Pushing Daisies Fodder

Pushing Daisies: Pigeon

This week's episode was absolutely jam-packed, featuring three dead guys, two dead birds, a one-armed man, a one-winged pigeon, They Might Be Giants references, two Broadway singers singing They Might Be Giants songs, and a risky choice to fly planes into buildings.

First off, that "Previously On Pushing Daisies" intro is getting progressively longer. I don't know if they have to explain the whole concept of the show anymore, but clearly they think they do. But then they have to add any new details we learned in the previous week. I suppose we should be glad they didn't feel the need to explain where the homeopathic Happy Juice came from. That's probably coming the next time Alfredo comes back.

Once again, we open this week's episode with Little Ned at school. He hasn't been making friends and is terribly lonely. Back home, Digby the Not-Flat Dog senses Little Ned's loneliness and sets out into the world to find Little Ned. In his travels, he sees a burning building and pulls a fire alarm, saving the day. He's a Wonder Not-Flat Dog!

He finally finds Ned, and the two reunite, looking like a really bizarre version of Romeo and Juliet. Little Ned realizes he can't touch Digby (which apparently Digby also realizes. Well, he is a Wonder Not-Flat Dog!) and scratches him with a stick, which seems to suit Digby all right. It sounds like Digby stays by Little Ned's side ever after that, which I wouldn't think would go over so well at boarding school. So maybe he hides the dog. For nine years. Well, now they have something else to explain to us.

Up in the present, we find that Chuck is still making Happiness Pie for her aunts. She says she's having more vivid dreams than she did when she was alive the first time.

Ned has gotten Chuck a whole lot of beehives, which are up on the roof of the Pie Hole building. This, of course, is totally illegal, but Chuck is willing to look over this. She really, really wants to hug Ned, but of course, she doesn't.

Olive, of course, is more resolved to love Ned and have him love her back now that she knows Chuck's secret-that she somehow "faked" her death.

We also find out that Ned didn't know Chuck was baking pies, and he certainly doesn't know they're for her aunts, and he certainly doesn't know they're Happiness Pies.

Just then, a pigeon flies into one of the windows of the Pie Hole. This must be a good trick, as the pigeon only has one wing. Sadly for the pigeon, the window was closed. There used to be bird that did this constantly into my parents' bedroom window. We called him Crazy Harry. However, apparently the crazy pigeon was not put together nearly as well as Harry was, because she only took the one blow to the pigeon noggin and is now dead. Olive goes out to see to the bird and wants Ned to check its heartbeat. She demonstrates by pressing his hand to her heart. Ned would rather not touch the bird and doesn't really look too thrilled to be touching Olive just then.

Emerson wants Olive to put the bird down; it's diseased, and she's in food service. Olive says it doesn't look diseased. Well, no, they never look diseased. But A) has she never heard of bird flu? and B) has she never seen what pigeons eat? How could it not be diseased?

Emerson (via Olive) accidentally bumps the crazy pigeon into Ned's arm, bringing it back. Oops! Olive declares it a miracle bird. I think it's just a very impressive tomato-er, Ned. Sorry. The impressive tomato is a different show.

Olive won't let Ned touch the bird again, so Emerson wants to know what the exchange rate is on a pigeon in case he needs to make a mad dash to his car. Ned says he's more worried about a nearby squirrel. It is true; squirrels do not fare well on this show.

Instead, however, a crow falls out of the sky. This causes them to look up just in time to see a small plane fly into an apartment building that must have been designed by the same guy who built the Pie Hole building (Well, yes, I imagine it was. But I meant within the world of the show).

I can't imagine I'm the only one who feels at least a little funny watching planes crashing into buildings. And not ha ha funny. It has not been 22.3 years since we've seen that sort of thing (although technically, I guess the 22.3-year thing only applies to it being okay to laugh at things), and while the building in question is only about 9 floors, and the plane in question is only a crop-duster, it's still kind of uncomfortable. Then again, I could just be a looney. Just the same, I'll bet if Rudy Giuliani was watching the show, he made the connection. Unless his wife had called him on his cell at the time.

The plane wings make perfectly wing-shaped holes in the wall of Conrad Fitch's apartment. When the plane crashed, it ejected the pilot, killing him instantly. Our Three Heroes go up to the apartment. Emerson figures where there's a mysteriously dead guy, there's money, and he needs new yarn. How good does he need this yarn to be? You can buy pretty standard yarn for a buck, after all.

