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There are many wild theories about “The Large Bang Principle” on the market (which feels significantly bonkers when you think about that we’re speaking a couple of laugh-tracked multi-camera sitcom created by Chuck Lorre), however this one about Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, the waitress turned microbiologist with a loopy excessive voice who marries Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) in the course of the collection, is particularly out of left discipline.
Over on the r/FanTheories subreddit, the appropriately named Redditor u/ConspirOC posited one thing fairly excessive about Bernadette. Titling the submit “Bernadette is a clone,” they have been then cautious to make clear, “Now the title mighty be barely deceptive [–] relatively a collection of clones and never only a single clone.” The gist of the argument goes like this: Bernadette adjustments a lot over the course of the present, and because of her harmful experiments at work — which she usually talks about in passing for laughs — her employers would possibly “do unethical issues to maintain an asset working for them.” Additionally, the “kicker” right here is that, because the present progresses, Bernadette is “imply” to Howard. (When you ask me, Howard deserves all of it, however I digress.)
In keeping with this idea, there are two potentialities at play right here. “Over time of repeated cloning, her DNA has change into barely corrupted and she or he is shedding components of herself in every regeneration” is their first guess, and their second is as follows: “Each time she is regenerated, she remembers that she is a clone and is spliced with the reminiscences of the previous Bernadette, however a part of her remembers and resents Howard for entrapping her in a wedding she did not need and figuring out she will not reside lengthy sufficient to develop to like him earlier than she is killed regardless of him being sort of an a**. She at all times remembers that she loves him however cannot keep in mind or really feel it. Or [similarly] she loves him and she or he distances from herself figuring out sooner or later they won’t clone her once more.”
Bernadette in all probability is not a clone — her character simply advanced over time
With all due respect to this individual posting fan theories on Reddit, that is nuts, and never in a great way. Sure, Bernadette adjustments all through “The Large Bang Principle,” and sure, she bought sharper and pricklier, however that is a part of how character improvement works. In Jessica Radloff’s 2022 ebook “The Large Bang Principle: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Collection,” creator and showrunner Chuck Lorre really addressed this precise factor, and author and government producer Steve Holland mainly stated that Melissa Rauch helped make the character that significantly better.
“Over time we made Bernadette considerably nefarious,” Lorre instructed Radloff. “She was a cutthroat company character. You did not mess along with her. A part of the enjoyment of that was her voice is a superb instrument. It is like a piccolo on acid. After which, she’s tiny. So these two issues juxtaposed with this balls-to-the-wall killer lady who would not even assume twice about chopping some ethical corners to get issues carried out … it was joyful to observe. The character grew to become a lot greater than what was initially created.”
Holland, for his half, agreed, saying Rauch’s efficiency actually ended up elevating your complete character. “We hadn’t fairly discovered that character in early episodes. Melissa labored greater than the character labored early on, so we had to determine tips on how to make the character work,” he stated. “Bernadette did not actually perceive jokes at first, however that is undoubtedly not who she grew to become. Melissa simply popped.”
The truth is, Rauch’s portrayal of Bernadette grew to become so well-known that, when followers approached her on the road, they virtually appeared cowed by her. “There was a variety of joking from followers, like, ‘Are you going to yell at me?’ Or ‘You appear so good, however we all know how Bernadette is,'” Rauch stated within the ebook earlier than happening to specific her gratitude for the best way her character advanced. “I used to be so excited to play that edge with Bernadette as a result of it wasn’t there in her first couple of episodes. The layers they gave to her, in the identical approach that they gave layers to all of the characters, was so rewarding to play.”
This Bernadette idea actually erases the character’s development in later seasons
Not solely did Bernadette naturally and efficiently evolve throughout “The Large Bang Principle,” however by her, the writers have been capable of inform extraordinarily actual and human tales — like Bernadette’s struggles along with her first on-screen being pregnant. Within the season 10 episode “The Navy Miniaturization,” Bernadette worries about telling her coworkers that she’s pregnant, afraid that she’ll be faraway from the primary forged … and to say {that a} improvement like this comes all the way down to “Bernadette being a clone” feels absurd and, actually, even a bit insulting.
“Two of our outstanding writers, Maria Ferrari and Tara Hernandez, introduced the aspect of a girl whose ardour was work, and the battle between work, motherhood, and cultural expectations of what [that’s like],” Chuck Lorre mused in Jessica Radloff’s ebook about Bernadette’s groundbreaking being pregnant storyline (she additionally later worries that she lacks a “maternal intuition,” giving voice to real-life mothers who might need felt the identical approach). “These are tales that we by no means anticipated within the creation of the present, however they have been actual. Folks responded to them as a result of they resonated. [Writer] Maria [Ferrari] was very decided to make the ‘mother’ tales one thing we hadn’t seen earlier than. She was a brand new mother whereas we have been doing the present, so these issues have been very a lot in her purview, and I feel helped steer Bernadette right into a a lot richer space, as a substitute of, Oh, here is a humorous state of affairs. She was conflicted over the place her priorities must be and what she was purported to be due to sure cultural expectations, versus I am merely who I’m. In some way we managed to stumble into making significantly better tales and the supporting gamers grew to become lead gamers, and each bit as essential as the unique forged.”
Bernadette’s non-clone journey is a big a part of “The Large Bang Principle,” which is streaming on Max now.
