“Corpsicle” is full of secrets that are kept hidden thought the  season, but since this is the last episode, we assume that most of the issues would be solved. Well, if we thought so, then we were terribly wrong!

I really enjoyed this last episode, because it was very tricky and confusing, I could not figure out who the killer was. We have two deaths of the insurance adjusters from the same insurance company, they both have denied a very sick (and cold hearted boy) a new heart. Since the boys chances of survival after the operation were very slim, insurance company simply rejected the boy every time his mother would apply for an organ. Madeline McLaine was a woman from a “Wishy-Wish” foundation that visited a boy constantly, but could not make him happy or fill his heart with love. After realizing that he wants the insurance adjusters dead, she took his sarcastic comment seriously and went out for a killing spree, I loved the fact that she used a bat with a word “KINDNESS”  engraved across the bat, so the last thing those men would see, would be the reminder of their mistakes, very cleverly done! Finally, when the murder of the third man is prevented by Ned and Emerson, a monkey that Madeline has as her pet, jumps behind the wheel of the car and kills Madeline instantly, but the heart ends up being healthy enough even after her death.  After  all the years that Madeline had spent trying to make a boy smile, she decided to donate her own heart to him. I felt like this was a great metaphor, a boy who is dying and hates his life, has a cold heart and nothing but anger is bowling in it, gets a heart from a woman who spend her life going from sick child to sick child in an attempt to make them smile, dies and gives her warm, kind heart to a boy who desperately needs it!

“Corpsicle” also concentrates on the fact that Chuck is now hiding in the Olive’s apartment, Ned is running around the, town looking for her, but the one person that finds her happens to be our old friend Oscar Vibenius, who has not given up to find out why Chuck smells like death. He uses many tricks to get her to talk, but fails miserably. Chuck refuses to tell her secret, but later changes her mind and gives Oscar a lock of her hair. The reason Chuck acts this way is explained later, she needs someone to listen to her incredible story and actually believe her. As we find out, Chuck changes her mind again, and her secret is kept private once again, good for her!

Finally, Chuck forgives Ned and reminds herself of the fact that he has given her a second chance at life. The episode is taking place during the winter, we can see Christmas trees and snow all around, this setting gives me a sense of hope.

Meanwhile, Olive is sent to the kitchen by Chuck and is asked to make a pie for her aunts, obviously Olive puts too big of a dose of the antidepressants into the pie, this is going to be interesting! An overdosed pie makes Lily talk and we find out that she is Charlotte’s mother! I cannot believe that this is the way the season ends! That is very clever, since now everyone wants to see what happens next! Obviously it does not tie all the loose ends but the finale does give me a special piece of mind. Chuck is not all alone after all, even though she does it now it yet. I feel much better for her. I am happy that Olive falls in  love with Alfreido, a  guy who fixes her espresso machine and sells magical antidepressants to Chuck.  But the fact that Lily is Chuck’s mother, Edison has a daughter that he never spoke about and the fact that Ned and Chuck have not touched yet open many doors, and act as teasers. After finishing watching this particular season, I am very satisfied with “Pushing Daisies”, I would love to continue watching this show even after this assignment is complete!

Over all, this episode deserves a 5, simply because of its ability to interest the audience and give us a whole bunch of reasons to crave for more “Pushing Daisies”!

Over all, two murder cases are being solved during this episode, death of a macho boyfriend who is killed by a human-size doll is the first one. It actually  is a funny one, because it portrays a man, Burly Bruce Carter who is darting a doll, but beliefs that she is a real person, we can draw a clear connection between that couple and Ned and Charlotte, who happen to be in a similar situation. Their love is so special that they avoid touching and do not grow apart. Burly Bruce Carter’s love for his doll is also so special, that he goes to jail to protect her from being convicted for a murder. Here we have a delusional man, that attacks his friend who tells Bruce that his girl friend is not real! I mean who does this!?  Well, the producers of the show did a great job entertaining us and keeping us “glued” to our sits!

There is an additional twist to the story when Ned and the company end up being  in trouble, nothing went their way, so basically our heroes were hit close to home. “Bitter Sweets” is a competitor store that opens up across the street and sells candy, threatens “Pie Hole’s” success, and a war breaks out between the owners of both restaurants.

