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Ned, Emerson and Chuck when a teenage girl goes missing, trying to follow dreams of stardom.  The trail leads them to a poisoned mime, a submersed car full of clowns and a few fresh starts. 

Ned, the pie-maker, has a special gift.  He can touch a corpse and bring it back to life; he touches it again and it stays dead forever.  Here’s the catch: if he allows the corpse to stay alive longer than one minute, someone else has to die…

This gift comes in handy for Ned’s friend Emerson Cod, a private detective, who discovers it’s a whole lot easier solving a murder and collecting the reward when you can ask the victim whodunit. 

But things get complicated when Ned learns that his childhood sweet heart Charlotte, better known as Chuck, has been killed.  He uses his gift to bring her back to life, but can’t seem to bring himself to take back the gift of life he’s given her. 

Chuck’s beloved, reclusive aunts think that Chuck is dead so she takes up with Ned.  The two share their lives and an apartment, but can never touch. 

Season Two, Episode Two – “Circus, Circus”

As a boy, Ned spies a kindergarten class, hoping to see a nest of baby canaries.  Climbing the tree, he discovers that the canaries are dead, but he brings canaries back to life, only to find out that the class was going to set woodpecker babies free—and of course, they died. 

Ned comes to a realization: new beginnings spring from painful ends. 

In the present, Ned and Chuck exit their respective apartments.  Their meeting is awkward: Chuck is happy, Ned misses watching Chuck wake in the bed beside him. 

Emerson Cod’s business is booming.  Georgeann Heaps enters, she’s pushy and unemotional.  She is adamant that Emerson must find her teenage daughter, sweet Nicki.  Perhaps the thought of his own missing daughter motivates him…

Hidden away in the nunnery, Olive tells the secrets burdening her to Pigby—her pet pig.  But back home at The Pie Hole, she is badly missed. 

Emerson meets with Nicki Heaps’ best friend, Randi Jean.  He gets no where. 

Ned is curious about Olive’s abrupt escape.  Emerson thinks Ned is just upset because the empty apartment lured Chuck away from Ned.  Ned, as always denies his true feelings. 

Meanwhile, Chuck takes a crack at Randi Jean and manages to get some information from sweet Nicki’s tight-lipped bestie:  Nicki is living with her boyfriend Rocky in a van by Rustic River.  Nicki wants to be a star, leaving old sweet Nicki behind. 

The three investigators track down the van only to find a dead mime inside—Rocky.  Ned touches Rocky and finds out that Nicki broke his heart. Not knowing who killed him, he guesses that someone poisoned his makeup.  Nicki ran off with a clown from the traveling circus, saying she just wanted a fresh start. 

Chuck has to stay at the Pie Hole—she’s grumpy. 

At the circus, Ned and Emerson meet a curious and brash young French acrobat who points them in the direction of the circus manager.  The manager suggests that Nicki may have been hazed and run off, but if not, she’d be apprenticing with the clowns.  When a secretary with a curious snort-giggle tips them off that she may know more than she’s letting on, Ned goes back to have a word with her.  The secretary didn’t like Nicki; said she wasn’t sweet at all.  Nicki apprenticed a head clown: Jackie Johnny—and disappeared the night before with lousy lowdown Jackie Johnny…

Alone in the Pie Hole, Chuck is grumpy—then her aunt Vivienne shows up!  Chuck ducks behind the counter, as Vivienne believes Chuck to be dead, and Vivienne talks to the stranger hidden behind the counter.  Chuck breaks down, heartbroken to have her beloved aunt so close, yet unable to reveal herself, but Chuck remains hidden. 

Ned and Emerson drive down a deserted road.  Ned spies a clown mask leading into a stagnant pond.  The authorities drag the lake and find the clown car.  Jackie Johnny is inside—along with almost a dozen more circus clowns—but no sweet Nicki. 

Ned and Chuck head to the coroner to talk to Jackie Johnny.  He sent her in to clean up the mess left by an unfortunate gag (featuring a Horse named peppers and chocolate laxatives!) at a customer’s expense.  Bryce Von Deeniss, the unhappy customer was last seen running the clown car off the road. 

Knowing no one can refuse a free pie from the Pie Hole, Emerson leaves a trap for Von Deeniss. 

Lilly retracts the Chuck secret—well, just the part about sleeping with Charles Charles.  But Olive knows Lilly’s just trying to wiggle her way out of the secret.  Lilly explained that her secret was making things difficult at home with her sister Vivienne. 

Chuck and Ned talk about Vivienne—she’s moving on.  Chuck is upset that Ned won’t let Chuck move on. 

Von Deeniss comes to the pie hole to claim his free pie.  He says that he didn’t chase after the clowns, Nicki did. 

Emerson visits Ned at home.  They drink tea and brainstorm.  Emerson is positive for once, but Ned doesn’t think Nicki is so sweet anymore.  Ned asks about Emerson’s daughter.  Emerson reveals that seven years earlier, his daughter and her mother ran away.  Emerson thinks Nicki is still at the circus—she doesn’t like to be alone.  He vows to find her. 

Olive and Lilly eat yucky porridge.  Knowing full well that Chuck is sill breathing, Olive convinces Lilly not to move on—to be with Vivienne and remember Chuck. 

The three investigators return to the circus and find out that the union dispute led to the circus management wanting to fire all the clowns—not kill them.  Nicki acted as a spy for the management because she didn’t like the hazing.  Nicki would do anything not to go back home.  Suddenly a human cannonball crashes through the management trailer.  Following the trail of the cannonball, the three investigators hear the crying of a girl they can only assume to be sweet Nicki.  Nicki hides because she assumes the investigators think she’s the killer. 

The acrobat was the one who chased the clowns off the road.  The acrobat holds Nicki hostage at the top of the tower, demanding better working conditions for him.  Ned grabs and ball and knocks the acrobat out cold, sending Nicki tumbling in the safety net. 

Emerson makes Georgeann Heaps forgive her daughter.  He worries that after so long, he may not recognize his lil’ Gumshoe if he does ever find her. 

Ned and Chuck decide to make a fresh start together, pretending to be neighbors meeting each other for the first time.

Its great to see the writers of Pushing Daisies tackling a different kind of relationship this season: family.

There only so many ways the sexual tension between Ned and Chuck can play out, but the involvement of family, especially the slow revelations of Emerson Cod’s personal past, provides a new spin on the relationships.  Chi McBride is wonderful as the gruff, tough-skinned Emerson Cod, but the cracks in his unemotional exterior are beginning to show and its wonderful to see this new dimension. 

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