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This episode begins with Olive tending to a dead pigeon, which Ned accidentally revives. Looking up to see what all the fuss is about when another bird falls out of the sky, the entire cast bears witness to a plane flying into the side of a building. And because this show is filled with pretty colors, stylized images, and a general sense of purdy-osity, Pushing Daisies somehow manages to take the iconically horrifying image of a plane flying into the side of a building and make it almost...adorable. As it turns out, the plane belongs to one Bradan Caden, a crop duster who is assumed to have committed suicide. But when Ned has a chance to work his finger magic, we discover that endless quantities of foul play are, as usual, afoot. The plane, in fact, was hijacked by a man named Conrad who was stuffed into a drawer in his own apartment -- an apartment which was occupied by another man claiming to be Conrad. In no time, Ned, Emerson, and Chuck are chasing a pigeon into a windmill to find some stolen diamonds. No, it's true. Olive, meanwhile, continues her pie delivery service to Aunts Lily and Vivian, all in an attempt to stage a meeting between them and the hated Chuck. But at the episode's climax, Olive realizes she has bonded with the aunts, and decides against the plan at the last second. And if you think this episode was good without a special appearance by the music of They Might Be Giants, just imagine how good it is with one. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Six Feet Under And Then Six Feet Back Up Again: Ned, dead girl, can't touch, sad aunts, Olive, Emerson, opening credits.
While a group of un-tortured young boys who do not have the power to raise the dead play a rousing game of kickball, young Ned sits by a tree a fair margin away from them. The authoritative narrator British-ly informs us that Ned was lonely and unable to make friends at his school for boys, so he often found himself playing alone. By way of example, young Ned throws an orange ball against the tree several times, until he misses the tree by a wide margin and the ball goes sailing off. The narrator (though, due to his amazingly British-osity, should perhaps be known as The Narratour, adding an Anglo "ou") informs us, "What young Ned did not realize was that beyond the meadow and under the same orange sky, someone he loved was remembering him." But who might love Young Ned? His girlfriend is out of reach, his classmates won't let him play kickball, and he accidentally killed his mom...twice. Maybe we need to widen our search to be a little more inter-species.
Sure enough, Digby the dog sits on the front porch of the house in Coeur d'Coeur, as The Narratour catches us up: "Three days prior, Digby had made a decision." I do like this show's ability to be quirky without crossing the fine line into annoying, with small touches such as the implication that Digby is making thoughtful, rational decisions and possesses the freedom of self-determination. Like how my cat "decides" to stare and meow at a blank patch of wall in my apartment for hours, rather than his merely being compelled to do so because he has a brain the size of an almond. Hang out with a pet long enough and, like with Digby, you'll believe that they can be lonely/amused/in love with a patch of wall/etc. Anyway, Digby takes off running, "guided by the compass of his heart." This is a beautiful sentiment, even if I'm having trouble understanding why this translates into Digby pulling a fire alarm and causing the arrival of a fire truck. I guess Digby understands the concept of loneliness, but not the concept of wasting the valuable tax dollars of all of Coeur d'Coeur's residents. I hope he finds Young Ned soon, or we'll cut to Digby calling the police to report fake crimes, putting hazardous materials into the local mailboxes, and otherwise creating a public nuisance in the name of canine loneliness.
Holding Young Ned's orange ball in his mouth, Digby runs onto the meadow of Young Ned's school, and the two begin running toward each other in slow motion. But when they reach one another, we watch them remember that they are not allowed to touch or the zombie-fied Digby will once again die. In fact, The Narratour tells it like it is: "They could not touch, or Digby would die." And I have no qualms about watching this adorable little sequence, but isn't this kind of a retread of information we already know? How granular are we getting in our recapping here? Are we about to learn the dictionary definition of "pie"? I don't want to tell this show how to do its job, but if people aren't on board with the central concept by Episode Four, those people are never going to stop watching America's Top Model.
