Pushing Daisies - Oh Oh Oh...It's Magic

My only quibble with last night's episode of Pushing Daisies is that they didn't find a way to work the Pilot song it was named after into the show.

Reunited with his two half-brothers, Ned is reluctant to be play the role of big brother--or as he puts it, "Big HALF brother...once removed by the fact that until last week you didn't know I existed."

Somehow Maurice and Ralston cajole Ned and company to see a magic show featuring their mentor and surrogate father, The Great Herrmann (played with panache by the great Fred Willard). Herrmann welcomes Ned warmly, he rebuffs Olive's embrace saying, "I'm not made of hugs."

Herrmann's warm-up act is the Geek, who eats and regurgitates a variety of items. "I'm working my way up to a kitten." Herrmann's big act is called "Cementia," where he escapes from a block of solid concrete. Except for the time he doesn't.

At first it looks like Herrmann has pulled off a disappearing act similar to the one Ned and the twin's father pulled years earlier. But as it turns out, someone switched the cement blocks to make it look like a disappearing trick.

The killer turns out to be none other than the Geek--who swallowed Herrmann's magic magnets which were what enabled him to escape from the box. The Geek uses Olive as a human shield as Emerson points his gun at him. The Geek tells him that he has a gun, too. In his stomach. "I'm cocking it with my stomach muscles right now. When it flies out of my mouth it's going to shoot you in the face!"

The experience leads Ned to perform a little magic of his own for Chuck. Rigging Olive up with an hidden earpiece and microphone, he gives Chuck the chance to ask her mother Lily all the questions she's always wanted to know via Olive. It was a really touching scene.

But while Chuck was delving into the past she never knew, Dwight Dixon was digging up her grave. And finding an empty coffin.