By Sonia Aurora
And after I’ve finally finished digesting all my Thanksgiving dinner, and gotten my computer up and running again, I submit to you a very belated synopsis of Pushing Daisies’ “Smell of Success.”
(Really, who breaks a cell phone AND a modem over a holiday? Me, that’s who).
No one should ever underestimate the allure of Paul Reubens. I spent a good portion of my early adolescence screaming whenever certain words were said and wishing I owned a big blue talking chair. So knowing The Actor Formerly Known as Pee Wee was descending on our little Pie Hole, well, it tickled me.
He’s a perfect fit for the show, playing an olfactory gifted scientist reduced to scouring the sewers for harsher scents. He’s also mystified by Chuck’s personal aroma, which is described as “honey, and death” by the central mystery guy.
So our gang is dispatched by Anita Gray’s mother, whose daughter was killed in an explosion from a Scratch and Sniff book. See, this is why this show rocks. People actually write scratch and sniff books, and pop up books, and this is the realm that we enter. It’s something that exists but isn’t explored, something magical but that also exists in our real world. If nothing else, Pushing Daisies explores what is already colorful but overlooked in our very own world. It just turns the sun on it so we can see it in all it’s underbellied glory (a building bombs pop up book is edgy and dark, and still child-like, like the show).
This episode might be the fullest one yet, as there is quite a bit going on.
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We have the central mystery (said Death by Scratch and Sniff was intended for Napoleon LeNez, the author of that book, Smell of Success). We have Chuck trying to implement Cup Pies, a single serving of pie with Chuck’s bee harvested honey baked into the crust. Obviously, Ned, not one for change, or surprises, isn’t keen on this whole idea, but by the end, we have new menus and a lovely new item on the menu. After all, every restaurant needs a niche, especially if it expects to stay in business. And we ALSO have the budding friendship of Olive and Chuck, with Olive as a conduit for Chuck’s overall making her aunts feel better. Along with making feel good pies Olive delivers, Chuck has a 4 (or 5) phase plan to get them out of the house, Phase 2 involving getting them back into the water. It is this story along with the mystery that runs tandem throughout the episode.
The highlight of course is Paul Reubens as Oscar Verbinias, who preferred the bad smells to appreciate the good. Napoleon LeNez is pompous, a man who has a decontamination entryway into his penthouse (I mean, let’s sit back and consider a man who writes a glorifies Scratch and Sniff book can even afford such a home). I wasn’t surprised to learn he was his own bad guy, to drum up publicity for the launch of his book. That Reubens was mysterious was delightful for me, because he played it perfectly, even though I wished and then just knew he couldn’t possibly be the bad guy. Also his theft of Chuck’s sweater sets up his reappearance on the show, of which I am looking forward to (though not as much as Raul Esperanza, who I really really really want to come back to continue his play for Olive…the girl deserves requited love, dagnabit!)
As for the aunts, it’s apparent that Lily wants to just let go going into a dark place, constantly drinking. She even gives Olive Chuck’s mother’s sentimental sweater (Which Olive gives to Chuck and which Oscar procures to revel in her interesting unnamable smell). Lily is bitter by the toils of life, and not wanting anything to allow her to be happy, especially not the smell of chlorine, what once “reminded her of bottled sunshine.” By episode’s end, our aunts are swimming again, Ester Williams style, and there is hope yet for them, and for everyone, who still promenade along in character growth.
My favorite part of this episode: In discussing Ned’s romantic past, we come to learn about unfortunate “intimate relations” with an ex and a bearskin rug that, well, “did enough to be upsetting”. The cartoonist image that came to my mind was absolutely hilarious. Yup, this show harnesses and opens up the imagination. A bearskin rug is bound to come to life when you are someone who resurrects dead things…hee hee. Silly Ned.
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Aspiring screenwriter and seamstress, Sonia's dream is to write life-tweaking films while product-placing her own line of handbags. In 1999, she wrote, co-directed and co-starred in the short film Dr. Lovestrange, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bug, a satirical homage to Stanley Kubrick set amidst the panic of Y2K. She is working on her next short about the Mayan Calender that she hopes to finish before the end of the world. Ever the late bloomer, she finally started a blog chronicling her misadventures as one half of a long distance relationship (http://llddr.wordpress.com). She still struggles with which picture to kiss before bedtime: her boyfriend's or Bruce Campbell's. And, in the interest of time, she'd like to start thanking the Academy now. 
