PUSHING DAISIES
Season 2 Episode 1
“Bzzzzzzz!”
Written by Bryan Fuller
Directed by Adam Kane
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

Well, this one had its moments, and a bunch of welcome guest spots: French Stewart as Wolsey Nicholls, intent on taking over Betty’s BeesTM; Autumn Reeser as the rather unlucky Number One Bee Girl of Betty’s BeesTM, Kentucky Fitts, who’s the main corpus dilecti of the episode; and Diana Scarwid (yay!) as, not just any nun, but the Mother Superior herself.


Sadly, Scarwid is part of the subplot that I’m having trouble with: for some reason best known to the show’s writers, Olive has been sent off to a nunnery by Lily, the very same nunnery where she brought Chuck to term, because of the secret she’s privy to: that Chuck is in fact, Lily’s daughter, a secret that would kill Vivian, as she was actually engaged to Chuck’s father when the affair took place.
Sure, the nun costumes are cool and kooky, and Pigby has his own certain charm, but I’m dubious about the whole thread and wondering where they plan to take it and what its raison d’etre is.


At any rate, it’s great to have Pushing Daisies back, and to see Adam Kane at the helm again.
They also at least seem to be kicking up Emerson’s lost daughter subplot, so that’s a plus, as Chi McBride rules.
I mean, Steven Harper to Emerson Cod.
Who knew?

(Images courtesy of ABC, avclub.com, and destinything.com.)

HEROES
Season 2
Volume Two: Generations
Chapter Ten: “Truths and Consequences”
Written by Jesse Alexander
Directed by Adam Kane
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

They may as well have called this one “A Tale of Two Dunces.”

Dunce #1: Wonder Twin Maya, who is pretty much wrapped around Sylar’s grubby little finger.
Sylar undermines the bond between the Wonder Twins, getting Maya to think that Alejandro hates her for killing his cheating bride, and getting her to admit that she really did want to see the white-clad floozy dead.
He even takes a calculated risk to convince Maya that she can control her power without resorting to Alejandro, which he does by getting her riled up, then as he’s wheezing to death, pleads with Maya to help him. She does of course, getting herself to calm down and keeping the scheming Sylar alive.
When Maya gets back to the motel room though, Alejandro’s been a busy little bee and gone on the Internet and fished out the story of Sylar being wanted by the authorities for murdering his mother.
Tearily, Maya confronts Sylar, and he admits to the killing, saying his mother attacked him when she learned about his powers, and an “accident” happened. Well, Maya relates, and she falls right into Sylar’s open arms.
She then tells Alejandro to hit the road, which he does, at first.
But he returns to face Sylar, only to get stabbed and dead.
And Maya, oblivious to Alejandro’s grisly fate, succumbs to the mounting emotions she feels for Sylar. (Eewwww.)
We see the pair again a little later, but for now…

Dunce #2: Peter, who is pretty much wrapped around Kensei/Adam’s grubby (and indestructible) little finger.
Peter tries to get back to the future, and lands in the very moment he and Caitlin are taken in by the containment suit people, but all he returns to the present with is one of those damned evacuation flyers.
When Peter tells K/A about the Shanti Virus—which just so happens will get released the following day!—K/A shows Peter a picture of the earlier generation, and points to the Woman Formerly Known As The Mystery Woman in the Photo Who Looks Like Joanna Cassidy, a.k.a. Victoria Pratt.
K/A says this woman is responsible for the Shanti Virus and she would know where samples of the virus are being kept. So Peter thinks, if I can’t get to the future to save Caitlin, I can try and stop the virus from getting released, thus taking away the danger that threatens Caitlin a year from now.
So K/A and Peter track down VP, who’s pretty shotgun happy, and when she sees that Peter’s working with K/A, she shoots both of them. But of course, both of them can regenerate. D’oh!
To be fair, VP is just about to blow K/A’s head off (no coming back from that!), when Peter knocks her out.
When she comes to, Peter and K/A try and wheedle the information out of her, Peter claiming they want to destroy the virus, VP saying K/A wants to release it, in fact, already tried to 30 years ago.
Dunce #2 will have none of this poppycock, and resorts to reading VP’s mind, and he finds out that the virus strain 138 (the one lethal enough to decimate humanity as we know it) is being kept in the Primatech facility in Odessa, Texas!
K/A unties VP, knowing full well she’ll go for her shotgun, giving him justification to shoot her, just as she’s about to fill Dunce #2 with some buckshot.
K/A and Peter get on down to Odessa, and sashay into Primatech like they own the damned place (despite Bob’s claim of superior security), but who should they meet but…
A little later for that. In the meantime…

