Pushing Daisies

I’ve got very few other TV shows to watch over the weekend, so with my viewing schedule cleared up, I went through some episodes of Pushing Daisies. I would like to say that I “played detective” because playing detective sounds very exciting. But in truth, we all know what that means — I tried to nitpick some of the episodes. Fortunately, my nitpicking wasn’t in vain. For I found a couple of things that I had not noticed before, and maybe it’s the same for some of you. These do not post any doubts to the story nor will it have any effect on whatever happens in succeeding episodes. But finding it is fun and I was most satisfied.

Goof #1 - Typos

In Smell of Success, the book LeNez wrote hadn’t been edited properly. The third line says: Take 10 minutes daily to concentrate on being healthy and belief it.

Goof #2 - Touch

Did Chuck ever touch Ned? That would seem to be the case in in the episode, Dummy. In the cemetery scene, the two sat so very close to each other and perhaps the camera angle or depth also created the illusion, that it seemed like Chuck did touch Ned’s arm. I brightened the image up to illustrate. Look at Chuck’s hand at the bottom of the photo:

Anyway, even if they did accidentally touch each other there, this has already been addressed by Bryan Fuller in one Q & A on E!

Goof #3 - Witness

Somebody else saw Ned kill the undead, did you know? In the pilot episode, when Emerson saw what Ned could do with that criminal he was chasing after, Emerson wasn’t the only person who witnessed Ned’s powers. There were actually two other people there. Try and recall this scene and notice those two in the background:

Have you found any goofs, mistakes or inaccuracies about the series that we should know about? Send us a tip!

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…or things that one can find only on Pushing Daisies. In random order:

Dandy Lion SX. It looks more like a toy than a real transportation, with it’s lime green color and odd design structure. What’s more odd about it? The car of the future is powered by Dandy Lion extracts, prompting Chuck to exclaim, “That’s so neat!” I think so, too.

Dandy Lion promo girls. While I find their get-up bizarrely cute, I was more impressed with their routine, you know, that dancing and shaking bit they have to do. It was entertaining to watch.

Alfredo Aldarisio, the traveling salesman. “You’re not wrong about the oxygen leaving the room, the planet is losing atmosphere it’s affecting gravity. Volumes aren’t what they use to be.” Someone that paranoid is an oddity.

The Unorthodox Urban Honey Pioneers. Beekeeping within city limits is highly illegal, as Chuck tells Ned but the rooftop is Chuck’s special place which Ned has offered to her. It’s an odd present to give someone, but it’s a thoughtful gesture that Chuck embraces.

Pidge, the pigeon with fake embellished wings. In the real world I would wonder how they are able to make the injured bird fly again. But Pushing Daisies is a different world on its own. I shouldn’t be surprised if I see a fish talking.

Bubblegum. The perfect dog breed, a super-powered cloned dog, a mixture of different kinds of breeds: Border Collie, Labrador Retriever, Jack Russel Terrier and Poodle — smart loyal, athletic and hypoallergenic.

Scratch & Sniff Book. The self-help guide book that encourages people to become more attuned to the power of smell. It’s got a special brand of smell if you scratch a surface.

The burnt corpse of Anita. She wasn’t reduce to ashes even if her corpse was burnt ! It’s the weirdest dead body I’ve seen on TV.

Olive’s 4th of July costume. It’s a cute costume, but oh so tempestuously sexy! An odd mix. But I know some guys really loved it. Haha.

Sheila, Burly Bruce’s wooden girlfriend. Life-size and plastic, Bruce is delusional, believing his girlfriend is human. It’s odd how someone is able to carry through life with that idea.

An oddity bonus, something I just read on IMDb. Those wondering why Digby remains the same after Ned is all grown up can now stop wondering. Digby is allegedly immortal and so is Chuck:

The people Ned has brought back from the dead are immortal. We see this in Digby, who, 20 years following being hit by a truck, is still as youthful as he was when he was 3, the age he was when he got hit. Bryan Fuller has further confirmed this to be the case in interviews. Therefore, Chuck won’t age or die of natural causes. Whether or not she (and Digby) can be killed by violent means (i.e., hit again by a truck) has yet to be clarified, but we do know they can be injured - Chuck twisted her ankle running from Mamma Jacobs in “Girth”, which may imply that they can be killed, they just won’t die on their own.

