Window Dressed to Kill
Updated 2009-06-01 09:01:27
OH, HELLO. Long time, no see. Y'all never write and never call, but here we are, reunited with this show and it feels so good! Except, it sort of also feels bad because 1) we know these are the last three episodes that ABC, the evil overlords, are trying to just burn off (not that we're not grateful); 2) this episode, though much anticipated, was only so-so; and 3) there is not even the mildest acknowledgment that we have not seen these people in forever and will soon never see them again. I mean, I know this was probably shot a year ago, but a little note of "here's the deal" tacked on to the front might have been helpful. I don't know what that would have looked like, actually, so... maybe don't listen to me. Too bad there's not some website I could have visited and boned up on the plotlines. Oh... wait a minute.
So, young Olive was nine years, whatever weeks/days/minutes old and dressed to the nines when she was kidnapped from a party being thrown by her folks. Jim Dale's melodious voice is filled with sad compassion as he describes poor little Olive's life as the well-dressed but ignored child of her fashionable party parents. All she wanted, he says, was to be actively loved and only occasionally ignored. "As happens often with Olive Snook, her dreams came true," JD points out, "just not quite for she intended." For, as her parents later testified, young Olive was kidnapped by two dangerous car thieves and held for one day, one hour and eleven minutes before the men, Jerry Holmes and Buster Bustamante, made the first ransom call. Her parents agreed to pay and the police set a trap for Jerry and Buster which results in their arrest and Olive's safe return. Jerry and Buster were sentenced to 25-years in prison. Ah, but 8,264 hash marks on a wall later (that would be 22-ish years), Jerry and Buster bust out of jail with only one person on their mind: Olive.
JD reminds us that Olive, however, has been a bit busy lately, hanging off cliffs and whatnot, receiving confusing almost-declarations of maybe-love from Ned . His less than direct statement has been causing her no end of anguish back at the Pie Hole, where she has been trying to read up on sentence structure and the use of the double negative. Mulling over a copy of Double Negative: What You Shouldn't Not Know , she continues to ponder Ned's "I wouldn't say never" comment on the possibility that he might (or might not) occasionally (maybe) think of her fondly.
Using passive-aggressive panache, Jim Dale tells us, Olive tries to figure out what Ned might (or might not) have meant. Across the gorgeous two-tiered Lazy Susan filled with GORGEOUS fruit pies, they stare at one another in confusion. Ned wants to know if she likes his latest creation. "I definitely don't hate it," Olive answers slowly, gauging his reaction. "What does that mean?" he asks, exasperated. Olive: "You tell me." Frustrated Ned asks if she's saying it was more or less tasty than the Kick in the Kumquat or the Rock Me Amadequince and cringes. "I don't like giving funny names to the pies," he says, and wow, I really do not like it, either. "Does it not seem a little disrespectful?" he adds, and Olive kneejerks to his awkward structure. "There you go!" she says, waving her fork. "You did it again!" Ned is forced to point out that she's been acting a little more crazy than normal lately, and Olive sighs, saying she must have PTSD from their cliff-hanging moment. Ned is less than sympathetic, but Olive is insistent. "The whole thing keeps repeating on me over and over like a broken record," she says, "or Mexican food." As Ned wanders back into the kitchen, she stares up at the cherry light fixtures above the bar and continues. "You know, they say the more you face your trauma, the less power it has over you!" she says, and launches herself up to the light to hang on in simulation of their near death experience. "Oh, no! I'm slipping and can't hold on much longer!" she cries as Ned looks on, appalled. "If there's anything you'd like to say to me, now would be the time. And if you could speak in the declarative only, using affirmative or declarative modifiers..." Ned interrupts to growl that "people are eating pieeeee" (oh, shut up, Ned) and as Emerson and Chuck enter through the front, Olive reluctantly drops to the counter.
