Pushing Daisies: "Bzzzzzzzzz!"
After a very long hiatus, the delightful Pushing Daisies returned with a premiere episode featuring lots of bees, a colorful convent, and Dean Hess' sloppy seconds.
I'm a Pushing Daisies lover, and this episode demonstrated many of the show's best qualities: Lee Pace's sheer adorableness, Emerson saying funny things, Lonely Tourist Charlotte Charles and the Piemaker being almost too cute to tolerate, Olive being sassy, and an extremely bizarre murder. It wasn't one of my favorite episodes ever though, because I thought that they amped the cute factor up a notch or two too high. I mean, you can only hear so many words that rhyme with "bee" in a one-hour time span before you just want to gag. And Chuck used her "might" (as in power) versus "mite" (as in insect) joke about three too many times.
What bugs me the most, however, is all this nonsense about Chuck's lineage. I assume we're not supposed to fully understand it yet, but it seems like a problem that we don't understand it to such an extent that--as of now, based on what we know--it sounds like Chuck's mother (Lily) and father (Charles) were brother and sister, and her father (Charles) was engaged to his other sister (Vivian). Now, I know that can't be right, but that's what the facts we know are telling us: Charles, Lily and Vivian are all siblings; Chuck's dad was Charles; Lily is Chuck's real mom; Lily had an affair with her sister's fiance; Vivian's fiance is Chuck's father.
Thankfully for my sanity, my sister did some investigating on PD message boards and found out that the consensus is, more or less: Vivian had a fiance, and Lily had an affair with this guy and got pregnant with Chuck. Lily went off the the nunnery, and Vivian didn't know what was going on. When Lily had Chuck, she somehow convinced her brother, Charles Charles, to pretend that Chuck was his baby. (He must not have been living near the aunts at this time, so Vivian wouldn't have known that this wasn't true.) So Charles, who is really just Chuck's biological uncle, raised Chuck until he was unwittingly "killed" by Ned, at which time Chuck's secret mom Lily and aunt Vivian moved in. Chuck's biological father/Vivian's former fiance is someone entirely different (and will probably be factoring into the plot soon...).
While I'm very glad to know that Chuck is not the result of some weird incestuous situation, I think that whole explanation is loony and feels like it was made up after the parameters of the show were established, and that's why it doesn't quite make sense. I mean, what a raw deal Charles got--having to raise his sister's love child all by himself. Seems kind of weird that he got roped into doing that. But I guess that is just a small discrepancy, as opposed to the averted BIG discrepancy of Chuck being the child of her mother and her mother's brother who was his other sister's fiance, or whatever.
I'm sure this issue will be better dealt with in future episodes. And, frankly, it needs to be.
Highlights and observations (btw, it's hard to get the quotes completely correct for this show because everyone talks so fast!):
- Wow, they rehashed the entire plot of the whole darn series in that opening sequence.
- Not that I mind seeing Lee Pace without most of his clothing, but pouring the dead bees on him is weird. What happens if the bees fly into Ned more than once? They're just going to die all over again. Right?
- Emerson's pop-up book: "Lil' Gum Shoe"
- Oh no, it's Taylor Townsend. Can't say I've missed her much. (Is being swarmed by lots of angry bees her penance for annoying the heck out of me in season 4 of The O.C.?)
- Ned: "That's terrifying. That's terrifying!"
- Ned: "I could have been swarmed in my underwear!"
- What exactly is a Bee Girl? I thought it was a female break dancer ;-)
- I like Chuck's yellow eye shadow.
- Ned: "If I could breath, I would vomit."
- How did Chuck get out of there so fast when her aunts showed up? She's speedy!
- Chuck: "I'll stop walking in on you when you're doing things you don't want me to know you do."
Ned: "That wouldn't have happened if you were wearing your bells!" - Emerson: "It is not okay for a grown-ass man to cry in front of happy families eating pies!"
- Ned: "I don't expect her to sit inside all day and--HIDE!"
- Quite the vibrant color scheme they've got in this convent. I've never seen nuns wearing anything so green.
- Emerson: "He is stalking you!"
- Chuck's eye makeup/fake eyelashes today are not great. Oh, are those gross eye lashes part of the Bee Girl uniform? I think I'll pass on that job then.
- Olive: "Forgive me, Father, for I am going to file a police report for all my missing possessions."
- Is Missi Pyle ever not the bad guy? Or at least kind of the bad guy?
- Eek, why's Ned's dad stalking him now? Did he hear about the pies and want back in Ned's life so he can mooch some of them?
So, here's a question to think about: what did Chuck walk in on Ned doing that he didn't want her to know he does? Hmmm..... (it sounds kind of dirty).
And: rent Mrs. Pettigrew Lives for a Day. The only thing cuter that Lee Pace is Lee Pace rocking a Scottish accent. It is flat out irresistible.
Premiere Rating: 7.5/10
(photo: ABC/Pushing Daisies)
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