Kerplunk
Updated 2009-06-15 08:51:30
Young Lily Charles was five years, yadda hours/minutes etc. old when her baby sister Vivian was born with a hole in her heart. Oh, Young Lily. You are so cute with your beautiful red hair, with scowling eye looking through a notch in the crib. Poor Vivian got her heart fixed, sure, but pity Young Lily, who was told then and internalized it ever forward that her duty was to put her sister's well-being before herself. It helped a little that Vivian's worship of Lily made her the perfect mimic in the pool, thus guaranteeing success for the Darling Mermaid Darlings they would grow to be.
"The renowned synchronized swimming sisters were loyal beyond separation until... Charles Charles," Jim Dale tells us in ominous tones. And ominous he may well be, because... could I get a little explanation here about why they all have the same last name? And like, how they met and whatever? No? Because why? What's that? THIS IS THE LAST EPISODE? Hate. Anyway, you know this part: Vivian was engaged to Charles Charles but he cheated on her with Lily, who became pregnant (in a frighteningly biological presentation, the narraration of which I am sure caused Jim Dale to blush vividly). Lily ran away to the convent of turquoise nuns and gave birth to Charlotte, who she immediately... abandoned? To save Vivian's feelings? That seems drastic, but okay. So, Chuck was raised by her dad (who got the baby how?) until he died. Then she was somehow raised by these two women we know as her aunts, who apparently were no relation to her at all, whatsoever, and told... what? Did they tell her they were her father's sisters? Who knows? Not us, and we never will. Incapacitated by the secrets she was having to keep, Lily stopped swimming and retreated from the world, dragging Vivian and Chuck down with her. And then, JD says, sadly, Chuck died.
The number of words and images they can fit in 60 seconds of this show is truly amazing. My wrists hurt already. In the present day, Vivian is lighting a bagel in celebration of Chuck's half-birthday. Next to her on the couch, Lily stoically reads the paper apparently unmoved. Sweet Vivian remembers what a happy girl Chuck was. "It was as if, when she died, the merriment in this home died with her," Vivian says. From behind her newspaper, Lily mutters an acerbic "good Lord," leading Vivian to apologize for not being as strong as her tough sister. Oh, but she isn't strong. Vivian can't see that Lily's face is covered in tears.
Suddenly, Vivian notices an ad on the back of the paper. The Aquacade is in town! Apparently, they used to take Chuck every year for her half-birthdays. Lily, of course, balks at the idea of going, but Vivian pleads. Though Lily was weak with grief, JD says, her compulsion to put her sister's happiness before her own forced her to agree. "Find my opera gloves," she snarks. "All those children... tourists in culottes! The place will be crawling with germs." Thrilled, Vivian blows out the half-birthday candle, and makes a secret wish.
Meanwhile, at the Pie Hole, Emerson and Ned are celebrating the same occasion with the half-birthday girl herself. Emerson has even brought her a gift -- a signed first-edition of L'il Gumshoe ! "Where's yours, Boyfriend of Half-Birthday Girl?" Emerson asks Ned, who shamefacedly must admit he doesn't have one. Yet. Chuck explains that Ned thinks he is a terrible gift giver who thinks he has to always give the perfect gift, and thus psyches himself out to where he can't give anything. "But," she adds happily, "he's already given me the greatest gift of all. My life back." Ned, however, says he's not giving up. Olive arrives to interrupt this conversation with her arms full of... animal hair. "What died?" Ned asks. Olive: "Couple dozen minks, give or take." Lily asked her to take the aunts' minks to the furrier for a fluffing so that they could wear their best coats to the Aquacade to celebrate Chuck's half-birthday. Chuck is touched, of course, but Ned has to do his best not to touch the coats when Olive plops down in the booth next to him. His little shiver away from the minks just about kills me. Or maybe he is just trying to get away from the smell of two fur coats that have not been in cold storage. Anyway. Chuck explains about the family tradition of the Aquacade, and Ned has a lightbulb moment. "That's it! My perfect gift," he says. "I'm gonna buy six tickets to the Aquacade." He directs Emerson to call Simone to invite her. "In with the flu," he says. Well, what about Randy Mann? "Out with the gout," Olive reports. Ned amends: "So, four tickets to the Aquacade!"
Oh, and it does look like fun. "Prepare to be amazed," Chuck says as she leads her friends inside. "There's not been this much talent around a body of water since Moses played the Red Sea!" Indeed, the Aquacade will feature nothing less than Jimmy Neptune, master of song and ceremonies, Shark-riding Galveston Gus and His Best Friend Bubba... "And," Ned interrupts as they all dart for cover, "your aunts." Hilariously hiding behind their souvenir balloons, the team watches as Lily and Vivian stand in the center of the room, waiting to be recognized for their own legendary watershow status. No one seems to notice them. "The Serena and Venus of water ballet and no one's looking?" Chuck says, incredulous. Emerson is equally surprised. "No one is even not looking the way you pretend not to look when you're actually looking!" Ah, but someone was looking. Pushing through a curtain of sequins, two heavily adorned ladies emerge and say in unison: "Booyah, the Darling Mermaid Darlings." Ned seems relieved. "Look, fans!" he says. But these aren't fans. They're (dun dun duunnnnnnn!) The Aquadolls.
