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There are many wild theories about “The Massive 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) in the course of the sequence, is particularly out of left subject.
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 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 due to 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. (For those who ask me, Howard deserves all of it, however I digress.)
In line with this concept, there are two prospects at play right here. “Through the years of repeated cloning, her DNA has develop into barely corrupted and she or he is shedding elements 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follows: “Each time she is regenerated, she remembers that she is a clone and is spliced with the recollections of the outdated Bernadette, however a part of her remembers and resents Howard for entrapping her in a wedding she did not need and realizing she will not dwell lengthy sufficient to develop to like him earlier than she is killed regardless of him being sort of an a**. She all the time 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 realizing sooner or later they may not 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 modifications all through “The Massive Bang Idea,” and sure, she acquired sharper and pricklier, however that is a part of how character improvement works. In Jessica Radloff’s 2022 ebook “The Massive Bang Idea: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Collection,” creator and showrunner Chuck Lorre truly addressed this precise factor, and author and govt producer Steve Holland mainly mentioned that Melissa Rauch helped make the character that significantly better.
“Over time we made Bernadette considerably nefarious,” Lorre advised 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 an excellent 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 assume twice about reducing some ethical corners to get issues executed … 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 all the 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 methods to make the character work,” he mentioned. “Bernadette did not actually perceive jokes at first, however that is undoubtedly not who she grew to become. Melissa simply popped.”
In reality, Rauch’s portrayal of Bernadette grew to become so well-known that, when followers approached her on the road, they nearly appeared cowed by her. “There was lots 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 mentioned within the ebook earlier than happening to specific her gratitude for the way in which 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 concept actually erases the character’s progress in later seasons
Not solely did Bernadette naturally and efficiently evolve throughout “The Massive Bang Idea,” however by her, the writers have been in a position to inform extraordinarily actual and human tales — like Bernadette’s struggles together 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 principle forged … and to say {that a} improvement like this comes all the way down to “Bernadette being a clone” feels absurd and, truthfully, even a bit of insulting.
“Two of our outstanding writers, Maria Ferrari and Tara Hernandez, introduced the component 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. 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 have been doing the present, so these issues have been very a lot in her purview, and I believe helped steer Bernadette right into a a lot richer space, as an alternative of, Oh, this is a humorous scenario. She was conflicted over the place her priorities needs to be and what she was imagined 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 crucial as the unique forged.”
Bernadette’s non-clone journey is a large a part of “The Massive Bang Idea,” which is streaming on Max now.
