Bernadette Rostenkowski

 The Big Bang Theory history

Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz is a microbiologist who supported herself through grad school by working at The Cheesecake Factory, where she met Penny and was set up with Howard Wolowitz.

Bernadette’s small stature and high voice belied a tougher personality. She could be competitive, intimidating and vengeful, with friends and co-workers alike sometimes finding her surprisingly scary. When angry, she sounded uncannily like Howard’s mother, Debbie Wolowitz.

Bernadette and Howard bonded over their overbearing mothers and began dating after being introduced by Penny. After an on-and-off start to their relationship, the two got engaged and married on the roof of Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment building before Howard left for space. Bernadette was initially unsure about having children and worried about the effect motherhood would have on her career, but she and Howard eventually became parents to two children.

Bernadette grew close to Penny and Amy as she became part of the wider group. She also had a long-running connection to Stuart, who had been living with Debbie Wolowitz before her death and stayed in the house after Howard and Bernadette moved in. Although they tried to get him to leave, Stuart became a fixture in the Wolowitz household and helped care for their children.

 Stuart Fails to Save the Universe history

When we meet Bernadette in 103 “Spoiler: Bert is Magic”, Stuart and Kripke are searching for a wizard’s help in a reality where magic is real. After a demonic assistant lists Bernadette as a master sorceress, they find her at home in her pajamas, watching daytime TV and eating ice cream. Stuart and Kripke are surprised Bernadette recognizes them in this universe, although it is not clear how. She is known as Bernadette Rostenkowski rather than Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, suggesting she is not married to Howard.

Bernadette apologizes for the mess in her otherwise ordinary suburban home, explaining that she “gave up giving a shit”. After Stuart and Kripke ask for help with the vari-state quantum interference device, she admits she has been stripped of her magic by the Wizards Guild of America for using her powers during a strike. Bernadette claims she only broke the rules to resurrect her neighbor’s son’s dog, Chocolate Chip, after the dog was hit by multiple cars.

Bernadette explains that a reversal spell could restore her powers, but it requires the blood of an innocent. Kripke quickly rules himself out, while Bernadette decides Stuart’s limited dating history makes him a suitable candidate. After Stuart gives Bernadette his blood, Wil Wheaton, an enforcer for the Wizards Guild of America, warns that Bernadette is not who they think she is. Bert fights Wil off before he can punish Stuart for aiding a demon.

Back at home, Bernadette mixes Stuart’s blood into a potion she’s cooked up in a cauldron. After drinking it, she begins to transform: her eyes turn red, her skin changes color, horns emerge from her head, and she grows in size.

Now five stories high, a green, horned Bernadette rampages through Pasadena on her way to the comic book store, kicking cars, stomping on people and pulling residents from apartment buildings. Even then, she compliments a woman’s shoes before dropping her to her death. She then rips the roof off the comic book store and demands the vari-state quantum interference device so she can rule every world. Stuart and Bert manage to activate the machine before Bernadette reaches it, sending Stuart and the gang to another reality. Left behind, Bernadette complains, “Oh, shit!”

When we meet Bernadette in the telepathic reality of 107 “Spoiler: Dexys Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment”, she is an unhappy children’s dance instructor who freely says what she thinks out loud. Stuart and his companions visit her studio after failing to locate Howard Wolowitz. They find her berating her young students for dancing like “a bunch of baby hippos”. When she hears one child mentally wishing her dead, Bernadette asks whether she thinks about her mother with that mind.

Bernadette dismisses the class for a break, telling the children to “drink some juice, drink some vodka” because she does not care. She does not recognize the visitors and asks whether they were in rehab together, admitting that much of that time is a blur. When Bert checks that she is Bernadette Rostenkowski, she explains that’s her maiden name. Her married name is “Bernadette Asshole”.

When Denise asks whether “Mr. Asshole” also goes by Howard Wolowitz, Bernadette does not recognize the name, even after Kripke describes him as an engineer who looks like a garden gnome with a Beatles haircut. She asks whether he sells cocaine on the side. When Stuart says no, she confirms that she doesn’t know him.

When Bert wonders to himself what happened to her, Bernadette addresses him as “Sasquatch” and recounts her childhood: Her alcoholic mother tried to live out her own dreams by entering Bernadette in beauty pageants and feeding her diet pills to keep her skinny, all in pursuit of the Miss California Quiznos 1999 title. While Stuart and Denise react sympathetically, Bert fixates on the mention of Quiznos.

Bernadette laments that she now teaches “pampered little maggots” to tap dance when she believes the only dancing they’ll ever do will be on a pole. Hearing the children’s distressed thoughts, she orders them to “shut your brain holes”. After Stuart apologizes for wasting her time, Bernadette keeps her response unspoken for once, thinking that it would not be a waste if they killed her. Aloud, however, she wishes them a great day before returning to her class of “future eating disorders”.

This version of Bernadette shares her counterpart’s beauty pageant background from The Big Bang Theory. In “The Troll Manifestation”, Penny finds a video of Bernadette competing for Miss California Quiznos 1999. In the Young Sheldon episode “A Swedish Science Thing and the Equation for Toast”, a flashback shows five-year-old Bernadette asleep beside her trophy and sash from a beauty pageant in her hometown of Yorba Linda, California.

This page has been updated up to episode 107 Spoiler: Dexys Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment