Pushing Daisies

How do I even begin to describe such a visual and lyrical masterpiece as Pushing Daisies? My fiance bought the first season for me on DVD almost a year ago, and I finally finished the whole season in between several other projects.

This series sheds such a happy and comical light on a very tragic and morbid situation. The main protagonist, Ned, discovers at a young age that he can bring dead things back to life with a single touch. He also discovers that if he did not touch them again to make them dead within 60 seconds, someone else comparable to the dead thing would take its place. He finds this out by touching his dead mother, and then finding out that his best friend's father died in her place.

The friend was a girl named Chuck, and they were childhood sweethearts. The two never saw each other again. Ned goes off to boarding school and then becomes a pie maker. He eventually uses his powers to team up with a private detective to solve murders. One of the murders is of Chuck, his childhood sweetheart. He leaves her alive for more than a minute, and the funeral home owner croaks. Chuck then joins their crime-fighting team, but can never touch Ned again or else she will die.

The rest of the series is slightly formulaic. They run into new murders and different plots each episode, but the core team stays the same. Ned's pie shop is called The Pie Hole, and is kept running by an Olive Snook, played by the wonderful Kristin Chenoweth. Olive has unrequited feelings for Ned, and makes for a lot of quirky interactions throughout the series. The characters that are not, however, formulaic, are Chuck's two aunts. She grew up with them after her father died, and they used to be synchronized swimmers in a travelling show. It sounds kind of quirky and Tim Burton, but I am pretty sure that this show came out before Coraline did. The aunts are played by Swoosie Kurtz (John Locke's Mother) and Ellen Greene (Sylar's Mother). Besides their Heroes and LOST affiliations, I love Ellen Greene because of her musical origins in Little Shop of Horrors. her eccentricities are played out well in this character, and she gets several opportunities to sing. There is even a part where her and Chenoweth sing a song together. A moment I never even dreamed of seeing in my lifetime.


Besides this hauntingly stellar cast, the story for each episode is beautiful. It is narrated in a very fairy-tale manner that makes you smile and feel all warm inside. The interactions between each and every character are true and difficult. To be with someone and not touch them for fear of their death. To love someone but not have their love in return. The highly saturated colors of this beautiful set do the storyline a great justice, and I am sad to have heard that it has been cancelled.

More drawing...

I think I am getting better.

The Last Recruit

Highlights:

Sun and Locke are brought to the same hospital. She sees him and freaks out, saying "Oh no! It's him!"Ben rides in the ambulance with John Locke and finds out to call Helen Norwood.

Claire goes to an adoption agency, and Desmond convinces her to go to his lawyer before making a huge decision. He tells her it will be free of charge. His lawyer is Ilana!

Ilana says she has been looking for her, and it seems confusing until Jack and David show up to read Christian's will.

Jack and Claire meet for the first time and she tells him they are half-siblings.

Jack has to reschedule to do a surgery.

He goes in and sees the dural sac is obliterated on this patient. He sees it is John Locke and says that he knows this man.

Jin, Sun, and their baby are fine.

Sawyer arrests Kate and captures Sayid outside of his house.

On the Island, Jack has a chat with Smokey. Smokey tells him he pretended to be Christian so he could lead him to water. He tells him John had to be dead to look like him.

The Smoking club gets a visit from Tina Fey, and she has her people drop a bomb near their camp so he will give her Desmond back.

Smokey makes Sayid go kill him instead. Desmond appeals to Sayid's (morale character?), and it looks like he doesn't go through with it.

Smokey makes everyone go to the end of the island, and makes James get a boat with Kate to only take a select few.

James lets our friends in on a secret plan, and they all hijack the boat to Hydra Island. Claire, always being the one left out, follows them to the boat and tells them she will tell Locke.

Kate emotes and tells her she wants to bring her to Aaron. Everybody makes up, and they get on the boat.

Jack and James have am emotional discussion, Jack believes he is there for a reason. He jumps off the boat to stop Smokey.

The boat lands on Hydra Island, and Tina Fey and friends hold them at gunpoint. She said the plan has changed.

But Jin and Sun reuinite, and make a bad situation tolerable.

