As reported here earlier, due to a scheduling conflict with football (or soccer, depending on where you live), the channel had to cut an episode of the nine-episode first season, and decided on "Dummy" because it would be least disruptive to the storyline. However, they stated that they would run the episode "some time."

Apparently "some time" is now, only not on the TV. No, if you live in the UK and want to see the episode you missed, you have to go online to see it. And it's only on this week.

ITV is hilariously calling it a "magic" episode available "exclusively online." As if you were getting something extra. Not just getting the previously promised remainder of the season.

Also, of course, while it is only available online, the ITV site does not have the market cornered on the episode. Should you, my faithful readers, not be able to watch from the ITV site, by all means, go to ABC.com and watch it there. And then I suggest complaining vociferously to ITV. Apparently the angry response to the episode being dropped in the first place may be the only reason you're getting to see it at all.

Man, those had better be some darn good football championships is all I have to see.

A release date has been announced for a DVD and Blu-Ray: They will both come out September 16. The DVDs include an interactive featurette and has, among other languages, Thai subtitles. The discs are little pies. How cute!

In other news, yes the show will return in the fall, also roughly around the 16th. At the Paley festival this spring, it was announced that next season will be Harder and More Aggressive (Read the article at your peril. Spoilers abound). Unfortunately, Fox's House is moving to Wednesday at 8 pm, so there's going to be stiffer competition this time out.

In other news, thepiemaker.com (an excellent site for all things Pushing Daisies) gives you the exclusive chance to get your questions answered by the show's writers!

Lee Pace (Ned) in the movies: Lee was in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. I am tracking down the article for you, my faithful and forgiving readers, but apparently (don't quote me on this until I find the article) he learned to play piano specifically for the role.

He is also currently appearing in The Fall. It opened May 9, but very limited. There was a review for it in the local newspaper here last week, but the movie doesn't seem to be in town. The reviews I've seen have not been terrific, but man, does this thing look gorgeous. It was filmed in 2006, before we knew who Lee was, and so the director convinced his crew that Lee was (like his character) quadriplegic. There's a former crewmember in a wheelchair who still won't speak to said director.

He is/was also in the May issue of Vogue.

In the UK, the network carrying Pushing Daisies, ITV, dropped the second episode to fit into the schedule before some football (soccer) championship. They claimed it would air "at some point." Unfortunately, it looks like ITV is thinking of dropping the show due to dipping ratings. But I have to think that skipping an episode didn't help. Especially when "Dummy" (the missing episode) was so cute!

Also in the UK, Anna Friel (Chuck) was voted TV's sexiest woman (This page is formatted badly, but it lists the top 10 of both sexes). Her male counterpart is Dr. Who's David Tennant, who is adorable.

Gold Derby, a feature at the LA Times, is handicapping Pushing Daisies to be nominated for an Emmy.

More news to follow soon, but these are the things you have to know now. Now now now!

A lot of material is covered in this episode. Last week, of course, Ned foolishly told Chuck that he killed her dad. At the opening of this episode, we learn a little more about that. Little Ned and his newly not-dead mom waited with Chuck at her house for her creepy aunts to come home. Little Ned wouldn't look at Chuck. Vivian, who didn't like being touched, hugged Chuck, while Lilly, who was all touchy-feely, wouldn't touch Chuck at all. Later that night, when Little Ned came over after his mom died again, Lilly hugged him right away. After which she finally hugged Chuck.

In the present, Big Ned is hunting for Chuck in the snow. It seems that after he told her he inadvertently killed her dad, Chuck disappeared. He goes to her creepy aunts' place and talks to them, rather confusingly, about seeing Chuck's ghost. They seem confused. Or at least perturbed.

Olive tells Ned that he doesn't know where Chuck is, but she's lying. Chuck is holed up in Olive's apartment. Digby (in Olive's apartment) has had his bum shaved. Actually, he looks like he's been chewing on his bum. Or the dog is the one using the clippers. Because that is not a good shave job.

Chuck tells Olive that she died and Ned brought her back to life. Olive doesn't believe her. Digby probably does, though. Chuck asks Olive to make a pie for the creepy aunts and gives her the vial of herbal happiness, er, "vanilla" to put into it. Olive does so, but while baking, she tastes the "vanilla." It isn't very strong, so she puts the entire vial in. Hopefully Chuck has more, because who knows when we'll see Alfredo the traveling homeopathic salesman again?

Ned tells Emerson that he told Chuck the truth. Emerson, you'll recall, told Ned not to do it because it would work out, well, roughly the way it's working out. He's also worried that Chuck will tell the press everything. Because that wouldn't get her sent to the looney bin or anything.

Emerson tells Ned about this week's dead guy. He was an insurance adjustor with Uber Life life insurance who was scooped up by the snow plow. The residents of the street where he was scooped offered a reward to find his killer.

At the morgue, Emerson and Deadpan Coroner debate the value of Christmas sweaters before going to talk to Dead Guy.

Dead Guy was bludgeoned by a bat with the word "kindness" carved into it. It left an impression of the word "kind" in his forehead. He also offers a possible motive for the killer; he has to decide whether people deserve organ transplants. Emerson says that they have to find out who was denied organs by Dead Guy, and they'll have their suspects.

Chuck, meanwhile, is sitting on the roof, when Oscar Vibenius, played by Pee Wee Herman, er, I mean Paul Reubens, appears. Pee Wee was in the episode "Smell of Success." He turned out not to be the killer. Whew!

Pee Wee Vibenius says that in the snow, sounds and smells are dampened, except for Chuck and Digby, who both smell every bit as strongly of death as they did before. He gives her back her sweater, which he's cleaned of every lint ball and stray strand of hair. It also turns out he's the one who (badly) shaved Digby's bum. He wants a sample of Chuck's hair so he can study it. He wants to know why Digby and Chuck are so different from everyone and everything else.

Back in the Pie Hole, Ned is still consumed with thoughts of Chuck, to Olive's consternation. Ned, however, thinks Olive knows where Chuck is.

Emerson says he's found three people for whom our Dead Guy denied organ transplants who are still alive (the other 12 who were denied are no longer With Us). One of those three lives on the block where Dead Guy was scooped up. Ned tells Emerson to check out this suspect on his own. He gets Olive to take him to see Chuck.

They have a heart-to-heart, and Chuck says she can't look at Ned right now. She also says that she has to hate him just for a little while, and she can't do that while he's there; he should go.

Feeling the need to talk to someone who isn't Ned and who will understand, she sends a note to Pee Wee in the sewer to meet her on the roof.

Emerson, meanwhile, goes to the house of Abner Newsome, one of his suspects. Abner was denied a heart transplant by Dead Guy. To say that Abner is bitter is putting it mildly. Abner's mother is one raw nerve, and she peels potatoes in the living room. She's also really consumed by charity groups, like the Wish-A-Wish Foundation. Abner points out that he'd have a hard time killing Dead Guy, what with his legs not working real well. Also his heart; his heart doesn't work real well, either.

Emerson discovers that the snowman on Abner's front lawn has a body inside it.

Emerson has Ned meet him at the morgue to wake up the new dead guy. However, Emerson is concerned that Ned is still mooning over Chuck and doesn't have his head in the game.