Speaking of young lovers reunited, we cut to the pie shop, present day, to find Ned broadly smiling, thinking of Chuck. Over in the kitchen, Chuck adds a few eyedroppers full of her homeo-prozac to a pie intended for her aunts, as The Narratour reminds us that they have a social phobia and that they don't like to go outside. up, The Narratour will read verbatim from the Wikipedia entry for the words "Pushing" and "Daisy," just to make total sure that nobody in the viewing audience is the slightest bit confused about anything. Was this episode originally intended to be the pilot?
Ned finds Chuck in the kitchen, where she informs him that she did not sleep particularly well the night before. Ned asks if she had a "lumpy mattress," and Chuck responds that she had "lumpy dreams." We learned about those in health class, and they are absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, especially as a teenager. She tells him that her dreams have become more vivid since she became an undead monster refugee from the "Thriller" video (I'm paraphrasing), and then turns the topic to a few unsightly welts on Ned's face. She recognizes them instantly as bee stings and asks how he came to be stung by so many bees. She also tells him that it was a suicide attack for the bees who stung him, to which Ned tells her, "Not in this case. They sort of stung me, died, and flew away again, and some other bees died." Eager to turn the topic away from the fact that Ned can touch people and make them alive again, she asks if he thinks the honey of undead bees tastes different, noting that it would be "one of those little things." I know Chuck was dead for a time, but not so long that her last reference for human conversation would be in the form of early '90s observational comedy. Did you ever notice how bees that have been dead have different-flavored honey than bees who haven't been dead? What is the deal with that?
Ned tells Chuck he wants to show her something, and a cut later we're on the roof of the Pie Hole. We are in the presence of numerous enormous beehives. Chuck is delighted, and I make a mental note that, instead of flowers or fancy dinners, if you want to impress the love in your life, buy them a gift that could easily kill them in a blink. Chuck tells Ned that she would hug him if she could, and I start making calls to see if I can scare up some anthrax or some guns with no safeties so that I can remind my significant other how lucky he is to have me.
Speaking of bees, a disgruntled Olive would gladly release those bees into a sleeping Chuck's mouth if she had the chance, so awesomely filled with rage is she at Chuck's very existence. Well, let's hear how The Narratour tells it way, way better: "Her affection for the pie maker had not wavered despite the romantic threat of a dead girl who wasn't dead." We are reminded that Olive just found out that Chuck wasn't dead, and that she currently believes Chuck faked her own death. Instead of giving her secret away, it seems Olive has chosen the more insidious method of subtle torture, as she walks into the kitchen and announces, "You know what would be delicious? Pear with gruyere crust," the exact pie that Olive delivered to Chuck's aunts last week. Now Chuck knows that Olive knows that Chuck is up to no good, and she communicates it through the delicious message of pies. The secret ingredient is passive-aggression.
But Olive's adventures in junior high mid-fucking are quickly done in when some plot development comes dropping out of the clear blue sky. Olive, Ned, and Chuck run outside to find a dead pigeon has crashed into one of the windows of the Pie Hole. Olive picks it up to find out if it is dead, asking Ned to feel whether or not there is a heartbeat. He recoils in horror, announcing, "I don't do heartbeats," and Olive grabs Ned's hand and informs him, "They feel like this" while pulling his hand to her chest. Just then, the not-actually-romantic-for-anybody moment is broken by Emerson, who tells Olive to get rid of the bird, as it is clearly swimming with disease. Olive levels a perfect, "Don't be such a drama queen," which is a line of dialogue I'm willing to believe has never once been lobbed at any of Chi McBride's characters. As the argument over whether or not this ex-pigeon is diseased continues, Emerson pushes the bird away, where it brushes against Ned's arm, and the bird lives again. A thrilled Olive exclaims, "It's swimming in miracles, not disease!" which would make an excellent marketing slogan for some kind of health clinic or hospital, especially in light of the fact that we recently learned everyone on the planet is about to die from staph. A little PR for hospitals would probably go a long way, and the catchy slogan "It's swimming in miracles, not disease!" could really help.