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Where do I begin recapping tonight’s episode? There sure left us viewers with too much of everything and something to miss during the hiatus. Bryan Fuller made a couple of adjustments to this story with a cliffhanger that left my 10-year old’s mouth wide open.

But before that, I’ll get to the murder of the week first. The case tonight involved the murders of insurance agents from Uber-Life Life Insurance, who were all found frozen like popsicles (hence the title corpsicle). Ned and Emerson learns that a very bitter, but very sick teenager was denied a heart transplant by these insurance agents insurance adjusters (as one of them would like to be called), and so they make a few visits to his house. There they meet a lady from the Wish-a-Wish Foundation who was trying her hardest to make the teenager happy. She does all she can to grant his wishes, including the fact that he wished all those who have denied him the transplant he needs be dead. Desperate to grant that wish, Ned and Emerson caught Wish-a-Wish Lady just in the nick of time. She was about to kill another insurance adjuster, but ended up getting dead herself. The pet monkey she brought along with her to provide the teenager some entertainment, accidentally ran over her. In the end, it was her heart that the teenager received in the transplant.

And on to the bigger story….

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I’ll start this entry with a personal note by saying that there’s a lot of craziness going on here, so even if I try and write a proper recap or review of last night’s Pushing Daisies, I think it may end up less cohesive. My mind is somewhere else… peace is disrupted where I reside and I pray things will simmer down soon. For the curious, this is what I’m talking about.

Anyway, I’ll do my best by posting a brief recap in bullet points:

• The murderer of the week  had some similarities with that movie, Lars and The Real Girl… had Lars been an actual killer.
• Solution to this case was pretty fast and not inventive. The whole case took 15 minutes to be resolved.
• Of course, this was necessary since the main story of Bitter Sweets was supposed to center on Dilly Balsam (guest star Molly Shannon), her taffy store and the rivalry with Ned’s Pie Hole.

Briefly…

When Ned and crew warmly welcomed Dilly to the area, Dilly didn’t immediately warm up to them. She is a tough businesswoman and it was evident that competition drives her. As a welcome gift, Chuck brings for her pie inside Dilly’s store, and the aroma of it didn’t escape her customers so they decide to change places and be in the Pie Hole. Dilly thought that this was Ned’s tactic or that he meant to drive away her customers. So in retaliation, Dilly bribes a health inspector to conduct a surprise inspection of the Pie Hole, leading to its temporary closure. The girls, Chuck and Olive, didn’t like how Dilly played.  They cooked up plans of their own in order to fight back at Dilly. But Ned, forever the peacemaker, wasn’t about to retaliate…it just wasn’t his style.

In a surprise twist, there was a second murder in this episode….it was that of Dilly’s brother, Billy, whose body Ned discovers while cleaning up the mess Chuck and Olive left at the taffy store. And by some unfortunate fate, the police caught Ned red-handed, holding Billy’s dead body. He was brought to jail.

• Emerson and Chuck try to find the real killer of Dilly’s brother and ends up face to face with Dilly, whom they suspected to be the one who did it.
• But the real killer is in fact the Health Inspector who also bribed Dilly and Billy Balsam, so that he won’t squeal on what the Balsam’s made him to the Pie Hole.

Also, in this story: Chuck tells Ned the happy news at the beginning of the episode — that day was her father’s 60th birthday and it all brought forth the guilt Ned was feeling over the loss. When Ned could not contain it any longer, despite telling Emerson he need not let Chuck know, he told her that it was he killed her father.

