Pushing Daisies Fodder

Pushing Daisies: The Smell of Success

The "Previously on Pushing Daisies" opener is getting really long and complicated again. I'm just saying. It had gotten pretty brief, but apparently this week we had to cover almost anything and everything that's ever happened on the show. Well, okay. Not anything and everything. But a lot of material got covered here.

Once again we open with Little Ned at boarding school. Digby has been promoted to sleeping on Little Ned's bed, which you'd think might cause his classmates to, I don't know, notice. And either get him busted or make Little Ned suddenly popular.

Little Ned wants to reconnect with his dead mom, which he does by baking a pie. Unable to telepathically get fresh fruit off the high shelf in the school's kitchen (oh, sure, he can bring the dead to life, but a little telekinesis is beyond him?), he makes his pie with rotten fruit he pulls out of the trash can, making it not rotten in the process. Mmmm, trash can pie.

Since he can't eat the pie without the fruit rotting in his mouth, he sleeps with the pie instead, the smell making him feel safe and warm and loved. Of course, now he has a dog and pie in his bed. Which again, you'd think his roommates might notice and want a piece of that. Or that the dog might eat the pie.

Up in the present, Ned is planting flowers to make Chuck feels as safe and warm and loved as that pie had make him feel. There's a little product placement for Sue Bee honey. Chuck is scoping out other rooftops onto which to expand her honey production operation. Ned suggests that expanding isn't maybe such a great idea. Plus, the bees will feel safer if they stay close to home. But of course, Chuck points out that bees need to go to hundreds of blossoms to get enough nectar to take to the hive.

Olive, meanwhile, keeps finding things Awkward at work. She crashes into Ned and hopes that he is actually happy to see her, but alas, it really is just a rolling pin.

Chuck is still sending her Happiness Pies to her creepy aunts. However, Olive reports that the aunts are having several moods, not all of which are good. Chuck decides to proceed to phase II: Getting the aunts back in the water.

Ned has found cupcake tins. Chuck reveals her brilliant plan: Cup-pies. Single-serve pies with (her) honey baked into the crust. Ned only likes traditional pies, not these hybrid Things. Chuck thinks he should loosen up. Ned likes being tightly wound.

Over at the office of the Love King, Emerson Cod gets a phone call from the mother of Anita Gray. Anita was the protege of Napoleon LeNez ("the nose," get it?), an olfactory science genius. Napoleon is yet another of the Big Broadway Actors who populates this show: Christopher Sieber was Dennis Galahad in the original Broadway cast of Spamalot. Sadly, he doesn't have the flowing curly tresses he had on stage, but he's still good.

Right, back to Dr. LeNez: He was teaching Anita how olfactory cues could trigger memories, which could then impact the way people think and feel. He also wrote a self-help book for people to improve their life through the power of smell called, oddly enough, The Smell Of Success. However, Anita missed the book's publication when she was exploded in LeNez' lab one day.

Our Three Heroes have gone to the morgue to see Anita and find out what happened. Sadly, we do not get to see Deadpan Coroner this week. More's the pity. I like that guy.

When Ned pulls the sheet back from Anita's head, she looks like a big log o' charcoal. She's apparently still smoking, and apparently she doesn't smell so good, either.

It turns out that she was looking at LeNez' one and only advance copy of The Smell Of Success. She scratched the scratch 'n' sniff panel on the cigarette smoke page and went kablooie. Emerson says that the book was booby-trapped.

Our Three Heroes go to visit Napoleon LeNez, who sends them through an airlock--a noselock? A scentlock?--before they can enter his penthouse. His widdle nose is just too darn sensitive to smell anyone just off the street. Chuck, in true Chuck fashion, seems to be the only one enjoying the experience. Meanwhile, your humble blogger thinks that Christopher Sieber could play a reasonably close relative of Brendan Fraser, should a script call for it.