Dead Guy #2 is Bill Richter, another adjustor from Uber Life. He, too, was hit with a bat. He also suggests they ask his carpool partner if he knows who did it. Bill Richter tries to chuck (as it were) Ned on the chin, killing him again and cutting the questioning short.

They go to Uber Life to talk to the carpool partner. The partner has gone missing. Instead, they talk to Steve Kaiser, who's been filling in for the missing partner. Apparently all three dead/missing adjustors went dead and/or missing the same night. It turns out all three had denied heart transplants for Abner Newsome. Steve Kaiser is pretty bitter about his chosen profession.

Chuck and Pee Wee meet on the roof. Pee Wee thinks Digby and Chuck both very nearly died and came back, suggesting collapsed lungs, heart attacks, and falling into frozen lakes. Chuck gives Pee Wee a lock of hair so he can find out her secret.

Assuming the carpool partner will appear near Abner's house soon, Emerson and Ned go there. Abner is being visited by Madeline, the woman with the Wish-A-Wish Foundation. She's brought him a bonobo to cheer him up. It doesn't work.

Ned and Emerson stake out the house from Ned's car. Ned wants to talk about Chuck. Emerson really, really doesn't. He does, however, reveal a surprisingly deep side. He also reveals that he has a daughter.

Meanwhile, someone shoves a potato in the car's tailpipe. Ned wakes up in the nick of time and rescues Emerson. Sadly, however, while they were passed out in the car, a new snowman, no doubt complete with chewy dead-guy center, has appeared on Abner's front lawn.

Olive brings a Happiness Pie to the creepy aunts. Aunt Vivian is sewing new darling mermaid darling costumes, and Aunt Lilly eats the whole pie, complete with the whole vial of Chuck's homeopathic "vanilla." Lilly also tells Olive that Chuck's ghost has been spotted about, which concerns Olive.

Pee Wee Vibenius shows up at the Pie Hole to return Chuck's hair. He thinks that Chuck wants to tell him her secret herself. She decides that she now ONLY wants to tell Ned and tells Pee Wee he should have found out the secret by studying her hair when he had the chance.

Having finished off the entire pie, Aunt Lilly starts having a super freak-out.

Before Ned can wake up Dead Guy #3, the gurney tips over, and Dead Guy #3 shatters into a million pieces on the sidewalk. Ned declines to wake him up. Noting that Abner's mother was peeling potatoes the previous day, Emerson suggests talking to her, as right now she has motive and a potato connection.

Abner has found out he's been denied for another transplant, this time by Steve Kaiser. His mother says that Madeline from the Wish-A-Wish Foundation got Steve's name so she could send him a card.

Ned and Emerson go to the insurance company offices to stop Madeline before she can kill poor Steve. It turns out that Madeline was the bestest Wish granter ever until she met Abner, who couldn't be cheered up. The only thing he really wanted was for the adjustors who denied his heart transplants to drop dead. So, that's what she did. However, just as she's threatening the good guys with her gun, her bonobo puts the Wish-A-Wish van in gear, running over Madeline and somehow cutting her in half. Abner gets to have her heart.

Ned finds Chuck at her dad's grave. She's finally stopped hating Ned. She wants Ned to wake her dad up for a minute so she can talk to him, but Ned refuses. He doesn't want her to watch him kill her dad again.

Still in the midst of super freak-out, Aunt Lilly reveals to Olive that she's Chuck's mother. Aunt Lilly. Not Olive.

There are obviously lots of things to talk about here, but I'll cover those soon.

I will, however, say that Pushing Daisies has been nominated for several Golden Globes. Lee Pace is nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series-Comedy or Musical, and Anna Friel is nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series-Comedy or Musical. The show itself is nominated for Best Television Series-Comedy or Musical. Chi McBride and Kristen Chenoweth were shut out. Clearly Emerson should have had his surprisingly deep turn earlier in the season. Still. Congratulations on the nominations!

The award ceremony will be held on December 16th.

The "Previously On Pushing Daisies..." opening is really long. Again. Still. Going all the way back to the pilot. Someday they'll trust that we know the concept of the show. Maybe. Then again, if they pick up a new audience member, they don't want those folks lost and frustrated and not watching. So maybe they'll never trust us.

We open back at boarding school. I probably don't need to tell you this anymore. Every episode opens at boarding school. Or at least in the past. But usually at boarding school. Little Ned's science teacher (the one, I assume, who let Little Ned pass out the dissection frogs) in a fit of pique, decides to let the students pick their own lab partners. Little Ned doesn't get picked, leaving him alone with one other kid who didn't get picked (at least there weren't an odd number of students. Getting stuck with the bowl-of-laughs teacher or wedged as a third wheel into a partnership would be really, really lousy). Little Ned's new lab partner is Eugene, an exchange student from India with braces and neon green headgear. Poor child. Eugene likes making paper airplanes, but not your standard single-sheet planes. These are some serious models with propellers and everything. The boys set a plane aloft using some helium from the lab table. For once, Little Ned fights against his tormentors before the kid can destroy Eugene's plane, hurling a book and knocking the little brat down. Atta boy, Little Ned.

Little Ned discovers he's made a friend in Eugene. However, he makes the mistake, while romping with Eugene, of leaping into a pile of dead leaves. Which, of course, quickly become undead. Predictably, Eugene freaks out. Apparently he'll later attribute all this to "magic leaves," but in the meantime, Little Ned has reaffirmed that he should never, ever get close to anyone. And then the bully comes back for Little Ned.

In the present, Ned greets Chuck. It turns out it's World Hello Day, which he knows because Chuck gave him an obscure holiday calendar. Presumably this means next September 19th Ned and Chuck will be talking like pirates . As should you all.

Meanwhile, Ned asks Chuck if he's her boyfriend. She says he is, which troubles Olive. Tremendously.

Chuck then reveals that in addition to being World Hello Day, it is also her dad's birthday. That'd be the dad that Ned inadvertently killed bringing back his own mother. Now he's troubled. Tremendously. And not doing a good job at all covering it.

Olive is getting pissed off about the whole Chuck/Ned boyfriend situation. She responds to this by spinning herself silly on one of the barstools. Occasionally she spots (It's a dance term. Well, she is a Broadway actress), and if she did more of that, she wouldn't be so darn dizzy when Ned finally stops her.

It turns out Alfredo Aldarisio has been in the shop for some time. Alfredo, if you'll recall, came in some time ago. He's the homeopathic goodies salesman who provided Chuck with the secret ingredient for her Happiness Pies. He also has a bit of a sweet spot for Olive. And he fixed her espresso machine. And now he's back in the restaurant. He's the only one in the restaurant, and Olive has no idea he's there.

A blond goofy looking guy comes in to the store talking about the great new candy store that's opening up across the street. He swears he's "just some guy" with no connection to the store, but they should all come to the candy shop.

