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Old 03-12-2014, 04:10 AM
  #185
Lionne
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First of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH to Moyra for getting me a ticket to go. I sat with all of these people who were talking about sitting at their computers, refreshing for hours, to get their tickets. And stand by people were like...HOW DID YOU GET THIS TICKET? And I was like...."Um. Someone just emailed it to me? Kinda a spur of the moment thing?" And everyone looked at me in awe, and I was very embarassed but also delighted. My life is like magic thanks to you, Moyra!

So, basically, I got to see the best episode ever. We focus on Shamy, Penny's career, and Raj's love life all in one episode. And Wil Wheaton shows up. Like I said, my life is like magic!

Here's the episode:

7.20 – The Indecision Amalgamation
Story by: Prady, Kaplan, Reynolds, and Teleplay by Molaro, Holland and Goetsch.

Cold Open: Sheldon and Leonard are at their computers. First take has the camera square on Leonard, working, and he looks over at Sheldon later. The 2nd take shows both desks at an angle, with Sheldon in the foreground. Not sure which will be used. For his part, Sheldon is squirming, and complains that he has to pee really badly. Leonard suggests that there's a solution for that, but Sheldon says he can't go. Leonard says, "I know this is a stupid question, but WHY?"

Sheldon explains the dillemna of picking between the XBOX 1 and PS4. He explains that Meredith Cook's (?) work suggests that people make better decisions while their bladders are full, hence the reason why he's refusing to pee. He complains somewhere in there about having a fish tank in his stomach. Then he complains about the "p" in PS4 triggering his need to pee. Penny, wearing a cute tee-shirt with a peace symbol on it in glitter, comes in, and says that she went to an audition and killed it, and she's happy. She then says that she was able to cry on cue, and that she "turned on the waterworks," and Sheldon exclaims, "WATERWORKS" and makes a beeline for the bathroom.

Leonard looks up at Penny and asks, "Do you want to know that is all about?"
Penny replies, "You think this is my first day?"

Next scene: Penny's apartment, which I was sitting right in front of. (I was happy that I could look down the hallway and see that Penny's bed was unmade. Also, there was a pink bicycle in her apartment with a bunch of things like scarves coming out of the basket on the front. Just for all of you who wanted to know that Penny owns a pink bicycle.)

The 3 girls stand around Penny's kitchen island with glasses of wine. Bernadette starts telling them that a co-worker of hers was retiring, but instead got into a huge car accident. Bernadette thought that the card going around was for the retirement, and didn't know about the accident, so she starts recounting what she wrote in the card, and in light of the accident they all sound horrible. I can't remember them exactly, but each line got worse and worse, and Penny and Amy are looking more and more shocked and appalled. The last one was, "At least now you won't be stealing my yogurt out of the fridge anymore!" Penny actually covers her hand with her mouth, and Amy gets in a line I didn't hear properly.

Penny's phone rings, and she says it's her agent, and even if she got the job, that's still the 2nd best thing she heard all day. (Meaning that Bernadette's story is the best). When Penny gets off the phone, she reveals she did not get cast in the part. BUT. The Serial Apeist people changed their minds, and they said that the part is hers, if she wants it, and she doesn't know what she's going to do.

Next scene: Raj is leaving a coffee shop and sees Emily. He approaches Emily, and apologizes to her, and says that she was the most interesting girl who had ever reached out to him online, and he was sorry not to contact her in person but he was just so desperate to impress her. There is some banter, and basically, Raj is really sincere, and really sweet, and says something about blowing his chance. And Emily says something about giving him another chance and gestures to the chair next to her very sweetly. She's super cute. So Raj sits down with her. And I'm forgetting a lot of the actual banter, but it's actually very well done, and I feel like Raj and Emily have some real chemistry. I liked him with Yvette a lot (I tried to like Lucy, but I was never a fan of being reminded that she "Was trying things that scared her" every episode), but the two scenes which Raj and Emily had together really caused me to warm up to Emily. This scene was filmed once, and the second scene was pre-taped, so I am sorry I don't remember the specific dialogue.