The Three Heroes emerge from the chamber, Ned with some serious bedhead. LeNez wants to smell each of them, claiming that scent will tell him so much more than them telling him. He correctly pegs Emerson as a knitting detective. He also gets Ned's flour and fruit correct, but briefly thinks that his waft of pheromones is due to Emerson. Emerson is not pleased. He claims that Chuck smells of honey and death, but the death can be explained by her perfume. So...he can smell the death on her, but not the fact that she's not wearing perfume?

LeNez also seems unaware that his book exploded. They are, however, going to go ahead with publishing the book. He waxes philosophic on scents in general before instructing Emerson to follow his nose. He tells him to "Smell it. Crave it. Own it," which seems like a good men's cologne slogan. In fact, if that's not the slogan for Stephen Colbert's Scorn, someone should get on that.

At the creepy aunts' house, Aunt Lilly has produced a patriotic-looking set of swim fins made to resemble a mermaid tail (both feet go into one big fin) to give to Olive. Despite this largesse, Aunt Lilly seems fairly nonplussed by Olive in general. Olive is wearing much of the costume pieces and wonders if seeing all these goodies doesn't make the creepy aunts get back in the water. They say there's no reason.

Olive finds a sweater, which Aunt Vivian says belonged to Chuck's mother. Olive asks what happened to her, sending Aunt Lilly to her Dark Place. She throws the sweater to Olive and gives her the rest of the darling mermaid darlings swag before storming off in search of a piece of pie.

Emerson has found out that LeNez' book was, indeed, bumped up in the schedule to be released earlier. His theory is that the person whose book was bumped off the schedule for LeNez has pretty good motive for wanting to blow up LeNez and his little book, too.

Chuck tries to push for her cup-pies again. This somehow leads to an awkward conversation about Ned's past lovelife, where we find that apparently making love on a bearskin rug is, well, problematic for poor Ned.

Olive tells Chuck that phase II has run into the sort of problem where Aunt Lilly gives all her mermaid stuff away. Sure, like Olive was arguing when she handed over the swim fins. Chuck tells Olive to push the creepy aunts harder. Meanwhile, Ned worries that Olive and Chuck bonding could mean Bad Things for him.

Emerson declares that he loves pop-up books, and the book that was canceled for The Smell of Success was called Pop-Up Pin-Up. Emerson doesn't seem at all sad to have to question a pop-up book author. Apparently the publisher does a lot of self-help books. Other books being released are Are You Who You Want To Be and Blame It On Yourself. Also I'm A Bad Boy, but if that's self-help, I don't want to know what's being helped there.

Emerson and Ned go to a shop called Pop-Up Palace, where they enjoy a copy of The Pop-Up Book of Sports Related Deaths. Hey, that's not at all creepy. Emerson is enjoying the book entirely too much. They meet Chas Spielman, the author of Pop-Up Pin-Up. Ned seems Impressed by the book, which Spielman says he's still working at getting published. Spielman also, interestingly, has a toaster on his display table. He also has a copy of The New Patriot's Pop-Up, which teaches how to make bombs--in three dimensions! Emerson says that between Spielman's book getting bumped and the bomb book, he clearly had motive and means. Spielman basically says he'd be really dumb to use the means from a book he'd published. Regardless, Emerson takes The New Patriot's Pop-Up, a book on making your own pop-up book, and Pop-Up Pin-Up as "evidence."

Spielman also says that LeNez' book had been moved from a really good debut spot to "no man's land."

Olive thinks the pie Chuck is making smells like family hour at the public pool. It...smells like chlorine and pee? Well, chlorine for sure. Chuck has gotten chlorine tablets. Aunt Lilly used to say chlorine smelled like bottled sunshine. Her theory, taken from LeNez' book, is that combining the happy smell of chlorine with the Happiness Pie will help make her creepy aunts, well, happy.

Meanwhile, the sink bubbles up. First Olive and then Ned clear it of a truly odious odiferous sock with rather playful lettering reading "U can't save LeNez."

The horrible sock is brought to LeNez, who says the sock came from the sewer. I guess someone flushed a footie years ago, and it grew up to be this travesty. He says the sewer sock could only have come from Oscar Vibenius.