Would you like the facts? Because they are these: Blanche and Coral Ramora , a.k.a. The Aquadolls, were the bitter rivals of the Darling Mermaid Darlings. And the delight I felt when I saw they were being played by Wendie Malick and Nora Frickin' Dunn? No words. So fantastic. They exchange a few testy words with the Aunts, and are joined by a blonde hunk dressed in the trademark Aquadolls patriotic uniform. "This is our manager, Blanche's husband," Coral says. Blanche: " Insatiable husband, Shane Trickle." She found him, she grins, when they were performing in Honolulu. "Hawaii," the dumb guy puts in and tells them to shake tail, as the curtain will rise in 20 minutes. "Well, off to do what we do best," Coral says. "Swim for Christ and country!" Lily jibes that they might want to pick a new flag for future costumes, "one without horizontal stripes." Coral laughs a mirthless laugh and the Aquadolls invite the aunts to meet in their dressing room (" lavish dressing room," Blanche adds) after the show. "That is," Coral adds, "if the shuttle bus isn't in a hurry to get you back to the home." The bitches leave giggling as Vivian turns for the door, dejected. "This was an unanticipated stressor," she says. "I would like to go." Lily ain't having it, though. "Do you think I wanted to drive 20 miles to a family friendly venue," she shivers, "with its general admission parking lot? They don't even serve alcohol here!" Vivian is hopeful that she means she needs to go home, too. But, no. Lily insists they stay -- this is, after all, in celebration of Chuck.
Poolside, Chuck spies on them through her opera glasses from the opposite bleachers. A run-in with the Aquadolls is the worst thing that could have happened to them, she says, and wants to sneak over to the other side to check on them more closely. "Mm mm m m mm," Ned quietly tsks, reminding her of the ridiculousness of that idea. "I know," Olive suggests. "Let's lift their spirits with an aunt chant! Or the wave! It's never been more appropriate! Emerson, you start." To this, she receives the patented "no way in hell" laugh from Emerson, forcing Chuck to employ a tactic more to the point of the problem. "SCREW the Aquadolls!" she shouts, and it has the desired effect. Though they don't know the source, the aunts smile across the water.
The show begins with the hated Aquadolls in question, introduced by Jimmy Neptune who, though he is handy with his trident microphone as a presenter, leaves quite a bit to be desired as a singer of our National Anthem. Then again, has any song in history been more abused? I'm looking at you when I ask this, Beyonce. The Aquadolls begin their patriotic paddling to the roar of the crowd and the derision of the Darling Mermaid Darlings. " Esther Williams would piss her cotton panel at the sight of those rocket splits," she says. Vivian snickers. "Lily, behave," she says. "Though I will admit, Blanche is looking less than buoyant." Hee. In fact, Blanche is currently being propelled into the air by Coral into quite the patriotic back dive when from nowhere, none other than Bubba the shark interrupts the act to EAT HER. My God, just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water.
Later at home, Lily reads the account of the ordeal in the Papen Count Picayune. "Don't sign my name to that 'sorry a shark ate your bitch of a sister letter,'" she tells Vivian, who was doing just that. "She wouldn't think twice if it happened to us." Vivian is far more sympathetic. "But to have a sister die," she says tearily. "I don't know how I would have survived if I'd lost you." They are interrupted by the doorbell -- Jimmy Neptune has come calling. He overheard their verbal skirmish with the Aquadolls the night before, he says, and wanted to catch them after the show but it seemed they had been swept away by the departing crowd. "We small-boned persons are vulnerable to exoduses of the mass and panicked variety," Vivian assures him in her wide-eyed way. Jimmy says they had all thought the Charles sisters had gone the way of legend, but "gee whiz," he says, "what a time for a comeback." Lily fixes him with one eye of skepticism. He knows his grandfather was the one to give them their original big break. "As a boy," he says, "I watched your set from the waterwings every night, and I never forgot the look of the audience as they soaked it in." Awesome. He says the have a gift unlike any others and that their swimming brings people joy. "Our swimming brings..." Vivian bursts with happiness before remembering their Lily-forced retirement, "brought us joy, too." Jimmy ignores this and says he desperately needs them as his new opening act. "Come back to the pool, Mermaids!" he sings. "After a 24-hour mourning period for poor Blanche, of course." Vivian is excited to have a chance to get back in the pool, but of course Lily immediately shoots it down. "We had our time," she says, but Vivian stands up to her. "And here it is," she says, "back again." Jimmy Neptune sees his chance -- a chink in the wall of Lily's resistance. Holding up a bottle of the best and a box of chocolates he goes for the gills: "Well, are we swimmin' women?" Lily turns and fixes him with her trademark eye. "Save it," she says flatly. "We're in training." Yay!
