You remember Chuck’s dad, right? Poor guy took a dirt nap when Chuck inadvertently brought his mother back to life, only to lose her again that night to a kiss on the forehead. With Dwight Dixon in the picture, snooping around Vivian and digging up caskets to get a locket, the idea was hatched to unearth him (after twenty years no less!) and ask him what he might know about everything.
Now I’m no expert on human decomposition (I usually don’t stick around long enough at the crime scene – badumpBUMP!), but I would think twenty years on a dead body, no matter the embalming technique, wouldn’t be nearly as generous as the writers and makeup artists gave us here. And that’s not all they gave us on that front either. Chuck got thirty seconds to have her last hellos and goodbyes with the man she loved and lost so suddenly so long ago, but is thirty seconds really long enough? How can it be, right?
But what now? I’m not sure trading out the Dwight Dixon plotlines for this new development is the stronger choice for the series. It was all rather anticlimactic for poor Dwight’s scheming, which is very disappointing. Not just because Stephen Root was imbibing that character with a perfect blend of smarmy and dastardly, but because I really thought he was going to shake up the status quo a bit. I guess in a way he did … by dying and saving Chuck and Ned from himself. That would have definitely changed the show and gotten it off the air that much sooner.
So now we have Chuck’s dad still alive. But the man’s body is twenty-years-dead rotted and who knows what chemical functions may or may not be happening in there. I’m sure they’ll just have Ned touch him again before too long and send him back to sleep (who wants to live like that anyway). But where are we going with this? Is it to show that given the opportunity, Chuck made the same kind of impulsive decision for her father that Ned made for her back on day one? To bring them closer together?
I wonder, has the show kind of hit a rut now? They’re not doing much more with the Chuck and Ned relationship and they seem hesitant to reveal Chuck’s not-deadness to the aunts, so where do they go from here? I don’t think a show like Pushing Daisies can afford to stay stagnant for too long. The charm is in the progression of the character storylines. We’ve gotten the aunts out of the house and … what? Now they’ve brought back Chuck’s dad, but that can’t last. The man is a living zombie. The walking dead. But then again, so is Pushing Daisies, isn’t it?
Clacked by Jason Hughes 
on Dec 04, 2008 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
Ummmm, maybe you haven’t heard but the show has been canceled, and it ends on a cliffhanger so don’t expect any answers to anything. Thanks ABC.
Yes, just as Chuck said: “Pushing Daisies” won’t be going anywhere unfortunately. I even kinda hope they can wrap up whatever storys they have so far and give us some closure. And no places to go? The aunts still don’t know Chuck is dead, Olive doesn’t know, and neither does she know about Ned’s gift. So there are three possible storylines. And we still don’t have closure on Emerson and his daughter…
Also: Arguing about whether or not the body of Chuck’s dad should be more decomposed? Really? This is a fairy-tale, treat it as such… Shouldn’t everybody freak out as soon as they are brought back to life?! Shouldn’t they scream of pain because they were just FRIED ALIVE(!) or eaten by a dog? Come on :) This show is practically winking at you every second of every minute…
^ i agree with Christian, this is a fairy tale, or forensic fairly tale as they called it when it premiered, there’s really no need to ask for anything logical to our world.
Kristin at E!online wrote that Josh Randall would eventually be unwrapped, honestly I don’t know how they’re gonna explain it…..it’s magic i guess.
…
I agree with Christian, this is a fairytale-like kind of show so a dead body walking aroung is as plausible as someone waking up dead people. It’s all possible, it’s all magical. I’m so sorry it had to be cancelled. No wonder, today’s generation only enjoys s.e.x., crime and mystery kind of shows, fairytales are boring and non-exciting to some. I will miss it so much though. It made my summer, I love Ned and Chuck and I so wish they could touch right now! No one has mentioned this storyline – what if Ned could finally stop being Ned and just touch Chuck, kiss Chuck and live with Chuck happily every after, and with the aunts, and Cod and his daughter and Olive with a boyfriend. And please leave Chuck’s dad alone… he won’t go far being dead, and anyway what Chuck wanted was to see him again and she has so who cares where he’s gone. She chose Ned, her love, and that’s what matters. Thanks ABC for cancelling without giving us an ending – you are cruel, indeed.