Pushing Daisies S01 E08: Bitter Sweets

Summary:

We start again with a flash back to Ned’s school days. On this day, the science class is doing a project and the students are allowed to choose their partners. No one chooses Ned, so he gets assigned to work with Eugene, an Indian student with large headgear. Through this lab, the two become friends, but while playing, Ned accidentally reveals his power to Eugene. Eugene eventually forgets it, but Ned never gets over it.

From there, we are moved back to the present where Ned and Chuck share an adorable conversation. This abruptly changes, as Ned wants to know what Chuck thinks of their relationship. Chuck reveals that they are in fact boyfriend and girlfriend. Unfortunately, before the conversation ends, Chuck reveals that the day is her late father’s birthday. This disturbs Ned as he doesn’t know if he should tell Chuck about the fact that he is responsible for his death.

Meanwhile, Olive is also saddened, but from overhearing that Ned and Chuck are officially in a relationship. But she becomes distracted by Alfredo, newly returned to the restaurant. She goes to fix him his espresso but everyone becomes distracted by “some guy” entering the Pie Hole and alerting everyone about the new candy store down the street, Bitter Sweets.

We then turn to Emerson and his new case. A man, Tony, was strangled to death in friend’s apartment, but his girlfriend was arrested due to small bruising caused by daintier hands strangling him. The trio head to the morgue and, in a surprising twist, they learn the killer is Tony’s friend Burly Bruce Carter. He had used his doll girlfriend’s hands to strangle him. They head over to Bruce apartment and are able to convince him to admit that Sheila (his inanimate girlfriend) had strangled Tony.

Meanwhile, at the Pie Hole, Olive asks Alfredo what he would do if he was in love with Olive, but they couldn’t touch. Alfredo says that he would find a way around it because he would love her unconditionally. Olive dismisses it though, and gets back to work.

Eventually the gang all head to Bitter Sweets. Chuck brings pie to welcome the new business and they find that “some guy”, now named Billy is one of the store’s owners along with his sister, Dilly. Dilly shows her competitive side, but Chuck’s pie drives all her customer’s to the Pie Hole, igniting a feud between the two businesses.

Later, Ned and the gang find that the restaurant’s sign has been vandalized to just read Pie Hoe. In addition, they only have one customer for the day. In order to pass time, Chuck tries to talk to Olive about Ned, but Olive still isn’t over Ned and isn’t comfortable talking about their relationship. The customer reveals himself to be a health inspector and begins to inspect the premise. The Pie Hole fails after the inspector finds Ned’s cooler of rotten fruit.

After they’re shut down, Dilly comes to visit. She reveals that she wants the Pie Hole store front. Ned refuses to combat her. We head into a flashback to learn where Dilly’s competitiveness comes from. Her parents had died from bird flu. Rather than hiding from it, she decides she wants to confront the birds. While traveling across the lake, she gets attacked by birds, but narrowly survives. At shore, she is offered a salt water taffy and that sparks her business venture.

At night, while everyone else is asleep, Chuck and Olive slip away. They have decided to break in and sabotage Bitter Sweets. They release rats into the store. Back at the apartment, Ned finds Chuck awake and learns of the sabotage. He goes to Bitter Sweets to reverse their actions, but instead finds the dead body of Billy in a vat of taffy. As he is trying to get Billy out, the police rush in and arrest Ned for the murder.

Emerson and Olive, attempting to exonerate Ned, visit the morgue and Billy’s body. Without Ned’s touch, they can’t do much, so instead, Chucks stays for the autopsy while Emerson digs into Billy’s past. While Emerson is having trouble, Chucks finds that Billy bit the finger off of his killer. Unfortunately, the finger print is too damaged to do anything with.

We then cut to Ned’s time in prison. We find that Bruce is Ned’s roommate. Before Bruce attacks Ned for landing him in prison, Ned asks how Bruce met Sheila, placating him. Ned sees how happy Bruce is by avoiding the truth and thinks that he could learn from it.

Chuck and Emerson sneak into Bitter Sweets, while Olive distracts Dilly. Emerson notices that table was moved and Chuck finds 9-fingered hand prints on the granite top. Meanwhile, in a reflection, Dilly sees in Emerson and goes to confront the two with a gun. She takes off her gloves and reveals that she has ten fingers and is no longer a suspect. She lets them go after they promise to find Billy’s real killer.

From Chuck’s prints, we learn that the real killer was the health inspector. He was trying to blackmail Billy for money after the surprise inspection on the Pie Hole. Billy refused and it turned physical, leading to Billy’s death.

In the ending we find that Olive realizes that she could love Alfredo, but it’s too late since he has already left again; Dilly has killed the health inspector; and Ned reveals the truth about Chuck’s father, even though he had earlier committed to not telling her.

Pros:

-I love the twist in the murder mystery at the beginning not actually being the real mystery of the episode.

-Dilly is a great character and I really wish we could see more of her. She’e surprisingly dark for such a bright universe.

-It’s a good reprieve that there isn’t another subplot about problems with Ned and Chuck’s relationship.

-It was great to see Alfredo again and it is heartbreaking when Olive misses him.

Cons:

-This is the last time we see either Dilly or Alfredo and I believe they could’ve made great secondary characters. Maybe turning Dilly into an overarching dark counterpoint to Ned.

-The deaths were creative, but I miss the clever makeup art that usually comes along with them.

Overall:

This is a great episode. Not necessarily for the plot, but for the characters. Dilly is especially strong and probably the best one-off characters of the entire series. Her entire personality is the antithesis of Ned and it creates interesting dynamics between her and the other characters of the show. I would’ve loved if she had come back in other episodes and maybe become a recurring villain or the final mystery for the season finale. In addition, Alfredo is a strong character and his relationship to Olive gives further distress to the character once she realizes that she likes him, but cannot reach him. It also makes Olive even further rounded out as her characterization is no longer dependent on Chuck or Ned for development. This is a very strong episode. The plot is simple, but effective, the characters are top notch, and it creates new dynamics for our characters to interact in.

Rating:

9/10 Daisies