Wednesday, October 3, 2012

6x06 - The Extract Obliteration

SPOILER ALERT. Following is the taping report for "The Extract Obliteration." Please credit me if you share this information anywhere.

SCENE 1

Guys’ apartment – Leonard’s sitting on the couch, Raj and Howard are playing a dancing game on the Wii. Raj tells Howard to keep up, “I’m killing it!” Howard says, “I wish we looked this cool while we’re dancing at clubs.” Leonard tells them don’t worry, they look exactly the same when they’re dancing at clubs.

Sheldon comes in and says he has paradigm-altering news, and turns the game off. Raj asks Sheldon why he did that, “I was about to Bollywood that bitch!” Sheldon tells them that he had recently extended an invitation to Stephen Hawking on the popular online game Words With Friends, and just moments ago Hawking accepted, “Do you know what this means?” Howard says, yeah, somewhere Hawking is saying, “Oh no, I meant to click the other button!” (Howard, of course, says this in his Hawking imitation.)

Sheldon tells them, “The game isn’t Words with Enemies, or even Words with Acquaintances, it is…” and he looks at Raj expectantly. Raj says he’s not finishing his sentence, “you just pulled the plug on my funk.” Sheldon says that it’s Words with Friends, and so, he is now officially friends with Stephen Hawking. Leonard tells him, genuinely, that’s great, he’s happy for him. Sheldon says that he’s happy for them as well, “You now know someone who is friends with Stephen Hawking.” Howard points out that he knows Hawking, he worked with him. Sheldon says if they ever come out with Words with People You Worked With, Howard will be good to go.

Leonard starts to say that he doesn’t exactly think – but then Sheldon’s iPad beeps, and Sheldon says that Hawking’s made a move. Sheldon says it won’t be long until they’re exchanging physics jokes, coming up with fun nicknames for each other, “I’ll be Coop. He’ll be Wheels. As long as he’s okay with that.” On the first take, I couldn’t hear the Wheels part, since there was too much laughter. On the second take, Jim paused to allow for the laughter, but then he was already out of sight down the hallway by the time he got to the last part of his line (since Sheldon says this as he leaves to go to his room). So on the last take they cut the physics jokes part, so Jim could still do the pause, and finish the line before he was long off camera.

Raj tells Leonard and Howard to turn up the AC, cause it’s about to get hot in there, then he pulls off his shirt and sweater vest and starts dancing to the game again.

SCENE 2

Penny’s apartment, Bernadette and Amy are there too. Bernadette’s telling them how that morning she took a shower, and then started to dry off with what she thought was a towel, but it was Mrs. Wolowitz’s underwear. “I took another shower, but it wasn’t enough. It’ll never be enough.” Amy says she once looked in Sheldon’s underwear drawer. He yelled at her, but she saw what it looked like, and he can never take that away from her.

Bernadette notices there’s a book under Penny’s couch, and leans over to pick it up. Penny tries to tell her to stop, it’s fine, she’ll get it, but Bernadette picks it up anyway – it’s a history textbook. She asks Penny why she has it, and Penny says it’s no big deal, but she’s taking a class at the community college. Bernadette hada line here, which I'm completely blanking on, but on one take Kaley and Melissa started laughing for some reason at this point. Penny goes on to say she never finished college, but it’s just one class, so she’ll see how it goes. Amy tells her, “Plus your acting career is going south like Sherman.” Penny stares, not understanding, and Amy tells her to read about it in her book.

Bernadette asks Penny why she was embarrassed for them to know, and Penny says she’s not embarrassed, it’s just she didn’t want anyone else to know because she hasn’t told Leonard yet. Amy asks why not. Penny says because he’ll make a big deal out of it, “That’s awesome! I’m so proud of you! I want to help you!” And she makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. Bernadette says that that’s a big thing to keep from him. Amy says that Penny and Leonard are the weirdest couple she knows. Penny gives her a look, and is like, “Really? You can’t think of anyone weirder?” Amy says quietly, “Yes, one, but she’s sitting right there,” and points to Bernadette.

SCENE 3

Sheldon and Amy in Amy’s lab. She’s working on something, he’s playing Words with Friends. Sheldon plays the word “quiver” – with a triple letter space, and double word space, he gets 72 points. He says that’ll put some air out of Hawking’s wheels. Amy’s pleased that Sheldon’s now friends with Hawking, and her new dandruff shampoo doesn’t smell like tar, “Everything’s coming up Amy!” Sheldon says that not only is one of the greatest minds in the world playing the game with him, Sheldon’s also beating him badly, “I’m spanking him so hard his TAs won’t be able to sit down!”