In his Chinatown office, Emerson is about to take a bite of a very disturbing entire-fish-sandwich when he hears a voice at the door. "Do I smell a fishwich?" it asks. Emerson growls a yes. "Do you mind stowin' it away?" the voice asks again. Emerson growls another yes, but when a handful of cash slides under the door he is only too happy to stow away the fishwich and whip out some air freshener. His visitor is the grieving Galveston Gus, friend and trainer of the murderous Bubba. "Sorry to inconvenience you," he says, removing his 10-gallon. "But the scent of fried flounder takes me back to my recent loss." Emerson assumes he's talking about Bubba making fish food out of the unfortunate Blanche. He is. It seems the incident has resulted in a negligence suit against ol' Gus, and the lawyers want to take everything he has. "I know I can't prove Bubba didn't eat Ms. Ramora," he says. "He did. And what a crap last meal that would have been." What he wants is for Emerson to prove that someone else let Bubba out of his cage and caused the horrible accident. He swears it wasn't him -- the only way to open the cage is to use an electronic device that never leaves his person. "Bubba was my best friend ever since he was a guppy of a pup," Gus says. "And the only happiness I would get from this mess is knowing his good name is cleared. So, please, help a sentimental cowpoke out." Aw.
So, it's off to the morgue, of course, where Ned, Chuck and Emerson are confronted with the Bubba, who must have been harpooned mere seconds after he chomped Blanche, because her legs are still hanging from his mouth, intact. Now, come on. A shark hanging from a ceiling with legs dangling from its jaws... you're telling me they couldn't have worked our beloved coroner in here somewhere? At the very least for a final "mm hmm" before we are separated forever? Hate. Emerson says he did a report on great whites once and decided he had a lot in common with the dreaded beast as they are "both misunderstood badasses." I love it. Taking the long shot that they will be able to locate the dead woman in the shark's gullet, Emerson gives Bubba a slice. (I am gratified to say that as fish and license plates noisily fall out Bubba, we are given one brief glance of the coroner who looks up when he hears what he would no doubt refer to as unnecessary hubbub.) Ned apologetically informs Blanche, whose head is now protruding from Bubba's belly, that she has been eaten by a shark. "Did everybody cry?" she asks, priorities obviously still intact. "Of course they did! I'm the fan fave!" Emerson, cringing, asks the victim if she noticed anything strange before the incident. Blanche says yes, it was weird when her sister asked her if she was going gray. Naturally, the team finds this to be a bit of a non sequitur. But, no, Blanche says, her own mother was auburn to the end, and she knows the only thing that brings on gray hair is stress. "And my husband, Shane, is the biggest stress-reliever there is," she adds lasciviously. "The Big. Est." Chuck tentatively points out that she does see some white in Blanche's hair. "You sure that's not shark slime?" Emerson winces. No, Blanche insists, that's her hair gel, which Chuck helpfully explains is a gel akin to shellack that water ballerinas use to keep their dos in place. Ned, using what must be a super-powered nose that can pick out scents even in a room full of dead bodies and a giant ass dead shark, notes a fleeting hint of lard in the hair gel. "Why would someone put pig fat in their hair gel?" Chuck wonders. Look, women do a lot of strange things for beauty, okay? I mean, have you seen those skanks on the CW? Pig fat in your hair gel doesn't even sound weird to me. Emerson, however, is putting it all together. Sharks can smell a drop of blood in the water a quarter of a mile away, he says, and a head full of lard sure as hell would cause Bubba to strike. All someone would have to do was open the pen, and they'd have a bona fide murder by great white.
"Wait!" Blanche says. "Lily and Vivian Charles! I knew there was a reason they'd come out of seclusion after all these years. Shrews. They were always after our limelight." Dead or not, Chuck isn't going to let that stand. She angrily reminds Blanche that the Darling Mermaid Darlings were who put sibling-synchro-swimdancing on the map, and that without them, the Aquadolls would never have had a chance. "Who're you?" Blanche asks, as you well might if you were eaten by a shark, suddenly alive again inside of it, and being verbally attacked by a chick in the morgue wearing a fedora. Chuck continues her rant in defense of the Aunts: "You hurt their feelings on a night when they were very, very fragile!" she says, getting louder and louder. "So, you can just SHUT UP about my family, Blanche Ramora Trickle, or you'll end up... well, I can't think of anything worse than here so, SNAP!" She then turns to Ned, insisting that he "touch her, touch her, touch her before she talks back!" He does, poking the unimpressed Blanche back to death. "Ah," Chuck says. "That felt so good." You know, this is a factor of Ned's power that I never considered. There are a few dead people I'd like a chance to wake up so that I could deliver a one-minute kiss off. That would be so satisfying.
