The Social Issues That Made Me Hate The Big Bang Theory Finale

January 23, 2023

The last episode of The Big Bang Theory aired in May of 2019. I know that I'm a little late in writing about it, it now being January of 2023, but I've never forgotten how disappointed I was by the ending. Additionally, my brain tends to be overactive anytime I lie down trying to sleep, and last week, for whatever reason, this was one of the "insomnia monologues" or topics for future discussion that it came up with out of the blue. A few days later, the show came up in casual conversation with a friend who said he'd never seen it, and I felt the need to tell him about my disappointment with the finale when giving my opinion.

Since it somehow came up twice in such a short period of time -- and in case my friend wanted an in-depth answer as to why I felt the show did some of its characters dirty in the end -- I decided to sit down and write this.

I'll try to keep the introduction brief, but do want to talk about my history with the show really fast. I know that a lot of people view it as a stupid show, and I'm not going to say it isn't. Sitcoms, in general, kind of are stupid by default. That's part of their charm, and the reason these shows sometimes help us out when we feel like we just need to laugh at something dumb. I'm certainly not going to say that it's meant to be an impressive cinematic experience, but over time we do become attached to TV characters and want the best for them.

I'm not a big TV-watcher overall, but at some point a few years into its run, my mom mentioned that she liked The Big Bang Theory, so I decided to give it a shot as well. There were a lot of nerdy pop culture references in the show that I didn't understand (only the Star Wars ones made sense to me) and I didn't really relate to most of the characters on a personal level, but I appreciated (what I at least viewed as) the overall concept of the show, which is what happens when people from two very different worlds are put together and end up being friends. In this case the nerdy Sheldon and Leonard being next-door neighbors with the "it girl" Penny. At first the show made me laugh a lot, and there were definitely some seasons of it I enjoyed more than others, with it getting pretty boring near the end... but I still felt like I'd been following these characters' lives for so long that they were practically like family and I continued watching it regularly because I wanted to know how things turned out for them. And that's probably exactly why I was so disappointed in the way things turned out for a few of them.

That, and because I feel that in this day and age -- when issues of women's rights and racial insensitivity are so openly talked about -- the writers of a show so big and so important to pop culture should do better. And yes I realize that a lot of people would hear my opinions on this and complain that I'm "too sensitive" or "woke" and "not everything is about race" etc. But I think we should be honest about exactly which characters the writers did dirty and how. Because, to me, it really stands out which characters didn't get the same treatment as the others.

First I want to talk about how the show completely invalidated women who don't want children -- TWICE.

I let them slide the first time, despite it still being a disappointment. Bernadette, who joined the show in (I think) season 3 as Howard's girlfriend, later becoming his fiancee and then wife, had two babies in the later seasons of the show, apparently both written in because of the actress' real-life pregnancies (the first one unfortunately ending in miscarriage in real life but not in the script). That in itself wasn't as big a deal to me, even though it had been made perfectly clear in a previous episode that Bernadette didn't like children. However, that episode ended with her making an agreement with Howard that they could eventually have kids as long as Howard would be a stay-at-home parent, and Bernadette, in her own words, would "work and have conversations with people [her] own age and enjoy [her] life." Sounds like a pretty decent compromise and one that I at first thought was meant to subvert gender roles and expectations... except that, once they actually had babies, it never happened. That whole agreement was thrown out in favor of turning Bernadette into a boring character who had nothing going for her but motherhood, and the two of them into a stereotypical heterosexual sitcom couple who didn't really seem to like each other very much.

Still, several seasons later, when Penny went through a season-long character arc that dealt with her deciding she didn't want kids, I was relieved that they seemed to be taking this opportunity to correct their previous mistake, albeit with a different character. This was their chance to show that women who don't want children are valid and that most of them don't change their minds or settle for a life of marriage and motherhood the way Bernadette did; that Bernadette was the exception and not the rule. And while, with Penny, it wasn't something she'd known her whole life, it was something she put a lot of thought into throughout the final season, even in spite of the fact that her now-husband Leonard might be disappointed with her decision. It was great to see this childfree representation of a female character in the show again.

So imagine my disappointment when, in the final episode, Penny announced her pregnancy. So wait a minute... all of the time that she spent deciding she didn't want kids all throughout this entire season was just so viewers could be happy that she changed her mind at the very end? At least I'm assuming we were supposed to be happy about it, right? What other reason was there for undermining an entire season's worth of character development if not to purposely reinforce the stereotype of "women will change their mind?"

