The Pushing Daisies Review 1.8: Bitter Sweets
Posted by Brendan Newton on 12.06.2007
The best episode of Pushing Daisies since I said that about last week's episode.
Here goes again with what may be one of the final Pushing Daisies reviews for a little while, courtesy of that damned writer's strike. Interesting how these things ripple, as I'd imagine the 411's Movies/TV Zone will feel the effects of a prolonged strike in terms of how many reviews and articles we have up and therefore how many readers we'll have. Makes me jealous of Wrestling Zone writers, who never have to worry about unions and strikes and such. Anyways, as I mentioned last week, it'll be really unfortunate if Pushing Daisies' excellent debut season gets derailed by the strike going long; hopefully it will have generated enough of a buzz that viewer interest will remain after a few months have passed. On the other hand, as I suggest in this week's Bionic Review, networks might well be more reluctant to cancel shows (and as good as it is, Pushing Daisies has always struck me as the kind of show that gets loyal support from fans but is axed by networks) as they may need all of the new material they can get their hands on if the strike drags on. On a positive note, series creator Bryan Fuller reportedly made changes to the next episode set to air after “Bitter Sweets” in two weeks so that it could serve as a Season Finale, and it does sound like the kind of episode that will be a good finale for the show, at least for a while, as it brings several ongoing storylines to a head, among them Chuck finding out about Ned's connection to her father's death and her Aunts possibly discovering that she's still alive, so that should be good. Seems to me that with many shows taking longer breaks during the year anyway, this whole “Winter Finale” thing that shows like Heroes and Pushing Daisies are doing due to the strike might become more common in years to come, with shows either doing two seasons a year or just doing eleven episodes per year in a shortened season. It just seems like the sort of thing that might start simply because of this year's special circumstances (writer's strike) but for whatever reason (networks like the idea, shows find it easier to produce fewer episodes) will become the usual way of doing things long after the strike is settled. I just hope this year's Winter Finale isn't the last Pushing Daisies we ever get. Anyways, my thoughts on tonight's episode:
-This episode had one of the best Young Ned clips yet; these opening clips are really good at capturing all of childhood's little traumas, in this case the ever-humiliating “being picked last as a partner” moment. Loved that Narrator's offhand reference to the “brandy in the teacher's lounge” having led to the teacher having broken with tradition and let the boys choose their own partners, and the whole segment with Ned going from alienated kid to finding a friend to quickly going back to alienated kid once Eugene the geeky foreign exchange student found out his secret (clever bit with the dead leaves, too). Great segment that as always cast insight on why Ned often seems so nervous around Chuck; besides the whole “touch and he'll kill her” thing, he's used to having happiness snatched away if he lets people get too close. Perhaps, then, Ned and Chuck's situation works as metaphor for that fear of intimacy and openness that comes with being hurt/rejected by those close to us; as happy as someone might potentially make us, fear of a repeat of that hurt and angst keeps us away. For such a deeply goofy show, they really do say some deep things about relationships.
-Liked the return of the “teaser” death before we get into the main plot, in this case the death of poor old Tony DiNapoli, strangled by a crazy friend's plastic girlfriend. Cool call-back to what seemed like a throwaway teaser gag later in the show, as Ned ended up in prison with poor deluded Burly Bruce. Bruce's explanation of his whole delusion was great, I liked how he turned the whole thing into a fairy tale romance where love bloomed over time. Again we get that theme of the distortions and confusion that love can induce, perhaps at its' most extreme example as Bruce's love for his “lovebot” makes him honestly believe it to be real.
Emerson-ism of the Week: Tossup between: “The truth ain’t like puppies, a bunch of them running around, you pick your favorite. One truth… and it has come a knockin” and: “That idea might make a stupid idea feel better about itself”
Narrator-ism of the Week: Tossup between “The Pie Maker considered how not telling Chuck the truth about her father was a lot like being in prison. Then he considered how being locked in a prison was actually much worse than some silly metaphor about Truth” and “The expression “like a rat in a candy store”, though slightly less popular, is equally true.”
