I don’t remember when I last saw a Disney animation at the theater. Maybe it was Treasure Planet? Maybe. Possibly The Incredibles? But for the most part, my Disney filmic experience consisted of me sitting in front of an old tube TV and watching: The Fox and The Hound, Dumbo, or Hercules once again. However, over the break, I finally decided it was time to see a Disney film on the big screen for the first time in a long time.

Zootopia sounded interesting to me, because, animals are nice…ya? I can’t say I’m a sucker for anthropomorphized animals (which may seem odd given two of my favorite Disney movies contain talking animals). However, seeing as there were no princesses involved in this film, I thought, “Fuck it, why not?” Now I know it sounds as if I’m not the biggest fan of Disney animated films. And you would be right in assuming so. A part of the reason is because I’ve been rather disappointed with the Oscars giving Disney the best animated film award year after year, despite there being wonderful films produced overseas. At first, I figured, “It’s the Oscars, why do you care so much? I mean your favorite actor is Joaquin Phoenix, and you know what he said about the Oscars…” But yet, I end up caring, and I hate myself for it. So I’ll just say this, somebody has to take ole Oscar home; I mean it can’t stay there at the ceremony. Right?

On the subject of the Oscars however, it was interesting to watch Zootopia after a ceremony that was so heavily swamped in the whole #whiteoscars bonanza. The film, to my surprise, was heavily about stereotypes and crept into other mature themes like drugs and the mafia. The film was quick to touch on how the optimistic girl (bunny) from the farm found out quickly how much different species don’t get along in a city where such perfect inter-species relationships hypothetically exist. We get other racial jabs like, “Only bunnies can call other bunnies cute, and when another animal does it…” Which is funny. Haha, Racism but it’s a bunny. And we move on. However, the overarching conflict occurs to be between predators and prey however, which is odd because all the sudden, we are now reduced to just two groups.

Now let me sidestep around this for a second and say, I thought the last season of South Park was perfect as they tackled the subject of PC.

At the Oscars, Chris Rock made a joke about Asians. Correction, he made two jokes. Was I offended? Not really, because the joke pertains to the Chinese more than the Koreans. And lets be honest, we only truly get offended when it pertains to a very specific group we belong to. However, did I think it was offensive? Yes. I found the lack of diversity in a quest for diversity very interesting. Even Zootopia lacks this diversity. Although it may show various animals, we cannot fully explore each species and their relationships with other species because there is a limited run-time. If people want to see films, that pertain to every race equally, we are going to be sitting in the theater for like eight-hour films. Chris Rock mentioned in the Oscars, how he finds it hilarious that black people are mad at the Oscars in this day and age. To which he concludes – black people had more important things to be angry about in the past.

I don’t need to verify this; we all know it’s true. And of all the fucking things, the Oscars? Really? This is an institution that gave best film to Forrest Gump the year Pulp Fiction came out. They gave it to a film that portrays a mentally disabled white man who bumbles his way through history, magically taking credit for many major African-American achievements. The Oscars never fucking mattered or were an authority on anything. Ever! All I ever used the Oscars for was as a way for me to vent some anger – to be mad at all the obvious yet annoying picks they make, every year. And then be pleasantly surprised when they acknowledge how great Mad Max: Fury Road is.

The Oscars shouldn’t be a standard for anything because it’s shit. The average viewer doesn’t even end up watching the films that won after the ceremony. The show dictates so little it is laughable. So why try to change it? It’s like getting mad at a rock that wasn’t in your way in the first place. Just forget about it and move on, knowing, that people will watch what they want to watch and love the films they fall in love with. Just because Big Hero 6 won last year doesn’t meant I suddenly love it more than The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. Not one bit. You know why? Because, say it with me, THE OSCARS ARE SHIT.

This weekend, I watched two comedies, both great for different reasons: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Citizen Ruth.”

At this point, I’m not sure I could write anything about “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” that hasn’t been said, but I wanted to briefly share my thoughts because I actually liked the movie so much more than I expected. In fact, setting aside Mickey Rooney’s racist caricature of a Japanese man, of course, I really loved it.

