Stuart Fails To Save The Universe Cast Talks Cow Stomachs, Free-Fall Stunts — Plus, Big Bang Theory Star Returns In Episode 6

"Stuart Fails to Save the Universe" Episode 6 marks the second appearance by a legacy cast member, who helps solidify for our titular hero that, yes, he really ought to take this whole saving the universe thing seriously.

Kunal Nayyar's Raj might've been killed off in the post-apocalyptic universe, but the "Big Bang Theory" character is very much alive in this one, warning that entire galaxies are already disappearing — and that it may only be hundreds — not millions, not thousands, but just hundreds — of years before the entire universe ceases to exist. 

But other than that, everything seems pretty much back to normal in this episode... except for the fact that humans descended from cows. That includes Stuart and Denise, who spend one of the episode's more intimate scenes lying in bed, contemplating their future together... while chewing their cuds.

Was that among the stranger acting notes that Kevin Sussman and Lauren Lapkus have ever received?

"Yeah, I think that could definitely be at the top of the list — to vomit more clearly or for longer into your mouth," Lapkus tells TVLine.

"In the most romantic scene," Sussman emphasizes.

"Yeah, because that's one of our most grounded scenes, somehow, is when we're laying in bed talking about the future and stuff," Lapkus says. "And then we're also chewing our cuds. So, yeah... I guess everything about this show is weird."

Kripke and Bert attempt to leave the cow universe behind and travel to another universe without Stuart and Denise, only to wind up stuck in a seemingly never-ending free fall between realities. Filming those sequences involved extensive wire work — and, according to Brian Posehn, his considerably lighter co-star got the worst of it.

"This poor guy, because he weighs a lot less than me, was thrown around," Posehn recalls, referring to John Ross Bowie, who himself confirms: "I was thrown around like a f**king ragdoll, Ryan!"

"It is fun and worthwhile to punish Kripke," Bowie says. So while his airborne punishment "maybe had something to do with the actual physics of it, I think there was also something fun about just taking Kripke and yanking him up and down."

Posehn, on the other hand, required a gentler approach. "Every time you see, like, a flood and there's a cow being lifted to safety, that's all they could really do with me," he jokes. ("No, stop that!" Bowie interjects.)

Bowie's experience was decidedly less gentle. At one point, he says, he was dropped 23 feet — and while he knew he was perfectly safe, his body didn't necessarily get the message.

"When you're just dropping like that and the floor is rushing at you, it's very easy to forget that you're perfectly safe," he says. "And you get that real, like — not fight or flight, but like, 'I'm just gonna die.' There's no fighting or flying. I'm just gonna — this is how I go."

Still, Bowie says, "one of the joys of the show is that it's these characters in unfamiliar situations. So having to maintain Kripke's smart-ass attitude while being yanked through the air like a ragdoll was a fun acting challenge."

The sequence was ultimately reshot several weeks later, with some new dialogue and jokes added — including Bert's increasingly rambling story about a former geology teacher.

"Any opportunity I get to be — I love irritating people, like, in real life, too," Posehn says. "I love getting to be like, 'Oh, you don't like what I just said? Well, how about this? I'm going to keep going. I'm not letting go of this.'"

As for Stuart, Raj isn't the only one telling him that the fate of the universe rests on his shoulders. A projection of Stuart from a collapsing adjacent universe reappears and confirms that, due to his quantum entanglement with the incident that fractured the multiverse, "you are the only one who can save the universe."

Still, Stuart isn't convinced that makes him a hero — or that he's obligated to do anything about it.

"I'm not a hero," he tells Denise. "I'm a broke ass, failed artist who owns a comic book store. In fact, I'm such a failure that in every universe we go to, I own a comic book store."

But Denise reminds him that being a hero is a choice. "I just think anyone can be a hero if they're trying to make life better for other people," she says — and in Stuart's case, those "other people" happen to include everyone who exists, or ever will exist, in every possible universe.

Ultimately, Stuart chooses to keep trying. He and Denise order a quantum echo of the original device and, in the process of making their next jump, inadvertently save Kripke and Bert from their free fall. The foursome lands safely in yet another seemingly normal universe... until they discover that everyone can read each other's minds.

So much for normal.