TV Detail: Pushing Daisies review. Episode 2.04—"Frescorts"

"Frescorts" pulled off a miraculous feat: it kept the momentum from "Bad Habits," one of the best episodes in the entire Pushing Daisies series. There's a melancholic undercurrent running through each episode: every character is lonely, desperately searching for a way to fill the empty spaces in their hearts. Some are more successful at it than others.

"Frescorts" showcased that loneliness more plainly than ever. It also introduced two new endearing characters: Calista, Emerson's mother, a spitfire and fellow private eye (played by Debra Mooney); and Randy Mann, the awkward taxidermist played by David Arquette. (Spoiler: Mann will turn up later in the season to romance Ms. Olive Snook).

Mann initially was one of Emerson's suspects in the death of Joe the Frescort (played by Joshua LeBar, from Entourage). Friend escorts (frescorts: get it?) provide friendship to the friend-making impaired, at a nominal fee. But when Joe turned up dead, Emerson was hired to find the perpetrator, leading to one of the episode's funniest moments: Ned brings Joe back to life in the morgue, and he inexplicably starts leaking/spraying/sneezing formaldehyde. Turns out whoever killed him tried to preserve his body, which naturally made Randy Mann the case's top suspect.

But Mann proved to be even more harmless than Ned, who he formed a strange sort of instant connection with. Both were outcasts as children, taking comfort by retreating into their respective hobbies (piemaking and taxidermy, respectively). Friendship was clearly the theme on display, as Olive and Chuck went from being "besties" to frenemies (after a fight over Ned...again) back to besties again.

And Emerson had issues of his own with his mother. Used to her being his best friend, he didn't know how to handle it when she confronted him on his pop-up book Lil' Gum Shoe, which she inadvertently received a publisher's rejection letter about. Emerson revealed he wrote the book as a map (of sorts) so the seven-year-old daughter he hasn't seen since her infancy could come and find him. Out of the show's quartet of leads, Emerson might very well be the loneliest, a man who hides behind biting sarcasm and one-liners but secretly pines for a connection to anyone as deep as the connection between Ned and Chuck.

Speaking of, the sexual tension between the two seemed off the charts. Of course, in the Pushing Daisies universe, that tension manifests itself in lines like "I'd duvet you right this second" (after Ned told Chuck he's her "king-size duvet of goose down goodness.") But their bond seems to growing stronger than ever, even though both acknowledge their love is not the end-all-be-all. They have to learn how to be live independently, a fact Ned in particular finally embraced. "What makes me unique has brought every person I love into my life," he realizes in the episode's most thoughtful moment. Up until that point, Ned had been trying to hang on to Chuck as tightly as possible, afraid he might lose her. But it seems he's realized their affection is not one-sided, but mutual. She loves him for a reason—as do the other people in his life. It's the most comforting and humbling realization of all: to know that you are loved.