Pushing Daisies/Recap/S2/E08 Comfort Food

The Past
Young Ned's pie-baking habit is discovered by Eugene and later on, the rest of the students, who all take solace in the homey comfort of hot pie. However, the nightly pie parties are soon discovered by the faculty and shut down.

The Present
Ned, despite his best intentions, sees no way to evaluate Dwight's character other than reviving Chuck's father. After he confirms that Dwight is indeed bad news, Ned allows Chuck the remaining 30 seconds to briefly catch up with her father. Through clever use of a leather glove, she tricks Ned into thinking he has re-deaded her father and spirits him away to Ned's childhood home later on.

Ned and Olive enter the Papen County Comfort Food Cookoff, ready to face off against their nemesis, muffin baker Mary Ann Marie Beetle (a character from Bryan Fuller's previous series, Wonderfalls)... but the cookoff is thrown into commotion when Colonel Likken of Colonel Likken's Fried Chicken is found dead.

Meanwhile, Chuck asks Emerson to help her discover who was killed in exchange for Charles Charles' life.

Tropes

 * Big No: As
 * Cruel and Unusual Death: Colonel Likken is battered up and shoved into his own deep-fryer.
 * Dead Mans Chest: Mary Ann hits Ned and Olive with frying pans and stuffs them into a trunk.
 * Duvet Hits Floor/Toplessness From the Back
 * Imagine Spot: Lily imagines shooting Dwight.
 * I Taste Delicious: Right before Ned re-deads him, Colonel Likken tries to bite himself.
 * Just a Stupid Accent: The "Waffle Nazi" feigns a German accent.
 * Karmic Death:
 * Like Brother and Sister: Olive tries to write off her feelings for Ned as this while talking with Vivian.
 * Manipulative Bitch: Mary Ann.
 * Overcrank: Used to hilarious effect--complete with Big No--as Olive and Mary Ann Marie Beetle race to deliver their entries to the judges table.
 * A Storm Is Coming: Literal and metaphorical storms brew up over the course of the episode. They'll break in "The Legend of Merle McQuoddy".
 * That Poor Cat: At the cemetery.
 * That Reminds Me of a Song/"I Want" Song: Olive sings "Eternal Flame", by the Bangles.