Oscar is played Paul Reubens, better known to many folks as Pee-Wee Herman. According to the IMDb (which is not always correct), Reubens was originally asked to play Alfredo Aldarisio in "The Fun in Funeral." Regardless, he's in this episode, which is what counts.

Anyway, LeNez and Pee-Wee Vibenius had been lab partners and friends, but their widely divergent opinions on olfactory science broke them up. Pee-Wee embraced all scents, believing one couldn't appreciate the good smells without the bad, while LeNez thought humans should only surround themselves with good scents because of the powerful effects smells could have on them. They went their separate ways, LeNez into his pristine lab with the decontamination chamber, and Pee-Wee into the sewer to look like some tragic X-Men/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle wanna-bee.

LeNez believes that Pee-Wee would do anything to keep his book from being published. After getting a swipe in at the Reagan administration, LeNez says that Pee-Wee works for the Department of Water and Power.

Back at the creepy aunts' house, Olive is wafting chlorinated water under the aunts' noses. Lilly looks all ready to smile, but it turns out to just to be gas. She goes back to her customary sadness.

Our Three Heroes have found their way into the sewer. They find that Pee-Wee Vibenius have been working on a yellow thick hose and decide to follow it. Emerson wishes methane poisoning on the other two Heroes. Chuck, meanwhile, worries about CHUD. Really? Anyone worries about CHUD?

Emerson notices a green thick hose running up from the sewer. It lets out into a red car, though Emerson can't see that.

They find Pee-Wee working on the place where the green thick hose and the yellow thick hose meet together. He yells at the Heroes to run before diving for cover himself. Emerson seems to be going up the ladder that empties out under the red car.

On the surface, LeNez approaches the red car, turning off the alarm. The car explodes. Hey, that's bad.

The police are hunting for Pee-Wee Vibenius for LeNez' attempted murder. Pre-sales for The Smell of Success have shot up since the explosion that killed Anita Gray. Chuck points out that Pee-Wee can't seem to ever blow up what he wants to blow up.

Emerson says that LeNez is about to make a statement to the press, and since they were there, Our Male Heroes have to make a statement of their own. And no, Chuck can't make one with them, since it might confuse people who think she's dead to see her on TV. And for once, she actually doesn't go.

Instead, Chuck goes over to Olive's apartment. Olive hops to the door in the patriotic darling mermaid darling costume, which really shows off her rack. You don't expect a little thing like Olive/Kristin Chenoweth to have such an impressive rack, but she does. Especially in that costume. And bouncing around in a single swim fin. Olive says that the creepy aunts are getting closer to swimming. Well, Aunt Vivian is. Aunt Lilly, not so much. Chuck says Aunt Lilly can be reached; she's done it before.

Olive gives Chuck her mother's sweater. Chuck starts to cry, and Olive tells her she can't; they aren't at that stage in their relationship. Olive offers Chuck a piece of pie.

LeNez' public statement is preceded by an A Current Affair-esque sound effect. Well, A Current Affair isn't using it any more. He tells the television interviewer that so far there have only been two attempts on his life. He also says that Pee-Wee Vibenius is the attempting killer.

Ned is apparently bored by all this, so he goes poking around the penthouse. Emerson uses his part of the statement to advertise his services.

Pee-Wee Vibenius shows up at the Pie Hole. Olive menaces him with a big knife, and Pee-Wee reveals that he heard Chuck say he couldn't blow up what he wanted to. He also has his own theories about who's trying to kill LeNez.

It turns out that Pee-Wee followed LeNez into the sewer but lost him. Instead he found the yellow thick hose, which he realized was part of a plot to blow up LeNez' car. He had been trying to disable the bomb when Our Three Heroes distracted him, and he decided to run rather than explain himself--or get himself blown up.

Pee-Wee asks Chuck if LeNez described her scent. Unlike LeNez, he noticed that she isn't wearing perfume. He says she doesn't smell of death, though; it's something else. He says Olive smells like dog. Which seems particularly unfair considering that we haven't seen Digby since the scene at boarding school at the start of the show.