As a childfree woman, I can't even tell you how many times I've heard other women say, "I didn't think I wanted kids either until I had them." In fact, Bernadette, who by this point has turned into a terrible character with no purpose in life besides caring for the kids she never wanted, basically says this to Penny when she confides in her that she doesn't want kids. It's like women who don't want or even like children will magically change their mind as soon as they experience motherhood. Which, in some cases, might happen -- either that, or these women are in extreme denial and refuse to admit they'd have been happier with the life they'd originally planned. But believe me, there are some of us who actually know exactly what we want, are smart and careful enough to live up to it, and will never change our minds.

In this day and age, we need to be supporting, uplifting, and creating awareness for women who don't want children, and this show completely failed at that with two out of three of its main female characters. The third one, of course, also making it clear that she definitely wanted kids.

And while we're on the subject of Penny, let's also talk about her career. For the first several seasons of the show, Penny was working as a waitress while also seeking out acting roles, hoping to become a professional actress one day, which was the reason she had moved from Nebraska to the Los Angeles area. Eventually, Bernadette got her a job as a pharmaceutical sales rep, and she stopped pursuing acting as a career. I know the writers saw this as a step up for the character, and sure, it's great that she was able to get out of waitressing and into something hopefully less stressful and better-paying; but why did that automatically mean she had to stop pursuing her dream of being an actress? I'm assuming it's because the characters were all getting older and they wanted them to "grow up." Penny was no longer in her early twenties, and it was time for her to give up on her "childish" dream of being a movie star. But why? This show ended with Sheldon finally achieving his life-long dream of winning a Nobel Prize, something I would say is, realistically, far less achievable. I know that breaking into Hollywood is difficult and competitive, but look at Penny... she was a gorgeous blonde with a perfect body, and there was no reason she couldn't have eventually made it as an actress. Even in real life, I would say that Kaley Cuoco is one of the most conventionally attractive women in Hollywood. If Sheldon could win a freaking Nobel Prize, Penny could have at least gotten some minor acting roles in Hollywood, or failing that, she could have at least stayed active in community theatre because acting was her passion. But her dream, unlike Sheldon's, was considered childish and unrealistic, and they felt it was better if she just gave up and settled into a boring "normal" life to never think about her once-lofty goals again. Or, you know, her creative outlet.

Between that and all the unwanted babies, Amy was the only female character who ended the series on a really good note, and that was mainly because she was married to Sheldon and shared the credit on the Nobel Prize. I highly doubt they would have bothered with giving her any good news at the end if she hadn't been viewed as an extension of Sheldon. She did also have a really nice glow-up when she decided to stop dressing so frumpily and get a cuter haircut, but even though I loved her new look and how empowered it made her feel, I'm still not sure that a makeover being her only real achievement at the end of the show that wasn't tied to her husband is much of a positive.

And now, even though you might not want to: let's get into the subject of racism.

Most sitcoms, and this one is no exception, include a little casual racism in the form of jokes throughout the series. While I'm not saying that's something I approve of, it's not what I'm talking about in this case. Here, we're talking about character development and the way the series ended with the season 12 finale. In addition to the female characters, the only non-white man*, Rajesh a.k.a. Raj, is another major character things didn't end so well for. Unlike the other three main characters, who all got what they wanted and had huge milestones over the course of the show, Raj was left out in the cold when it came to the goal he'd been working toward.

*(I want to pause to acknowledge that the character of Howard is Jewish, and that many Jewish people do not identify as white. However, as it pertains to this show, Howard was very white-passing. He was always portrayed as a white character, or at least close enough to whiteness to not stand out among his otherwise-white friend group the way Raj did.)

When we first met Raj, he had selective mutism, rendering him incapable of talking to women. How he managed to get a doctorate in astrophysics without ever having to speak to a woman is something I don't think the show ever addressed. Anyway, it didn't take long for the characters to discover that he could speak to women when he was drunk, but the selective mutism returned when he sobered up. Further down the road, his selective mutism disappeared entirely after having his heart seriously broken for the first time. From that point on, he was able to speak to women, and actually had some character development over the course of several seasons where he was able to find and even somewhat maintain relationships, while learning through those relationships and breakups how to hopefully become a better partner and meet his ultimate goal of finding the right person to marry.