"Ding dong, Daddy," Emerson says as the door jingles behind him, and he can say no more before Ned shoves some pie into his mouth. "Ding, dong ," he adds, upon tasting the delicious creation. "That is heaven!" Ned says yes, Pearway to Heaven is new. Ned says that now that he's given up dead-waking for exclusive pie-making and is no longer touching and waking the dead fruit, he can eat his own pie. "I'm gonna get fat, aren't I?" he smiles, taking a bite. Emerson is done with the chit chat. While Ned's getting fat, he says, a dead lady has been fished out of the Papen County fountain and he's got a good feeling about it. "Ambulance sirens blarin'," Emerson says, "and I got my chasin' shoes on." Chuck asks if Ned is sure he doesn't want to untie those apron strings and lace up his chasin' laces. Ned says no, his apron is on with its strings securely tied in a double figure-eight follow through knot . Chuck says that she, for one, is supportive of Ned's decision. "Because that's what friends do," she adds, looking pointedly at Emerson, "they support each other." Emerson, though, is looking to support the bottom line. "Looky here," he says. "Yes, the zappity-zap nearly turned everything to crappity-crap on account of Dead Girl and her diggin'-up-dead-daddy ways." Chuck again apologizes for that little incident, but the thing is, Ned's not going to be persuaded, anyway. He wants to be a normal guy who makes pies. "Who wants to be Superman? Not me. I say no to 'Super' and yes to 'Man.'" Hee. Chuck smiles fondly at him, as one would to an idiot child. "I'm Clark Kent," Ned says, but Emerson is less than moved. "Well, that's just downright craptastic, Clark," he says, adding that he now has an unusually large amount of work to do on account of Ned being unwilling to touch a dead lady so that he can ask who killed her. Ned shrugs, but Chuck sees her chance. She wants to be Emerson's sidekick, the Alive-Again Avenger who comes back from the dead to provide justice to murder victims everywhere with the help of a crusty, unflappable, streetwise gumshoe. Emerson pauses. "That would make me the sidekick," he says, and Chuck says she would be good either way.
Cute. Though Olive is my fave, there can't be any denying the cuteness of Chuck. Anna Friel is just beautiful, though I thought Olive had pretty much sewn up the itty-bitty sidekick role. In any case, Emerson needs a sidekick and agrees to take on the Alive-Again Avenger with one caveat: since they no longer have Ned's powerful finger mojo, the game is now entirely different. "This game," he says, "is all about the hustle." Chuck: "Oh, I love the hustle."
At the scene of the crime, Chuck notes a faint tinge in the air of... something. "It smells like Aunt Lily on a Sunday," she says, correcting that actually it smells like "Mom" on a Sunday. Emerson says it is single-malt scotch, something he could use a shot of right now, and looks on with pursed lips as the (awesome, beloved) coroner works to thaw the ice of the fountain which has entrapped Erin Embry in her watery grave. He's using a hair dryer, complete with diffuser, and it is slaying me. Damn you ABC and the economy and whomever or whatever else is responsible for separating us from this amazing and beautifully-made show. A hair dryer. Seriously, there are tears in my eyes. Emerson runs down what must have happened -- this Erin Embry, still in the holiday spirit (for this was shot to originally run last winter), got all drunked up and Gene-Kelleyd her way around the fountain until she slipped in, bumped her head and died, preserved in ice when the temperatures dropped overnight. Now that he's seen it in person, he feels like it was obviously an accident and declares that there is no case to be had. "But" Chuck says, "I'm not done with the hustle!" Emerson: "Well, you gon' be dancin' by yo-self."
Au contraire. Chuck will never be dancing by herself as long as she has Ned, JD reminds us. She returns home and we sweetly see them walking Pigby and Digby, wearing gloves (not because of Pigby, who is obvs a fastidiously clean pig) so that they can stroll hand in hand. Chuck in her green dress and red coat, and Ned in his... Nedness... are totally cute. Ned loves the cold weather, he says, because gloves allow hand-holding. "We should move to South Pole," Ned suggests, though he is not sure they eat pie in the South Pole, which would put a wrinkle in his new lifeplan as the piemaking normal guy. He asks where they're going, and Chuck reveals that she is leading him to Dicker's Department Store, where the murdered Erin Embry used to work. "Murdered," Ned asks nervously. He had heard it was an accident. Ah, but when they get to the window of Dicker's, they discover that the scene of the crime, down to the mannequin wearing the same outfit as Erin Embry at the time of her death, has been recreated in the window display. "This is the scene of the crime!" Chuck cries, and Ned gives the Alive-Again Avenger a cheer of support. "Who needs Superman?" he says. "You're my hero." However, he says, he is not going to participate in the whole shebang -- he's a piemaker and that's it. Trying to be something you're not is too stressful, he adds, and Chuck plants a lips-to-glove-to cheek kiss on him in support.
Meanwhile, back at the Pie Hole, Olive receives a familiar visitor. None other than Randy Mann , friend-needing weirdo taxidermist. He has come to deliver an incredible sculpture of two doves bedecked with spangly magician accoutrements that Ned hired him to make for his magician brothers .
