Episode Report Card Al Lowe: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Whimsy For Dummies
By Al Lowe | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.09.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.We learn that our hero, Ned, was basically abandoned by his father to a weird boarding school where he accidentally awakened dead lab frogs, subsequently causing the deaths of various other nearby animal life forms. He grows up, as we know, to resurrect his childhood sweetheart, Chuck, and leave her alive, and while last week she was pretty grateful for that trick, this week her curiosity is getting the better of her. She wants some answers -- why is Ned the way he is? Meanwhile, a newly-pixiefied Olive goes to death- and heart-defying lengths to spy on the non-touching lovebirds, and Emerson knits sweater vests and handgun cozies to reduce his stress about Chuck encroaching on his territory. Nonetheless, the team returns to the morgue and the awesome coroner to interview this week's dead guy: an automotive safety specialist who says he was killed by a crash test dummy. That's weird, so they go to the dead guy's workplace, an even weirder car company where they've invented a car that runs on dandelions. Siiiiiiigh. I don't know. There are girls in big flower hats. Anyway, while Olive is back at the Pie Hole (getting the ULTIMATE MUSICAL NUMBER, which I was so excited about I jumped up and sang along with her), Chuck, Ned, and Emerson discover that something strange is afoot with the dandelion dummies. As a matter of fact, they aren't crash test dummies at all: they're dead bodies. The team learns from the dead guy's bulimic ex-girlfriend -- after she gets blown up in a flower car -- that the dead bodies were used in place of the dummies to keep investors from downloading dummy data and defeating the devilish dudes designing the d...ehicles. Just let me have that one. I know it doesn't make sense and that you're still like, "what? bulimic?," but stay with me. The trio, in fact, finds a pit where the old plastic dummies are hidden, and as a result of their snooping are kidnapped by the evil car manufacturer and are to be used as crash test dummies! Thinking that they are about to die, Ned and Chuck lean in for a final kiss! Did I mention that the evil car guy had put them in plastic body bags? Yes. So, Ned and Chuck are able to touch, encased, and not have Chuck die. Meanwhile, Emerson has breaks his bonds with a knitting needle he had hidden in his pocket, and they make an escape in the dandelion car, pursued by the evil car guy. They are saved, after almost running over Olive, and the bad guy is brought to justice. Some of it sounds kind of scary, right? The death and the bulimia and stuff? I know. And yet, it's scary stuff wrapped in cuteness and sprinkled with fairy dust. Somehow, it's really enjoyable. But if it gets any cuter, they'll have to call it Puppy Daisies or Pushing Kittens or Lambie Bunnies, or something like that, because as it is, it's just about given me the diabetes. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Remember last week when we learned about Young Ned and about the sadness of his mother dying -- and re-dying -- and how as a result of her re-living for more than sixty seconds, his friend's dad died? All terribly sad. But is it more sad than his own father dumping him off at a CGI boarding school, never coming back, and leaving him to fend for himself as he deals with that whole secret power of bringing the dead back to life? Young Ned, Jim Dale assures us, did not go out of his way to make friends at CGI Academy. As a matter of fact, his tendency to go it alone made him the target of bullies. Filled with quiet vengeance, he serves them right when he brings dozens of science class frogs back to life at just the moment all the little mean boys are about to slice them open. Of course, his joy at all this comeuppance is short-lived when a bunch of birds fall dead from the skies in place of the now-living frogs. "His gift," Jim Dale sadly intones, "had once again brought him great distress in place of great joy." Jim Dale, we all possess a similar gift -- it is called "going home for Thanksgiving," and, to our surprise, it boomerangs us each in the face every year, even though a holiday has never passed in which we haven't paid for our mother's delicious meal by having to swallow nine hours of unsolicited advice about everything from our haircut to family planning. But where was I?
Oh, yes. So, in light of his unpopularity and the strange details of his strange life, Young Ned decides to lie about his powers, and that plan works just fine for nineteen years, something-something months, blah blah weeks and whatever days. That to-the-minute stuff was cute last week, but I'm done with it. Don't waste Jim Dale's time making him say all that stuff, okay? His sneerily-sweet voice is meant for more important subjects.
The thing we're supposed to get is that Ned's well-honed lying skills are being tested now, as he and Chuck gaze longingly at each other from their new twin beds in his apartment. "This is strange," Chuck says, giving him one of her best smiles. But Ned disagrees. "It's not strange," he says. "It's unusual, maybe. Eccentric, in a quaint way, like dessert spoons." Chuck is charmed by his charmingness, but says that she has so many questions about how he brought her back to life that her mind wanders. "You need to feed it warm milk and a turkey sandwich," he tells her, "and let it curl up in a sunny spot and take a nap." Okay, Ned. You're really, really almost ridiculously cute. And you have this cool power. And you're in love with Chuck and the reasons are clear. But that is so cute it's gross -- I know you can't have sex with this woman, but it doesn't mean you have to treat her like a tiny kitty you found in the street.