Olive-ism of the Week: Tossup between “Wouldn't it just rock and roll if liking someone meant they had to like you back? Of course that would be a different universe so something else would probably suck” and “Don't mess with the Pie Ho's, uh-huh!” (although I really can't do the “uh-huh” thing justice in print, it's all in the delivery) delivered along with Chuck after sabotaging Dilly's Candy Shop. This is some of the best writing on TV today all around. Olive is especially adorable, and the “Pie Ho's”, as I'm going to have to call Olive and Chuck from now on, make a great tandem, having great chemistry together but also having that tension there owing to the whole “in love with the same guy” factor.
Speaking of which, this episode saw the long-awaited return of Alfredo the Anti-Depressant salesman who's in love with Olive. That plot played itself out nicely, with Olive oblivious of his feelings-and perhaps of her returning of those feelings-until it was just a bit too late, as Alfredo the Traveling Salesman was traveling out of her life. Poor Olive, but that status quo needs to be retained with no one actually getting into a physical relationship on this show. With the strike and season finale coming, Alfredo probably won't be back, but they did at least leave the possibility of his return open. I hope so, his impassioned love speech to oblivious Olive in this episode was great, and really clever how he meant for it to tell Olive what he thought she wanted to hear (that he loved her and would do anything to be with her, even if they couldn't touch), but actually told her exactly what she didn't want to hear, that
Speaking of great guest characters, there was a lot going on in this episode as in addition to Alfredo and Burly Bruce we met Billy and Dilly Balsam. Billy was a decent character, especially in his disguise as the strangely enthusiastic stranger who so spooked Emerson when he came into the Pie Hole to advertise the new store. He ended up dead in short order, of course, courtesy of a cool visual as he ended up drowned in pink proto-candy goo. Despite the corpse and the rats contaminating it, that goo actually looked kind of delicious. MMM, free goo...erm, anyways, where was I? Oh, right, the Balsams. Dilly's a really great character, a comically hyper-competitive character almost in the Daffy Duck mold (Daffy and Dilly? Coincidence? Probably, but this whole series does have a bit of a Looney Tunes edge to it. Despite airing on the Disney-owned ABC). I loved Molly Shannon's work on Saturday Night Live, but she exceeds it here as a great pseudo-villainess. She's great right down to her name, which stands out as a great name in a series full of wonderfully silly names. It's a damned shame that the character's reportedly another casualty of the writer's strike, as her one episode was originally meant to be a multi-episode arc that will likely be axed. It would have been so great to have her returning week after week with more wacky schemes to eliminate the competition from The Pie Hole and getting angrier and crazier whenever those plans went awry. Lot of potential there. The Birds was a really original choice for the Pop Culture Homage of the Week, as the flashback to her battle with birds (after she sought to avenge her parents, who died of bird flu...yeah) was a damn near perfect recreation of Tippi Hedren's (that name brought to you by the good people at IMDB) attack from birds in Hitchcock's film. Good stuff.
The other big development here that leads into the Winter Finale was Ned, on the anniversary of Chuck's father's death, blurting out that rather big secret; that when he resurrected his mother when he was a child, he also kinda caused her father's death, thus leading to Chuck's insulated existence living with her Aunts. While Chuck's discovery wasn't exactly a surprise, given that it's being advertised as being central to the plot of the upcoming Season Finale, I was really pleasantly surprised by the way she found out about it. Rather than some wacky plot contrivance, or even something as simple as Emerson coming out and telling her, Ned himself just blurts it after weeks of trying to hide it from Chuck, for no real reason other than that keeping the secret was too hard. Brilliantly original, and much more realistic than the usual forced way secrets are revealed on TV. Some secrets are simply too hard to keep. It was also really brisk storytelling, as it allows us to get right into the meat of the next episode's plot without wasting time on a drawn-out “Chuck stumbles upon the secret” scenario. Next week should be a fun finale.
Everything in TV these days seems to come around to that damned strike. It looks like it will interrupt Pushing Daisies stellar, unique first season, and that's a shame, but at least for now we have great episodes like “Bitter Sweets”, and at least one more great episode coming up next week.
The 411: Yet another great episode. By now everyone should be stoked for the Season Finale next week.