Something else I forgot about these scene until it was mentioned on a forum by someone else who was there... Amy says something about research showing that one man beating another in competition will raise his testosterone levels. Sheldon asks what's her point. Amy says it's just exciting that he might get a testosterone level.

His iPad beeps, and Sheldon says that Stephen has played a word – he calls him Stephen because he didn’t approve of Wheels. He played “act,” for something like 13 points. Amy looks at the game, and points out that Sheldon can play “extract,” plus get some point bonus. Sheldon says he wishes she hadn’t pointed that out, now he can’t ethically play that word or it’ll be cheating. But then he realizes he can play the “completely unrelated, and better word, extract,” (he put the emphasis on the first syllable, rather than the second as Amy did), and then congratulates himself for coming up with that.

SCENE 5

PRETAPED – Leonard and Penny in Penny’s apartment, eating spaghetti. Penny asks him how the spaghetti is. He says good… crunchy… just how he likes it. Penny says yeah, the water might not have been completely boiling. Leonard assures her it’s delicious. Penny says she’s got something to tell him – for a while now she’s been wanting to go back to school, so a few months ago she signed up for a history class at the community college.

Leonard says that’s great, and asks why she waited so long to tell him. Penny says she just didn’t want him to make a big deal out of it. Leonard says he understands, and it’s just one class – but if it goes well, maybe she’ll take a few more, and then maybe even go full time, and she should check if the credits transfer to a four year university – Penny tells him he’s making a big deal out of it, and he apologizes. He then asks if he can at least ask how it’s going, and Penny happily says that it’s going great, and her first paper is due tomorrow on the origins of slavery.

Leonard says there are so many angles you can take on that – economic, political… Penny says well it’s her paper, so she’s doing her perspective, and that’s that slavery is bad. And her professor is black, so she thinks she has the right answer. Leonard asks if he can read her paper at least (her laptop’s on the table next to them), but Penny says no, she wants to do this on her own. But if he’s lucky, maybe he’ll sleep with a college girl later tonight. Leonard asks, really? And says he went through all his years of undergrad and graduate school, and that never happened.

SCENE 6

Sheldon, Raj, and Howard across the hall. Raj says that next time he has to speak with an Indian call center, he’s going to try using an American accent. Howard asks why, and Raj says because he feels like he’s making fun of them when he speaks naturally. Howard says that Raj can’t even speak with an American accent. Raj says, trying to be American, “What’s up my snow-white American friends? Let’s put a cow on the barbeque and eat it until we’re obese.” Howard says, imitating Raj’s American accent, that Raj thinks he sounds American, but really it sounds like he has overlarge dentures in his mouth.

Raj tells Sheldon to tell Howard he doesn’t sound like that. Howard, still imitating Raj, says “Yes he does.” Sheldon ignores them both, and says that it’s been three days since Hawking has made a move. Raj suggests that maybe Sheldon wasn’t intellectually stimulating enough for Hawking. Sheldon says that can’t be it, because he was winning.

Howard says there’s the problem – Hawking doesn’t like to lose. Everyone knows he’s a big baby, he should have a stroller instead of a wheelchair. He says when he was working with him, one day Hawking said that Johnny Depp was in The Matrix. Howard said he wasn’t, but Hawking insisted that he was, so Howard looked it up online to show him that he was wrong. The next day, Hawking threw a pizza party, and everyone was invited except for Howard. And Hawking told him, “Your invitation must have gotten lost in the matrix,” (again, with Howard imitating him).

Sheldon exclaims something about how he messed everything up, and Raj repeats it, again trying his American accent. Howard tells Raj that’s still terrible. Raj says let’s hear Howard’s Indian accent, then. Howard says, in an Indian accent, “I can’t sit on that elephant, my ass is on fire from all the curry I ate!” (He did this twice, and the second time seemed a little more exaggerated than the first.) Raj concedes that that’s actually pretty good.

SCENE 7

PRETAPED – Penny’s bedroom, Leonard wakes up, while Penny’s still asleep with an arm over him. He carefully removes Penny’s arm, then rolls away from her and out of bed. He goes to open up her laptop, saying, “please be good, please be good.” He reads her paper, saying to himself, “uh-huh… uh-huh… okay… okay, so she writes like she cooks.”