The very sick Niki (though she claims she can’t get anyone else sick) goes to New Orleans and has a reunion with Micah, just in time to have Damon (Carlon Jeffrey) steal off with Micah’s backpack, a backpack containing a bunch of Micah’s expensive 9th Wonders issues, and the medal D.L. was awarded for bravery.
Micah smacks Damon a couple of times and wants to go off to get the medal back, but Niki will have none of this costumed gallivanting around.
Monica though, will have some of this costumed gallivanting around.
Taking a cue from St. Joan’s costume, Monica sneaks Micah out of the house to go off and retrieve the backpack.
The Double M make a nice team, but Monica insists Micah stay outside, out of harm’s way. Monica does some Yamikazi, and grabs the backpack, but the hoods arrive. Monica does a Spider-Man, but the dang St. Joan issue falls, and the hoods draw their guns.
We last see Monica being pushed into the hoods’ van, and Micah hightails it outta there.

And in Costa Verde, Mrs. B points a gun at Bob. (Go, Mrs. B!)
Bob’s making a condolence call, with what are supposed to be Mr. B’s ashes in an urn. (We know better, of course.)
The Bennets are distraught, and Bob is apologetic. Bob says they’re free to go and live a normal life now, but Claire rightly points out that her father is dead. There no longer is any “normal.”
Outside, Bob instructs Elle to keep an eye on Claire, so he can learn to trust her again, as Bob’s laying all the blame for the snafu on her. (She may be sociopathic, but Bob’s an a$$hole.)
Even as the Bennets are busy packing for their move, Claire is hurting, and is even willing to resort to having the Haitian delete her memories of Mr. B, so the pain can go away. West, of course, will have none of that kind of talk.
Later, at the impromptu service where Claire scatters her father’s “ashes” into the sea, we have the first time Hayden Panetierre has let me down in a big way in Heroes. There’s just something about the scene and the lines and the performance that rings hollow. And it’s not because I know Mr. B’s not really dead. The scene just doesn’t feel genuine.
Claire then says her goodbyes to West when she sees Elle in a nearby car. (Elle, by the way, is slurping a Slusho!)
Claire confronts Anti-Claire, while everyone else (including Mr. Muggles) watches. The face off ends with Claire smashing her fist into the car window, threatening to go public with her abilities, ‘cause when she does that, it’s Elle and the Company that are gonna be running for cover.

Meanwhile, Mo is there as Mr. B returns to the land of the living. Mo explains that Mr. B’s back because of Claire’s blood, and that now, he’s pretty sure the blood can help to find a cure for Niki.
Mo leaves Mr. B in restraints as he goes off to his lab.
After some off-screen lab work, Mo comes up with a vaccine. Yahoo!
He calls Niki to tell her he’s got the cure, but then someone else calls him: Sylar!
Calling him from: Mo’s apartment! To be precise, Molly’s bedside! (Where the hell is Parkman?!)
Sylar wants Mo back there ASAP, while Dunce #1 grins like the idiot that she is, waiting for the good Doctor Suresh to inject her power away.