"Hidey-ho, Pie-bro!" he calls, coming through the door. "Who you callin' a ho?" Olive mumbles back. Hee. Certainly not Olive, Randy Mann says, and he means it. As we can easily tell, Randy Mann couldn't wait to see Olive. He wasn't the only one, Jim Dale is explaining, as two dangerous dudes come through the door. "Those are the guys that kidnapped me when I was a little girl!" Olive whispers urgently to Randy. As Randy Mann swings on them with a butterknife, they only have eyes for Olive. "Snook," they say, in unison, and we cut to black!
Ned returns to the Pie Hole to find this dramatic scene concluded. Finding Randy with a big bruise on his face, he immediately assumes Olive punched him. Hee. In fact, it was Jerry, who only swung in self-defense after Randy threatened them. "Olive," Ned asks, wary, "who are these guys?" Olive nervously shrugs. "Who are any of us, really...?" she asks philosophically, and finally Jimmy D has to break it down. Jerry and Buster weren't really kidnappers. They were stealing a car when they discovered Olive hiding in the back. They wanted to return Olive immediately to her parents, but as she was trying to teach her neglectful relations a lesson, she refused to tell them her name. The sweet guys have to whisper to hide it from her that their repeated attempts to contact her parents have gone unanswered. As a result, they spend a wonderful two days with the little girl, watching cartoons and eating popcorn. When they return her to her parents' house, they realize the Snooks had no idea Olive was even missing, and confront the negligent couple who take umbrage and call the cops. Wow, do all the writers of this show hate their parents? There hasn't been a parent yet portrayed who isn't somehow careless, downright criminal or somehow guilty of abandonment. Anyway, Olive knew what she was losing as she saw Jerry and Buster taken to jail, and thus wrote them every week to stay in touch. They never stopped loving her, either, and had finally busted out of jail to see her again before heading out for a life on the lam.
Short pause while I rant again about the show being cancelled: the lost potential of seeing more episodes with the amazing Richard Benjamin and George Segal ... OMG, what if they had set them up romantically down the road with Lily and Vivian?! Siiiigh. Hate.
Olive is so glad they came to see her, and thinks it is only right that she help them escape across the border. She still feels so guilty, she says, that they went to jail, but no one would ever believe her when she said she had run away. "What do we always say about the past?" Buster asks, fatherly. Olive: "It makes an ass outta you and me." Ha! A mixed metaphor, you might say, but it certainly holds true for my own past.
Ned is, naturally, nervous about this whole thing. "Who's the worry-wart?" Jerry finally asks. Randy introduces Ned as the owner of the place. "The pie maker?!" Jerry and Buster sing in unison. They shove Randy unceremoniously to the side, and embrace Ned, "the baker man who's gonna marry our little girl!" Olive goes green. "Uh, guys..." she whispers, but finally gives up and merely wilts to the floor behind the counter. Randy Mann is as shocked to hear that the object of his desire is betrothed. Ned, himself flummoxed, tries in vain to come up with the right thing to say, and finally Olive pops back up, seemingly ready to face the music. Looking at her sad face, though, Ned realizes how many hearts he's about to break, and keeps up the ruse, saying that yes, he and Olive love each other very much. Aw. So sweet. "Once again," Jim Dale says, as full of emotion as he can muster, "Olive's dream came true... just not quite how she intended."
Meanwhile, in front of Dicker's Department Store, a crowd has gathered to pay respects to the lost store employee, Erin Embry. I'd love to just skip this whole dead gal of the week plot and get back to Olive and Ned, but... whenever I want to skip or gloss over something? That's when they give Emerson the best lines. Damn you, show.
