There have been quite a few very well suited guest stars on Pushing Daisies – Molly Shannon, Patrick Fabian, the brilliant Paul Reubens – but none fit quite so well as Fred Willard. Now, I’m a sucker for Willard, always have been. He’s got a real warmth to go with the absurd-oblivious air he affects, and it never fails to make me like his characters. That’s true again here, as he plays Herman Gunt – The Great Herrmann – as a softie who can’t help but take Maurice and Ralston under his wing when their father bails on them during a Sunday matinee.
Ned’s half brothers got their love of magic from dear old dad, just as Ned got his acid reflux at the thought of magic from the Great Abandoner. Every time he sees, or even thinks about magic, those juices start roiling, remembering the magic his father performed until his final, heartless disappearing act. Not that the brothers escaped the psychological scarring that easily: for years Ralston would wet himself when performing a disappearing act.
All that’s to say, magic runs deep in the DNA of the boys, the twins through misdirection and deception; Ned through *something* else. ((I have a theory that Dad is more than, or completely not, human. Hence, the very real magic.)) It’s little surprise that the twins would latch on to Herrmann and spend as much time learning from him as possible. And it’s because of his sweetness of character that he lets them…leading to his own demise.
Because, while the twins appreciate the surrogate father, The Geek feels deprived. Now, I’m sure you know one or two people who like to chew glass and regurgitate kittens. I knew several back in college, myself. They’re all clingy, needy sorts, but I don’t know if any of them would have been homicidal. But I guess that’s just another example of how Pushing Daisies operates in a heightened realm, more fanciful than realistic. Taking a perfectly normal Geek and making him a killer! ((I probably *did* know someone like that in college, but not intentionally.))
The twists and turn of the mystery are rarely that exciting. The show isn’t about the MoW, after all. The show is about the relationships between these people and the complexity of living with Ned’s power and the consequences of it. Nonetheless, kudos to the writers for dropping the magnets early on and calling back out to them later. That was a bit smoother than they usually are.
But, smoothness in the long-running mystery they do well. So when Dwight Dixon shows up at the Aunts’ house looking for Charles Charles’ pocketwatch, engraved with “CC” (just like his, engraved “DD”,) things start picking up. He, Chuck’s father, and Ned’s father were all UN Peacekeepers together. In addition to wearing jaunty blue berets and riding dromedaries, they most clearly know about some treasure somewhere. Why else would Dwight be looking to collect all the pocketwatches? Together they must, I don’t know, tell him how to read the hidden information on the back of the Articles of Confederation that’ll tell him where to find The Greatest Treasure of All Time! Or something.
Lily sends him packing, but not before Vivian slips him a note for a secret rendevous at the Pie Hole. Because she’s feeling randy? Or maybe nostalgic. Regardless, she tells Dwight that the watch was buried with Chuck. Which would have been true, had it not been picked from her corpse and had her corpse not been de-corpsified by Ned. ((Shortly after which, the picked watch was de-picked.))
Seven more episodes are in the can, probably the final seven episodes of this fine, quirky little show. I believe Bryan Fuller will give us some answers, even if he asks more questions, but at the rate ABC is showing the episodes, that might take a long time. Let’s hope not too long.
I’ve left the best – the most emotional – for last. Chuck, playing Cyrano to Olive’s Christian, gets to talk to her mother for the first time, even though she’d talked with Lily many, many times. My allergies must be acting up again, because I got a bit watery-eyed during that scene, watching Chuck’s glee tempered with longing.
Some favorite bits:
- “I saw them once when I was nine and they were just those little bastards my father was cheating on me with.”
- “What they’re pulling out of their magic hats isn’t a rabbit, it’s my childhood trauma.”
- Chuck and her fake accents, particularly her very phony British one. ((Anna Friel being British and having a very un-phony British accent in real life.))
- “Please, call me ‘Great’.”
- WonderTwin powers!
What did everyone else think?