Gangsta love on 'Pushing Daisies'

When you think of "gangsta," Pushing Daisies is probably about the last TV show you would associate with it.

Pushing Daisies is adorable and sweet and charming, but it's not what you'd call, uh, hard. So, yeah, the fact that Chi McBride and Lee Pace were tossing the word "gangsta" around in Wednesday's episode was pretty silly. But it never felt forced either, which is further testament to how light on its feet this show is.

(Spoil-a-russell-a-poos coming right up.)

Though the underlying premise was typically light, tonight's mystery was as tightly constructed as any the show has done so far. The facts are these: The breeder of the world's most perfect dog (Soup man Joel McHale) is killed, falling on a pointy-ended dog brush after being poisoned by cyanide in his coffee. His wife did it, the reanimated breeder says, to which Emerson says, "Thank the lord for simple things, like 'My wife did it.'"

As it's not a 15-minute show, there were complications. Seems our breeder had four wives, not one (and the local law seems not at all concerned about that), and they might all have motive for murder, since the decedent had sold his perfect dog, Bubblegum, to the evil face of Big Pet, Ramsfeld Snuppy, CEO of dog-mill Snuppy's Puppies. He has plans to clone and sell Bubblegum to every family in America, for only six easy payments of $1,200.

After several red herrings and a couple of twists and turns, we discover that wife No. 1 is the culprit in both deaths, having framed wife No. 4 for the murder of their husband because she was angry at the plan to clone Bubblegum and then offed Snuppy because she wasn't aware wife No. 3 had faked Bubblegum's death and therefore Snuppy didn't have the necessary DNA to clone the dog. Got it?

Running underneath the case of the week was a lot of great relationship stuff, with Ned freaking out a little over a dirty, post-kiss dream he had about Olive and deciding not to tell Chuck about it. ("That girl dropped a bomb in your subconscious with her saliva," Emerson observes, in what has to be the first recorded utterance of that sentence, ever, anywhere.)

Chuck, too, is wondering if she'll always be enough for Ned, with the no-touching rule in effect for the rest of their natural (or unnatural, in Chuck's case) lives. She's a little hurt when Olive reveals her kiss with Ned before he does, but she's also sort of curious about the idea of a person having more than one one and only.

This makes Ned even jumpier, but it eventually brings him to an incredibly shmoopy and sweet moment, as he tells Chuck that she's the only one for him. "I know you feel that way now ...," Chuck protests, and Ned talks about having mile-long lists of things he wants -- "but just because we want them doesn't mean we need them to be happy."

"What do you need to be happy?" she asks.

"You."

Everyone, on three: Awwwwwwwww.

The star of the episode, though, was Chi McBride, who demonstrated some sharp, subtle physical acting as wife No. 3 subconsciously trained him to come around to her side of the table: She dognapped Bubblegum and faked the canine's death to keep her out of Snuppy's hands. The little snap of his head and deadening of his eyes each time he heard her clicker -- brilliant stuff. And the man spit out a chew toy that was being used as a ball gag. Oh my.

More good stuff from Wednesday's episode:

• The visual elements got a jolt tonight, with Young Ned's melancholy claymation and the dream sequences for Ned and Emerson. I especially liked the latter, which had a Vertigo-ish element to it.
• Exchange of the night: "Some people like chocolate, some people like vanilla, and some people like their neapolitan," Emerson says. Ned: "I like neapolitan." Emerson: "Then you'd do well as a polygamist." I didn't get all of Ned's stammering, stumbling defense of his poor polygamous bona fides, but it was fantastic.
• Exchange of the night No. 2: Chuck: "You're taking money from blind children?" Emerson: "I suppose I could pay my bills with blind kids' smiles, but their money is a lot easier."
• I'm also enjoying the developing friendship, or at least mutual understanding, between Chuck and Olive. Their discussion of how Chuck and Ned don't ever touch, and Olive's description of Ned's lips, was really kind of sweet. I don't know if Olive will ever quite get to the truth of Chuck's story, but the fact that the two aren't complete antagonists makes things a little more interesting.

How'd you enjoy this week's Pushing Daisies? And how awesome is Chi McBride?

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