SORTED BY DATE:
1. Prison Break (Fox) Sept. 1
2. 90210 (CW) Sept. 2
3. Bones (Fox) Sept. 3
4. Ghost Hunters (SciFi) Sept. 3
5. Entourage (HBO) Sept. 7
6. True Blood (HBO) Sept. 7
7. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox) Sept. 8
8. Fringe (Fox) Sept. 9
9. Smallville (CW) Sept. 18
10. Supernatural (CW) Sept. 18
11. Primeval (BBCA) Sept. 20
12. Big Bang Theory (CBS) Sept. 22
13. Heroes (NBC) Sept. 22
14. How I Met Your Mother (CBS) Sept. 22
15. The Mentalist (CBS) Sept. 23
16. Knight Rider (NBC) Sept. 24
17. The Office (NBC) Sept. 25
18. Dexter (Showtime) Sept. 28
19. Simpsons (Fox) Sept. 28
20. Chuck (NBC) Sept. 29
21. Pushing Daisies (ABC) Oct. 1
22. WWE Smackdown (MyNetwork) Oct. 3
23. Eleventh Hour (CBS) Oct. 9
24. Life On Mars (ABC) Oct. 9
25. SNL Weekend Update Thursday (NBC) Oct. 9
26. My Own Worst Enemy (NBC) Oct. 13
27. Crusoe (NBC) Oct. 17
28. 30 Rock (NBC) Oct. 30

Thursday, July 24

10 –11am: Kings

11:45am –12:45pm: Knight Rider

5:45–6:45pm: Dexter

Friday, July 25

10:15 – 11:15am: The Big Bang Theory

12:15 – 1:15pm: Stargate Atlantis

3 – 4pm: Ghost Hunters

Times to be announced: 24, Prison Break

Saturday, July 26

10:45 – 11:45am: Heroes

11:30 – 12:30pm: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

“Noonish”: Lost

12:45 – 1:45pm: The Office writers with Rainn Wilson

2:15 – 3:15pm: Battlestar Galactica

3:15 – 4:15pm: Pushing Daisies

3:30 – 4:30pm : Chuck

4:45 – 5:45pm: Fringe

4:45 – 5:45pm: Eureka

6 – 7pm: Jason Smilovic of My Own Worst Enemy and Ronald D. Moore of Virtuality, TV Guide panel

7:15 – 8:15pm: MythBusters

Time to be announced: Dollhouse

Sunday, July 27

10 – 11am: Smallville

10:30 – 11:30am: It’s Always Sunny in Philadephia

11:15am – 12:15pm: Supernatural

1:45 – 2:45pm: Ghost Whisperer

GIRTH

Autumn of Ned’s first year. The boys are in line to receive their mail from an old postmistress. Every week he hoped for a letter from home, but his father never sent anything.

One day before Halloween, he got a letter. He was stunned! It was a pre-printed card letting him know his father moved. Ned ran away, in costume, to see the new house. His father came out with two new sons and a new wife. He handed Ned, in his ghost costume, a candy bar and took his new family out trick or treating.

20 years later, at a horse stable a man is also feeling lonely and sad. A horserider rides up in the dark, scaring the man. The horse breathes fire, the man screams… and we’re at the Pie Hole.

Olive is telling Chuck how much Ned dislikes Halloween. Chuck knows Olive has met her aunts. Olive is gleefully taunting Chuck saying how they are sweet and would be even sweeter if they didn’t think Chuck was murdered. She didn’t tell them that Chuck faked her death.

Ned enters the Pie Hole and is terrified of the decorations. He quietly agrees to leave them up. Olive is glad to tell Chuck that she knows Ned better than she does. And also she knows Chuck better than Ned does. Olive celebrates by jumping on her bed. The tv is on and the news talks about the death of the lonely man at the stable, a blacksmith. Olive seems upset.

Ned and Chuck are cooking. Halloween is Chuck’s favorite holiday and wants to know why Ned doesn’t like it anymore. He avoids by wondering where Olive is. Chuck imagines her telling her aunts about her being alive to which the aunts heads explode. Chuck doesn’t reveal to Ned why she seems upset.

Olive opens a door and takes out a trophy and bag of money.

Emerson is at the Pie Hole and Olive wants to hire him to figure out why the blacksmith was trampled. Olive was a competitor with him. She used to be a professional horse jockey, to which Em can’t stop laughing.

For 8 years Olive had been a jockey and was the best. Lucas Shoemaker, the blacksmith, was also a great jockey.

Em, Ned and Chuck investigate Lucas’ trampled body at the morgue. Ned confirms he was trampled by a horse after waking him. He can barely talk but Chuck understands him from having to wear orthodontic headgear for 3 years during puberty. She had good teeth, but her aunts made her wear it as a form of birth control. Lucas says John Joseph Jacobs killed him, except… he’s dead. Lucas saw him die 7 years ago. Lucas believes John’s ghost killed him.

Chuck is explaining to Em and Chuck at the Pie Hole, that ghosts are believed to come in all sorts of forms, not just “disembodied sea captains”. Ned doesn’t believe in ghosts even though he has magic powers. Chuck reveals Ned used to believe and once peed his pants in fear of her aunts’ haunted house. He pets Digby with a wooden hand.

Em asks Olive if she knows the name John Joseph Jacobs. Once Em tells her Lucas says it was his ghost, she faints. Ned decides to check out the stables for clues. Chuck teases him asking if he’ll look for protoplasm, but he says he’ll look for real clues. They flirt to Emerson’s eternal consternation. Ned passes Chuck off on Emerson, for reasons he won’t explain. Chuck tells him, angrily, that she’s going to check the stables out herself instead.

