Spoilers below for anyone who hasn't watched The Big Bang Theory Season 11 premiere, "The Proposal Proposal."
For The Big Bang Theory's Season 11 premiere, all eyes were on Amy to see how she would react to Sheldon's question of weddings and songbirds. (Okay, there weren't any songbirds.) But after the show laid out that highly anticipated answer -- she said yes, everyone! -- it then pulled back the curtain to reveal a second life-changing moment for some of these characters. Hopefully everyone is ready to see just how much Bernadette and Howard have grown and learned as new parents, because Holy St. Gabriel, Batman, Bernadette is pregnant again.
That's right, it's been about nine months in real time when Bernadette's first pregnancy culminated in the birth of Halley, a character we're never going to see, and for good reason. So right after Howard and Bernadette had just possibly gotten used to what having a screaming infant is like, their lives are going to get even more difficult as they're made to focus on both their growing love for Halley and the impending knowledge that another infant is right up the timeline. Pitter-patter, slightly heavier pitter-patter, and so on.
Not that they take to it immediately, as Howard's initial reaction went through five stages of just the denial part of grief. And Bernadette initially seemed into it, but even her courage would break down, and I first thought we might get to watch the couple dealing with that early-onset anxiety, and all those hormones. But that might not be the case at all, as the end of the episode jumped forward three months, at which point the compounding horror would have subsided a bit. After all, we're likely not going to hear about Leonard and Penny having a child at any point in the near future, at least by the way they reacted. Or will we? Your move, Big Bang, which is boasting new showrunner Steve Holland for his first season at the helm.
The Big Bang Theory decided to go ahead and have art imitate life with this surprising plotline, as actress Melissa Rauch is indeed pregnant. So that should save everyone some work on having to make her look pregnant for the rest of the season. Good job, Melissa, taking one for the plot like that. Wait, is that not how TV and pregnancies work?
It should be interesting to see how Howard and Bernadette handle things differently this go around, since it's quite rare for shows to feature back-to-back pregnancies like this. We'll find out what those next six months or so are like for the couple on Monday nights on CBS at 8:00 p.m. ET. (At least until the Monday Night Footbal season is complete.) To see when all the other big fall premieres are happening, head to our fall TV schedule.