Back at the Pie Hole, they break it down for Olive. "So, that hapless shark was just a big patsy?" she asks, and I can't help but laugh thinking this is probably the first and last time a shark has ever been referred to as "hapless." Emerson points out that since the killer would have needed access to the Aquadolls dressing room and the remote for the shark cage, this appears to be an inside job. Ned says that suddenly the sweet Aquacade seems nastier than a backed up sink on Thanksgiving. EW. That IS so nasty. Oh, my God, I need a minute. If you've ever seen waterlogged leftover cornbread dressing floating in a greasy sink, I know you need a minute, too. Emerson is groaning that what they really need is some kind of cover story to get them behind the scenes of the show when lo and behold, the Aunts walk in. Or, they sort of flitter in, actually, with their steps and words perfectly synchronized. Chuck, of course, hits the deck behind the counter. Vivian and Lily announce (in unison) that they will be joining the Aquacade and have thus come back to get the costumes from Olive that they gave her some time ago. Olive is so thrilled by their "living in synch practice hour" that she loses all ability to communicate in actual words. "OMG! GR8! TTFN," she says, before amending that to the more appropriate "brb" and heading out for the costumes. Emerson can hardly contain his eye-roll. "Looks like she got a case of the dumb A-S-S." Heeeee. As Ned fumbles around trying to encourage them to sit far away from the counter in a booth, Chuck slips him a note on a napkin. The Aunts, it says, should be the cover for their investigation! When Emerson reads this, he asks the ladies to step outside and they all float out together. Ned is proud of Chuck for making this suggestion, though since she can't accompany the team, knows it will be like they are all on spring break while she is in detention. Chuck says she will be okay -- she's just happy the Aunts are back in the water, for pay, and will be surrounded by people who love them. "You just make sure that Emerson is a vigilant bodyguard," she says, "and sticks to them like glue. Paddle out."
At the Aquacade, the whole crew walks into the pool area in delicious slo-mo. Oh, it is good. How good? Emerson and Olive are wearing matching Darling Mermaid Darlings tracksuits. Ned, disguised as their agent, looks dapper in his coordinated tie and the Aunts blow them all out of the water in Asian-themed robes and headdresses. Faboo. Emerson gives everyone their "lane assignments." Itty Bitty's on hair and makeup and is tasked with finding the larded hair gel. Ned, as the agent, is to stick close to Jimmy Neptune. As team coach, Emerson will be sidling up to Shane Trickle as much as possible. "And, as team heavy," he adds, turning to the Aunts, "I'll make sure you two have nothing to worry about 'cept scissor-kickin' ass and takin' names."
They've arrived just in time for an Aquacade staff meeting. Jimmy Neptune opens by saying that though the death of Blanche was certainly horrible, it has brought them a great pair of luminaries, the Darling Mermaid Darlings, to fill the headliners spot. This, naturally, is a cause for great rage from Coral, in mourning black, and Shane (also in a black version of his signature spangly suit. Great touch.) "That's bogus, Neptune," the dumb Shane says. "We have a signed... thing." Jimmy assures him that they'll find another great act for Coral to be part of, but Shane is not done. "Does anybody even know who these two are?" he asks, scoffing at the Aunts. An adjacent lobster pipes up: "I met my husband at a Darling Mermaid Darlings show!" she says, and her husband says the Aunts are the reason they got into the biz. Others agree. Coral stomps off in a huff.
In her recon to Coral's dressing area to find the lard gel, Olive encounters water soloist second-act opener Sid Tango (played by the fantastic Wilson Cruz, who we frankly have not seen nearly enough of since "My So Called Life.") in a full split on the dressing room floor. "Are you the new seahorse?" he asks her, giddily. "No," Olive smiles, doing a little running man. "I'm Sally Boots, the new Fly Girl to the Darling Mermaid Darlings!" Sid: "Snap back, G-string! I love them!" Olive is naturally enchanted and decides to join him in the splits, which... she finds is not easy. She asks why he's not out at the staff meetings. "They're relocating me," he smiles, painfully, "out by the Port-a-lets." Olive understands his second-fiddle pain all too well. "Oh, shoot," she says. "There's enough room in this fish bowl for all of us fish." Sid has found a sister. "You know what? Thank you," he says. "If only more people around here would be as accepting of who I am! Being a man in aqua-entertainment, which is to say 'unappreciated and invisible...'" he starts, angrily adding that Neptune has promised him that opening spot many times. "Thought I'd get it after Blanche kicked," he adds. "Then I hear they've dragged the Musty Mermaids out of retirement!" He cringes. "Oh, well," he adds, painfully. "Some day it will be my turn. Until then I'll be content at watching others glimmer and gleam." As he speaks, Olive looks up to Coral's dressing table to see those very words printed on a huge jar of Glimmer and Gleam hair gel. She drags herself with a groan out of the splits, makes off with the gel and gives Sid a rushed goodbye.
Literally sliding up to Emerson outside on the bleachers, Olive reports that she's checked Coral's gel and it seems to be lard-free. "Nice work seawee," Emerson says. For his part, he's found a lot of nothing. "Still," he says, "your find does prove our theory. Blanche was definitely the target." He has hardly gotten the words out of his mouth when Sid Tango appears poolside. "Holy Ibiza, Monaco and Saint Tropez," Emerson says. "That is some banana hammock." Heeeee! Sid Tango is doing quite the warm-up tango, um, flinging himself this way and that. Emerson and Olive are mesmerized. Olive explains that Sid is kind of fun, but obviously angry at having to be relegated to the second act "because uh, um, of well, it's in his banana hammock." Emerson: "I really should look away, but I, I can't!" Olive: "You wanna go blind?" Emerson says that what he wants to do is catch a killer. "Look at the shark pen!" he says, and they notice that every time the jangling Sid touches his belt during his warm-up dance, the pen gate opens. They make their move. "Excuse me," Sid snits as they block his way. "This is where I dive!" Emerson says he's about to belly flop, all right, right into the county jail. And with a twitch of his finger he opens Sid's belt buckle (which makes a hilarious "boing" noise) to reveal the electronic opener of Bubba's cage! Aha! With an Emerson/Olive fist-bump, we go to commersh.
