jmw1975

I was confused by that, too. It was definitely pre-recorded, because it was a montage of Sheldon undoing all of the things Amy taught him. And also as someone else pointed out, the dominoes alone would probably require them to pre-record. So I don't know where they came up with the "I wish you were dead" line. Could they have had some kind of VIP pass and attended a dress rehearsal or something?

Yikes, I didn't take notes, but I can try to re-construct it from memory (and using Cathie's notes as a guide). But please don't hold me to this! There were also a couple of short scenes that Cathie omitted from her summary, which I'll include below:

1. Opening scene was definitely Leonard, Penny & Sheldon in the guys' apartment. Sheldon was annoyed that some "fluffy" recording appeared on his DVR. Penny and Leonard blamed Chinese hackers, but obviously Penny had recorded it. Leonard revealed to Sheldon that Alphas had been canceled, which led to his distress about the lack of closure. Jim struggled a lot with one line at the end of this scene (the one about Firefly and Heroes) and probably had to do about 4 takes to get it right. In between each take, he kept studying his script and trying to memorize it.

2. I believe the 2nd scene took place in Raj's apartment. Howard was over, and Raj told him that he had stumbled upon Lucy's blog. Howard was encouraging him to read it, but Raj felt it wouldn't be right. Raj's little yorkie dog was in this scene as well. I think they only did the scene once (maybe twice), but we had to watch on the monitors, because they blocked the set with a black screen (I don't know why... maybe so the dog wouldn't be distracted by the audience?). I believe somewhere in this scene Raj was letting the dog lick his face in a very suggestive manner. (Or maybe that scene was in the Tenure Turbulence episode which they showed us prior to the taping... sorry! I don't remember the details... except that it was funny!).

3. Leonard knocks on Penny's door to suggest they watch Buffy together, because it's the perfect show for them - smart, funny, romantic. Penny shuts the door in his face because it's 6:30 a.m.

4. In Raj's office. Howard enters and Raj admits he caved and read Lucy's blog after all. They discuss how she described him as feminine, and Howard says he should use the info to get into her pants.

5. Shamy scene at the guys' apartment. Sheldon calls the Alpha network claiming to be a VP and asking to be connected to the people in charge of canceling the show. He says "Don't ask a lot of questions about whether I am who I say I am." And then he says something like, "No, I'm not the person who called before. That person clearly had a French accent!" (this was changed in the last take to "That person was clearly a cowboy.") Then Amy says Sheldon has a compulsive need for closure, and proves it with the "knock, knock, kna-knock, knock...." without completing the final "knock, knock." They changed this scene up a bit on each take. The first time, Amy did the sequence and then there was a long pause and then Sheldon couldn't help but complete it. The 2nd take, Amy did the sequence and then Sheldon immediately, without hesitation, completed it (as if he was so unable to tolerate it that he couldn't wait even a second!), and then said, "That proves nothing." The 3rd take they went back to the long pause, but kept the "That proves nothing" line. Then Amy tells Sheldon she can help him with his problem with closure through a series of exercises. She starts with the tic tac toe game. Sheldon suggests it won't work, because the game will end in win, lose, or draw, all of which provide closure. But then just as he's about to win, she erases the board. Then he admits maybe he does have a problem, and says how she can't possibly understand what it's like to have this longing for something that builds up to you and never reaches a climax (or something suggestive like that). Meanwhile Amy just stares at him, like, "Really, you think I can't imagine that?" And then as Cathie described, they tried out two different responses - "Yeah, that must suck." And then on the last take it was changed to Amy saying, "Sometimes I sit on a washing machine, but that probably wouldn't work for you." When the writers showed this new line to Mayim between takes, she was totally cracking up over it. She had to work to regain her composure in order to do that take, and then as soon as the the director called "Cut" she started cracking up again.

Oh, I just remembered something else from this scene! Somewhere in there, when Sheldon is denying his difficulty with closure, Amy says a sentence, with the word "option" in it, but when she gets to that word, she just says, "op--" and then notices something on her hand and starts examining it and never finishes the sentence. Sheldon can't stand it, and yells, "-tion!!" to complete her sentence. Then on one take, as a joke, when they are getting ready to start shooting, the director called, "Ready, and, Ac--!" (leaving off the "tion" of "action"). Mayim laughed and sort of pointed at him like, "Good one." Jim kind of smirked in a way that made me wonder if he'd heard that joke before (maybe they did it in rehearsal or something). Either that, or he was just trying to remain in character and not laugh.

6. Leonard and Penny watching Buffy, as Cathie described it.

7 & 8. Next we watched two pre-recorded scenes back to back. I don't remember the order, but one was a short scene in which Raj was Skyping with Howard. I honestly don't remember anything about this scene, since it was short and we only saw it once. I assume they were discussing how he should handle his upcoming date with Lucy, but I don't even remember that for sure!

The other was the montage of Amy doing all the exercises with Sheldon to get him accustomed to a lack of closure - not letting him blow out the candles, not letting him knock over the dominoes, etc. With Sheldon getting increasingly annoyed and frustrated.

9. At Penny's apartment. Penny and Bernadette watch Buffy, Penny expresses that she doesn't get it, Bernadette tries to explain it. And they discuss Penny's desire to find something she is passionate about.

10. Raj & Lucy's date. This scene was really sweet, but hard to capture in a description. It starts off funny with Raj trying to be all machismo, wearing a hockey jersey, saying he's a hockey fan, purposely messing up the food he cooked, etc. But when Lucy is put off by all this, he ends up really opening up to her about how he wanted to impress her. He admits he read her blog. She says she didn't think anyone read it. He says, "No kidding. That thing was hard to find. I must have spent hours scouring the internet for any info about you!" But he says he was trying to act masculine so she'd like him, and she says she didn't say feminine was a bad thing, and that it means he's caring and sweet (or some such thing). Anyway, they make up and she stays.

11. Penny & Leonard having dinner at her apartment as described in my earlier post.

12. The pre-recorded "sucker" scene with Sheldon undoing everything Amy taught him.

13. Tag - Sheldon calling the Alpha writer and learning that the proposed ending was terrible.

Okay, I kind of made that order up, but it was something like that!! I wasn't planning to write a taping report, so I didn't take any notes. But I believe those are all the scenes and in the approximate order.