Molly Shannon plays a role of an obnoxious “Bitter Sweets” owner- Dilly Balsam. I absolutely love Molly Shannon as an actress, she is extremely funny, I love her roles in the “Saturday Night Live” and “Superstar”. So when I realized she is playing a “bad guy” in “Bitter Sweets” I was extremely excited! Her name is completely opposite of what she is selling, Dilly Balsam sounds like a disgusting salad with dills and a balsamic dressing, that is exactly what she is, when she plays this role. Dilly sends out a health inspector to close out the “Pie Hole” and she really is successful! She manages to put the “Pie Hole” out of business and does not stop at anything!

Ned on the other hand does not think that Dilly Balsam is picking on the “Pie Hole”, he hates  fighting  and wants to avoid doing so as much as possible- his striving for peace throws him in jail. As I mentioned earlier, this particular episode does everything to put our trio in danger, and the creators are doing a great job, by setting up Ned.

Dilly’s brother Billy ends up being dead, Ned happens to be in the candy store cleaning up the mess that Olive and Chuck left, Ned touches a dead body of Billy by accident, and brings him back to life, that is exactly the time, when Dilly brings in the police into the store. Ughh! I hated this part, but everything worked out at the end. Emerson and Chuck solve a murder without Ned, to get him out of jail. This particular episode shows us that Emerson cannot do much without Ned, but with the help of Chuck  and the coroner the murder is solved.  I was truthfully very curious about the way Billy’s murder would be solved, but the creators made up an interesting way  of solving a murder,  it reminded me of the “CSI” way of solving cases. The coroner found a finger in the Billy’s stomach, so all our detectives had to do was to find a person without a finger- that is Andrew, the health inspector. By the  end of the episode, Ned was out of jail, whew!

“Bitter Sweets” is an episode about “crimes of passion” Dilly eventually kills the murderer of her brother, who happened to be a health inspector that the siblings hired, Burly Bruce Carter goes to jail for his loved one. Everything seems to fall in its place, but the fact that all these events happened on the day of Charlotte’s dad’s birthday, triggers Ned to tell her the truth about the death of her father, this rips a couple apart.

I would give this episode a 4, just because, it made me feel uncomfortable, when Ned was set up, otherwise it was a great episode that opened many doors, and left me wondering.

This episode was an extremely interesting one, it started with the death of a 22 year old Anita Gray, who was a student interested in the olfactory cues, different smells trigger different memories.  The fact that Anita wanted to bring back memories of her grandmother, who died of smoking, finally killed the girl. Such turns in the story are very surprising and ironic! When a girl dies from an explosion of  “scratch and sniff” book that was written by her beloved professor  Napoleon LeNez, our trio quickly pays him a visit.

We also meet a new character who is desperate to find out Charlotte’s secret, Oscar Vibenius,  an olfactory expert, who senses death when he smells Chucks hand. The episode is also evolving around Lily and Vivian who is still depressed, but are being helped by Charlotte, who is sending them drugged pies, that is pies with anti-depressants, that seem to work well on Vivian, but not on Lily.

I have enjoyed the “Smell of Success” because of its clever plot and an interesting twist at the end, once again we stumble upon a crazy maniac, who wants to fake attempts on his life by accidentally killing his beloved student. Yes, Napoleon LeNez is doing all the work to hike up the success of his upcoming book. Our trio quickly solves the murder and finds the real killer.

Chuck and Ned’s relationship continues to develop, they bond even more, but do have some arguments, such as those about Chuck’s clever idea of making pie cup cakes. Ned is against it at first, but finally gives in, and puts them on the menu. Here we see an attempt to compromise, we don’t always agree with the ideas that that our partner has, but in a good relationship, a couple can always work things out. This simple take on a real life, gave an episode another credit, I felt like it brought the audience and the characters closer together,  again, we can all relate to this!

Finally, the episode ends with Lily and Vivian breaking out of their shell, and swimming in their pool, this scene gives me hope and puts me in a much better mood!

I would give this episode a 5, because of a clever plot, twisted end and a sign of hope.

I have not included the ratings of the show. I will give a 5 to each and every one of them (Pigeon, Girth, Bitches). The explanations of the ratings are in the blocks themselves.  Thank you!

