By Buzz Byrne

If you don’t already know the premise of PUSHING DAISIES it is thus: Ned, the pie maker, has a special gift. He can bring the dead back to life. He discovers this gift, given by no one in particular, at the age of ten. He also discovers two significant aspects of this gift. The first is that if the re-lifed live longer than a minute, death must come to someone else. The second consequence is, “First touch is life, second touch is dead forever.” If he touches them again, they die for good.

Since he saved his childhood sweetheart, a girl named Chuck, this has been hanging over them. First that they cannot touch and second, she is alive and because of that a grave-robbing funeral director is not. When Ned gave Chuck life, it was robbed of Lawrence Schatz of his. This week Chuck discovers this fact and she is not happy that her Prince Charming is essentially a killer. And as the narrator tells us, “This wasn’t the only storm brewing in the Pie Hole. A low pressure system was building to a hurricane.” This was of course Pie Hole employee Olive Snook who has loved Ned from afar and hates Chuck’s presence and tendency to kiss Ned through Saran Wrap.

Ned’s business partner, PI Emerson Cod, has not been a fan of Chuck’s either. Largely he doesn’t want a new partner but also he resents how cavalierly Ned brought her back and kept her alive with Emerson so close by. He could have been the one to buy it instead of Lawrence Schatz. Plus he has been hired by Louis Schatz to find his brother’s killer.


Olive has an admirer, a traveling pharmaceuticals salesman. She is too wrapped up in Ned to notice this man and is not initially fond of him. “This is a pie house, not an herbal crack den,” she tells him. He is undeterred and will return. Olive is a great character who deserves love and not to be turned evil by her desire for Ned. I like this development.

The full plot of tonight’s episode twists and slides beyond credibility even within the boundaries set in this imaginary world. That’s fine. The show treats our biggest fear, death, as a punchline. That alone is a valuable conceit, even if you don’t enjoy the humor or the cartoonish Sonnenfeld influence.

Thematically this episode is about dealing with consequences of action and by the end, Ned really is Prince Charming to Chuck. Not only because he saves her repeatedly but he accepts that he gave her life and would do so again. Even with the deadly consequences to Lawrence Schatz. If the show can have goofy fun with death, ask serious questions and answer them then I am a fan. It speaks to a higher mindedness than prime time is usually given credit for.

Now if only Ned could tell Chuck he is responsible for her father’s death…