Pushing Daisies/Analysis: Difference between revisions

{{Analysis}}{{work}}

The most obvious, of course, is Ned and Chuck's inability to touch, which seems to serve as a metaphor for the difficulty being experienced by two adults trying to connect despite having different--indifferent—in fact, complementary--intimacycomplementary—intimacy issues. In fact, all of the principal characters have problems establishing and maintaining intimacy, and none had an especially happy childhood.

* Ned's childhood was idyllic--untilidyllic—until his power manifested, and cost him everything he loved at once. Adult Ned lived in self-imposed isolation, too afraid to love lest he lose it all again.

Season 1 has Ned's crushing guilt over his involvement in Charles Charles' death and hiding it from Chuck, and Chuck's struggle to forgive him after the truth comes out. Season 2 has a few more such arcs: Ned's growing awareness that he must forgive his father--andfather—and not for his father's sake, either--eveneither—even if he's not ready to quite yet; Chuck's coming to terms with the truth of her parentage; Lily finally facing her own feelings about her daughter's life and death.

Chuck betrays Ned's trust several times, and in increasingly serious ways: in the very first episode, leaving Ned's apartment against his explicit wishes; then, harmless and anonymous contact with her aunts, via the pies; early in season 2, crank-calling Lily; finally--andfinally—and most devastatingly--keepingdevastatingly—keeping her father alive. Was she acting in ways that would ultimately serve Ned's best interests, by demonstrating to him that his fears were baseless, or was she being unforgivably selfish?

But why ''should'' she obey him? What does Chuck ''owe'' Ned? Both of them agree that Ned does not get to order Chuck around, but does she have any responsibility to protect Ned's secret? When he admits, at the end of "Kerplunk!", that {{spoiler|keeping Chuck away from her beloved aunts was more to protect himself than her, is he giving her permission to seek her aunts, or acknowledging that she would have reconnected with them no matter how much it might cost ''him''?}} And is Chuck necessarily a bad person for that? (Note that, excessively repressed or not, Ned has a ''lot'' more to lose than Chuck does--seedoes—see [[They Would Cut You Up]].)

Chuck repeatedly doses her aunts with antidepressants, despite knowing, in no uncertain terms, that they ''didn't want to be.'' (In "Girth", they say that they used to be afraid that Chuck would dose them without their knowledge, and checked the food for antidepressants so that they would not consume them.) Was she right to do so? To what degree is Olive--whoOlive—who is also aware of their wishes--complicitwishes—complicit? What about Ned?

While the world of ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' isn't intended to be realistic, it isn't a [[Supernatural Soap Opera]], either. In fact, there's really only ''one'' extra-normal aspect to it: Ned's power. The nature and origin of Ned's ability is purposefully left ambiguous in the show, but it's interesting that ''everyone''--including—including and especially Ned himself--consistentlyhimself—consistently characterizes it as "magic". Ned even links his ability to his father's and half-brothers' talent at stage magic.