Other things to note:

• Digby crying with Olive while visiting Ned in jail was, as usual, adorable.
• Chuck confirms to Ned that yes, she is his girlfriend.
• I love the dynamics of Chuck and Olive’s relationship.
• Double hugs from Olive — cute!
• Dilly’s store reminds me of the candy store in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

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Pushing Daisies’ Halloween offering, Girth, was a chock full of  goodies with several story angles. It tackled Ned’s sad childhood, Olive’s past employment, a Sleepy Hollow-esque murder story, Emerson’s fondness for shovels and money and Chuck’s secrets.

Two minutes into Pushing Daisies fifth episode, I found myself weeping for Ned as the show opens with the story of how he came to discover his father has abandoned him. It happened on a Halloween and the occasion would forever traumatize him. Dressed as a ghost all covered in blankets (Digby included), Ned, about nine or ten years old, drops by his father’s house only to find that he is happily settled with a new wife and two kids.

Now all grown-up, Ned intends to mark this day and confront his ghost. He spends a night in his old house (which apparently wasn’t prime real estate as it never was bought by anyone else!) and stays in his old room. Ned and lies on the floor where his bed used to be, perhaps reminiscing what he lost. Hearing something from outside, Ned peeks at his neighbor and finds Aunts Lily and Vivian dealing with kids going on a Trick or Treat.

We later see him in the Charles’ living room, asking the aunts about what they remember of his father. And they both tell him how his dad was a jackass, but they also tell him how proud they were he has grown up to be a very fine young man. While there, they served him the pies Chuck secretly sends to her aunts. Realizing that this was the case, Ned began to understand and feel for what Chuck is going through. Later, in the dead of the night, he brings Chuck to her aunts’ house to go trick or treating in a similar costume that Ned wore when he visited his dad’s house once upon a time.

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Something was quite off with Pushing Daisies’ episode this week. There were some story lines that took awhile to tie together so it fails to make sense to me. And while the background looks absolutely colorful and stunning, it is easy to tell that a lot of these were done through a green screen. I think this could be the weakest episode to date. But I am willing to overlook it because despite the muddle, Pushing Daisies is still the best new show on TV today.

Pigeon opens with another scene from Ned’s childhood….

After several months of staying in boarding school with nary a friend, Ned is reunited with his dog, Digby. (Ain’t Digby just the most adorable dog?) And while both were very glad to have found each other again, Ned and Digby knew they had to exercise restrain and avoid touching each other. Digby was the very reason Ned came to discover his unique gift, when a truck ran over him and died. And if Ned should touch his hairy best friend again, he would have lost him forever.

Fast forward to the present, and we find Chuck baking yet another batch of homeopathic pies for her aunts. In comes Ned who had a few bee sting marks on his face and Chuck wonders where he got it from. Ned brings her to the roof and there she saw the bee hives Ned set-up. Chuck was once was a bee-keeper and this special gesture from Ned made her extremely happy.

Downstairs….while Olive contemplated on how to expose her Chuck, who she thought actually faked her own death, a pigeon suddenly slams into The Pie Hole’s window and dies. Everyone rushes outside and, as Olive clutches the pigeon on her hand, Ned accidentally touches it and it is revived. Olive thinks it’s a miracle and Ned couldn’t find the timing to touch it again and it was almost one minute. In this scene, Digby is seen watching them from the window and I almost died when I saw that! I was holding my breath thinking death will come for Digby. But in place of the pigeon (which was allowed to live) another bird drops from the sky and dies. A small plane also immediately drops from the sky, seconds after this. It crashes onto an apartment building.

Ned, Chuck and Emerson decided to check the scene of the accident, thinking there might be something they could investigate. They arrive at Conrad Fitch’s apartment and saw that the pilot was dead. They also found debris all over the place, causing Chuck to miss a step and slip. Ned deliberately avoided catching her and Chuck lands on Conrad Fitch’s arm. Chuck seems smitten by him.

Emerson and Ned follow a lead to this case as soon as they learned of the pilot’s identity. Chuck, meanwhile, chose to remain with Conrad, in case he needed help in his apartment. This made Ned feel very, very uncomfortable and jealous.