Emerson presents Ned and Chuck with their case. Our Dead Guy was strangled, and his girlfriend was arrested. The theory was that it was a crime of passion. Our Three Heroes go to the morgue and wake up Dead Guy, who is actually aware of the fact that he's dead. He says he was killed by Burly Bruce Carter. Emerson points out that Dead Guy was clearly killed by someone with small hands and acrylic nails (the last part he figured out because there's a nail embedded in Dead Guy's neck). Dead Guy said that Burly Bruce used his girlfriend's hands to kill him. While Your Humble Blogger (and apparently Ned) was picturing some creepy scenario involving amputated hands kept in a hermetically sealed jar until he needs them to strangle someone, Dead Guy explains that Burly Bruce's girlfriend is a life-size doll. Dead Guy tried to tell Burly Bruce that the girlfriend isn't a real girl, and Burly Bruce wrapped his hands around the Real Girl's around the Dead Guy's neck, and boom: Dead Dead Guy.

Alfredo is still being ignored by Olive. He tries to tell her that he has to be hitting the road again, but she doesn't hear. She asks him if he loved her (if, just if), but they could never touch, wouldn't he eventually get tired of it and move on so someone else could love him? He says some incredibly romantic things to her about how he would love her in whatever way he could. This also goes right over her head.

Our Three Heroes, meanwhile, have gone to the apartment of Burly Bruce and the Real Girl. Turns out Burly Bruce is called "burly" for a reason. Burly Bruce insists that Dead Guy's girlfriend is the killer. Ned asks if Bianca--er, Sheila (his girlfriend) saw anything the night of the murder. Burly Bruce breaks down; it wasn't Sheila's fault. Burly Bruce demands to be taken in in her place, and Our Three Heroes are only to happy to call the cops and oblige him. Dead Guy's girlfriend is released from prison and justice prevails. Huzzah! And there's still a half-hour left to go in the show!

Oh, and Sheila is, like Burly Bruce, detained. As "evidence."

Olive heads over to the new candy store to say welcome to the neighborhood. She is greeted by some guy asking her "Bitter much?" Oh, sure, just 'cause her romantic dreams are being squished...Oh, but he means because they offer bitter treats to make the sweets, um, sweeter. Hence the name of the store, Bitter Sweets. Olive recognizes this guy. He's the one who came to the shop earlier to plug the store. He's also Billy Balsam, co-owner of the store (Mike White).

Pretty soon his sister and co-owner, Dilly Balsam (a blonde Molly Shannon) appears, as do Chuck and Ned. Dilly declares that she likes competition. However, the customers at Bitter Sweets become entranced by the scent of the welcome-to-the-neighborhood pie Chuck has brought and clear out to go to the Pie Hole. Dilly sputters and stutters at them (she stutters when she's upset, Billy explains), and the game is on. Olive emphasizes her determination by taking two huge handfuls of candy samples. Of course, once Our Heroes have left, it turns out it wasn't really stuttering. She was just being offputting and odd. She declares she'll have the Pie Hole out of business in a week.

When we return from the commercial, the restaurant sign now reads "Pie Ho." Ned feels sure it wasn't done on purpose. He further isn't worried about the new store. Candy is just the traveling carnival blowing through town. Pie is Home, and everyone always comes home. It's true; how do you suppose Marie Callender's has stayed in business? It certainly isn't their dinners. Nor their excellent service.

Olive talks very openly with Chuck about how she's feeling about Chuck and Ned being girlfriend and boyfriend. She's not feeling good about it.

There's only one customer in the Pie Hole, and it's the health inspector (Dana Gould, looking an awful lot like the late, great Phil Hartman). He starts dinging them left and right. Ned's cute floppy hair is illegal, and so is Digby chewing up what seems to be half a pig on the floor (Well, Digby in the kitchen is illegal. The pig is just a bonus). Digby and the health inspector growl at each other. I think Digby won. Unless barking was actually the growl-chicken equivalent of blinking, in which case, I guess the Wonder Dog isn't wonderful at growl-chicken.

Finally, the inspector wants to get into a closed room. Olive says there's no need; they never use the room. Inspector insists. Ned lets him in, and it's full--full--of dead rotting furry fruits. Olive seems horrified by the furry fruit. She actually didn't know the room was used at all.

Unsurprisingly, the Pie Hole is closed by the commissioner of health and mental hygiene. Chuck and a surprisingly ferocious Olive are convinced the Balsams are responsible, but Ned says he doesn't retaliate.

Dilly comes into the restaurant. Her hair is mussed. She explains that she wants the Pie Hole's location, and that things are only going to get worse. She also says she doesn't really stutter. She is, however, legally blind (Unless, of course, she's lying about that, too. Totally possible. Probable, even). And she says she's looked death in the eye and survived. She and Chuck could bond if only they didn't hate each other.

It turns out that the Billy and Dilly's parents were killed by bird flu. Dilly went to look her parents' killers in the beady little eyes, but the seagulls got their revenge first. Molly Shannon has a great Tippi Hedren moment. Only funnier. I assume that's not the only reason she went blonde for the part, but whatever the reason, it looks good. The hair and the scene.

Ned refuses to be bullied into a fight. Which is too bad, because Dilly has a love of taffy and a fear of nothing, not even death.

Everyone, Emerson included, wants Ned to fight back, but Ned still refuses. Chuck and Olive therefore decide to fight back for him. They do it in the hottest cat burglar outfits since, well, Catwoman. The tall high heels are a nice touch. Not remotely practical, but hot. Olive's cat burglar outfit even manages to emphasize her rack.

Olive reveals that she thought she was okay with Chuck and Ned as a couple, but apparently she was mistaken. She just needs to get angry about it for a while. She then puts on a black (well, it can't clash with the rest of the outfit, after all), motorcycle helmet and runs headlong through the glass door of Bitter Sweets. The girls release tons of rats into the store. One of them climbs into the taffy vat and drowns. Apparently the rat's taffy displacement causes a very deceased Billy to float briefly to the top of the vat.

As they strut away from the destruction, Chuck and Olive declare you shouldn't mess with the pie hos. Ho's? Hoes? Forgive me, your humble blogger is painfully not street.

Chuck comes back into the bedroom, still in her hot cat burglar outfit. Ned seems to think she looks hot, too. But he's also consumed by concerns about their relationship. Mainly, concerns about Chuck's dead dad.

He decides he has to clean up the pie hos' mess, which he does with his Digby-scratching stick. He mainly succeeds in pushing the drowned rat deeper into the taffy. So he digs with his hands. I was going to complain about the unsanitary nature of that operation, but I suppose after the dead rat and the dead Billy, Ned's fingers are probably the least of the taffy's problems.

Ned's fingers happen to touch Dead Billy, who suddenly becomes less dead and sits up in the vat. Ned asks him what happened, but what with having been drowned and all, Dead Billy can pretty much only blow taffy bubbles. The cops bust in with Dilly, furious that Ned has killed her brother (Well, you would hope she'd be at least a little annoyed about that). Luckily, Ned managed to make Dead Billy really most sincerely dead before the cops get there.

Emerson and Chuck visit Ned in jail. Ned doesn't think Chuck should be there in case a cop recognizes her. Emerson and Chuck will have to solve this one and spring Ned. An attractive pie maker shouldn't spend a lot of time in jail.

Emerson and Chuck go back to the prettiest morgue ever. Billy has been totally cleaned up. I guess Deadpan Coroner has nothing to do all day than clean sticky candy off corpses. Speaking of which, Deadpan Coroner comes in and has actual dialogue again! He gets to cut Billy up. Yay! Chuck sticks around to watch. Emerson, meanwhile, goes to check Billy's background, which should hopefully be less gross. Or at least less messy.

