Episode Report Card Angel Cohn: A+ | 1 USERS: F YOU GRADE IT Cake or Death
By Angel Cohn | Season 2 | Episode 9 | Aired on 12.10.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Ned finds out that Chuck kept her dead dad alive, and he's so pissed. Or he would be, if it wasn't rumored to cause hemorrhoids. Eventually he kind of accepts it and is ready to make a very unconventional little familial unit. However, Charles Charles has some other ideas on this matter. He wants Ned to stay away from his beloved daughter. He's more than a little concerned about the imminent chance of redeath (considering they are practically rubbing elbows during this episode, so am I.) And he's more than a little bit annoyed that Ned was the reason he was sentenced to an early grave. He put that one together pretty quickly. He also doesn't want to abide by Ned's carefully crafted playbook, especially made for those indulging in the Alive Again lifestyle. Chuck is sweetly and slightly annoyingly oblivious about this matter. She thinks its like sneaking around in high school, which neither she nor Ned had a chance to do. She's excited that her dad gets a chance to torture her first boyfriend... though I don't think she meant that in the literal sense. And Ned's apprehensive because Charles Charles doesn't like pie. And he doesn't like chocolate. He prefers cake. What kind of person is he? We won't find out right away, since while Chuck decided to choose the Pie Man, Charles has stolen their car and gone rogue, leaving the lovebirds stranded in the snow.
The mystery of the week, pretty much falls to Emerson and Olive to handle, since Chuck and Ned are off dealing with Alive Again daddy issues. So Cod and Snook set out to find out why Nora the lighthousekeeper was turned into a dead batsignal. Olive regales the Pie Hole crew with an I Know What You Did Last Summer-esque ghost story about Merle McQuoddy, a fisherman who was lost at sea for years, but then returned, thanks to a helpful gay family cruise. He's the likely suspect, but son Elliot doesn't buy this tale. Olive goes off and buys coordinating raincoats for the adventure. Hers is covered in green olives, Emerson's is covered in fish. She optimistically created one for Ned with pies, but he's too busy to solve murders. All Ned does is bring Nora back to life (and her face looks like Cassandra's from Doctor Who, which is to say a big pancake) and then heads off, leaving a heartbroken Olive in his wake. Olive's surprisingly good at this investigative thing, in addition to her considerable skills with accessories. They interview a bunch of suspects, but the most interesting is Annabelle Vandersloop (Mary Kay Place), a high society woman who has a serious love for dioramas, glitter and widowhood. The resolution involves the lighthouse being turned into a spa, an a cappella band and Mary Kay Place getting put in her place. After they put the crime to bed, Emerson offers "Itty Bitty" a job... just in case she needs to get away from the lovebirds. For crissakes. This show is killing me with its sweetness.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!It gets more and more difficult to write about this amazing show as each week passes. As each sneaky double entendre cracks me up, I feel a bitter sting knowing that I'll have to find my mildly off-color and subtle humor elsewhere. As each fabulous costume appears, I dread seeing TV shows that are filled with boring drab Banana Republic clothes instead of the bright, candy-colored and clever concoctions that currently light up my screen. But on the positive side, this show gets better and better each week, so that's something, right? This episode is no exception.
The episode begins with the cutest little claymation animation ever. It's got a father and daughter riding on a pair of camels walking through the desert. It is a 600 mile stretch of wilderness known as the Rub' al Khali desert. It looks not altogether unlike the scenes of Charles Charles, Dwight Dixon and Ned's Dad in the desert for their job. Then the camera pans back and we see young Chuck and her father playing with figures, dressed as adventurers and having a grand old time.
Young Chuck is, eight years, eight months, 21 days old and suffering from a nasty case of the childhood ailment of the chicken pox, and Charles Charles cooked up this plan to distract her. Jim Dale tells us that it relieved the itch, but replaced it with a burning desire for adventure. Her father promised to take her on adventures, but a month later he died. Young Chuck learned the lesson that one can never recapture what once was. Until she kept her father alive without telling Frere Piemaker.We head straight headlong into the final scene from last week's episode where Ned is at his old house, in his childhood bedroom, discovering that his beloved Chuck lied to him and kept her father alive. He's in a stunned state. Lily and Vivian come over to check out the situation, Lily's got her gun a blazin'. Ned tries to shut the door on them, but Lily is not one to be easily dissuaded, as she plows her way in as Chuck and Charles Charles seek shelter in the closet. Lily is "spittin' pissed at being served up a steaming plate of door." Vivian disagrees, even though at this point she's wearing the most outrageous ensemble that is all sparkles and marabou. She doesn't get pissed because she was told once by a gypsy that it brings on hemorrhoids. Good to know. See, this show teaches!
Chuck and Charles Charles are squashed together in the closet and he really doesn't understand why he just can't go out and talk to Lily. Because a guy who is swaddled in bandages and has been dead for 20 years is likely to freak out a person. Even if said person is your former lover. Chuck insists they can't know that Charles Charles is undead. Charles Charles thinks her aunts have the right to know. Well, except for the one that is her mother. Dad's impressed she figured that out. He makes sure that she's OK. She is. Especially now that she has her dead dad back. For the record, I'm not loving this whole Charles Charles plotline. I liked scheming Dwight Dixon.