Sid Tango is still doing his warm-up stretches in jail when he meets with Emerson and Olive -- he wants to hire them now to clear his name! After Olive offers, moll-style, to have a word with the warden, who is a pecan Pie Hole regular, on his behalf, Sid insists again he didn't kill Blanche. "Why would I keep the murder weapon in my speedo?" he asks, with a point downward that nearly slays me. He asks why they aren't shining their spotlight on Coral, as Blanche's death is what she's always wanted. "Keep splashin'," Emerson says, intrigued. Sid says Blanche always put herself first, and Coral hated her as a result. "Coral did launch Blanche into the direction of that shark," Sid says. "It's certainly a thing to make you go 'hmm.'" Yes, thank you, Arsenio. As Emerson ponders this, Olive becomes synchronized with Sid and tries an impossible leg stretch which only leads to her falling into Emerson's lap. "What's the matter with you?" he asks, and getting no answer, they side-stroke back to the Aquacade where Jimmy Neptune is getting an earful from Coral, with Shane in tow. She's pissed that he won't let her do a solo show. "Why don't you just take that trident and stick it in my heart!" she cries. Neptune sees no need, there, and fires her, instead. "Whooooaaaa, everybody chillax," Shane says, "I can fix this." Coral, however, lacks trust. "Save it sand-for-brains," she says. "You're as useless as teats on a boar." With that, she stomps off, leaving Shane to chuckle a "heh, teats," before he runs after her. Ned walks up to a sputtering Jimmy Neptune. "Can you believe the claws on that sea monster?" he asks, amazed. He says Coral is trying to make the Aquacade all about her. "You know what she tried to pitch?" he goes on. "A one-woman tribute to A Chorus Line !" Ned: "Don't you need a chorus? And a line?"
Jimmy says that with Galveston Gus gone, the crowds are thirsty for a daredevil act. "Picture this," he says to Ned. "A motorcycle, but it's on fire. And there's a ramp, 20 feet high, on fire too. A rider appears." Ned: "Also on fire." Neptune: "Better! In chains! She guns the engine, soars off the ramp, through a hoop -- maybe flaming, maybe not, I'll have to crunch the numbers -- and then lands on the other side of the pool." This beautiful act was meant for Coral, of course, before Jimmy canned her. "Still," he asks Ned, "don't you think that's an act that'll put butts in seats?" Ned heartily agrees that it will. "And I've got another act," he says, "that butts absolutely love." With that he pulls out the Darlings' contract. "Whatever they want!" Neptune says. "Really," Ned asks, "because I've come up with a bunch of stuff that they don't really need, just to see if we can get away with it." Neptune says that the Charles sisters are as easy as the lazy river. "It'd be my pleasure to have them aboard... on one condition."
Ned is happy to tell the Aunts that Neptune has agreed to all their conditions. "The fresh lilacs? The Egyptian cotton towels?" Vivian asks, happy. Lily: "The vodka fountain?" Ned says it's all in there, but um, about that one condition. Jimmy's going to take the Aquacade on a European tour. Signing the contract means they'll have to go, too. Vivian, so conditioned to always having to say no to things she wants to do, immediately says it will be out of the question. "Who will take care of the birds?" she says, belligerent. "[Who will] place flowers on Charlotte's grave? And, besides, Lily has indulged me enough. So, our answer is..." Lily interjects: "Yes." To Vivian's surprise, Lily says that they've spent enough time grieving and should put their own happiness first for once. Ned says he thinks Charlotte would definitely want them to put their happiness first, too. "So," he says, "I think we're all in agreement when I say, 'swim on, Mermaids.'" This happy scene is interrupted when suddenly, in the tank behind them, they see Coral floating to the bottom bound in chains.
Outside, Shane is carrying Coral dramatically out of the pool. "We saw the whole thing," Olive tells Ned. "She chained herself up, hopped on that motorcycle and road it like a Hell's Angel in drag 'til she fell in there." Emerson: "Would have been funny if it weren't so tragic." With beautiful stage histrionics, Shane fakes some CPR and Coral comes to. "Jimmy? Jimmy, is that you?" she says, hazily. The whole crowd answers with an exasperated "YES," as she goes on. She was just trying to show Jimmy she could do the daredevil act he wants so badly, she says. "I will do anything if it means getting back into the show," she sobs. "Is that so wrong." Emerson smirks. "No," he says, "but let me tell you what is. Yo' brother-in-law slash manager's hands all over yo' perky slash heavin' booooobs ." Chi McBride, how I will desperately miss you. "This is a certified life-saving position!" Shane says, but Coral turns on him. "Get off me, you idiot!" she spits. "I told you we were through!"
