Pushing Daisies 2.3: “Bad Habits”

The Wife:

First of all, let me say how happy I am to have the Pie Hole plot and the Nunnery plot meet up in one tightly woven meditation on exactly what Bryan Fuller does best: life and life after life. The death of a truffle-loving nun and Chuck’s discovery of her incomplete family tree serve as the catalysts to forge these two plots together. Olive, upset by the death of her friend at the nunnery and the fact that the rest of the cloister views Sister LaRue’s tragic fall as a suicide, calls on Emerson Cod to investigate, stipulating that no Neds or Chucks would be allowed. Of course, what use is Emerson Cod as a detective without Ned? And what is Ned without Chuck? Naturally, all three come along . . . posing as Vatican investigators to go deep undercover in the cloister and severely limiting this episodes’ Cute Chuck Outfit potential, much to my dismay.

In all of their digging around at the nunnery, Chuck, Ned and Emerson discover that the deceased Sister LaRue was smuggling contraband from the outside in to her sisters via a special relationship she’d formed with a Swiss Chef, whose restaurant is conveniently located near the cloister and is accessible via a system of secret tunnels. LaRue brought Hansel rare white Italian truffles, known to some as the diamonds of the table, and he in return brought her top shelf tampons, nail polish, fashion magazines and so on. They were also, on occasion, dinner partners and lovers. Unfortunately, rare white Italian truffles grow only in Italy, so how Sister LaRue was able to acquire them adds to the mystery.

Lee Pace is far too attractive as a priest and that makes me feel very dirty and wrong.

At the nunnery, both Ned and Chuck experience their own existential crises. Ned feels uncomfortable using his “gift” in a house of worship, feeling it somehow ungodly to bring the dead back to life. Emerson tries to convince Ned that it shouldn’t be an issue, saying, “Why not? He did it. Remember Lazarus?” Ned also begins to question his advice to Chuck et al about leaving the past in the past in regards to dealing with his own issues with his father. Ultimately, via confession to Father Eduardo, he realizes that the only way he can move on is to come to terms with being abandoned by his father, a statement which once again compares Ned to Christ in a somewhat odd way. (I don’t quite know what to make of such a heavy-handed metaphor, as it’s the first time the Ned-Jesus comparison has ever appeared on this show. I guess I’ll just accept it, as all Bryan Fuller shows ultimately get to this slightly-too-religious point and then back away from it slowly.)

Chuck, on the other hand, upset by her incomplete family tree, begins to feel as though she probably shouldn’t be alive again for the second time at all. She confesses her fears about her life after life to Mother Superior, who receives her concerns with steely reserve and suspicion. When Mother Superior asks Chuck what her family thought when she took the veil, Chuck is taken aback and realizes that when she died and started her second life, everyone she loved, everyone who was her real family (Lily and Vivian are her step-aunts), was dead. The scene in which she confronts Ned with her post-existential crisis was rather heartbreaking.

“I am a person with no past and no future because of what I am.”

I can only imagine how terrible Chuck’s liminal existence must be under her sunny, beautifully dressed exterior and her seeming happiness with her sweetheart whom she can never touch save for an occasional bee-suited dance of a high five by-proxy. And in this moment, I think the weight of that terror finally hit Charlotte Charles.

Sister Christian, there's so much in life. Don't you give it up before your time is due.

Thinking that perhaps her purpose as a re-purposed dead girl might be to help the recently dead pass on, Chuck ascends to the belfry where Sister LaRue took her final swan dive to see if perhaps she can communicate any last wishes for the fallen nun. In the belfry, Chuck realizes that the bells were stainless steel and never needed to be polished, calling into question exactly how Sister LaRue spent her time up there. Through a series of clumsy missteps, Chuck discovers Sister LaRue’s secret truffle lab where she manufactured her Italian white truffles to trade with Swiss Chef. Father Eduardo had discovered this lab and thought that his condemnation of LaRue, formerly Dr. Linda Franks of I Thought You Were Hungry Foods, had driven her to suicide as he was strongly against her use of the nunnery’s resources for her own gain. However, the real culprit was LaRue’s pet and trufflehound Pigby who pushed her off the ledge in an attempt to get his snout on what he was only naturally inclined to desire: Italian white truffles.

Mother Superior and Father Eduardo of course discover that Ned, Chuck and Emerson are not Vatican investigators as Chuck’s alias Sister Christian “is nothing but a heavy petting power ballad.” But once the mystery is solved and everyone but Pigby is cleared of any allegations, Ned, Chuck and Emerson return to the Pie Hole with Olive in tow, having earlier unburdened Aunt Lily’s big secret to Ned in a game of Nun Charades, which was hilarious.

At home, Ned tells Chuck to her relief that Aunt Lily is her birth mother and gives her pencils to fill in the empty branches of her family tree. Finally, Chuck has a place in the world and a people to call her own. She is relieved to have a mother at all and is unphased by the potentially scandalous circumstances of her birth. Now that she has reconciled her past, it may be possible for Chuck to have a future in this world, which I think sets up a nice arc for her character for the rest of the season, which should parallel nicely with Ned’s inevitable search for the father who abandoned him and Emerson’s continued search for his Lil’ Gumshoe.

Note: The actress who played little Olive’s mom in this episode is named Diana Costa, which freaks me the hell out, because that’s my mom’s name. Just like it freaked me the hell out to learn that Jason Dohring’s character on Moonlight was currently going by the name of Josef Kostan, which technically has an “n” at the end but was rarely ever heard pronounced. That’s my dad. And my dad is not a vampire hedge fund trader.

The Husband:

This is by far one of the best episodes of Pushing Daisies, a wonderful bit of mystery chaos, big questions and believable character evolution (as in character evolution done right. Take note, Desperate Housewives.) Chenoweth proved herself to be a worthy member of the main cast after basically being treated like window dressing and comic relief for so long, and I’d love to see more of her involved with the central mysteries (and not just a back-and-forth messenger for the Lily and Vivian story).

Two Hail Marys and a box of Pecan Sandies.

As one of the people linked to our blog has pointed out, we Pushing Daisies fans need to stick together if we want to see it survive another season, and as the numbers have dropped severely post-strike, we need all the love we can get. This is a great episode to show newbies – a crash course in the magnificence of the show’s tone, the great guest stars, the characters’ extreme and various personalities and the wildly complex cases that would have Raymond Chandler’s head spinning. Bryan Fuller has been good enough to grace network TV once again with his oddities and themes, and we should consider it a blessing that should be returned with a favor.

I love how the show, realizing that just like any other quirky quality show it may be running out of time, is barreling through their stories quickly with wit and economy, throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. I’ve never picked on a show for being ambitious, and luckily PD has high-scoring results in that department.

This was a true gem. Enjoy it.