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There are many wild theories about “The Huge Bang Idea” 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) throughout the sequence, 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 had been then cautious to make clear, “Now the title mighty be barely deceptive [–] fairly a sequence of clones and never only a single clone.” The gist of the argument goes like this: Bernadette modifications a lot over the course of the present, and because of her harmful experiments at work — which she typically talks about in passing for laughs — her employers may “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. (In the event you ask me, Howard deserves all of it, however I digress.)
In response to this idea, there are two prospects at play right here. “Through the years of repeated cloning, her DNA has change into barely corrupted and he or she is dropping 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follows: “Each time she is regenerated, she remembers that she is a clone and is spliced with the recollections of the outdated Bernadette, however a part of her remembers and resents Howard for entrapping her in a wedding she did not need and realizing she will not reside lengthy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 bear in mind or really feel it. Or [similarly] she loves him and he or she distances from herself realizing at some point they won’t clone her once more.”
Bernadette most likely is not a clone — her character simply developed over time
With all due respect to this particular person posting fan theories on Reddit, that is nuts, and never in a great way. Sure, Bernadette modifications all through “The Huge Bang Idea,” and sure, she obtained sharper and pricklier, however that is a part of how character improvement works. In Jessica Radloff’s 2022 e-book “The Huge Bang Idea: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Collection,” creator and showrunner Chuck Lorre really addressed this precise factor, and author and govt producer Steve Holland principally stated that Melissa Rauch helped make the character that a lot better.
“Over time we made Bernadette considerably nefarious,” Lorre informed Radloff. “She was a cutthroat company character. You did not mess together 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 girl who would not even suppose twice about reducing some ethical corners to get issues performed … it was joyful to look at. The character turned a lot greater than what was initially created.”
Holland, for his half, agreed, saying Rauch’s efficiency actually ended up elevating your entire character. “We hadn’t fairly found out that character in early episodes. Melissa labored greater than the character labored early on, so we had to determine how one can make the character work,” he stated. “Bernadette did not actually perceive jokes at first, however that is positively not who she turned. Melissa simply popped.”
In reality, Rauch’s portrayal of Bernadette turned so well-known that, when followers approached her on the road, they virtually appeared cowed by her. “There was a whole lot 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 e-book earlier than happening to precise her gratitude for the best way her character developed. “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 method 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 Huge Bang Idea,” however by way of her, the writers had been capable of inform extraordinarily actual and human tales — like Bernadette’s struggles together with her first on-screen being pregnant. Within the season 10 episode “The Army Miniaturization,” Bernadette worries about telling her coworkers that she’s pregnant, afraid that she’ll be faraway from the principle solid … and to say {that a} improvement like this comes right down to “Bernadette being a clone” feels absurd and, truthfully, even a bit of insulting.
“Two of our exceptional writers, Maria Ferrari and Tara Hernandez, introduced the factor 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 e-book 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 method). “These are tales that we by no means anticipated within the creation of the present, however they had been actual. Individuals 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 had been doing the present, so these issues had 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 needs to be and what she was speculated to be due to sure cultural expectations, versus I am merely who I’m. By some means we managed to stumble into making a lot better tales and the supporting gamers turned lead gamers, and each bit as vital as the unique solid.”
Bernadette’s non-clone journey is a big a part of “The Huge Bang Idea,” which is streaming on Max now.
