Pushing Daisies S01 E01: Pie-Lette

Last week, I wrote an article praising the show Pushing Daisies. Since I wasn’t able to go into too great depth and since I’m rewatching the show anyways; I figured I could turn it into a series of articles. So every week, I will be watching an episode of Pushing Daisies and reviewing it for the blog. This week is the pilot, “Pie-Lette”. (Clever, right?)

*Spoilers*

Summary:

Since this is the pilot, most of the time of the episode is spent on universe building and exposition. It opens with an explanation of Ned’s (The Piemaker) powers. Ned first learns of his power, at age 9, when his dog, Digby, is hit by car. With one touch, Digby is back to life. He later learns the price of his gift when his mother dies of an aneurysm while baking pies. He brings her back to life and a minute later, his neighbor dies in her place. Unfortunately, this isn’t any neighbor, this is his childhood sweetheart’s, Charlotte “Chuck” Charles, father. More tragedy strikes, though, when his mother tucks him into bed and gives him a kiss on the forehead. This second touch kills her and Ned is no longer able to bring her back to life. After this incident, Ned gets placed into a boarding school and Chuck moves in with her aunts. their separation marked with Ned’s first kiss.

We then fast forward to Ned’s adulthood, where he is the owner and head baker of the Pie Hole, a pie bakery where he brings rotten fruit back to life and uses them for pie filling. Here, we are also introduced to Emerson Codd and Olive Snook. Emerson Codd is a private detective who learns of Ned’s power after he sees Ned accidentally bring back a thief he was chasing. Emerson decides to bring Ned into his business as it is much easier to solve crimes if you can speak to the victim. Olive Snook is a waitress and only other worker at the Pie Hole. She is in love with Ned, but can’t bring herself to make a move.

After our introductions, we see Ned and Emerson in action as they solve a murder. Immediately after, Ned learns of the death of sweetheart Chuck after she was suffocated to death on a cruise ship. This becomes their new case. They meet the thieving funeral director and enter the room that Chuck’s body lies in. After Ned wakes her and find out all he can, he comes to find that he can not touch her a second time and the funeral director dies in her place.

Ned and Chuck head back to Pie Hole and she learns of the new rules of her life, including not being able to touch Ned, not being able to see her aunts, and having to use a pseudonym in public. Chuck becomes disturbed by her new celebrity through her death, but also comes to learn of the $50,000 reward for her killer. This is her first step into the murder-solving business and becoming Emerson and Ned’s new business partner.

With this new partnership, Chuck shares the information that she was only able to pay for the cruise ship by agreeing to smuggle two monkey statuettes in her luggage. When they cross paths with the travel agent that Chuck smuggled for, they find her dead, but bringing her back to life proves futile as she prematurely touches Ned’s cheek and dies again. This leads the detectives to Chuck’s aunt’s house as her luggage (with the monkeys) was sent to her next-of-kin. This is where we are introduced to the aunts for the first time and learn of their history as famous synchronized swimmers, known as The Darling Mermaid Darlings. The murderer knows of the luggage as well and finds Chuck’s aunt, Lily, with the (empty) suitcase after he sneaks into the upstairs. Meanwhile, Ned is busy talking with the other aunt, Vivien, and Chuck attempts to sneak into and out of the house with the monkeys. This all comes to head as Ned heads upstairs, finds the killer, and a seemingly dead Lily. Ned is saved as Lily springs up with a shotgun and takes out the killer.

Pros:

– Everything in this episode is beautiful. The universe is bright and colorful and the settings are amazingly unique.

– The storytelling is engaging and the exposition dumps are enjoyable as it follows the rule of “show don’t tell”.

– The humor still works after multiple viewings.

– The characters are incredibly interesting and their interactions feel natural while also being fun to watch.

Cons:

– This is clearly a pilot that was made to convince producers of the marketability, not made for the television.

– This episode is largely expositional, so it can be dragging to watch if you’re not engaged by the nature of the show.

– This episode does create some small, inconsequential plot holes since this episode was not necessarily created for TV.

– The introductions to characters seem rushed. It would’ve been nice to make the show into a two-parter and only introduced Chuck at the end of the first part. This would have allowed us to better understand the relationships between Ned, Emerson, and Olive.

Overall:

While this episode is great and a wonderful introduction to the series, it does have many problems that make it less than perfect. This mostly comes from the previously mentioned fact that this is clearly a pilot that was created to convince producers. If you do not know, often a show will be asked to create a pilot that will be viewed by producers. From this pilot, they judge if they want to put the show on the network. Often times, this pilot becomes the first episode of the series. This damages the episode as Bryan Fuller had to explain too much of the universe’s rules in under half-an-hour. In addition to this, Fuller tried to create a completely self-contained narrative in the single episode, which only separates it from the rest of the series and creates plot holes. While this episode is great, it cannot be considered one of the best of the series.

Rating:

7/10 Daisies