The Narrator tells us that JJJ had been the supreme jockey of the world. He came to an ultimate race but fell and was trampled by the other riders, including Olive. She retired the next day and locked up her trophy and money. Olive and Emerson are conversing at a bar. Em suspects an angry gambler is after the other racers. The barkeep tells Em that “his kind” isn’t welcome. When Emerson is about to punch the guy, he draws a shotgun and makes him read the sign over the bar – it’s a jockey bar, and anyone over 60 inches tall isn’t welcome. A drunk man at the end of the bar warns them that JJJ is a ghost that can’t be stopped. He is out for revenge. The bartender says the only thing that the ghost is killing is his business, but the drunkard tells them that JJJ’s tomb is broken, because he’s always climbing in and out. Olive is totally spooked.

Olive and Em check out his tomb and the lid is broken. Olive says maybe JJJ had faked his death, but Em says no one ever does that. Olive goes on and on about how they do, obviously complaining about Chuck. Em pries open the lid and Olive makes as though she can move the lid. She’s way too small. Emerson opens the lid and there’s a horse skull inside.

Chuck and Digby are investigating the stables at night. Chuck says that since they’re the walking dead, only other people should be scared. She is then scared but it’s only Emerson. He reveals that there was a legless skeleton in the tomb and Olive knows she’s dead. Chuck says Olive only thinks she faked her death and that’s different. Emerson says “different like purple and mauve.” Chuck mutters about how this is what Ned had been afraid of, and wonders if he’s ok.

Across town, Ned thinks back to his childhood on that fateful Halloween night. Ned ran away, back to his old house, but his old bed wasn’t there. He and Digby, both dressed as ghosts, slept there and for 20 years, he came back and slept there, with the candy bar his father had given him. Adult Chuck wakes up to see the Aunts across the street chasing off kids.

Olive joins Em and Chuck to talk to the next jockey in the race. Olive compares finding the house to finding the house of a wicked witch in a forest. Chuck continues the analogy to say that whenever you do something evil, like tell a secret, you get punished for it and “bang, you’re dead.” Olive retorts, “Or bang, you fake that you’re dead.” Em has had enough and says, “Or Bang, you both go wait in the car.”

An old lady opens the door and recognizes Olive from her horse-racing days. It’s JJJ’s mother. She’s a bit spacey, dedicating her house to her son’s wins. She says that since Olive stayed single and the rest of the racers became drunks, it made life easier and she’s found some measure of peace. Olive asks how she knows she’s still single. “You wouldn’t need all that bait, if your belly were full of fish, dear,” says the lady, as a dig on what Olive’s wearing.

Emerson comments on a big trophy on the mantle. The lady reveals that it’s her son’s ashes. She buried his horse in his tomb, as JJJ had wanted. His mother had done that in secret. Olive reveals she never spent the winnings, and always felt bad. JJJ’s mom says she doesn’t blame her.

The three leave, and Olive thinks JJJ’s ghost won’t stop and feels the woman still wants revenge even though she forgave Olive. Olive worries about Pinky, the bartender. Pinky is sweeping the bar when there’s a knock at the door, but they’re closed. Pinky turns around and the horserider is there in the bar and runs at him.

Ned has visited Lily and Vivian. The neighborhood children are scared of them, that they are witches who turn children into birds. It doesn’t help Ned’s fear when their parrot squawks that they’ve turned him into a bird. He asks if they remember his father. Vivian talks about how well he kept his lawn, but Lily is more to the point. “He was a jackass.” She talks about how terrible he was and that he did them all, including Ned, a favor when he moved away.

Ned takes a bite of the pie they are sharing and gags. The strawberry is completely rotten, which means he must have touched it before. He asks where they got that pie. The aunts say it’s been delivered every week. He figures out that Chuck has been sending them, but tells them he has been sending it. He then excuses himself. Vivan confirms that his father was a jackass. Ned knows but wonders why he still misses him. Vivian lets him know that he turned out to be a wonderful boy and gives him a peck on the cheek. Ned smiles and lets her know he’ll keep the pies coming. The Narrator informs us that Ned now missed something else – his present.

At the bar, Chuck, Emerson and Olive are checking out Pinky’s trampled body. Ned arrives and Chuck says she missed him. Em tries to hurry this all up. Chuck escorts Olive outside so that Ned can revive Pinky. He does and Pinky says he needs a drink. Em pours some into his trampled face. Pinky says it was JJJ’s ghost. He also reveals that he fixed races, including the one Olive won. He has kept a secret but the minute is up and they can’t find out what it was. Ned and Emerson lie to Olive that he had briefly revived to tell them what they now know.

The Narrator informs us that “the facts were these:”. In the big race, Pinky, Lucas, Olive and another jockey, Gordon (the drunk) all met after the accident because they knew one of them had cut JJJ’s saddle. They all vowed to destroy the evidence and keep a secret (Olive very reluctantly). Chuck says that sometimes you have to keep a secret, even if it means hurting somebody. Exactly, agrees Olive. Drat, now she understands Chuck’s position. Emerson says someone wants revenge because they found out about the secret or knew about it all along. Olive says she didn’t do it and Gordon certainly didn’t.

Chuck believes it’s a ghost who wants to move on. Ned tells Olive to keep her windows closed and doors locked. Chuck and Ned tell each other to be careful. Chuck stays with Olive. They are both scared. They decide to have a drink. Olive goes for her booze in her bedroom. There is a horseshoe on the window sill. Chuck goes to find her and the window is open. Olive climbs to the roof with the horseshoe and sees someone. “It is you…” she breathes.

“John Joseph Jacobs!… It’s really you?” asks Olive. Then he gets hit in the head with something. Chuck has climbed up the roof behind Olive. Olive says the horseshoe was something she gave to JJJ just before the race. JJJ gets up and Olive says he should be dead… and two feet shorter.

The Narrator: The facts are these. JJJ had indeed died on the track that day, but was revived by the paramedics. His legs had been shattered, but the doctors used his horse’s legs. He heard them all through his mother’s vent. He’s been living in his mother’s basement. He hasn’t been trying to kill anyone. He figured it was an honest accident and put it behind him. It took him years to complete the surgery and learn to walk again. He says it’s his choice to live in his mom’s birthday, but Olive and Chuck know he’s super-shy and tell him he looks great and hey, he beat death “Yay!” so he owes it to himself to get back out there and live. He agrees! The girls offer to help him talk to his mother and give him a ride home.

