Turning down a job opportunity?
Accidentally auditioning for a porno?
Marrying her ex while she's still with Leonard?
Believe it or not, these weren't the worst choices Penny made on "The Big Bang Theory."
Stick around, because we're about to reveal her most regrettable decision.
Kaley Cuoco's Penny goes through quite a lot during her long run on "The Big Bang Theory."
During the show's tenure, she makes several major moves to change the direction of her
often chaotic life.
She switches ambitions and goals, manages to endure the nonstop shifts in her relationship
with Leonard, gains real friends in the form of Leonard's friends, and even manages to
make a reliable friend group of her own with her eventual besties Amy and Bernadette.
All that said, thanks to a tendency to be impulsive with her decision-making, not all
the choices Penny makes in her life are smart or good for her.
"I get it, I screwed up.
Is this all we're gonna talk about the rest of the day?"
"Why are you mad at me?
You're the one that did the stupid thing, I'm just trying to fix it!"
Before the show begins, she marries her ex-boyfriend Zack in Las Vegas and never realizes the "joke"
ceremony was real, forcing her to seek an annulment from her ex so she can marry Leonard in Season 7.
After all that, she still agrees to elope to Las Vegas with Leonard in Season 9 — a
completely impulsive gesture that cuts their family and friends out of the equation and
forces them to orchestrate a bigger private ceremony later on.
Also, incredibly, after insisting she doesn't want to have kids for the entirety of the
show's run, in Season 12, she ends up pregnant by Leonard thanks to a birth control mishap.
In short, Penny's made a lot of questionable decisions and has dealt with the fallout,
but one decision stands above the rest as arguably the worst one she ever makes on "The
Big Bang Theory."
Yes, in spite of every other tough choice in her life, Penny's decision to give up her
dreams of being a successful actress is still the hardest one for fans to take.
Her life as a working actress is what drives the character from Season 1 to Season 8.
It's why she moves to California from Nebraska in the first place and ends up living next
door to Leonard and Sheldon.
While her acting career definitely has its ups and downs — including an embarrassing
incident in which she shows up for a cat food commercial and finds out it's an audition
for a pornographic film — she seems to weather these bumps with grace in the hope of making
her dreams come true.
For much of the show, this means that she has to live a few inches above the poverty
line while bartending and waiting tables at the gang's local Cheesecake Factory.
"Guys, guys, you're never gonna believe this."
"What happened?"
"I just got a part on a TV show!"
But after quitting The Cheesecake Factory to focus on her acting career in Season 7's
"The Hesitation Ramification," Penny experiences extreme embarrassment when her role in an
"NCIS" episode is cut after she tells her family and friends to tune in and watch her.
Her confidence in her acting dreams is shaken, and though there's hope she might land a role
in the new "Star Wars" film thanks to Leonard's support, she switches vocations and becomes
a sales representative for Bernadette's pharmaceutical company in Season 8.
"The Big Bang Theory" generally portrays this as a positive career move for Penny, who climbs
the corporate ladder and is such a good rep that she's nearly scooped up by Bernadette's competitor.
But it's not a job she shows any particular passion for, even though her apparent natural
skill in the role definitely gives her a confidence boost.
That said, she ultimately has no real emotional attachment to the job and nearly leaves it
when Zack offers her another career opportunity in Season 10 — which she doesn't take because
the idea upsets her new husband, Leonard.
As tough as her acting career is to maintain, Penny shows both a passion for acting and
an aptitude for it throughout "The Big Bang Theory."
She may make more money in pharmaceuticals, but there's never a sense of joy and triumph
like the kind she experiences when her performance in a play draws an emotional response from
her friends in Season 6's "The Monster Isolation."
While Penny seems pretty happy with her life by the time "The Big Bang Theory" wraps up
its run, fans still consider her career shift a step backwards for the character.
It definitely takes some excitement out of her storyline, making the career swap the
worst choice she made on the show.
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