead end foreshadows Sheldon abandoning his work on it on season seven.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Discussed in regards to Sheldon.
  Penny: I don't understand. Exactly how did he get any friends in the first place?
  Howard: We liked Leonard.
• Get Out!: Leonard, Howard and Raj (in that order) tell Sheldon this so he won't interfere with their work.
  Howard: Sheldon.
  Sheldon: Yes?
  Howard: GO. AWAY.
  Sheldon: Did Leonard tell you to say that?
  Howard: No, I thought of it all by myself.
  Sheldon: Huh. It can’t be a coincidence.
• Hypocrite: Sheldon keeps ordering Dennis to leave his office disturbing his work, but he hesitates to leave when Leonard, Howard and Raj tell him to leave when he also disturbs their work.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Related to Foreshadowing listed above, Dennis was actually right about Sheldon's string theory being doomed to a dead end.
• Job-Stealing Robot: Sheldon tries to build this to take away Raj's job. He nearly succeeded before Raj demanded he stop and go away.
• Lesser of Two Evils: Leonard at first cheers/roots for Dennis to win because of the former's contempt for Sheldon. Though seeing just what effect Dennis has on Sheldon, Leonard schemes with Howard and Raj to kill Dennis (be it literally or just career-wise).
• Manchild: 26-year-old Howard complains to his mother on the phone for forgetting to put a Hostess Ding Dong (a chocolate snack cake with creme filling) in his lunch bag. His mom tries to calm him down by promising 2 Ding Dongs tomorrow, but Howard still whines he still has zero today.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: When Howard, Leonard, and Raj go to Penny to get a pretty teenage girl to distract Dennis from his work:
  Howard: We need a hot fifteen-year-old Asian girl with a thing for smart guys.
  Penny: What?
  Leonard: Howard, that's racist, any fifteen-year-old girl will do the trick.
  [Penny slams her door shut]
  Raj: It's possible she may have misunderstood us.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Leonard is crippled with guilt over having ruined Dennis's life just to stop Sheldon from being slightly more annoying than usual.
• Out of Focus: Penny only has a minor role here.
• Shout-Out:
  • Sheldon and Leonard react to being introduced to Dennis with riffs on Catch Phrases from Star Wars.
    Sheldon: I sense a disturbance in the Force.
    Leonard: [imitating Yoda] A bad feeling I have about this, hmm.
  • Sheldon refers to engineers as "the Oompah-Loompahs of science."
  • Sheldon compares his situation of being upstaged by Dennis to that of Antonio Salieri in Amadeus.
  • Sheldon references Field of Dreams when explaining his plan to recreate Jerusalem in Mexico. "You know, it's like the baseball movie; build it and they will come."
    • And then, when Gablehauser tells him they're going to make a welcoming party for Dennis, Sheldon snarkly remarks of "little Neo to be The One":
      Sheldon: [to Dennis] You can see the Matrix, can't you?
• The Slacker: Having paired up with a young, attractive girl named Emma who has gotten him into the habit of drinking in public, Dennis has given up his quest to perfecting physics and remaining a beloved and valuable part of CalTech Institute and he's on his way to becoming unemployed and having a drinking problem.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Dennis derides Sheldon for failing to apply Lorentz invariant field theory approach upon quantum loop corrections, Sheldon aggressively tries denying he forgone said approach.
  Sheldon: You think I haven't considered it?! You really think I haven't considered it?!
  Dennis: Have you considered it?
  Sheldon: [Beat] Get him out, Leonard!
• Sympathy for the Devil: Leonard says he feels bad for ruining Dennis's future. Sheldon tells him to get over it.
  Sheldon: Screw him, he was weak.
• A Taste Of His Own Medicine: Sheldon gets this from Dennis, but fails to comprehend this trope and so he never learns the obvious lesson he could have learned from Dennis's own malicious attitude.
• Teen Genius: Dennis Kim is fifteen and already a doctoral candidate.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Dennis gives one to Sheldon for working on string theory research, which is on course for a dead end. Plus, Sheldon made errors in quantum loop corrections and is no longer the youngest person to win the Stevenson Award.
  • Dennis also gives a "The Reason CalTech Sucks" speech complaining CalTech lacks an open-science grid computer and an free-electron laser, which makes Dr. Gablehauser plead him to give CalTech one more chance, saying that they're still updating their equipment.
  • He also points out that Leonard should stop ending sentences with prepositions.
  • Dennis when he refuses to leave Sheldon's office without insulting his string theory research first.
  • Sheldon when he tries to take over Leonard, then Howard and lastly Raj's research.
• "Take Your Child to Work Day" Plot: The gang sets one of these up to get rid of Dennis. "Take Your Teenage Daughter To Work Day" is timed to coincide with the kid getting an award.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Emma (the blonde, Caucasian girl who Dennis paired up with) is this to Dennis. Because of her, Dennis has developed a drinking problem and lost all focus on his personal and academic credentials.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Dennis, who is very well-liked by Dr. Gablehauser, became the most recent youngest person to win the Stevenson Award, and has beaten Sheldon in every physicist achievement. Gablehauser foists Dennis on Leonard and Sheldon for a tour around CalTech, making the two listen to insults and gloating from Dennis all day.