They get to his mother’s house and he says his mom’s still out. He says they’re out of crackers, and that he gets crazy if he can’t have them. For some reason this alarms Chuck. JJJ says he’s got more downstairs. Chuck reveals that there have been crackers at all of the murder scenes. Olive pries open the urn but there ARE ashes in there. Also, his nameplate from his saddle. “He does know!” The front door is knocked down by the firebreathing horse and rider.

Gordon is being driven by Ned and Chuck and is drunk. He reveals that he had one day apologized to JJJ’s mother and even brought the ashes of the saddle to prove what had happened.

The rider takes off her mask and it’s JJJ’s mother. She figures everyone murdered her son’s career. She gallops after Olive and Chuck, who run into the woods behind the house. Ned and Chuck arrive and hear them running in the woods. Chuck trips but Olive helps her limp away. The rider gains on them. Olive won’t let Chuck get hurt since it’s only her that Mother Jacobs is after. She says, “Tell Ned I love… his pies.” Olive runs out and calls for attention. Ned grabs her out of the way at the last moment and Emerson knocks the rider off the horse. Olive kisses Ned. Chuck sees them and Ned drops her. She placed second.

Mama JJJ ends up in jail. Olive gives JJJ her trophy and prize money. Ned explains to Chuck that he had had to see a ghost. His former life. He also knows about the pies she’s been sending to her aunts but isn’t mad. He understands. He lets her knock on her aunts front door to trick or treat in a ghost costume. It’s 2 am so Lily has her gun, but Vivian has candy and happily gives it out. The end.

:00

Young Ned is still lonely at the North Thrush School for Boys. While the others play their reindeer games, Young Ned was sitting by himself under a tree and remembering his best friend – Digby the dog. Coincidentally, back in Cur de Cur, Digby was thinking of Ned and how much he missed him. Digby decides to go find Ned and ventured into the unknown. Along the way, he passes a burning building and triggers the fire alarm call. What a clever pooch. My cats know to scratch at my door until I feed them in the morning. That’s clever in its own way, yes?

Digby does find Ned. They see each other across the field and run to each other in slow motion. Of course, their reunion, as Jim Dale tells us, was bittersweet as they both remember that they can’t touch at the last moment. But it was enough, we are told. Digby vowed never again to be separated from Ned. Currently, and coincidentally, Ned vowed never to be away from Chuck. And Chuck vowed never to be away from her aunts. To that end, she continues cooking them pies with homeopathic mood enhancers baked inside.

Chuck tells Ned that she’s been having more vivid dreams since she came back to life. But before she can get into them, she notices that Ned’s face is covered in stings. Ned shows her why – he’s set up bees on the roof for her, one of her favorite hobbies. Chuck is especially excited that they are breaking rules by having bees on a roof in the city and dubs them Urban Honey Pioneers. Unfortunately, the couple can’t hug. Sad face.

Olive is struggling to get into The Pie Hole, frustrated that the man she loves, Ned, loves someone else. Digby opens the door for her. Olive met Chuck’s aunts last week and now believes that Chuck has faked her death. In the kitchen, Ned spots the pies Chuck baked and Olive, knowing they are for the aunts, makes sure to intercept them from the delivery boy to deliver them herself and get to the bottom of Chuck’s mystery.

As Olive gathers the pies, a homing pigeon smacks into The Pie Hole’s window. Olive rushes out with Chuck and Ned close behind to pick up the poor (dead) creature. Olive tries to get Ned to hold it and check on it, but of course he demures. Emerson walks up and in that moment of distraction, Olive pushes the bird and bumps into Ned, so it jumps back to life. Of course, the one minute clock is now ticking until something else dies. Emerson is pretty worried and asks Ned if he needs to run. What’s the exchange rate on a bird’s life, anyway? Ned’s more concerned for the nearby squirrel. Olive is cradling the bird and Chuck and Olive begin a game of inferring and referring to the fact that Chuck has a pair of bird-loving aunts. Just then a dead bird drops out of the sky. Oops.

The second bird to crash makes everyone look up in the sky just in time to see a crop-duster crash into the apartment building across the street. Emerson goes over to investigate so that he can potentially earn some reward money, dragging Ned along and Chuck follows. The Narrator tells us this was the living room of one Mr. Conrad Firth. There is a distraught young man staring at the plane who Chuck tries to comfort. Then she trips on a piece of rubble and Ned heroically leaps back. Conrad catches her. There’s some sort of connection and when Ned and Em decide to go to the morgue to talk to the pilot, Chuck opts to stay behind.

The pilot, the Narrator informs us, was Braden Caden and 17 minutes after he died, his life insurance plan for his wife was rejected. Before anyone could even make a claim. Becky, his wife, is at the Morgue Attendant’s office. She doesn’t believe he would have killed himself. Em arrives to talk to the dead pilot but this time the Morgue Attendant asks for a bribe. Ned and Em get some privacy, wake up the pilot and he lets them know that he was hijacked. There was someone else on that plane before it crashed!

:13
:16

Olive heads over to visit the aunts in her work to expose Chuck. She shows “Pidge” the pigeon to Aunt Vivian (the mousy one with black hair) and Aunt Lily (the eye-patch one). The pigeon has a message on its leg so she encourages Lily and Vivian to heal it and then they can celebrate by going to get some pie (at the Pie Hole where they would see Chuck). But… Olive already brought them a pie. Poop, she didn’t think that one through.

Ned and Em head back to the apartment/scene of the crash. They notice a bad smell. The follow it to a crate that they open, only to find a man stuffed inside. The hijacker? When they wake him up, he explains that HE is Conrad and he was just sitting there in his apartment when a plane landed on him. So if he’s Conrad… the hijacker is with Chuck!

