Middle-aged Lucy ^[1] & Arthur have cut short a date that I don’t even want to think about.  Old-aged Mrs. Evans meets them at the door.  Stone-aged Mrs. Baldwin, Lucy’s mother, had some sort of episode while Mrs. Evan was visiting.  Lucy and a doctor were summoned — not like Dr. Jill Biden, but an actual doctor who helps the aged and infirmed.  So, I guess, yes like Jill Biden.

The doctor is a strangely-cast pusillanimous sort, when a solid authority figure was needed.  However, I do believe him when he says Mrs. Baldwin was just faking to get some attention from Lucy.  He advises Lucy to stop allowing her mother to control her life.  Despite his diagnosis that there is nothing wrong with Mrs. Baldwin, he gives Lucy some medicine for her mother.  He warns her that only one teaspoon should be used — any more would be dangerous.

What’s with the medicines on these shows that are actually killers?  In real life, you would never see a doctor prescribing some treatment that was suspected of doing more harm than good.  Why, he would have to be some fame-obsessed quack who facilitated the creation of the illness, lied about its source, and was caught in repeated lies about mask efficacy. ^[2]

She sees the doctor out.  There is a fire in the fireplace, which is really the best place for it.  But where did it come from?  I don’t think Arthur started just it.  Mrs. Evans was just visiting.  Mrs. Baldwin is bed-ridden upstairs.  And what kind of word is fireplace, anyway?  It is very cavemanesque.  Ummm, fire place!

But I digress, and probably bore.  Arthur agrees with the doctor that Lucy needs to get out from under her mother’s thumb.  He reminds Lucy that they aren’t children, just 40 year old virgins.  He says he wants to marry her, but won’t wait forever.  He says, “I want your answer tomorrow.”  Nothing in between — just tomorrow or never.

Lucy takes her mother some tea.  She apologizes for ruining Lucy’s date, but Lucy accuses her of not being sorry at all. She tells her mother, “I am 34 years old!” even though actress is 42.  She worries that she will be stuck here forever with her mother.

Lucy tells her mother about Arthur’s ultimatum.  Her mother says good riddance!  Lucy accuses her of not wanting her to be with any man.  Mom says Arthur is only after her money.  She dares Lucy to accept Arthur’s proposal, but to also tell him that her mother is changing her will to leave her money to Jerry’s Kids.^[3]   Not the Muscular Dystrophy Assoc., but Jerry Lewis’s actual kids that he screwed in his will.

Lucy admits she is afraid to do that.  She shouts at her mother, “Look at me!  Why would anyone want to marry me?”  Her mother says, “Everyone can’t be a great beauty.”  Lucy storms out in tears, saying, “I have been by myself long enough!”

I felt bad immediately upon seeing a young Eileen Heckart in this episode because my first thought was, “Wow, she was always homely.”  Then I read her bio on IMDb: “Versatile, award-winning character actress Eileen Heckart, with the lean, horsey face and assured, fervent gait . . . “  Then the script piles on her in a manner usually reserved for Hitchcock’s daughter, Pat.

That night, Lucy purposely gives her mother two tablespoons of the medicine and it kills her.  WTF is in that stuff?  She learns that her mother’s loot came from an annuity which ceases upon death.  Arthur also seems stunned at the news, but not incriminatingly so.

After, or maybe during, their honeymoon, they visit Arthur’s mother who lives “way out in the country”.  For the 2nd episode in 3 weeks, we have a woman getting married without meeting her husband’s mother.  Let this be a lesson, ladies.

His mother is bed-ridden just as Lucy’s mother had been.   Her infirmity is legit, though, as she took a header down the stairs.  She says she is lucky to have Lucy to look after her now.  The old woman orders Lucy to make some tea.  Lucy tells Arthur they should get the doctor to prescribe something to make her sleep.  She walks to the kitchen with a knowing smile.

As Lucy, her mother, the writer, and the camera make clear, Lucy is not a looker.  However, Eileen Heckert knocked it out of the park in this episode.  You really do feel sorry for her as the lonely, trapped woman whose life is slipping away.  Don DeFore might seem like a schlub, but his decency and stability, at least in the beginning, are a credible antidote to her misery.  I’m not entirely sure how we’re supposed to feel about him at the end.  It feels like they want to say he manipulated this outcome.  But that would have required a lot of working parts, and is not necessary.

I appreciate that any other series would have been satisfied with having fate ironically doom Lucy to the same subservient role she thought she had just escaped.  Cheers to AHP for morphing her into a serial killer and smirking at the prospect!

Other Stuff:

• [1]  That started me thinking about I Love Lucy.  Her husband was Ricky Ricardo.  Does that mean his name was Ricardo Ricardo?
• [2]  This is not the place to come for accurate medical commentary.  That sort of analysis should be left to experts such as late night comedians, over-rated over-weighted has-been rockers, and our tyrannical social media overlords.
• [3]  I see on Wiki that Jerry’s Kids was also the name of a punk band.  I’m assuming punk because that is a pretty punky thing to name yourself.  They make Dead Kennedys look like The Housemartins. ^[4]
• [4]  I know nothing of their music but always admired the name.
• For a more coherent review with actual facts and stuff, see bare*bones e-zine.
• Not that anyone should care, but I cancelled Netflix today.  According to them, I joined in December 2002.  According to me, I watched 1,640 movies.  HBO MAX, you’re next!