Okay so....next scene is Sheldon and Amy. They are having dinner at Amy's apartment. They redid this one a lot because they never liked Jim's line delivery, or he kept messing up. In fact, this evening, Jim had to redo his lines and scenes more than anyone. (During the Best Buy scene they stop him and Jim protests, "I thought that was fine?") They start with Sheldon lecturing Amy about the XBOX1 and PS4. He is explaining about the names. He notes that the PS has gone 1, 2, 3 and 4, but the XBOX went from XBOX, and you think it would go to XBOX 2, but NO! It went to XBOX 360! And then it's gone to XBOX 1! He says, "Probably 1 is the number of seconds they put into naming it."

Amy is listening, but looking mildly annoyed. She's obviously been listening to his rant all evening. She asks him to get her the butter. So Sheldon gets up from the table and goes to the fridge, still talking about the video games. He remarks that the XBOX has voice commands, although he's currently been using Leonard for that. She asks him a question, and as he closes the fridge he says, "I don't think that you're paying this the proper amount of attention," or something like that. Amy puts her napkin in her lap and says, "Fine, Sheldon, you have my full attention." Sheldon disregards the butter, putting it down on her counter, takes his seat, and lays into it all of his blather about the details of these two video game consoles.

And it is HILARIOUS! He's like, "The XBOX blah blah blah with charger included," and Amy mimics, "INCLUDED?!" Amy totally hams it up, and the more she does so, the more Sheldon warms to his subject, going on and on about the two video game consoles. And Sheldon gets more hyper and is like, "PS4 blah blah blah" and Amy goes, "No blah blah blah - what are they, NUTS?"! So it's a long back and forth with Sheldon getting more and more excited and totally failing to understand her sarcasm, and Amy excitedly parroting things back to him, totally playing along and getting more and more sarcastic each time, and it is hilarious. Say what you will about Mayim, but her line delivery is pure perfection.

Finally Sheldon says, "and there's this and there's that, and I can't decide. Amy, what should I do?!" And Amy yells, "PLEASE." *bangs her hand on the table* "PASS" *bangs her hand again* "THE BUTTER!" *bangs her hand again* SHE IS PISSED! Don't stand between this girl and her butter! And Sheldon stops cold and looks at her with his eyes as wide as saucers, and then starts to grope behind him on the counter, without looking away from her, until his hand finds the butter. He lifts it, passes it to her with that shocked little boy expression still on his face, and she takes it and starts scrapping butter off the top while they basically just stare each other down.

Next Scene: Leonard and Penny are in Penny's apartment, on her couch. They both have a copy of a script and are reading it. After a few seconds Penny drops hers and is like, "This is awful, right?" And Leonard confirms that yes, it is totally awful. He asks her about at least it would pay her for some work and she'd have some money coming in, but Penny tells him she'd make less per week doing this movie than she would at the Cheesecake Factory. Leonard tries to stay positive, reminding her that she'd at least be seen in something?

Penny picks up the script and starts reading a line which goes something like, "Sometimes I feel that I can control the killer ape inside of me! But then....then I see some BANANAS and..." And I don't even know what comes next because the audience about died laughing. And Leonard is trying hard not to laugh. So Penny goes on to explain more of what's horrible in the script, I think, and talks about how there's a scene where she has to oil wrestle, in a bikini, with an orangutan. And Leonard goes, "Which one of you is wearing a bikini?" And Penny checks the script and then goes, "Both."
And Leonard goes, "So....it's a family film?"

And I think about there they cut the first time. They do the scene 3 or 4 more times, with some very small variations. But on one of them, Leonard goes, "So...it's a family film?" And Penny stares at him for a moment, and then does this adorable little monkey impression that I hope they keep. But that is the gist of it.