Ew. The crowd is appalled, especially Olive. "For shame," she says. "You've been doing the skinny-dip with your sister's husband!" Oh, dear. More shamed than anyone is Lily. At that moment, Jim Dale tells us, she realized that she and her life-long nemesis had a lot in common. "Both were adulteresses," he drones. "Both had stolen men their sisters loved; both were..." Lily interjects once again: "Disgusting." Emerson agrees. "You put the evil in Knieval, lady," he says. "I guess the spotlight wasn't the only thing you shared with Blanche." Olive can't help putting in her itty-bitty cents. "You just wanted Trickle's pickle to yourself," she says, "so you fed her to the sharks!" Coral admits that yes, she slept with Shane to spite Blanche, but swears she didn't kill her. She loved her sister, she says. "And now she's gone, and where do I turn?"
"To us," the sweet Vivian says. "Coral, you will swim with our act tonight." Lily is mortified, but Vivian insists. In the past, she says, when she was incapacitated by grief, getting back in the water was the best thing for her. "It will heal you," she says, "isn't that right, Lily?" As Vivian hugs her old enemy, Olive wonders aloud if she's telling the truth. "Yeah," Emerson says. "Too bad, too. 'Cause the jealous crazy lady who kills her sister to be with the himbo brother-in-law is always a welcome rest stop. On the motive turnpike." Ned postulates that maybe their rest stop is the same, just on the other side of the road. "As in: the himbo did it!" Olive concludes. But, wait, where's the himbo?! He has escaped on the motorcycle and is riding down the highway, scarf in the breeze: "Hasta beyatches!"
In Ned's apartment, which we have not seen in months, Ned gives Chuck the skinny on the whole story. The police searched Shane's van and found lard-laced hair gel along with really specific instructions on how to clone a remote-controlled gate opener. The APB on him is already out. Ned says Lily and Vivian are taking the excitement very well and, in bigger news, have picked up a third. Chuck gasps: "Whhaaaaaaat?" But Ned knows she's faking it. "Olive's been keeping me informed on all things Charles sisters," she admits. "How are they all getting along?" Ned says Vivian's her same old self, Lily's cautious but professional and Coral is thrilled to have a job that doesn't require a flame-retardant one-piece. Chuck says that's all great and begs to open the huge hat box that Ned has brought as his second attempt at the perfect half-birthday gift. It's a huge, beautiful hat to be worn to opening night -- he got them front-row seats. "Aw, killer seats and a top-notch tam!" Chuck says, delighted. Ned says he had to do it, since it's the Darling Mermaid Darling's first professional appearance in years, so he can't let her miss it. "Especially now," he adds, "and here's the really juicy secret that not even Olive Snook the Spy knows." He tells her that the Aquacade are hitting the road and Lily and Vivian will be going with it. "Really?" Chuck asks, not getting it. "Road? What do you mean road?" Ned: "A bunch of them, really. Downing Street. The Autobahn. The Champs Elysees!" Chuck is catching on. "But they're European," she says, slowly. "As in: Europe." Ned delightedly says that's right, but is met only with her stunned silence. "How could you let this happen?" she asks, and he is shocked, having only done what she told him to do, to make them happy. "Ned, they think I'm dead," she yells. "The only way that this has been bearable is because at least I've been able to keep tabs on them." While she has been completely removed, she could still be part of their lives, she said, and now that they'll be in Europe, she won't be able to be there for them anymore. "This is a game changer," she tells him. Ned: "What game? This is not a game!" Chuck agrees: "No, it's not a game. It's my life, and now that you've changed the rules, I've got to reevaluate which one actually keeps me here."
On opening night at the Aquacade, Olive sits with Lily as she puts the finishing touches on her Spanish dancer ensemble. "Butterflies making you queasy?" Olive asks the obviously green Lily. "What's say we drown 'em with a dip in the vodka fountain." Lily: "I never drink and dive." She says it's disrespectful to the audience and more importantly, to Vivian, who is meeting right now with the sound techs about the underwater speakers. Whipping open a curtain, Coral makes an ominous entrance into the dressing room. Lily's face goes even greener. Jim Dale explains that because Coral had slept with her sister's husband and because Lily had committed the same betrayal on her own sister, Lily hated Coral even more than she always had. It would be hard to hate her more, surely, since she is a serious witch, trying to make Lily nervous about the act by confusing the order of the stunts, but when she calls Olive "short-round" and demands her help with her makeup, I can't help but love her. As Olive ministers to Coral's hair, she notices a string on her costume and pulls it revealing -- aha! -- a full costume under the Spanish dancer costume. "You were trying to be a singular sensation!" Olive accuses. "You swam your way back into the Aquacade by preying on Vivian's sympathy, only to try to break up the Darlings by stage-frightening Lily so you can rule the pool in a one-woman Chorus Line ! Where's the top hat?! I'm gonna shove it up your..." AGAIN, Lily intercedes just when it's getting juicy. "Olive," she says. "Excuse us."
Alone with Coral, Lily clinks the ice in her glass, menacingly. "Did you know my sister was born with a hole in her heart?" she asks. "The doctors fixed it, but sometimes it leaks a little bit, and stuff gets through. Stuff like you." She says that Vivian may think that a woman who sleeps with her sister's husband deserves a second chance, but she doesn't. "You'll always be what you are," she says. "A selfish, conniving wretch. The Darling Mermaid Darlings are a team that puts each other first. So get in your showboat, and row it to Hell ." OH MY GOD, SWOOSIE KURTZ. Y'all, why did they cancel this show that has Swoosie Kurtz on it? Who would DO that? I'll say it again: Hate.