Emerson and Ned eye their watches nervously, Ned assuring Emerson that a nearby squirrel will probably be the unlucky victim of the bird's resurgent life. However, at the end of a tense minute, another bird falls from the sky, which causes the entire assemblage to look up to see why the skies have gone so weirdly Paul Thomas Anderson all of a sudden. At this exact moment, however, what they see up in the sky is a small plane flying into the window of a high-rise building. And because this show is filled with pretty colors, stylized images, and a general sense of purdy-osity, Pushing Daisies somehow manages to take the iconically horrifying image of a plane flying into the side of a building and make it almost...adorable. And anyway, it's a tiny plane, less "Run for your lives, people are dead" and more "Boy, has the Red Baron had an unfortunate day or what!"
Inside the apartment building, we meet one very dead Bradan Caden, a crop duster whose plane went out of control, catapulting him out of it when the plane flew into the apartment of one Conrad Fitch. A man who we are meant to assume (spoiler!) is Conrad stands in the apartment looking at the plane, and moments later Chuck, Ned, and Emerson walk through the apartment's open front door. Chuck wonders aloud if this little field trip qualifies as ambulance-chasing, and Emerson replies that it most assuredly does. Lest they feel bad about it, however, Chuck tells them that "a plane crashes into a building, could mean a civil suit, criminal suit, negligence, pain and suffering." And on she goes, until The Narratour clues us in that Chuck volunteered as a stay-at-home juror for a paraplegic judge, at which point we hit a flashback of Chuck delivering a guilty verdict over the phone. And, okay, I love this show, but that slightly unnecessary flashback could well have been one flashback too many. I'm engaged in the story. I don't need to be brought out of it with a meaningless, quirky flashback not much different than, say, "You think that's weird...what about the time I went deep sea diving with Hall and Oates!" And let that be, dear reader, the last time I ever compare anything that happens on Pushing Daisies to anything that happens on Family Guy.
While I was making inexcusable generalizations about TV shows I like (and also about Family Guy), Chuck slips on some debris and falls in slow motion. While she's on her way down, maybe she should think about the fact that this is a crime scene that should be sealed off to civilians, but I don't think we need to worry about such real-life facts on a show so fanciful it's about to carry us off to a windmill farm (spoiler!). Anyway, Ned recoils to avoid touching her, leaving Chuck to fall into the arms of the man we're meant to believe is Conrad. She thanks him profusely and asks if he lives in this apartment, and Conrad charmingly tells her he should cancel the maid tomorrow. They regard some hideous blue and white plates sitting on shelves, and Chuck celebrates the fact that his "collection of nautical plates survived," just as the shelves collapse and the plates crash to the floor. Touch them, Ned! Bring them back to life! Maybe some other shitty dollar store plates door will get what's coming to them after a minute, but if you're going to take the time to build a shelf to display your plates, well, those are some pretty nice plates. Ned clears his throat awkwardly and tells Chuck that the ambulance is leaving, but she tells him that she is going to stay and help the poor man with the plane in his living room and the gorgeous broken plates. Emerson unwhispers "We got a dead guy to talk to," and hustles Ned out the door.
The facts were these: Bradan Caden (rhyming name...Quirk Alert!) was a fifty-three-year-old crop duster whose plane crashed into the aforementioned building. Less than seventeen minutes later, his death was ruled a suicide and his life insurance policy rejected with a big-ass rubber stamp reading "SUICIDE." Working in the Depressing Cause Of Death Factory where those stamps are made must be an uplifting career.
