Recap
In a psychiatric hospital, Stuart's psychiatrist, Amy Farrah Fowler, questions him about the realities through which he claims to have traveled, including an AI-controlled world where Penny led a resistance and a world governed by magic. He also insists he knew Amy as a neurobiologist from before the apocalypse in his own universe. Unconvinced, Amy doubles his dosage of Trafederine and tells him that, if he makes progress, he may someday be able to leave. Stuart suspects that “someday” means never.
The walls of Stuart’s room are covered with drawings of his recent experiences, including demon Alexa, a disheveled Raj, Penguin Kripke, AI drones, the comic book store and the vari-state quantum entanglement device. Nurse Stephanie gives him his medication and checks that he has swallowed it. After she leaves, Stuart slips into the hallway in search of a way out, but the exit recedes into the distance and the corridor becomes a steep slope. When he tries to enter the room where he sees Bert, the doorway opens onto a mountaintop, where a Sherpa stops him from falling off the cliff. Stuart then finds Weird Al Yankovic playing an accordion inside the room. When Bert appears in the hallway, Stuart asks how he escaped. Bert explains that he did not and that Stuart is merely “very high.” Stuart looks back into the room and sees Porky Pig declare, “That’s all, folks!” Two orderlies apprehend Stuart and drag him away as Bert reappears behind a locked door, repeatedly warning him that none of this is real.
Later, Nurse Stephanie brings Denise to visit Stuart in the hospital’s common room. Stuart is delighted to see her and begs her to get him out of here, but she insists that he must accept that he needs help. When Denise says that she and their children miss him, Stuart is stunned to learn that he is a father. This revelation inspires Stuart to promise that he will do the work necessary to get well.
Stuart fully commits himself to treatment: he participates in group and individual therapy, acts out a conversation with his parents using puppets, takes his medication, socializes with the other patients and makes a leather wallet in occupational therapy. As his treatment progresses, he gradually removes the drawings from his walls. Stuart eventually tells Amy that he now understands that the alternate universes were delusions. Satisfied with his progress, she agrees to discharge him. Before leaving, Stuart asks when Bert will be released, only for Amy to tell him that the hospital has no patient by that name.
As Amy, Stephanie and the orderlies gather outside to see Stuart off, Denise is waiting beside a station wagon and embraces him before driving him home. Stuart is surprised by Denise’s renewed intimacy and the fact that she calls him “Big Daddy.” She makes a surprise stop on the way home at an art gallery, where an elegantly dressed Bert welcomes Stuart to an exhibition of his own work. Denise explains that Stuart is a celebrated artist. Stuart does not remember creating the artwork and grows uneasy as the paintings stir memories of the realities he supposedly imagined. He sees demon Alexa; himself and Denise kissing inside the heart-shaped frame of roses Bert conjured; his companions gathered around the quantum device; and a gigantic, demonic Bernadette rampaging through Pasadena.
At a backyard barbecue, Stuart serves hot dogs to Jaden and Talia while Denise brings out fresh lemonade. He marvels that he ever imagined a better life than this. Over the fence, he is shocked to learn that Kripke is his neighbor. After Kripke makes crude jokes about Stuart’s hospitalization, Denise scolds him. Gary then joins Kripke and is revealed to be his husband, overwhelming Stuart, who goes inside to lie down.
Later, Stuart leaves the house for a walk to clear his head. After stepping over the doormat, Stuart turns back and finds that it reads “Wake up”. It then changes to “Hello?” before returning to the traditional “Welcome” when he closes and reopens his eyes. An apparently empty car starts across the street and seems to follow him through Pasadena. Drawn to the Comic Center despite not knowing why, Stuart enters and finds regulars Kyle and Trevor arguing about whether the laws of physics apply to Thor. Stuart instinctively settles the question before wondering how he knows the answer. On a shelf, Stuart discovers a comic book titled Stuart Fails to Save the Universe. Its cover shows him holding the vari-state quantum entanglement device, surrounded by Denise, Bert and Kripke. As Stuart picks it up, the alternate Stuart who first gave him his mission emerges from the back of the store, watches him and disappears through a wormhole without being seen.
Back home, Denise is puzzled that Stuart has bought a comic book. He snaps at her before apologizing and retreats to the bathroom, where he locks the door and begins reading. The comic describes how Leonard, Sheldon and Howard built the quantum device at Caltech, and Stuart knocked it from a table while sharing the news of his clean colonoscopy. Ever since, Stuart has been entangled with the fate of the universe. The comic also shows the billboards and newspaper headlines that tried to attract his attention in the previous worlds. The narration calls him a “big dope” for missing those messages and promises further instructions once he escapes from his current prison. When Stuart sees “None of this is real!” written in the comic, Bert’s warning echoes in his mind. On the back cover, he finds a mail-order advertisement for a vari-state quantum entanglement device that promises to transport its owner to an alternate reality.
Soon afterward, a delivery driver leaves a large package outside the house. When Kripke asks about it from the neighboring yard, Stuart angrily tells him to mind his own business as he struggles to carry the box indoors. Stuart places the cheap-looking device on the kitchen counter. When Denise enters, he is surprised that she can see it. As she questions him, Stuart asks whether she has ever wondered if their perfect life is real. Denise insists that this is the life they always dreamed of, but Stuart points out that his dreams never come true. When Denise admits that he is frightening her, Stuart warns her to “tighten your sphincter” as he activates the machine and an interdimensional bubble engulfs them.
Stuart awakens bald in a slime-filled pod and removes a tube from his mouth. As Denise, Bert and Kripke awaken in neighboring pods, they compare their surroundings to The Matrix. Denise realizes that none of it was real: the house, the children, the cable television. Meanwhile, Kripke mourns the loss of his marriage to Gary, “a weal wooker.” Bert then points out that their surroundings are not merely reminiscent of The Matrix: they are literally in a scene from the film. Realizing that they remain trapped in another manufactured reality, Stuart finds a tear in its fabric and pulls it open. Restored to their normal clothes and appearances, the four walk through a vast white space and find the vari-state quantum entanglement device waiting on a pedestal. Stuart warns that there is no way to know where it will take them, then activates it so they can escape together.
They arrive with the machine in a dense forest. Unsure whether this reality is genuine, Bert examines the soil and concludes that it seems real, briefly showing off his geological knowledge before admitting that it is dirt. After a rustle in the trees, a tribe dressed in simple yellow coverings surrounds the group, and a man and woman step forward. Stuart and Denise patronizingly address them in simple, halting English, prompting the woman to observe that they sound stupid.
