#plus my giant watchlist of tv shows

[faintlyminty]

back in my consuming-queer-literature-back-to-back era 😌

[amplesalty]

TV Binging: Pushing Daisies (2007-2009)

The facts were these...

At the risk of immediately dating this entry, the entire world is in the grip of a certain public health crisis right now and it seems everyone is taking that time to learn a new language, plunder their local supermarket for baking ingredients or just dive into that long neglected Netflix watchlist for something to pass the seemingly never-ending lockdown hours. For unknown reasons, my brain turned to the late noughties sensation of Pushing Daisies. Maybe because it’s relatively short, only two seasons totaling 22 episodes, or maybe it was a means of finally putting it to bed after two previous failed attempts to watch it all.

For the uninitiated, the show centers around Ned, a small business owner with the unique ability of being able to bring the dead back to life with just a touch of his finger, albeit with a few asterisks attached. Chief amongst them is that if he touches that person or thing again, they go back to being dead, permanently. And, if that person or things stays living for longer than sixty seconds then the power of the Universe, the Grim Reaper or Final Destination kicks in and takes something else in its place. This was something Ned learned at a very young age when his mother died suddenly of a brain aneurysm and in the act of bringing her back to life, he inadvertently killed the father of his neighbour and childhood sweetheart, Charlotte ‘Chuck’ Charles.

Cut to 20 years in the future, or 19 years, 34 weeks, 1 day and 59 minutes later as the narrator so handily informs us, young Ned has become ‘the pie-maker’, running The Pie Hole where he’s able to massively slash his overheads by being able to make delicious pies by simply bringing rotting fruit back to life to serve as his ingredients. It’s amazing the profits you can turn when you can entirely cut out the middle man of fruit suppliers isn’t it?

Plus he makes a little money on the side by helping a local PI named Emerson Cod. Why do all the hard work of investigating a crime when you can simply have a corpse brought back to life for sixty seconds, long enough to ask them who killed them.

It’s through this little business arrangement that Ned stumbles upon the unfortunate news that Chuck’s body was fished from the sea after she seemingly fell overboard on a cruise. With the prospect of a $50,000 reward for information on her passing, Cod is quick to get on the case but in the heat of the moment, Ned has other motives than money and neglects to re-dead his childhood crush.

Thus the series blossoms into what I would describe as a murder mystery meets fairy tale type show, with Chuck now tagging along as one of the Scooby Gang as they solve a new case every week. That’s probably a pretty apt comparison too considering Ned’s dog is often around too, a dog that he also brought back to life and has been keeping around for twenty years. Though, Ned isn’t a massive stoner and Cod doesn’t wear an ascot. He does have a couple of knitted gun holsters though if you want to equate that as his ‘fruity’ accessory.

The reward is something that feels a little shoehorned in early on, they always seem to go out of their way to make a point of saying something like ‘police are baffled and are offering a reward that leads to an arrest’ just so there’s a reason for Cod to get involved. It does eventually settle into someone coming to Cod directly to hire his services, whether that be a grieving widow or family member of a falsely accused wanting to clear their relatives name. That just made a bit more sense to me. You kinda have to look past the fact that the police never seem to be actively involved in any of these cases as well, allowing Cod and co to just swan around doing their thing until they’re able to turn in the real killer at the end of the episode and cash their reward. It always seems that they have a knack of turning up like two minutes too later to someones murder. They do make a point of turning this on its head in one episode though when they find Ned at a murder scene and figure him as the killer.

And maybe it’s just me being a chauvinistic pig but good lord you cannot escape boobs in this show. Or maybe not just me, punch ‘Pushing Daisies cleavage’ into Google dot com and it looks like a few people were talking about this at the time. It felt like one of those things that, once I noticed it, I just couldn’t unsee it. Women always leaning over or camera shots from above looking down their dresses. Just cleavage everywhere. It seems to come up at slightly inappropriate times, like Chuck’s aunts who are socially repressed and virtual shut ins but are stilled dressed up the nines, boobs pushed up and spilling out.

It kinda makes sense for Olive though, waitress at the Pie Hole and with a thing for Ned so she’s just trying to seduce him but without much luck. Doesn’t mean they don’t go out of their way to show off the twins outside the restaurant though such as when Olive takes ownership of the swimming costumes that Chuck’s aunts used to use as part of their synchronized swimming stage show.