Next scene: Scene opens on Amy's apartment. Sheldon has on his tan-on-tan windbreaker and is throwing his tan satchel over his shoulder while he thanks her for dinner. He goes to the door, opens it, and Amy says, "Wait. It's date night. Aren't you forgetting something?" Sheldon pauses for a moment to think, and then goes, "Oh." He walks right to her, takes her hips in his hands, and lays a kiss on her. The crowd goes nuts. They stay in liplock while the crowd cheers on and on and will not calm down. So it goes on a long, long time. Finally, Jim breaks the kiss, and I think he says something like, "I can't get in my line," And Mayim starts laughing and gives a big smile, so they have to redo it.

So they reset, and then they open the same way. Sheldon putting on his satchel and going to the door, Amy notes it's date night and isn't he forgetting something? Again, he goes, "Oh," and then walks right to her. This time, the camera is focused on their torsos, and it's on a swing set, so I can only see what is on screen. I'm not sure if he takes her hips again, but I think he does.

He goes right in and kisses her again on the lips, and the crowd is a lot quieter this time, so after a few seconds he mutters, without breaking the kiss, something about video game controllers, and after another few seconds of kissing, Amy mutters back, "No." And then Sheldon gets this sexy smile on his face while he continues to kiss her, and he mutters something back into her lips about the video games or deciding or something, it's not clear. They don't break the liplock the entire time, they murmur against each others mouths while talking.

After a few more seconds he breaks the kiss, walks to the door, looks back and gives her a huge smile and cute wave, and leaves. (It reminded me of the time he left Penny's apartment after she gives him a haircut. Same smile, same wave - it was very similar.) Amy wanders into the kissing area and mutters something I couldn't make out, but then the scene ends.

Yes, when they break the first kiss and Jim says something about not being able to get his line in, Mayim cracks up and flashes that huge beautiful smile of hers. They were definitely enjoying themselves during the whole taping, and when they were between takes in the Best Buy scene, they were constantly talking talking talking.

Okay, so, next scene, the other 5 are sitting in Leonard and Sheldon's apartment eating dinner.Bernadette is in the chair by the kitchen, Howard in the big comfy chair, Penny and Leonard curled up on the couch away from Sheldon's spot, and Raj is sitting on the floor. They open with Raj explaining how he ran into Emily, and they had a nice chat, and they have a date for the weekend, BUT. Lucy wrote him an email and misses him and wants to see him again. And now Raj doesn't know what to do. Penny sympathizes, because she doesn't know what to do about Serial Apeist. Raj says he doesn't know how he can date both women at the same time. Penny says that if he's not sleeping with one, he can date both at the same time and it's fine. The gang agrees. Raj asks if has to tell them both about it, or he can lie, and both Howard and Bernie go, "Yes!" And then they look at each other.

Bernie goes, "What do you mean, 'Yes'?" Howard goes, "What do YOU mean, 'Yes'?" And they ask if they were dating anyone when they started dating, to which the answer is no. Leonard asks Penny if she was dating someone, and she says no. Then - they did this scene about 7 times, with retakes and such, but the best take, Leonard asks Penny if she was dating someone, and she says no, and then Leonard sort of fidgits, looking at her, and then his food, and then back to her, waiting, and the longer he waits the more everyone in the audience laughs. it's a great take. Finally, Leonard asks, "Aren't you going to ask me if I was dating someone?" And Penny does several takes of this, sometimes quick, sometimes sweeter, going, "Honey, come on."