In the final season, he got tired of waiting to meet the right woman and asked his father to arrange a marriage. As a result, he was introduced to Anu. Anu appeared in nine episodes in the final season, starting with the third episode and ending with the one right before the two-part finale, so she was more or less a plot thread throughout the whole season. It's been almost four years, so the details might be fuzzy, but from everything I remember and what I read on the internet to refresh my memory, it went like this:

Despite asking for an arrange marriage, Raj was disappointed by the lack of romance and passion that he always imagined. In an attempt to give him a grand romantic gesture like he wanted, she proposed very publicly in a restaurant, and he accepted. They later broke off the engagement because they didn't know each other well enough to trust each other, but they then decided to start over from the beginning and date each other instead so they could get to know each other better before deciding if they wanted to pursue the marriage. After that, their relationship seemed to be going pretty well and Raj seemed to have actual feelings for her. But when she was offered a job in London, it changed the trajectory of their relationship.

In the last episode before the two-part finale, Raj planned to go to London and propose to her, saying that he was willing to move to London for her because they were compatible, they liked each other and they both wanted to start a family. Of course, Bernadette and Howard thought this was a terrible idea and selfishly wanted their friend to stay in California. It ended with Howard rushing to the airport to stop him and talking him out of pursuing her. Anu was never mentioned again after that.

I have a couple of problems with this. First is the fact that this plot point of Howard being the white knight who saves his friend from making the horrible decision of arranged marriage had already been done once before. In a previous season, Raj met an Indian woman who turned out to be gay, and, assuming that Raj was too, wanted to have a sham marriage so their families wouldn't find out because coming out in their culture is a difficult task. Even after telling her he was straight, he still considered going through with the marriage because he was so lonely. I understand why Howard would have felt Raj deserved a lot better than that and tried to make him realize that as well. But to use this same plot again seven years later? Not only is it redundant and unoriginal on the writers' part, but also tells us that the writers really didn't trust Raj to make his own decisions, even after twelve whole seasons of character development. Why was it always Howard "saving" him from these choices?

Which brings me to my next point.

Arranged marriage isn't much of a thing in the U.S. where this show is based and written -- that much is pretty obvious -- but it isn't necessarily the outdated and laughable custom that the writers (as well as a large portion of Americans) treat it as. It's still very common in other cultures, including the one Raj is from. Apparently, up to 90% of marriages in India are arranged. And just because Americans or westerners don't like the idea of arranged marriage doesn't mean it isn't still a valid way of forming a relationship.

Would I personally want to marry someone I wasn't in love with? Probably not, but I'm also not sure I want to get married again at all. Generally speaking, marriage isn't something I feel needs to be a part of my life. I consider myself lucky in this regard because not everyone feels that way -- and I mean people from every culture. The way I view it is very different from the norm. Most people have their heart set on getting married, which of course is fine, but not everyone falls in love as early as they're planning to marry. The expectations surrounding marriage in the U.S. are very strange to me. The expectation that you only marry for love, but also the expectation that you must be married and start a family by a certain age, exist at the same time and seem to contradict each other. Both the east and the west expect marriages to occur by the time you reach a certain point of your life, but the difference is that the west emphasizes falling in love first, while in some cultures, they often choose a more practical route, which, if you ask me, takes a lot of the pressure off.

Obviously there's nothing wrong with love marriages either, but you have to admit that the emphasis on falling in love can make relationships more complicated if you already know that your plans include marriage. It seems like a lot of people end up settling anyway, and marrying whoever they happen to be dating when they decide they're ready to settle down, rather than waiting until they've met someone who truly sweeps them off their feet. And when that happens, it isn't truly that much different than an arranged marriage, aside from probably having known the person longer (and contrary to what many westerners believe, people in arranged engagements do typically make an effort at learning about each other first to make sure they're compatible, as well as both parties having to agree that they want to marry each other. Forced marriage or child marriage is a completely different issue from arranged marriage, so let's remember not to conflate the two).

In my opinion (and of course this is just my opinion), this leads a lot of people to pretend as though they're madly in love when their feelings for their partner might not actually be what they're made to look like. We've all seen couples who seem far happier on social media than they do if you talk to them in real life, or who are suddenly honest about their former partner as soon as they break up despite playing the happy role while together. It seems like the pressure to marry for love causes a lot of people to try to be something they aren't, while an arranged marriage is simply... more honest about what it is.

