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Happy Halloween! Why is it we say "happy" Halloween, anyway? Is Halloween even supposed to be happy? These are the questions that cause me to lie awake at night. Early in the episode, we turn back time to an All Hallows Eve of yore when, Jim Dale tells us (in rhymed verse), Ned discovers that his father has started a new life with a new family. As a result, Ned hates Halloween, a fact that Olive uses against Chuck when the latter covers the Pie Hole with Halloween decorations galore. Olive has a few cards up her sleeve, as a matter of fact -- another being what she thinks is her big discovery that Chuck faked her death. While celebrating her upper hand, however, Olive is sidelined. She sees on the news that a former associate of hers, a competitor she raced against back when she was a professional jockey (YES!), was killed in a mysterious way. Concerned, she hires Emerson to seek out the truth. So, off Chuck, Emerson, and Ned go to the morgue to put the touch on the dead guy, who has allegedly been trampled by a horse in an accident. He is pretty jacked up, complete with a horseshoe imprint on his FACE, but thankfully, Chuck can translate his garbled speech, owing to her adolescence spent in orthodontic headgear. According to the dead guy, he was killed by another jockey, John Joseph Jacobs...except, here's the scaaary twist: John Joseph Jacobs has been dead for seven years! The newly dead jockey further mumbles that he was killed by JJJ's ghost and that this ghost will kill agaaaaaiin!
Upon hearing the name of this supposed ghost from Emerson, Olive promptly faints. The reason? Back in the day, John Joseph Jacobs had been the unbeatable golden boy of horse racing. Unfortunately, during one fateful race, he fell from his horse and was trampled to death by the riders just behind him; namely, Olive, the dead guy in the morgue, and two others. Is the ghost of John Joseph Jacobs out for revenge? Chuck, Emerson and Olive go in search of the truth. What they find is another of those four trampling jockeys, killed by the "ghost." When Ned arrives to give this guy the touch, he finds out that each jockey, including Olive, has been keeping a secret: shortly after the race in question, the four surviving jockeys discovered that JJJ's saddle had been sabotaged. Against Olive's better judgment, the four of them kept it on the down low. Turns out, however, there is no ghost. Don't act so surprised. John Joseph Jacobs survived the race and has been living in his mother's basement for seven years! Yeah, because...mama crazy. She's the real killer, and when Olive and Chuck discover it, Mrs. Jacobs tries to kill them both. With a horse. Ned and Emerson come to the rescue. In the midst of all this, Ned tries to come to terms with his abandonment by his father. On a trip to his old neighborhood, he stops by to talk to Chuck's aunts and finds out about Chuck secretly sending the pies. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Before I begin, a huge thank-you to the incomparable djb for slipping back into the recapper seat last week on my behalf. While he was slogging through the stuff about assorted birdhouses in various souls, I was riding carnie rides in East Georgia. If you think pigeons with bedazzled wings carrying messages to people with no arms and/or legs is weird, try looking out over the graves of the Confederate dead from atop a Ferris wheel while a toothless carnie takes a smoke break below while leaning on the control stick. Suffice it to say, my inner ear is still not quite right.
Tonight, we learn more about Young Ned's miserable childhood, post-dead-Mom. Jim Dale busts all kinds of rhymes to deliver the brutal truth: Ned spent his time at boarding school waiting to hear word, any word, from his absentee father. Week after week, he confronted the sour school postmistress, only to wind up dejected again and again when no mail would come. Ah, "but then one day before All Hallows Eve," JD trills, "she gave him the nod. It was hard to believe." Ned approaches, bathed in the light of the postmistress's glowing pumpkin, only to receive a generic "We've Moved" postcard from his father. Dejected, he sneaks away from school, cleverly disguising himself as a ghost under his cowboy bed sheet (with Digby at his side, similarly disguised). What he sees when he arrives at his father's new house is worse than anything he could imagine -- his dad, who wears a fedora like he's Dagwood Bumstead or somebody, has remarried and now has an instant family with two new sons. Ned stands solemnly under his sheet as his father comes up, not even recognizing him, and gives him a Honeycomb Chew, like he's just some random trick-or-treater. Poor Young Ned.
