Puppy Love

By Sarah Stegall
Copyright © 2007 by Sarah Stegall

Pushing Daisies
ABC, Wednesdays, 8/79/8 E/C
"Bitches"
Written by Chad Gomez Creasey & Dara Resnick Creasey
Directed by Allan Kroeker

First she's supposed to be dead, and then she's not. But no one can know, or all hell will break loose. Chuck? No, I'm talking about Bubblegum, the Coll-A-Dor-Russell-A-Poo hybrid dog who is at the heart of this week's episode of Pushing Daisies. Her owner, Harold Hundin (Joel McHale, The Soup), president of the local kennel society, is stabbed to death in his office and the society offers a reward for the capture of his murderer. Ned, Emerson and Chuck revive Hundin--his name is German for "bitch"--who tells them that his wife put cyanide in his almond-flavored coffee; the stabbing was self-inflicted in his death throes. "The wife did it!" Emerson rejoices in the simplicity of this answer--until he discovers that Hundin was married to four different women. Ned, Chuck and Emerson wind up recruiting Olive into the investigation as they play eeny, meeny, miney, moe to find a murderess among the dead man's mates.

Meanwhile, Ned is having "mating issues" of his own, torn between only two women. In the opening sequence, he lies awake watching Chuck wake up, which he likens to watching her come back to life every morning. What could have been a really creepy vibe is softened by his open adoration. Chuck gets out of bed, slips, and falls across Ned--to their mutual horror and shock. When she doesn't die immediately, they waste little time looking for an explanation. I love the tiny glimpse we get of the sensuality lurking beneath the surface of the monumentally repressed Ned: "Oh, my God, your skin is amazing!" before the two lock lips in a passionate embrace. Things go bizarrely awry, as Ned's dream (we knew it was a dream, of course) morphs into an encounter with Olive, in a sequence that echoes both Ned's desire for Chuck and his ambivalence about Olive's kiss in "Girth". I love how this show actually raises the level of sexual tension by showing us some gratification of it.

Meanwhile, Chuck and Olive are actually on pretty good terms; rather than turn the kiss into an excuse for a catfight, they act like the grown women they are. This whole dynamic between Chuck and Olive has been beautifully handled, showing both women growing and changing as they get to know one another. I braced myself for hissing and spitting and general cattiness, in the hoary tradition of TV, but instead we get a growing partnership, even friendship, between Chuck and Olive. Well done!

It's pure genius that has made the driving force behind this entire concept--Ned's ability to raise the dead--into a secondary consideration every week. Rather, it's the murder mystery, or the drama, or the relationship tangles, that take center stage, re-affirming that no matter how mystical and arcane a supernatural power may be, when embodied in a human it only complicates life. Certainly it doesn't help this investigation much, which quickly turns into an expose of our main characters. When Ned takes Digby to Heather (Lydia Look, The Proud Family), the pet psychiatrist Wife Number Two, what starts as an interrogation becomes a psychoanalysis of Ned's sexual frustration. Olive's attempt (using the alias "Pimento") to interview Wife Number One tells us more about how Olive  came to The Pie Hole than it does about Hilary (Jessica Lundy, Saving Grace). Emerson meets his match in Wife Number Three, Simone, (Christine Adams, Studio 60), the cool obedience trainer who only married Hundin to solidify a business relationship--within minutes of their meeting, she has him trained to respond to her clicker. Chuck's attempts at undercover work last mere seconds before she's spilling her guts about "sharing" Ned to Hallie (Jenny Wade, CSI:NY), Wife Number Four.

The four wives, who are all friendly with one another, put their heads together and figure out what's going on; when they come to confront the Scooby Doo squad in The Pie Hole, Hallie admits that she put almond flavored creamer in her husband's coffee. And bingo--she's arrested for poisoning her Hundin. Emerson then gets a commission from Hallie's clients to free her, and further investigation revolves around Bubblegum, whom Hundin sold to puppy-mill owner Ramsfield Snuppy (Mark Harelik, The Big Bang Theory). Snuppy tells the Scoobies that he plans to clone the dog, "man's best best friend" (and how cute is it that "Snuppy" is the name of the world's first cloned dog?). But Emerson figures out that the dog is not dead; in fact, Simone has faked her death (echoes of Olive's suspicions of Chuck again). She ties him up and leaves him to deal with his own dreams in the dark. When Snuppy drops dead of cyanide poisoning, Emerson concocts a plan to smoke out the murderess--they tote the corpse to the funeral. Ned revives him just as the widows are passing in review--and Hilary screams and flees. Throughout, the Dr. Seuss dialogue and cartoon production design keep the tone both ironic and light. Murder was never so much fun.

I cannot say enough good things about the ensemble work in this show, but even so some performances stand out. I swear Lee Pace's eyebrows have their own SAG card. Nobody registers "conflicted" as well as he does. Pace uses his body well--when he huddles on the dog psychiatrist's couch ("Don't you see this is making 'Ned' uncomfortable?"), as he resolutely puts his hands in his pockets whenever Chuck is around, and best of all when he sprints like a lion and brings down a fleeing murderess. I love the glimpses of an athletic, manly Ned (sword fighting in "Fun in Funeral", sliding under his own table in "Pigeon"); we need those to offset his usual hang-dog mien. At the same time, the little, tender moments he reserves for Chuck--such as the glimpse of him smoothing her bed sheets--etch themselves almost subliminally into our understanding of the show. And his final, sweet confirmation to Chuck that she is the only thing he needs to be happy, anchors him amidst all the swirling, conflicting emotion his weird circumstances embroil him in. The Pie-Maker is one of the most subtly rendered characters I've ever seen on television, with more layers than a phyllo dough.

As usual, Emerson Cod gets the best lines. "Some women love like gangstas. They be like, 'Ooh, baby, you're bleedin', how'd that happen?' While they be hidin' a razor in they weave." Or in Simone's case, an obedience training clicker. For the first time, we get to see a woman hold her own onscreen against Emerson Cod. She matched him snark for snark, subtly conditioned him to obey her every command, and left him panting for more. His smile as she walked away from their final, simmering conversation was the first one I've seen that didn't resemble a shark's. I would so love to see Simone again.

I love the way the show treats Olive's unrequited love with respect. It would be so easy (and cheap) to make her the butt of every joke, or turn her into a jealous hag of a Love Obstacle™, or any of a dozen other ways sitcoms usually deal with the third wheel in a relationship. Instead, she has shown us a believable and sympathetic arc of emotional growth, from puppy-love ("hopelessly devoted to you") to suspicion of Chuck to wistful longing to hopeful optimism and finally a dignified acceptance that matters between her and Ned are not what she wants. Her final speech to Ned was classy and adult, and leaves me hoping that Olive will finally get her due (if not her Ned) in upcoming episodes.

I have to give props to editor Stuart Bass for the superb, snappy editing in this episode. The four-way interrogation among the Scooby Doo investigators and the wives must have been (you should pardon the expression) a bitch to put together while maintaining the unique tone of each character, the breakneck pacing, and the dramatic tension. Nevertheless, if I have any reservations about this episode, it's in the storytelling. The high number of characters and their intertwined stories, an involved B-plot, and the same pace I admire in the dialogue, make it hard to follow the mystery at times. Which is when I really appreciate the presence of the Narrator, Jim Dale, to wrap it all up in a neat explanation. Just like a real fairy tale.

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