adultery

I Love Lucy S02 E03 – The Anniversary Present

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Original Air Date: September 29, 1952

We open on Ricky sleeping in while Lucy brings coffee to the painters outside the window. For a minute there it looks like she might jump. But Ricky wants his breakfast, as in now. He saves her life.

I wish we could watch Lucy make him that breakfast, but instead we have to watch Ricky dial one of those old rotary phones. Those phones take forever. By the time he’s done, the Academy has nominated a black woman for Best Director. It literally takes centuries.

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I Love Lucy S02 E02 – The Saxophone

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Original Air Date: September 22, 1952

Happy New Year, Ballers!

We open this week on Lucy in her hoarder’s closet. We all have one. Mine looks like Christmas and Hanukkah had a baby and no one cleaned up the afterbirth.

So yeah. Apparently Ethel and Fred have an attic. They’re clearly rolling in money, because these days that Upper East Side crawl space would make a “cozy 2-bedroom steal at $3200/mo.”

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I Love Lucy S01 E24 – The Gossip

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(Or: Nancy the Harpist: the heartbreak episode)

**More WTFacts are at this week’s Episode Watch Party.**

We open on Lucy talking with Marge via telephone. They’re gossiping like 12-year-old cheerleaders about the fat kid in school. Poor Betty. We’ll get back to her.

Ricky wants Lucy to get off the phone, probably because with all this gossip she’s eventually going to hear about him and Fred going in together on a paid Ashley Madison account. But Lucy keeps talking:

Lucy: She didn’t! She didn’t! She didn’t! She couldn’t!
Ricky: Maybe that’s why she didn’t.

When Lucy finally hangs up, she worries what Marge is saying about her. Ricky’s like “I literally slap you around the damn house, and even I know this isn’t healthy.”

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I Love Lucy S01 E15 – Lucy Plays Cupid

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(OR: Lucy is assaulted twice, then traded on the black market.) 

**Wanna keep up? Episode Watch Party!**

Oh my, Ballers. Where do we even start this week? I’m going to start at the beginning, but be warned: there will be a detour. I’ve been waiting for this episode, and dreading it.

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I Love Lucy S01 E04 – Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her

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(Or: Good Thing Lucy Never Watched The Jinx)

Get all the WTFacts at this week’s Episode Watch Party!

Ah, Ballers. I hate to disappoint you. 

I know, I know. You came here for a fun read. But Ricky has ruined everything for all of us, because in this episode Ricky fucking jokes about killing his wife. How does one ignore that?

One doesn’t. So thanks a lot, Ricky. You scare the fun away, you creepy creep.

Perhaps I should back up.

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I Love Lucy S01 E01 – The Girls Want to Go to a Nightclub

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(Or: The Ricardos Try an Open Marriage)

<<Wanna keep up? Episode watch party!>>

Sup, Ballers. This is it. The first episode, and the pilot post. Shall we?

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We open for the very. first. time. on Lucy and Ethel washing the dishes, where they belong. No really, though: they’re in dishwashing costumes, which look a lot like the We Can Do It work clothes, and they check each other’s dishes like it’s nuclear science. This is their boardroom. Lean In…closer to the sink.

Turns out, Monday night is Ethel and Fred Mertz’s 18-year anniversary. Ethel wants to celebrate by going to a nightclub, but Ricky (who works in a nightclub) hates nightclubs. And since Ricky is unrelated to the Mertzs and it’s not his anniversary, he obviously decides what everyone else gets to do.

Lucy, elbow deep in dish grease, bemoans how boring Ricky is:

“Ever since we said ‘I do,’ there are so many things we don’t.”

You can see where this is headed from a mile away: Lucy is a feisty redhead in her dirty thirties, and if Ricky won’t put his Copa in her cabana, she’ll find some other guy to do the deed.

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