Pushing Daisies: Comfort Food (Episode 208)

When Ned was a kidlet at his school of pain and suffering, he made a lot of pies for a lot of his fellows, who all needed the kind of comfort you can shovel in in huge, sugary mouthfuls: pie comfort. And it was his first foray into food service, at least until he got caught.

There's no real comfort to be had right now, as he and Chuck are hanging over her dad's coffin, trying to figure out who gets the first word--should Chuck go first, make the most of her first half of the minute, or Ned? They wake Mr. Charles, who appears to be made out of driftwood, but otherwise is not in such bad shape, explain how he's been dead forever, and ask about Dwight. He knows a secret that needs to stay a secret. Dwight is dangerous, he says, but as long as he has the watch, they're fine. The threat of exposure is just his insurance policy: if the gang stays quiet about Dwight, he'll stay quiet about them. Ned leaves Chuck alone to talk to her dad. Next thing, we cut to Ned and Chuck, spooning with a plastic divider between them--there's a plastic sleeve for Ned to have his arm around Chuck, a plastic barrier between the rest of them. And, you know, concerns about dead-again-forever aside, if you had the chance to spoon Lee Pace anyway you could, wouldn't you take it, too? But Chuck's not sleeping tonight--checking that Ned's out cold, she kisses his hand and slips out of bed.

Vivian and Lily are both waiting for Dwight--one at home, the other in Dwight's motel room, shotgun over her knee. She fantasizes about his return and shooting him point blank in the chest, but it's just daydreaming. She leaves him a note: I GOT IT. U WANT IT? CEMETARY. L.

At the Pie Hole, Ned's thinking of an emotional snow day--he doesn't want to leave Chuck and go to a Comfort Food Cook Off, seeing as how Chuck's swimming in confusion over having had to say hello again and goodbye again to her dad in under a minute. Chuck says that while it was hard, she's dealing; she wants Ned to go to the cook off. She might need an emotional snow day herself, she says. Ned does the panic thing he does, asking if she needs an emotional snow day from him. Are things weird because he did her dad? She says no, she's more in love with him than ever, but there are a lot of things she wants to tell him but can't but she will just not now lots of fast talking about how they will talk. She convinces him to go to the cook off, especially since it will mean so much to Olive. They nearly won two years ago, when they last went, and Olive wants to replace that bitter tang of defeat with sweet victory. Of pie.

The cook off involves novelty costumes and HATS! Ned's dressed like he's part of a barber shop quarter particularly enamored of lattice-top cherry pies, while Olive is corseted and bearing her own cherries with gusto. She blames herself for their last loss, since the sexual tension was so distracting. The coordinator of this year's cook-off coordinator, Leo Bruns, comes around on his little motor scooter just as Olive is sending eye daggers at Buffalo Muffins, the booth of a pastry lady who is one of the ones to beat. The other is the Colonel Likkin, he of the great fried, unbeatable blue ribbon chicken. Leo tells the "Pie Holers" that he's a big fan, and he's rooting for them. Olive and Ned are off to set up when they run into Marianne Marie Beetle, she of the Buffalo Muffins, who taunts them over past losses. Olive thinks she sabotaged them. I wonder if Lee Pace has to have regular massages--the way Ned holds his shoulders all hunched like that can't be comfortable week after week. Adorable, but uncomfortable. Olive declares Buffalo Muffins are going down, but Ned's distracted, wondering what Chuck's afraid to tell him.

How about that her dad is decidedly still undead?

So, it goes like this. Chuck tells her dad how much she misses him, and that she loves him. She gives her dad the birthday present she meant to give him had he not died. And then she changes her mind. She tells her father to put on her glove. When Ned touches him, he needs to act dead, and she'll come back to dig him up in an hour. Ned returns, and Chuck raises her dad's gloved hands to his. The next day in Ned's old house, she bandages his ruined face. He says twenty years dead felt more like gliding. She didn't glide. She was dead, and then there was Ned. He asks if Ned's touched her since, and he's glad when she says no. He asks how they're there, and not hereafter. Ned, she says. She tells him that dreams are much more vivid now; her bees' honey is incredible, and everything tastes better. He asks what the catch is. There's a catch, she says, that she'll catch before she gets caught. She'll tell him what it is tonight.

She goes straight to Emerson, beginning to cry as she explains that she tricked and used Ned and now someone else is dead. Emerson tells her to blow her nose and relax. She asks if he's not mad. "Hell YEAH I'M MAD, I'M STEAMED, FURIOUS, RED HOT, AND DON'T THINK I AIN'T GONNA YELL AT YOU LATER. But for now, let's just put our heads together and try to figure out what to do," he says.