This episode was as great as the other two I just watched! Only this time, Emerson was put on the spot. He is not just a supporting actor that always has something smart to say, he is actually falling for a woman whose husband has been killed. Joel McHale  is a guest actor in this episode, he is playing the dead polygamist who has four wives (ouch!).

The episode is very entertaining, it is a great detective story that includes everything from a set up to the cloning of the one-of-a-kind pooch. I did not know what was going to happen next and it left me wondering for the whole hour. The roles of all the four wives were assigned in such a way that each of them did something to make the case even more confusing and interesting. So as I was watching I kept on changing my hypothesis about the ending of the episode. The last wife was way too innocent, so I knew it was her. But guess what, so did Ned and the crew-she gets arrested, and now I’m even more confused because the episode just started. Nice, they have officially fooled me!

Dreams play a major role in this episode. Ned has a dream that he kisses Olive, Emerson has a dream that solves most of the crime story! I love the foreshadowing and indirect hints that are being given to the audience. The theme of the repetition is shown here, we have multiple wives and a multiple stories of what happened from all the wives. The dog that was never dead is claimed to be dead, so again, we can see the dead vs. alive theme.

After reading the reviews I figured out that all the women that watch the show are extremely upset because Ned kissed Olive in his dream, get over it! First of all its just a show, second of all- it’s a dream! Everyone is so devastated, but it was a fun thing to show. My heart stopped for a second, when Chuck tripped over her slippers and fell on Ned, I was like, that is it! But I knew that it cannot be the end, we have a whole bunch of episodes to watch. But when they started kissing, I had goose bumps, I was so happy for them, it is just so hard to describe!

At the end of the episode, the couple realize that having someone else on a side is not too bad, in their situation, at least. They remember the kiss between Ned and Olive and the holding of the hands between Lem and Chuck. They talk about the fact that everyone has needs, but Ned cuts Chuck off and says that all he needs is her. It might sound so cheesy, and it is, but at that moment I was just staring at the TV screen and smiling.

My favorite quote of this episode is  “People are like dogs- they run when they guilty”. Emerson said this when he figured out a genius way of solving the murder. The first wife of the diseased ends up being the killer, because she is not fine with her husband’s trend of having multiple wives. This outcome is easy to understand, but is hard to think of on the spot. I feel that every single line in this show makes so much sense, nothing is said just for the heck of it! Emerson’s personality is very different from the rest of the characters, he is more concerned with the money, and even when the association of blind children offers him a reward for proving that the last wife is not guilty- he takes it. He also makes a mocking call to “the money”, and asks them if they care if he talks to a dead guy again. Then he says “Money do not care”, he also says that he cannot pay his bills with the smiles of the blind children, so he’d rather accept the reward. I love the use of the black humor, it is so cleverly done, that nothing in the show offends me or makes me think twice. I find most of the remarks to be absolutely hilarious, once again watching this show is extremely enjoyable!

The Halloween episode that I just watched was not only relevant when it aired back in 2007 on October 31, but is also relevant  today, two years later. I am watching the show on my couch, couple of weeks before Halloween and my new costume is in the mail. It has definitely made me feel very excite, I love everything about this holiday!

The episode that I have watched touches on a very sensitive issue in Ned’s life- his father have found a new wife and has two new sons soon after Ned’s mother dies. The fact that Young Ned learns all this on the Halloween puts the story line together and makes it even more interesting and touchy.  Young Ned was so devastated when he found out that his father has a new family, that he ends up running away from school , he wanders around and lives in his old house until he grows up.

The holiday spirit was presented in a very clever way, we know that the show is a fantasy, but we also know that we can never have a real ghost appear, at least that’s what I am hoping for. And yes, I am right! The audience is presented with another detective story, where Olive hires Emerson and Ned (of course) to solve the murder of her old time friend. The plot hits it close to home, because we know that Olive is now in danger, someone is trying to kill her too. Even though Chuck and Olive have some tension we can still forgive the waitress for her evil plan that she have never realized!

“The Girth” brought the characters even closer. I am in love with all of them by now. Each and everyone is developing a unique personality that is so exiting to observe. Olive, for example is not some dumb waitress but a very successful and hot ex-jockey, she had won many trophies and tons of money for her winnings. Truthfully, the fact that she has such exciting past makes me like her even more. Kristin Chenoweth is the actress that plays Olive, is a singer, an author and had won an Emmy Award this year for the best supporting actress in “Pushing Daisies”. No wonder, she is absolutely great!