We find out that Chuck apparently was a stay-at-home juror for a paraplegic judge. For the life of me, I can't even imagine how that works out. Or is legal. Or both.

Chuck trips and falls, and Ned gets the heck out of her way. Instead, the apartment dweller catches her one-handed, with his shirt open, looking not completely unlike a romance novel cover.

Ned wants to follow Dead Guy, and he wants Chuck to come with him. Chuck, feeling sympathy for the tall cup of blond pretty with the airplane in his living room, wants to stay behind. Emerson is more than happy to let her do just that.

The pilot, Bradan Caden, was a crop duster. His insurance adjustor denied his $500,000 life insurance claim, believing the crash to be suicide. The audience gets to watch the plane crash again. So if you were already uncomfortable by it...Actually, it was slightly less uncomfortable the second time. Huh.

Ned is feeling insignificant romantically next to Blond Guy.

The pilot's wife has gone to the morgue; she doesn't think he was depressed. She is having a staring contest with the coroner, who has a skull mug on his desk. He also gets actual dialogue in this episode. Some week we're going to have a whole episode around coroner guy. Anyway, he believes that Emerson and Ned are shifty. How can Ned be shifty? He's got those puppy dog eyes! The coroner now seems to want a cut of whatever Emerson's going to get out of this. That's the other thing; pretty soon this is not going to be such a financial windfall for Emerson he likes if he keeps giving everyone a cut. He'll just be able to afford the yarn. And that's it.

Ned escapes the uncomfortable stare of Mrs. Caden to go revive Mr. Caden. He doesn't even need to be told he's dead; he just knows. He doesn't even seem that upset by it. Then again, I suppose if he weren't dead, he'd have to go home to Mrs. Caden at night, so maybe he doesn't mind so much. Admittedly, she just lost her husband, but she just doesn't look like a real warm human being the best day she ever had. In any event, the pilot reveals that his plane was hijacked by a guy in a prison jumpsuit. Said ex-con is not dead. Lucky him.

Grumpy Coroner, Mrs. Caden, and Emerson come into the room, and Ned announces there was a hijacking. He doesn't explain real well how he knows this.

Olive delivers Chuck's Happiness Pie to the creepy aunts with Digby the Wonder Not-Flat Dog and the crazy pigeon in a cage. She wants to expose Chuck's secret to the aunts. And give them their pie. And get the pigeon fixed.

Aunt Lily reveals that the crazy pigeon was actually a crazy carrier pigeon and takes her message off her little leg. Olive makes a joke, and Aunt Vivian actually laughs. It turns out the Happiness Pie has made Aunt Vivian happy. For the moment, it's made Aunt Lily even more surly than usual, though our Fearless Narrator hints that it might stabilize both their moods in a positive way. Eventually.

Aunt Lily says that the crazy pigeon will just get hurt again, and Aunt Vivian worries that coyotes will have their way with her. Er, the pigeon, not Aunt Vivian. Though either way, that seems fairly disturbing.

Olive waxes poetic about how the pigeon must fulfill her destiny. I don't know if she's quoting something; it certainly sounds like she might be. She names the crazy pigeon "Pidge." I prefer Crazy Harriet, but no one asked me (They never do). Olive says that after they get Pidge to fulfill that destiny of hers, they should celebrate by taking a trip to the Pie Hole. Aunt Lily doesn't know why they should leave since Olive brings pie to them.

Emerson and Ned, hired by Mrs. Caden to find the hijacker, have returned to the scene of the crash. There is still an airplane sticking out the side of the apartment. Then again, I suppose that it is kind of a difficult operation to extricate an airplane from the 9th story of a building. Ned is worried that Chuck is having woo pitched to her by the blond pretty guy. Emerson points out it's better that happens than they get stuffed in some hijacker's trunk. He then announces that he wears cologne. Which goes nicely with that loud shirt he wears under his jacket. Which looks a little like it was made out of a sofa. That is one fashionable man!

They discover Dead Guy #2 folded into the coffee table, which was a trunk in a former life. Ned wakes him up. It turns out he's Conrad, and this was his apartment. So whoever the blond guy is that Chuck is hanging out with, his name ain't Conrad. Or at least not Conrad Fitch. Because that would be one heck of a coincidence.