As they look upon the representative death scene in the window, Chuck and Emerson run down the facts they learned from Olive and Ned about the ordeal with Jerry and Buster. Chuck had gotten the general gist on the whole scene from Olive, but Emerson now gives her the full picture. "Little peewee bother to mention that she told Papa #1 and Papa #2 that she told them yo' man ain't yo' man, he's hers?" he asks. Chuck, disturbed, says no, she didn't. Emerson offers some sage advice: "Loanin' PieBoyfriend to your bestie who's in love with him in order to pull the wool over FakePapas' peepers is the kind of idea that gives a bad idea the will to live." Chi McBride, I'm already married, but... will you marry me? Chuck says this new Olive twist peeves her, and she can't Avenge when she's peeved. Emerson: "You are no good to me focusin' on yo' ladypeeves." But Chuck can't help it. Now Ned and Olive are on a romantic run to the border, and not the kind you take at 2 a.m. when you need some tacos. Not that I ever did that 10,000 times to the Taco Bell on McFarland Blvd. in Tuscaloosa, Alabama or anything. Anyway, Chuck rouses herself from her peeve and gets over it. "Actually, I don't even know why I'm upset," she says, shaking it off. "It's just for one day. I'm being ridiculous." Emerson can't help pointing out that a lot can happen in one day, but he swiftly moves on. "So! Is this the final repose of Erin Embry?" he asks, turning back to the window. Chuck says that's her theory. "Nice hustle, Avenger," he tells her and says it appears the talented Erin was more than just an annoying department store perfume spritzer. Indeed, a dapper gentleman on the sidewalk tells them. Erin was in fact a window dresser. She and her partner, Coco Juniper, created true art within the confines of the Dicker's window frame, although it was common knowledge Erin was the more talented of the two. Yes, the guy goes on, Erin could do things with a mannequin Coco could never do. Finally noticing the crowd around him, Emerson bluntly asks: "Who the hell are you people?" The talky onlooker says they are devotees of Erin's, and to a lesser extent, Coco's, window work. Chuck and Emerson discuss whether or not these devotees with their memorial flowers and teddy bears seem overly devoted. (It has never occurred to me before to ask, but... why on Earth do people leave teddy bears at memorials?)
Chuck says they all seem "appropriately devoted but perhaps overly devastated by Erin's death, soon to be avenged." She wonders, if the Alive-Again Avenger happens to solve the case, will she still be relegated to sidekick status? "Yes," Emerson says and adds that if the Alive-Again Avenger really wants to prove her hustle, she'll get them hired for the case. Immediately, she leaps into action, darting through the crowd and riling them up until they pool their resources and hire Emerson for the job. Go, A-A Avenger!
Inside the beautiful store they are greeted by none other than Dick Dicker, store owner, who tries to direct them to frilly frocks or, hilariously, "the B&T section" for Emerson. Heeeee. When properly introduced, he explains that yes, Erin was a valued member of the Dicker's team, bringing in a lot of business with her amazing window designs (as did, "to a lesser extent," Coco). There is a lot of alliteration here from Dick Dicker about looky-loos and potential-payers, and as much as I love it and the adorable and talented Willie Garson playing Dick Dicker, it is also kind of killing me. I'm sorry. I haven't seen the show in six months! I'm having to ease back into it! The upshot is that more unsubtle remarks are made about Coco's possible jealousy of Erin and thus, she becomes suspect #1.
And what a nice suspect she makes, because she's a beyotch. A very cute, superbly dressed beyotch. She rides roughshod over the Dicker's employees, especially over Denny Downs who apparently serves some function as assistant to the window dressers. "It's so, so wrong," she says of one of his suggested mannequin outfits. "No, wrong would be relative as if you had some way gotten within the realm of what would be considered right." Nice. "Are you wincing?" she asks Denny, and he is clearly wincing. So are Emerson and Chuck, who try to lead Coco back to the subject of Erin. Coco strings together some long-ass fake sentences about how great Erin was, especially since now that Erin's gone, she's stuck with (withering head nod toward) Denny. Chuck points out that even with Erin gone, she's still obviously got talent. "So what if Erin could do things with a mannequin you could never do?" she subtly jabs, and Coco freezes. "I never said that," Denny assures her. "Ever!" Continuing to cut a swath of evil through the department, Coco asks Denny about another mannequin standing by. He says it's for Erin's memorial window adding, perfectly, that he thinks it's "chic as hell." Coco berates him further, suggesting he go back to matching socks in the juniors department and Emerson and Chuck look on in horror as she thrills over the unveiling of the memorial window that night which will prove her dominant talent to everyone. "Maybe Coco's gone loco and she killed Erin so she could have the first solo window," Chuck whispers in an aside to Emerson. "Yeah," he says, "and we need to be at that unveiling tonight just in case Coco did go loco fo' sho... co." Wise. Ah, but here Jim Dale gives us the lowdown: what they don't know is that while they are scurrying around Dicker's Department Store watching out for the killer, the killer is watching over them! Dun dunnnn!
