"The Irish Pub Formulation" is an episode of The Big Bang Theory that first aired on October 28, 2010. Directed by Mark Cendrowski. Teleplay by Bill Prady, Eric Kaplan and Maria Ferrari, based on a story by Chuck Lorre, Lee Aronsohn and Steven Molaro.
Raj's sister, Priya (Aarti Mann) comes to visit. She and Leonard have a secret sexual relationship, which is discovered by Sheldon.
Leonard wants Sheldon to keep the secret, because Raj is extremely protective of Priya and also because Leonard pinky swore with Howard that neither of them would pursue Priya.
Sheldon finds it very hard to keep a secret, so he concocts an elaborate story about Leonard going to an Irish pub and meeting a very loose Irish woman.
Note that Penny is absent from this episode and the previous one. Kaley Cuoco had an accident in real life.
Tropes
- Characterization Marches On: Sheldon's extreme Cannot Tell a Lie behavior is not yet in evidence here; instead, he crafts an absurdly over-complicated and convoluted alibi for what Leonard was doing the previous night.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Subverted. While Sheldon's belief of how they would comes to the conclusion Leonard slept with Priya was much more convoluted than how it actually went down, he did correctly guess that Leonard not preparing a lie in advance to what he actually did the previous night would come back to haunt him.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Raj's attitude about Leonard or Howard hooking up with Priya.
- Pet the Dog: Sheldon praises Howard for his admittedly clever "cobbler" play on words.
- Remember the New Guy?: Although this is Priya's first appearance on the show, the whole cast previously met her on an earlier visit that took place before the pilot and thus greet her as though she's a returning character. Technically, Penny hasn't met her yet, but Penny isn't in this episode.
- Spit Take: At the end of the episode, Leonard does this when he found out the flavor for Sheldon's snow cone is Mango Caterpillar.