Jim Dale barely even has time to weave a mournful rhyme, however, because we must move quickly on to the Dead Guy of the Week. Have you noticed that, thus far, none of the Scooby Doo cases in which the crew has become entangled has concerned a dead woman? Well, hold on, there was Chuck, yes. Forget I said anything. Anyway, suddenly, we are with an unfortunate blacksmith, clanging away on an ACTUAL anvil (which has got to be the first time on TWoP that word has ever been used in its literal sense), just minding his own business, making some horseshoes, when from the darkness storms a sinister horseman riding a fire-breathing steed! The beast rears back and strikes the blacksmith to his death. (At this somewhat frightening moment, my doorbell rang for the 300th time, even though I had turned off the porch lights, and I had to go fling a Butterfinger at a tiny Hispanic Spiderman. He was cute, but I was busy, and dammit, Halloween should be over by 8 PM ET.)
Morning at the Pie Hole: Chuck has decorated the place with a range of Halloween delights to boggle the mind. Olive very smugly warns her that all her hard work will be for nothing, as Ned particularly hates Halloween. "Makes him moodier than a pumpkin full of PMS," she says. "When he sees all this, you're going to be one sorry little zombie," she continues, setting up her big dig: "Seriously, you are so...dead." As Olive giggles over what she thinks is the inside information that Chuck has faked her death, Chuck has to face the music. "I guess you delivered some pies to my aunts?" she says, getting more smug giggling out of Olive. "Yeah, they're sweet," the tiny one retorts. Of course, she points out, they'd be a lot sweeter if they didn't think Chuck was murdered. However, she goes on, she has not yet revealed the truth, seeing as how that might make their heads explode. Twisting the knife, she goes on: "What was that rhyme? 'I scream, you scream, we all scream 'cause you faked your death!'" Chuck is mortified. "You think I faked my death?" she asks. Olive, smugness personified: "That's what I just sang. Unless you have a better explanation." Jim Dale tells us that the fact that the truth -- that Ned brought her back to life with his magic powers -- was too ridiculous for Olive to imagine gave Chuck some relief. I'm not sure, however, why that would be any relief. If your romantic rival is blackmailing you because you're supposed to be dead and you're actually alive, it doesn't matter how you achieved your aliveness.
No time to dwell on these issues, however, as Ned has just strolled in and been struck dumb by the Halloween decorations. "We don't usually decorate for Halloween this much," he stutters. "Or, at all." Olive, of course, is thrilled, and says she'll have them down in a jiffy. "Chuck just had her head up her..." she starts, but on hearing that the whole thing was Chuck's idea, Ned naturally backtracks, telling Olive to leave them up. The thing is, he's obviously uncomfortable, and Chuck is sad. "Ned used to love Halloween," Chuck says, when he swiftly exits to the kitchen, and Olive once again can reign supreme. "Yeah," she says, delighted. "I guess I know Ned better than you do. And now, I know you better then Ned does." Chuck sighs. "So," Chuck asks, "does Ned know what you think you know?" Olive: "Not yet." Chuck: "Who does?" Olive: "Dunno."
Glorying in her triumph, Olive celebrates her upper hand upstairs in her apartment, bouncing on her toile bed in her toile room, grinning in victory. Until...she notices a news report on TV about the local blacksmith, Lucas Shoemaker, trampled to death in the local stables. "Jiminy Christmas!" she cries, and Jim Dale drones out the oldest lesson in the book: pride goeth before a fall. In this case, it wenteth before a fall off the bed. Rolling to a stop, Olive hears the rest of the report about the dead man and is alarmed -- so alarmed, she turns off the news before we find out what the story, "Kittens on Parade," was all about!
