- The guys' friendship is threatened when they find a ring from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
- Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Raj jointly purchase a box, whose contents are unknown, for $60 at a garage sale. While sorting through it, they find that it contains primarily pop culture related items. They are happy with some of the contents, and less so with others. But when one of Howard's friends verifies the authenticity of one of the items, the guys think they've won the lottery when in their possession is the missing (stolen) one of only nine in total rings used in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Being a stolen item, the ring has no open market value, but they determine its black market value is in the range of $10,000 to $15,000. The four argue about to who among the four the ring rightly belongs, and thus who decides what to do with it. They agree to let Penny hold onto it until they decide. After an incident with Sheldon, Penny doesn't want to be the keeper of the ring anymore. Howard comes up with what all four agree is an amenable solution as to who gets to decide the ring's fate.—Huggo
- The guys are returning from a garage sale (at Adam West's old house) with a heavy box of stuff they got for $60 without the dinner that Penny was expecting. They find an original script from "Ghostbusters II" with actual slime on it, an actual "Alf" doll, (which brought back such memories for Howard, since his mother got him one when he was eleven and he wished that Alf would bring his dad back from Melmac.), Mr. T's head on a Mr. Spock doll, an Indiana Jones connect the dots, an Aquaman action figure, and a "Lord of the Rings" ring. The sad part was then Penny didn't know that Adam West was TV's Batman.
Howard checks with "a guy" who says the ring is the real deal used in the movie series worth $15,000 on the black market. Leonard insists on returning it to director Peter Jackson. Penny is told to hold it till they decide what to do with it. Penny is willing, but is a bit peeved that the first piece of jewelry her boyfriend gives her is a prop from a movie and she doesn't even get to keep it.
That night Sheldon tries to steal it off of the sleeping Penny's neck whom he startles and slugs him. Penny tells Leonard that she just punched Sheldon when he tried to take the ring and Leonard replied, "That's my girl."
Raj's lawyer/cousin Venkatesh Koothrappali (Frank Maharajh) tries to negotiate with them to sell Raj's stake in the ring for a jet ski. No dice. Then they try a holding contest, last one holding onto the ring gets it. Somehow they get up the stairs and to the hallway dropping the apartment keys in the meantime. Penny walks by with a very little bag from Victoria Secret's causing Leonard to drop out and disappear into Penny's apartment. Sheldon was right about the power of sex.
Later in the apartment, Howard has to explain to his mother while Raj is messing up Howard's lies. ("I am so glad we came to this Gentile strip club! Howard, here's more bacon to tuck into the Shiksa's G-string!!") Then they decide to talk about Sheldon's mother and grandmother. His Meemaw had to have sex to have his mother and she had sex because she LIKED it. Sheldon then starts to talk about falling water to make them want to use the bathroom. It works on Sheldon. Now all of them have to go so off to the bathroom they go. Later while asleep, he dreams that he won it, goes to the bathroom to clean and sees himself in the mirror as Gollum from LOTR. In the morning, the ring can't be found. Leonard explains he found the three of them sleeping on the couch and the ring on the floor with no-one touching it, and sent it back to Peter Jackson as he had wanted to at the start. When challenged, he points out that who ever won it would be hated by the others thus ending their friendships. Case closed. Back in Leonard's room he pulls the ring out from under the bed saying. "Hello, my precious!"
Not everyone knows the truth, because at night Leonard and Sheldon get into another fight over the ring (which Leonard had kept for himself) with Penny in the bed between them. She leaves saying that she should go back to dating dumb guys from the gym.
Title reference: The guys' fight over the One Ring.
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