'Pushing Daisies' indulges its sweet tooth

I realize that headline pretty much states the obvious: If there's anything Pushing Daisies is not afraid of, it's being sweet, sometimes cloyingly so.

But inasmuch as the idea of sweets let us into Ned's often dark emotions, I'm OK with an episode revolving around a rival sweet shop and Molly Shannon and murder by taffy.

(Me, I'll take pie over candy. And spoilers, for that matter. But I can't offer you pie or candy in this forum, so spoilers it is.)

Molly Shannon began a guest arc in Wednesday's episode as Dilly Balsam, a gifted confectioner and ruthless businesswoman who sets up shop across from the Pie Hole, with designs on putting Ned out of business and taking over the location. She proceeds to disable the sign ("Pie Ho," it reads), the sics health inspector Kenny Bania on the place. As you might imagine, discovering a room full of rotten fruit is not good for the place's rating, and it's shut down.

All the while, though, Ned is refusing to retaliate, which he equates with losing control of his emotions and lowering himself to the other guy's level. (Which prompts Emerson to note: "If you don't, people will be saying, 'Hey, look at that crazy person eating that guy who's sittin' there doin' nothing.'") Clearly, though, there's something more going on there.

For 20-some years, Ned has been carrying the guilt over killing Chuck's father, which over the years he's twisted into the belief that her father would still be alive if he hadn't let his emotions get the better of him. But really -- what 9-year-old kid wouldn't want his mom back, whatever the cost? But with no one ever having told him it was OK to have those feelings, Ned has become the moody, bottled-up guy he is.

Or at least that's how it played to my cold-addled mind. I'm curious to hear what you all think, so comment away.

Ned's desire not to fight back, though, leads him right into the middle of the murder of Dilly's brother Billy (that was actor-writer-director and occasional Molly Shannon collaborator Mike White in the role). It turns out, though, that Emerson is a pretty decent private eye even without Ned's special brand of help, and soon he and Chuck discover that it was, in fact, Bania who killed Billy after Billy refused to pay a bribe. Solving the case gets the Pie Hole crew back on Dilly's good side for now, but as she's offed the inspector, chances are the good feelings may not last.

His brief time in jail -- with the perp from the night's first, only semi-related case -- convinces Ned that he's not lying to Chuck if he doesn't tell her. Then they get all shmoopy after he's released and he tells her anyway. Bad idea: Relieving one's own guilt over something rarely does anything good for the other party, and it often doesn't make the confessor feel much better either. That looks to be what will go on in the next episode.

And, to paraphrase Ned, go emotion. The show hasn't exactly shied from portraying Ned's darker impulses, but bringing them front and center like this can only be to the show's benefit. It cuts the tendency toward the saccharine and acknowledges that Ned's gift is also a burden. If only there were more than one new episode in the can. I like where this is going.

Other bits of sweetness from Wednesday's episode:

• Emerson, ruminating on whether Burly Bruce really believes his doll is a real person: "Truth isn't like puppies, a bunch of 'em running around and you pick your favorite. One truth, and it's come a-knockin'."
• We saw the return of homeopathic antidepressant salesman Alfredo tonight, which was both sad, in that Olive can't see how smitten he is with her, and funny, in that Olive can't see how smitten he is with her. She asks him whether he could still love her if he couldn't touch her, and he delivers a beautiful speech about drawing strength from her beauty, and if he went blind, he'd fill his soul with her voice. Olive's reply: "Eh. Forget it." (It hits her later, but he's out cutting through the gristle of tradition-bound America.)
• Dead guy No. 1, Tony, gets Ned's dander up by hitting on Chuck, so he dispatches him with a disdainful touch. "What?" he protests. "It was a minute. I'm having a hard day."
• I really enjoyed the implication that Dilly's parents were among the victims in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The narrator mentions her traveling to Bodega Bay (where the movie was filmed) to confront the loss of her folks, learning about her fearlessness and her love of sweets in the same trip.
• Chuck, feisty: When Olive expresses surprise that she's up for breaking into Dilly's shop, figuring she was all "goody-goody, apple pie and baseball," Chuck replies, "Only so far as I know how to use a baseball bat to make someone's face look like apple pie."

How'd you interpret Ned's reticence in this week's Pushing Daisies? Guilt over a long-past deed, or something else? And where do you figure Chuck is headed?

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