Back in the Pie Hole kitchen, Chuck is all pouty, whining about how Ned doesn't like Halloween anymore, and mad because he won't tell her why. To distract her, he wonders aloud where Olive has gone, and Chuck has a quick nightmare about her aunts' heads exploding with the truth of her re-living. She and Ned then have an allegedly cute conversation about how her face went "whoosh" when he mentioned Olive, and yadda yadda she wants to know why he doesn't like Halloween, blah blah why the whoosh, etc. In other words, they have a pouty fight.
Meanwhile, Olive has been to the bank where she withdraws, from her safety deposit box...a huge trophy and a bag of money. Back at the Pie Hole, when Emerson asks for his check, she, instead, slings him some cash (much to his delight). "I wanna hire you," she mutters secretively. "Technically, I already have, since you were so grabby with the cash." Emerson suggests she thinks of it as in escrow, "between my thighs." Awesome. In the grand tradition of Fred and Ethel Mertz, these two are stealing the show right out from under Eyebrows and Deadie.
Olive lays out the case: Yesterday, she says, a farrier named Lucas Shoemaker was trampled to death in the local stables. "Why should I care about a dude that sells fur coats?" Emerson wants to know. "Not a furrier," Olive clarifies. "a farrier." Emerson rolls his eyes: "Don't try to act like that's a word anybody knows." Olive doesn't have time for arguments -- she's too busy looking over her shoulder and acting suspicious. Finally, she admits that she and the farrier in question used to work together. "We were," she reluctantly divulges, "competitors." Emerson asks what they competed over. "Promise you won't laugh?" Olive requests, steely-eyed. Emerson: "No." Olive considers her options, and finally reveals all: "I used to be a professional horse jockey." FanTAStic. Love the tiny Chenoweth and her willingness to appear even more tiny in every successive camera shot on this show. Lucky Emerson didn't promise not to laugh, because his guffaws ring out through the entire Pie Hole.
Jimmy D. gives us the facts, as he so often does: Olive, ravishing in her jockey silks and hair extensions, was, for many years, a jockey. At the peak of her career, she was considered among the best and brightest of her sport. We see a hilarious shot of Olive, riding a fake horse alongside Lucas Shoemaker on his own mechanical creature, superimposed in front of a blue-screen image of a real horse race. I love this show.
Apparently, Emerson has taken the case on behalf of his team of touchers and pouters, for he, Ned, and Chuck are now at the morgue, preparing to ask the fateful questions of the dead man, who lies on the slab with his face all mangled, bearing the impression of the death horse. Ned wonders briefly if taking Olive on as a client is a bad idea. Emerson considers it. "Oh, hang on a second," he says. "Let me ask the money." With that, he makes a quick call to The Money. "Say," he speaks into his hand, "can I still pay my bills and buy stuff with you even though you was Olive's money first?" Heeee. Ned gives him the displeased eyebrow, and Emerson hangs up his hand, confirming that The Money says having Olive as a client is cool. "The money don't care," he snarks. "Touch him." Chuck, lovely in a turf-green dress and riding-style hat, nods in agreement. So, Ned lays a finger on the dude. Who promptly sits up and spits out one of his teeth. As Emerson grimaces (Grimmerson? I like it!), Ned asks the obvious question of Shoemaker: "Were you trampled by a horse?" Jacked up as he is, the guy still manages to roll his eyes. "Yeah," he says, "mmaab baba bebm." Natch. Ned attempts to decipher the guy's garbled speech: "They put a bomb in your daybed?" HA! This entire sequence made me laugh hysterically. I love misheard/misinterpreted/misspoken moments. One of my faves occurred many years ago when once, watching endless back to back episodes of Perry Mason with a friend, her brother walked through the room and said, "dude, check out Aaron Burr." Oh, you'd pretty much have to be me to find that funny, but that's okay. I read these recaps, too. That was for you, self.
