(Or: Lucy is jealous of girl dancer, because the ho never sings a note.)

**Keep up with the action. Episode watch party!**

We open on Lucy vacuuming, when Ethel comes in and surprises her, making her scream. Then Lucy – the screaming, vacuuming hypocrite – tells Ethel to be quiet because Ricky’s asleep.

Ethel doesn’t mind. She’s on a high. A schadenfruede-fueled, worst-friend-ever high. She’s giddy because the newspaper says Ricky’s cheating on Lucy with his new showgirl. You know that thrill you get when you find out your closest friend’s life is about to fall apart? Yeah me neither. But Ethel does. Ethel is a sociopath.

Lucy believes her, so she beats the shit out of Ricky with a newspaper like the slimy insect he is. He’s like, HAHAHAHA. Ricky is also a sociopath.

Ricky: I’m as faithful as an old dog.
Lucy: Yeah, old Rover.

We know your type, Ricardo:

Ricky kisses Lucy to shut her up, and it’s like their saliva is laced with LSD or something. They look off cross-eyed into the distance, and you wonder if they even need to push their twin beds together, since a closed-lip kiss is already orgasmic enough for these two.

My husband’s like: Whoa. How’d they do that? And I say, so you don’t experience that when you kiss me? Him: Do you experience that? Me: This is going on the blog. People are going to read this. Him: Oh! Then yes, every time.

Romance.

That afternoon, Ricky’s got rehearsal, and we learn why he’s always so mean to the orchestra. They spend their breaks gambling and “complaining about their salaries” (also called unionizing).

Our favorite character, the lady harpist, is having a good night. She’s not going home alone #ifyouknowhatimean.

My husband thinks I should write a short story about the harpist. I’m like, love, you literally just wondered out loud if this whole project is marketable at all. Now you want me to write I Love Lucy fan fiction about a non-speaking character from the orchestra, which is what fucking crazy people do.

That’s what’s so great about it, he tells me!

I won’t be writing that, so moving on.

To get the band to focus, Ricky threatens them:

“The first fellow who acts like he’s playing in his sleep is gonna get traded to Phil Spitalny.”

Spitalny is famous for starting the first all-female orchestra. So what Ricky is saying is, “Do your job or you’ll be syncing your cycles by tomorrow. 

Rosemary – the dancer Ricky is supposedly banging like a conga drum – enters and the band whistles and hoots. The harpist is like dear everything holy will someone please trade me to Phil Spitalny.

Ricky rips Rosemary’s costume and he’s #sorrynotsorry. He tells her to put it in his coat pocket. You sorta have to wonder why. Why not leave it with costuming? Does he want his wife to fix it or something?

YES.

HE’S TAKING THE COSTUME HOME FOR LUCY TO FIX IT.

So let me get this straight: Lucy’s expected to sit at home darning the clothes of the woman doing her dream job who she suspects may also be screwing her husband? Cinderella’s watching this and going, wow that’s fucked up.

Lucy’s made dinner and is in a good mood, so Ricky lies to her for absolutely no reason and says he spent the day feeding the pigeons. She finds the scrap of lace in his pocket and things go about as planned.

He wasn’t feeding the pigeons, Lucy exclaims! He was feeding Rosemary! He was feeding Rosemary over and over and over again.

Fred isn’t in this episode. It’s a very good thing, because he’d just congratulate Ricky and scratch a notch in the Ricardos’ bed post.

Ricky tries to explain and eventually storms out as Ethel falls in. She’s been listening at the door and her collapse gets one of the biggest laughs of the series so far.

Ethel keeps this “worst friend ever” bit going. She eats all of Lucy’s food and convinces her to sneak onto the stage to watch Ricky that night.

Then there’s this super weird scene backstage where Ricky’s bitching someone out on the phone and then Lucy and Ethel hide in the closet and a guy comes up and nails a sign to it that says “Cleaning Men Only.” This scene serves no purpose. Nothing comes from it. It goes nowhere.

Just like Lucy’s potential.

Now we finally get to hear Desi’s obligatory song, and we see Rosemary playing Jezebel and wearing a harem costume. I get that feminism is about empowering all women but that slut is up to no good.

Still, though. For someone who wants to break into show business, Lucy knows nothing about it. Ricky is acting in a performance where he’s supposed to be tempted by the devil. What the hell did she expect?

She tries to throw Rosemary off the platform, and generally looks a fool.

Then at the end of the night, she rushes home, changes into PJs, and jumps into bed. Calculated move, Lucy. Now he’ll never know.

Except he does know because this certain kind of cray cray is Lucy’s signature dish.

So he comes home and jokes about how fugly and untalented “some woman” was on stage that night, while finding Lucy’s wig and wearing it to surprise her.

Everyone’s like LOLZ! A man with long hair! Oh, just wait a few years, you naive poodle-skirts. Looks what’s coming your way:

And then Ricky kisses her – one of those LSD-laced kisses – and we’re all left wondering which one of them will wear the wig for the part that comes next?

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