The most obvious place to start is Audrey Hepburn, who is just a magnetic presence throughout the whole movie. Of course, part of that is her undeniable beauty, but it’s more than that. Whenever Holly Golightly was onscreen, I was just enraptured. There’s something offbeat, weird, and deeply intriguing about her. She’s like the flighty, unstable weirdo that Natalie Portman played in “Garden State,” but so much less grating and two-dimensional. While Sam from “Garden State” represented the purest form of the subtly sexist Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, Holly has a rich backstory and layered psychology that explains her behavior.

When Buddy Ebsen came along as Doc Golightly, the movie briefly lost me; as interesting as Holly’s past life should be, I was more engaged by her present flirtation and evolving relationship with Paul Varjak (George Peppard, a funny, likable straight man). The subplot with Doc is kind of a weird digression stuck into the middle of the movie, considering he never even shows up again once he takes the bus home. That said, I recognize that it serves an important role in the movie. It’s just not what I was most interested in.

Pretty much everything else is golden. The party scene is just so great, and as odd as it sounds, I felt like I could relate a little bit to it, having seen some weird and random stuff at college parties. There are so many little moments in that scene that I love: the quick speed of Martin Balsam’s talking, the way Paul self-identifies as “Paul baby” when O.J. calls him “Fred baby,” the moment when Paul tosses a girl off Jose’s back and onto the back of another random attendee, and the comedic highpoint of the movie: the shot of one woman laughing hysterically at her reflection in a mirror, followed by the shot of the same woman sobbing at her reflection. Really, there are a lot of those small moments that I love throughout the movie. In some old movies, antiquated dialogue can create a bit of a distance between me and the movie, but here, it was funny and appealing. I love “the mean reds” and the way Holly calls all men “rats” or “super-rats.”

The way the romance between Holly and Paul proceeds seems like the standard romance formula, in some ways. Girl meets boy, girl gets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy back. (I put ‘girl’ as the subject because Holly is the one who has the real character arc here, but the other way around would work, too.) There’s a really cute date scene, lots of funny banter, numerous other love interests as obstacles (most notably Jose), a final confrontation, and a kiss in the rain. But there’s something so deep and unique about the conflict that drives Paul and Holly apart; it’s not as simple as Holly loving another man. The conflict is more internal—it’s a character flaw. It’s Holly’s love of materialism, her stubborn insistence that these temporary distractions will fill the hole in her heart.

This is best represented by the heartbreaking moment when she opens the cab door and shoos the nameless cat away. Pretty much any scene in any movie when a character gets rid of a cat will inevitably hit me hard since I love cats, but this one was especially potent because it was such a powerful metaphor for how Holly feels. Towards the end of the movie, I was so frustrated with her—I seriously wanted her to stop pretending she didn’t have any genuine love for Paul, or her cat, or her house, or her life in New York. And that final moment, as she jumps out of the cab, searches for the cat, finds it, and embraces Paul, is so cathartic.

Skipping forward 35 years, “Citizen Ruth” is most notable for being the debut film of Alexander Payne. I’ve always had mixed feelings about Payne; while I like “About Schmidt” and “The Descendants” well enough, I have to admit I found “Nebraska” pretty dull the first time I saw it. I was ready, for a while, to write Payne off as a filmmaker who simply didn’t fit my tastes, regardless of how beloved he may be. Then I watched “Election,” and I almost groaned, because I could no longer dismiss Alexander Payne. I absolutely loved “Election,” and “Citizen Ruth” represents another boost in my regard for Payne (I still haven’t seen “Sideways”).

Oddly enough, the first thing “Citizen Ruth” reminded me of was “Mockingjay,” the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy. In “Mockingjay,” Katniss defeats President Snow and the primary villains of the series with the help of ostensible good guys President Coin and her best friend, Gale. Eventually, though, you realize that the good guys have some dark secrets of their own. One of the fascinating twists of “Mockingjay” is that though President Coin might be trying to accomplish an admirable goal—defeating Snow and bringing justice to Panem—she’s ultimately just as manipulative, vindictive, and hateful as the presumed bad guys. Gale, too, though well-meaning, is implicated in some of Coin’s most heinous acts.

