Last week, I wrote this article about the return of the ABC show Pushing Daisies. In it, I quoted a poster from the DVD Talk forums who said: “I consider myself a highly cynical, pessimistic person, but there’s just something about this show that is able to give me the warm fuzzies. Every week I get to feel like the Grinch when he rediscovers he has a heart.”
It’s true! Pushing Daisies is like a comfy sweater or favorite pillow. You know the “cuteness” factor in the movie Amelie? Ratchet that up several notches and bring it into your living room ever week, and that’s Pushing Daisies. But it wasn’t until this week that I realized how totally, incredibly, and profoundly sad this show is, too. It makes me downright weepy! Yes, weepy!
This week, Chuck’s aunt Vivian stopped by The Pie Hole to pick up a pie. Since Olive is away at a convent, she hasn’t been able to deliver the pies that Chuck has been making for her aunts these past few months. And with Olive away and Ned and Emerson solving a case, that leaves only Chuck to man The Pie Hole. Vivian, missing the pies that Olive used to deliver, stopped by the restaurant to pick up a pie. But only Chuck is there, and she’s supposed to be dead. Vivian gives a little speech about her loneliness while Chuck hides from her. Chuck can only cry as the woman that reared her talks sadly.
Everyone in this show is terribly hurt in some way. Ned is lonely – not just because he cannot touch Chuck, but also because he misses his family. Chuck… well, Chuck is sad because she’s supposed to be dead and cannot tell her aunts that she is, in fact, alive. Olive is deeply in love with Ned, but Ned is deeply in love with Chuck. Olive also has many secrets she’s forced to bear. Emerson’s daughter is missing, so he makes a series of pop-up books in her honor, perhaps hoping she’ll read them and come home. Vivian is lonely because she misses Lilly. And because she’s nuts. And Lilly apparently has a closet full of secrets. Whew!
Thankfully, the show still brings the laughs, though. This week’s joke with the clown car was completely predicable… but freakin’ hilarious nevertheless!