Speaking of Kristin Chenoweth’s set of lungs, she gets to show off her musical background a few times throughout the show by breaking into song . It feels a little out of place as there isn’t any other musical acts in the show but she does a great job.

A more family friendly point of design is just how beautiful this show looks at times. Like, pretty much the first thing you see in episode one is young Ned and his dog running through down a vast hillside of flowers. It’s a really vibrant use of colour that runs throughout the whole show, whether it’s sets or costumes, and really adds to this whole fantasy vibe aided by the fantastical nature of Ned’s special power.

Businesses that pop up as part of the story have these grand, bespoke designed buildings that seem like they would never logically exist in the real world like this honey business with a beehive theme...

...and interior decorations  centered around hexagons.

Even something as clinical as the city morgue almost leaps off the screen with a bold red and white striped building. Though, I feel having an entrance labelled ‘deliveries’ brings back a little bit of the coldness you would expect. They might be dead but give them some dignity, they’re not pizzas.

You occasionally get these childhood fantasy sequences as well from when Ned and Chuck would play together as kids, imagining the world in claymation before they would inevitably destroy it as they pictured themselves as giant monsters.

It ties into the characters as well, everyone wearing very colourful clothes except for Ned who only ever seem to dress in blacks or greys.

Except for when he has to act under false pretenses, pretending to be someone else in order to get information from someone or to distract a suspect. To play amateur psychologist for a moment, with someone neurotic as Ned, it’s like a visual representation of his inner self no longer confined, no longer suppressed under the weight of the problems he’s bottling up and pushing deep down within himself. For a brief moment he’s able to break free from the shackles of his black and white world and into rich and living colour. It’s like a strange inverse of how things might usually work where a splash of colour would make someone or something stand out amongst an otherwise drab background. Somehow Ned’s lack of colour draws the eye.

On a more technical level, it is often quite obvious how superimposed the actors are against the fancy backgrounds and that can be a tad distracting. The editing between scenes can sometimes lend to the creative feel of the series, there are a few episodes where instead of the usual wipes you get something more appropriate to the story of the episode. For instance, in one episode centered around a magic theatre show, the transitions are the closing and opening of the stage curtains. It’s a little touch but it adds to the whimsy.

It all adds up to what might the most cutest, adorable thing I’ve ever seen, for the first few episodes at least. Maybe it’s a case of getting used to the whole thing but early on there’s a bit of a feeling out process (or non feeling as the case may be) between Ned and Chuck, the smiles they share or the ways they have to vicariously show their affection by hugging Cod. Him being the unwilling third party in this unconventional relationship doesn’t help take the edge of what might be a saccharine affair. There is a slight sense of ‘will they, wont they’ about Ned and Chuck,, subverting the usual TV payoff of a big kiss by doing so through plastic wrap.Makes you wonder how they explore their other urges under these circumstances. Or maybe that’s just the lockdown thirst kicking in again...

I think the distance they have plays with your head a little bit. There’ a coyness to it that puts you in mind of a bunch of awkward kids at a school dance too nervous to dance with each other. Or maybe Ned standing two feet away from Chuck, holding his own hand and pretending it’s Chuck’s is just an eerie glimpse into the post apocalyptic world we’ll have to enter at some point and all our conventions of greetings and physical contact have been shattered.

For the rotating cast of peripheral characters the show goes through as each investigation comes and goes, it’s nice that a few a started to re-appear now and again, such as Paul Rubens’ Oscar, Christine Adams’ Simone or David Arquette’s Randy Mann. That last one is a name, not a description (a Randy Man, a Macho Savage). It helps build this broader world and story elements, albeit I’m torn on the latter. Oscar, for instance, suspects something is not quite right about Chuck and she worries that he’s going to uncover her secret. It never really goes anywhere though and, whilst you could argue that like any good mystery there is the odd red herring along the way, it still feels like a little bit of a bait and switch considering that are other things in the story that don’t get paid off.

