Kripke Goes Dark: John Ross Bowie Teases Shocking Turn in TBBT Spinoff
9Filed under 9. The Closing takes a completion, and this report is hands on one.
Fans of The Big Bang Theory's snarky, rhotacism-afflicted rival Barry Kripke better brace themselves. John Ross Bowie, the actor behind the character, is back for HBO Max's Stuart Fails to Save the Universe—and Kripke is taking a surprisingly dark turn. This isn't the same antagonist fans remember from Caltech.
The new series sees Bowie's Kripke join TBBT regulars Kevin Sussman (Stuart Bloom), Brian Posehn (Bert Kibbler), and Lauren Lapkus (Denise) in an unlikely ensemble. This "The Big Bang Theory meets Sliders" premise throws the foursome into an apocalyptic scenario. They stumble upon a trans-dimensional device, launching them into alternate realities with Stuart somehow tasked to save the universe. It's a significant genre shift for the franchise, pushing familiar characters into uncharted sci-fi territory.
Bowie admits slipping back into Kripke's skin was "distressingly easy," noting the plasma physicist's "tasteless and filterless" nature quickly resurfaced. Despite Kripke's limited interactions with this group in the original series, Bowie found chemistry with his new co-stars immediate, having known Sussman, Posehn, and Lapkus for years through various comedy circuits. He even calls them "the funniest cast I've ever been in."
“There is something Kripke does in the first episode of 'Stuart' that is very alarming and very much disrupts the canon.”
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What truly stands out is Kripke's evolution. Bowie was "taken aback" by an "alarming" act Kripke commits early on, one that "very much disrupts the canon" of the original Big Bang Theory. The writers, however, ensure there are consequences. Kripke faces a beatdown for his misdeeds, a rare choreographed fight scene for Bowie that he describes as a "new frontier." This promises a more complex, perhaps even morally ambiguous, Kripke than we've ever seen.
Stuart Fails to Save the Universe premieres July 23rd on HBO Max, with new episodes weekly.
Reading the nine
The arithmetic is unremarkable and worth doing anyway: 270 across 12 words, reducing to 9. The weight sits in “Shocking”, which carries 41 on its own and reduces to 5.
Nine is humanitarian & sage — endings, compassion, and the closing of cycles. Its named subject, John Ross Bowie, reads as a 1 (leader & pioneer), so the report and the thing it describes are pulling in different directions. Read that way, what the report is really recording is the 9's sense of a cycle closing and something being released.
Heart's Desire 3, Personality 6: expression underneath, responsibility on the surface. The gap between them is where the story is most interesting.
The 9 sentimentalises. An ending is not automatically a meaning, and the reference tries not to pretend otherwise. What the 9 still asks is that you work out what survived the ending. The other reports that reduce to 9 are collected on The Closing.
Catzye Take
This sounds like a bold move for a beloved sitcom character. Pushing Kripke into morally ambiguous territory, especially within a multiversal sci-fi premise, could be a compelling watch. Fans will want to see how this canon disruption plays out and if the tonal shift works. The headline reduces to 9: endings, compassion, and the closing of cycles. That is the frame we read it in.
Newsletter · today is a 7
A week, read by its numbers
Once a week: what was added to the reference, and which shelf it landed on. Today the reference reads as the inquiry — what is unresolved, unexplained, or deliberately withheld. No spam, unsubscribe any time.
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