Ahhh, sorry, I'm forgetting the order of things here too. Raj also notes on his date that he's going to charm Emily with his "stars stuff" and Penny goes, "What does that look like?" And Raj says, "I couldn't do that to Leonard. It's quite a panty puller," (or something about panties.) Leonard gives Raj this look, and then says, "You have my permission, go ahead." So Raj gets up off the floor, and sits on the box next to the couch, which is the end Penny is sitting on. Raj explains about the two brightest stars in the sky being former lovers who are now being kept apart by the cosmos, and Penny goes, "Aw, that's sad." Raj murmurs, "Oh, it is, but," and he takes her hand and holds it all gentle-like, and he goes on about how magpies rise up in a huge flock every year to build a bridge between the two stars, so once a year they get to be together. And Penny pauses, and then seems to melt into it, and Penny and Raj kinda sit there, staring into each other's eyes until Leonard goes, "Okay, that's enough." At which point Raj sits back on the floor looking guilty, and Penny turns to Leonard and loops her arm in his and snuggles closer to him.

Okay and then, somehow in this scene....Raj decides to date both, and Leonard is like, "NICE JOB, PLAYAH!" And Penny looks at him and Leonard is like..."What? Dating 2 women, or playah?" And she just looks and Leonard starts to stab his food and mutters, "It was playah."

Tthen Sheldon comes home. Sheldon walks in and demands of the room: "Informal poll. XBOX or PS4?"

Raj goes: XBOX.
Penny goes: Whaaaaat?" (Sheldon glares at her. Audience laughs)
Leonard says: PS4.
Howard goes, "They're both great."
And then Bernie looks up, big smile, and pipes in, "I like the Wii!"

That was the biggest laugh of the night. They had Melissa do and redo this line about 3 - 4 times, getting her at various camera angles while she does it. She does one where she looks a little bit sarcastic, and one where she looks really happy and bright.

Sheldon gives Bernadette a dirty look and then quips: Thanks, Grandma.

Thisis the one place I freak out, because they take a whole wall of the apartment and swing it back. I have worked in theater and on sets, but something about the lack of the wall being permanent altered my perception of reality a little bit. AND THEN. They take the door off and carry it away and I'm all like...."WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THE DOOR?! WHERE IS THE DOOR GOING?" Yes, so....um, Lio has an internal freak out over the door to 4A being carried off, but then they stick a camera in the door frame and I'm like, "Oh. Okay." This was how they got some straight on shots of Melissa in her chair - through the doorway where Sheldon was supposed to be standing, so those should are almost like exactly what Sheldon would see of her face from the door.

Next scene: Okay, now we went to a swing set off stage. Penny and Leonard are having coffee with Wil Wheaton!

And yes, Wil Wheaton comes to give Penny career advice! Wil says something about having to take some crazy, small, or even embarrassing roles in his life. And Penny rolls her eyes and goes, "Like Star Trek was embarrassing!" and Wil glares at her for a long time and then goes, "It wasn't." And then Wil starts with a little speech about how, when he was a kid, he starred in Stand by Me, and that was this HUGE success. And then afterwards, he didn't take anything as successful. (And there might be some reference to River I didn't catch) and then how things went downhill from there, so he didn't start from the bottom and work his way up, he started at the top and went....down....and he starts getting sad and depressed!

And Leonard and Penny look upset, and are like...."ZOMG WHAT DID WE DO?" And Leonard says slowly, "Well..... this was helpful?"

Next scene:For no apparent reason, there was a huge delay getting this scene set up. Kunal, Melissa and Simon stood around in the hallway for a long time, waiting while all of these people huddled around, talking talking talking. Someone started to take pictures of them, and Kunal started dancing between takes. Finally they started filming: Howard, Raj and Bernie are climbing the stairs. Bernie's hair is in a cute little braid and she has a cute coat on. Bernie gives more details about her coworker in the car accident, saying she had 8 hours of surgery, and then she notes that she's hoping that the women went into a coma before she had a chance to read Bernie's card.

They walk into the apartment, and there's a big pause here to rearrange things. Basically, Amy and Sheldon are missing again, and it's the other 5 having dinner. Leonard gets off the phone and tells Penny than Wil is okay and feeling better - he spotted himself as the answer of a TV Guide crossword. They turn to Raj, and ask him what he is going to do about his girl issues, and Raj says something like, "I lived my whole life afraid of doing new things. I spent so many years living in fear. Now I am going to say yes. Yes to adventure, yes to love, yes to life!"

