Spoilers for "Pushing Daisies" coming up just as soon as I buy some vanilla extract...I'm not sure whether this is the last episode completed before the strike shut down production (when the strike began, the LA Times said they'd be able to complete nine episodes, and this was show nine), but if so, I'm as disappointed as I've been as my other favorites have, one by one, run out of episodes. This was another strong, confident, weird, pretty episode and I may need to borrow some mood enhancers to replace the giddy feeling it often provides me.
Nine episodes admittedly isn't a huge sample size -- this will be a lot more surprising by episode 30 (if the show makes it that far) -- but I continue to remain impressed by the sick-but-sweet imagery the show cooks up, in this case the corpse-containing snowmen, plus Aunt Lily's hallucinations. (The bees under their winter covers were also cool to look at.) Couple that with some more eccentric guest characters -- notably the perky to the point of homicide Make-A-Wish lady -- the usual Emerson and Olive one-liners and some understandable romantic angst, and you've got another winner.
I'm glad that the writers didn't use Chuck's discovery of the truth about her father's death as a wedge to split up her and Ned for a bunch of episodes -- the whole no-touching thing is as much Unresolved Sexual Tension as any show needs -- and I thought Friel did a nice job of playing the head vs. heart conflict Chuck was dealing with.
Because the heat in my house has been off all day for some minor home repairs my fingers feel as frozen as Emerson and Ned's must have last night, so I'm going to move on to bullet points and then put on a pair of gloves:
-Vis a vis Chuck's desire for Ned to bring her dad back for a minute, wouldn't the guy be a skeleton by now? How comforting would that be for her?
-This show usually calls upon the comic side of Chi McBride's vast talents (see his complains about the non-word "Ginormous"), but Emerson's confession about his daughter was a potent reminder of what a great dramatic actor he can be. If forced to choose, I'd pick Funny Chi, but the man's a true double-threat.
-Has Chuck's mom even been mentioned before? Does she believe her mom died in childbirth or something? And which is worse: Chuck's mom making her think she's her aunt, or Chuck making her aunt/mom think she's dead?
-God, I love morgue attendant guy. One scene per episode, a couple of lines at most, and he's always funny.
-I didn't mention Paul Reubens when he first appeared, but I hope he comes back now and then to (literally) sniff around Chuck. I like how he's chosen to dial down his own innate weirdness, since the character as written is so weird that a more understated performance actually accentuates what's on the page.
What did everybody else think?
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