Back on the other island, jack reaches Smokey, and Widmore's people bomb them. Jack gets hurt bad, Smokey carries him to safety and says "Don't worry, you're with me now."


Special/Key Moments:

I really liked how Jack and his son walked the same way and were dressed the same way. The casting for David is impeccable.

Ben riding in the ambulance with Locke was classic. He was so consoling and sweet. The fact that he didn't even know his first name was such a 180 from his character on the island. He had files on everyone, including the Freighter Folk, and now he doesn't even know Locke's first name? Nice touch.

I wished they would have showed Jack's Baby's Momma. They toyed with me on that phone call for so long. I was hoping they would cut to Juliet already, but they didn't. Maybe they will reveal her at the end. Or maybe Elizabeth Mitchell is just too busy with the show V. Either way, it's a thorn in my damned side.

I liked how Smokey just stood there with a smug look on his face as Tina Fey dropped the bomb near his camp. He gave her a look like "That's all you got? I'm the fucking Man In Black, bitch." Well played, Terry O'Quinn.

I liked seeing James and Miles arrest Sayid and Kate.

I liked seeing Ilana as Desmond and Jack's lawyer, but I have to admit that I was still holding out for Juliet to be SOMEWHERE in this episode. I guess not....... :(

Jack's conversation with James on the boat was wonderful to see. His John Locke-ness is beautiful to me, and makes me believe that he could indeed be the next Jacob. He talks about how there was a part of him that was missing when he was away from the island. I think he truly belongs there. I like him so much this season.

Seeing Jin and Sun finally get to reuinite and kiss and cry all over each other was awesome!

I liked Kate and James flirting with each other again. Even though I really don't approve.

When Jack looked at John Locke's x-ray, he said that the dural sac was obliterated. The nurse said that his spine was already shattered before the accident. She said that the wheelchair probably saved his life. What I like about this situation is two things:
-Return of the dural sac
-Return of the Ben surgery situation

Seeing Jack get blown up was almost as awesome. Who knew something that crazy could happen to our main protagonist?



Theories/Questions/Speculations:

Desmond seemed to talk Sayid out of killing him. When Sayid took "longer that Smokey thought" to kill Desmond, he said Smokey could check it he wanted to. Smokey trusted him and went on his way. I am going to go on a limb here and say that Desmond is still alive. I am going to say that Sayid and Desmond are the most In-The-Know out of all of the people on the island. Desmond because of his flashes, and Sayid because of reading Faraday's journal. Faraday is really the key to all of this, and these two are his instruments. I think they both recognize that in each other, and Desmond brought it out in Sayid. Desmond is fearless and acting very Jacobian as of late. he is calm and collected, and unafraid of what will happen to him. When he stopped Sayid from shooting him, he was more concerned about Sayid'd well-being than his own.


I think the next Jacob is either going to be Desmond of Jack.

As far as that goes, I can't think of anything else to theorize about. It is almost over, and everything is pulling itself together. I am so excited!

End of the World Dreams

So most of my dreams are very violent, morbid, and depressing. They are often images of people I love dying, or the world coming to an end in a very Michael Bay fashion. Last night was no different, but I figured I should start blogging about it. I could use this as an outlet for when I am particularly freaked out.

This morning I woke up in a cold sweat next to Tony. I had just woken up from this dream that I lived in some small town next to a large body of water. I lived there with my family, but didn't see Tony there. I think I was a little bit younger, for some reason.

Anyways, we were all outside looking at the city opposite this large body of water, and all of the sudden the buildings start to crumble and fall. The city sinks into the body of water before my eyes in seconds. I mean, just annihilated. There were dust clouds and screams and everything. I had never been so scared in my life.

My family and I watch the news, and there is rumor it might happen to our city. I immediately begin to pray and call upon my sins. I ask for forgiveness on my knees. I lock myself in my bedroom and wait for the terrible feeling of sinking into the water below.

But it never happened. And I woke up. Yeesh.

Everybody Loves Hugo

As my dad said, this episode started off with a bang. Ha ha.... ha.... okay, sorry.