I’ll have to look into the timeline for how the series came to a close because it definitely seems like they knew considering there’s a very tacked on epilogue to the final episode that tries to tie up some of the loose ends, but there are still some left that aren’t. Namely the presence of Ned’s father that he had thought had been long gone for some twenty years but had been closer than he thought the entire time, with the show giving periodical teases of him sitting in the Pie Hole or a more thrilling cameo as he sweeps in to rescue Ned and Olive from their untimely deaths as they cling to a branch on the edge of a cliff.

The fact that he does so whilst wearing a mask and wearing gloves is more of a way to lead Ned towards certain conclusions on the identity of this mystery man but I can’t help but wonder what the implications are on the gloves in particular. The mechanics of Ned’s power seem to be that contact in order to bring the dead back to life has to be made skin to skin, so maybe Ned inherited this power from his father and his father brought Ned back to life at some point? Maybe him abandoning Ned at a young age was done to eliminate any risk of him accidentally touching him again and making death permanent? I’m not sure that would hold up considering he later walks out on his new family and twin boys so this would require three different people to all have seemingly no memory of their own near death experience. Maybe it’s all been repressed, that wouldn’t be surprising considering all the childhood angst present in this show.

You know what else I’m confused on? The distance between Coeur d’Couers, where Chuck’s aunts live, and the Pie Hole. Maybe I’m misremembering or misheard but I’m sure in one episode the narrator mentions that they’re 161 miles apart, yet characters seem to go between the two like they’re five minutes away. One of the aunts arranges a secret date at the Pie Hole later on in the same night but that’s a pretty massive distance to cover considering they make a point that they’re only traveling on buses. I know travel is all relative to American’s considering the massive size of their country but that’s a pretty ridiculous distance to cover for a slice of pie.

[silencedlittlebirdy]

