Episode Report Card Al Lowe: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ice, Ice, Lady
By Al Lowe | Season 1 | Episode 9 | Aired on 12.11.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Remember when Ned told Chuck he killed her dad? That was bad. Well, this week, we flash back to that fateful day when the terrible deed happened, and when we flash forward again, Chuck has run away. Ned searches for her, walking the streets, moaning her name, but she's hiding out at Olive's, having sworn her to secrecy. And since she's on the lam, she has to have Olive bake the weekly Aunt Pie, into which Olive puts extra-extra herbal mood enhancer. Oops. But these facts are not yet the important facts. Those facts are these: An insurance adjuster was found frozen to death in the street, and Emerson and Ned have taken on the case. Ned's all distracted by the absence of Chuck, afraid she's out there all alone in the world. In fact, however, she's not at all alone -- our old friend Oscar Vibenius has arrived. He's been curious about the scent-o'-death on Chuck and Digby since he met them, and comes creeping around looking for the answers to their secrets. Alone on the case, Emerson goes off to interview suspects and finds yet another dead body buried inside a snowman. It's another adjuster from the same insurance company. Apparently, these dead guys had each denied a certain teenage boy his chance for a new heart. While waiting outside the kid's house for the killer to show up, they almost get killed themselves. However, they pull it together fast enough to save the good adjuster and solve the case. Finally, when Chuck can no longer bear holding in those secrets any longer, she turns to Oscar, but before telling him the truth, she changes her mind. Ned's the only one with whom she wants to share her secrets. But, oh my friends, speaking of mysteries unknown-- while drugged up on an overdosed herbally enhanced pie, Lily drops the biggest whopper of all. She's Chuck's mother. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Why does it irritate me so badly that they explain Ned's powers all over again every single week in the previouslies? It makes me SO MAD for some reason. Is it just me? Obviously, they want newcomers to the show to understand the premise, but then again, there are so many unexplained things about the show that are hard to understand -- synchronized aunts; Chuck's wardrobe; dead-fruit pies; Chenoweth's low billing -- I don't know why they bother explaining anything. Whatever. Y'all, from what I can tell, this is our last episode for a while. I am not sure what the strike will mean for Pushing Daisies, but I will just go on and presume that it will persevere. It can't be killed! I hope not, anyway. I guess they'll show reruns, but really, why would you watch a rerun when you could read a recap? What? Oh, people, just laugh along with me, please. I have been sick for a week and am to the point now that only Ned could revive me (consequently sending off forever my neighbor's son, a teenaged K-Fed, to that big do-rag shop in the sky).
Jim Dale takes us once again into the past to review that tragic day in which Ned brought his mother back to life only to see Chuck's dad die as a result. Ned sits in silent horror as his mom comforts the dejected Chuck -- and again, we're forced to accept that Ned and his mother have not even made the barest contact since he revived her earlier -- until the aunts arrive. Chuck would remember later that Ned didn't seem to want to look at her during all this tragedy. She would also remember that Vivian, who didn't like to touch anyone, was the first to hug her. And she would also remember that Lily, who didn't mind touching, couldn't bear to embrace her. Chuck would also remember that later that night, the doorbell rang to show Ned standing on the doorstep, silent and morose. "Something happened," Lily says, clutching Ned to her immediately and before he even speaks. "His mother died." It wasn't until this moment, JD tells us, that Lily was able to take Chuck into her arms.
Chuck also remembers the pain she felt when Ned's father took him away to be abandoned at the School For Unloved Children. "Chuck would never see him again," Jim Dale says, sadly. "Not for as long as she lived." Dang, show. Why do you have to hit me so hard with these crying children and their dead parents and stuff? Especially right now, when I am trying to simultaneously recap, do laundry, and bake a pound cake for my office holiday party. Don't even get me started how mad I am that I have to bring food to a corporately mandated function. A note to all those captains of industry surely reading these recaps: if you can't shell out even the minimum of holiday magnanimous-ity, then please do not bother at all. Having to provide my own food at a party you're allegedly organizing for my benefit does not fill me with the warmth of the season. But I digress. Again. Sorry.