PUSHING DAISIES
Season 1 Episode 9
“Corpsicle”
Written by Lisa Joy
Directed by Brian Dannelly
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

After an opening sequence where we witness the day of Chuck’s da’s death (during which time Ned’s mum also died, twice), we discover that after Ned’s blurting of the awful truth last episode (like “word vomit,” as he puts it later on to Emerson), Chuck disappears.
As it turns out, she’s hiding out at Olive’s, and she’s so despondent that she feels the need to tell someone about her dark secret, even if that someone won’t believe her.
So she tells Olive.
And Olive doesn’t believe her.

Later on though, Chuck finds out that Oscar Vibenius is still intrigued by her unique smell, which he’s discovered is the same smell he picks up from Digby. (Oscar’s actually shaved off some fur from Digby’s bum to confirm his suspicions; poor Digby!)
Still needing to confide in someone who isn’t Ned, Chuck eventually gives Oscar some of her hair, so he can uncover the truth she’s been keeping to herself.
Eventually though, Oscar returns her hair, wanting Chuck to tell him the truth herself. By that time though, Chuck feels she can safely see Ned already without hating him, so she takes back her hair, and tells Oscar, You should’ve checked out the hair when you had the chance.

Ned and Chuck finally reunite at her da’s grave, where she actually asks Ned to bring back her father, if only for a minute, but Ned refuses, telling her, I can’t bring your father back, then kill him again. I couldn’t do that to you…
It’s a great, sad scene, as Ned wants to comfort her by embracing her, but of course, he can’t…

Meanwhile, since Chuck isn’t spending time at the Pie Hole, she asks Olive to bake a pie for her aunts, and gives her the happy juice she doses her pies with. (Olive is her unsuspecting homeopathic drug mule…)
Thinking it’s vanilla and taking a taste of it but not finding it particularly strong, Olive decides to use the entire bottle.
Later on, Lily eats the whole pie, and in her drugged-out, blissful state, she blurts out to Olive that she is, in fact, Chuck’s mum! (Which is where the episode ends…)

The whodunit portion of the finale involves the murders of Uber-Life Life Insurance adjustors. Notable bits in this subplot include a Blood Simple reference, Bobo the banobo, and Emerson admitting that he has a daughter (which surprises us all, including Ned).

Thus do we close what Bryan Fuller has come to think of as the show’s “teaser season.” Now, due to the strike—and the subsequent time afforded to Fuller to re-think the narrative thus far—the reveal of Lily being Chuck’s mum (a plot development which was originally meant to be resolved mid-season), will apparently “inform much of [Pushing Daisies’] next season’s direction.”
At the Paley Fest ’08, Fuller also confirmed that Chuck will find out who her real mother is next season: "It's going to be interesting to see how she reacts to that information, and how the Pie Maker tries to control her trajectory and how that will complicate their relationship. There are going to be some nice surprises."
Fuller also said that the interruption caused by the WGA strike, "… gave us a chance to look back at the nine episodes and [figure out] what was working and what was not working. The arc of the first nine was a soft, romantic arc. In the second season, we want to do something a little harder and a little more aggressive in the style of storytelling. We learned a lot of lessons."

If you’ve been following these recaps, you’ll know that I love me my Pushing Daisies, and I do think it’s the best new show that emerged from the past strike-truncated season. (Chuck’s a close second.)
I’m looking forward to fall, when Daisies returns, and hopefully, between then and now, people who haven’t tasted of its bittersweet humour and whimsical visuals can catch up on the web. (Or, the Season 1 DVD set, which hits stores in early September.)

Parting shot: At the Paley Fest, Fuller fielded a question regarding the chances Ned and Chuck have of conceiving a child: "I think her egg would die when his sperm hit it."
He also confirmed that Ned is a vegetarian, because if he ever ate meat and it made contact with his insides, the meat would come back to life “and crawl out of him.”

(Image courtesy of pushing-daisies.com.)