SCENE 8

Sheldon’s sitting at the table in the kitchen, his iPad in front of him, two fingers on each temple, repeating, “play, play, play.” Leonard asks what he’s doing. Sheldon says that he’s using Jedi mind control to try to make Hawking play the game. Leonard tells Sheldon he did something he shouldn’t have. Sheldon asks if it involves him. Leonard says no, and Sheldon says then he doesn’t want to hear about it.

Leonard tells Sheldon how Penny started taking a class at the community college, and didn’t want Leonard to read her paper, but he went behind her back and read it anyway. Sheldon’s still trying the Jedi mind control, but gives up, saying it isn’t working, and Hawking must be wearing a tinfoil hat. Then he does his traditional three knocks on the tablet, saying Hawking’s name after each one. Leonard goes on that he doesn’t want Penny to get a bad grade, but he can’t do anything without revealing that he read her paper. Sheldon says, “Stephen Hawking hates me!” And he wonders why Hawking is the one person who hates him, while everyone else loves him. And it might have been there that Sheldon says something about it being Amy’s fault, and he needs to cut her loose anyway. Leonard asks if they’re having two separate conversations. Sheldon says, “How should I know? I’m not listening to you.”

Leonard pulls out a chess clock, and proposes that they use it to talk about their problems in turns. They each get a total of five minutes, and each turn consists of a statement about their problem, and then encouragement or advice from the friend. Sheldon goes first, saying that Hawking doesn’t want to be his friend anymore because he was beating him too badly in the game. Leonard tells him that Hawking is a busy guy, and Sheldon’s probably making a big deal out of nothing; just wait a while, and he’ll play again. Then Leonard hits the clock and starts talking – he wants to help Penny fix her paper, but he can’t without her knowing he read it. (Johnny needed a couple takes on this line the second time through, and apologized a lot about it.) Sheldon just says something like, “I feel you,” before hitting the clock and taking another turn.

Sheldon says he knows that Hawking isn’t busy because he can see that he’s playing games right now with other people. Leonard says that maybe the game with Sheldon is so challenging that he’s just taking his time coming up with his next move. Leonard hits the clock, but barely gets a few words out before Sheldon hits the clock and starts to go again. Leonard says it’s his turn, and asks if he can get an actual response to his problem. Sheldon just says, “Women, huh?” Leonard says a response to his specific problem. Sheldon says, “Blonde women, huh?” Meanwhile, they keep hitting the clock back and forth for their turns. Leonard finally gets frustrated and walks down the hall, with Sheldon yelling that he listened to Leonard’s problem, Leonard needs to help with his!

Then Sheldon does the mind control again, “Come back Leonard, come back Leonard.” Leonard comes back down the hall, and asks, “What?” (like he heard Sheldon say something, but didn’t catch what it was). Sheldon says, “Of course, it only works on the weak minded.”

SCENE 9

Back in Penny’s bedroom – she’s sleeping, and Leonard comes in with a tray of breakfast food, and wakes her up. Penny looks at the time, and says, “It’s 8am – it’s practically the middle of the night!” Leonard says he has to leave for work, but he made breakfast for her. Penny’s pleased, but reaches for a folder on the tray and asks what it is. Leonard says, “Before you open it, are you familiar with the story of the shoemaker and the elves?” Penny tells him it’s too early for Lord of the Rings.

Leonard tells her no, and explains that in the story as the shoemaker slept, the elves would come and make amazing shoes for him. And when he woke up, he was happy, and definitely not mad at the elves at all. So she opens the folder, and reads the title on the essay that’s in it, and asks Leonard what the hell this is. Leonard says, “How should I know, it’s from the elves!” Penny says, “Let me get this straight. You assumed my paper would be bad, so you wrote a new one?” Leonard says, “No, I assumed it would be good, and then I read it.” Penny asks, what?? Leonard says, no, it was good, it just needed some polishing. Penny looks through the essay, and says he changed everything, every word. Leonard says no, some of it’s the same – he points out “slavery,” and a date, “and your name at the top, that’s all you.”

