The Pushing Daisies Review 1.7 "The Smell of Success"
Posted by Brendan Newton on 11.22.2007
This one Smells Like Love and Win...
With Bionic Woman off for tonight (and soon to be off indefinitely, along with Pushing Daisies as production on Bionic Woman has shut down due to the writer's strike, and although I haven't heard anything for certain, I would imagine Pushing Daisies won't be too far behind), Pushing Daisies is my sole reviewing responsibility. Although my wacky work schedule prevented me from watching it on TV, Canada's CTV thankfully streams episodes, so I was able to catch this week's episode, “Smell of Success” without having to scrounge around online too much. Good thing too, and not just because I need to get this review up. This week's episode was great, a near-perfect mix of ongoing storyline and wacky weekly murder mystery. It even introduced an interesting new character. My thoughts/comments:
Wacky Subculture of the Week: It's the ultra-competitive world of Children's Book Gimmicks That Aren't Just For Kids Anymore: Scratch n' Sniff vs. Pop-up Books. I loved the whole Therapeutic Scratch n' Sniff Books idea, it has that perfect mixture of being bizarre and somewhat reality-based. This episode's basic theme is how powerfully the sense of smell can involuntarily induce nostalgia and bring back memories both fond and painful; it's all a lot like Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Except a lot more fun. I remember reading somewhere that the smell of Crayola Crayons, the kind you used all the time as a kid, produces so much nostalgic good feeling that it lowers adult's blood pressure significantly, so there is a very real-world basis for this zaniness. As usual, the Young Ned Flashback ties into this theme, as we find out how Ned first started making pies in order to surround himself with memories of his mother. It's also nicely connected to the ongoing plot involving Chuck's aunts, as Chuck uses Lenez's “Smell Therapy” to try to perk up her aunt's spirits with some impressive results. Loved all of the Adult Pop-up book stuff, especially Emerson enjoying himself at the end with the DIY Pop-Up Book instead of the latest issue of Knitwit magazine, which was a great gag.
-This Week's Best Pop-Culture Reference of the Week: Chuck's earnest discussion of CHUDs (those are Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, for those of you who had something better to do during your teenage years than rent old horror movies and watch them repeatedly) to an oblivious Emerson and Ned as they scoured the sewers.
-Lots of great little character moments this week, among them Emerson's “knitting smell” outing his hobby to his friends; I loved the lingering weirded-out look on Ned's face after that was revealed, the subtle look worked much better than a big drawn out “KNITTING?” moment would have. We also found out a bit more about Ned's previous love life, as apparently he has had girlfriends in the past-something I would have doubted, my assumption was that he's been pretty much celibate and dreaming of Chuck-but things always fell apart due to “extraneous factors” such as that whole pesky “ressurecting people” problem, including an incident with a bearskin rug...we don't need to see a clip of said bearskin incident to make it hilarious, but I really hope we do at some point. It does bring up an interesting quibble, though; since Ned was apparently able to resurrect a bearskin rug, that means he's able to resurrect an animal if he comes in contact with damned near any part of it. We also saw that a body can take fairly severe damage and still be resurrected this week with the charred corpse of poor murder victim Anita (cute yet creepy scene by the way). Wouldn't that make eating most foods (meat especially) difficult? And since everything material gets naturally recycled eventually, at what point does a “dead thing” cease to be a ressurectable corpse? I know, I know, suspension of disbelief, just a TV show, etc. Olive was as adorably goofy as ever this week, trying hard to hold onto hope for romance with Ned while outwardly acknowledging his lack of feelings for her and playing things cool. She also seems to be getting a little flirty with Emerson, going out of her way to greet him during the final scene at Lenez's, and referring to him as “Paps” to which he reacted with scorn. Seems like unrequited love could become a habit with her, much like her hilarious squeeing worship of the Darling Mermaid Darlings. Loved her going nuts over all of the Mermaid paraphernalia this week, especially the flippers. She and Chuck made a good team as usual this week, teaming with new character Oscar Vibenius (Paul Reubens) to clear his name. The Chuck-Olive partnership is swiftly developing into a charming counterpart to the Ned-Emerson duo, and-I know I say this every week-with Olive having pretty much made the team a foursome, I would expect her to find out Ned's secret fairly soon. The character's really taken off from being a background player in the first few episodes, so it seems like the next logical step in making her a central character.
-I really don't know all that much about Paul Reubens outside of the whole arrest for public indecency scandal that provided comedians with jokes for the entire decade of the 1990s, but he was fine in his role as Lenez's disgraced former associate Oscar Vibenius, doing a good job of playing a sort of comical twist on the disgraced sewer-dwelling boogeyman. I thought the murder plot was a little predictable as I didn't think for one minute that Vibenius was the killer, but I was surprised that the villain turned out to be Lenez himself. Obvious in hindsight, but it was the sort of thing that was so obvious it was surprising. Good stuff, and with Vibenius sticking around, it would be cool if Napoleon Lenez made a return appearance or two. His super upbeat and optimistic attitude to evildoing reminded me of one of my all time favourite TV villains, Mayor Wilkins from Buffy. Plus he just has a great name, it took me a moment to realize that “le nez” is French for “the nose.” From there it was easy to figure out that he was the bad guy since, you know, French=Evil. I kid, I kid. And I loved the whole explanation for Chuck smelling like death, that it was because perfume is sometimes made from recycled dead animal parts. Better make sure Ned stays away from it...
-Freudian subtext of the week: Chuck's ideas for new pies threaten to pull Ned out of his “comfort zone” which is strongly linked to memories of the smell of his mother's pies. Hmmm...creepy psychosexual overtones aside, the whole Chuck-Ned story about the “Cup Pies” was cute, with Chuck constantly picking at Ned's comfort defences until he broke down at the end and went with her idea in a very sweet moment. That “mutual hugging” they do is very sweet and should become more of a series “trademark.”
-Speaking of Chuck's pies, the real standouts from this episode were, hands down, Lily and Vivian. We learned a lot more about them and their descent into depression this week; these two have gone from being cliched shut-in spinsters to far more realistically drawn characters. It's one of the more realistic portraits of depression that I've seen on TV; rather than there being one big traumatic event that led to the depression-which would seem to be the case with Lily's lost eye-their depression developed over time, largely due to their own inertia and refusal to be happy. Luckily, Chuck's “pie and chlorine -smell therapy” bring Vivian-who has gradually developed into being the sweeter, slightly more optimistic of the pair-to an understanding of this, at which point she embarks on a quest to feel happy again. “I think it's brave to be happy”, she says, showing that this show can do profound as well as absurd when it feels like it. We then got the best musical number on this show to date, as Ellen Greene performed an awesome rendition of Cat Stevens' “Morning Has Broken” in an extended music video-style segment, which is something this show should do even more of. It fits so perfectly with the Magical Realist feel. There was something very cheesy about the synchronized swimming routine, but as always with this show, it was very good cheese.
All in all, this was a really good episode, with a great ongoing storyline which really fleshed out the characters of Olive and Chuck's Aunts, introduced an interesting new character, and told a cute stand-alone story. It's really unfortunate that the writer's strike could mean this and all shows's production coming to a halt for a while, because this series deserves to complete an outstanding rookie season without being compromised.
The 411: Yet another great episode; the main murder mystery was a *little* weak, but the killer was a great character and there was oodles of sweet character stuff going on, especially with Chuck's aunts. As I said, shame the writer's strike's threatening this series' great first season.