And after this speech there is a pause and Howard turns to the gang and says, "He's going to die alone, isn't he?"
And the gang goes, "YES!"

And this scene was redone and rewritten several times. I think that Johnny, Kaley and Melissa were having a hard time getting the "yes" in unison, or they didn't really know how the "yes" would echo Raj's saying "yes" to love, adventure and life, so when they heard it they decided to emphasize that more. But it seemed like the actors were confused as to how to answer Howard's line the first few times. However, then they also redid this scene so that Simon did several different facial expressions and different line delivery as well, so it might be that they are going to figure out the best combination of all of the versions they shot in editing. During all of the resets and such, Johnny was shadow-boxing with the mics - the mics came down and somehow started sort of bouncing at him, so he started pretending to punch them, and it was cute. And some mystery basket dropped from the ceiling and then went back up and they were laughing over that, and I was very curious about why the hell there are baskets in the rafters that lower, and what was up with that. However, that was answered later, when the basket dropped from the ceiling again, and I saw one of the guys take his headset off and drop it in the basket, which then went back up to the ceiling. So, I guess that's the answer to the basket. (Also, I spent a lot of time looking at the ceiling, because it was all wood. There were huge, HUGE airducts up there as well, which looked like upside down trash cans stuck to the ceiling, and it was so dark above the wooden frame that all of this crap was hanging from that I could barely see that they were huge tubes going up to the ceiling which had to carry away all of the hot air from the electronics in there. In any case, I found it a very interesting ceiling - wood lattices and big tubes and countless wires and ropes hanging from it. Which I'm sure you were all dying to know about, because no one has ever reported on the ceiling before.

Next scene: Shamy, at Best Buy.
The set: So imagine you are in a Best Buy looking down one main aisle, and the two aisles on either side, looking at the two displays on either side of the aisle you're staring down. That's how this is set up, and it looks like a Best Buy - the walls are all in the same grey color and such. On stage right is the XBOS display, and on stage left is the PS4 display. Posters on the wall were for End of Nations and that other movie coming out which looks like a knock off of Hunger Games). Sheldon and Amy come walking up the aisle on stage left, and Sheldon walks right past the PS4 and goes for the XBOX, blathering excitedly about his decision. Amy says encouragingly, "Good for you, Sheldon! You did the research and made your decision!" They seem like they are about to walk out of the store the way they came, and Sheldon ALMOST makes it past the PS4 display again without changing his mind, but at the last second he goes, "BUUUT," And Amy goes, "Oh crap." And Sheldon picks up the PS4 and notes that he is the one who told his father to buy Beta Max instead of VHS a long time ago. Amy is like, "you were just a kid!" and Sheldon goes, "Who had to record the McNeil/Lehrer report on Beta Max format!" And then he goes, "And I was for HD-DVD over Blu Ray!" Amy goes, "How old were you then?" Sheldon exclaims, "Old enough to know better!" Sheldon looks back at the PS4 display and says, "Come to think of it, I'm the one who stood in front of a display of iPods, and bought a Zune!" Amy goes, "What's a Zune?" And Sheldon answers, "EXACTLY!" And then points to the box he's holding and goes, "A terrible MP3 player made by the same people who brought you THIS!"

So he puts the XBOX back, and Amy practically wails, "NOOOO!" She picks up the XBOX and is like, "I'll buy you this!" AND "I'll buy you this!" And she picks up the PS4 too. She swears she'll buy them both for him. Sheldon reminds her he only has one space open on his entertainment center, and Amy begs him, "I'LL BUY YOU A NEW ENTERTAINMENT CENTER!" Sheldon says, "Fine," and takes a step closer to her, and puts his face nearer to hers and goes, "But which one!?"