Olive's baking despite the taunts of Buffalo Muffins. Ned's aghast that she's baking with hate, but Olive says the thing no one ever tells you is that hate is delicious. All the good sportsmanship is interrupted by a shriek from the Colonel Likken tent--it's Mrs. Likken, crying that her husband is dead. Ned rushes in and, without touching the Colonel, pulls him from a vat of oil. He's not just dead, he's extra crispy. After the break, Ned and Olive try to comfort the grieving widow; it seems the Colonel passed out into the boiling oil. She's disconsolate that he died without having passed on his secret recipe. She wishes for one more minute with him. So Ned, naturally, does that head cocking thing and pulls Olive aside to say he's going to help the widow. How, she wonders, wake the Colonel up and ask him his secret recipe? Ned does not say, OF COURSE, and FINALLY let Olive in on the secret, but tells her he's going to look around, so she should keep the paramedics at bay. Olive provides a distraction by painting her face with berry juice and claiming her eyes are bleeding.

Inside, Ned wakes the Colonel, who has 500 herbs and spices in his secret recipe. But there are more pressing things to discuss in the ensuing minute, like how the Colonel was rolled in his own batter and fried, and the unseen attacker stole the one copy of his recipe from his jacket pocket. Ned says he'll find out what happened to it and who killed the Colonel, but now time's up. The Colonel says it's too bad he's gone, but at least he went delicious. And then he EATS a piece of FRIED COLONEL. Self-cannibalization, man. Gross.

Chuck tells Emerson that she doesn't regret bringing her dad back--who could regret being reunited with someone she thought she'd never see again?, which he concedes is hard to pass up--but she's freaking over lying to Ned and also making someone "less alive." Emerson's like, dead, okay? Dead. Ned deaded someone and he doesn't know it, which is what I am fixing for you right now. That's his condition: he'll help, but she has to tell Ned about her dad.

The cook off continues, and Olive's still got her eyes on the prize. Ned tells her that he thinks the Colonel was murdered for his secret recipe, which he has deduced thanks to all the handy-dandy PI skills he's picked up working with Emerson. She reminds him that he's never solved a murder alone before. He points out that he's not alone. Olive positively lights up: "I just got all tingly, and not just in the nether regions." She asks where they start, and they head back into the Pie Hole tent, only to find their ovens smoking and their pies blackened. Olive thinks it's Buffalo Muffins; Ned thinks it's the Colonel's killer.

Chuck tells Emerson that when they find the body, she wants to bring it to a funeral home with money to have it buried with dignity, like leaving a baby on a doorstep, but backwards. It would be closure, she thinks. Emerson thinks the body will give her anything but closure. Because he's just found it: Dwight Dixon. Oh, I love this show. Sadness.

Not only has Emerson found the body, he's found a shotgun with a scope, its sights set on the grave of Charles Charles. This just does not compute for Chuck, that Dwight was trying to kill them. Narrator tells us that, his pocketwatches stolen, Dwight followed Chuck to the graveyard, where he assumed Chuck was returning the pocketwatch to the grave from which it had been stolen. But seeing Ned and Chuck at Charles' grave left him so dumbstruck, it took him a full moment to decide to kill Ned and Chuck. And that full moment passed, and he died while Charles Charles kept on not-living. Chuck tells Emerson that had she not done what she did, she'd have been murdered twice. They're dragging Dwight's body to her dad's grave as she says that Ned would have been killed to, so between the two of them and her dad, accidentally killing Dwight puts them three ahead on the cosmic scoreboard. Emerson leaves Chuck to go get shovels, saying that soon, it'll be like it never happened. Chuck can't wait until it's like none of it ever happend. And then Dwight raises his head and reminds her that it did happen.

Olive's shoveling her anger into the trash when Ned tells her that they have to stay in the contest to cover their investigation. Olive thinks winning would be an excellent cover. Ned thinks the killer is a risk taker, just like their saboteur. Find the one, find the other, Olive says. And find their ingredients, as the saboteur took everything they need to make pie. Olive says she's on it, but her search is cut short by Vivian's arrival. She looked for Olive at the Pie Hole, but it's closed. Olive's worried that Vivian's been crying, but Ned wants to know why the Pie Hole's closed. Vivian's distraught at Lily having driven Dwight away. But Olive pulls vivian aside, and Vivian apologizes for pulling Olive from her man when she's looking for hers. Olive's like ha ha hee, we're... noo, not like that, how silly and wonderful and beautiful but too much so to be true! Vivian says that lying to yourself about love never works. Olive turns back to Ned and agrees, again. Ned's fishing something out of the back of the oven, a clue in the form of pure maple syrup. And only one contestant uses that ingredient: the Waffle Nazi.

Chuck is having guilt induced hallucinations, but less about killing Dwight than not telling Ned. Dwight tells her that he's a bad man, but he would have told Ned what he did, and Ned will never forgive her.

Though going into someone else's kitchen is grounds for disqualification, Ned and Olive sneak into the Waffle Nazi's tent. Ned tastes all the batters as Olive tells him how Vivian mistook them for a couple, isn't that fantastic and unbelievable? Ned's like, it all makes sense! But he means the batter, which Olive tastes and believes to have 500 herbs and spices in it--the Colonel's secret recipe! And then the Waffle Nazi, followed closely by Buffalo Muffins, arrives, the Waffle Nazi accusing Ned and Olive of sabotaging his irons. Buffalo Muffins says it's justice o'clock, and she's telling.

