‘Daisies’ horsing around
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- November
- 1
Last night’s episode of “Pushing Daisies” wasn’t quite as kooky as last week’s: It would be difficult, after all, to top windmill romance, bedazzled pigeons and dancing in beekeeper’s suits.
But “Girth” was sufficiently quirky and threw in a fun ghost story appropriate for Halloween night. And I loved that we got to hang out a bit more with Olive: It’s great that the show is continuing to show off the talents of the fabulous Kristin Chenoweth.
The show cleverly spun an entire episode around Chenoweth’s teeny-weeny stature (she’s only 4’11”) and made Olive a jockey in a former life. But when a race (the Jock Off 2000, classic!) goes wrong and claims the life of star jockey John Joseph Jacobs, Olive quits the business.
Clever, too, was the scene where the “Daisies” detectives visit Olive’s old watering hole, a bar where jockeys hang out. When the crusty Irish barkeep tells Emerson that they don’t like “his kind,” the show turned what viewers were obviously supposed to think was a racial slur into a joke. (“His kind” apparently refers to folks taller than 60 inches—a bit of jockey humor.)
Personally, I think that supporting characters like Olive and Emerson (and Chuck’s wonderfully loony aunts, of course) are stealing the show away from leads Ned and Chuck.
Emerson’s fake phone call to the money was hilarious, and John Joseph’s mother’s reference to Olive’s immodest dress had me cracking up. (Come on, you know you’ve noticed Olive’s cleavage, which has been front and center in the past few weeks…)
But Ned did have a touching storyline, one that actually didn’t really involve Chuck. In fact, it was one that he didn’t even tell Chuck about.
Seems that the reason Ned hates Halloween is because the spooky holiday is when he discovered that his father—who’d shipped him off to boarding school when his mom died—had another family. (No hints, however, about whether this was a secret one he’d had all along, or whether the two kids with him were stepchildren.)
The saddest moment of the show was when young Ned—disguised as a ghost—is given a treat and a sweet smile by his dad. It’s the most contact they’d had in months, and Ned’s father doesn’t even know who he is.
Speaking of young Ned, it seems there’s been a debate brewing among “Daisies” fans over the show’s use of the narrator—who typically gives background info on the characters’ past.
Personally, I love the narration: It’s part of that storybook quality that is a series’ hallmark. Others find it distracting.
But I didn’t like the way they made the narration rhyme like a Dr. Seuss book last night. THAT was distracting, and it made the episode feel a tad too much like a “very special” Halloween episode.
However, dear viewers, feel free to debate that very topic here.
And here’s a bit of “Daisies” scoop for you, to tide you over until Nov. 14, since the show won’t be on next week due to the CMA Awards.
It’s an interview with creator Bryan Fuller, who explains a few things about the “Daisies” world and reveals that Peekskill-born Paul “PeeWee Herman” Reubens will indeed be appearing in multiple upcoming episodes.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 10:28 am by Heather Salerno.
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