In Randy Mann's Randy Van the Ned is riding shotgun while Buster, Jerry and Olive hunker down in the back seat. There is extra hunkering going on due to Randy's other passenger... a huge dead rhinoceros, Aloysius, who is being stuffed for a major retail outlet to promote BIG savings. Randy tries to surreptitiously ask Ned what the deal is about this alleged Olive engagement, but Ned gives him the ixnay. Just in time, too, because Buster is getting too cramped back there -- "my jingle's gotta have some room to jangle" -- and suggests Olive sit in Ned's lap for the duration of the ride. She seems reluctant to impose, but he insists. Jerry starts reminiscing about the letters Olive wrote about her life and love with Ned, and Ned willingly and adorably plays along. Though, I don't remember this story about water and fish backing up into the Pie Hole and Ned grabbing Olive to keep her safe? Am I seriously forgetting something? Anyway, things are going swimmingly enough until they come upon a police roadblock. "What do we do now?" Randy asks and, naturally, there's only one place to go. Chez Aunts'!
While Lily fixes them with a boozy stare, Vivian receives them politely. "We haven't had this many visitors," she says, "since our most recent home invasion!" Olive tells the aunts that the team could really use their help. "And your taxidermy kit," Randy adds, saying he had to leave his behind to make room for the passengers. He's going to use some pelts he has to fashion Jerry and Buster some muttonchops and sideburns. Vivian offers Charles Charles's old clothes to wear for disguises but Lily remains suspicious. And rude, of course. "This ain't quite the engagement party we had in mind for you and the worry wart," Jerry jokes, and the aunts go on high alert. "Engagement? Ned? And Olive?" Vivian trills, but Lily ain't buying it. "Since when?" she asks. Ned: "Since... we love each other... so much." Olive: "Yeah. What he said?" And to seal the deal, they give each other a mutual eyebrow shrug and go in for a little smooch. Moments later, Olive sighs her way out onto the front porch and, as the snow falls around her, breaks into song. Oh, not just any song. Hello , by Lionel Fricking Richie. WHO is the genius who picks songs for this show? Man, what an inspired choice. I absolutely love it, and Kristin Chenoweth simply kills it. She gets about halfway through the first chorus -- to the luscious "you know just what to say, you know just what to do" part -- when she is interrupted by Ned, who bounces out the door. "Do you know just what you're doing?" Olive asks, sort of sadly. Ned: "Not really. I just asked myself 'What would Olive want me to do?' and this seemed like the answer." Olive says, yeah, he did exactly what she would want him to do. "Only I would want you to mean it when you said you loved me," she sighs. "Not that I'm ungrateful." Without hesitation, and without being hurtful, Ned says he does mean it. "In a friend way," he says. "And I'm kind of having fun. I get to help you in a way that doesn't require being super, it just requires being normal and a little dishonest." He smiles, adding that he knows she had her reasons for writing all that stuff to Buster and Jerry, and he supports those reasons, because he supports her. "That's what friends do."
Okay, I had to rewind and rewatch the part from the kiss, through the song, and through the friends part about 15 times. So perfect. Good grief, this show is/was so good and so smart and so sweet. It is hard not to want Olive and Ned to be mutually in love, but their friendship is wonderful. Siiiiiigh. Don't you wish that when they brought this show back to life for three episodes another, horrible, show would die in its place, allowing it to live forever? May I suggest something like, I don't know, that ol' ABC staple of classiness, Wife Swap ? And since it is only a 30 minute program, perhaps we could get a two-for-one death on the network and throw in some other stupid shit like the loathsome DWTS ? I can't even spell it out. All right, fine. Rant over. Again. FOR NOW.
Over at Dicker's, the devotees (including their smirky leader from earlier) are gathered on the sidewalk to see the new window. Dick welcomes them all and turns to introduce Coco but she is nowhere to be found. Denny reports, with a wince, that Coco said she would deign to mingle with her devotees at the reception later. With no further ado, Dick unveils the window, a backlit upward-traveling escalator, featuring a mannequin whose gorgeous yellow gown is caught poignantly in the tread of the moving stairs. "It's an essay on the afterlife!" the still-unnamed head devotee sighs. "Erin Embry's endless ascent into a spiritual maze! Look at it... it's a bath! It's just a warm bath!" Ridiculous and hilarious, but no one has time to smack him because suddenly a scream rings out. Inside, they find none other than Coco Juniper who has been EATEN by the escalator -- her upper body now rests in a bloody heap at the top. Aaaaiieee! Gruesome. But also awesome? Mostly, no, just gruesome.