Olive visits Ned at jail. She's not as comforting as one might hope, though. She's weeping uncontrollably. Ned and Digby (who came with Olive) both seem a little embarrassed by her behavior. Olive also baked Ned a Special Pie. It seems to have a pistol and bullets baked into it.

Chuck and Deadpan Coroner have found a finger in Dead Billy's stomach. They can't get the prints off it, though, because Dead Billy's stomach acids destroyed the finger too much to get prints. Still, you'd think it would be pretty easy to find a 9-fingered murderer.

Meanwhile, back at jail, Ned gets a new cellmate. It's Burly Bruce. And despite the fact that Burly Bruce was willing to be taken in in Sheila's place, he's now furious at Ned, since it's Ned's fault he's in jail. Seems like if it's anyone's fault (other than Burly Bruce), it's Sheila's. But of course, Burly Bruce loves Sheila, so it's easier to want to kill Ned. Trying to avert being smashed to a pulp, Ned asks Burly Bruce how he met the Real Girl.

Burly Bruce wanted to take the carpool to work, so he answered an ad, and next thing he knew, Sheila was at his door. Apparently the crate she came in was just her playing hard to get. She moved into the passenger seat of his car and into his heart.

Ned suggests that being in prison will give Burly Bruce the chance to move on, but Bruce can't do that. He's madly in love with that Real Girl. I wonder how much he'll love her when she never comes to visit him in the slammer.... It doesn't matter. Burly Bruce has no interest in the Truth.

Emerson says no one's come in to any hospitals missing a finger. Chuck suggests that maybe the murderer has phantom limb. Not the supervillain from The Venture Bros. The actual sensation of having a finger that isn't there.

Olive goes to Bitter Sweets, where Dilly tells her she has spunk. She spunkily serves to distract Dilly while Emerson and Chuck sneak into the store to find clues. They discover that there was a fight in the shop before Billy was killed. Chuck sprinkles flour on the marble countertop and then blows it away. It turns out that marble has special properties, which leave two perfectly formed hand prints on the counter. And one of the hands has only four fingers! Gasp! They use a sheet of fruit roll-up to take the prints. I'm not sure that'll really hold up in court, but they've got them, anyway.

Dilly notices Emerson sneaking out of Bitter Sweets, so she locks Olive in the trunk of her car. She goes into the store and threatens Chuck and Emerson with a gun. Chuck cleverly notices that Dilly is wearing big-ass mittens, which makes pulling the trigger difficult. It turns out, though, that Dilly has all her fingers. Apparently she was just being, um, fashionable. She lets them go so they can take the prints to the cops. She tells them to take Olive the "trunk monkey" with them.

Deadpan Coroner found out that the finger in Dead Billy's stomach had been there since well before Dilly and the cops found Ned with the body. Of course, judging by the lines Deadpan Coroner is tracing on Dead Billy's x-ray, Dead Billy had the only ziz-zag intestinal tract known to man. However, Deadpan Coroner exonerates himself (after having exonerated Ned) by pulling prints off the fruit roll-up and discovering that Dead Billy was killed by none other than the health inspector. The Balsams had paid him to pop in on the Pie Hole. In turn, he started blackmailing them for a bribe or else he would reveal that they had paid him and shut down Bitter Sweets instead. Billy wouldn't give in, and a fight ensued. During the fight, the health inspector fell onto the marble counter after his finger was bitten off (which is how Chuck got those prints). Apparently Billy's saliva is some sort of coagulant, because that is the cleanest severed body part wound I have ever seen. I mean, I realize this is a TV show that usually airs at 8 p.m., but there's no blood. At all.

There's a manhunt for the health inspector, Emerson gets television credit for breaking the case, and Ned is set free. When he comes into the store, Olive gives him an enormous hug, which has to go double for Chuck. It also goes on just a little too long.

Emerson admits to Ned that he can do this job without Ned, but it's really, really hard. Ned, meanwhile, declares that he isn't going to tell Chuck about her father. The girls present Chuck with a welcome-back pie with a candle.

After everyone has left, Alfredo comes into the shop. He and Olive kiss each other silly. But it's only in her imagination. Her crime of passion was not realizing Alfredo was in love with her in time and letting him get away.

Burly Bruce's crime of passion was seeing Sheila as a Real Girl.

Dilly's crime of passion is just a crime, though, tossing the health inspector (or some other guy missing his right ring finger, but probably the health inspector) into a pond.

Ned tells Chuck that in prison, she was his phantom limb; he felt her even though she wasn't there. He feels closer to her than he's felt to anyone, despite what he learned through his experience with Eugene. This leads to his crime of passion: He tells Chuck he killed her dad.

Instead of the sweet fade out we've had previously with the happy couple enclosed in a circle or heart or whatever, there's a huge pull out from Chuck out into the city. Where's it's starting to snow. Oh, this is very bad.

I really enjoyed this episode. I even enjoyed Molly Shannon. It turns out that with good writing, she doesn't annoy me. Which is why I didn't care for her when she was on Saturday Night Live. Bad writing. But Dilly is just quirky enough to fit perfectly into the world of the pie-maker. I'm really enjoying Olive's pissy side, so when she got all screamy when Dilly threw her in the trunk, it seemed really out of place.

There is definitely a continuing theme with birds on this show: The creepy aunts have all the birds, alive and otherwise. There was the pigeon in the episode by the same name. And now Dilly has been traumatized by seagulls. This seems to be a trend.

I do wonder if the Burly Bruce and the Real Girl thing intentionally referenced Lars and his Real Girl, or if it's just one of those entertainment media synchronicity things, like when all those body switch comedies came out at the same time in the '80s. Or like last year, where two shows about the inner workings of sketch TV shows came out completely independent of each other. Sometimes that sort of weirdness happens and it doesn't mean anything. And sometimes it happens on purpose. Not sure which this was.

A couple of administrative notes: Pushing Daisies is off next week but will be back on December 12. For some reason it's listed as being on at 10 p.m. Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens will be back.

The other one is that the show has wrapped until the writers' strike ends, having completed episode #9 on Monday. This was only episode 8. Hopefully the strike ends soon. It could wreak havoc on new shows. Like, say, this one. Plus, of course, the writers deserve better. Your humble blogger makes a lot of use of the episode player the web. She also takes advantage of other shows being shown on the 'net. Comedy Central's website in particular gets a lot of use by her, and their writers, especially the ones for Pushing Daisies deserve to get paid fairly for what they do.

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.

Little Ned is trying to imagine his old happy home life, but his imagination fails on him. So instead he goes and stares out the window "wearing hope on his head" (in the form of a crazy hat/helmet thing). Little does he know Little Chuck is doing the exact same thing at that very moment.

In the present, Ned wakes up and watches Chuck sleep. He tells her he likes watching her wake up because it's like watching her come back to life again. She gets up, and falls onto him in bed-and doesn't die! So they start making out. And then they start getting nekkid. Which is how we know it must be time for November sweeps (I wonder if the first week of November counted for sweeps, or if sweeps is just out the window because of the writers' strike...). Now nekkid, Chuck declares that she's still wearing too much and takes off her skin to reveal that she's really Olive. And her fake skin was pretty thick, so I suppose that's how tiny Olive was able to hide in Chuck. Who isn't enormous, but a lot bigger than Olive. Everyone is.

