"The Matrimonial Metric" -- Pictured: Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik). To discover who would be most qualified to be best man and maid of honor at their wedding, Sheldon and Amy subject their friends to a series of secret experiments. Also, Penny reveals her true feelings about Amy, on THE BIG BANG THEORY, Thursday, Jan. 4 (8:00-8:31 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Photo: Sonja Flemming/CBS ÃÂé2017 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (é2017 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved)
As Sheldon and Amy’s wedding draws closer, the pressure to choose their respective wedding parties finally came to a head in Season 11, Episode 12 of “The Big Bang Theory.”
The first episode of 2018 opened with the couple on their way to a gathering at Howard’s place. They agree in the car to avoid talking about their upcoming wedding because Amy doesn’t know how to choose between Penny and Bernadette and Sheldon doesn’t know which of the guys to choose. Sadly for them, Howard brings up the fact that Amy was Bernadette’s maid of honor for her wedding almost immediately, prompting a hasty retreat from the engaged couple.
Later that night, they decide to try to use math to help them figure out the decision. The idea is to use data to make the choice, thus absolve themselves of any guilt. With that, the quest to test their friends for the skills necessary for being a best man or maid of honor was on.
They use a restaurant getting their delivery wrong as a “catering emergency” test. Sheldon forces Raj to drive him to the store while Amy tests him with gossip. The group finally puts things together when Sheldon and Amy give their friends a seating puzzle to determine how to arrange the event so no one fights.
They burst into Sheldon and Amy’s place to find their leaderboard, where Leonard finds himself below even Sheldon’s dim-witted brother, Georgie. They’re so offended that they all agree that they don’t want to be in their wedding party at all. This left the couple to mend some fences.
The following day, Sheldon finds himself at the comic book store talking to Stuart and lamenting that he has no one to be his best man. Desperately wanting to be a part of the group, Stuart volunteers. The next day, Sheldon approaches the gang to apologize and break the news that he’s found his best man.
“By experimenting on you I realize I violated your trust… and possibly the Geneva Convention,” he says.
Oddly enough, despite being insulted by their experimentation, the gang is equally indignant that he didn’t choose one of them. Leonard suggests that Sheldon just choose the person that he wants since the event is all about him anyway. With that, he’s secured his position as Sheldon’s best man.
When Leonard goes home to tell Penny, she realizes that she’s Amy’s best friend. That’s when she gets so upset that she wasn’t asked that she storms into Amy’s apartment and demands to be asked. Just like that, Leonard and Penny are the respective best man and maid of honor. The episode ends with Penny’s first duty, breaking the news to Bernadette.