Pushing Daisies certainly isn't for everyone.  On tonight's episode of Pushing Daisies we witnessed a car that runs on dandelions, a character break into song, and massive quantities of death.  We learned that Chuck speaks Japanese, and that Emerson Cod went to art school and loves to knit.  The episode eases my fears as to how the show will progress throughout its first season.  The procedural element is definitely there, but the formula looks to be flexible.  All in all, Pushing Daisies should retain the ability to surprise audiences.   It  definitely did tonight.

We begin with Young Ned once again.  This time we pick up when Ned heads to boarding school.  His father sent him away and never came back.  There's a cool little scene where Ned volunteers to help his science class with their frog dissections.  He, of course, brings all the dead frogs back to life.  This whole little flashback is mostly a way for the narrator to set up the stakes, to tell us once again what Ned's abilities are.

We pick up in the present with Ned and Chuck sleeping in separate beds.  Chuck asks a lot of questions about Ned's abilities.  This is also a way to flashback to the pilot episode and remind us again about what went on in the pilot.

Olive Snook leans out her window and watches Chuck and Ned eat.  She's still very much in love with Ned.  We learn that Emerson likes to knit.  He gets a phone call about a murder and calls Ned, tells him to meet him at the morgue.  Ned meets him there and Emerson is upset when Chuck shows up again.  Regardless, they all head into the morgue to check out a dead motor vehicle safety expert who was found on the side of the road, victim of an apparent hit and run.  They wake him  up and Chuck quickly asks him if he has any last requests.  Her, Emerson and the dead man bicker about religion for a bit.  At the very end of the minute the man says that he wasn't a victim of a hit and run, but was killed by a crash test dummy. 

Emerson is pissed about how the dead man minute went.  He doesn't think that the man was really killed by a crash test dummy, that the man, named Bernard Slabeck, was delusional.  Olive Snook asks Emerson who this Chuck girl is, and Emerson lays the smack down.  He tells her that Ned likes Chuck in a way that he doesn't like her. 

Ned and Chuck head to Bernard Slaybeck's employers, who happen to be the manufacturers of a new energy efficient car that runs on dandelions, called the Dandy Lion SX.  They follow a tour of the facility, which looks like a Willy Wonka Car Factory, which is led by a jubilant tour guide.  The entire tour is Japanese and we learn that Chuck actually speaks Japanese, and a whole lot of other languages.  Ned and Chuck are intrigued when the tour heads to the crash test site.  The crowd cheers as they crash one of the Dandy Lions.  Chuck discovers a room in the test site filled with dummies hanging from the ceiling.  One of the dummies has been stripped of all his clothes and his face.  They think someone stole the suit and then killed Bernard.

Emerson, Ned and Chuck leave The Pie Hole that night to head back to the car factory.  Once they leave, Olive sings a sad song about her love for Ned, but she keeps getting interrupted.   This is the kind of thing that's going to polarize audiences.  Digby, at the end of the song, licks Olive's face profusely.

Emerson, Ned and Chuck break into the car factory and head to the crash test room.  The room that Chuck and Ned thought was full of dummies hanging from the ceiling is actually full of dead bodies.  Ned starts waking up some of the dead bodies and none of them know anything about the Dandy Lion car company.  They all had just checked a box saying that they'd be willing to test automobile safety.

Bernard Slaybeck's secret love, Janeane the Dandy Lion model from promotions, appears from behind the model car and approaches Ned, Emerson and Chuck.  Back at The Pie Hole, she tells them the whole story of her and Bernard's love affair.  As the launch of the Dandy Lion car neared, Bernard's hour grew longer and the two of them spent less and less time together.  She would follow him on long night drives, but it was unclear what Bernard was doing on these drives.  Janeane says she figured out what he was doing and that she could show them.  So, they follow her out into the darkness.

Janeane is driving one of the Dandy Lion cars and, as they drive down the dark road, the Dandy Lion car explodes.  Janeane's Dandy Lion was car bombed.  She doesn't die though, and is taken to the hospital where she's put into a full body cast.  Janeane tells them to go find a big hole.  They drive back out to where Janeane was going to take them and find a big pit full of crash test dummies. 

The Dandy Lion car was not safe.  Bernard realized this and wanted the car company to cancel the Dandy Lion. They figure out that the car company was tossing the dummies because of their computer recordings of the crash tests.  The company's president killed Bernard via crash test so he wouldn't say anything about the car's lack of safety. 

Mark Chase, the company president, tasers Emerson, Chuck and Ned as they stand in the pit of dummies.  The three wake up inside a Dandy Lion car in the crash test room.  Mark Chase gives them a long inaudible monologue.  All three are in body bags, tied up.  Since their death is seemingly imminent, Chuck and Ned share a kiss between their two body bags, the plastic saving Chuck from death.  Because Emerson has a knitting needle in his jacket, he's able to puncture his body bag and escape.  He unleashes Ned and Chuck, and they drive off the test site.  Chase follows them in a big SUV. 

Chase tries to get Ned to take the Dandy Lion as fast as it will go, because at that point the car will short circuit and blow up.  As Ned is about to reach that speed, but he has to slam on the brakes when he almost hits Olive, who's in the middle of the road walking Digby.


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of ThePieMaker.com, ABC)