Penny calls him an ass, and says this is exactly why she didn’t want to tell him about her class. Leonard says he just didn’t want her to get a bad grade, and get discouraged, and forget about this whole going back to school thing. Penny gets out of bed, and says of course, cause her going to school is so important, so he’s not dating someone who’s just a waitress. Leonard says that doesn’t matter to him, and Penny asks, really? How’s she supposed to know? Leonard says he’s sorry, but she’s pretty much full on yelling now, telling him that this is her thing, and she’s going to do it all by herself, pass or fail, understand? She goes into the bathroom and slams the door behind her.

On the first take, Leonard calls through the bathroom door, trying to be cheerful, saying that he bets she’ll feel better once she eats breakfast. On the second take, Leonard says glumly that she’s not a very grateful shoemaker. On the third take, Leonard didn’t say anything here (which I preferred). Penny comes back out of the bathroom, saying that his whole story thing doesn’t work, because if anything this is like the whole give a man a fish, he’ll eat it, teach a man to fish, he’ll sell it, or whatever, but that’s what this is. Then she goes back in the bathroom and slams the door again.

SCENE 10

PRETAPED – Sheldon, Raj, and Howard in the cafeteria. Sheldon’s still upset that Hawking hasn’t made another move yet. Raj says something about if Hawking is really that sore of a looser, then he’s probably not the kind of friend that Sheldon wants to have anyway. Sheldon agrees, and says he’ll just have to make lemonade with the two of them. Then his iPad beeps – Hawking has made a move again!

Sheldon decides that he’s going to play some small word for just a few points, to throw the game and lose. But he hesitates before sending the word, and goes back and forth with whether he should be dishonest and lose, or himself and win. As he goes back and forth, Howard and Raj are trying to help him make up his mind. Sheldon remembers how his mom always said “To thine own self be true,” so he decides to not throw the game. But then he remembers how she also told him that two of all animals went on a large ark, so he forgets her advice, and plays the small word. I think it was in this scene that Sheldon also said something about Coop and ____ together again, the blank being a new nickname for Hawking that I forgot, but Sheldon says that he actually approved this nickname.

SCENE 11

Leonard and Sheldon are at their computers in their apartment, and Leonard answers a knock at the door – it’s Penny. He says it’s been a few days since he heard from her, and asks if she’s still mad. She holds up her essay, with a B- marked on top, and asks, “Why would I BE mad at you. Minus.” Leonard’s pleased for her, and says “Wow!” She says yup, she got that grade with her own paper, not his, “you punk-ass elf.”

Leonard says he doesn’t know what to say. Penny says, how about, “Oh Penny, you’re so much smarter than I thought you were! And even though you’re the one in school, I’m the one who learned a lesson. I’m so dumb. Duh!” She says this all in a voice that sounds dumb, then turns and leaves and goes to her apartment. Leonard looks after her, frowning, and behind him Sheldon is cracking up laughing, then finally says, “She sounded just like you!” (After Kaley's line, she was just standing in front of her apartment door, off camera, and had a big smile as she watched Johnny and Jim finish the scene.)

Across the hall, Penny enters her apartment, where Bernadette and Amy are waiting. They ask how it went with Leonard, and Penny says good, and he won’t be making that same mistake again. And she tells them this should go without saying, but if either of them tell Leonard they helped her rewrite her paper, she’ll beat them with a bag of ____. (There was too much laughter on both takes to clearly her what she said, but my friend and I suspect it might have been “corn.”) Bernadette and Amy understand.

Penny says that a B- was good, but she thinks if they put their heads together, they might be able to get an A. Bernadette says they got the B- to be believable. Penny asks, what, you don’t think I’m smart? Bernadette says, “No, no,” at the same time as Amy says, “You’re smart.” Penny goes to get a drink form the fridge, and Bernadette says to Amy that this is like high school all over again, doing the prom queen’s homework so she’ll be nice to you. Amy grins and says that this time it’s actually working.

SCENE 12

Leonard and Sheldon in their apartment – Sheldon’s phone rings, and he tells Leonard it’s Hawking. Leonard tells him to answer it, and says he wants to hear. Sheldon answers it on speakerphone, and Hawking says something like, “Dr Cooper, I enjoyed our game.” Sheldon says that he enjoyed it too. Hawking says, “Or should I call you Dr Loser.” Sheldon congratulates him on winning, and says he won fair and square.