Ned struggles to understand a word out of Shoemaker's wrecked face, but Chuck is able to come to the rescue. "Bom ossa jaka kimme!" Shoemaker explains, and Chuck is quick with the translation: "John Joseph Jacobs killed you?" Yeah, exactly, the guy nods as Emerson and Ned look on in surprise. "I was in full orthodontic headgear for three years," Chuck explains. Ned asks when this was. "Puberty," Chuck shivers. "The aunts told me it was a form of birth control." From the slab, Shoemaker commiserates: "Dap fraks," he says. "Yeah," Chuck agrees. "It did suck." Ned prepares to return the shoemaking Shoemaker to death when, to Emerson's consternation, the dead guy has to add an "except..." Seems John Joseph Jacobs has been dead for seven years -- Shoemaker saw him die, himself. "Hms gope kimme," he adds. Emerson can't take it: "His GOAT killed you?" Now it's the dead guy's turn to get frustrated. "Gooohpe," he says. "Gope!" When no one catches on, he makes a "wooo-oo-ooo" ghost noise that almost makes me cry with laughter, and just has time to add that the gope "ith goan to kim agem" before Ned gives him the second touch. "That sounded like..." Ned stutters, and Chuck makes one more translation. "A ghost," she says. "A ghost killed him!" Ned: "And he's going to kill...agem!"
Back at the Pie Hole, Emerson, Chuck and Ned argue over the existence of ghosts while Ned pets Digby with a wooden hand. I hate how they always have Ned and Chuck sitting so close to each other. It makes me nervous. Anyway, for someone who can bring dead people back to life and then kill them again with two pokes of his finger, Ned is weirdly resistant to the idea of other supernatural activity. Digby yawns openly at his closed-mindedness. Chuck is having none of it -- she reveals to Emerson that once, when she and Ned were kids, they held a séance that caused him to wet his pants. "I did not," Ned says, embarrassed, saying instead that he had knocked a cheese plate into his lap and the brie was runny. "I'd stick with the 'piss in my pants' story," Emerson drones. Having had enough of Ned and Chuck being all googly about each other, Emerson goes to discuss the case with Olive.
When Emerson reports that she was right, that JJJ was murdered, Olive says she knew it, and that if it's really murder, other jockeys might be in danger. She offers to take Emerson to a jockey bar, and is all tough about it until the detective casually asks if the name John Joseph Jacobs means anything to her. "Wha...why, why?" Olive stutters, trying to be cool. She fails utterly when she faints dead away behind the counter. Emerson barely raises an eyebrow. "That name," he says, leaving her on the floor and sliding back into the booth, "means everything to her." Jim Dale agrees. Emerson says he's going to the jockey bar, and Ned says he's going off to do some investigating of his own. You know, possible "perps" and everything. "Did you just say 'perp?'" Emerson asks, and Chuck goes full googly. "He did," she sighs. "Isn't he cute?" Now, her smile may be 100-watt; her wardrobe may cause me to sing Doris Day tunes, Wednesday to Wednesday; her hair may be lustrous and her skin like cream; but for the love of God, give Chuck something to say or do besides be creepily in love with Ned. I know that's the whole premise, I know. For some reason, it's making me grumpy right now. Oh, shut up, I still love her, I just want a little break. Ned must feel the same. He claims to have a stop to make and pushes Chuck off on Emerson, giving the latter a sharp kick under the table as if to say "back me up on this one, curmudgeonly partner in crime," and receiving no such thing in return. Chuck is offended at the brush-off, especially since Ned is such a miserable liar -- it takes .03 seconds before he is forced to admit that he's off on a mission not related to the case at all. "Fine," Chuck pouts. "I'll go to the stables. You go and do whatever private, secret alone thing you need to go and do by yourself. Alone." Yeah, well, he can't touch you, Chuck, so, you know, all his private, secret alone things are done alone, if you know what I'm saying. Surely you do.