So why not take the more practical route and just find somebody who shares your values and goals to settle down and start a family with? People do this knowing their fondness for that person will grow over time as long as they are compatible and both willing to be loyal. This is totally fine and honestly just as valid as the idea of falling in love first, especially when many supposed love marriages don't seem to truly meet the qualifications anyway; but I wonder if westerners are so strongly opposed to the idea of arranged marriage, at least in part, because it's far more common in other cultures. At first glance, it might seem like their opposition is because of their strong belief in romance, but could it also be partially due to their belief that the western way of doing things has to be better than the "backwards" way of doing things in what they consider less-civilized cultures? Also known as: xenophobia?

I came across part of an online review of the episode where Raj and Anu meet, in which the reviewer (credited as Caroline Preece from Den of Geek) said the arranged marriage storyline was "a left turn for a show that's always chosen to treat Raj's culture as a punchline." It almost seemed like a way of finally validating his culture, as well as making it clear that not every relationship needs to look the way romantic movies portray them. In a lot of ways, they came so close. But then... they made it the punchline again.

Strangely enough, the third episode of the season is not only the episode where Raj meets Anu, but also the episode where Penny decides she probably doesn't want kids. It's as if the writers thought to themselves, We need to introduce some bad things that could potentially happen to the characters so they can overcome them by the end of the show! What are some bad or ridiculous things? Oh, I know! Unconventional relationships and women who don't want babies!

But don't worry, viewers! It's only temporary. They'll "fix" it by the end of the series. Howard will be the white savior again and save his silly brown friend from participating in a custom that's actually pretty normal in the culture he grew up in, and Penny's unplanned pregnancy will make her magically get in touch with the motherly instinct that all women have -- even the ones who lie and say they don't!

Exaggerated sarcasm aside, when Raj's relationship with Anu ended in the last episode before the finale, I thought it meant something great was in store for him in the final episode. Raj was a character who was a hopeless romantic and always dreamed of having that swept-off-your-feet type of relationship, so it's entirely fair that arranged marriage, while a valid option for many, wouldn't have been for him after he thought it through some more. And the whole point of Howard talking him into ending the relationship was to stop him from settling for anything less than the sappy romance he'd always dreamed of. So in the last episode, he must meet that special person in a surprising place, fall in love at first sight, and finally have his fairytale ending with somebody just as sappy as he is, right? Right?

Turns out, no. They built up this relationship over the course of an entire season just to end it right before the finale, not because better things were in store, not because he was going to get his happy ending, not because he realized his worth and decided he didn't need a relationship to feel fulfilled, but because... arranged marriage bad? Like, that was literally the entire point?

So essentially, nothing really happened to Raj this entire series. While every other character got engaged, married, had children, got an exciting new job, won a bloody Nobel Prize, and all the other good things... Raj really didn't change at all from the first episode, other than becoming slightly less awkward and gaining the ability to speak to women. For twelve years this character's main goal in life was to fall in love, something that every other character got to do -- even Stuart from the comic book store, who was not even part of the main cast! -- but they couldn't make it happen for Raj before the finale? Or at least give him the agency to make his own choices instead of letting Howard talk him out of a major life decision that could have actually been good for him?

The bottom line is arranged marriage is a valid way of getting married and we shouldn't let our western bias give us misconceptions about it. And while it obviously isn't for everybody, if your friend decides they want an arranged marriage, it isn't your responsibility to talk them out of it. As long as everyone involved is a consenting adult and there doesn't appear to be any abuse from either party, then your friends' relationships are none of your business. You can disagree, you can even think your friend deserves better, but it's their decision to make.

The least they could have done was give him a last-minute arc in which he finally understands that you don't need a partner to feel fulfilled and embarks on a journey of self-love and embracing the single life instead of feeling pathetic because of it. But after ending his relationship with Anu because "there has to be someone better out there for you," just leaving it there with no follow-up before the series end was the worst thing they could have done.

I am not associated with Ms. Mojo in any way, but here's a pretty good countdown of the top ten times Raj deserved better as a character, and it's not surprising what #1 is.

tags: the big bang theory, television, tv, racism, women's rights