Blithely, Coral brushes these insults aside. This putting each other first thing, she says... "I assume it didn't apply to your baby?" SNAP. Only missing one beat, Lily says she never had a baby. Hmm, yeah, that's what Vivian said, Coral says, when she casually asked her about Lily's baby. "She told me that neither of you had any children," Coral smirks. "Isn't that strange?" Lily, seemingly calm, says that the world's full of spinsters. Ah, but Coral knows something. Thirty years ago, she says, she and Lily changed next to each other after a show. "The seamstress had to let our your costume, the flippers didn't fit your feet, and you had that just-knocked-up glow about you," she says. "And then you disappeared for nine months. So, where's the kid, spinster? And why are you hiding it from Vivian?" Enraged, Lily says that if she breathes another word it will be her last. "Now, get out!" Coral slinks out, saying Lily will regret this, and passes a confused Vivian who is on her way in. "Coral had to cancel," Lily mutters. "She's sick." Vivian sweetly says that it will just be them, then, as it really should be. "I can't," Lily says, on the verge of tears, but Vivian comforts her. "We've come this far," Vivian says. "This time, don't do it for me; do it for you."
Meanwhile outside, JD reports, Emerson spies a lurking shadow in the control room of the Aquacade. "Oh, hell yeah," he whispers in a one-time departure from the usual, and heads up there, thinking he is about to bust Shane, returning to the scene of the crime. "Trickle down on the ground," he says entering the room, gun drawn, but it's not Shane at all. It's Chuck, in a handyman's disguise. "Dead girl," Emerson asks, exasperated. "Don't you know there's a killer on the loose." Just then, they hear a movement from someone hiding in the corner. Surely this is Shane! Ah, but, no. It's Ned!
What follows is a fast round of accusations and "what are you doing heres." Chuck nervously claims she was only up there to get a better vantage point on the show. "That's a lie!" Ned says. He saw her take the Darlings music out of the CD player. No, Chuck says, flailing. "It's still in there, see? Because, I put it back in there. I'm really ashamed, now." Hee. She says she was really happy for the Aunts until their happiness threatened her own happiness so, in a moment of weakness, she snuck upstairs and tried to sabotage their show in the hopes that they'd not go to Europe. "Despicable," Emerson says, and Ned shakes his head in judgmental agreement. "Now, you," Emerson says to him, demanding an explanation of why he was hiding in the room. "I guess I must have thought Chuck would try to do something rash," he says, nobly, "so I came up here to stop her." Nice try, but Olive ruins it by gasping up the stairs with the Pie Hole Mellow Mix he asked her to get out of his car. Busted. Ned was going to sabotage them, too. "How could you?" Olive asks. Well, when Chuck's happiness was threatened, his own happiness freaked out because he thought Chuck was going to leave him and follow them to Europe. "You know," Emerson says, in frustration, "I'm a solo guy by nature. But I choose to affiliate myself with the both of you. Reason being, because when you spend all your time chasin' bad guys, you want the best of the good guys in your corner." He says the two of them are normally as solid as they come, because their moral compasses are "always pointed due... the right thing." But clearly, he says reverting back to his hard self, someone has been messing with their magnetic fields because they're acting crazy. Thus, both of their asses will now be ejected, by Emerson himself. "So what do you think about that?" he asks. Dejected, they head out with Emerson. "At that moment," Jimmy D tells us as we hear the Darlings' real music, techno "Swan Lake" start up, "Charlotte Charles' walk of shame turned into triumph." For the lovely Darling Mermaid Darlings beautifully take to the pool again, diving in for their performance.
Ah, but all is not as perfect as it may appear. The beat of their happy hearts, JD says, and the blare of the underwater speakers, are drowning out the sound of impending doom! Indeed, on the platform above, the happy but hapless Jimmy Neptune is watching when he is bonked on the head by a lobster-disguise-wearing Shane Trickle! "I did it for you, Coral!" he yells into the microphone. Exasperated, Coral emerges from the crowd. "Nobody asked you to, Shane" she says, rolling her eyes. Shane says that the best thing about everybody thinking you're stupid is that they assume you can't get away with murder. "But I did!" he crows. Coral: "You also set a shark into the water while I was swimming. Did you think about that, professor?" Yes, he did, he says. That's why he, he says, he smeared her costume with the proteins of the Red Sea Moses sole! Ah, yes, a little-known shark repellent , a fact I was really excited to learn until I saw that it was excreted from their anal fins. But, listen, we don't have time to discuss butt slime from fish of the Holy Land right now, okay? Our favorite show is ending.
Emerson pulls his gun and tells him to drop the microphone, but it's all for naught. His whole plan is to drop the mic, anyway, into the pool where even now the Darling Mermaid Darlings are still swimming, oblivious to all of this above-water drama. The mic will shoot out a current electrocuting them, he says, and once they are dead Neptune will surely have to let Coral back in the show and make her the star. "It's what you've always wanted," he says to Coral. "It's all for you!" And with that, he tosses the trident mic, to the screams of Olive who runs toward him shouting " Shaaaaane ," which almost, for real, made me wet my pants. But, wait! Everyone is saved! With adroit skill, Ned catches the mic in a pool sweeper, just as the Aunts burst from the water to the cheers of the crowd.