We later learn that the episode is called “Girth” after the girth that has been cut, this action led to one of the jockeys to death seven years ago- Olive wins the race, but now her competitors are being killed off by the “ghost of the dead jockey”. The plot seems to be very dull, but again, the creators work their magic and create a wonderfully done detective fantasy story!

The theme of someone being “not so dead” reappears in this episode with the jockey being alive and living in his mom’s basement. He was saved by the EMT workers, and was in the hospital for years. The mother on the other hand is the crazy one who kills all the ex-jockeys because she blames them for “killing” her son’s career. I enjoyed the twisted end, as always, it was cleverly done. I love “Pushing Daisies” even more now!

A wonderful-wonderful episode, a fairy tale that describes the beauty of love and faith.  It starts with the Young Ned’s and Digby- the dog’s reunion. After Young Ned is sent to the school, father sells the house and leaves the poor doggy in the old house. Digby finds Ned and on the way to school he helps people. The scene is so beautiful and touchy, it brings tears of happiness to my eyes. This first scene brought me closer to the characters, I feel like I start understanding their problems better. Charlotte’s and Ned’s romance is absolutely adorable.

One of the things that strikes me about the episode is the plane that crashes into the apartment building killing the pilot. The fact that the episode aired originally in October of 2007 rings a bell, it is aired more than a month after September 11^th memorial, of course people will never forget this horrible event, but the episode will not leave a bitter taste in the watcher’s mouth, since the time was carefully picked.

I absolutely enjoyed the tension that was created when Chuck became attracted to the survivor of the plane crash, who claimed to be the owner of the apartment that was destroyed. Later we find out that the guy is a run-away convict who is missing his right hand and most of his common sense. Lem, the character that is played by Dash Mihok, adds tons of humor to an already entertaining episode.  Lem is so clueless and awkward at times that it makes us like him and forget the fact that he really is a bad guy and is running around with an axe while looking for hidden treasures.

“Pigeon” also reveals the true personality of Olive, who becomes so attached to Charlotte’s aunts, that decides not to break their hearts and keep Charlotte’s secret to herself. The aunts still do not know that Chuck is alive, if they will find out, they might become depressed again. The creators of the show keep on showing the good in every character and they doing it in just the right way!

At the end of the episode, everything falls into its place, Lem is sent to jail, aunts are out of the house and not as depressed as before, Olive turns out to be a great character, Chuck, Ned and Emerson are paid a great amount of money, and of course the wife of the dead pilot collects the life insurance money.

The show is very relevant to everyday life, because it has all the common ingredients, such as a love triangle, jealousy, lies and secrets. Ned’s gift and the colorful scenery turn an ordinary story   into a magical tale. The creators of the show have definitely turned a dull story into a celebration of laughs, love and color. Again, I totally loved this episode, I am looking forward to watching the next one!

This particular episode of the show introduces us to a more intense sexual tension, the couple is not able to touch but finds ways to stay as close as possible. By now Charlotte and Ned sleep in the same bed that is made out of two separate beds that are moved as close as the safety of Charlotte allow them to be (there is a coffee table in between those beds). Ned’s car has a new feature that involves a  see through plastic wall between the driver and the passenger, that barrier  has an opening with a giant green rubber glove attached to it, so the two can hold hands, finally, the couple kiss through a food wrapping film. These attributes are so adorable and yet are signs of helplessness that the two people in love experience day after day.

As the audience learns in the very first episode, the funeral director, Lawrence dies after Charlotte’s minute is up, simply because he was around. The guy is a very shady and unpleasant, he made his leaving stealing off the dead bodies, and now his twin Louis wants to know who killed his beloved brother. An expecting  turn in the plot, but I personally hate it when the main character is in trouble. This episode reminded  me of one of the “CSI:NY” episodes where Stella is the suspect in the murder case, because her finger prints are found at the  crime scene (Absolutely love CSI!!!).  So the fact  that Ned is in trouble was kind of a turn off for me.

