TV-Reviewed

It’s hard not to like Pushing Daisies. Everything about it screams unique and different and it feels like we’re watching some kind of fairy tail unfold in front of our eyes each and every week. The fairy tale continues this week with a rather interesting storyline that not only works but ends up taking us back to the funeral home where it all started.

Ned hasn’t told Chuck yet that the reason why people he brings back to live can only stay that way for a minute is because someone else in the area has to die too. So Chuck is completely unaware that someone had to die for her to live. While Ned has been trying to keep this a secret, the case for the week ends up making that hard to do. The new case is to find out who killed Lawrence Schatz, who just so happens to be the funeral director that accidentally died due to Chuck being brought back to life. Emerson really isn’t too interested in finding out who killed him, but wants to know where Lawrence hid all the heirlooms that he was stealing from the dead. This case ends up causing Ned to also tell Chuck his secret about Lawrence dying to bring her back to life. This somewhat makes Chuck a bit sad to think that her being alive killed a man, but it seems that the sadness eventually goes away once she is able to see what a nice man Lawrence isn’t.

The Pushing Daisies Cast

The story gets a bit more interesting as the gang finds out from Lawrence that his brother Louis, who is the one who hired the gang, actually knew where the heirlooms were since they were both in it together. Now it’s time to question Louie which end up not happening, because Ned ends up finding Louie dead in his freezer.

The story gets pretty outrageous as we learn that someone else was at the funeral home the day Ned brought Chuck to life.

It was great to see funeral director revisited and that Ned’s accidental death did go somewhat unnoticed. The twin brother thing kind of comes from nowhere, but everything works in this episode up until the point where both brothers die. The story tends to go into a somewhat outrageous and unbelievable (even for Pushing Daisies) route. The sword that the brothers take while it would seem belonged to a white southerner from the civil war ends up belonging to an Asian southerner who’s forefather stole another man’s quote. The guys southern accent was very funny, but the storyline was a bit too outrageous.

Olive’s side storyline proved to be a hindrance for this episode too. Olive is usually somewhat funny with her obsession with Ned, but today it just wasn’t that interesting. Olive now knows that Chuck is the girl that is supposed to be dead. What will she do with the information is the question. It would be nice if the writers give Olive something to do or integrate her a bit more into the main plot somehow, because Olive’s starting to become a bit boring.

Aside from it’s flaws, for the most part this episode worked. The dialogue and acting are great and the chemistry between the characters is spot on. Emerson and Chuck’s hate relationship really is a fun dynamic to watch, because Chuck’s so nice, and Emerson is just so mean. It’s almost as if both are fighting for Ned’s attention. Ned and Chuck’s relationship is still fun to watch and there are some scenes that really give you that awwww effect such as kissing by using plastic wrap. Alan Dale’s narrating didn’t seem as smothering this episode either and the Ned flashbacks are kept to a minimum, but are always well executed and lets us know a lot about Ned’s childhood in a very short amount of time. The biggest flaw was truly how unbelievable the story gets, but I’m starting to believe Pushing Daisies might push their stories like this more during the season. Either way the technical greatness and the well acted scenes still make this show to watch, I just hope that other viewers will pick up on how uniquely great this show is.

Rating: 7.4