Ned wakes up for real and watches Chuck sleep. He doesn't tell her that he likes watching her wake up.

Ned tells Emerson that he had a sexy dream about Olive (see? Sweeps!), and that she had kissed him, and Emerson tells Ned that Olive is into him. Apparently Ned has been totally oblivious this whole time, and now he's coming undone because of that kiss.

Olive also tells Chuck about the kiss. Chuck isn't upset about it, but she doesn't want it to happen again. Olive has noticed that Ned and Chuck don't touch, and Chuck says she's got a "food allergy" to Ned. Olive is annoyed, however, that Ned didn't feel like her kiss was worth mentioning to Chuck.

At that very moment, our Dead Guy, it becoming dead, and...It's Joel McHale! Most of you probably know him from E's The Soup. Your Humble Blogger and other Seattlites remember him from Almost Live!, though. Notably, he played William Wallace at least twice, which meant we even got to see a little skin. And my Crack Staff wants to have his snarky babies.

While drinking his coffee at the kennel club where he works, Harold Hundin is stabbed multiple times by an excessively fancy hairbrush. He lands on the carpet in such a way that the trophy on the kennel club seal on his carpet seems to be...springing from his groin. Hmm.

The kennel club wants Hal's death investigated, so Emerson gets right on it. Hal wants Our Three Heroes to say goodbye to his dog, Bubblegum, for him. He also reveals that he was actually poisoned by cyanide in his coffee. The stabbing occurred as he was falling. He landed on the brush, which was on his desk. And he kept trying to get up, but slipped in the spilled coffee, so thus was stabbed multiple times. He also says his wife is the one who poisoned the coffee. Emerson is thrilled because it's so cut-and-dried.

Or so you'd think. It turns out that Hal had four wives and didn't bother to specify which one did it.

Olive tries to talk to Ned about their kiss, but he claims (unconvincingly) that he hasn't thought about it since it happened. Our Three Heroes and Olive are discussing polygamists. Emerson suggests that Ned might like it, having one girl to have and another to hold. Gee, who could he be talking about?

It turns out that all of Hal's wives were dog breeders. The first wife, Hillary, bred standard poodles and ran a dog couture shop.

The second wife, Heather, was a pet psychiatrist who bred border collies.

The third wife, Simone, is an obedience trainer with Jack Russell terriers.

The last wife, Hallie, trains Labradors for the blind.

Emerson says that Olive can help with this case, though for free, because there are four wives, and if the same people talk to each, the wives will know something is afoot. Olive visits Hillary to buy clothes for Digby, Ned talks to Heather about the sexy dreams Digby's been having, Emerson takes Digby to Simone for obedience training (and seems entranced by her fine, fine bum), and Chuck pretend she's blind for Hallie, which lasts about 5 seconds.

Hallie felt like she wouldn't be alive without Hal. Olive tells Hillary about the Pie Hole. Chuck lies to Hallie, saying that Hal left a note mentioning Bubblegum. Heather explains to Ned that mating isn't just for the betterment of the species; it's also for the betterment of the dog. She then goes and mourns for a moment. We find out that Bubblegum has died. Simone, grief-stricken, backed over her. Simone also married Hal strictly as a business arrangement. Bubblegum was a mix of all four wives' niche dogs, a coll-a-dor-russell-a-poo.

All four wives say they gave Hal his coffee as he left for work the day he died.

All four also show up at the Pie Hole. Hallie mentioned the note, which they all want to read, and Hillary knew about the shop from Olive. All of this is to Emerson's dismay, since the whole point of all this was to keep them from being found out.

Hallie also says that she put almond cream in Harold's coffee, which is significant, since he said that he'd noticed the taste of almond in his coffee. Along with the cyanide.

During the commercial, Hallie is taken in. The cops found cyanide in her car. Emerson is sure she's guilty, Chuck is sure she isn't, and Ned thinks that she looked innocent to him in much the same way that a pie looks ready to come out of the oven.

Some blind students have put together a "Free Hallie" fund, so now Our Three Heroes are on the case. Again.

Hallie is sure none of her sisterwives could have murdered Hal. She thinks it was Ramsfeld Snuppy, a rival niche dog breeder who wanted to collaborate and make Bubblegum superpuppies.

Snuppy runs a chain of specialty dog stores, Snuppy's Puppies, which I'm guessing the Humane Society wouldn't care for.

Our Three Heroes go to talk to Snuppy, and while watching boxes where dogs are apparently Doing the Deed, Chuck tells Ned that Olive told her about the kiss, and she would rather have heard it from Ned. Chuck wonders if there isn't something to this polygamy Thing. After all, sometimes she may need to hold someone else's hand, and sometimes Ned may need to kiss someone else.

Ned tells Snuppy they want a coll-a-dor-russell-a-poo, and he says he's going to clone them from Bubblegum's ashes, which he has for some reason. Chuck lets it slip that she knows that Bubblegum didn't belong to Snuppy, but it turns out that Hal sold Bubblegum to Snuppy, which is why he thinks the wives wanted Hal dead.

Emerson goes to talk to Simone. Since she knew about the sale and was only with Hal as a business arrangement, Emerson thinks that gives her motive to kill her husband. Simone thinks that Snuppy might have killed Harold to keep the wives from holding up the sale.

Emerson realizes that Bubblegum's leash is still being used; Bubblegum is still alive! And since Simone is the one who has the leash, she's clearly the murderer....Worse yet, Emerson is afraid that he's falling for her. He goes to shake her down, leaving Ned alone with Olive and Chuck. Olive is afraid that she permanently ruined her relationship with Ned with that kiss.

Hillary brings in the order Olive made when she was hunting for information. Olive lets slip that Bubblegum is clonable, which is news to Hillary. Not necessarily good news, either.

Simone admits that she does still have a very much alive Bubblegum, but she still didn't kill Harold. Simone tries to flirt her way out of it, which very nearly works. Instead, she jumps on him, chloroforming him.

He wakes up tied to some agility training equipment to face a growling Bubblegum. Simone thinks he's working for Snuppy to find out if Simone faked Bubblegum's death. After all, Snuppy can't make clones if he doesn't have Bubblegum's DNA.

It turns out that Emerson was once locked in a washing machine for two nights and developed a fear of the dark that now allowed him to develop superhuman strength and break free from his bonds. He runs back to the Pie Hole to tell the other two Heroes that Simone (whom he calls his wife) is going to kill Snuppy.

They find a dead Snuppy holding a coffee mug, though it doesn't smell like almond creamer. Still, Emerson thinks that Simone might not be the killer. Emerson forms a plan. They bring Snuppy to Harold's funeral, a la Weekend at Bernie's.

All four wives are at the funeral, Hallie weeping, wearing black--and handcuffs. The dogs are also there, also wearing black. No handcuffs, though. I assume those are some of Hillary's couture mourning outfits.

The minister, who runs the funeral like obedience class, knows that there are four wives and seems okay with it. All four speak at the service.