Hawking asks if Sheldon likes brain teasers, and Sheldon says he does. “What does a black hole and Sheldon Cooper have in common? They both suck.” Leonard completely cracks up laughing, leaning on the table for support, and on the first couple takes even falling on the floor laughing. Hawking says, “Haha,” after a bit, and then later, “Neener neener,” each of which set of Leonard laughing harder. On the second-to-last take, Jim actually cracked a smile near the end, but then fought to get rid of it to finish the scene.

A couple other small behind-the-scenes bits... Johnny and Kaley came up to talk to the audience and thank everyone again, as it seems like they're doing every week now. And at one point between takes, when audience members get the chance to go up and talk about what they love about the show, one woman mentioned how hot Johnny Galecki was, and Kaley Cuoco heard her and was smiling and nodding a little. Then Kaley walked closer and was jokingly like, "I have his number, do you want it?"

19 comments:

  1. Awesome, thanks a lot for the report. Sounds like Season 6 is picking up, I can't wait to see this one.

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  2. Yay!Thanks for ze spoilers! Sorry but I can't stop thinking about Amy's boyfriend chronicles every week. It seems like she has something to say about Sheldon every episode now.

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  3. "There was too much laughter on both takes to clearly her what she said, but my friend and I suspect it might have been “corn.” "
    This is the most hilarious thing i've read in ages. LOL.

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  4. Thank you so much for these reports! And the corn thing must have been so funny!

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  5. Thanks so much for the report...
    This episode sounds awesome...

    the Johnny Kaley bit at the end was too hilarious..
    What was Johnny's reaction to it???

    And are you going to next taping??

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    1. Johnny had already left the sets, so I don't think he heard or saw any of it. If he did, he was somewhere out of the audiences' sight.

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  6. Thanks for the taping report. This sounds pretty funny, although the people who trash the show will probably claim they're ripping off the 2nd season premiere. But then those same people are also saying season 6 sucks worse than season 5 after just one episode. Screw the grain of salt. Take it with the entire Morton Salt factory.

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  7. Thanks so much for the report--I just found this site a few weeks ago through the TBBT forum and the Spoiler page at Fanforum and I'm lovign the taping reports.

    I had a couple of questions:
    Could Penny's line have been she'll beat them with a bag of quarters?

    Also, how did you read Sheldon's line about cutting Amy loose? Someone at the TBBT forum mentioned that they though it implied that Sheldon wasn't as committed to Amy as she would like. Did it come off that way to you, or simply as a throw-away line because she had suggested that word that he thought made Hawking mad at him?

    Anyway, thanks again for your detailed report! I'm such a spoiler addict and I so wish I could attend a taping, so I'm living vicariously through you! :)

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    1. It might have been! On the first take, I just heard, "I'll beat you with-" before the laughing was too much. On the second take I heard a bit more, "with a bag of-" but still couldn't catch the rest. My friend suggested corn, which both amused me and sounded like it might have been right, but it very well might have been quarters! (I'm actually leaning towards it being quarters now...)

      To me, Sheldon's line was more of a throw-away, definitely rooted in him blaming her for the problem with Hawking.

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  8. Thanks so much for the taping report! It sounds like a great episode (although I am a little worried at Sheldon's comment about 'cutting Amy loose').

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  9. Thank you so much for your report keeps me anxiously awaiting the next episodes!! I do have a question for the guys if you know the answer. aren't burning up on the set wearing so many layers of clothes (jacket and hoodie for Leonard, Raj's two shirts and sweater vest......)?
    thank you

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  10. Roxanne - will you be going to the next taping?

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  11. Hi Roxanne,

    Great analysis!

    My husband and I were there from the UK and it was I that stood there and said that Johnny was hot (I was wearing a grey BBT t-shirt) - I must have sounded like such a dork but getting a reaction from Kaley was awesome!!

    Love your website, maybe see you at a taping in the future :-)
    Candice

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  12. We were in the audience for the filming of this episode! Can't wait to see the broadcast of it!

    Fred

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  13. Candice - I remember you! I came down to the host (Mark) to tell him that I knew people like Sheldon but they lack his charm. :)

    Fred

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    1. I remember you too!! But I forget where you are from?!

      Seriously one of the best nights ever :o)

      Candice

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  14. By the way, anyone know when this episode will air?

    Fred

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  15. It was "I'll beat you with a bag of ORANGES"!!!!!

    Ha!
    Sorry, I had a minor obsession going on over that line...
    :)
    phantagrae

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