While everyone else is puzzled with the “murder” case Olive is depressed because of her love to Ned. We already know that Charlotte is not liked by Emerson, and of course the audience suspects that Olive is not her fan either. The blonde waitress is very curious of the Ned’s new girl, but all I am afraid of,  is if one of them will push Charlotte into Ned and then it will all be over. So again a situation that I really hate in movies and TV shows, this hating, drama, cat fights and all of those secrets that are just waiting to be revealed. I might be boring, but I hate tension and this sort of action, I hate it when the characters are running out of time, but those components are very profitable and extremely popular, so be it!

“The Fun at Funeral” reveals one more hidden theme that has followed us from episode to episode, that is the double meaning of the story and the appearance of double items. Now we have twin brothers, one of whom is dead, Lawrence is alive, but is in a horrible state of mind. He knows what his brother have been doing, he also read many threatening  letters from the relatives whose loved one have been robbed by Louis after their death. Now Lawrence believes that his brother’s killer will come after him. We later learn that Louis died without telling his brother where all the stolen items were hidden, so our trio needs to revive  the funeral director and find out where the treasures are hidden.

Even though the episode was not my favorite, it was certainly a very  funny one. We get to see a tough Emerson as being a coward who is so afraid of his death, that he runs out of the funeral home once he realizes that Louise’s body that was revived was stuck in the coffin ,Ned is unable to touch him again and the minute is almost up (Ouch!). This scene shows that Ned and Charlotte are cooperative , they work well together, Emerson, on the hand is just there for the reward, oh well. The soul keeper (that is how Emerson was introduced to us in the first episode) is also compared to the “Pooh” who is stuck in the window, a really funny scene, that explores Charlotte’s kindness ,this time she is willing to help the man who definitely hates her. Chuck’s unconditional love, that annoyed me at the beginning melts my heart during  the “Pooh” scene and turns my view about the whole show around.

“Pushing Daisies” writers and creators are promoting love and understanding. Nothing really stops Charlotte from being mean and unpleasant with Emerson, but while ignoring his nasty comments, Chuck teaches us to be more positive, loving and giving. Chuck’s love for her aunts who are majorly depressed makes her go out of her way and make a pie that has anti-depressants in it, even the fact that she might be revealed does not stop Charlotte from helping the aunts who raised her after her father died.

The bubble that Charlotte and Ned are living in, is so fragile that it makes the audience mind the fact that anything in their world can separate the couple forever. The secret that Ned is keeping from Chuck is a tough one to reveal, once she finds out that her father died because of Ned, she might never speak to him ever again or just a simple touch can silence her forever. I am not looking forward to the episode that will address this issue of the secret, but again, every show that I have watched so far has this morality problem, and usually all the secrets are revealed.

The writers of the episode are very successful in packing many metaphors into one hour of the show. The very last metaphor was simply breath taking it depicted Ned as a prince Charming with  a sword  , that he used to fight off one of the relatives whose grandfather’s body was robbed by Louis, the funeral director. Charlotte is depicted as a princess who have been saved by Ned who is wrapped with a burgundy curtain that covered all the stolen items that the trio was looking for, how convenient! This episode included a major character development, the couple looked at each other from a different point of view, the troubles in their lives brought them together and made them notice small happy moments that are often neglected.

“Pushing Daisies” is an extremely optimistic  fairy tale that many of us could relate to, of course none of us can bring the dead back, but we can all make the most out of our lives by simply being more loving and caring.

This particular episode is the one that I liked the most out of the three that I have watched so far. It has a very interesting detective story plot that is mixed with an “out-of-our-world” fantasy and  “oh-so-common” lying, greed and even binge eating.  We have a dead body that is badly damaged in a hit and run “accident”,  we have a new auto company that makes the cars of the future, that are ridiculously ugly, by the way and of course, we have a high reward that is issued by the police. What else does our trio need to make the mutilated body talk again? Just some more time…

Since Charlotte has been going to morgues with Ned and Edison, the partners were unable to use the minute to the fullest extent. The girl used that time to chat with the dead, she wanted them to share their thoughts and feelings and by doing so she wasted the precious time. this fact annoyed me at first because she seemed to be so ignorant and simply clueless, but then I realized that obviously, if we got all the answers in that one minute, we will be missing out on an amazingly interesting plot that the writers have in store for us!