As the coroner wheels half of Coco out on a stretcher, Emerson takes him aside. "How long you think she's been dead?" he asks. "Oh," the coroner drones, "about fifty dollahs." Love, love. In receipt of Emerson's fifty, he says he figures Coco's been dead about thirty minutes, though to get it more exact than that "will take me a little conductin'... and another twenty." Emerson rolls his eyes. "Thirty minutes will do," he says, "thanks." The coroner is taken aback. "Ohhh, that's how it is," he says. "I'll make a mental note on that." Emerson: "Don't be making no mental notes on me." The coroner gives him a stern look. "At a crime scene," he deadpans, "I'll make notes on whatever I feel needs note-makin'. Mentally." Every huge laugh they get out of me, as that just was, is like a stab, knowing it's almost over.
Inside, the ever-present Head Devotee tells Chuck, Emerson and Denny that it had always been his dream to work on the windows with Erin "and, to a lesser extent," Coco. They're both gone, the HD says. And his dream and the thing that fed his creative soul are gone with them. "The windows fed your creative soul?" Denny asks, amazed. Chuck tells Denny she's so sorry and that she can't imagine how he must feel now that Erin and Coco are both gone. Denny sighs and says, to everyone's surprise, that he feels "like a weight has been lifted." Aha! Suspect number 2. Emerson says it's time to take another visit to Erin and Coco's workspace to see what ol' Denny's been up to. "Yeah," Chuck says in imitation of Emerson's gruff baritone. Stop being so cute, everyone! It hurts!
Upstairs at the aunts', Olive is going through the trunk of Charles Charles's clothes with Vivian and is surprised Vivian saved them all. Vivian said she had intended to use the fabric to make a quilt for Chuck, but Lily had told her it would be too morbid. Olive says she, herself, is a packrat of sorts. "Of emotions," she says, "not so much of actual things." Vivian asks if that's why she had previously denied her relationship with Ned. "About that," Olive says, ready to admit the truth. "I should proba-ahhhaa-ha..." And well she should say that. For Vivian has pulled from the trunk the headpiece and veil she had planned to wear in her marriage to Charles Charles. She had hoped that Chuck would wear it someday, she says, and now the news of Olive's engagement to Ned has restored her faith that true love does exist. "That's so depressing," Olive groans quietly. Vivian says it's given her something to believe in, like the image of the Virgin Mary found in the center of a potato or a tortilla. "Right now," she says, "you and Ned are my tortilla." Has a sweeter sentiment ever been stated? I mean, there is very little I love more in the world than a tortilla, that is for damn sure. Olive, too, is moved. Unable to tell the truth in the face of the veil and all the tortilla talk, she simply swallows, and says "thanks."
Among Erin and Coco's workspace Emerson and Chuck find... nothing. Sort of. "Not a pen, not a paperclip, not no thing," Emerson grouses. "These people didn't do a damn thing for themselves." Chuck says they didn't have to, because they had other people, like Denny, doing everything for them. Apropos of nothing (ha) she wonders aloud what Ned and Olive are doing right now. "Mmm hmm," Emerson retorts. "Think you can pour a saucer of milk and see if kitty'll splash? This ain't my milk and I ain't dippin' my paw in it." Chuck says she wasn't being catty (ha ha!), she's simply concerned. "You said 'a lot can happen in one day,'" she points out. "You know what you were doing when you said that." Emerson groans. "Yeah, I know," he says. "Dippin' my paw." Chuck wonders, you know, what if Olive holds Ned's hands without gloves? Or kisses him without plastic food wrap? "He'll know what he was missing with me," she says. Emerson sighs. "The only thing Pie Man is gon' be missin' is you. He's always frettin' you gon' get up and go, and here you are worryin' that he got up and went," he says. "I'm telling you: ain't nobody goin' nowhere." Aw, again. Before Chuck can do anything so emotional as to thank him, Emerson finds a clue: Denny's design book. Turns out, Erin and Coco didn't design the Dicker's windows. Denny did. Emerson points out that people who get every damn thing done for them aren't always the luckiest people in the world. Sometimes the do-everything peeps "get pissed off and start resentin' their lazy-ass bosses. Erin and Coco's peep done gone postal and killed both of them!" Chuck turns another page of the design book to make a frightening discovery. From what she can see, it appears Dick Dicker will be the next member of the staff to be window dressed to death. "Oh, we better find Dick before this pissed off peep pops him next!" Emerson says. "Come on!"
