“The Big Bang Theory” ended after 12 years and seasons (thanks to an insightful decision by star Jim Parsons), and in 2019, the series concluded with the season 12 finale “The Stockholm Syndrome.” When all is said and done, it’s a pretty solid ending for the series … but how does that break down by character?
Fans who love “The Big Bang Theory” stick with the show precisely because they love its characters, especially its central group made up of Sheldon Cooper (Parsons), Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), and Penny Hofstadter (Kaley Cuoco). Add in Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch as Sheldon’s wife Amy Farrah Fowler and Howard’s wife Bernadette Rostenkowski-Holowitz, respectively, and you’ve got a bunch of storylines to wrap up in “The Stockholm Syndrome.” So how did they all fare?
Some characters ended up getting the short end of the stick, while others majorly succeeded, so let’s break it down. Here are all of the main character endings on “The Big Bang Theory” ranked from worst to best.
5. Raj Koothrappali
Poor Raj! Throughout “The Big Bang Theory,” Kunal Nayyar does his very best to make Raj incredibly likable — which is even more impressive when you consider that Nayyar was briefly fired and then re-hired for the role — but the writers let him down at every turn. First, they saddle him with a bizarre, extremely made-up form of “selective mutism,” where he’s too afraid to speak in front of women unless he’s extremely drunk. Then they put him in an awful situation where he ends up “sleeping with” Penny at the end of the show’s fourth season. Even when Raj, a hopeless romantic, seems like he’s finally ready to settle down with Anu (Rati Gupta), with whom he has an arranged engagement, he breaks it off because Howard says so. So what happens to Raj at the end of the series? He’s just completely alone — and his loneliness is played as a pretty mean joke.
During a Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm around which the entire episode centers, Raj is shown in the audience sitting next to Sarah Michelle Gellar (playing herself), who keeps stressing to Raj that they are not on a date. The whole thing just feels downright cruel, especially because, out of all the main characters on “The Big Bang Theory,” Raj is the one who most wants to find love and settle down. Raj’s ending is anything but happy, and it sort of seems like the writers just forgot he was even there in the first place.
4. Penny Hofstadter
Much like Raj, “The Big Bang Theory” mostly does Penny dirty across its 12-season run. Introduced as the beautiful girl next door in the show’s pilot, Penny is basically the audience’s entrance into Sheldon and Leonard’s insular friend group — and though the boys objectify her and dismiss her as less intelligent, she ends up proving that she knows far more about than they do about concepts like “socializing” and “existing outside of a research lab.” She also begins the show as an aspiring actress who struggles to get roles and works part time at their local Cheesecake Factory, but throughout the series, the creative team does let her grow. Eventually, she joins forces with Bernadette and starts working at the pharmaceutical marketing firm ZenGen, where she ends up becoming a pretty talented saleswoman. So what exactly makes her ending so bad?
For basically the entirety of “The Big Bang Theory,” Penny doesn’t want kids, and Leonard does. Because this is a TV show, it’s not a major dealbreaker for them, and in “The Stockholm Syndrome,” it’s revealed that Penny and Leonard are expecting a baby. All of Penny’s hesitation has apparently vanished, but it feels tonally jarring for her to simply change her mind after finding out that she and Leonard are facing an apparently unexpected pregnancy. Penny is one of the most genuine and relatable characters on “The Big Bang Theory,” and in the end, all she does is get knocked up, despite not even wanting that future for herself.
3. Howard Wolowitz (and Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz)
Howard and Bernadette are smack in the middle of this ranking because, in my estimation, nothing happens to these two at the end of the series. Their biggest “conflict,” such as it is, is that Howard and Penny have never spent any significant time away from their children Halley and Neil, who are set to stay with their close friend Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman) and his girlfriend Denise (Lauren Lapkus). That said, they do start to panic after they videochat with Stuart and Denise and find out that Stuart lost Halley during a game of hide and seek, Neil has a fever, and Halley lost a tooth.
When they dare to tell Sheldon, who’s preparing to receive his Nobel Prize, that they’re worried about their children, Sheldon acts like an absolute jerk and tells them that his ceremony is more important. Though Howard and Bernadette decide they should fly back to California and abandon Sheldon, they eventually decide to stay (particularly because Bernadette’s parents agree to help Stuart and Denise with the unruly kids). All of this is to say that Howard and Bernadette just allow Sheldon to treat them like garbage, consider standing up to him and then decide against it, and continue on as always. It’s not a good ending. It’s not a bad ending. It just sort of happens.
2. Leonard Hofstadter
As a character, Leonard high-key sucks — he loves playing the role of “nice guy” on the show, but he’s not actually all that nice to Penny or his friends (and as an added bonus, Johnny Galecki is uniquely terrible at fake eating and it’s infuriating). Despite that, he gets absolutely everything he wants in “The Stockholm Syndrome,” including a future baby with Penny — something he references in the show’s pilot by saying, immediately after meeting Penny, that their “children will be smart and beautiful.” (He doesn’t get a Nobel Prize, but he still makes out just fine.)
It’s sort of frustrating that Leonard gets such an idyllic ending, but all he really does is get annoyed at Sheldon, just like he does in every single episode of the series. Sheldon, who is laser-focused on the Nobel ceremony, mistreats every single one of the other main characters as he prepares to accept his award, and Leonard doesn’t help matters. While they all fly to Stockholm, Penny keeps going to the bathroom to get sick, leading Sheldon to believe she’s going to infect everyone else; when he throws a total fit, Leonard blabs to everyone that Penny isn’t sick, but pregnant, making everyone mad. Basically, Leonard gets rewarded with a surprise pregnancy and spends the episode whining about Sheldon being awful, only to simply accept Sheldon’s awfulness at the end of the day. Without Penny’s pregnancy, he’d probably be lower in this ranking.
1. Sheldon (and Amy)
Nobody can deny that Sheldon Cooper, who spends “The Big Bang Theory” mistreating his friends and being really annoying, makes out like an absolute bandit in “The Stockholm Syndrome.” In the show’s penultimate episode, “The Change Constant,” Sheldon and Amy learn that they’ve won the Nobel Prize in Physics thanks to their groundbreaking work on super-asymmetry, and as previously mentioned, Sheldon is really out of pocket in “The Stockholm Syndrome.” Take the Penny thing, for example; as Leonard correctly points out, it’s pretty awful that Sheldon thinks Penny is sick and just yells at her about how she’s going to ruin his day.
With Amy by his side — who also gives a brief speech but does get to sport a fetching tiara — Sheldon gives an unexpectedly heartfelt speech about his friends, finally showing some gratitude and affection to Howard, Raj, Penny, and Leonard in the audience. Does Sheldon deserve the best ending on “The Big Bang Theory?” Probably not, if we’re being honest. He is the most prominent of all the main characters, though, so it makes sense as to why that happens.
