It's not easy to bring a long running TV show in for a satisfactory landing. You want some kind of significant closure but with just enough open-endedness to suggest that life will go on for certain characters even after the cameras stop rolling. For the most part, Big Bang Theory sticks the landing.
Sheldon and Amy actually win the Nobel Peace Prize for Physics but Sheldon is so overwhelmed by the news, he wonders if he's dreaming. Then Leonard slaps him across the face.
So it's a dream come true for both men.
But winning the Nobel Peace Prize for Physics came be a life changer and Sheldon never copes well with change. There are reporters who want to talk to him.
Amy goes and gets a makeover with some help from Raj. Sheldon is rude towards Amy's new look which leads Leonard to confront Sheldon about that. Sheldon just can't cope with everything that's changing. At the moment, there's an electronic "ding" and Penny steps off the elevator.
WAIT! The elevator works NOW?!?!
Oh that's just too much for Sheldon to cope with.
Over the course of the hour, Sheldon finds more opportunities to offend his closest friends who have their own worries. Following Sheldon and Amy to Sweden for the Nobel Prize ceremony, Howard and Bernadette for stressing out over leaving their two kids behind. That they inexplicably left them with Stuart doesn't help their level of stress.
And speaking of parenting...
Penny is pregnant. Other than predicting the elevator would work by the series finale, the only other sure bet for the series end would be Penny getting pregnant what with all the incessant reminders that Penny didn't want to have children, finding out she's pregnant, yeah, we all saw that coming a mile away.
How it is revealed is a bit clever, though. Amy and Penny have gone dress shopping for the Nobel Prize trip and Amy thinks it's cool that her dress size went down by two and Penny's has gone up by two.
By the way, does Raj finally come out as gay in the finale? No, my prediction on that score did not come true.
OK, but does Raj find heterosexual love. Well, yes. Kind of.
Raj attends the Nobel ceremony with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Yes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer her own damn self.
As I noted earlier, Sheldon's ego and self-centeredness keeps rising up to offend his closest friends. But has he looks from the stage, about to accept his Nobel Prize, he see his friends who are there, still proud of him, still supporting him.
Sheldon has two observations:
"Is that Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"
And...
He acknowledges his self-centered nature and he admits it's wrong. His accomplishments have been encouraged and supported by a group of friends. He calls each by name, thanking them and apologizing for not being a better friend they all deserve.
It is a sweet moment that provides a touching capstone to this long running series.
But we're not quite done.
After the Nobel ceremony scene, we cut to something more familiar, the gang gathered around that old sofa in that old apartment, eating Chinese take out while a slow acoustic version of the theme song plays.
Life is changing but the gang is still together.
Big Bang Theory may not have been "high art" but it provided a lot of laughs and matured into something that went beyond the basic premise of having yucks at the expense of nerd culture.
I think all in all, it ended on a good note.
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