In this analogy, the pro-lifers that try to convince Ruth to keep her baby in “Citizen Ruth” are like President Snow and the corrupt citizens of the Capitol. They’re the most obvious choice for the antagonists; they’re religious zealots who seek to manipulate Ruth and use her to accomplish their own political agenda. Honestly, to me, abortion is the kind of issue that doesn’t need for both sides to be treated equally, just like a movie about gay people fighting for same-sex marriage to be legal doesn’t need an equally valid point of view showing that maybe gay marriage should be illegal. I would’ve been fine with an unequivocally pro-choice movie, just like I’d be fine with a pro-gay marriage or anti-racism movie.

And yet “Citizen Ruth” manages to humanize both sides. On the pro-choice side, the characters can be likable because they’re generally more accepting of Ruth and her lifestyle and her choices. On the pro-life side, the characters can be likable because Norm (Kurtwood Smith) and Gail (Mary Kay Place) are such kind people to Ruth, feeding her and clothing her and paying her bail and putting up with her shit. Us liberals tend to dismiss radical conservatives and pro-lifers, but Norm and Gail, despite being cartoonish, were genuinely caring people. It’s important to remember people’s humanity, even when their beliefs are damaging.

Yet the other striking thing about “Citizen Ruth” is that really, none of the characters are likable. They’re all mostly caricatures, the pro-choice side being stereotypical hippie liberals and the pro-life side being stereotypical Jesus freaks. To a degree, both sides are kind or respectful to Ruth, but a lot of that is pure manipulation. Ruth is treated like Katniss is in “Mockingjay”; she’s used as a symbol for a political agenda, and even if that agenda is arguably the correct one, it’s taking advantage of Ruth and using her, not treating her like a human with desires that should be respected.

It’s worth noting that Ruth is also a terrible person. She’s an addict, so not all of her actions are entirely her fault, but it still gets painful and exasperating to see her repeatedly huffing paint and glue and patio sealant when she knows it’s terrible for her. And she definitely acts entirely selfishly and ignorantly, regardless of any physiological drive. She acts entirely in her own self-interest, with no specifically pro-life or pro-choice stance of her own. She drops a toilet tank cover on a guard’s head and knocks him out. She ruthlessly uses profanity, including such hilarious gems as “suck the shit out of my ass, you fucker!” and a casual “oh yeah, well you’re a cunt.” When her pro-life mother begs her not to abort her baby and asks, “What if I’d aborted you?,” Ruth screams back over a megaphone, “Well, at least I wouldn’t have had to suck your boyfriend’s cock!” Laura Dern sinks her teeth into this role with a brilliant, hilarious gusto, and you have to admire her for how shamelessly abhorrent she makes Ruth.

[Spoilers for the ending in this paragraph.] And yet, despite Ruth’s despicability, you know that she deserves a happy ending just as much as any of these manipulative people trying to control her body. So when the movie ends with Ruth escaping with $15,000, you feel happy for her. Sure, there’s a good chance she’ll squander it all in a couple days on booze and drugs. Maybe she’ll end up back in jail by the end of the day. Maybe she’ll never turn her life around or see any of her kids again. Maybe she’ll die early after living an unhappy life with no support from family or friends, only drugs and the streets.

But whatever happens to Ruth after the credits roll, at least it’s her choice. And that, more than any explicit pro-abortion moral, is the most progressive message “Citizen Ruth” has.

This is the season finale. Yes, the season only got nine episodes, but it’s because it got cut short due to low ratings. Actually the season was only nine episodes because it was in production right before the Writer’s Guild Strike. At this point, only nine episodes were written, so Bryan Fuller made changes to the last episode so that it could serve as a season finale. I personally believe that this is what really caused the series lose ratings in the following season, creating a dark cloud that hung over the production.

Summary:

Another flashback to start the show, but rather than focusing on Ned, we are instead focusing on Chuck. We get to the see the starting scenes of the series from her perspective. We see how she confronts her fathers death as a child and what her home life becomes like. Her aunt Vivian is immediately comforting, even though she normally has trouble touching people. On the other hand, Lily can bring herself to comfort Chuck and is only able to do so after Ned loses his mother. We then jump forward to when Ned is being taken away to the boarding school. Chuck sees him leaving and begins to chase the car, but can’t catch up.

