Pushing Daisies: Bitter Sweets

This might have been my favorite episode! Have I already said this? I am continually amazed at how the writers can make a premise (touch once-alive; touch twice-dead) seem new and exciting every week. Along with being fresh, quirky and honestly funny. (I know, I feel like I say this every week, but I’m surprised every week they pull it off!)

There are so many great things about this episode. I always like shows better when they have a running story line. I enjoy seeing a few plots going on at once. Pushing Daisies is predisposed to be a  Law&Orderish type show but I think the writers have been doing good to lead us into a real world of stories—character development and plot lines that make me believe the Pie Hole is around the corner and Chuck’s outfits are attainable.

With that being said, we’ll go by plot lines this week, ok?

Plot #1: The First Murder. Tony Dinapoli was found strangled in his friend’s apartment by his girlfriend, Tina Arongino. Tina claims she “freakin’ loved” Tony and would never kill him. So, she hires Emerson Cod, PI. And after a little resurrection party with the Pie Trio, they head off to Tony’s friend, Burly Bruce Carter’s apartment where they meet Bruce and his girlfriend, a life-sized doll named Sheila. And Bruce confesses to uhm…well, you see, he realizes it was his fault that Sheila, the uhm…life-sized doll/girlfriend…well, let’s just say, he used the doll to kill his friend. The End.

And here’s where I’m getting excited. We found the murderer at 0:15 on my Tivo’s green-number-time-tracker-bar-thingie? Where could this be going? Well, how about directly into…

Plot #2: Balsam’s Bitter Sweets Taffy & Sweets Emporium. After a supposedly impromptu personal recommendation from Some Guy, Olive heads across the street to visit the new shop in town with Chuck, Ned and a Georgia Peach pie right behind her. (Yay, Georgia Peach! That’s my home state…) The real Pie Trio (aka the ones that actually work at the Pie Hole) just wanted to be neighborly and meet their new…uh, neighbors. But Billy (aka Some Guy) and his sister, Dilly (played by the hilarious Molly Shannon, maybe you’ve heard of her?) aren’t warmed. In fact, they are flamed. And decide that the game is on to see which sweet shop can bring in the most customers.

After playing a few nasty jokes like changing The Pie Hole to The Pie Ho and calling in the Health Inspector, the Bittersweet Twins seem to be winning this game. However, Ned doesn’t even want to play. He is absolutely opposed to revenge. And Olive, Chuck and Emerson are all for it.

Unbeknown to our Pie Maker, in the black of night, dressed in a tight pants, high-heeled knee boots and a low cut black shirt, Olive and Chuck head to Bitter Sweets to deliver some of their own bitterness. They let about 12 rats loose in the candy store. Ew. When Ned finds out, he heads out to make things right. He begins collecting rats (double ew) and just when he reaches his hand into a large vat of taffy to find a drowned rat (but what a way to go, right?), he sees the familiar flash of I-just-resurrected-someone light. And up from the bubbling candy comes Billy back from the dead. Enter the police and that leads us to…

Plot #3: Ned in Jail. You know the drill, the prisoner sits on one side of the Plexiglas, phone in hand while the loved one sits on the other? Well, picture Emerson & Chuck on one side and Ned on the other.  Many love glances and eye rolls. Then picture Olive & Digby on one side and Ned on the other. I don’t know why it cracked me up so much, but it did. It may have had something to do with Olive’s sobbing and her gun baked into a pie.

With Ned contemplating his life behind bars, Chuck & Emerson go back to the old-skool way of solving crimes—by actually looking at the evidence. With a little help from our ever-present morgue attendant (who is apparently the coroner), they discover a finger inside Billy’s tummy…yummy. They then sneak into Bitter Sweets and the scene of the crime all the while suspecting Dilly. With a little CSI-type investigation, they dust (flour) for fingerprints and lift a nine-fingered print with a giant fruit-roll up (or something like that). Which of course, leads us to our killer—the Health Inspector also blackmailing the Bittersweet Twins. And in the end, Ned is released and it’s all sweet again. (Oh, with the exception of Dilly who actually does end up murdering the Health Inspector.) But let’s not forget…

Plot #4: The Chuck/Ned/Olive/Alfredo Love Triangles. This is really 2 in 1. Or 4 in 2. Or whatever.

Chuck/Ned. Chuck and Ned finally become “boyfriend/girlfriend”. But when Chuck mentions her dad, Ned drops into one of his moods upset that he’s been lying to Chuck about her father’s death. (Remember Ned accidentally killed him?)

Olive/Ned. Olive overhears the boyfriend/girlfriend conversation and also drops into a mood. A forget-about-the-customers kind of mood.

Olive/Chuck. Their fledgling friendship is still rough around the edges, you know, since they both love the same man. (But at least they are talking about it!)

Olive/Alfredo. This is completely one-sided. Alfredo is patiently waiting for Olive to get her head out of the Pie Clouds and into his homeopathic arms. After solving the murder and the return of the Pie Man, Olive does have a brief romantic tryst (in her mind) with Alfredo. Let’s just hope it’s not too late…

Favorite Lines.

Olive to Alfredo. If you loved me and we could never ever ever touch. Wouldn’t you eventually get over it…?
Alfredo to Olive. “Then I would love you in any way I could and if we could not touch then I would draw strength from your beauty and if I went blind then I would fill my soul with the sound of your voice and the contents of your thoughts until the last spark of my love for you lit the shadowy darkness of my dying mind.”

Emerson to Ned while in prison. “Well, me and Nancy Shrew will get you out.”

Our First Cliff Hanger
Murders solved, pie eaten and safely tucked in bed, Ned is so happy and filled with emotion, that he blurts out to his girlfriend, Chuck, “I killed your dad.” And the silence that followed that statement, dear internets, is what we will be enduring until next week, when we find out how Chuck responds. (What do you think? Do tell!)

In Conclusion.
Do I really need to do this? You know I loved it. I like this show so much more than just it’s story lines. (And there are quite a few good ones…) I think the writers are so clever—the interweaving of stories, the lines that play more than once, the random humor and the fact that I don’t come away thinking, “What a great murder mystery!” but instead, “Can we have pie for dinner?” My only complaint this week was Chuck and her glasses. Seriously, those were freaking me out.

(Don’t forget, I’m continually serving up more sweet dishes on ohamanda.com!)

oh, and profuse apologies to my fans my one reader our illustrious blog-master, John because of my tardiness today!