Meanwhile, at The Only Morgue In Town, Ned and Emerson get all George and Jerry about Ned's approach to courtship, as Ned tells Emerson, "Did you see the way [Conrad] swept in there...I don't sweep. I'm not a sweeper." Well, George, some people are sweepers. And if there's one thing about those people I know for sure, it's that they have tons of hand. Ned frets that he can't catch the woman he loves, and Emerson responds in kind: "You can't suck on her toes, neither." With which this sequence becomes way less George and Jerry and way more Vincent and Jules talking about the moral implications of giving Marcellus Wallace's wife a foot massage.
Inside the coroner's office, a dour Mrs. Cadan explains to the coroner that her husband was "a happy man," and that insurance companies can't make assumptions about a person's disposition. Just at this moment, Emerson enters and tells her that they can be of some assistance, which causes the coroner to call Emerson outside and tell him that he knows there is some kind of racket going on. "I don't know what," he tells Emerson, "but you're shifty." I don't know why but you're shifty! Such a good line. One, in fact, that I'll begin using immediately until it is ingrained in the zeitgeist and people say it all the time and use it as a signoff for letters instead of "XOXO" and abbreviate it in text messages that read simply, "IDKWBYS." Emerson says that he's just a concerned citizen, but the coroner deduces that Emerson is making some cash off of this, and he wants in. Soak in this subplot as much as you possibly can now, because I'm pretty sure it doesn't come up again for the remainder of the episode.
Ned and the grieving (for the state of her home perm, I think) Mrs. Cadan share an awkward moment in the office, until Ned excuses himself and goes for a visit with Bradan. He starts the watch and touches the dead man, and the ex-Bradan immediately asks Ned if he's the man who jumped in his plane. Ned asks what the hell, and Bradan informs Ned that his plane was hijacked. He further explains that he was on his way to dust some crops when some douche (paraphrasing the dead can be such crass work) in an orange jumpsuit jumped into his plane. Satisfied, Ned re-deads the guy, and just then the coroner, the wife, and Emerson bust into the room. Ned tells them the plane was hijacked, and when Mrs. Cadan asks how he knows this, he tells her, "DNA-ish." This is probably where, as the bereaved wife, I would start to say, "Hands off my husband or I'm calling the police," right before I came to my senses and added, "But I can't because you are so cute, and your show is so quirky and charming!"
Olive walks through the front gate of Aunts Vivian and Lily's house holding a pie and an injured bird in a cage, with a zombie dog in tow. Auntie Eye Patch peers through the peephole with some trepidation because, I mean, if front gates are good for anything, it's protecting your private property from the scourge of zombie dogs. Then again, pie.
Inside now, the aunts examine the bird and tell Olive it is a carrier pigeon. They find a message which Aunt Vivian wants to open, but Aunt Lily asks if they would ordinarily opens people's mail. Olive volleys, "Who's the people and how hard is it to open?" which sends Aunt Vivian into one quick gale of laughter, which surprises even Aunt Vivian. They ask each other what's gotten into them, though if I had to guess, I would say it's probably the fact that Broadway superstar Kristin Chenoweth is in their house, and if they're very nice and fix her zombie bird, maybe she'll delight us all with another number from Grease. Maybe "Beauty School Dropout," with Swoosie Kurtz, if we should be so lucky, playing the part of Frenchy?
Olive convinces the aunts to help the carrier pigeon deliver his message, and pushes the plan even further by telling them that, when their mission is complete, they'll celebrate at the Pie Hole. The aunts ask, appropriately enough, why they would go out to get pie when there is a pie delivered to them, like, every five minutes.
Back at the actual scene of the crime, someone finally got around to hanging one "X" of police tape in front of the door, but then never got around to locking the door on the way out. Ned and Emerson reenter the premises, this time on a mission to find Chuck and her new special friend who may or may not be Conrad. Ned finds evidence of the two of them having had coffee together, which sends him into some anxiety. Just at this moment, though, they dig up some plot where they least expect it, when the table underneath the coffee cups reveals yet another dead man. Ned does the finger jive and the man in the coffee table wakes up. Ned asks if the man hijacked the plane, and the man responds that the plane flew into his apartment. Emerson wants to know, then, who Conrad is, at which point the man in the coffee table indicates the embroidery on his very own shirt reading, "Conrad." Well then who is it Chuck has been drinking coffee with right to a dead man's coffee table? One quick edit until we find out!