Chuck and Blond Guy must have taken the longest walk ever to get back to the Pie Hole, because they have just now arrived. I notice something I had no reason to notice the first time I watched the episode, which is that Blond Guy uses his right arm to push open the door. I'm ready to fire off an angry letter to my congressman, but I like the show too much to make waves over something that minor. I may, however, fire off an angry letter to the IMDb. Nah, just a letter. If I decide I care that much. And I probably don't.

Blond Guy says everything he was he left behind in that apartment. Chuck tells Blond Guy how she recently had that sort of opportunity, and she got rid of everything she didn't like about herself and kept everything she did like. Blond Guy holds Chuck's hand. She asks him to do that, not say anything, and she'll close her eyes and imagine that he's Ned. She doesn't tell him the part about Ned, but he seems to figure out that something's up. He indulges her, but then clears his throat, breaking her reverie. Ned is outside with his nose pressed to the window by their table.

Blond Guy runs away like a little bunny, and Chuck tells Ned and Emerson that he went to the Little Blond Guy's room. Ned seems concerned that Blond Guy has done that in his kitchen and goes running after him. He catches Blond Guy by the right arm, they struggle, and, not unlike a spider, he runs off, leaving Ned holding the arm (After he clocks himself with it). The arm looks an awful lot like the arm Ned uses to pet Digby.

Emerson goes running after Blond Guy, who the guys have discovered is our hijacker, but doesn't catch him. However, in the time it's taken to get Chuck up to speed, Emerson has checked in with his People at the Prison.

It turns out Blond Hijacker's real name is Lemuel. Has anyone named their child "Lemuel" since Gulliver's parents? The company he worked for when he still called himself by that unfortunate name was involved in insider trading. Unfortunately, he finds this out while using the most evil-looking document shredder ever. And his bosses find out he's found this out when he gets his right hand caught in the massive shredder teeth. So he loses his hand, and the bosses get him put in jail because they're sneaky and evil like that.

In jail, his bunkmate, a diamond thief named Jackson, starts calling Lemuel "Lefty." Which beats the heck out of "Lemuel." Jackson's last diamond haul was buried but never retrieved, probably because he went to jail instead of the Caribbean. And then he went and died and got stuck in the prison graveyard. Which is where Our Three Heroes have gone to find him and ask him about the diamonds.

Emerson is thrilled. He's going to get paid by Mrs. Braden when they prove that her husband didn't commit suicide and she can collect on his life insurance. Then they'll get a reward for sending Lefty back to jail. And then, of course, they'll get those diamonds. That must be some impressive yarn Emerson wants.

In the prison graveyard, Chuck wants to talk about her relationship with Ned right then, which isn't really very good timing. Emerson agrees with me that this isn't really the time or place.

Our Heroes dig Jackson up. He's without eyeballs, but otherwise not in terribly bad shape, so Chuck gives him her sunglasses so they can talk without grossing everyone out. Oh, I hope she lets him keep those. He may be reanimated, but he is a corpse, and those aren't really clean.

Convinced by Ned that he'll get good karma, which is a good thing in the afterlife (and he knows this how?) Jackson tells them the diamonds are hidden under a windmill. He also says he told Lefty that, too; he owed him for keepin' the fire alive. And no one seems nearly as disturbed by that as I am. I mean, Lefty's not a bad lookin' guy, but with Jackson? That's just wrong.

Back at the creepy aunts' house, Aunt Lily is putting Pidge back together with thread, ribbon, and a Bejeweler (Hey, can she get a job pitching these like that one girl from The Apprentice did?). She's also wearing a functional eye patch. This one actually has a light mounted on a big pink flower (That woman has a different patch for every occasion and outfit).

Olive says that Pidge's cage is only temporary. Aunt Vivian says the creepy aunts don't like empty birdhouses. When a bird dies, she stuffs it and props it back on its perch. Pidge's new wing is appropriated from one of the taxidermied birds. Pidge is fixed and fabulous.