We’re then transported to the present and find Ned looking for Chuck after she left due to a fight caused by Ned’s revelation from the last episode. After scouring the streets of the city, he then heads to the aunts’ house, but is unable to find them there. He then checks at Olive’s apartment and while Olive insists she isn’t there, we learn that Olive is letting Chuck hide from Ned there.

After Ned gets turned away, Olive asks Chuck about faking her death. Chuck actually reveals the truth, but Olive doesn’t believe her, convinced that Chuck just doesn’t want to talk about it. Since Chuck doesn’t want to see Ned, she asks Olive to bake her aunts the pies. She gives her the antidepressants, but tells her it is vanilla extract. Olive makes the pies, but adds way too much of the medicine, believing the vanilla flavor to be too weak.

Down at the Pie Hole, Emerson tells Ned to stop looking for Chuck and Olive agrees. After she leaves, Emerson reveals the case of the week: Victor Narramore, a life insurance adjuster, was scooped up by a snow plow. They head to the morgue and wake him up. The body was frozen solid, but he is able to tell them that they couldn’t see the killer, but was killed by a bat that had the word “kindness” carved in it. They ask if he has any enemies, and of course he does. His job is to quantify life and if patients should be given life saving operations.

We then cut to the roof where Chuck is sitting by herself. Her alone time is interrupted though by Oscar Vibenius. He wants to know the truth about Chuck’s mysterious death scent. He reveals that he stole some hair from Digby and is also able to smell the scent off of him. He asks for a lock of her hair so that he can study the scent more, but she refuses.

Back at the Pie Hole again, Olive returns behind Ned in the kitchen, but Ned is unwilling to engage in conversation. He believes that Olive knows where Chuck is and gets her to admit to Chuck’s location off-screen. Emerson wants Ned to come with him to investigate the only living person who was denied by Victor, but he instead goes to Olive’s apartment to confront Chuck. Chuck reveals that she wants to talk to someone other than Ned about the truth, but can’t. She also insists that she needs to be away from Ned in order to deal with the secret from the last episode. From this conversation, she decides to leave a note for Oscar.

From this scene, we move to one where Emerson is visiting Abner Newsome, a teenager who was denied a heart transplant by Victor. It’s clear that Abner is much too sick to kill the adjuster, but mother is incredibly rude and possibly a new suspect for the murder. However, once Emerson leaves, he finds a snowman, with a dead body inside. This convinces Emerson that the mother isn’t the killer as she doesn’t seems stupid enough to place a victim in her front yard.

Ned wakes the body and they find that he is another adjuster. He also didn’t see the killer, but tells them to ask Kevin, his carpool buddy. They head to the company and learn that both the dead man and Kevin also denied Abner. Kevin has also been missing since the same night.

Meanwhile, Oscar comes to visit Chuck in the kitchen of the Pie Hole. Oscar believes Chuck and Digby came back to life, but Chuck tells him it’s ridiculous. Chuck gives Oscar a hair sample, hoping that she can finally reveal her secret to someone else without having to tell them.

We then switch back to Ned and Emerson, who are visiting Abner at the same time as a Wish-a-Wish agent (a fictional counterpart to Make-a-Wish) who is trying to improve Abner’s mood with a monkey. Ned and Emerson tell the family that they will be doing a stake-out in front of the house, hoping to catch the killer when they potentially put the new body on the front lawn again.

During the stake-out, Ned gets Emerson to talk about his relationship. Emerson reveals that close relationships are not easily mended and that he has also lost ties with someone close to him, his daughter. Emerson refuses to talk further and in the background, we find a shadow sticking a potato in the tailpipe of the car. Ned wakes up from passing out and saves the two from carbon monoxide poisoning. They leave the car and find another body in a snowman. Unfortunately, the body becomes too damaged for Ned to awaken him.

Back at the Pie Hole, Oscar comes back to visit Chuck. He wants to give Chuck her hair back as a sign of trust and reveals that he didn’t smell the hair. He would rather let her tell him in person. Chuck realizes that she was fine with only keeping the secret with Chuck and tells Oscar that he should’ve smelled her hair when he had the chance.