Back at the Pie Hole, Chuck and Not-rad enter, Chuck asking if Not-rad likes pie. Because we are about to find out he is pure eeeeeeeeeeevil, Not-rad mutters under his breath, "It would be criminal not to like pie." I'm sorry, but what is this Shakespearean aside indicating the character's inner thoughts? How cartoonishly evil is this person? Is this Charles Grodin in The Great Muppet Caper, all, "That's what you think, Miss Piggy!" as soon as her back is turned? Why so dark all of a sudden? Did he read the script and know he's about to be found out?
And so they eat pie, Not-rad telling Chuck that he has to start over now that a plane has flown into his living room. She tells him that she had to start over once, and he puts his hand on hers. The Narratour tells us that Chuck meant to pull her hand away, but that it was kind of nice to have someone actually be able to touch her for once. Not-rad asks if the man in the apartment -- "the one who took a step back to let you fall" -- was her boyfriend. Chuck asks Not-rad to hold her hand for a minute and not say anything, and Chuck opens her eyes to see herself holding hands with Ned. Ack! Even seeing this in a fantasy sequence I'm like, "Yo, girlfriend be dead." That's how convincing this show is. That's how much I spend every episode being like, "You guys are standing way too close to one another. You don't want to brush up against each other. You need to be more careful!"
Just then, Ned and Emerson come bursting in, and Not-rad takes off. Ned tells Chuck that she's been enjoying pie with the hijacker, not with Conrad. Chuck grouses, "You miss one trip to the morgue," and gives chase as well. In the kitchen, Ned thinks he has the liar by the arm, but he gives a good tug and the arm comes right off in his hand, slamming him in the face. There hasn't been a good opportunity for someone to say the words "Nyuck-nyuck-nyuck" on television in at least fifty years, but this would be as good an opportunity as any.
Back at the booth, the other arm of the one-armed man sitting between them on the table, Ned asks what Chuck was doing holding the man's hand. Chuck tells Ned that, if it's any consolation, she was pretending she was holding his hand. Suuuuuuuure she was. You can chalk up "I swear, baby, I was thinking about you the whole time" in The Gallery Of Relationship Lies right to "It's not you, it's me" and "I swear I want to commit, but if I touch you even one time, you will die forever." Ned continues to catalog the man's many shortcomings -- he's a kidnapper, a liar, and he kept crops from getting dusted -- until Emerson comes back and reports that he came across some more information and that they're going to need shovels. That's a lot to have happened off-screen. Ned and Chuck look back at him with surprise, because, in order to button the scene, evidently everyone has to pretend they're surprised that they have more than a passing acquaintance with dead people.
The Narratour tells us that the man they knew as Conrad was, in fact, really named Lemuel Weinger. In a flashback, we see Chuck's recent flame wearing a suit and glasses, attempting to shred documents at some kind of energy company. He simultaneously shreds his right hand with his insider trading documents, and off he goes to jail. While in jail, he took on the name Lefty. Okay, seriously, is this episode of Pushing Daisies an adaptation of the verse in "Bust a Move" with all the names? Because I keep hearing Conrad, Lemuel, and Lefty, but all I can think about is my best friend Harry who had a brother Larry. Are you aware that in five days from now he's gonna marry?
What you should be aware of is that Lefty, while behind bars, met an infamous diamond thief named Jackson Lucas who found a buried treasure that was never recovered. And so it was that we cut to Ned, Chuck, and Emerson, digging him up. I'm not actually sure why. This episode is, like, film noir confusing. This is some Chinatown levels of what the eff is going on. The only thing that could make this weirder is if this show suddenly puts us in the presence of people who live inside of windmills. That would be more weirdness than I think my body is capable of handling right now.
