Five Things I Love About 'Pushing Daisies' In General:
1. The characters. I really think that all of the main characters in this show (including the aunts, who do not get enough play) have something wonderful to offer, and I love all of them. Especially Ned and Olive, who are my favourites, Ned for his almost unbearable cuteness and Olive because she's so damn feisty. That woman is a tiny ball of energy - sometimes positive, sometimes vindictive or jealous, and sometimes lusty, but always energetic.
2. The fantasy elements to the show. Clearly these characters occupy an alternate universe where the colours are brighter and the pies are tastier and everything is just MORE than it is in the real world. This feeling is enhanced by the voiceover from narrator Jim Dale, the beautiful art design, and the light, tinkling score.
3. Its optimism. I mean, have you ever tried to describe 'Pushing Daisies' to a prospective viewer? Yeah, it's about this piemaker who can touch people and bring them back to life, but only for a minute or someone else will die. His girlfriend is one of those people, and he can never touch her or she'll die. The waitress in his pie shop is in unrequited love with him. The other major character is a private investigator who exploits the piemaker's talents for money, and every week is a murder mystery. Cheerful, right? Except that is is. It's about the sweetest, most optimistic show on television - in spite of the fact that they're dealing with death, deception and denial every week, most of the people they come across is fundamentally a good person.
4. Every episode, no matter its themes or subjects, leaves you feeling good. Even the cliffhangers. At the end of 'Pushing Daisies' going back to the real world feels a bit duller for the joy and beauty of that world, but it leaves you with a smile on your face. It's fun.
5. In spite of the aforementioned fairytale elements, 'Pushing Daisies' never does what you expect it to do. A cliffhanger on 'Pushing Daisies' isn't like a cliffhanger on another show, where they'll drag one secret out to last an entire season and never give their characters any communication skills. In this show, people talk. Secrets are revealed. Mysteries are solved. They never really reveal a secret the way you think they will, either, and often the road that revealed secret will lead you down is totally different to where you think it will lead.
Five Things I Love About This Season of 'Pushing Daisies':
1. Olive and Chuck's new BFF-dom, and them going undercover together. In both Frescorts and Dim Sum they've been adorable, and it's fun for the girls to get to work together. Olive in the nunnery got old fast (and was wisely kept fairly short), but watching her get back to her old self has been a delight.
2. Emerson Cod. In the first season Emerson served mostly as the bitter to everybody else's sweet, the sarcasm and pessimism to offset their unnerving optimism and cheerfulness. However, this season Emerson has really been coming into his own. The stuff about his daughter and mother gave us insight into him and we've gotten to see him be kind and generous as well as mercenary.
3. How is it that Ned just keeps getting cuter? Since I watched it pretty much all at once it can't have been extended absence that made Ned seem even more adorable in the first episode of the new season, and it's like he just ups the ante every week. The stuff with the twin brothers in the last episode? Don't even.
4. The clown car gag. Some people don't get it, and that's fine. I, on the other hand, fell off my chair from laughing so hard. I love the black humour dead-people gags on this show. They should be wrong, but they're hilarious.
5. I've sort of covered this already with point #2, but I like that they're moving this away from being The Ned and Chuck Show and really giving us more Emerson and Olive this season, even going so far as to have episodes opening with flashbacks to their childhood. I hope this expansion continues to give us more of the aunts, who are so interesting and funny.
Green Queen
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