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Ooh, so much goodness! I can’t even begin to say what I liked best about last night’s episode. Pushing Daisies just keeps getting better, isn’t it?

This week, Ned is faced with the one thing he’s afraid Chuck would learn — that in order for Chuck to remain alive, someone else has to die and take her place. Inevitably though, as Chuck continues to seek answers, Ned has to own it up and tell her the truth. And this revelation was to take place in the funeral home where Chuck’s body was laid, right before Ned and Emerson found her.

The timing could have never been more wrong. Just as Chuck and Ned’s relationship begins to develop into something so close (that they would actually need a saran sheet for that!), Emerson arrives at The Pie Hole and propositions Ned with a new business. But it isn’t the type of murder investigation that would appease Ned. For the mystery surrounding the dead he is supposed to revive is something directly related to him.

Lawrence Schatz was someone Ned “accidentally and involuntarily” killed when he revived Chuck. His mysterious death was identified as a heart attack and only Ned and Emerson know what the real deal is. Now, Lawrence’s twin brother Lewis wants to know if the death was, in fact, murder, for fear that the killer may also be after him. Why is this so? Well, the brothers own a funeral home in Coeur de Coeur, and as it turns out, Lawrence was robbing the dead of whatever valuables they were wearing at the time. When the town folks got wind of this, the mails from bereaved relatives started pouring in and Lewis was at the receiving end of it, dealing with all their angry clients.

Seeing Lawrence inside the coffin made Ned very agitated that he refuses to wake him up. It was at this point that Chuck learned the truth of the circumstances surrounding her rebirth:

“I didn’t actively kill. I’m not an active killer. I’m not a killer. ”
“It wasn’t my fault. It’s a random proximity thing. There was no choice or decision making whatsoever. It just happened…I was incapacitated with not being able to think.”

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Dummy opens with a flash back from when Ned was still a youngster in boarding school. This was after her mother’s death and at the time Ned was abandoned by his father. Here, Ned is slowly coming to understand the important things about his abilities. And these would be, as follows:

a. First touch life
b. Second touch death
c. Allowing someone else or something else to live for more than one minute, and someone else will take its place.

The power he possesses was both amusing and distressing for Ned.

This was also the time in his life when Ned didn’t have any close relationships and therefore, he had no one to tell his secrets to. But keeping secrets was never exactly a problem.

Until nineteen years later, when Ned is reunited with Chuck, his childhood sweetheart.

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The magical forensic fairy tale has began…

Once upon a time, in a quaint little town called Couer de Couer, we see a young man named Ned (9 Years, 27 weeks, 6 days and 3 minutes old) come running down a field of daisies with Digby, his dog of 3 years, 2 weeks, 6 days and 5 hours when suddenly, a truck runs over the dog.

It is this very incident that Ned discovers his extra-ordinary ability, when, crushed at the sight of his canine best friend lying dead by the road, Ned touched Digby and Digby comes to back to life!

Back home… while Ned explored his new ability, not the least bit concerned of its origin or to what extent is its use, we find his mother in the kitchen baking pies, when she suddenly drops dead. Ned uses his powers on her and she is alive again. She goes back to baking pies, as if nothing happened. And while Ned looks out the window, observing his neighbor, best friend and the eternal love of his life, Chuck (who was 8 years, 42 weeks, 3 hours and 2 minutes old) her father, who was watering the garden while Chuck played, drops dead on the ground.

There came the second realization — that he can only bring the dead back to life for one minute. “Any longer and someone else has to die,” so says the Narrator. In effect, it was as if Ned has traded the life of his Mom with Chuck’s dad.

That night, when it was time for bed, Ned’s mom kissed him in the forehead, as usual. But this turned out to be her last. For at that instant, his mother died (again).

This was Ned’s third realization — that those he touches to bring back from the dead will return to their dying state if they are touched by Ned again.

Narrator: First touch life, second touch dead. Again. Forever.

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