Chuck and the hijacker are eating some pie at The Pie Hole. He’s talking about how difficult it’s going to be to start over, but Chuck says that she recently started over fresh and she likes it. He had touched her hand during this and she withdrew, but now Chuck asks him to do her a favor and let her hold his hand with her eyes closed. He agrees, she does so, and imagines she’s holding Ned’s hand. Unfortunately, the real Ned sees this through the window. Em and Ned enter and confront the hijacker but he runs for it. They chase him out the back door and Ned grabs him… but he keeps running, leaving behind a prosthetic arm in Ned’s hands!

:21
:25

Ned asks Chuck what’s up with her holding his hand? She explains that she was imagining holding his hand. Yeah, but he’s an escaped convict. Em says they’re gonna need shovels.

The Narrator tells us about the hijacker. His name is Lemuel and he was an employee of an energy company, involved in stealing from the company. One night he went to shred some key documents only to lose his arm by not being careful. He was caught and sent to prison. His cell-mate and he became friends.

Cut to our trio of Em, Ned, and Chuck digging up Lem’s now-dead cellmate. Ned is about to reanimate the decomposing old man, when Chuck puts her sunglasses on him for a bit of dignity and to spare us the viewers from any leaky eyeball shots. Em asks him where he buried his loot. Somehow he’d worked out that this guy had buried money and that’s why Lem broke out of jail. For good karma and a shot at getting into heaven, he tells them he buried it in a certain windmill.

Olive and the Aunts are fixing up Pidge. With some ribbon and a bejewler, they give him a new, healthy wing from one of their taxidermied birds.

The trio go to a real estate agent to track down where this windmill is. However, it seems Lem beat them there as an old lady lays sprawled out in her chair, staring to the sky.

:31
:35

Ned touches the lady to revive her. Nothing! He touches and prods her and she wakes up. She was just sleeping. She tells them about the Von Rowen Mill and gives them a map. She informs them another gentlemen had just been in there asking for the same directions. Then she falls back asleep.

The Narrator informs us that Olive’s disdain for Chuck was now split by her friendship with Aunt Lily and Aunt Vivian. She doesn’t want to hurt them. Pidge chooses this moment to fly out the window and Olive chases after it, calling for the Aunts to follow her. But are they too afraid to leave their house?

Meanwhile, at the windmill in question, a young woman (played by my secret crush Jayma Mays) named Elsita is waiting to fall in love. Lem knocks at the door and tells her that he’s there to photograph historic windmills. She lets him in even though she says she knows he’s lying because she’s bored. Behind Lem’s back, we see an axe.

:39
:43

Aunt Lily is driving Vivian and Olive (singing “Birdhouse in your soul” in the backseat) and following Pidge.

Ned, Chuck, and Em are in Ned’s car, heading for the windmill. Chuck and Ned fit in some discussion about their situation much to Em’s consternation.

Lem is tying up Elsita to a chair. She suggests the one-armed bandit put his axe down to tie her up better. She notices he tied her bonds in little bows like you’d tie your shoes. She tells Lem that she was born into windmills and hates it because you’re always just waiting. Waiting for the wind. Lem asks if it’s wind she’s waiting for? Lem is in a hurry though and begins hacking up the floorboards.

Olive is hanging out the moving car window calling for Pidge. Pidge again, hits a window. The window of the windmill. Elsita slips out of her bonds (easily) and runs to “her bird”. Lem says it’s his bird. Do they know each other? Olive and the Aunts also enter, laying claim to the bird.

A flashback enlightens us. Jackson, Lem’s cell-mate, had buried treasure at the windmill one night and was interrupted by Elsa. They instantly fell in love, but Jackson was arrested at that moment. Elsa and Jackson corresponded by messenger pigeon for 20 years. Lem and Elsita had each taken over the deceased couple’s responsibilities and gotten to know one another, all the while thinking they were talking to the older generation. Lem also reveals that when the plane crashed, the pigeon had been with him and went through the propeller, leading to the damaged wing. Elsita reveals the location of the buried diamonds. They’re hidden in her wooden leg.

At that moment, a knock on the door interrupts the story. Olive goes over and sees through the peephold that it’s Emerson, Ned, and CHUCK! She can reveal to Lily and Vivian that Chuck is in fact, still alive.

:50
:54

Olive, thought severely tempted, does not let them in. She slips out and explains she was there for a pie delivery. Chuck knows what pie Olive is talking about and notices her aunts’ car and understands, gratefully and quietly. Olive slips back inside and quickly excuses herself, Lily, and Vivian out the back door. Chuck asks Ned to take a moment to remember all the things he’s learned about her, fearing that she may be about to be exposed and everything will fall apart. Lily is driving herself, Olive, and Vivian away and for a moment thinks she sees Chuck in her rearview mirror, but with the pass of a windmill arm, she is gone and assumes it was her imagination.

Emerson enters the windmill, pistol drawn and commands Lem: “Hand up!” Lem is arrested but Ned and Chuck are amazed at how Elsita and Lem are clearly in love and that love conquers all. The lesson we learn is that there is always a way to work around obstacles. To that end, Ned has procured a pair of bee suits and is able to dance with Chuck on the roof. When he dips her, it is clear to Chuck what he’s done: “You caught me.”

The show kicks off with a flashback to Ned at age 9, watching bugs get hit by a bug zapper. It’s really just an excuse to recap the rules. Ned can bring the dead back to life with a touch, and a second touch makes them dead forever. If he waits longer than one minute, something in the nearby proximity dies instead. I personally like the narrator’s voice, so these refreshers don’t annoy me too much, but it does seem redundant. I think the audience can figure out the rules as they watch the show at this point.

Of course, tonight’s episode really focuses on the specifics of how the rules work and hearkens back to events that took place in the pilot episode, so this time out, it makes sense.

As the camera zooms in on The Pie Hole, the Narrator explains to us that the phrase “Pie in the Sky” is slang from 1911 for hardcore drug use and that for the next 20 episodes, our protagonists will expand their minds and ruin their bodies.

