PUSHING DAISIES: BZZZZZZZ! (TV)
Summary
One in this fantasy-based dramedy series about a pie-maker whose touch can revive the dead. In this episode, in a flashback, Ned’s mother and Chuck’s father are buried on the same day, their sudden deaths connected by Ned’s powers. Their childhood romance is quickly ended when Chuck is sent to live with her agoraphobic synchronized swimmer aunts, who give her a bee colony to raise, and Ned is sent to boarding school. The two are finally reunited twenty years later when Ned revives a recently-murdered Chuck and decides to keep her alive permanently. They live together, despite the danger of Ned touching and “re-deading” Chuck. In the present, Chuck’s bees have died from pesticides, and Ned helps her to revive them. Olive struggles to contain her many secrets—her love for Ned, her knowledge that Chuck is alive and the fact that Lily is really Chuck’s mother—and Emerson peruses his pop-up book, “L’il Gumshoe.” He is interrupted by one Dusty Fitz, who claims that his wife was murdered and hires Emerson to investigate. His wife, Kentucky, was a “bee girl” at Betty’s Bees, a company that makes honey-based beauty products, and was stung to death by a swarm. When they reawaken her, she says she was leaving the company and was sabotaging Betty with “a lot of might.” Emerson concludes that Kentucky was indeed murdered, and sends Chuck in undercover as a replacement bee girl, much to Ned’s consternation. She meets with the president, a Woolsey Nicholls, a former rival of Betty’s who recently acquired the company. He tells Chuck that Kentucky was not leaving, but was in fact the new “face” of Betty’s Bees, as Betty herself was getting a bit long in the tooth. Chuck is hired and snoops around Kentucky’s old office, encountering Betty herself, who seems to be very bitter about the situation as she takes a mysterious key from Kentucky’s desk. Back at the Pie Hole, the investigators discuss the case and debate whether Betty or Woolsey is the more likely perpetrator. Suddenly, Lily and Vivian arrive, and Chuck dashes for cover. The aunts demand to know why Olive has stopped coming over with pies, and Olive, fed up entirely with all her secret-keeping, melodramatically quits her job, and Lily says she knows a place to which Olive can escape. Later, Chuck and Ned visit Olive’s vacated apartment, and Chuck admits that she was dosing her aunts with mood enhancers. She ponders that she has never lived alone, and Ned is upset to realize that she is considering subletting Olive’s apartment and moving out of his. At the company, Chuck talks to Betty again, and Betty reveals that Woolsey actually staged a “hostile takeover” of her business, demoting her to a mascot and a consultant. She also says that her bees recently died as a result of a mite infestation, and Chuck realizes that Kentucky referred to just that when they revived her, and wonders if the deaths are related. However, Dusty tells the investigators that Betty and Kentucky had been very close before her death, and when he leaves, Chuck says she will try to retrieve the key that Betty took to look for more evidence. Vivian arrives at the Pie Hole again, and as Chuck hides, Ned attempts to comfort her, as Lily has disappeared. Lily, it turns out, has taken Olive to a convent, although Olive maintains that her presence there is only temporary and is dismayed when all of her belongings are given to the poor. She soon realizes that Lily took refuge there nearly thirty years ago when pregnant with Chuck. Back at Betty’s Bees, Chuck is surprised to find that Ned is Betty’s new assistant as part of the caper, and he distracts Betty so Chuck can search for the key. She finds it, but is attacked by a terrifying bee person, just as Kentucky was. When Emerson and Ned enter, however, the bee-savvy Chuck is sitting calmly, covered in the insects, and explains holding the plastic-imprisoned queen bee in her mouth cause the drones to make a nest around her rather than attacking her. They guess that her assailant was Betty, and journey to her former home, to which the stolen key corresponds. At the convent, Olive confronts Lily, who admits that Vivian doesn’t know that she is Chuck’s mother, and that she has not told her because Chuck’s father was once Vivian’s fiancé. Lily advises Olive to stay in the convent to sort out her issues, particularly those relating to Ned. At Betty’s home, the trio finds a great collection of bees, and they realize that Betty stole them rather than let Woolsey access them. Betty herself arrives and the truth comes out: Woolsey was in love with Kentucky and made her the new face of the company, but was heartbroken when he realized that she was actually plotting against him with Betty and killed her for it. Armed with her bees, Betty regains her company and makes Dusty her partner. Ned furnishes Olive’s former apartment with Chuck’s belongings and tells her it is her home, which makes her happy. Emerson examines “L’il Gumshoe” again, and ponders how it might serve as a “map” for his own daughter to find him. And a mysterious man appears at the Pie Hole: Ned’s long-absent father. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: ABC
- DATE: October 1, 2008 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:43:06
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:93501
- GENRE: Comedy, fantasy/science fiction
- SUBJECT HEADING: Comedy, fantasy/science fiction
- SERIES RUN: ABC - TV series, 2007-2009
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Peter Ocko … Executive Producer
- Dan Jinks … Executive Producer
- Bruce Cohen … Executive Producer
- Barry Sonnenfeld … Executive Producer
- Bryan Fuller … Executive Producer, Created by, Writer
- Lawrence Trilling … Co-Executive Producer
- Gretchen J. Berg … Co-Executive Producer
- Aaron Harberts … Co-Executive Producer
- Davey Holmes … Producer
- Scott Nimerfro … Producer
- Dylan K. Massin … Producer
- Livia Hanich … Producer
- Mark Glick … Co-Producer
- Douglas Petrie … Consulting Producer
- Adam Kane … Director
- Jim Dooley … Music by
- Lee Pace … Cast, Ned
- Anna Friel … Cast, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles
- Chi McBride … Cast, Emerson Cod
- Jim Dale … Cast, Narrator
- Field Cate … Cast, Young Ned
- Ellen Greene … Cast, Vivian Charles
- Swoosie Kurtz … Cast, Lily Charles
- Kristin Chenoweth … Cast, Olive Snook
- Missi Pyle … Cast, Betty Bee
- French Stewart … Cast, Woolsey Nicholls
- Peter Cambor … Cast, Dusty Fitz
- Autumn Reeser … Cast, Kentucky Fitz
- Diana Scarwid … Cast, Mother Superior
- Sy Richardson … Cast, Coroner
- Sammi Hanratty … Cast, Young Chuck
- Robin Gwynne … Cast, Customer