Emerson and Ned then learn that another agent has denied Abner and that the Wish-a-Wish lady asked to go visit him. Emerson and Ned rush over to try and stop her before she is able to kill another person. They get there just in time, but she has a gun and stops them in their track. Luckily, her monkey from earlier plays with her car’s gear shift and runs her over, killing her. This leaves her heart open to Abner for his surgery.

In the end, Ned finds Chuck at her father’s grave. She wants to wake him up, but Ned refuses. He doesn’t want to bring him back to life just to kill him again in front of her. Also, at the aunts’ house, Lily reveals that she is actually Chuck’s mother.

Pros:

-The absolute best part of this episode is Emerson’s reveal. It’s a highly emotional reveal and gives much needed depth to the character. We get to see a new side to Emerson that we’ve never seen before.

-The mystery is good. Not stellar, but is still a good one.

-The emotional journey of all the characters in this episode is spectacular. For the first time, Chuck and Ned’s relationship is truly on the rocks. This adds actual weight to their past arguments, which seemed slightly shallow as you could tell that the issues were never going to break them up.

Cons:

-The new characters introduced in this episode aren’t that interesting. They’re pretty one note.

-Outside of Chuck’s and Emerson’s storylines, not much is too great about this episode. Clearly this was not meant to be the finale as it is not a very strong episode overall.

Overall:

This episode is not that remarkable, which is really a shame for the season finale. However, as stated before Emerson and Chuck’s emotional journeys in the episode are bright spots. We never get to see Emerson get emotional and while Chuck has had emotional problems in the past, we never see her flirting with disaster like she does this episode. It is clear that she is really distraught if she was thinking about telling her secret or getting Ned to wake her father.

On the other hand, this episode made me realize one of the reasons why I enjoy this series so much. It is very much shot like a stage production (which should be obvious given the notable Broadway alums). The episode focus on only 3-4 main set pieces and body language/character placement are hugely important to scene composition.

The sets are highly decorated, which is unnatural for smaller productions, but can be very important for larger ones. Especially if the art style of the set helps to create the atmosphere of the production, much like it does for Pushing Daisies. The set is highly stylized and serves to reinforce the emotion and plot of the episode.

The character placement is important to creating the scenes atmosphere. They placed just so and it is highly visible in this episode. Height of characters or depth within the scene can give characters power over others. This important to various scenes, like where Oscar confronts Chuck on the roof or Ned confronts Olive in the kitchen.

Rating:

7/10 Daisies

There’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot: “style over substance.” Movies that embody this phrase are often visually exciting and unique, but they’re shallow on a thematic level. Sometimes, being shallow is okay; action movies benefit greatly from style, so even some cliché entries in the genre (like this year’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”) provide solid entertainment.

Strong style can be used as a great tool to cover up a lack of substance, but just because a movie’s good quality is an illusion doesn’t mean it’s not necessarily real. If a sweeping, sad movie score plants an emotional seed that the story itself lacks, the effect can still be genuine. It might not be as strong or cathartic as an emotional reaction caused by the story, but it’s not inherently fake just because it’s caused by something artificial.

So while I found “The Revenant” to be pretty shallow when I looked at it in retrospect, that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of it as I was watching. It’s the kind of movie that the phrase ‘style over substance’ was created for, but that style is so amazingly done that the illusion works better than it has any right to, creating an immersive and frequently captivating experience that makes you forget how hollow most of it is.

The first way “The Revenant” creates the illusion is by featuring some great performances. Tom Hardy gives such an engaging performance as John Fitzgerald, by far the most complex character in the film. Between his gruff, barely intelligible voice, his wide eyes, and his twisted moral code, Fitzgerald is such a captivating presence, and Hardy is a huge part of that. Domhnall Gleeson and Will Poulter won’t get any credit for their roles, but they’re both really solid in supporting roles.