Actually, he tells us that the phrase means a dessert so delicious, you’d only find it in heaven. But Ned’s are almost as good. Ned and Chuck are baking together. Ned grabs rotten peaches and they revive instantly. Of course, that makes the daisies behind Chuck wilt. It’s a reminder that Chuck has yet to learn about the penalty of the one minute rule, to say nothing of the fact that when Ned had revived his mother as a child, it lead to Chuck’s dad dropping dead.

On an impulse, Chuck places the plastic wrap she’s using to wrap pies between herself and Ned and kisses him. Unfortunately for Olive, who pines for Ned, she sees this. Lost in her frustration, she denies an espresso order to a customer. This customer is Alfredo Aldericio, and when Olive asks him if he ever feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room, he says he can relate. The Narrator clues us in that Alfredo has a deep-seated fear of the Earth suddenly losing its atmosphere, leaving him hurling into space. This show uses it’s special effects sparingly and when they do them, they’re spectacular. To combat his fears, Alfredo got into holistic, homeopathic remedies, which he now sells as a traveling salesman. He is definitely interested in Olive.

Originally, this role was written for Paul Reubens and the fact that I’m missing out on his quirky mannerisms for this character sort of bums me out. He’ll be showing up in a future episode as some other character, as I understand it.

Emerson arrives at the Pie Hole. Olive lets him know she’s mad at him for his previous honesty in telling her that Ned likes Chuck and not her. She doesn’t ever want frank and honest. And she doesn’t like Chuck. Em says he doesn’t either.

Emerson tells Ned and Chuck that someone died and he needs Ned’s help. He doesn’t want Chuck around, event though Chuck is, as always, super-curious about what’s going on. Her zeal for life is a bit infectious and it leads me to spontaneously drop and do 40 pushups on my knuckles. For serious.

Over at the morgue, the mortician is extolling the virtues of moisterizing to Emerson. He’s right. I may be dude, but even I know you have to drink a lot of water and use lotion from time to time. You also have to shave with the grain, or you risk making yourself look older. I learned all this and more from <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Bateman”>Patrick Bateman</a>. The three go in to check on the body. It’s someone we, the gentle audience, have seen before. The funeral director, who passed on when Ned let Chuck live past the one minute mark in the pilot episode.

Emerson’s plan has become clear. He’s forcing Ned to own up to what went on so that Chuck will be offended and clear out of the way. Em is curmudgeonly and likes their business relationship the way it was. Chuck wants to know why Ned and Emerson know the dead body. Ned tells Chuck that he’s responsible.

:10
:13

Ned explains the rules to Chcuk. He tells her that he couldn’t think straight when he saw her and forgot about time. Chuck now feels guilty. Every minute she was alive again… it wasn’t really hers.

Over at the Pie Hole, Alfredo asks Olive is she has any neuroses and shows her his box of home-made cures. Ned and Chuck return and Chuck is visibly mad at Ned. Olive, therefore, is happy.

Em and Ned have a one-on-one. Ned is upset that Em shared something private. Em says he shared “their” info. Ned also doesn’t like being blamed for murder and instead terms it “Accidental Involuntary Manslaughter”. That is both funny and far too accurate. That’s gonna end up on the books one day, I bet. Regardless, Emerson explains that he took this case for a reason. The late funeral director (Laurence)’s brother, Louis, hired him to figure out who killed his brother and Em didn’t want anyone else getting to the bottom of this case. Em knows that Laurence was stealing jewels and heirlooms from the folks at his funeral home and intends to find that and use some of the money to satiate Lou. He guilt-trips Ned into helping. It’s an okay guilt-trip, but my mom could do it faster.

Chuck wants a chance to talk to Laurence, seeing as how she’s sort of living his life. The trio hit the funeral home for Laurence’s own funeral and bump into Louis. Turns out Louis is a twin brother. A morbidly obese twin, just like his brother. He is wearing a t-shit of Chuck’s aunts’ old mermaid show. It makes Chuck miss them.

Cut to the aunts. They have returned home from a vacation only to look through their mail and get a postcard from their recently deceased niece. Not realizing she’s back in the world of the living, the aunts are pretty depressed. Vivian, the aunt with the eyepatch, played by Swoozie Kurtz, lifts her patch a tad to let a bunch of water spill out. Those are tears, you jerks. Have some compassion or don’t watch the show at all. Oh wait… you probably didn’t or you wouldn’t be reading this recap.

Louis posits that he has solved his brother’s murder. He had seen Laurence grave-robbing. Laurence confessed to him that he buried all the treasure. When Laurence died, the truth came out and many families want their heirlooms returned. Lou figures with all the angry mail he’s received, one of them had figured out what Laurence was doing and killed him. He then offers Emerson the cigar from his brother’s pocket, which Em actually accepts. He then asks to see the hate mail. Mayhap they’ll find a clue! Lou lumbers off to get the mail.

Ned leans over Laurence’s coffin and revives him. Ned apologizes and Chuck thanks Larry. Larry says “hey” to Emerson. He tells them that Louis always knew what was up and that he has everything. Then Chuck compliments Larry on his nice pocketwatch which is just like the one her late father had given her. “Caught me in the act,” admits Larry. Chuck is offended at Larry’s skeeviness and in her anger slams his coffin lid down on him.

The lid sticks shut! “49 seconds!” shouts Ned. Emerson makes a break for it. He quite rationally does NOT want to be in the vicinity in 11 seconds.

:23
:26

“5 seconds!” says Ned, as he frantically bashes at the coffin’s latch with an urn. Unfortunately, he fails to act fast enough and Chuck drops dead. The end.

No, of course he manages to touch Larry at the last second. Chuck likes that her aunts had thought to bury her with her watch. She really wants her aunts to be able to go back on their tour and not have an emotional relapse.