Ned revives Snuppy as Harold's casket is being carried past. Hillary shouts that Snuppy's supposed to be dead and goes running out of the chapel. Oh. I guess she did it. She runs awkwardly away, Ned and Digby in close pursuit. Ned tackles her, bringing her to justice.

It turns out Hillary wasn't that happy about Hal marrying three other girls after her. She was thrilled when Hal bred Bubblegum, a one-of-a-kind. Only then he was planning with Snuppy to make her one of a herd. Well, a pack. But a big'n.

Rather than subject her "baby" to her same sort of shared-existence hell, she put cyanide in Hallie's almond creamer since Hallie made Hal's coffee, but never drank any herself.

The wives found out, after Harold died, that the sale had already happened and Snuppy got Bubblegum dead or alive. After Olive told her that Bubblegum could be cloned from the ashes, Hillary thought she had to kill Snuppy so Bubblegum could always be one-of-a-kind.

Simone tells Emerson that she had to act like she'd killed Bubblegum to keep Snuppy from getting her. The "ashes" were just a bubble gum card. Emerson is clearly twitterpated by her.

Ned is chagrined that he tackled a woman half his size. Chuck hugs Digby as a substitute for hugging Ned. Ned is sad that he can't hug anyone as a substitute for her (Or for Digby, for that matter).

Ned apologizes to Olive for being so Weird around her and telling her they had incompatible saliva.

Olive tells Ned that she hopes he and Chuck are compatible. She holds his hand and says that if they aren't, he hopes it doesn't take him long to find out. She just wants him to be happy.

Pondering the hand that Olive had held, Ned reflects that there are many forms love can take. He tells Chuck that she's the only one for him, and Chuck points out that humans have Certain Things that they want. Ned counters that there's a difference between what you want and what you need to be happy. And what he needs to be happy is Chuck.

Maybe they could just invest in those full-body condoms from The Naked Gun.

Up in the present, Lucas Shoemaker is drinking and minding his own business when he's trampled to death by a horse wearing impressive armor that "breathes" fire. Oh, yeah, I guess someone's riding the horse, too.

Over at the Pie Hole, Olive is getting punny with Chuck. She knows Chuck's creepy aunts think Chuck is No More, and says that she knows that Chuck faked her death.

Olive hears about Lucas Shoemaker dying. She pulls a huge trophy and a bag of money, complete with dollar sign printed on the front out of a hole in her wall. She gives Emerson the money. She knew Shoemaker and doesn't think the trampling was an accident. It turns out that she was a jockey back in the day. And a cute one, too! She used to race against Shoemaker, and both won races.

Our Three Heroes go to the morgue and wake up Shoemaker. He says he was murdered by John Joseph Jacobs, another champion jockey. Only he's been dead seven years. It was Jacobs' ghost!

Olive says she knows this jockey bar. When Emerson tells her John Joseph Jacobs might be involved, she faints.

Our Three Heroes split up. Emerson goes with Olive to the jockey bar. Ned says has to go do something alone. He's terrible at lying about why. Chuck goes to the stable where Shoemaker was killed.

We find out that John Joseph Jacobs was set to be named the greatest jockey of all time. There was a race--the Jock-Off 2000--to figure out who really was the greatest, but Jacobs fell off his horse and was trampled by the rest of the racers, including Olive, who wound up winning.

In the bar, a drunken jockey says he's seen Jacobs' ghost, and the lid on Jacobs' tomb has been broken from the ghost coming and going so much. The drunk was one of the other jockeys in the big race. The ghost is coming for him, too. Also the bartender/owner/other jockey.

Olive and Emerson go to the tomb. Sure enough, the lid is broken. However, instead of finding a dead jockey, they just find a horse skeleton without legs. Also oyster crackers everywhere.

Ned has returned to his old house, where he is still lying on the floor where his bed used to be, still clutching the kind of candy bar his dad gave him back in the day.

Emerson, Olive, and Chuck go to the house of the dead guy's mother. She has her son's trophies on her wall and his ashes in an urn. She put his horse in the tomb because she had promised him she would, but that's not really legal, so she pulled the ol' switcheroo and stuck the horse in there. She also says she's made peace with his death because the other jockeys all turned into big drunks. And Olive, who's just single. There's also something hiding in her basement.

The bartender, who was one of the other racers in the Jock-Off, is trampled back at his bar.

Ned, who was already in the neighborhood, goes to Chuck's creepy aunts' house. He asks them about his dad. Aunt Lily says he was a jackass. Ned takes a bite of the pie they're sharing, and the fruit rots in his mouth. Why, that pie came from the Pie Hole! He realizes that Chuck is sending them pies. Aunt Vivian tells Ned that what everyone talks about is not what a jackass his dad was, but how Ned grew up to be such a nice young man. She also gives Ned a kiss on the cheek.

Ned catches up with everyone at the jockey bar, where the bartender is still dead and there are oyster crackers everywhere. Ned revives him, and he says Jacobs' ghost killed him because he cut the girth of Jacobs' saddle, which is what led to him falling off the horse and dying in the first place. He also says the ghost is coming after Olive next because she kept the Secret.

The Secret, of course, is that one of the other jockeys had sabotaged Jacobs; the bartender wouldn't admit it, so they all swore to keep the sabotage a secret and burned Jacobs' saddle to remove the evidence.

Olive is locked into her apartment with Chuck to be safe while Ned and Emerson go looking for the last jockey, who's either the murderer or the next murderee.

Outside her bedroom window, Olive sees a mysterious horseshoe, which causes her to go up to the roof. Chuck follows Olive, worried, and both discover an amazingly tall John Joseph Jacobs.

It turns out the doctors saved his life, but his legs were crushed, so he got a leg transplant from his horse. He says he lives in his mother's basement, but he isn't the killer. And actually, he thinks he's maybe ready to get out into the world and not live in the basement anymore. Chuck and Olive go to his mom's house to help him tell her that.

At Mom's house, John wants oyster crackers, which of course, were at all the murder scenes. Olive discovers that the urn Mom claimed held John's ashes actually holds John's saddle's ashes. He knows! Just then the horseman busts into the house.

In another scene, Ned and Emerson have the last jockey in the car with him. He reveals that Shoemaker had been through AA, and when he was on the amends-making step, he told Jacobs' mother what they had done and even brought her the ashes of the saddle. Now the guys have to go back to Mom's house!

Jacobs' mother stops explains to Chuck and Olive that she had to kill the other jockeys because they killed his career. Then she proceeds to ride after them so she can trample them. They run out to the woods behind Mom's house.

Olive separates from Chuck; Mom Jacobs is only after Olive, so she's saving Chuck's life. However, at the very last minute, Ned grabs her and saves her from being trampled. She kisses him silly, but then he runs over to Chuck when she shows up, leaving Olive alone.

Mom Jacobs goes to jail. Olive gives John Joseph Jacobs the trophy and money from the Jock-Off. And Ned takes Chuck back to the old neighborhood. Dressed as a ghost, Chuck trick-or-treats at her creepy aunts' house.

I know this is shorter than my usual episode review. A lot of good stuff happened and a lot of stuff I want to talk about, so I plan to do a bigger, fuller, funner one over the weekend. Stay tuned.

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.