And in another meanwhile, Hiro tracks down K/A and discovers his alias of Adam Monroe. Ando finds the record on K/A’s imprisonment, and Hiro ‘ports to that day, the day K/A tried to release the virus.
We see a young Papa Sulu and a young VP, and though VP disgustedly walks away from this madness, Papa S will have none of this “Let’s destroy the virus, for Heaven’s sake” blather, and instead, decides to store strain 138 in Odessa, Texas.
Which is where Hiro goes, just in time to freeze time and confront… Peter!
Hiro says, Outta my way, Dunce #2, that man killed my father.
Peter says, No way, geek.
We wrap the Volume’s penultimate episode as Hiro charges, sword drawn, while Peter charges up an electric ball…

So on the one hand, it’s great to have Adam Kane back in the director’s chair, but this episode feels like it’s moving just a tad too fast for it’s own good.
Yes, we are headed towards the volume’s finale, but still…
Not only are we made to bid adieu to poor Alejandro, but we’re given the genre treat of having Joanna Cassidy as a guest star, only to have her bite the dust as well.
Now, it’s one thing to do that and still have a character that actually registers as a real person, with a sense of history (as with Elya Baskin’s Ivan in Chapter Six). But in this case, a combination of Jesse Alexander’s script and Cassidy’s performance results in a bland character coming on-screen for a few minutes, then shuffling off to Buffalo before we have a chance to get to know her.
Given what’s present in this chapter, the actress playing Victoria Pratt could very well have been any other actress and it really wouldn’t have mattered.
It just feels like a bit of nasty stunt casting, to get a genre name in there so the geekboys (myself included) will get all pumped up for the episode, just to have it all be an annoying anti-climax.

Having said that though, this is, admittedly, a better episode than some of the season’s earliest. And they are labouring under the WGA strike and the less-than-stellar ratings and the fans’ less-than-enthusiastic comments about this sophomore season.
So fine, I’ll go easy, but I do wish some people would quit taking the stupid pills and look really closely at the people they think are their friends…
(I did get a kick out of the Slusho! bit, though.)

(All behind the scene images courtesy of gregbeeman.blogspot.com, except image #5, courtesy of superherohype.com.)

PUSHING DAISIES
Season 1 Episode 4
“Pigeon”
Written by Rina Mimoun
Directed by Adam Kane
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

This could very well be the best episode since the Pilot.
Opening with another flashback to Ned’s private school days, we see the faithful Digby make the three-day journey to find his master, “guided only by the compass of his heart.” He even saves lives and property along the way. It’s a nice, moving little sequence that sets up an episode that delves into the power of love, and how it can overcome any obstacle.

Even as Chuck bakes another pie (tart apple filling) for her aunts—a pie that Olive again intercepts, planning on delivering it so she can continue to lay her plans of exposing what she believes is Chuck’s faked death—a one-winged carrier pigeon smashes into the Pie Hole’s window.
In the bustle around the dead pigeon, Ned inadvertently touches it, bringing it back to life. (“It’s a miracle bird!” shouts Olive.) There’s some panic as Ned and Emerson wonder what will pay for the pigeon’s return (another bird, as it turns out), followed by a crop duster crashing into a nearby building.

What follows involves several symbolisms and parallels—a birdcage as metaphor for the house Chuck’s aunts live in; a one-winged bird, a one-armed man, a one-legged woman; love that is meant to be, but only at a distance—as most of the show’s characters (save Emerson, perhaps) witness and experience the potency of love.
There is even the (heh) daisy chain of Digby loving Ned who loves Chuck who loves her aunts, while Olive also loves Ned, and then comes to love Chuck’s aunts too. Emerson, of course, loves money…

This one’s directed by Adam Kane, who also directed the first episode of Heroes’ sophomore season where the story is actually allowed to breathe, “The Kindness of Strangers.” It’s the episode where I feel Season 2 took its first genuine step towards rehabilitation, getting past that awfully cluttered sensation that pervades the first three episodes. And though I am aware that a big reason for that is the script, I’d like to think that Kane also had something to do with this welcome turn-around.
Kane began as a cinematographer (he worked on the Heroes pilot), then went on to his directorial debut with “.07%” from Heroes’ first season.
Kane’s an excellent choice for Pushing Daisies, which is, by its very nature, a very visual series. Kane’s experience as a cinematographer clearly serves him well here, as this episode looks gorgeous.
Here’s hoping we see more of Adam Kane the director, not just here or in Heroes, but elsewhere on the cathode ray—or silver screen—landscape as well.