Highlights:

Ilana explodes from the unstable dynamite!

Dead Michael tells Hurley that people will start listening to him, so he needs to be careful. Hurley takes that and pretends Jacob told him not to blow up the plane.

Richard calls his bluff in a testosterone showdown, and two teams emerge. Team Richard that includes Ben and Miles, and Team Hurley that includes Jack, Sun, and Lapidus. Richard wants to blow up the plane, and Hurley wants to talk to Locke.


Hurley blows up all the dynamite in the Black Rock a la Locke in Season 3 with the Submarine.

Sayid brings Locke to a tied-up Desmond. Locke throws Desmond down a well. Desmond still thinks he is John Locke.

Hurley hears the Whispers, goes off on his own, sees Michael, and asks if he is stuck on this island. Michael says yes, and that the whispers are the voices of the dead stuck here. Shazam.

Hurley tells Jack he never saw Jacob after Ilana explodes, Jack says he knows. They reach Locke's camp.

Hurley negotiates with Locke, and everyone smiles at each other. Locke only greets Jack.

In the Flash Sideways, Pierre Chang is alive and well!

Hurley's mom sets him up on a blind date. Before she gets there, Libby finds him and tells him of her joined memory of the island.


He doesn't share these memories, but really likes her. He binges on chicken wings, and gets a visit from Desmond. Desmond tells him to give Libby a second chance.

Hurley visits Libby at the mental institution and takes her out on a date. (She is apparently there voluntarily after her memory started to merge). She kisses him, and his memories of the island with her return.

For some reason we flash back to Desmond who is spying on John Locke at school. Ben Linus talks to him about his weirdness, and he leaves after running John Locke over with his car!



Special/Key Moments:

I loved seeing Libby back on the show! She looked just crazy enough to be in her state, but pretty enough to steal Hugo's heart again.


Desmond looked into the eyes of the devil and said "What's the use of being scared?". Even though he gets thrown down the well shortly after this bold statement, it really impressed me due to its biblical reference, and its reference to Desmond's character. Is he that enlightened after his EM exposure that he has no fear at all? Or does he really think he is still John Locke?

We finally found out what the Whispers are! Michael said he is stuck there "Because of what I did." So, for all of those people who thought the island was purgatory in Seasons 1 and 2... you were half right.

I really liked seeing Pierre Chang even though I missed the first five minutes driving home from class. I saw him in the screen caps, and that is enough for me. Yay, Chang!

Jack said that since Juliet died he has been trying to fix things, and he can't. He has since then given up his Man Of Science thrown, and explained his Man of Faith stance to us. He realizes things are out of his hands, and trusts in his friends. He also corrects himself by saying "When I got Juliet killed...". I found it interesting he still cared that deeply for her.

Sayid is acting as a sort of Iago now. Both in a Shakespeare and a Disney sort of way.

Oh, and check out Mr. Cool...

Miles and Hurley part ways in this episode, and it made me really sad. Almost as sad as Hurley pretending that Jacob told him to do something when he didn't.

Other than that, I can't say a lot happened in this episode, or that a lot made me smile.

Theories/Questions/Speculations:

A huge question was answered, so that was nice. But I still don't know what Hugo's angle is. I know he wants to be taken seriously and for people to listen to him, but he is acting like a damned child right now. I mean, he and Richard had this beautiful Latino friendship thing going on, and he had to ruin it for everyone. Now Richard is pissed, and Miles is stuck with the two most cryptic assholes on the island. Fuck.

I still don't know what Desmond's mindset is, and I am being lazy this week, and will ask you to refer to last week's Desmond theories for further information.

This episode was boring and lackluster. The only thing cool was Desmond being thrown down a well, and John Locke getting hit by Desmond's car. Everything else I could have done without.

The end.

Happily Ever After

Highlights:

Widmore Dr. Manhattan's Desmond into the airport after 815 lands.

He meets Claire, gets in a Limo driven by Minkowski, and meets up with his boss, Charles Widmore.

The two of them are chummy, and share a shot of that famous Whiskey.

