Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies fans have a lot to be excited about these days.  This week, it was announced that Pushing Daisies has been picked up by ABC for a full season order, ensuring at least twenty-two episodes of one of the Fall season's best new series.  Tonight's episode featured a plethora of windmills, a mutant carrier pigeon and some buried treasure.

Young Ned, at boarding school, was lonely and often played alone, thinking of happy childhood memories.  Back at Couer d'Couers, Digby was also lonely, and set out on a quest.  To where, he did not know.  He was only looking for Ned.  One day, Digby showed up at boarding school, but the reunion was bittersweet, seeing as Ned was unable to touch Digby.

Back in present day, Chuck continues to inject pies with homeopathic anti-depressants and send them to her aunts.  Ned has been stung by some bees, and Chuck wonders how that happened.  Ned walks her onto the roof, where there are now a bunch of bee hives which Ned has bought for Chuck.  Chuck is incredibly happy about returning to bee-keeping.  Chuck decides she wants to now be an urban honey pioneer.

Olive Snook remains in love with Ned, and now knowing that Chuck was supposed to be dead, her resolve has only increased.  Olive thinks that Chuck faked her own death, and also knows that Chuck is sending pies to her aunts. 

A pigeon runs into The Pie Hole's front door and dies.  Olive runs out and picks it up, hoping its not dead.  Emerson shows up and tells her to throw it away, because that's what you do with dead birds.  Ned accidentally touches it and the pigeon comes back to life, prompting Olive to believe it's a miracle pigeon.  Ned allows Olive to leave the bird alive, and they watch a dead bird fall from the sky.

Meanwhile, a crop dusting plane flies into a nearby apartment building in full view of everyone, killing the pilot instantly.  The pilot and plane fly into a man named Conrad Fitch's apartment.  Emerson, Ned and Chuck enter the apartment and discuss whether or not the crash could be profitable.  Chuck slips and falls.  Ned, not allowed to catch her, watches as Conrad Fitch catches her.  Chuck becomes quickly smitten with Conrad and she sticks around the apartment to help with clean-up, while Emerson and Ned investigate the plane crash. 

Braden Caden was the pilot and owner of the crashed plane.  Braden's life insurance claim was suspiciously rejected prior to him even flying the plane into the apartment building.

Ned whines about not being able to touch Chuck.  Braden's wife Becky doesn't believe that he was suicidal, and that the insurance companies are full of it.  At the coroner's, Emerson tells Becky that he believes her and insurance companies don't know anything.  Ned wakes up Braden, who tells Ned that a guy in an orange prison jumpsuit jumped on and hijacked his plane.  Whoever hijacked the plane was not found, therefore was also not dead.

Olive takes the pigeon to the aunts' house.  Her motivations are too ultimately expose Chuck.  The homeopathic pies have worked their magic on the aunts.  Olive waxes poetic about getting the revived pigeon back in flying shape.  Olive's plan is to take the aunts to The Pie Hole.  She tries to figure out how to get them there.

Ned and Emerson head back to Fitch's apartment.  They find what  they believe to be the dead hijacker stuffed in a trunk in Fitch's apartment. Ned wakes him up and finds out that this guy is actually Conrad Fitch and he was killed when the plane flew into his apartment, which means that the man Chuck is smitten with is actually the hijacker. 

Chuck heads to The Pie Hole with the hijacker. They eat pie together.  He talks about how he lost everything when that plane flew into his apartment, which is a bunch of lies.  He lays it on hard, and holds her hand.  Chuck is taken aback.  Chuck asks him to hold her hand once more while Chuck closes her eyes and pretends that it's Ned's hands she's holding.  Unfortunately, Ned sees this happen from the window outside.

Emerson and Ned chase after the hijacker.  Ned gets a hold of his arm, but it's a fake arm and it ends up hitting Ned in the face as he gets away.  Later, Ned talks to Chuck.  He's clearly upset about the hand-holding.  Emerson returns, unable to chase down the hijacker, but relays some information he learned from his people at the prison.  Lemual Weinger is the hijacker's name, and he used to work at Hornen Energy.  He lost his right arm destroying evidence of insider trading via paper shredder.  He lost his arm and his freedom, as he was sent to jail. While in prison he was given the nickname Lefty Lem by his cell mate Jackson Lucas, an infamous diamond thief.  The diamond thief hid a buried treasure before he was jailed that was never recovered.  He died in prison. 

So, Emerson, Ned and Chuck hit up the prison graveyard to unearth Jackson and ask him about the treasure.  Ned wakes up Jackson, and he tells them that his buried treasure is under the stairs in a house by an old mill.  He also admits that he told Lefty where the treasure was. 

Olive has convinced the aunts to try and mend the pigeon.  They perform surgery.  They give the pigeon a parrot's wing.

Emerson, Ned and Chuck hit up the mill and find the lady behind the desk dead.  They assume Lemuel is the culprit.  But, she's not dead, just sleeping, a narcoleptic.  They learn that Lemuel was recently there and also asked about the mill.  The Van Roenn Mill, where the treasure is, has been preserved as a historic landmark.  The lady gives them a map before falling asleep once again. 

The pigeon flies away from the aunts house, much to Olive's chagrin. 

Lemuel arrives at the mill to find that a woman named Elsita (Jayma Mays) has taken residence there.  He says he's from the historical society and behind his back he wields an axe.  Elsita knows he's lying but is bored and lets him in anyway.

Olive and Vivian sing as they and Lily drive to The Pie Hole, following their mutated pigeon. 

On their way to the mill, Ned and Chuck talk about Ned's jealousy. 

Lemuel has tied up Elsita on a chair.  She's fairly unmoved by her predicament, very talkative.  She's tired of waiting for the wind there in that windmill. Lem gets a little impatient with her talking.  Lem keeps looking for a hollow area under the stairs. 

Olive gives the pigeon some morale support, but it's tired and heading for the Van Roenn mill.  It turns out that the pigeon is Elsita's and Lem wrote a note for it previously although the note is now gone, thanks to Olive.  Olive and the aunts arrive in their car at the mill. Olive walks inside the mill and demands her bird back.

She shows the message that the bird was meant to deliver and Lem figures out that the message was meant Elsita.  Elsita's mother Elsa spent years awaiting the return of Jackson, the diamond thief.  Lem inherited Jackson's task, Elsita, her mother's. 

In a flashback, we see Jackson seek refuge in the Van Roenn mill, which he believes to be vacant, and hide his diamonds under the staircase.  There he met Elsa, who owned the windmill.  They kissed as the police entered and took Jackson away.  The two corresponded for twenty years via carrier pigeon.  When Jackson knew he would die, he gave the task of writing to Lem.  Elsa did the same thing with Elsita, so it ends up Elsita and Lem have been writing to each other for some time.  It turns out that the pigeon flew through the plane's propeller and that's what caused the crash. 

Elsita shows Lem the diamonds.  She keeps them in her fake leg.  There's a knock at the door: it's Chuck, Ned and Emerson.  Olive looks through the peep hole and sees them.  Olive need only open the door to expose Chuck to her aunts.  But, she has second thoughts about doing something that would certainly hurt the aunts she had come to like.  Olive sneaks outside and discreetly lets Chuck know what's going on.

Olive quickly ushers the aunts out of the back door.  They drive away.

Emerson enters and has Lem arrested.  They get the reward.  The long distance love affair between Lefty Lem and Elsita. 

Ned and Chuck share a rooftop dance while wearing their beekeeper's suits.


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