Parting shot: Kane was also the cinematographer on Jim Isaac’s Skinwalkers (review in Archive), and also shot Isaac’s upcoming feature, Pig Hunt.

(Images courtesy of pushing-daisies.com and gregbeeman.blogspot.com [Adam Kane on the set of Heroes].)

HEROES
Season 2
Volume Two: Generations
Chapter Four: “The Kindness of Strangers”
Written by: Tim Kring
Directed by: Adam Kane
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

We rebound from the previous choppy, scattershot chapter to this more satisfying, lean and mean episode.
We drop the feudal Japan and the amnesiac Peter in Ireland subplots, and there’s also no sign of Niki working with Bob. And as the “Salvaje” clue did suggest, the powerless Sylar subplot oh-so-conveniently collapses into the Wonder Twins’ thread, as Maya, Alejandro, and the American kid-in-the-Mexican prison-whose-car-they’re-fleeing-in (aka Derek, played by TW Leshner, soon to be seen in the upcoming Timber Falls) almost run over a prostrate man lying in the middle of the road.
And yes, it’s Sylar, though he introduces himself as “Gabriel.”
Maya, trusting fool that she is, tells Sylar that they’re headed for New York too, since she needs to meet Papa Suresh, brandishing the book for Sylar to see. And when Sylar says that he knows Papa Suresh, Maya is overjoyed, while Alejandro is rightly suspicious.
At a stopover, Derek sees a newspaper with the police sketches of the Wonder Twins and calls Sylar over. Derek says, ironically, “There are murderers in the car.” Sylar tells Derek to call the cops while he keeps the Wonder Twins busy. But he instead picks up the brick that’s being used as a paperweight at the newsstand, and bashes poor Derek’s head in (off-camera).
Back in the car, Sylar confronts Maya with the paper, and when she says, “Yes, that’s us, but it wasn’t murder,” Sylar says, “Well, Derek’s calling the cops on you.” Maya freaks, and her bleeding-black tears-from-the-eyes power kicks in, and Sylar starts to die. But Alejandro does the whole “calmate” thing, and Sylar is saved. Shoot.
He now realizes that he’s in the car with two powered people. So he drives off, while the Wonder Twins think that they’re just ditching Derek, but who’s apparently dead, while a cockroach crawls over the bloodied brick.

Over in post-Katrina New Orleans, Micah is staying with his cousins Monica (Dana Davis, from TV’s The Nine and the upcoming Prom Night remake) and Damon (Carlon Jeffery), and their grandmother (or “Nana,” played by Nichelle Nichols, who we saw ever-so-briefly last episode).
Monica (who has quickly proven to be the most interesting new character this Volume) works at the Burger Bonanza, with high hopes to get her family out of the still-depressed area. But her hopes are dashed at every turn, and all the while, she slowly begins to realize that she is not exactly normal.
Apparently, her power is to insta-learn anything she sees, so she learns how to make a tomato flower and whoop a$$, Rey Mysterio-style, all from the TV. At this point, it’s unclear whether Monica can insta-learn anything she actually sees, or if the TV is the proper conduit. (Micah, her cousin, has an affinity with machines, after all.)

Meanwhile, in Costa Verde, Claire, mindful of her father, at first tries to distance herself from West. But flyboy is insistent and asks her out on a date, and, if she is unimpressed by it, promises to leave her alone.
So West ends up flying Claire to the Hollywood sign, where they sit and bond amidst some good blue screen (a lot better than last episode’s Japan stuff). Claire says stuff happened back in Odessa, and she’s not sure if she can really trust anyone anymore. West, of course, says learn to trust me. Jump off the sign. (Yeah, I say that to all the people I’d want trusting me too.)
And when Claire is convinced, she does so, and of course, flyboy catches her, and there’s a mid-air kiss.
When Claire gets back home, late, she and West realize that her excuse (library) isn’t going to hold water. So Claire, in getting Mr. B off the scent (he suspects it’s a boy), says she tried out for cheerleading. She then manages to convince Mr. B that this is something she needs (“one normal thing”). So Mr. B, poor schlub, relents, on the proviso that she doesn’t start dating anyone yet.
Claire, little liar, agrees.
Oh, and the Haitian shows up, presaged by the wind chimes, and says he has a lead on the other Isaac paintings. They’re headed to Odessa.
Texas, you ask?
Nope. The Ukraine.