Emerson, Chuck, and Ned get crackin’ on reading the hate mail. There’s piles upon piles of it, but it’s nowhere close to the volume of fan mail we have to sift through each week here at Television Zombies, so I don’t want to hear them complain. Chuck accuses Em of being a pirate because he’s going after all the heirlooms. Em defends his rather mercenary position by saying that if he finds something that’s already been stolen, he’s not a pirate himself. Chuck disagrees. In the background, we see a pickup truck pull up and in the darkness inside, it looks like maybe some Asian man? The Narrator tells us that murder is in someone’s mind.

Chuck is working away at the Pie Hole and mentions something or other about depressing. Alfredo overhears and offers a cure. Chuck takes a sample of some elixir designed to cheer you up. She then bakes a pie for her aunts, using the elixir and puts it in the fridge. Later, Olive is overseeing the deliveries and notices the pie and decides to deliver it herself (it’s not on the delivery boy’s route). She walks away and we see Lou’s dead body in the freezer!

:32
:35

Morning. Ned is baking. Chuck comes in. Apparently she didn’t come home last night as she was out all night, thinking about what Ned did when he brought her back. She wants to be able to think of Ned as her Prince Charming but is having difficulty reconciling that he let someone die when he brought her back. Whoops, before they can go any further, they see Lou’s body!

Meanwhile, Olive Snook drops off the pie at the aunt’s creepy house, rings the doorbell and runs away (grabbing her boobs as she jumps down the stairs – look, this show has something for everyone!). She gets to the gate and tries to rattle it open when Aunt Lily appears right behind her. Lily thanks her for the pie and invites her in.

By the way, not only is everything on this show vibrant and colorful but there are always flowers everywhere and girls are always wearing nice sundresses. This show just always feels like Spring.

Lily, Vivian, and Olive share some pie. They talk about their niece who they miss and who used to bake brie into the pie crust for them, just like this one. They mention the boy who had grown up next door who was always hanging out with Chuck and who once gave her a “Beaver” sweater. As they describe their niece and neighbor, Olive seems to be figuring out that they’re describing Ned and Chuck. We’ll see.

Over at Emerson’s Private Eye office, he picks up the phone. A panicked Ned tells him about Lou. Em says he’s being set up by someone.

The police knock at the Pie Hole’s door.

:40
:44

Ned revives Lou and tells him he needs to follow him and Chuck to get to heaven and they only have one minute. The three go out the back and Em pulls up in his car. Lou is surprised Emerson is there too, but Em explains that they all got called up to Heaven because of the Rapture.

Lou relays his tale of woe: An angry funeral home customer surprised Lou last night and he choked to death on his dinner. The family member was complaining about a missing Civil War heirloom that belonged to the Woodruff family. Ned puts Lou back to “sleep”.

Emerson has a plan to return Lou to where he died and basically re-frame whoever was responsible for killing Lou. Chuck mentions that the “Woodruff” family name was a letter she had read and will get that from the funeral home so they can resolve all this.

The funeral home is locked. There is a window into the basement that’s open and Ned gets in, but Emerson gets stuck. Chuck calls Emerson “Pooh”. Love it.

Ned bumps into some bodies on trays and accidentally revives them, but quickly puts them both back to sleep. But the sheet over a third one is still moving as a body breathes. The sheet is hurled away and it’s the Asian. He attacks Ned, swinging a sword right at his head.

:48
:52

The Southern Asian (he has a drawl) misses thanks to Ned’s agility. He is the Woodruff who wanted the family heirloom (the one he’s swinging) back. Ned asks if he was adopted. He wasn’t. The Narrator takes us back to the turn of the century where Chinese slave labor works on a railroad. When their overseer drops dead, they all run North, except for Fan Bing who ran South thanks to heat stroke. He came upon some dead soldiers and put on one of their uniforms. Woodruff’s uniforms. From there, he got drawn along by a passing batallion and started his own line of the Woodruff family.

Back in the funeral home basement, Ned finds a sword and there’s a great sword fight. Chuck, meanwhile, is trying to pull Emerson out of the window and tells him, “Mind over matter makes Pooh unfatter” pleasing Emerson not at all.

Woodruff tells Nate that he practices swordsmanship with a Civil War reenactment troupe. Yeah? Well Ned wanted to be a Jedi! Woodruff tells Ned he knows Ned is the real killer and he’ll tell everyone. He had been hiding at the funeral home, waiting to confront Larry when he saw Ned run away and Larry later turned up dead. Ned wonders why he was there and Woodruff says he was worried about the death threat he’d made getting him in trouble.

Woodruff swings at Ned at the top of the basement stairs. Ned jumps off and uses his own sword to cut through the red drapes to slow his descent, like any good swashbuckler. Chuck meanwhile, found another way in and enters at the top of the stairs. Woodruff runs towards her and Ned throws his sword, tripping Woodruff down the stairs. “Kick, Pooh!” shouts Chuck. And with a mighty mule kick, Emerson knocks out Woodruff.

Chuck looks down and sees Ned draped in red cloth – her Prince Charming.

And we get a montage of everyone to wrap the show:

Olive sees that their Espresso machine has been fixed. The Narrator lets us know that it was Alfredo’s idea of a romantic gesture.

Emerson steps off a scale, happy that he has apparently lost a few pounds.

Aunt Lily and Aunt Vivian enjoy their pie.

Chuck wraps up the heirlooms to anonymously return to the families. Ned says he’s ok with everything that happened because he is glad Chuck is back. Chuck is glad that Ned admits he let Chuck live on purpose, because that’s better than it having been an accident. Ned tells her that he’s going to look for some plastic wrap.

And I’m out!

:01

The show begins with the narrator telling us about Ned’s childhood at age 9 or so. The narrator is the only element of the show I’ve heard receive any negative criticism thus far, and I agree that it’s a love it or hate it thing, because it intrudes upon the story. Personally, I love it. Jim Dale has a wise, deep voice and I think it adds to the fairy tale quality this show endeavors towards.