Ned studies the broken waffle iron cord while the Waffle Nazi goes on about sabotage. Ned and Olive insist they were also sabotaged, so whatever, Waffle Nazi. Plus! Secret recipe! What do you have to say for yourself now? The Waffle Nazi says he and the Colonel were going into business together--waffles and chicken, it would catch Popeye's with their pants down. Leo Burns scoots in and asks what in the name of Julia Child is going on? Ned and Olive are like, it's not what it seems, but he disqualifies them.

Chuck and Emerson finish burying Dwight. Chuck thinks someone should say something, because people deserve to be buried with dignity. Emerson, who has dignity coming out of his bum, tells Chuck to get holy so he can deliver this prayer: "Here lies Dwight, here lies his gun. He was bad and now he's done. Let's go." Chuck's about to follow but ducks, yelling first the accidental death thing and now my mom? Emerson spots Lily approaching with a shotgun and throws his gun. A cat yowls. That gag almost never works, but hee. Emerson tries to be casual, asking what Lily's up to. Waiting for Dwight. The gun's just for a military salute for Charles, but if Dwight happens to catch a bullet to the head by accident, that's for the lawyers to deal with. Emerson scoots, because Lily is scary.

Olive and Ned are packing up, much to Olive's disappointment. Ned's ready to go back to the Pie Hole, though he's worried as to why it's empty when Chuck should be there. But then he decides that a really bold detective team would sneak back to the Colonel's coop for one last bit of recon before packing up their pots and pans for good. So they do, and Ned tells Olive to memorize the scene, the footprints and gurney tracks. She finds sprinkles on the floor--she loves sprinkles, he loves clues, two great tastes that taste great together, she says. But they are not sprinkles: they are painted plastic, cheap jewlery, left before the colonel was killed. They belong to the killer! And then, an unseen someone clonks Ned and Olive on the head with a pot and pan. Buffalo Muffins, it is she!

Next we know, Ned and Olive are locked in a trunk. Olive thinks they have to keep their wits about them and not go nuts making out. Ned starts bucking against the top of the trunk, which admittedly looks dirty, but he's just trying to bounce Buffalo Muffins from her seat on top, which he does. She threatens them with the pans again, and they accuse her of killing the Colonel. She thought he died of a heart attack; she only went into his tent to -- Olive realizes she's the saboteur, but not the killer. She begs them to have mercy and not turn her in, because she needs the blue ribbon. It's moot, though, because Leo Burns wheels in and disqualifies her, remembering he has to report the Pie Hole's disqualification as well. Ned looks down and realizes the tracks in the batter are from Leo's scooter: HE'S the killer. He says they're just gurney tracks, but Olive points out they go too far back. Plus, there are oil burns on his hands! Leo says their story will never hold up in court. Ned reaches down and pulls the Colonel's secret recipe from... somewhere? Leo's pants? I shudder to contemplate. Olive: "You're busted, tubby." That might be uncalled for, but he did deep fry a man.

The facts, they were these: Leo was a slim, lonely man, drowning his sorrows in delicious deep fried chicken. He got hooked, he got fat, he got diabetes and nightblindness. He vowed to destroy the Colonel and his recipe, and by ramming the Colonel into his batter and then the fryer, he got part one. Part two was harder, and he couldn't let it go, which was, as we are told, his undoing.

Olive, Ned, and Buffalo Muffins watch Leo get carted away when it's announced that competitors have 30 seconds to get their pies on the judging table. Since they were never reported, Olive and Ned still have a chance--Olive, because she is secretly an evil genius, brought one of Ned's icebox lemon pies and stored it in the fridge as Plan B. She and Buffalo Muffins take off with 20 seconds to judging. Awesome slo mo running sequence. Buffalo Muffins shoves Olive, who rebounds on Leo's scooter, cuts off Buffalo Muffins, and slams her pie on the table at the last second. Buffalo Muffins is not so lucky.

The Widow Colonel thanks Olive and Ned for the recipe; she's going into business with a doughnut man with finger likkin' doughnut holes. Sounds delicious and filthy, Ned thinks. Olive thinks it'll be worth a fortune. They are shushed by the Waffle Nazi, just in time to hear the Pie Hole declared as the blue medal winners. Ned's mouth falls open, and he's blushing with embarrassed pride, while Olive is out and out delighted. He extends her hands to her. She places her hand in his and raises it in celebration. Olive has an out of body experience with the orchestra in her head, singing, awesomely, "Eternal Flame." Ned interrupts, and we're prosaically in the Pie Hole tent again, packing up. Ned's worried that Chuck's not at the Pie Hole, that Dwight made good on his threat. He asks if Olive minds if he leaves to look for her and apologizes for leaving the mess. She's used to the mess, she says. He leaves, and she starts singing again: "Say my name--" "Olive?" She turns, and Ned grins, giving her a congratulations, partner. More singing. More shows should have musical numbers.

Ned drops in on the aunts to ask if they've seen Dwight. They haven't, but they have seen someone skulking in Ned's old house. He runs to his old room, thinking Chuck's being held hostage. He finds Chuck, hears someone call for Charlotte, and Chuck answer, "In here, Dad." Charles, swathed in bandages like the invisible man, appears. Ned looks at her, and she sadly says, "I was gonna tell you."