Knowing she doesn't want to touch that question, Amy puts both boxes down and fishes in her purse. "Fine, you know what?" she says, "They say that tossing a coin reveals your hearts desire. So let's toss a coin." She gets it out of her purse and tosses it, assigning heads or tails to whatever video thing. Sheldon catches it and looks at it. She asks, "What is it?" And Sheldon suddenly flings it away and goes, "A QUARTER!" And stomps forward to look at something else on display.

Amy murmurs, "You could have just given it back to me...." And throws her hands up in the air.

Next scene, Raj and Emily on a date. Nice restaurant, they look nice, Raj has a nice, dark suit on. He's doing fine, for about 3 seconds, and then he immediately breaks down and says, "I can't do this." He confesses to Emily about Lucy emailing him. She asks him if it was serious, and he says, "It was 4 dates, one kiss, two hand holding, and something, but basically, it was very serious to him. Emily takes it all in, and suggests that it's okay if he still sees other people, and that he doesn't have to tell her who is he dating at that time. Raj answers, "That's too bad, because dating 2 women at the same time is totally the most interesting thing about me." And this scene is where I kinda fell for Emily, because she's super sweet but funny in this scene with him. I kinda was like...."oooo, might be something there.

Back to Best Buy: Sheldon is sitting on the floor, cross-legged, his head in his hands in near despair. He has both boxes in front of him on the floor, and is staring at them and continuing to prattle on about their different virtues or defects, and how he doesn't know what to do. Amy is not leaning with just her head on his shoulder, like reported, she's like....full body leaning into him. Her hands on at her side or against the floor, but her legs are cutely crossed off to the side, and she's basically got her head on his shoulder, her whole body resting up against him. Sheldon is perfectly fine with that, he seems utterly comfortable with her resting against him.

Sheldon then asks her what she thinks. And after a pause, Amy whispers, "I can't feel my legs." And this was the second biggest laugh of the night, after Bernie's "I like the Wii" line. I wish I could draw you a picture. Because it would be better to show you how they were sitting together than to tell you. I can't describe it. But they aren't leaning up against a wall, they aren't just sitting next to each other. They are totally supporting each other.
Anyway, the sales guy comes along to find them there like that, and is like, "I'm sorry guys, the store is closed." Sheldon says, "But I haven't decided yet?" And the sales guy says, "I'm sorry, you'll have to come back together. The registers are closed." At which point Sheldon starts to full on cry and buries his face in his hands.

Amy sits up, and grabs Sheldon's arm, and kinda pulls him to his feet, saying, "Come on. We have to go. We'll get dinner." And she says, "What do you want, Thai or a burger?" And there's a pause, as they are walking away, down the corridor of Best Buy, and all you see are their backs. Suddenly Sheldon just wails, loud, in utter despair, "I DON'T KNOOOOOW!!!!" Amy seems surprised, and flutters her hands at him a little bit, and then they turn around into another aisle and seem to walk off screen. And then they kinda round the corner, and suddenly you hear Sheldon cry, still in anguish, "Oh look, there's a quarter."

Tag scene: Penny is in a dressing room area, pulling on a pair of huge, hairy, black Gorilla gloves! She's wearing a bikini, I think, I didn't even notice what she was wearing because I was laughing at the gloves. A curtain to the dressing room is pulled back, and someone in this big orangutan costume comes forward. The orangutan costume has like a yellow and orange polka dot bikini on it. And you hear this muffled, happy, "PENNY?!" And Penny looks up at the orangutan, who pulls off the head of the costume. IT'S WIL!

And Wil is like, "This is awesome!" and raises his hand for a high five and is all, "I'm so glad to see you!" And Penny is just standing there with her jaw on the floor.

THE END.
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Lionne (Lee-O-knee) - The Lioness - The Professor of Shamy

Last edited by Lionne; 03-12-2014 at 10:08 PM
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