As a citizen of the American Midwest, I can assure you the fear of big cities is rampant and pervasive. Television and movies paint urban backdrops as areas of frequent crime, theft and violence, while suburbia is a safe haven. In this podunk mindset, Los Angeles and New York are the two scariest, deadliest places in the world, where people are constantly mugged walking down the street. Unfortunately, roughly 80% of TV shows take place in these two cities. While not everyone in a landlocked state has been assimilated into this way of thinking (myself included), seeing a fictional felony occur on a sitcom does not help change this mindset.
Set in Pasadena, California, this week’s episode of The Big Bang Theory explores the horror of crime. Sheldon and Leonard return to their apartment after a failed Chinese restaurant excursion, only to be greeted with a broken deadbolt. Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment has been ransacked, and our favorite physicists have been robbed of their laptops, television, and a video game collection not normally seen outside EB Games. The status of last week’s prized Green Lantern lantern and Hulk Hands are unknown.
While Sheldon’s obtuse nature is typically a source of buffoonery, tonight he is quite sympathetic. Just as anyone would feel violated and vulnerable after a home invasion, Sheldon takes precautions such as ramping up his home security, fearing the burglar will return, and jumping at loud noises in the night. Sheldon portrays some of his trademark tendencies, such as submitting a Sierra Mist can to the police as evidence and scaling the outside of his apartment building out of fear, but all in all, he seemed… normal. This isn’t how Sheldon would react to a robbery, it’s how anyone would react. Or should, at least. After filing the police report, Leonard and Penny seem almost apathetic that any sort of crime occurred, going about their daily business as usual.
Raj and Howard are used sparingly in this episode, resigned not to a subplot, but a single scene of glory. Howard uses his connections in the Department of Defense to finagle high-end security devices. By connections, he means a buddy who happens to work there, and by finagle, he means swipes while no one is looking. The ironically poorly-defended DoD security system includes thumbprint scanners, face-scanning motion sensitive cameras, and a net which falls from the ceiling (the last of which is useful in case Sheldon and Leonard are robbed by Scooby-Doo villains). Despite the cartoonish setup, the net does prove effective at ensnaring Sheldon in the middle of the night, especially since Raj installed it with an electric current, electrifying anyone ensnared.
After suffering several sleepless nights, Sheldon decides on a more permanent solution. Instead of a home security system with the potential to kill him, Sheldon decides to relocate to a less crime-riddled area. He vows to leave Los Angeles, telecommute with the university, say goodbye to his three close friends and one dear acquaintance, and settle somewhere in small-town America. After much research, Sheldon narrows down the field, eliminating locales such as Enid, Oklahoma because it lacks model train shops, Boone, North Carolina because their annual Daniel Boone festivities would attract the wrong crowd, and the entire state of Nebraska because Penny is from there.
Eventually, Sheldon settles on Bozeman, Montana, a frigid little town in northern America. During his brief stint in the Treasure State, Sheldon frequently remarks at how cold the weather is, seemingly forgetting he lived for three months at the North Pole. Before he can even exit the bus depot, Sheldon entrusts his luggage to a young, uniformless steward, who grabs the baggage and b-lines for the door. Sheldon, realizing even the smalltown paradise of Bozeman, Montana is riddled with crime, buys a bus ticket home to Pasadena, thus re-establishing the status quo of the series.
Sheldon learns the lesson I try to teach my parents every week: Crime is a universal problem. It doesn’t matter if you live in the city, the country, or a tree-lined house street in suburbia; criminals will be criminals, regardless of locality. Burglars are not attracted to metropolitan areas like moths to lights; there are simply more people, and thus more criminals among those people. Per capita, the figures are the same. The best you can do is lock your doors, close your windows, buy insurance and hope for the best. The city can be scary, but so can bats, spiders and heights, but irrational fears should not interfere with life. Make like Sheldon, prove to the world you’re not afraid. And if you are, at least fight to remain the master of your bladder.