He picks up Charlie as a favor to Mrs. Widmore, and Charlie rambles on about seeing a vision of love. He describes Claire in the moment of almost dying. He then grabs Desmond's wheel and forces their car into the water.


Desmond saves Charlie, but only after he pounds his hand on the window. Desmond gets a vision of "Not Penny's Boat", and then wakes up in the hospital.

He asks to see Charlie, but is put in an MRI machine due to his fucked-up time travel-ridden brain. He has several visions of Penny and their life together, and finds Charlie to ask about her.

Charlie acknowledges that Desmond has seen what he was talking about earlier, and that he needs to find Penny. He runs away.

Desmond goes to the Widmore household to apologize for Charlie, and Eloise is married to Charles!

She says Charlie was supposed to play with her son, but she is not mad. Desmond hears Penny's name on the list, and Eloise freaks out. She tells him not to pursue whatever he is looking for because he is not ready.

Defeated, Desmond begins to leave until he is approached by.....

God, it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes.
Lord, I miss Daniel. Oh, I miss him so much
Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won't heal?
Your eyes have died, but you see more than I.
Daniel, you're a star in the face of the sky.

Yes, it is Daniel. Widmore, though, not Faraday, in this universe. And those are legit Elton John lyrics, people. The rest of the lyrics talk about him leaving on a plane... too bad he was on the freighter or it would have been creepy.

Daniel tells him that he had a dream about Charlotte in the same way Charlie did about Claire. He also shows him an equation he wrote after he dreamed about it. He tells him he is not a physicist. He tells Desmond that he has a feeling they all lived different lives and changed it by setting off a bomb.


He then tells Desmond that Penny is his half sister, and tells him where to meet her.

Desmond finds her at that Fateful Stadium as she works out, and invites her for a coffee. She says yes.

He flashes back to the island. Widmore explains they had to see if he could survive another Electromagnetic Anomaly in order to save everyone from "hell". Desmond tells Widmore he is compliant, and follows Zoe to who-knows-where.

Sayid kills a henchman and tells Zoe to run. He tells Desmond there isn't much time and to come with him.

In a daze, Desmond does as he is told.

He flashes back and asks Minkowski for a list of the plane's manifest.

Special/Key Moments:

Daniel!!!

Eloise!!!

Minkowski!!!

Did you notice the painting on Widmore's wall of a scale with a white stone and a black stone? I did.

Eloise tells Desmond that he has everything he wants: Widmore's approval, a good job, a purpose. Then she quotes her son and says Whatever Happens, Happens. She says that whatever he thinks he is doing or looking for, that he should stop. She says that what he is doing, this knowledge, is a violation. She still knows something, but I don't know what it is. And I don't know how.

I liked that Widmore's machine and box looked a lot like the opening scene of Jurassic Park. "Shoot her!"

The graphics of Desmond in the box were very Watchmen.

I like that Jack is always in the background of every hospital scene, just another day at the office.


I liked Charlie's purpose in this episode, but I still don't like him. He is annoying as hell.

I liked seeing Penny work out. It wasn't very believable, but then again I work out and I'm not necessarily in shape either.


Theories/ Questions/ Speculations:

Penny has a different last name. It seems that Daniel and her have switched places. Is she the estranged child, the Claire to Christian, as Daniel is the Jack to Widmore?

How powerful is Eloise? She knows everything.... both in the original time line when she helps Ben and friends get back to the island, when she is in Desmond's temporal displacement episodes, and also now in the Flash Sideways universe. Is she some sort of gatekeeper of time and space? Is she the Oracle from the Matrix? It wouldn't surprise me if she said something like "What's really gonna cook your noodle, is would you have done anything if I hadn't said anything about the vase?" Or something like that.


Widmore asks Desmond to help him, and ultimately make a sacrifice. Desmond asks Widmore what he knows about sacrifice. Widmore retorts with the fact that his own daughter hates him, he hasn't seen his grandchild, and let his own son die for the sake of the island. It makes me wonder if he knew about Desmond all along through Eloise and Faraday's journal. It makes me wonder if he pushed him away and tried to buy him off to make him try that much harder to win his approval. I think he set up that race just for Desmond, I think he made all of this conflict himself so that Desmond would be in this place, this state of mind, and be physically and temporally perfect for what he needs done on the island.

