Wax Tulips  in Connecticut

by Elaina  (first published in Drunk Monkeys, Pop Culture Edition)

We always think of the Italian grape-stomping hijinx, or the chocolate factory episodes when we think of I Love Lucy, but a deeper cut with the tightest writing lies in Season Six of I Love Lucy in which she grows tulips for a Home and Garden competition. Lucy and Ricky, (along with their besties, the Mertzes) have moved Connecticut. Lucy has adopted a green thumb, and thinks her pink tulips have a real shot at first place for a Home and Garden competition. Her competitor is Betty Ramsey, nosy next-door neighbor, who wins every year with her perfect yellow tulips. The more I watch this episode over the years, the more nuances I glean from it. Maybe the writers didn’t intend, but it speaks so loudly about women and how we pit ourselves against one another and sometimes miss the whole point—to move in stride and encourage each other during new ventures. But that’s not nearly as fun to watch. I get it.

Ethel Mertz tried to foster a friendly competitive spirit with Betty earlier in the episode, but failed. Early in the episode, Ethel mentions how real the fake tulips on Lucy’s kitchen table seem. Ricky thinks they’re real. Now the viewer is given that information because a writer knew to foreshadow–put that tidbit in the pocket of your memory for later.

Besides the solidly wrapped plot and gorgeously penned narrative, it’s got the physical comedy the makes this show the legendary classic it is.  There’s a scene where Lucy and Ethel stare at the old fashioned (even for them, yes) lawn mower that they borrow from the Ramseys, trying to figure out how it works. Once atop the mower, and once the engine is “cranked up” thanks to Ethel, Lucy’s comedic prowess does the rest. The mower runs amuck, and unless you’re dead inside, you laugh for real. Lucille Ball utilized every fiber of her body for comedy. She’s the original Kate McKinnon and Carol Burnett.

Ricky promised up and down, repeatedly, that he’d mow the lawn before Lucy’s tulip competition for Home and Garden. Lucy thinks, Screw it. I’ll do it myself. This is when she plows down Betty’s tulips because she cannot control this beast of a mower. It even takes her down the Boston Post Road. She returns with piles of New England nature in her hair, down her shirt.

Later in the episode, Ricky finally gets around to the mower late at night after returning from a Yankees game with Fred and ends up doing the same thing to his wife’s tulips that Lucy did to her neighbor’s tulips. It’s a truly well-sewn plot. We get to hear Ricky’s high-pitched falsetto while explaining how dark it was outside—as dark as the inside of his sombrero.  We get to watch the tulips “melt” in the sun during the judging. God, I wish I could see this episode in color.

I go back to this episode all the time because I love the season six episodes, but mostly because it has all elements: good writing, physical comedy, relationship problems, Lucy and Ethel in their Sunday spring attire, communication problems, Little Ricky’s terrier named Fred, and the fake outdoors, which we rarely get to see in the NYC episodes.

We also learn both men’s real full names which always tickles me. Fred’s middle name is Hobart. The writers even throw in a bit about Fred begging Ricky for a “turn” on Ralph Ramsey’s ride on mower, like two kids on the playground. The details always set shows like this apart from the rest. Also, it’s just really f*cking funny. It’s the second to last I Love Lucy episode ever aired, and it’s gold.

The episode first aired on April 29, 1957.