Anyway, they dig up Jackson, who apparently doesn't have any eyes, so Chuck pops her glasses on him and Ned is all, Stop, Zombie time! Jack pops up out of his grave, looking like a crazy David Lynch in white designer lady's sunglasses. Which is, I'm sure, at some point an outfit that the actual David Lynch has worn, probably also while lying in an open grave. But unlike most cadavers, Jack isn't quite as receptive to telling them exactly what they want to know, though he finally tells them that they should go to something called Von Roenn and find a farm or windmill or something. Uh-oh. I don't have a good feeling re: my earlier prediction about windmills.
Back at Aunt Subplots house, the aunts talk about performing taxidermy on birds (how often do you get to say that about a network television show?), until Olive is sooooooort of subtly able to segue into the sad case of Charlotte leaving them. Auntie Eye Patch fact-checks that she didn't leave. In fact, she died. The conversation turns back to the pigeon, whom the aunts have added a new wing to. Happiness ensues, as the world of Pushing Daisies gains yet another undead Frankenstein.
Ned, Chuck, and Emerson (I feel like I need some kind of kitschy nickname for the three of them, but...meh, I'm only doing one recap) enter the Papen County Historical Society Museum, where a woman at a desk appears to be yet one more victim of muuuuuuuurder. Emerson takes us to the act out with the dramatic, "Lefty Lem has officially taken the lead." Who killed the museum lady? I don't know, but you're shifty.
When we return from commercials, we learn that, in fact, Lefty Lem has not at all taken the lead. After a touch from Ned fails to revive her, Emerson steps in to bat her awake. She wasn't dead...she was sleeping! Comedy! They tell the woman they are looking for information about the Von Roenn windmill, and she tells them that another man had just come in looking for information on the very same thing. When they ask if he had one arm, the woman confirms that he did. Like it would have been anyone else stopping in to talk about a windmill. In fact, even if the narcoleptic windmill curator had mentioned that the man who two arms, I would be more willing to believe that Lefty went to a Dupont factory, stole some plastic, and single-handedly smelted himself a new arm from the raw materials. I'm just saying, ain't nobody who isn't on this cute show who cares a damn about windmills. Anyway, the woman tells them that the windmill is no longer in use, and that it has been shipped off to a kind of windmill graveyard (if Ned touches it, another windmills stops turning) at a historic preservation area. She arms them with a map and immediately falls asleep again. I don't know. Shifty.
Back in Coeur d'Coeur, The Narratour reminds us that Olive's hate for Chuck is now twofold. One fold for stealing Ned from her; the other fold for making her aunts so sad. Awwwww. Olive has so much love to give. Alone with Vivian now, Olive tries to goad her into reading the carrier pigeon's message. Vivian tells a vague story about a time when she read something she wasn't supposed to, for which she believes Lily will never forgive her. But before this can be explored any further, Lily saunters into the room with a martini, and they resume talking about the sad nature of empty birdcages. Olive suggests, "Maybe you could fill it with all of your Charlotte sadness and hang it in a special place in your soul." Or, as Olive continues to explain, "Make a little birdhouse in your soul." And though it is clear to me, having watched this scene several times, that this entire torturous conversation only existed to contrive us to the line, "Make a little birdhouse in your soul," it's totally worth it to a) get a little love for They Might Be Giants in a place besides syndicated reruns of Malcolm in the Middle and b) watch Kristin Chenoweth sing anything. After her impromptu performance of "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and now her dabbling with TMBG, I'm starting to wonder if Kristin is working on a new album called, "Kristin Chenoweth Covers Songs We All Listened To In Junior High." Other hits include "Stay," a song or two by The Sundays, and a carryover from elementary school called "The Entire Collected Works of Billy Joel." Let's give it up for that album. Meanwhile, with his new wing soldered on, Pigeon takes off without his message.