Over with the Petrellis, Granny P confesses to having murdered Daddy Sulu, while the wounds she received in the attack two episodes ago appear to have been self-inflicted. It’s clear though that she’s covering something up. (Or perhaps protecting someone…)
Knowing Parkman is reading her mind, she “tells” him to just accept her statement and leave it alone, or everyone will find out about “us” and “what we can do.” (Note though that we have yet to see what Granny P’s power actually is…)
After a brilliant scene between Cristine Rose and Adrian Pasdar, Granny P’s handcuffed and wheelchaired out to the hoosegaw.
Meanwhile, Beardo Nathan first visits his two sons, and tells them their grandmother is in hospital and could use some cheering up. The pint-sized Petrellis don’t approve of Beardo Nathan, so he shaves off the facial hair in time to have his scene with Granny P before she is carted off by the fuzz.
Parkman enlists No-Longer-Beardo Nathan’s help by first revealing he can read people’s thoughts, then showing Nathan the death threats received by Daddy S and Granny P, which both came from a photograph Nathan recognizes. A photograph with his parents in it, that had some “ten, maybe twelve people.”
So let’s review. Daddy S said there used to be twelve, and now there are nine.
Check. Pop Petrelli, Charles Deveaux, and Linderman, casualties of Volume One.
Nine.
Daddy Sulu then does a pavement dive.
Eight left.
Now, when Nathan searches for the photograph, Parkman reveals that the ex-Mrs. Matt was actually pregnant with Matt’s scummy partner’s kid. (How this impacts on the “Five Years Gone” implication that Matt’s kid has powers remains to be seen.)
Then, when Nathan finds the photo, who should be in it as well but Bob, someone who may or may not be Joanna Cassidy, and… dan-da-da-daaan, Papa Parkman!
So Parkman takes the photo home and asks Molly to help him find Papa Parkman, who apparently stole a lot of money from some people, and abandoned his son when Matt was 13. But when Molly sees the photo (and somehow I saw this coming), she throws a hissy fit and refuses.
Papa Parkman is the Sauron baddie, whom Molly dubs “the Nightmare Man.”
Parkman, bull-head twit, tries to strong-arm Mo into making Molly find his MIA father, but in the end, it’s Molly who says, “Okay. I’ll help you find him.”
Molly does the stick pin-on-the-map thing and (yes, apparently we all see this coming except for idiot Matt) gets “caught” by the Nightmare Man, going into shock, while Parkman hears her screaming in his head.
To her credit (and Matt’s bone-headed prodding), Molly gets out city, apartment building, and room number, before she enters Catatonia City.
Repeat after me: Parkman is an idiot.
Oh, almost forgot. Somewhere along the way, Nathan sees Monster Face Nathan in the mirror…

So, I liked this chapter a lot (hey, Mrs. B and Mr. Muggles! Yahoo!), and Monica, as I mentioned above, is an interesting character being played ably by Davis. And though I could have done without the quick snippets of file footage of Katrina damage (which seemed a tad heavy-handed), Monica seems like a very real, honest character, with some nice rapport with Micah, so I’m looking forward to seeing where that subplot goes.
And then there’s Claire, who continues to be a rather substantial, involving character; I think this is the first time I’ve really been disappointed with her, because of that whole lie about not seeing any boy at the moment.
To be fair though, she was lied to for many a year by her adoptive father, so maybe she just sees this as a fair turn-around. And she of course has no idea about the 8th Isaac painting-yet-to-take-place. Though I do suspect that West (as far as the painting goes) is a red herring, and that shadowy someone with Claire is someone else altogether (my pet theory as to the killer’s identity).

I also enjoyed this episode since it feels the least-cluttered since the season began, so here’s hoping there’ll be more chapters like this to come.

(Images courtesy of comicbookresources.com; behind the scene images courtesy of gregbeeman.blogspot.com.)