Tonight’s episode of Pushing Daisies was, perhaps, the best episode since the highly-acclaimed pilot. The mystery was great, supporting characters well-realized and it was funny as ever. Also, Paul Reubens was introduced as Oscar Vibinious, who should play a major role in the remainder of the season. One thing that was very visible in tonight’s episode was the spectacular amount of cleavage. Both Anna Friel and Kristen Chenoweth tend to show off their goods, but tonight was the Chenoweth show all the way. Can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.
Young Ned sits in bed, exhausted, unable to sleep. He dreams every night of his mother coming back to him. He concocted a plan for reconnecting with his mother. He does this by baking pies at night with re-animated fruit. He can’t eat the pie, but the smell made him happy.
Grown-up Ned plants flowers on the roof. Chuck uses binoculars to scout extra flower/bee locations. Chuck wants to cultivate a lot of honey, but won’t ell Ned why. Olive, at The Pie Hole, is still heart broken. She tries to act like she’s OK with it around Ned. Chuck keeps her homeopathic mood enhancer pies a secret. Chuck tells Olive that they need to get her aunts back swimming again.
Ned finds cup cake pans, and Chuck admits that they’re for single-serving pies, with honey inside. Ned wants to keep his Pie Hole traditional with only real pies. Chuck wants cup pies.
Emerson gets a call from the mother of Anita Gray. Anita Gray was 22 years old. While taking a class on olfactory science, she realized her professor, Dr. Napoleon Lenee was a genius, because he created the smell of her grandmother’s unfiltered cigarettes. She became his assistant, and even wrote a book about how smells can trigger memories and, used correctly, happiness. The book was called “The Smell of Success”. However, while scratching a scratch n’ sniff material in Lenee’s lab, an explosion occurred and Anita died.
The trio heads to the coroner’s to awake Anita Gray. She’s totally charred, and kind of nasty. She sniffed an advance copy of Lenee’s book, and that’s how she died. Lenee didn’t want anyone reading that copy besides him. Emerson thinks that someone was trying to kill Lenee and the explosion was meant for him.
The trio head to see Lenee. He has a bizarre lab/office type thing, and before entering, Ned, Chuck and Emerson are decontaminated – Lenee has very sensitive smelling senses. He smells each of the trio and breaks down what they’re all about. Lenee is a very silly man.
Emerson tells him that his book exploded. Lenee says that he’ll still release the book – it’s release date was recently moved up.
Olive is given a mermaid fin by the aunts. She couldn’t be happier about it. She admits to being a huge fan of the Darling Mermaid Darlings. Lily gets suddenly depressed at the mention of Chuck’s mom, who died.
Emerson has confirmed that the book’s release was moved up. He thinks that whoever’s book was moved off the release date to make room for Lenee’s book might be the killer. They have a motive. Chuck joins the conversation and it moves to Ned’s former lovers. He calls old girlfriends “extraneous factors.” Olive tells Chuck about the troubles with getting aunts back in the water. They don’t know what to do.
Emerson finds that a book called “Pop-Up Pin-Ups” was canceled to make room for Lenee’s book. Emerson loves pop-up books. They head to see Chaz Spielman, the author of the book. He shows him the canceled book – it’s full of nudity. Chaz has a book in his office showing how to build a bomb. Chaz is indignant – why would he kill someone he knew using a method he wrote about. Good point. He explains that even though Lenee’s book was moved up, it was moved from a prime Holiday spot to no man’s land. It was dumped.
Chuck, getting into the power of smell. She decides to combine pie happiness with pool happiness – she adds the smell of chlorine to the pie. Olive and Ned find a dirty sock in the Pie Hole’s drain, with the message “U Can’t Save Lenee” written on it. It smells awful. They take it to Lenee to have it looked at. He says it came up from the sewers – which means one thing: it came from Oscar Vibinious.
Oscar (played by Paul Reubens) was Lenee’s lab partner. Vibinious disagreed with Lenee’s belief that people should only smell good smells. Oscar believed that you had to smell the bad to enjoy the good. Their rivalry turned bitter and Oscar tried to stop Lenee from publishing anything. He had disappeared – no one knew where he was.
Olive brings the chlorine to the aunts – it cheers Lily up monetarily.
Emerson, Ned and Chuck go down into the sewer to find Vibinious. They find his tool box and follow what they think is his trail. They follow the “yellow thick hose.” They stop right underneath Lenee’s apartment building. They find Vibinious pumping gas through a hose up onto the street and into Lenee’s car. When the trio find him, he tells them to run. Lenee, from across the street, remotely unlocks his car and watches it explode.
The police now are looking for Vibinious for the attempted murder of Lenee. Lenee has to make a statement about the explosion. That means, Emerson and Ned also have to make a statement. Chuck’s not allowed to go. Instead, she stops by Olive’s apartment. Olive is wearing the mermaid outfit. She gives Chuck her mom’s coat that the aunts gave Olive. Chuck starts crying.
Lenee and Emerson are interviewed for television. Lenee is embracing these attempts on his life to promote his book.
Vibinious shows up at The Pie Hole while Olive and Chuck watch TV. Vibinious just wants some pie. He explains that if he wanted to kill Lenee, he would have. He explains that he was tracking Lenee and and found the hose in Lenee’s car, followed it below into the sewer and tried to save his life – someone else was trying to kill Lenee.
Vibinious takes Olive and Chuck to the exploded car. He asks them to smell it – it smells rotten. But, if it were the methane Lenee and everyone wanted them to believe, it’d be odorless. He says that Lenee has been setting himself up to get publicity for his book.
Lily and Vivian discuss why they stopped swimming. Vivian begs Lily to start swimming again, to try and be happy. Lily smells some more chlorine. She loves it.
Ned, in Lenee’s apartment, finds the rotten sock. They accuse Lenee of setting everything up. He traps them in the de-contamination box. He is going to kill them. Lenee fills the chamber with exploding gas. It was an accident that Anita died. He just wanted to find the booby trap – not detonate it. When Anita died and the book sales escalated, he went further with the murder attempts.
Oscar, Olive and Chuck arrive. They say not to worry – Oscar had reversed the pumps. Lenee is the one being contaminated. He doesn’t die. Oscar is proven innocent, and Lenee is taken in.
Vivian sings in the morning as her and Lily watch the rain come down outside. Vivian heads outside, still singing. She and Lily go to the pool and swim in the rain.
Emerson, with the case closed, reads a pop-up book.
Ned shows Chuck the new Pie Hole menus. Cup pies are now available. Oscar Vibinious suspects something about Chuck, about her smell. He is obsessed.
-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of ABC)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