Meanwhile, Our Three Heroes arrive at a historical society looking for Jackson's windmill only to find the woman they need to talk to is dead. Well, so we think. Only Ned can't wake her up, and Emerson can. She's a narcoleptic who sleeps with her eyes open. That's pretty darn creepy, too. She says that someone had just asked her about the very windmill they're interested in. Chuck wants to know if he had one arm. One arm that does what? Is named Smith? What's the name of the other arm? Ha, I slay myself. Anyway, she doesn't ask if he had just one arm, and I'm a grammar jerk. Despite my predilection for sentence fragments.

Right, back to the story. It was Lefty who asked. It turns out that the windmill in question was shipped off to 'Nam. No, wait, NARM. The narcoleptic has a British accent, see. NARM is the National Area of Retired Mills. Which is not unlike, I imagine, that Moscow graveyard of crazy Soviet statues, only with fewer mustaches. Anyway, Our Three Heroes are now headed for NARM. Not 'Nam.

Back at the creepy aunts' place, Pidge is admiring her Fabulous self, and Olive has found a whole new reason to hate Chuck. Not only does Ned prefer her to Olive, but she's making those poor creepy ladies all sad.

Olive wants Aunt Vivian to read Pidge's message, but Aunt Lily would be displeased. Aunt Vivian hints that there's a really good story that someday maybe we'll hear involving Aunt Vivian sticking her pointy nose somewhere it didn't belong. Olive wants Aunt Vivian to fill Pidge's now-empty house with all of her sadness about Chuck and then hang it in her soul. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's an awful solid birdhouse to hang in one's soul, which is generally less solid. Maybe she should just buy a nitelite.

Pidge flies out the window. Luckily for her (and sadly for Aunt Lily), this window is open. That wing is awfully functional for something that until recently was awfully darn stiff. Olive runs after Pidge, upset that she's left without her message. Pidge, however, ignores Olive and leaves anyway. The creepy aunts actually consider leaving their home to deal with this.

Several miles away, in the windmill where Jackson hid the diamonds, a pretty girl named Elsita is hacking up zucchini and waiting for the man who will make her heart all happy. Instead, Lefty shows up with a clearly well thought-out story. Except for the part where he didn't think to bring his props. No, that's not true. He's brought a hatchet. But he's hiding that to menace Elsita. It doesn't match the well thought-out story he tells her, in any event.

Olive and the creepy aunts follow along behind Pidge singing "Birdhouse In Your Soul." They're slightly under tempo, but it's so cute and fun that I forgive them. It's not as stirring as when Olive sang "Hopelessly Devoted," but again, fun. Plus, it's They Might Be Giants, a group that has been sadly lacking from television ever since Malcolm in the Middle ended! So maybe someone actually will sing Bruce McColloch's "Happiness Pie" someday. Heck, Bruce already works on another show on the same network (Carpoolers), so it shouldn't be hard to find him to ask for permission.

In another car, Ned and Chuck are trying to figure out what their relationship problems are. It turns out that there are quite a few of them. Chuck's learning all sorts of new things about Ned. Like the fact that he's romantic and jealous. Emerson is in the back seat offering to kill himself or at least take a separate car next time.

Lefty is tying up Elsita as she gives him critiques and tips on his hostage-taking techniques. She also points out that he's a one-armed bandit and then tells him she's no good at waiting, which is unfortunate, since apparently if you work at a windmill, you have to wait for the wind to actually get any work done. Lefty says he's in a rush, though he doesn't know where he's in a rush to. They stare deeply into each other's eyes. Can you come down with Stockholm Syndrome in three minutes? Apparently Elsita can.

Pidge flies into yet another window. But this time it's Elsita's, which is where she was headed in the first place. She doesn't even seem that stunned. Elsita says Pidge is her bird, and easily gets out of the chair Lefty has tied her to in order to retrieve her.

Lefty says it's his bird and wants to prove it by showing her the message he wrote. Only, of course, Olive still has the message. But that's okay, because just then Olive walks into the room wanting her bird back.

Lefty and Elsita reach for the message at the same time. Lefty asks if she's Elsa. She says no, Elsa was her mother. She asks if he's Jackson. No, he's in much better shape than Jackson in a variety of ways, most notably the fact that he's not dead. He assures Aunt Vivian that he wasn't Jackson's Bunk Mate. He was just his bunk mate. Boy, that's not what Jackson's been telling people.