On a personal note, this is not only great news for the cast and crew of Pushing Daisies, but it's pretty decent for your humble blogger, who spent way too much time last season worrying about how long she was going to have that blogging for Studio 60 gig.

You can read more at: TV Squad, TV Week, and E! Online.

Happy watching for the full season!

He decides to do some experimenting with multiple lightning bugs, bringing back a set of them to find out that an equal number of them snuff it exactly one minute later. The camera pulls back to reveal that he's actually been reviving and inadvertently accidentally murdering tens of bugs. All the creepy experimenting reminds me of young Frankenstein. Viktor as a kid, that is; not Gene Wilder.

We zip up to the present to find Adult Ned and Chuck making pies. Chris's question as to how Ned can bake pies only touching the fruit is answered, as it's revealed that Ned wears a single rubber glove--sort of like Michael Jackson in the '80, but in food service, way less flamboyant, and without the chimp--when baking. Which is actually good; I don't need that much of some stranger's fingers in my pie, even if he is cute and starring in his own TV show.

Reviving the fruit kills some flowers. It still doesn't look any worse than my garden out back.

Chuck reveals to the audience that for her 8th birthday, Little Ned got her a T-shirt suggesting you kiss a beaver. Well, that seems inappropriate for an 8-year-old. Or anyone not in college and probably in the Greek system. The birthday was just before Little Ned accidentally killed Little Chuck's dad. Ned is still struggling with whether to tell Chuck about her dad. But not so much that he actually tells her.

They kiss through a sheet of plastic wrap. Well, I guess non-autoerotic asphyxiation is slightly better than autoerotic. But it would still be hard to explain to the cops.

Olive watches the kiss. She doesn't seem to think it's odd that all of the romantic dealings between Ned and Chuck seem to involve plastic in some way (the body bags last week, the plastic wrap this week). She does, however, seem really pissed.

A customer, annoyed that he can't get any espresso, notices Olive's pissedness. He's a traveling homeopathic medicine salesman named Alfredo, and he's constantly worried about the earth losing its atmosphere. He takes some of his own supplements to keep from worrying about it so much.

Emerson comes in, and Olive leaves Alfredo to worry about losing atmosphere. She's pissed at Emerson for being so mean to her last week when he said that Ned didn't dig her. He says he was being honest, she says he was mean. I tend to side with Olive on this one. However, they can agree that they both hate Chuck.

While talking to Ned and Emerson, Chuck thinks that dying made her morbid. Possibly. But it could also have been living with the creepy aunts.

Emerson has come to the Pie Hole to talk to Ned, but he doesn't want to talk around Chuck. He wants Ned to meet him back at the prettiest morgue ever. Only Ned brings Chuck with him. Ned doesn't take direction well. Either that, or Chuck doesn't. Maybe neither of them does.

Emerson tears himself away from learning about the coroner's moisturizing regimen to show Ned this week's Dead Guy. He keeps trying to convince Ned to leave Chuck out of this, but Ned doesn't listen, and that's how Chuck manages to see both that Dead Guy is the director of the funeral home where Ned found Chuck and that Ned is really flustered by that. He's really adorable when flustered, at least. I can't tell that Chuck appreciates it, but I do.

Ned finally tells Chuck that he "killed" Dead Guy in order to keep her around. Well, Emerson really tells her. Emerson apparently believes in ripping the band-aid off right away, while Ned follows my theory of taking it off a millimeter at a time. Emerson rips off the revelatory band-aid Chuck while Ned was still trying to work the thing off slowly.

Back at the Pie Hole, Alfredo knows that Olive is unhappy and without Jim Dale having to tell him, even! He offers her some of his homeopathic cures. We learn that Olive still has trouble with long words. In the pilot, it was "mastication." Now it's "homeopathic." Well, neither of those terms come up that much in waitressing. Mastication comes up slightly more often, I imagine. But not much.

Meanwhile, Chuck is feeling bad and/or guilty. She feels like the life she's getting to live isn't really hers to live. It was Dead Guy's. She and Ned argue about this, which doesn't hurt Olive's feelings any.

Ned feels upset with Emerson for telling Chuck. Of course, if Ned had just left Chuck at home the way Emerson had asked, we might not be in this mess, but I suppose this is lost on Ned. Emerson, meanwhile, is upset with Ned for killing Dead Guy. Dead Guy gave Emerson a lot of leads on murder cases. Plus, it very nearly could have been Emerson that died instead. Emerson also tells Ned that he took this case so that no one else would find out that Ned is responsible for Dead Guy being dead.

What is the case? Oh, that's right; it's not to find out who killed Dead Guy because we already have the answer for that one. No, Dead Guy was stealing goodies from the dead. Dead Guy's brother knows this and wants to know what Dead Guy did with his swag. He also worries that someone knew what Dead Guy was up to and is worried that foul play was involved (No, just puppy love). But mostly he just wants to know about the swag. Of which Emerson would get a cut.

Ned refuses to go right up until Chuck tells him that he has to go to apologize, and she has to thank Dead Guy for her being alive. Chuck is apparently more convincing than Emerson. Or that rack of hers is way more powerful than Emerson's handguns in their handgun cozies (see last week's episode). Come to think of it, the cozies may be part of the problem.

At the funeral home, we discover that Dead Guy's brother, Louis, is his twin, which freaks Ned the heck out. Louis has a shirt for the reunion tour of Chuck's creepy aunts. Well, not exactly a reunion. They never left each other. Their comeback tour. However, it turns out that they suffered a relapse when they received a postcard from Chuck sent before she died. It caused them to emotionally relapse, which caused them to cry, which, in the case of Aunt Lily (the one who's missing her eye due to a horrible kitty litter accident), is pretty creepy in a funny way. Unless it's funny in a creepy way.

Brother Louis is just sure Dead Guy was murdered. It seems that word got out that Dead Guy had been grave robbing (though graves were not, in fact, involved yet), and he started getting hate mail. Worried, he told Brother Louis everything--except, of course, for where he'd hidden the goodies.

We get to see Dead Guy die again and see way too much of his nekkid tummy when he goes. In any event, Brother Louis suspects that one of the angry letters sent by one of the angry, angry relatives may have had a death threat--or a promise--that would reveal what really happened to Dead Guy. He also worries that the angry, angry relative will be gunning for him next. He's going to give the hate mail to Our Heroes for them to find out.

Ned wakes up Dead Guy in his coffin and apologizes sincerely and briefly, and then Chuck thanks him. Dead Guy says that no, Brother Louis had the swag. Theft was a family business. Chuck then notices that Dead Guy has the watch her father (the one that Ned accidentally killed, don't you know) gave her. She takes the watch back and slams the coffin lid closed, which naturally gets stuck. Convinced he doesn't want to be killed because he was standing too close, Emerson runs away like a little bunny. A little superstitious Catholic bunny.

In desperation, Chuck suggests she just let Dead Guy have his life back. Ned says that isn't how it works, and they break the coffin open using someone's urns. But it's still better than stealing stuff from the residents of the urns. They get the coffin open and Ned touches Dead Guy just in the nick of time.

Chuck thinks it's very sweet of her creepy aunts to have given her the watch. She had wanted to see their show, and now she wants to do something for them. During this revelation, she has a serious Audrey Hepburn thing going for her, and Ned is clutching the urn to his chest. They're each adorable in their own odd ways.