Coming down the stairs at the House of Aunts, Olive runs into Ned. "I never thought I'd say this," she tells him. "But we need to back off on the PDA 'cause Vivian's Ps & Qs have gone AWOL and I can't take much more of what I just took before I'm DOA." Ned: "Olive. Use your words." Hee. To clarify, she holds up the veil. "We're still just playing, right?!" Ned asks, aghast. "Vivian's jumped the bridal shark!" Olive says. She thanks Ned for being so nice to go along with this whole rigmarole, but says they've got to tone it down before they get in any deeper with the deception. "You don't have to thank me," he says, smiling. "I've been curious about having a normal relationship, and this one has been really interesting to try on." Vrrrt! The needle comes off the record. "Try on?" Olive snaps. "You try on a sweater at the mall. You try on your best friend's bra and then smile on the inside because yours are bigger and better. You don't try on a person." Ned backpeddles that it was a bad choice of words, but Olive goes on. "Is that what 'well I wouldn't say "never"' was about?" she asks. "Were you 'trying me on' in your head?!" Ned nearly chokes with all the fumbling he's doing. "I don't know," he says, desperately, "what words to choose, now." Olive, pushing past him: "WHOA, I DO."
At the foot of the stairs she calls for attention apologizing in advance for what she's about to say and the hysteria with which she's about to say it. It is, she says, not directed at any of them and is in no way related to any "female issue" of any kind. "NED," she says, "is not my fiancé. He does NOT love me. We are NOT a couple; never have been." Through all of this, Ned cringes the cringe of the ages. Olive says she loves him, but he never had feelings for her. Holding back rage and tears she adds, "Well, I wouldn't say 'never.'" Daaaaaaamn. She apologizes, with great pain, again. "I ain't mad at you," Buster assures her. "Take mad," Jerry says, "and multiply that by a power of pissed." Ned feels he needs to interject. "Don't be mad," he says, "and certainly not to a power of that degree. I love Olive... as a friend." Ugh. The final stab of the F-word is too much for Olive. Turning to face him, she says she thinks he should just go. He fumbles again, saying that his participation in the ruse was just to help her. "I know," she says, "but I don't want that kind of help. Try on time's over, Ned." With one last whispered apology, he goes out the door, only to leap right back in. "I can't go," he says, and we see that no, he can't -- the police have surrounded the house, and are calling for Jerry and Buster.
"We can't go back, Snook," Buster tells Olive as the sirens blare. She swears she won't let the police take them. "Fine mess we've gotten you into," Jerry says, a little tersely if you ask me. Olive admits she's pretty good at creating messes on her own. He points out that yeah, he knows, as she's the same nine-year-old girl who climbed into the back of their stolen car doing ass-over-teakettle just to get attention. In a corner of the room, Ned whispers to Randy Mann that he only did what he thought Olive wanted. "Clark Kent never had this much trouble with relationships," he laments. Randy: "That's because he never had any." And, after a brief review of the history of Superman in which David Arquette is quite amusing, Ned realizes that his only recourse is to fall back upon the super powers with which he has been blessed. He heads for the door. "Where you going?" Randy Mann asks. Ned: "To put on my cape."
In Dick Dicker's limo, Emerson and Chuck explain to Dick that Denny was the one designing the windows all along and thus, they believe he killed Erin and Coco after becoming tired of never getting his proper credit. "You're another boss he blames," Dick says. "Looks like you're meant to be his window wagon finale." Dick is shocked. "I need a drink," he says. "Would you like a drink?" Chuck and Emerson smile. "Well, I wouldn't say no to a snort," Emerson says. "Scotch please." Dick says he's out of scotch but makes the best pomegranitini that will ever pass their lips. With different levels of enthusiasm, Emerson and Chuck say "yum." They go on to say that though they've informed the authorities, Denny appears to be currently on the loose. "I'll need a proper bodyguard," Dick says, noting that Samson, his driver, would use him as a human shield at the first sign of trouble. Emerson tells him to go to the police station for protection while he and Chuck read the coroner's final report, just to make sure it matches their theory of the killings.
Back at the scene of the aunts, SuperNed puts his plan into action. Stealthily crawling along the driveway, he comes to Randy Mann's Van and comes out of retirement, giving Aloysius the touch and causing quite the big distraction for the police. Surveying his handywork -- or rather Aloysius's hornwork -- Ned is happy. "Faster than a speeding bullet," he says to himself, and Randy and Olive take off with the convicts in tow while Ned chases down the rhino. Watching all the madness go down, Lily can only shrug. "Eh," she says. "I'm goin' to bed."