It turns out that when Jackson buried his diamonds in the windmill, he was caught by the beautiful Elsa, who seems to have been carrying a baby Pidge (I was going to stomp all over this detail/theory, but it turns out that pigeons have been known to live for 35 years, so it could conceivably be her. And Pidge will, near as I can tell from Digby's longevity, live forever now. Whew!). Just then, Jackson got arrested, and Elsa promised to write to him. She kept her word, sending messages for years via Pidge. Jackson one day realized he wouldn't be able to keep going and enlisted Lefty to write to Elsa for him. Oh, that's what he meant by "keepin' the fire alive." What a relief!

Lefty wrote to her all while planning to escape the Joint, and gradually fell in love (The music under this revelation sounds an awful lot to the love theme from The Princess Bride. I don't think it is, but I'll bet it's not an accident).

Elsita then reveals that she promised her mother to keep writing to Jackson when Elsa died, and gradually she fell in love with him! Kismet (A Broadway play none of these people has been in)! Aunt Lily is nonplussed by all this. Aunt Vivian, however, is wistful that Pidge brought them together.

Lefty reveals that he brought Pidge with him when he hijacked the plane. She got away and flew through the propeller, losing her wing (She's just like Dr. Romano! Only they won't kill her by dropping a helicopter on her. Thank goodness. Worst. Death. Ever.) and causing the plane to crash. I have the feeling it's impossible to go through a propeller and only lose one limb, even if you're a little pigeon, but otherwise, Gina, there wouldn't be a TV show. Besides, I was already wrong about the pigeon lifespan thing, so I could be mistaken about this, too.

Lefty asks Elsita about the diamonds, which she's been keeping in a secret compartment in her wooden right leg. Apparently no one here has prosthetic limbs that were made after, say, 1850 or so.

Just then Our Three Heroes arrive at the windmill. Olive goes to let them in and is thrilled to see that Chuck is there and she can finally let the not-dead cat out of the bag and claim Ned for herself. However, she realizes that the creepy aunts will be traumatized by seeing Chuck alive. She decides she loves the aforementioned aunts (so now we know how they'll keep being involved in stories even if they can't associate with Chuck), so convinces Chuck to wait a few minutes while she gets the aunts out of dodge. She does it all covertly, though, so Chuck knows what she means, but Ned and Emerson are clueless about it.

Olive rushes the creepy aunts out through the back door. Chuck suggests to Ned that he should write down all the things he's learned about her right that minute so if "stuff" happens, he can remember the list. Well, that sounds ominous.

As they're driving away, Aunt Lily, who is apparently depressed by young people and therefore needs a drink, catches Chuck in her rearview mirror, but only for a second.

In the two minutes Olive and the creepy aunts have taken to skedaddle, Elsita has found herself on Lefty's lap. The cops come back to take Lefty away (and give Emerson his reward money), and Elsita promises to write.

Chuck tells the pilot's widow that he was killed by a pigeon and gives her a consolation pie. Well, they are very good pies.

Lefty and Elsita go back to writing one another with Pidge's help.

And Ned finds he can dance with Chuck if they both wear beekeeping outfits. They play music on the world's oldest working decent-sounding phonograph. Apparently the prosthetic limbs aren't the only things that haven't been brought up-to-date. During their dance on the roof, Ned dips her, "catching" her much the same way Lefty did earlier in the episode. It's very sweet.

I'm still enjoying the heck out of this show, and except for a brief moment where I noticed the use of a green screen more than I would have liked, I really can't see a loss in quality now that they're working on a lower budget. Heck, this episode even had an animatronic pigeon, after all! It probably is a touch on the "cutesy" side, but I happen to like that about it.

My only real quibble is the business with Lefty opening the door to the Pie Hole with the wrong hand. He even has the other hand hanging limp at his side, so for a moment I thought they had just reversed the film, but no, the "Exit" sign above the door reads the right way, so apparently several someones just weren't paying attention. Or they're throwing in stuff like this to keep nit pickers like me occupied. But probably the not paying attention thing.

The only thing really lacking from this particular episode was a Fugitive/one-armed man reference. Then again, I managed to get through most of this blog without making one until just now, so who am I to quibble?

Now I'm off to go put Flood in my CD player and put a little birdhouse in my soul.

---

Posted by on October 27, 2007 7:06 PM
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