Ned and Chuck (driving in the Ned's semi-pimped-out car) find Emerson on a bus bench sitting between the faces of Dead Guy and Brother Louis. It's a nice shot. He's relieved that no one is dead who shouldn't be.

They start going through the hate mail, which details what was stolen from each family. Emerson declares that he is going to follow Brother Louis until he leads him to the swag and then steal it. We find out that someone wanted to murder Dead Guy, though, who parks ominously in the one shadowy part of the street just outside the Pie Hole. I suspect we'll find out who he is soon.

Alfredo notices that Chuck is depressed and offers her some FDA-approved supplements to bully her depression. They're controlled substances, though, so he can't give her any. But he can give her a sample pack! She bakes the supplement into a pie to send to her aunts. Caring for your creepy agoraphobic relatives through pharmaceuticals: The American Way.

Olive comes in the next day to discover that the delivery boy is taking all the pies except for the one that's meant for the creepy aunts; it's out of his delivery area. She offers to make the delivery boy a delivery man. But not the fun way. Dang. Apparently taking the pie out of his range makes him a man (Sadly, Kristin Chenoweth was never in Rocky Horror. Then she'd know how to make him a man. And in just 7 days. And 7 nights).

Olive sees the pie as a metaphor for her love life and decides to take it to the creepy aunts.

Chuck decides that if she were in Ned's shoes, she'd feel happy but guilty about saving her but killing Dead Guy. Ned says that's how he feels, too. Then Ned and Chuck find Brother Louis dead in the pie freezer.

Olive attempts to ding dong ditch the pie to the creepy aunts, but is nabbed by Aunt Vivian. The creepy aunts and Olive share the drugged pie. Aunt Lily notes that Chuck's favorite cheese is baked into the crust. And Olive didn't know that they did that at the Pie Hole. Well, they don't, unless Chuck's baking Happiness Pie.

The aunts tell Olive about Ned's horribly inappropriate 8th birthday gift to chuck. They've called him "Beaver Boy" ever since. As they talk, Olive discovers that Ned's childhood sweetheart is Chuck and the rumors of her death have been greatly exaggerated.

Meanwhile, Ned, freaked out about Dead Brother being in his freezer, has called Emerson on the phone. Emerson thinks Ned's being set up. There are cops at the front door of the Pie Hole, so Ned wakes Dead Brother up so our two Heroes and Dead Brother can run away like little bunnies.

Dead Brother reveals that he died when he choked on tongue. Cow tongue. That he was eating. He's a bad man, but not that gross. Anyway, he was confronted by an angry, angry customer about a civil war heirloom, and the tongue went down the wrong pipe, and poof, Dead Brother. Sadly, Ned has to touch him again before he can reveal where the goodies are buried.

I know we're supposed to be into the whole suspension of disbelief thing, but there's just no way all that took one minute. In fact, it was 1:15 just watching it on TV, and that was without Emerson having to get into his car and drive over. I'm just saying. That weren't no minute.

Chuck had read an angry letter about a customer missing a civil war sword offering to kill Dead Guys 1 and 2: Our "killer" is Wilford Woodruff. The sword had wound up on an online auction and was traced back to said dead guys.

Our Heroes wheel Once-Again-Dead Brother in a wheelbarrow in broad daylight back to the funeral home so he can be found where he died, but the building is completely locked. They try to sneak in through a small window into the basement. Emerson says the window is too small. Ned, having apparently never seen any sitcoms in the '80s and early '90s, insists that they will. He also doesn't think to sneak himself into the building, go upstairs and unlock the door from the inside. But otherwise, of course, there wouldn't be a show.

Unsurprisingly, Emerson gets stuck halfway through the window. Chuck makes the same Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree joke I do, but since she's on TV and I'm not, you actually get to hear hers.

While wandering through the basement, which is full of bodies waiting to be embalmed, I assume (Hey, I've never worked in a funeral home. It's the basement where Federico worked in Six Feet Under, only funnier), Ned keeps accidentally waking people up. He puts them all back to "sleep" except for one guy who won't go back. It turns out it's Wilford Woodruff, and he won't "die" again because he wasn't dead to begin with. And he seems pretty annoyed that Ned keeps touching him. He tries to hack Ned up with a confederate civil war sword.

Ned dodges, and Wilford hacks off some dead person's foot. Both guys freak out, which seems appropriate. Ned tries to defend himself with yet another piece of embalming equipment for which I don't have the name. Unless it's just a bug sprayer.

Wilford enjoys quoting figures from the civil war. He's also an Asian guy with a charming southern accent. It turns out his great-great-great-great grandpappy, Fambing Woo, fought in the civil war. He had been working on the railroad (all the live-long day would be my guess), when the opportunity came up to head for the hills. Most of the other guys laying tracks with him headed north, but he went south. Eventually he had to steal a uniform from a dead confederate officer, who just happened to be named Woodruff (It was sewn into his uniform. Probably also his underwear). Apparently the other confederate soldiers either didn't notice or didn't care too much that this guy was Chinese, and after the war he went on to found his own branch of the Woodruff family tree.

But back to Wilford and Ned fighting. Ned is actually pretty good with a sword. Or at least a sword-like implement. Like, actually quite good. Wilford has been the swordmaster for civil war reenactments, so that explains his fencing ability. Ned just wanted to be a Jedi. And he's annoyed that Wilford stored Dead Brother in his freezer. Food goes in there (it's true, the Health Department would not be happy about this)!

It turns out that Wilford went to confront Dead Guy #1 right after Ned inadvertently killed him, saw Ned running away like a frightened bunny from the funeral home, and put 2 and 2 together. Ned points out that he didn't actually kill Dead Guy #1. Wilford points out that he didn't really kill Dead Guy #2, either, but since he died after Wilford sent him a death threat, it still looks pretty darn bad.

Ned jumps from the stairs onto a curtain and slides down using his sword to control his fall. I know that won't work with a ship sail, but I don't know if it will with a velvet curtain. I'm guessing not, but again, otherwise there wouldn't be a show.

Chuck somehow gets into the room through the door. Since the Ned never unlocked the building, we have no idea how she pulled that off, but I'm sure I'm overthinking things again.

Wilford charges up the stairs at Chuck, so Ned hurls his sword so it sticks in the wall, tripping Wilford and probably severing several important tendons. But he's the bad guy, so we don't mind so much. Wilford's sword goes flying, and Ned catches it. He's still wrapped in the velvet curtain, and Chuck realizes he's her Prince Charming. A kind of goofy Prince Charming, but Prince Charming nonetheless.

Emerson kicks Wilford without ever seeing him, saving the day. The curtain falls from the wall (though still covering Ned), revealing the missing swag. So apparently Dead Guy #1 didn't look very hard. Or he was lying about not knowing where the stuff was, too.

Olive is thrilled to have dirt on Chuck. However, when she gets back to the Pie Hole, she sees that Alfredo has fixed her espresso machine. She is totally oblivious to the fact that he had Romantic Intentions when he did it.

Emerson, meanwhile, has learned from the examples of Dead Guys 1 and 2 and starts to lose weight. He doesn't want to be stuck in a window ever again