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
(Review)

So I’ve just gotten to see the Coen Brothers’ latest, and I can see what the critics are raving about.
Now, I’ve mentioned ‘round these parts before that I’ve loved the Coens ever since they kicked my a$$ with their debut, Blood Simple. Admittedly, that could be construed by some as an indication that I’d be unfairly predisposed towards anything they’d put out. Let me assure you though, I’ve missed some of their oeuvre (The Hudsucker Proxy and Intolerable Cruelty) and wasn’t terribly fond of The Big Lebowski, so this one might have gone either way.
Their adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel though, proves to be a riveting piece of cinema that is certainly one of 2007’s best.

Josh Brolin is Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran who comes across a bunch of dead bodies, a whole lotta drugs, and a whole lotta cash. Soon, he’s got a stone cold killer named Anton Chigurh (a truly frightening Javier Bardem) on his heels, with Tommy Lee Jones’ Sheriff Ed Tom Bell trying to lend a hand, while reeling at how increasingly strange and bizarre life has become in the year 1980.
Asking the same basic question Scott Smith‘s A Simple Plan posed—what happens when an otherwise good man finds a crapload of dirty money and makes off with it?—the Coens’ adaptation of McCarthy’s novel is, on one level, the tale of the disastrous results one bad choice can engender.
On another level though, it’s about the inevitability of the future, no matter how unsettling and alien it may be, and how one responds to the juggernaut of time: one can either accept it with as much grace as can be mustered to temper the resignation, or one can struggle against it and face the consequences of that decision.
The message isn’t a comforting one, but then again, truth sometimes isn’t.

No Country For Old Men also displays two qualities film aficionados have come to admire in the Coen Brothers’ work: a great script and some great performances.
Jones is fantastic as the laconic and vaguely bewildered lawman faced with the inexplicable violence of this case, but then again, this is Tommy Lee Jones, so that’s hardly a surprise. And as much as Brolin’s performance was an eye-opener, the man who steals the show here is most definitely Bardem.
Whatever else may happen this awards season, Bardem is going down in my books as one of the Scariest Psycho Baddies of 2007: Chigurh’s like the T-1000, but with a really dodgy haircut. Bad news, kiddies.

At the moment, these are some of the nominations No Country For Old Men is up for: at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, it’s up for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, as well as two nods for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role (for Jones and Bardem).
At the Golden Globes, it’s up for Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture (Bardem), and Best Screenplay.
And it’s on 13 of this year’s BAFTA longlists, which will be slimmed down during a second round of voting which closes on January 14; see Afterthoughts (39).
No Country For Old Men also took top prizes at any number of critics’ awards late last year including the Toronto Film Critics Association, D.C. Area Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review, Southeastern Film Critics Association, and the Las Vegas Film Critics Association, with a healthy portion of the Supporting Actor nods going to Bardem.
So, you know, don’t just take my word for it.

It will be recalled that Sam Raimi adapted Smith‘s A Simple Plan for the big screen, and that film is still Raimi’s best. It will also be recalled that Joel Coen worked with Raimi on The Evil Dead, so the fact that they eventually both directed films adapted from novels that ask the same basic question is interesting to note.
Now, as to whether No Country For Old Men is the best Coen Brothers film (as some critics have gone on the record as saying) is still up in the air for me. I honestly need to give that one a think. Blood Simple still holds a special place in my film geek’s heart (and I’m certain it always will), as does Barton Fink and The Man Who Wasn’t There.
So, the Coens’ best? I can’t say at the moment.
I do know this though: it’s a film that manages to find, amidst the blood and violence of an impending and uncertain future, instances of strange, mesmerizing beauty: in the bleak vistas of West Texas; in the stark, brittle sound of boots on the pavement; in the recollection of an old and tired man’s dream.

One of 2007’s best?
As I mentioned way up there in the first paragraph, most definitely.

Parting shot: Also notable in the film’s cast are Trainspotting’s Kelly MacDonald, who brings a sense of unassuming spunk and quiet defiance to her role of Carla Jean, Llewelyn’s wife, and all-too-briefly, Beth Grant (who I first took notice of in Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko) as Carla Jean’s mother, Agnes.

(No Country For Old Men OS courtesy of impawards.com; novel cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)