Over at The Stonehenge of Windmills, a woman named Elsita chops something in a kitchen in a house inside a windmill. A knock on the door reveals Lefty, who tells Elsita that he is a photographer taking pictures for a calendar. She knows he's lying but lets him in anyway, and a cut to his hand behind his back reveals that he is carrying with him an axe. Shifty!
And really, it was all worth it for this. The aunts' car travels down a highway as Pigeon flies above and in front of the car. While Aunt Lily drives, Olive and Vivian sit in the back seat singing "Birdhouse in Your Soul," the second song on They Might Be Giants' 1990 ("It's a brand new record for 1990!") release, "Flood." It's the same album on which you can find TMBG's most famous song, "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" which, unless I'm mistaken, is the only song on the entire album that the band didn't write. For those of you who are sadly deaf, way younger than I am, or grew up listening to "Jock Jams," here are the words to "Birdhouse in Your Soul":
Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Hopefully, this is a very long drive, because the album's best song is called "Letterbox," and "Letterbox" doesn't come until Side Two.
In a more subdued car, Ned, Chuck, and Emerson head toward the windmill, Ned expressing annoyance about HandholdingGate, which finds Ned discovering he still can't touch Chuck again and Emerson ending the scene, "We're taking two cars time." Love this show. This scene is filler.
Lefty ties Elsita to a chair for some reason, while she talks about growing up in a life of windmills. Meanwhile, he tells her that he has a lot on his mind and that he's in a rush, Elsita asks where he's running to, and he tells her he doesn't know. Who are all these people? What is going on? Is this the amazing adventures of Triangle Man and Particle Man? What's he like? It's not important. Particle man.
Pigeon hurls itself into Elsita's windmill house, and she brings it inside as Lefty says that that's his bird as well. They look for the note as Olive walks in holding the message, which Elsita takes from her hand. It turns out that Elsita is the daughter of the woman who owned the windmill where Jackson dumped the diamonds, right before the cops came in and hauled Jackson off. The wrote each other for twenty years and sent messages via carrier pigeon, and when Jackson died, he passed the message of where the diamonds were stashed to Lefty. When Elsa died, Elsita kept writing to Jackson, and she discovers that Lefty took over writing the letters after Jackson died. When Lefty broke out of jail, he hijacked the crop-dusting plane, and Pigeon flew out the window and lost a wing in the propeller, which crashed the plane and OH MY GOD THIS IS SO CONFUSING THIS IS LIKE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT A CHEKHOV PLAY WHERE EVERYONE HAS FOUR NAMES AND NO ONE EVER EXPLAINS WHO'S WHO EXCEPT THIS IS BETTER BECAUSE IT HAS MORE THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS BUT I MEAN GAAAAAAAAAH. Anyway, Elsa has the diamonds hidden in her leg or some such thing, because that is where this episode has taken us.
And then, a knock on the door, and Olive checks the peephole to discover, among others, Chuck, on the other side. Her moment has finally come to expose Chuck for the not-dead beee-yotch she totally is, but then...well, it's like in the TMBG song "Someone Keeps Moving My Chair" when they sing so meaningfully, "It's the ugliness man, Mr. Horrible." Just kidding. Don't look for any actual insight in those songs. But Olive has grown so fond of the aunts that she doesn't want to totally freak them out, so she steps outside and tells Chuck that she's there on a tart apple pie delivery, which sends the coded message that her aunts are inside. Olive goes back inside and hustles the aunts out the back, but back in the car, Lily takes a deep breath and says, "I don't think we've been out since...Charlotte?" She spots Charlotte in her rearview mirror, but with one turn more of the windmill blade, she's gone. The police come to take Lefty Jackson Conrad Harry Larry Marry away, and we learn that the long-distance relationship between Lefty and Elsita kept going. And, finally, Ned and Chuck don beekeeper outfits and dance among the bees on the roof of the Pie Hole. This show is crazy.