The next morning, JD says as we are back in Ned's apartment, the victory of the previous night has faded in the light of a conversation that has to be had. Seeing yet another gift on the table, Chuck says she hopes it isn't for her, as her half-birthday is over. "The gifts I gave you before," Ned says, "only triggered crisis and misery." Chuck has the absolute gall to be sarcastic. "Really," she snarks. "I hadn't noticed." Missy, this is the last episode, so I don't have time to get mad, but shut up. Your own behavior triggered the crisis. She gives him a smile though, and opens the new present -- a framed photo of her as a child with her Aunts. She doesn't remember the photo, she says. Because, Ned tells her, he took it with his junior instamatic. "It was the first time I'd met your aunts," he says, on a day they were buzzing through town on the way to some far-off, fantastic place. "I had almost forgotten those aunts," Chuck sighs, and thanks him for reminding her. Ned says he has tried very hard to be a good boyfriend, and has always tried to put her happiness before his own. "Yeah," she says, "I agree with that, wholeheartedly." But, he continues, he's been lying to her, because he's been lying to himself. He says that if Lily and Vivian knew she was alive, the only person who would be in danger is him. "And the danger itself is a lie," he says, "it's irrational fear in danger's clothing." And it's constantly whispering in his ear that Chuck will leave him if she can really be reunited with her mother and aunt. In this way, he says, he's been putting his own happiness first. "You didn't know what you were doing," Chuck comforts him. Ned: "I do now, and now I'm finally putting your happiness before my own."
No time for the tears that are welling in my eyes, because at this very moment a "life event" was taking place. "Lily Charles had begun to experience feelings that had become foreign," Jim Dale says. "These pleasant sensations..." BOOM. This time it's Coral who interrupts, and boy does she. Oh, goodness, Coral glides out the door as Vivian GOES OFF. Wow, Ellen Greene, you are something else. I hate ABC. "Coral and I have just had the most illuminating conversation," she says, breaking a glass. "One that helped me put together the pieces of a 30-year mystery." Vivian says that there was a part of her that always knew the truth about Lily and Charles Charles having a child, but she never would let herself believe it. "It was Charlotte, wasn't it?" she asks, breaking my heart. Lily says she tried thousands of times to tell her, but couldn't find a way. "Why do you think I hid from the world?" she asks. "I couldn't bear to have anyone look at me." Vivian: "I understand. I can't bear to look at you, either." As that blow falls, the doorbell rings. "I took the liberty of calling you a cab," Vivian says. Lily asks where she's supposed to go. She says she's spent half a lifetime trying to make amends. "I gave up the only man I have ever loved," she says, "as well as my beautiful baby daughter, because I knew the truth would break your heart. So, I broke mine instead." She says she did what she's done since the day Vivian was born: put her happiness first. "You don't have to anymore," Vivian says, in tears, and both are about to say more when the doorbell rings yet again. "All right!" Lily says, ripping it open, expecting to see a cab waiting for her. But, no. What's waiting is Chuck. What a moment -- it is beautiful. "Lily? Vivian?" she says, standing there with a bouquet of daisies, next to Ned who is nervously holding a bottle of champagne.
At that very moment, the lustrous Jim Dale tells us, time stopped as it is wont to do when present, past and future collide; when one's existence ceases to be measured in days, hours and minutes, but instead in the immeasurable quantity of life events. Aw, Jim Dale, you're killing me and I love it. We sweep across the scenery of C'ouer de C'ouer, across the ocean and the world as he tells us the rest of the story. For Lily and Vivian, the return of their daughter and niece would eventually heal a 30-year old betrayal and kick off a life event that would result in a tour around the world, twice. Emerson, in his lair, would eventually be reunited with his daughter through none other than his fabulous publication, L'il Gumshoe . And Olive, who we see after the camera sweeps through the sewer for a farewell look at Oscar Vibenius, and who I have loved so much through these two short seasons, would experience two life events in quick succession. The first would come when she opened her heart to the formerly friendless Randy Mann, and the second when she opened her own restaurant... a huge place in the shape of a giant steer called The Intrepid Cow, dedicated to the art of macaroni and cheese. Awesome. "For the Piemaker and a girl named Chuck," JD closes, "their shared life event began with a touch and became the promise of a new family brought about by the words..." And now, as we leave them, Chuck is the interrupter. "I'm alive," she says to Vivian and Lily, and as only he can, Jim Dale reminds us that at that moment, as Digby once again frolics through the daisies, things happened that could never be considered an ending. "For endings, as it is known" he says, "are where we begin."
Y'all, I've enjoyed recapping this show so much. I am not sure I ever did it justice, at all -- I found it to be pretty much perfectly written and made, down to every actor, guest star and stitch of clothing. Hard to be snarky about something that's sweet as pie. Thanks a million.
Give the show a Tubey! Then see our gallery of Pushing Daisies' Most Delicious Moments !