The opening re-explains a lot of the backstory we heard last week. Ned learns that with a touch, he can bring the dead back to life. A second touch from him makes them dead again, forever. But if he lets something live again for over one minute, something in the nearby proximity dies instead. Ned learned these tragic rules after reviving his mother who had just had a stroke. Consequently, his childhood crush and next door neighbor “Chuck” lost her father. Ned’s mother died later that night when she kisses him goodnight.

We’re told that after Ned’s mother died (as we saw in last week’s pilot episode), his father sent him off to boarding school. There, Ned was melancholy and quiet and received a lot of teasing for it. To get back at everyone, Ned plays a prank in biology class. Frogs for dissection are wheeled out and you can already see where this is going.

Ned only meant to revive one, I think, but in the surprise, he bumps several dead frogs and class is thrown into disarray. Cut to Ned sitting up in a tree outside of school. The frogs run by and a bunch of birds drop out of the tree. A teacher asks Ned if he did this, to which Ned says, “no.”

The narrator tells us this is when Ned learned to keep secrets and that he liked it very much. From here we cut to present day where Ned is a pie maker. There are some brilliantly clever transitions on this show from scene to scene, by the way. This episode, like last one is by director Barry Sonnenfeld, a talented guy. Hopefully the show can keep up the gorgeous cinematography all season. It’s wonderful. We’re reintroduced to Chuck, who Ned revived last week. They are clearly in love with one another but of course, cannot touch. Also, since Chuck was reported dead, she can’t go out into the world and get her own place so she lives in Ned’s apartment. In separate beds, natch.

Wow, the narrator just told us Chuck is 24 years old. They’re YOUNG! I honestly thought they were early thirties, but that’s probably just because I am and I figure everything centers around me. Looking closer, I can tell that the actor and actress playing Ned and Chuck are indeed pretty young. God, I feel old.

Continuing the story of Ned keeping secrets, the narrator clues us in that Ned hasn’t told Chuck that he is responsible (in a way) for her father dying. Ned and Chuck are starting their day and we learn that Chuck thinks a refrigerator is called a cheesebox, because her eccentric aunts dedicated their fridge to holding just cheeses. This kind of random whimsical detail is what provides this show with its heart.

Outside the apartment window (several stories up, above the pie place I believe), we see Ned’s employee and next-door neighbor, Olive, dangerously leaning outside her window ledge, with a mirror, to spy on Ned. She’s very curious about Chuck because she is quite obviously in love with Ned herself.

We cut to Emerson, the private detective who knows Ned’s secret and uses it to solve murders. They split the reward money. Emerson is not comfortable with Chuck and apparently this big gruff private dick releases his stress by… knitting. Ha! His most recent project is a huge sweater and wool gun holsters.

Emerson meets up with Ned to investigate a recently deceased man. The police are offering a reward on info leading to solving the apparent hit and run killing. Em and Chuck begin a game of sorts, locking one another out of Ned’s car to talk to him one-on-one. Poor Ned is going to be struggling to balance his lives between these two for a while, I guess. He also always makes Chuck sit in the back so that they don’t touch, by the way. Even though she loves sitting up front. Awww.

The trio arrive at the morgue with some zany lie about who they are and the suspicious morgue attendant lets them in. I guess this will be a recurring gag. They gave two different lies to him last week. Anyway, the deceased victim is named Bernard and he was a young scientist for a car manufacturer, found dead at the side of a remote road, the apparent victim of a hit and run. Ned revives him and the one-minute clock is ticking. Instead of getting right to the heart of who killed him, however, Chuck starts hitting Bernard up with questions of what they can do for him, his faith (Buddhism), and vastly irritating Emerson. Bernard simply wants them to tell “Janene” that he loved her, and that he doesn’t recall being hit by a car. The minute is up and Ned has to touch him again before they can ask anymore questions.

:09

Commercials!

:12

We go to the Pie Hole, Ned’s bakery, where the trio are engaged in arguing over how to handle their investigations. Emerson is peeved at Chuck getting in the way, while Chuck has a strong sympathy for the deceased they encounter. Ned and Chuck leave to bake some pies and Olive swings by to hit up Emerson about “what’s the poop? The skinny?”

Emerson orders rhubarb, not wanting to engage her but when she presses him, he tells her point blank that Ned is crazy for Chuck in a way he’ll never be for her.

Sample dialogue:

Olive: Did they touch much?

Emerson: I wish they would.

The next day, Chuck and Ned visit Bernard’s place of employment to try to find “Janene”. They are at a car manufacturer who has invented a gaudy car called the Dandy Lion SX, which apparently runs on dandelions. Heh. The president of the company is offering a tour to a large group of Japanese investors. Hey! I recognize that actor. It’s the creepy professor from last season of Veronica Mars. Whatta scumbag that guy was.

Anyway, Chuck approaches the Pres and engages him in fluent Japanese (!) inquiring about Janene. Apparently Chuck had a lot of time to learn many foreign languages on tape in her previous, dull and quiet life. The president, Mark Chase, points out Janene, a showgirl for the car dressed in a dandelion suit. When Ned and Chuck ask her about Bernard, she denies knowing anyone by that name but happily accepts the pie Ned brought.

Chuck and Ned follow the tour group to watch the car crash tests with the Japanese investors. We also see Janene squatting behind a rotating Dandy Lion car, sobbing and eating the pie. Ned and Chuck snoop around and find a room full of crash test dummies hanging on hooks. One of them is missing his mask.

:20

More ads! Go ABC, go!

:24

The trio (Chuck, Ned, Emerson) are back at the Pie Hole discussing what they learned. Gotta say, these actors all have great chemistry and very unique and different personalities. Chuck is full of energy and curiosity. Ned is super quiet and slyly devious. Em is grouchy on the exterior but definitely seems to be an honest soul at heart. I love ‘em! They decide the only real lead they have is that missing dummy mask.

