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I Love Lucy S02 E15 – Lucy Becomes a Sculptress

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Original Air Date: January 12, 1953

This is my last post of 2016, and that felt really good to type. I had thought about doing one last post on Friday 12/30, to end with a bang. (The next episode is “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” – one of the first televised storylines of its kind, and Desi’s favorite episode. It’s going to be great.)

But you know what? You can wait till 2017 for it, because this year has sucked total butt and doesn’t deserve it. It hasn’t earned a single good thing. 

Let the electoral college vote, and if they decide to bring this year something worth celebrating, I’ll post it. Otherwise, Prince is just as dead, Trump is just as elected, and I’m just as fucking done.

We open on Lucy looking at a photo album of her and Ricky’s baby photos. They use their real photos:

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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 E31 – The Publicity Agent

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Original air date: May 12, 1952

We open on Ricky playing cards in the living room. Lucy just finished doing all the dishes, but somehow it’s Ricky who’s in a shitty mood. He doesn’t want to hang out with the Mertzes and doesn’t want to play cards.

He’s your average six-year-old at the end of summer.

Lucy: I’ll get you a gun, you can shoot yourself.

Well, that escalated quickly.

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I Love Lucy S01 E19 – The Ballet

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OR: Lucy Shows Her Stems

Happy Friday, Ballers!

Enough with the chit chat.

We open on Ricky looking through a bunch of papers as the rest of the gang enters. Lucy wants him to hurry up because “the picture starts at 8:22.” That’s awfully specific. Was that really how it worked back in the 50s? No wonder people hate millennials. A millennial hears “8:22” and has a panic attack mixed with a peanut allergy.

Ricky can’t go, though. He’s having trouble finding acts. He needs a ballerina and two comics.

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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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