Later, Ned smiles and leans on good ol' Aloysius who, having served his one-minute alive-again purpose has again been sent to that big zoo in the sky. Ned had helped his friends, Jimmy D tells us, an act which he would one day liken to leaping tall buildings in a single bound. He is so inspired, apparently, he rushes to the morgue where Emerson and Chuck are suddenly realizing that the bonk on Erin Embry's head looks suspiciously like the impression of the crystal decanter in Dick Dicker's limo. Bursting through the door, Ned waves his finger in the air. "I'm Superman!" he says. "I've got a finger faster than a speeding bullet! Come on! Who can I touch?" Ha! While Emerson appears only mildly impressed, Chuck is thrilled. Ned admits that he was trying to be someone he wasn't -- a normal guy -- when what he really is is a pie-making dead-waker. Self awareness is good. Without further ado, he puts the double-touch on Erin and Coco. Apparently Dick Dicker did it! Apparently the store going under would be the only way for Dick to get out of the family business while staying in the family, Erin says, and that since her windows were the reason so many people came to the store, he had to kill them. Coco takes offense at the notion that Erin was the talented one. "If I had any legs," she snaps, "I'd kick your ass." As we gruesomely saw, she has no legs because Dick fed her to the escalator, mistakenly believing that after Erin's death, Coco must have been the true talent behind the windows. Ned gives them the times-up touch, and Emerson and Chuck realize with alarm that they've just told Dick that Denny was the real window guru! JD gives us the facts, which are these: Dick Dicker wanted to be free of the family store, but not free of the family. So, as we just heard, he killed Erin and Coco in turn. Thanks to the work of Emerson and his sidekick, though, he is stopped before also killing Denny Downs. All's well that ends well -- Debby Dicker is tapped to take over the store; Denny is promoted and he hires none other than the Head Devotee, whose name is none other then Wendell Featherstone (why not?) to be his apprentice.
Driving in the dark, Randy Mann keeps his eyes on the road while Olive moans to her FauxPapas about Ned never loving her. Jerry tells her that when she finds the man who truly loves her, she won't have to wonder how that guy feels about her. She'll know. He and Buster point out that Randy Mann has been standing by her through this whole ordeal with nary a complaint, "and he ain't doin' it for his health." Olive sees the wisdom of their words and climbs into the front seat. She says she is sorry about Randy Mann's rhino. "Can't go crying over spilled rhinocerousessess..." he says, shyly, adding that he's mortified that Aloysius was apparently alive the whole time after all. "That's something a taxidermist should never, ever overlook," he shivers. Olive says it appears that she's been doing a bit of overlooking herself and thanks him again for everything. "I'd aid and abet you any time," Randy says, sweetly. Just to be clear, though, he says he's still a little confused about whether she and the Pie Man were ever engaged. "The only thing we were engaged in," Olive assures him, "was shenanigans. Shenanigans that could put Buster and Jerry in the big house unless we could get them across the border." She just can't figure out how. She says that when she was in the convent , Mother Superior always told her that prayer was reaching out your hands knowing the good Lord was reaching back. "Who would Mother Superior tell you to reach out to now?" Randy asks, and Olive smiles.
Morning dawns and we see her at the Pie Hole reaching out to the police. She tells them again that Buster and Jerry should never have had to serve time in the first place, having been wrongfully accused. They are interrupted by none other than Mother Superior herself, who arrives with her sisters. She and Olive have a lovely exchange about the good word crossing borders and yadda yadda, it's great and all, but I ain't typing it. What you really want to know are the facts, right? Well, the facts are these: good ol' Mother Superior had become rather a superior mother figure to Olive and with the aid of the classic nun disguise, the sisters sneak Jerry and Buster off to their new life, right under the noses of the fuzz.
Rearranging the storage area to accommodate the ingredients that a SuperPieMaker needs (i.e. dead fruit), Chuck says it was for the best she wasn't involved with the run to the border and the Olive/Ned "love" story. "I was peeved just thinking about it," she says. Ned is shocked. "Are you jealous of Olive?" he asks. Chuck says of course she is -- Olive's alive and Ned doesn't have to wait until winter to hold hands with her. "The only hand I want to hold is yours," Ned says. "And I will wear winter clothes year-round to do it." Besides, he says, Olive is finally over him. "Even when I thought I was doing everything she wanted me to do," he says, "I still ended up hurting her." Indeed, JD tells us. "The guilt the piemaker felt over the hurt he'd caused was mixed with a tinge of something, but he did not know what." Ned carries a bowl of alive-again peaches to the front of the kitchen and sees Olive sitting there with Randy Mann, holding Randy Mann's manly hand. Without warning, Jim Dale says, Ned recognizes the tinge. "Jealousy."
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