Ironically, Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance as Hugh Glass is the one that can make you remember how shallow the movie is. He definitely does a good job—he manages to keep you interested and invested for the bulk of the 156-minute running time that’s focused on him, in the same way that Robert Redford gave a silent solo performance in “All is Lost.” But the best performances of the year are usually performances that convey all the nuances and complexities of the character, and Hugh Glass isn’t really a nuanced or complex character. Hardy is able to squeeze every ounce of complexity that he can out of Fitzgerald’s dialogue, but DiCaprio doesn’t particularly do anything to transcend the lack of characterization on the page. He plays what he’s told to, and does a fine job.

By seeing Glass go through so much shit trying to survive, you realize the whole journey is fairly one-note. There are interesting new challenges and new survival tactics that come up throughout the movie—like, of course, the scene of Glass removing a horse’s organs and then curling up to sleep inside its body—but the bulk of his journey is just slow recovery and the struggle to survive.

Unlike Fitzgerald, there isn’t much inner psychology going on with Glass. He’s driven to survive by the desperate need to get revenge on the man who killed his son. He feels grief over his dead son, and the dead Native American woman who gave birth to him. That’s about it, honestly.

[Spoilers for the next three paragraphs.] If there’s one central theme that “The Revenant” seems to explicitly be going for, it’s this idea that revenge is best left for the Creator, whether that means nature or some nebulous spiritual force like God or fate. This isn’t a bad idea for a revenge thriller, honestly. The real-life Hugh Glass, after tracking down John Fitzgerald and confronting him, decided not to kill him because of the heavy penalty for killing a soldier. This could’ve been incorporated well into the heavily fictionalized film to fit in with this theme of mercy and the relief of letting go of your desperate anger, but nope. Glass goes ahead and, effectively, kills Fitzgerald.

The most frustrating part of this isn’t that Glass goes back on the lesson he heard earlier. The movie could’ve easily made it appear like Glass considered showing mercy, then gave in to his anger and bloodlust. The frustrating part is that the movie acts like he is showing Fitzgerald mercy. Sure, he shoots him in the shoulder, stabs him in the gut, and sends him downriver to a group of ruthless natives who will undoubtedly seal Fitzgerald’s fate—but apparently since he didn’t deal the actual killing blow, he’s leaving the revenge to God.

And then the last few minutes depict one final scene of stumbling through the forest, with Glass imagining his dead wife…and, in the last shot, turning to stare straight into the camera. I gotta say, that’s a pretty dumb, self-important final shot. Does it really mean anything, or does it just seem like it’d be the cool, artsy thing to do?

Yeah, you could read more themes into the story. You could say it’s about the battle between man and nature, or the fundamental cruelty of humanity, or something. But I got the same sense I got from the last Alejandro G. Iñárritu movie, “Birdman”: a lot of the movie seemed like it was supposed to be meaningful, but it really wasn’t. I guess that’s why people call his movies pretentious; there’s this appearance of meaningfulness that the movie itself doesn’t actually back up.

Still, if all of Iñárritu’s movies are that way, like I said, this one does a pretty great job of maintaining the illusion. There’s a lot of people who are responsible for that; the production design, costume design, makeup, and visual effects are all pretty perfect. I mean, that bear attack alone is worth some recognition.

But by far the biggest asset to “The Revenant” is Emmanuel Lubezki, who has a ridiculous track record at this point. It’s difficult for me sometimes to tell where the director’s work ends and the cinematographer’s begins, but I have to imagine that a lot of the amazing camerawork in “Birdman” and “The Revenant” is really thanks to Lubezki’s creativity and flawless execution. Without the disorienting distortion of Lubezki’s fisheye-esque shots, without the protracted Steadicam takes, without the visceral visual immersion of the brutal battle scenes, without the stunning visuals of wintery forest landscapes and frigid mountain ranges, “The Revenant” would not be nearly as captivating as it is.

And “The Revenant” really is captivating. Its running time could probably shaved down a little (maybe just 10 or 15 minutes, so Glass’s recovery doesn’t feel too easy and unrealistic), and maybe that’d be a better choice for a focused revenge story—maybe Iñárritu would’ve been better off in general trying to tell a focused, visceral revenge story instead of this faux-meditation on nature and death and life and retribution or whatever. But that’s not what Alejandro G. Iñárritu likes to do. He doesn’t like to tell modest, low-key stories. He likes to shoot for the sky, even when there’s nothing up there.

Grade: B

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