Did You Catch Amy's Hint? The Clue to Penny's TBBT Finale Twist Was There All Along
One controversial part of The Big Bang Theory finale was the sudden revelation of Penny's pregnancy.
To explain a bit, Penny and Leonard were the show's original romantic pairing, and their love story was a core part of the plot for a long time.
But once they became happily married, the writers more or less forgot about them and started to treat them rather like side characters.
In order to rectify that, a conflict between them was invented for the last season – Leonard wanted kids, while Penny didn't.
This plotline was not developed that well and concluded with the divisive reveal that Penny got accidentally pregnant but was fine with it.
The whole deal was an example of a plot invented just for the sake of extending the show a bit more. But at least we cannot say that the showrunners did not plan this storyline through.
They clearly had the pregnancy twist planned in advance.
Case in point, it was foreshadowed when the Pasadena gang was preparing for their Stockholm trip for the Nobel Prize ceremony honoring Sheldon and Amy, which became the finale of TBBT.
The girls, of course, wanted to appear in special gowns. And after having those made for them, Amy giddily talked about their experience: while her dress had to be tucked, Penny's had to be loosened.
This was a subtle –at that moment – hint that Penny's pregnancy was finally starting to show.
Soon enough the fact that she and Leonard were expecting their first child was revealed to the rest of the main cast. Unfortunately, the afore-mentioned planning was not good enough.
The big reveal only happened when they were on the flight to Stockholm, when the focus of the narrative already was firmly on Sheldon and Amy's Nobel win.
There was no time to properly explore how the Hofstadters' felt about their big development, even though they previously had opposed thoughts.
And as we've covered several times before (see, for example), the pregnancy twist consequently became one of the most disappointing and fan-criticized parts of TBBT's finale.
As it happens, sometimes even if you have a plan for your plot developments, the plan just might be not good enough – or not given enough time to properly unfold.