Conquering a World: Part 6

Chapter 6 on AO3

“Fay?” I groaned and grabbed for my phone. “What time is it?” “You wanted to meet half an hour ago.” Chad cleared his throat. “Shoot! I’m sorry.” “It’s fine, I’ll wait downstairs.” I scrambled out of bed as the door closed. Two months had flown by. We had finally experienced some of the weather: rain and splattering. The latter is when all of the rain just falls down at once. It’s like getting a bucket of cold water dumped on you. Perfect way to end a hot summer-like day and permanently cool the weather so that it was in the fifties and low sixties. John Ledford had been keeping record of when the sun rose and set, and he told us that though the days had been increasing, they were decreasing as of four days ago. Everything had been a little strange. We had received our shipment and were forced to place our next because they had discovered that it would take three months to fill and return shipments. Three months. Thankfully our first shipment had been a large one, and everyone was starting to get comfortable with working together. Ava oversaw the organization and kept the collective inventory, as well as made sure that the kids were learning stuff. We were all still trying to figure out what to do if this place had a cold winter. I had been able to completely determine three things that were edible, and I was almost certain that a fourth was sitting in my lab. There were also two plants that were edible as long at they were cooked in some way or other. Patricia and her son, Kevin, were working on capturing animals (sometimes alive, sometimes dead) and testing them. The dead ones were dissected and tested for edibility, most of these were birds and smaller animals. The live ones were studied, and then released. The giant, dolphin-rhino creatures were the easiest to study without hindering. They passed through on the strip of purple grass between all of the houses, always heading west. And they really liked tomatoes. I headed downstairs, twice after I had to go back to get my backpack and knife, and waved Chad down. He carefully excused himself from his conversation with Ava and followed me outside. “Took you long enough.” “Couldn’t figure out where Ava hid my clean socks.” “She hides your socks?” “It’s one of our things. I hide her bras, she hides my socks.” “I didn’t…oh, why did I ask?” “Because you still haven’t learned, apparently. The conversation you were having with Ava seemed…intimate.” “Shut up, it wasn’t.” “How does it feel to be the only eligible bachelor?” I asked in my best TV show Hostess voice. “Like I want to go to Disney World.” He sounded a little grumpy. “You okay? I did say I’m sorry for sleeping in, right?” “I’m fine, and I do not blame you one bit. I probably would have slept in too if Dad hadn’t been up and at’em.” “Doesn’t know how to be quiet? My dad was like that.” “Refuses to be quiet.” “Ha ha. Now seriously, are you okay? You seem…agitated. You know I was just teasing about Ava, right?” “I’m fine and of course I know.” “Okay, you ready for a different question?” “You’re going to ask one anyway.” “I never asked, but…did you have a girlfriend?” “Oof,” He muttered. “Did not see that one coming. Um, no. My girlfriend dumped me for my best friend, who then kicked me out of our apartment.I had move back in with my parents while I tried to figure things out. That almost a year before this all happened.” “You were still living with them? A year after?” “Yeah, I mean, I paid a little rent, and I live in the basement. It’s got it’s own kitchen and everything. Plus I was working for Dad and it just made it…convenient. I was actually getting ready to move back out, into an apartment again. Packing everything up. And then this happened. Part of me is glad I hadn’t moved out yet, because I would have lost my family. Another part of me wonders if my moving out would have prevented them from being chosen.” “And still another part of you wonders if surviving is even the right choice at this point?” “No, on that front I have no doubts. Don’t you die on me.” “Have you noticed how jumpy Traaiillooon has been getting?” “Think he’s feeling the pressure from his bosses?” “Something,” I agreed. Then I stopped, watching a catlike creature that was in the trees. It glided to another like a flying squirrel would, slowly getting closer to us. It had fur that was mostly blue with a green tinge, and darker spots, toes, and in something of an upside down T on it’s muzzle. All the others I had seen like it had purpleish blue fur with blue spots. But this one also had different colored eyes. One was pink and the other green. It’s long bushy tail swayed back and forth behind it. It’s ears were rounded instead of pointed. And I had definitely seen it before, lurking around my tent in the evenings. “Well, you’re a curious thing,” I murmured, carefully moving closer. Chad didn’t move, he was looking in a different direction. I glanced that way, then did a double take. “Is that…” “Big.” He nodded. “I was going to say deadly looking.” “That too.” I let my gaze go back to the little cat-like creature. “Here, kitty.” I held my hand out to it. It inched forward and sniffed my hand, then deftly walked across my around and sat on my shoulder, it’s bushy tail wrapping around my neck like a scarf. Chad glanced at me, then started shaking like he was holding in laughter. “Let’s move out. We’ll have to get samples later.” The deadly-looking thing roared. “Run,” Chad announced, pushing me forward. I pushed my way back out of the forest and into the yard. “You have a gun, don’t you?” “It isn’t loaded.” “What good is an unloaded gun, ya freak!” “About as much good as a security dog that doesn’t do anything besides bark!” “They’re deterrents!” I ran until I got to the house, then turned to look. “It didn’t follow us.” “What?” “It. Didn’t. Follow. Us.” I breathed each word. Chad just started laughing. “And yet you still brought something home.” Ava was standing in the doorway. “What were you two yelling about?” “There was this thing in there, deadly