Bernard Slaybeck was a hit and run victim, who was brought back to life by Ned, but while the question of who killed Bernard remained, Edison and Charlotte engaged into an argument, where Edison clearly sated the fact that the girl does not belong there. During the argument, Slaybeck who had an imprint of tires across his pale face and a “flat eyeball” stared at  the two with an amazement. This scene is an extremely clever one, since we have a mutilated body  , that is all of a sudden alive again, being ignored by everyone, including the audience who is more occupied with an argument. The only information that is obtained from Bernard is that he was killed by crash-test dummy, he also asked Charlotte to let “Jeannine in promotions” know that he loved her. The kindness that Chuck expresses towards everyone, makes people open up and be more relaxed while talking to her, she turned the blunt money making experience into a more useful and “moral” one. The dead person is not being interrogated by the partners, but is instead comforted and is given an opportunity to express his last thoughts and feelings.    Bernard’s final thoughts brought the trio to the “Dandy Lion SX”, a future car company that employed a poor binge eating Jeannine, who absolutely loved pies. The car of the future was an interesting one, because it did not need regular fuel, it ran on dandelions! I find it to be extremely interesting, because here we have yet another flower that has an interesting metaphor and is known for being very hard to get rid of.  You can try to do so by cutting it, ripping it out, or even poisoning it (Bethrees.com) but it spreads its seeds and keeps on living. People who had a garden  even once in their life know that dandelions are extremely annoying, they need to be removed over and over again but never once and for all.

“Dandy Lion SX” is purposely compared to the flower, of course I needed to do some extra research in order to understand the deep meaning of the name and the whole theme in general. As I have mentioned this many times, discovering these hidden clues makes me look at the plot in an different light, and what could be better then reading between the lines while watching an entertaining show like this one!

The future car company is obviously not as great as its marketing managers want it to be, the “Dandy Lion SX”  explodes  after reaching 70 mph, but even after learning such an eye opening fact, the creator of the company kept on making the deadly cars.

During the scene where a group of Japanese tourists was asked to push the button on a crash-test monitor, Chuck got excited but Ned appeared to be very skeptical, this gave me a first clue of something being very fishy,  after all, Bernard was the automotive safety specialist, we all know what happened to him. Obviously the creator of the company ended up being a bad guy who would not want anyone to cross his path, and he is willing to do anything to stay in business, even if it involves a murder. He replaced the dummies that are used in the crash test with real people, because real people did not have hard drives that recorded the fatal truth, they just died quietly. What a horrible idea! But still highly entertaining!

Of course, as it happens at the end of most episodes, we have a happy ending- the car company is closed down, the creator is convicted of all the crimes, Jeannine is battling her binge eating problem with a nurse by her side. The horrifying plot has been turned into a black comedy again, even after seeing a room full of dead bodied dangling on the strings attached to the ceiling. Usually I have nightmares after seeing such a disturbing scene, but not this time. “Pushing Daisies” just turned all the horrors of real world into a silly game,  the main characters are running around, trying to solve murder after murder while they are so related to the actual idea of death.

On the scale of 1-5, I will definitely give this episode a 5! I absolutely loved it for its cleverness, humor and an underlying theme!

“Pushing Daisies” is a TV show that combines romance, drama, comedy and of course a mystery story  in one amazing hour of excitement… The story plot of the show reminds me of fairy tales that I loved more than anything when I was a little girl. The fact that Ned has this amazing talent of bringing the dead back to life, makes the viewer  neglect the seriousness of death and dying. Let’s look at it this way, in any other TV show, if one of the characters dies, the story takes a whole new direction. When Ned’s mother died, the scene was rather ridiculous and even a bit funny, in a black comedy funny way. The show takes our attention away from the grief and sadness that  go hand in hand with death and takes it to a whole new level of making a profit out of bringing the dead back for just a minute and asking them who their killer is.

I think that the most amazing part about the show is its ability to introduce us to a romance story that is so adorable on one side and so dark on the other, Chuck can die any second from just one unintentional touch by Ned. The fact that the couple know about the danger but are still together literally every second of their time, creates a certain type of tension that is hard to explain by a regular person. When I know that my loved one has a common cold, I will stay as far away from him as possible, of course, I don’t want to get sick! But in Ned’s and Charlotte’s relationship, a girl will simply drop dead from a single touch, this obvious game with death creates the show that is very unique and unpredictable in its nature.