I Love Lucy Episode Guide Lucy Trivia and Info

"Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her" is the first episode in the 1950s TV show I Love Lucy. The episode aired on Monday, November 5, 1951. It was part of the first season. The episode features Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo, Desi Arnaz as Ricky Ricardo, Vivian Vance as Ethel Mertz, and William Frawley as Fred Mertz.

This was the first episode filmed, however, there were many production problems and they decided to air the second episode filmed, "The Girls go to a Nightclub," instead.

This episode was also the only episode of the series to be filmed with four cameras, and they tried to film it straight through like a play without stopping. However, they decided that this method was too exhausting and decided that the audience would be willing to wait while cameras were re-loaded and actors changed into different costumes. After that episode, the fourth camera was dropped and the episode was filmed at a more leisurely pace.

Plot

Lucy is absorbed in her mystery/suspense novel, which goes flying out the window when she is scared by surprise from Ricky. While she's having breakfast, Ethel Mertz drops by her apartment and reads Lucy's fortune from a deck of cards, and she predicts Lucy's death. Lucy at first is bothered by the prediction, but then decides it's nonsense and goes back to her mystery book, which is titled, The Mockingbird Murder Mystery. When Ricky comes home later that night she is still absorbed in her novel, eating face cream by mistake as a result, and once again her novel goes out the window when she is scared by surprise from Ricky giving her a kiss. The novel is actually about a man who is having an affair on his wife, and is plotting to kill her as a result. Later on, Lucy over hears a conversation Ricky is having with his agent and misunderstands the phone call, as she is only able to hear Ricky's end of the line. She then comes to the mistaken conclusion that Ricky is going to kill her, base on the novel's plot and Ethel's card reading. After Ricky leaves in the morning to go to work she finds what she thinks is a real gun in the desk, when in fact it was a prop pistol. Ricky then comes home in the evening for dinner before he must return to the club. She is acting very strange, and thinks Ricky is going to try to poison her when she sees that Ricky has put something in it. It ends up being a sleeping pill that Fred has given him to allow Lucy to sleep since Ricky has to take off for the club. With what Lucy believes is her last little bit of life, she drags herself to the club to tell Ricky what she thinks of him and to shoot him, because according to her, if she can't have him, no one can. Once at the club, she interrupts the show. Lucy pulls out the gun and aims it at Ricky. Pulling the trigger, a flag shoots out of the pistol that reads "BANG". The episode ends with Lucy dropping off to sleep.

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