Pushing Daisies

From previous episodes, it was quite evident that Ned became obsessed with pies because of his mother. And as last night’s show puts it, pies made Ned remember her. Its smell was his safe sanctuary. So, when Chuck suggested that they make additions to his traditional menu for the Pie Hole, it became an issue with Ned. It was a big step — to moving on. Anyway, more on that later….The episode Smell of Success had two storylines this week.

The Olfactory Experts

Story A is about Napoleon LeNey (French for “the nose”), an olfactory expert who’s had near brushes with death. There were a couple of attempts on his life and all of it suspiciously taking place at a time when he was about to relase a book on scents that was supposed to be his money machine.

LeNey thinks its his nemesis Oscar Vibenius (Paul Reubens) is behind all the attempts to murder him, citing that Oscar was jealous of his work and that their views often collided. But as Emerson and Ned dug deeper, they have learned that the victim was in fact the suspect.

The facts are these: The release of LeNey’s book was bumped to a different release date. This was not in his favor because the week his book was supposed to come out was not a “prime holiday spot” where sales are sure to rise. Learning that his publisher was gonna bury his work, he decided to create buzz around it. LeNey thought it would help sales if there was controversy behind the release of his new book. When the first attempt resulted in an accident, with one of his students dying, instead of feeling remorseful, LeNey wanted more because news of the first accident caused pre-orders of his book to increase. So he sets another plan, another attempt on his life, by framing his enemy, Oscar Vibenius, and capitalized on the publicity the book was generating.

The outcome of this was attempted murder case was actually predictable. With LeNey’s plans discovered, the case was easily solved.

The Darling Mermaids

The other running storyline this week involved Chuck, Olive and her Aunts.

Olive has become better friends with Chuck and for this week, they sought to move to phase 2 of Chuck’s plan to help her aunts move on. The plan was to have them back in the water, with Olive trying her best to make the aunts enthusiastic of the idea. Except Aunt Lily was harder to convince. Not even the smell of chlorine, which she calls a “bottle of sunshine”, could bring her back to the to swimming. But then, it was Vivian who eventually motivated her sister. And on cue, Vivian lets out a sweet, beautiful and moving rendition of Cat Steven’s “Morning Has Broken” (watch video), as they swam and did their routines as the Darling Mermaid Darlings in the pool. And with that, Chuck’s Phase 2 was complete.

And then there is Oscar…

Oscar Vibenius returns for one last scene towards the end of the episode. Meeting Chuck earlier, he smelled something very peculiar about her and it intrigued him enough to steal Chuck’s sweaters. This, of course, will not be the last we’ll see of him. Could he one day discover Chuck’s secret?

Other things to note:

• Emerson is consistently funny and consistently in pink shirt! We learn that aside from knitting, Emerson is very fond of pop-up books.
• Olive looks smashing in a Darling Mermaid Darling outfit that it was almost too sexy for this show. And I had a child watching with me!
• As for Chuck convincing Ned to add a new menu, her cup-pie idea, with its honeybaked crust is actually a good one. And Ned relented in the end. Would you like to see the new menu of The Pie Hole?

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