looking. And it roared. So we ran.” “And the thing on your shoulder?” “It’s my squishy,” I said in my little kid voice. I started stroking it’s tail. She gave me the mom look, “Aren’t our pets enough?” “Feel squishy’s fur.” I continued in the same voice. “Fay, stop it.” “Feel the squishy’s fur!” “I swear you’re five!” She reached forward cautiously and gentle stroked the thing’s fur when it didn’t seem like it was going to bite her. “It’s very soft. You can’t keep it.” “I’m not keeping it, it’s keeping me. Literally, it just kind of climbed on and now it’s not letting go.” “It’s true,” Chad piped up. “We’ll have to figure it out. Apparently the whatever domain gave Traaiillooon an ultimatum. They said that if there aren’t signs of mating and or reproduction in the next week that they’re going to—and I’m quoting Traaiillooon here—pull a Sue Sylvester-Klaine style intervention, but that they won’t release the chosen two until a child is concieved.” “A what intervention?” Chad asked, looking seriously concerned. “I’m not sure. It sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it. I know it’s something that they got from Earth.” Ava frowned at the patio. The thing on my shoulder chirped. I was a little frozen. “They’re going to lock us in a room with only a bathroom, send in meals. Prison style?” “You know that reference?” Ava asked, looking a little nervous. “Glee, it’s from Glee. That show you refused to watch. The one I started watching for the music. Klaine is Kurt and Blaine. Sue Sylvester is the devil’s less-evil and sometimes awesome assistant. The intervention involved Klaine getting locked in a fake elevator with a bathroom, they were fed meals. Sexual stimulants were threatened to be pumped into the room, but it didn’t come to that.” I shuddered. “I vote no.” Chad looked nervous. “No no. No, no, no-no-no.” He started hurrying toward his own home. Ava looked extremely concerned. “And you watched this show?” “Don’t judge me, I’ve seen your Netflix watchlist,” I retorted. It was the best I had at the moment. “You’re aware that one of us will be the one that they take.” “I’m aware, Ava. I’ve been aware since the first week or so. It’ll probably be you.” “Me? No way. He’s not my type.” “How would you know, you’ve never dated!” “Neither have you! Are you saying that he isn’t your type?” “I don’t know! And frankly, right now I don’t even care. I want to know that we’re going to survive.Right now we’re in this mad dash to try and preserve what food we do have so that if there is a winter, we don’t get killed by it. You’ve stopped collecting eggs?” “Don’t change the subject.” “But have you?” “Lobelia is broody, she’s laying on a bunch of the eggs right now. Audrey is also broody, and she’s sitting on top of three eggs, hers.” “Fingers crossed. Didn’t expect them to get broody this late in the season.” “I couldn’t explain it to you. Dang it, Fay! I said don’t change the subject.” “You make it too easy!” “Fay, do you like him?” “I don’t know. I don’t even remember what it’s like to have a crush. I haven’t had one in years. I get along with him. We have similar senses of humor. I don’t know, Ava. I don’t. I told you, my mind is still in survival mode. I haven’t had a moment to myself, I haven’t listened to music in over a week, I…” Every thought flew out of my head. She was examining me with a passive look. “How much sleep did you get last night?” I blinked a couple of times, counting in my head. I had still been unable to sleep at four fifteen…woke up at seven thirty… “About three hours. A little over.” “Three hours? Fay! I know you didn’t get much more than that the night before. You need to sleep.” “I can’t. I’ve been trying. I’ll be absolutely exhausted and I won’t be able to fall asleep. My mind starts racing and I start panicking…” I closed my eyes. “Go see Beatrice. Tell her you haven’t been sleeping. Go, Fay.” I sighed. “Now, Fay.” Man people liked to tell me what to do. I just wanted to rebel against it. I’d always been that way. The more someone told me to do something, the less likely I was to do it. Or the more insistent someone was that I do it one way, I would more insistently do it my own. But something had to give. I passed her and went through the house, off to go see Beatrice. I needed a good nights sleep and I didn’t know any more ways of trying to get it. Traaiillooon intercepted me. “The Ava has informed you?” “Yes, and I get the reference made. What do you want me to do about it Traaiillooon? It’s Chad’s choice. Whatever he decides we’ll go with, I guess.” Traaiillooon studied me (he did that often). “Are you feeling well, Fay? Or is the creature on your shoulder causing you harm?” “No, I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep well last night. I’m on my way to talk to Beatrice. Is there anything else?” His whiskers twitched. “Is Ava in your abode?” “Backyard, I think she was playing with the dogs.” His ears seemed to perk up and his antennae vibrated slightly. “Good greetings, Fay.” He loped off. “Good…greetings…” I sighed, forcing myself to let it go. He was pretty advanced when it came to speaking our language, it was unfair to hold his slips against him. Beatrice was talking with Chad when I came in, but she came over when she saw me. Chad disappeared out the back. “What is on your shoulder?” “Squishy.” “I’m sorry I asked. What’s up, hon?” “The past week, I’ve averaged about three hours of sleep every night. I’ve tried epsom salts, I’ve tried night time pain killer, NyQuil, Benadryl…I don’t know what else to try and it’s getting harder to think. And function. My patience is…not fantastic. And I’ve been getting migraines again.” “Again?” “I suffered severe migraines all through my childhood and teen years, when I started college they backed off, but they’re starting to become more frequent again and I think it’s because I’m not sleeping, but I don’t know and I just…I just hit a wall. Did you see it?” “Oh yeah,” She came over and supported me. “Come on, let’s get you to a bed and see if we can’t get you to sleep.”

@riptidethepen @mrsmalch