Pushing Daisies

To hell with you, formula!  Pushing Daisies, we know, is not a typical television show.  Words like “original,” “quirky” and “whimsical” have been used to describe what Daisies brings to the table, and all would be correct.  Up until tonight's episode, though, the show had retained a formulaic structure similar to those of crime procedurals.  While dressed up in an exceptionally original package, Pushing Daisies was at its heart no different than CSI.  Tonight's episode kicked that notion in the groin.  The writers threw that formula out the window, rounded up a bunch of guest stars, pondered the usefulness of truth and the truth of metaphors,  and gave us another taste of why Pushing Daisies is the best new show of the year. 

The case presented to Emerson, Chuck and Ned was solved before the second commercial break.  Tony DiNopoli was found dead (strangled), and the police pinned it on his girlfriend Tina Arengino, calling it a crime of passion.  Ned woke Tony up, who told them it was his buddy Burly Bruce Carter who did it.  But why does it look like the strangle marks were made by a woman?  Because, Tony says, Bruce used his “girlfriend” Sheila to do it.  Sheila, it turns out, is a life sized blow-up doll who Bruce had convinced himself was real.  Bruce gets sent to jail.  That is that.

The meat of the story comes from The Pie Hole's new across the street neighbors – Balsam's Bittersweets Taffy and Sweets Emporium, run by brother and sister Billy and Dilly Balsam.  Billy was played by the great screenwriter Mike White, and Dilly was played by SNL alum Molly Shannon (who sported a short blonde wig).  Dilly is hell-bent on taking down The Hole.  First, she knocks out a couple pieces of the sign, making it read “The Pie Ho.”  Then she sends Andrew Brown, Health Inspector (played by Seinfeld's Kenny Banya) to inspect The Pie Hole.  He discovers the back room full of dead fruit and shuts the place down. 

Ned doesn't want to retaliate, but Chuck and Olive do so.  They dress as cat burglars, sneak in to the Emporium at night, and let loose a barrage of rats.  Chuck admits to t his when she comes home that night and Ned, disappointed, goes to clean up.  When he enters the Emporium, he tries to get a rat out of the taffy vat, when he touches a dead body.  It's Billy.  The police show up, and Ned is arrested.

Emerson and Chuck now have to solve the crime while Ned waits in jail, contemplating whether to tell Chuck it was he who killed her father, all the while sharing a cell with Burly Bruce, who talks endlessly of Sheila.  Emerson and Chuck discover that there was a severed finger in Billy's stomach, but no print on it thanks to stomach acids.  They find a print at the Emporium, though – it belongs to the health inspector.  Ned is set free, but they can't find the inspector.  We learn that Dilly killed him in a crime of passion.

Olive reveals her desire for Alfredo Aldarisio at the end, but he is gone – the man is a traveling salesman, after all.  Ned, though he decided to keep the Chuck's father thing a secret, spills his guts in the last moment of the episode.  We don't learn Chuck's response.  Two weeks till then. 

So, great episode.  Daisies showed a willingness to break a so far perfectly acceptable formula.  I don;t expect them to do this too often, but just knowing that the possibility is there is a blessing.  The characters are evolving (which they rarely do on other procedurals) and you can see that Ned and Chuck are in an interesting place.  Molly Shannon, who I;m usually a fan of, was perfectly suited for her role as a diabolical and cutthroat taffy maker, though Kenny Banya was underused (as he always is/was). 

Best Quote: “Truth ain't like puppies.”


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