But what is that, exactly? Does Desmond need to be able to withstand an electromagnetic blast so powerful it will wipe out and eventually kill the Smoke Monster? Will he be the kamakasi pilot for the epic ending battle scene of this series? Or does Widmore know even more about Desmond's temporal abilities, and needs him to help the people in the flash sideways collide with the memories of their former selves on the island? Maybe it is both? I have no idea, really.

And when Desmond tells Claire that he bets her baby is a boy, is it because he still has his memories from the island, but isn't sure why? Or is it part of his visions that he had in season 3? Or is it that Desmond just has a little bit of clairvoyance that is exaggerated by his encounters on the island?

Charlie describes seeing Claire when almost dying. Desmond sees "Not Penny's Boat" when almost drowning, but gets visions of Penny when in the MRI machine. Daniel then tells Desmond that he felt he already knew Charlotte just after looking at her. Does having a near-death-experience make your memory of the island more vivid? It is clear that Jack and Sun have seen something in their reflections, if not physical evidence of another "them".

Jorge Garcia argued that being near death causes the two worlds to collide more heavily in his podcast. He said that when Juliet is about to die (for the second time, ugh), she talks to Sawyer about going out for coffee. She says that they can go dutch, and speaks to him as if they have just met. Is this evidence of the flash sideways world coming together with her consciousness? When her ghost spoke to Miles and said "It worked", was that her speaking from the flash sideways worl, seeing the alternate universe with her very eyes? I believe that it is. I believe that the island is catching up more rapidly now, and everyone is feeling the effects.

On a similar note, this reminds me a lot of a movie called The Jacket starring the very underrated Adrien Brody. He travels back in time, much like Desmond, although it only happens when he is put in a straight jacket in a morgue cabinet. He is in an insane asylum and is undergoing some experimental treatment. Jack meets his doctors and love interest when they are much younger, and tries to solve his own death. He gets enough evidence, but realizes when he slips on some ice, that his death was an accident and not from foul play. His last request is to be put into the morgue cabinet in the Jacket, so he can go back in time via temporal displacement. He wakes up in an alternate universe that he helped create after his present-self dies. He lives on in this alternate reality where he helped his love interest follow her dreams and keep her mother alive. He continues to live this life as if nothing ever happened.


I think that this is what will happen at the end of LOST. I think that the sacrifice Widmore is asking him to make is the ultimate sacrifice of his own life. I think that he realizes that he can escape into this new life after meeting Penny and Daniel, and that is why he is so compliant upon his return. When this happens, don't let me say I Told You So.

Opening Yourself Up To Joy

After much encouragement from loved ones and friends, I finally broke down and bought the premiere season. I started it and breezed through it in one weekend. Granted, I don't have much to do in the wee hours of work anyways, but this show is, in fact, Gleeful.

Never before has a show punched its fist inside my chest, grabbed a hold of my still beating heart, and ripped it out of my body. Never has a piece of media reminded me of the most happy moments of my adolescent life, and actually brought me to tears at the end of almost every episode. I know this is a quirky, dramatic comedy that is only surprisingly deep and compelling, but it is so much more than that to me.

It has a character that, although a little exaggerated, my high school self can relate to completely. Not everyone was either a nerd or a cheerleader. Not everyone was a whore or a gross virgin. There are people in between, and the character of Rachel displays that balance perfectly. I relate to her need to belong to every club possible, and to be the best performer in the school. I can relate to seeing the show choir from another school and feeling hopeless. I can relate to the devastation of not getting funding for show choir when cheerleaders and football players are loaded up the whazoo.

Every character is beautiful in this show, every character is compelling and sweet. They all have depth that reaches deep, and makes the musical numbers they perform even more amazing. I never thought I would like hearing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" again, but this show makes it entertaining and beautiful.

I can't wait until April 13th and this show returns to Fox. Watching it weekly will be another thing besides Lost that I can look forward to every week. I am so glad someone created this show, and brought the world of Glee Clubs and Show Choirs to the public in an un-embarrassing manner.

Cheers.