Pushing Daisies

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.

In the last episode, Ned revives Chuck from the dead and now, she is living with him in his apartment. Learning of Ned’s abilities, Chuck presses Ned for more answers, while Ned hopes he never has to tell Chuck that he is the reason for her father’s death. This is the kind of secret that is hurting Ned as he needs to keep it.

Meanwhile, Olive, Ned’s neighbor, snoops on the pair from outside the window. Olive , we learn, is secretly in love with Ned and she  wonders if the girl now living with him is someone whom Ned is seriously involved with. Olive surprisingly discovers that there is a “lack of physical contact” between the two.

Across town, we get a glimpse of private investigator Emerson Cod, who spends his spare time knitting (which I should say, is quite an unexpected one for his character! Now that’s a good one, writers!). He is pondering on the effects of Chuck’s presence and how much of her will affect their murder cases, since she has now proposed to become their partner in solving it. At the moment, Emerson is not liking Chuck all that much.

Emerson gets a call on the phone, which marks the new case the trio has to solve.

They arrive at the city coroner and there Ned revives the scientist, Bernard, in order to speak to him. But because they didn’t have enough time, thanks to Chuck who engaged the dead in a useless conversation, they can only surmise so little about his death. They also have his dying wish to pass along…Bernard wishes to tell a Janine from work that he loves her.

Back at the Pie Hole, the trio tries to break the case down and Emerson expresses his disdain for Chuck. And Olive, when she got the chance, approaches Emerson to ask about the funny girl living with Ned. Emerson gives Olive the truth. Later,  as the trio decides to go to Bernard’s place of work to seek his ladylove Janine, Olive suddenly feels all the more distant from Ned. It is at this point where viewers are treated to a little song number by Olive, with Digby’s special participation. She expresses her feelings for Ned with a classic rendition of “Hopelessly Devoted To You”. (Video of which, I’ll be posting at a later date!)

At Dandy Lion XE, the car company Bernard works for, Ned and Chuck meets the head of the company, Mark Chase. Here, we also learn that: 1) Dandy Lion is an experimental car that runs on dandelions, to help the environment 2) Chuck can speak many languages and 3) Janine denies ever knowing a Bernard. But something was not making sense, especially when Ned and Chuck snooped around the plant and found a bunch of dummies hanging in one room.

By nightfall, the trio returned to do more snooping. And there, in the room where the hanging dummies used to be, the trio find bodies of dead people. With Ned’s powers, they learn that they were willing victims or test dummies. Based on their numbers, it would have to mean that Bernard’s death was not the first time murder took place at Dandy Lion.

Sometime after that, when there were no people left at the plant, they ran across Janine who was already willing to tell them the truth. They bring her to the Pie Hole, since talking about Bernard’s accidental death may put her in danger at work. There, Janine, who was obviously experiencing an eating disorder, relates that she and Bernard were deeply in love and that Bernard was constantly working on the dandelion fueled cars,  thereby keeping them apart. One night, she secretly follows him to find out what was keeping him busy and tells the three about the bodies thrown in a ditch. She leads them to the site, but before they even got there, Janine’s Dandy Lion XE explodes to bits and she lands in the hospital.

After making sure Janine gets medical attention, the trio heads to the ditch Janine was talking about and while they were investigating, a mysterious figure appears and darts them with tazer guns.

They woke up wrapped in body bags inside a Dandy Lion test car that’s about to be sent to its destruction. And the mysterious figure, the person behind all these murders, turns out to be the president and owner of the car company, Mark Chase. 

As it was, Mark Chase was almost ready to launch his revolutionary dandelion fueled cars despite warnings from Bernard that the car was lethal and not yet ready. Having spent lots of cash and investing too much into this project, Mark Chase didn’t see any reason for delaying the launch and tries to cover up every mistake and accidents made. He did not care for these things and only want to proceed with his venture.

Inside the car, while wrapped in body bags, Ned and Chuck realize it could be their end. They also realize that with the “protective plastic” covering them, now is their time to kiss. And so…they did.

Meanwhile, Emerson frees himself from the body bag and also frees both Ned and Chuck. They flee to from the plant, driving the Dandy Lion, but Mark Chase chases after them (in a Humvee!! Talk about irony!) and forces them to speed up since he was rear-ending them. The Dandy Lion car has many design flaws. Speeding up will cause it to spike parts of the car that will cause it to explode. But even before that can happen, the police came chasing after Mark Chase and the three, who would almost crashed on to Olive and the Pie Hole, were now safe. The case is solved and they get their reward.

And the next day, Ned shows Chuck what he has done to his own car, in order for Chuck to be able to sit at the front passenger’s seat, which is what Chuck had been complaining about. Ned had a partition installed that would allow for Chuck to sit beside him, without endangering her or killing her again. The partition also has a special feature, something that is especially made for the pair. With it, Ned and Chuck can now hold hands inside the car.

Tomorrow, I’ll take up memorable lines and quotes from this episode.

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