Pushing Daisies - Comfort Food

Even better than the Pillsbury Bake-Off has got to be the Comfort Food Cook-Off complete with the Best in Belly Blue Ribbon. On last night's episode of Pushing Daisies, Ned and Olive join forces to compete in the cook-off--and solve a crime, while Emerson and Chuck teamed up to clean up the messy consequences of her impulsive action.

Said action involved the resurrection of Chuck's father. The first thirty seconds elicited the revelation that Dwight Dixon was indeed a dangerous man. The second thirty seconds were supposed be to give Chuck a chance to say a final good-bye to her Dad. But parting a second time was too much for her to bear, so she quickly concocted a scheme. She put a glove on her Dad's hand and told him to play dead (after being buried twenty years, he's had plenty of practice...) and that she'd come back and dig him up later.

Which she did. "I'm not going to start craving human flesh, am I?" asks Chuck's disoriented Dad.

At the cook-off, Ned and Olive attempt to dethrone Marianne Marie Beetle, the muffin queen. "Losing doesn't make you a loser--oh wait, it does..." Marianne taunts Olive. "I'm gonna win that blue ribbon and wrap it around her neck and strangle her with it," seethes Olive. But their efforts were interrupted by the untimely death of another rival, Colonel Likkin. Dipped in batter and deep-fried, the Colonel was more than merely dead. "He's extra-crispy," whispers Ned.

After hearing that the Colonel's secret fried chicken batter recipe died with him, Ned decides to revive the Colonel only to find out he didn't die of a heart attack but was murdered. Ned decides that he and Olive will team up to find the killer. Olive's excitement has her fantasizing about threatening suspects with a gun leads Ned to comment, "Technically I don't believe you can blow someone's brains out through their mouth." "Wuss," replies Olive.

Their investigation leads first to the Waffle Nazi ("I don't speak German. I speak English mit a German accent!"), then cook-off saboteur Marianne Marie Beetle and finally to the perp himself, Leo Burns ("He's a dreamboat...well, a tugboat," said Olive) who incessant gorging on Colonel Likken's fried chicken made him twice the man he used to be. Maybe three times the man he used to be...

Meanwhile, Chuck and Emerson set out to find out which poor soul replaced Chuck's Dad in death. Turns out it was dangerous Dwight who was just about to pick Chuck and Ned off with a rifle in order to retrieve the pocketwatch. Chuck can't quite feel vindicated by the cosmos, but Emerson quickly puts in perspective with his eulogy:

"Here lies Dwight,
here lies his gun,
he was bad
and now he's done."

While trying to track down Chuck after winning the cook-off, Ned notices movement in his old home. Inside he discovers Chuck and her Dad.

The show was filled with snappy banter but the best moment was the writers sneaking in another opportunity for Kristin Chenoweth to sing. Elated at solving the murder and winning the Best in Belly Blue Ribbon with the Piemaker, Olive burst into song. The Bangles Eternal Flame to be exact.

It's never sounded better...