Young Sheldon’s Ming-Na Wen Cameo Secretly References Penny, Raj & Howard

Warning! SPOILERS for Young Sheldon season 5, episode 14.

Ming-Na Wen joins Young Sheldon as Dr. Carol Lee who indirectly references Penny (Kaley Cuoco), Raj (Kunal Nayyar), and Howard (Simon Helberg) from The Big Bang Theory. After two weeks of hiatus due to the Winter Olympics, CBS’ premier comedy returns with a brand new episode. Titled “A Free Scratcher and Feminine Wiles,” the outing sees Sheldon (Iain Armitage) butting heads with Lee who takes over his study with Dr. Linkletter (Ed Begley Jr.) and Dr. Sturgis (Wallace Shawn).

Sheldon’s stories in Young Sheldon season 5 have been mostly focused on his adventures in school. Once George (Lance Barber) and Mary (Zoe Perry) decided to let him go to college at East Texas Tech, the socially-inept genius has been spending much of his time on campus, especially after he was given a temporary dorm room where he can rest in between classes. While Sheldon appreciates the new challenge of higher learning, it hasn’t been an easy path for him. At one point, he was almost driven mad by his engineering class. 

Now, however, he further learns that he isn’t always the smartest person in the room. In Young Sheldon season 5, episode 14, he meets Dr. Lee — East Texas Tech’s director of experimental cosmology, who intervenes after finding out about Sheldon, Sturgis, and Linkletter’s chaotic study. She takes over the project, and while the child prodigy’s mentors are more than happy about it, Sheldon isn’t. So, he devised a plan to sabotage Lee, not knowing that she’s far more handy and capable than he thinks she is. As Sheldon’s plan backfires, Lee explains her backstory to President Hagemeyer (Wendie Malick), saying that during her undergrad, men were “either too scared to talk to me or trying to talk to me into being horizontal.” Fans of The Big Bang Theory may find this familiar as it’s exactly the dynamic Penny had with Raj and Howard, respectively, during the early years of the sitcom. 

When the nerd-centric sitcom premiered in 2007, there were only five main characters in it, and Penny was the only female. It was clear that Penny was hypersexualized at the start of The Big Bang Theory; even Cuoco opened up about it after the show wrapped up in 2019. Leonard (Johnny Galecki) was immediately head over heels for Penny the moment he met her, while Sheldon was pretty much indifferent to their new neighbor. If anything, he saw her as a nuisance, especially since his best friend started obsessing over her. However, Raj and Howard’s relationships with her were exactly how Lee described her dynamic with guys in college. Due to selective mutism, Raj couldn’t talk to Penny unless he drank alcohol. Meanwhile, Howard was still fairly creepy at this point, so all he did was make lewd passes towards her. 

Over time, the trio’s relationship changed. Raj ultimately got past his inability to speak to girls and Howard mellowed down after meeting The Big Bang Theory‘s Bernadette (Melissa Rauch). Meanwhile, Penny evolved to be a fully fleshed-out character and by the end of The Big Bang Theory, she’s quite happy with her career and entering a new stage in her personal life as a first-time mom. Young Sheldon hasn’t revealed much about them, but hopefully like how the prequel confirmed that Sheldon and Amy (Mayim Bialik) have a son, they could use its narration to offer fans an update about the rest of the Pasadena gang.

Young Sheldon airs every Thursday on CBS.

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