Pee-Wee takes Chuck and Olive to see LeNez' burned-out car. Olive says it smells like rotten eggs, which Chuck realizes (with prompting) is wrong: The rotten-egg smell associated with gas leaks is added by the utility companies so a leak can be recognized. In the sewer (or when piped up from the sewer), methane has no smell at all. They figure out that LeNez has the most to gain from the sensationalism of murder attempts. After all, Olive has already pre-ordered her copy.

Meanwhile, the creepy aunts are going through more old boxes. Aunt Vivian has found a picture of Chuck wearing a "Jews for Cheeses" shirt. Aunt Lilly is still sniping at Aunt Vivian. Vivian points out how happy swimming used to make Lilly, and she thinks it would be brave of Lilly to actually be happy. Lilly sniffs at the box of chlorine tablets and it gives her a rush of endorphins.

Back at LeNez' penthouse after the TV interview, Ned shows Emerson Something Interesting he found while poking around. Our Male Heroes confront LeNez; he's the one setting off booby traps. The Something Interesting Ned found was a first draft of the sewer sock.

Outraged, LeNez tells them to go, then traps them in the decontamination/scentlock chamber, where they'll be "victims" of the next murder attempt. He pumps the chamber full of explosive gases, ready to explode them.

LeNez explains that he never meant to hurt Anita, and he actually seems to be sincere. He booby-trapped his book, which he was supposed to find without it blowing him up, only Anita found it first. And it did blow her up. He proceeded with his plan, framing Pee-Wee Vibenius. Pee-Wee, of course, helped the plan by showing up to try to thwart the second attack.

LeNez tries to blow up Our Male Heroes, but his remote doesn't work. Just then, Chuck, Olive, and Pee-Wee show up, prompting this exchange: "Ned?" "Chuck!" "Oscar!" "Napoleon!" "...Hi, Emerson." "Hey, Olive." "Chief!" "MacLeod!" Well, okay, maybe not that entire exchange.

Chuck, Olive, and Pee-Wee come into the decontamination chamber. Pee-Wee has reversed the pumps. All the bad explosive gases have been going into LeNez' penthouse. He winds up looking like he's been pulled out of the vacuum cleaner bag. He's branded, appropriately, a hack and a murderer, while Pee-Wee's reputation is saved. And Olive cancels her pre-order of The Smell Of Success.

Meanwhile, there's a torrential downpour, but Aunt Vivian sees the sun breaking through the clouds. She starts singing "Morning Has Broken." Your humble blogger has always associated that song with funerals, which is appropriate for the show, but not for this particular scene. However, it's hardly the show's fault that your humble blogger has that association; I assume most folks don't. Plus, of course, Ellen Greene still has a fabulous voice, which really shines, especially when they let her stand outside and belt to the heavens. Very nice.

The creepy aunts get back into the water and swim synchronizedly. They do it wearing some interesting headgear, but they're back in the water, and really, the headgear works for them. The arrangement of "Morning Has Broken" sounds a bit like "Somewhere That's Green." No idea if that's intentional, but it's nice regardless.

Anita Gray's mother has sent Emerson a nice note, and he is taking some time away from knitting to enjoy making and reading pop-up books.

Chuck is missing her mother's sweater, but at least Ned has added cup-pies to his menu. He can loosen up a little, and now they both feel safe and warm and loved.

It turns out Pee-Wee Vibenius has Chuck's missing sweater and is smelling it to find out her secret--and it looks like he's found it.

The parts of the episode concerning the aunts were very sweet, and there was plenty of wicked humor. And then the show ended with an interesting cliffhanger. So there was a little of everything in this episode.

Now we know-or we assume-we'll be seeing Oscar Vibenius again. However, up next are the episodes with Molly Shannon as Ned's competition across the street. Her brother (although it looks like he'll be killed in the first episode of the arc, but you can't always trust the previews) will be played by Mike White, who wrote and starred in Chuck & Buck and wrote and appeared in School of Rock. He also produced and wrote a few episodes of Freaks and Geeks and played Kim Kelly's brother in one of the episodes NBC refused to air. So it will be fun to see him, too.

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Posted by on November 24, 2007 10:41 PM
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