As Olive watches Ned go and the Pie Hole is empty, she launches into a full-blown musical solo, “Hopelessly Devoted.” I think that’s from Grease 2? She grabs Digby’s paw and twirls his sleeping body around, dancing with him. Oh, Digby is Ned’s dog who was hit by a truck when he was a kid. He was the first dead thing Ned revived, but Ned can’t touch him anymore so he spends most of his time with Olive. What’s great is this song is huge and epic but Olive completely halts when a couple tries to come in. After she shoos them away, she launches right up again, only to be interrupted by Manuel the evening floor cleaner. But he has on an iPod and she starts up AGAIN. Manuel asks if she said something and she cuts things short. I think this is so silly and so cute. She is belting out her feelings but it isn’t an aside, she’s REALLY doing it and doesn’t want to get caught.

Olive sits down at a table and Digby jumps up to kiss her. The narrator tells us that Olive considered how much she liked Ned, while Digby considered how much he liked salt.

The trio have broken into the Dandy Lion lab. Em is proud of himself for using his private eye connections to duplicate a fake keycard ID in a very convoluted manner. Chuck tells him how she hugged a guard leaving his shift and pickpocketed his. Hilarious. Ned and Chuck talk, hinting at the fact that Ned is keeping secrets from her.

Em walks up and says, “Skeletons in the closet.” “Exactly,” replies Ned. “No, there are actual bodies in the other room!

:29

More ads. There are a LOT of ads for young children’s toys. I guess ABC really thinks this is a show for young parents or something. I think everyone would enjoy this. It’s like a full-blown movie. It may have a minimum of sets and characters, but the acting, camera-work and writing are top notch.

:32

The trio is back in the room of hooks that previously held all the crash test dummies. It is now supporting tons of cadavers. They begin waking ‘em up and asking them if they know about the Dandy Lion company. The second girl remembers signing her body over to them after she would die. Ah, so they seem to be there legally. Hrm, stumper. That lead nowhere! Well, we learned that Emerson went to art school before becoming a P.I.

Just when it seems they’ve run out of leads, they bump into Janene. She was hoping they’d come by to investigate. She reveals that she did know Bernard and loved him very much. She couldn’t talk earlier because she was being watched by the company president.

Janene explains their relationship. It’s cute. They were a great match. Bernard began getting to be a bit distant so she knew something was wrong and tried following him but kept losing him on the roads at night. She is telling the trio the tale at the Pie Hole and has more info but her price is high. She wants the last of Em’s pie. After some harsh glares and tough choices, Em parts with the pie. She tells them she can show them something but needs to go to the bathroom (?) first.

The group gets in Ned’s car (Chuck in back) and follow Janene in her Dandy Lion. They get out on the open road and her car explodes! I think a box of Ex Lax lands on their car too. I guess Janene had her own secret.

:39

Time to make ABC some money. Coming up next on ABC is Private Practice. No thanks.

:43

Janene is alive! She’s in the hospital, completely bandaged up, but Chuck has tried to make her feel better by drawing makeup all over her bandaged face. Janene mentions where she was taking them – a big ditch.

The trio drive out to the ditch in the evening and it’s full of bodies in crash suits. Unfortunately, the group is attacked by an actual Crash Test Dummy, who tasers all three of them. Cut to Olive in bed (with Digby), dreaming of Ned and Chuck together in a huge bubble bath. She decides she won’t mope. She tells Digby they’re going for a walk.

Em, Ned, and Chuck wake up. They’re all sealed in clear body bags, hands bound, in a Dandy Lion car. In a Dandy Lion car in the crash test area! The Crash Test Dummy waves the hook to start the crash. He takes off his mask. It’s… the only guy it could be, the president, Mark.

Mark begins ranting and monologuing. Bernard had learned that the Dandy Lion car had a fatal flaw, where if the car got up to 70 mph, had the headlights on, and the seat warmers, it would cause the radio to short circuit and that spark would cause the vehicle to explode. He begged Mark to delay the launch of the car. Mark won’t hear of it, after all he’s invested, and tries to bribe Bernard, but Bernard is too honest and walks away. Mark plucks the mask off one of the crash dummies and tasers Bernard in the back. He puts Bernard in the clear bodybag and crash car and kills him. Then he places Bernards body on a remote road at night and waits for him to be hit/found. While ranting, Mark mentions a “long-sublimated love for botany” that cracks me up.

We then go inside the car, where it is of course sound-proofed and our heroes can’t hear a single word Mark is shouting at them. The narrator tells us that Chuck wonders why she always seems to die just when things are starting to get good. Believing they are about to die, Chuck and Ned go in and kiss. In their bodybags. It’s a brilliant little idea. However, all is not lost! Emerson takes out a knitting needle and frees himself and Ned and Chuck. Chuck starts the car up and drives away. Mark runs off frame and chases them down in his Hummer 3. The narrator tells us that unfortunately, the three never heard Mark’s rant about the exploding Dandy Lion.

:50

Ads.

:54

Mark is chasing the group and trying to get them to speed up, or run them off the road. He rams them off into the woody hills, but the car manages to end up on the road further ahead. Mark is right behind them but is pulled over by the police. Justice prevails!

Our trio is all pumped up and racing back to the Pie Hole. They’re getting very close to completing the trifecta that causes the car to explode. Just then, Olive and Digby walk in front and Ned slams on the brakes, saving them.

Mark makes to escape the police but… he’s out of gas. Tee hee. Janene heals up and gets help for her eating disorder. Em finds a way to chill out too – by knitting a LOT of socks. Olive tells Digby she won’t give up on Ned. Finally, Ned invites Chuck to sit in the passenger seat of his car. He’s installed a glass wall between them, that even has a rubber glove so that Chuck can hold his hand while he drives.

So that’s it for the second episode of Pushing Daisies. I’ll recap it so that if you miss it, you won’t feel lost. I think I speak for all of the TV Zombies folks when I say it’s a great show that you should definitely check out. See you next week.