(S01E06) Up until now, we've only seen Emerson as a gruff P.I. whose role was to throw a sprinkle of cynicism on the decidedly sprightly environment around the Pie Hole. But you knew that eventually we were going to either find out more about his past or see him get involved with one of the people he was investigating. Tonight we got the latter. And his dalliance did a nice job of throwing some needed darkness into what was an overly-sweet episode.

I had gotten used to the progressive de-sweetening of Pushing Daisies over the last few weeks. In fact, I almost welcomed it, as I didn't think I could handle the diabetic shock I was being given week after week. But, even while Ned and Chuck were starting to wonder if their prophylactic love was enough to sustain in the long term, and the episode was discussing some not-so-sweet issues polygamy and cloning, there was still a sugary sheen all around. It came from the tainted almond cream creamer that the doomed dog breeder Harold Hundin drank, the Coll-a-Dor-Russel-a-Poo named Bubblegum, and the evil pet store magnate named Ramsfield Snuppy. It also came with Ned's hopelessly romantic assertion at the end that what he and Chuck have may be strange, but it's still more than enough for him.

There are weeks when the cutesy tends to weigh the hour down, and this week was one of them. On top of that, the mystery of Hundin's (played by The Soup's Joel McHale) demise was a bit more convoluted than it needed to be; it seemed pretty clear that the stern obedience mistress Simone was the killer, and it would have been fun to see Emerson bring her down despite his growing feelings for her. But they threw a left turn in there when all of a sudden original wife Hillary was the one who was the killer, even though the motive -- not wanting to give up Bubblegum to the evil Snuppy (see how cute this week was?) -- was the same as Simone's.

Eh, I guess it doesn't matter, right? We got to see Chuck and Ned touch, albeit in Ned's dream, with the added twist that Chuck was really Olive in a Chuck suit. It seems to be the first decent dream Ned has had since his dad dumped him on that dreary school (in 1987 or so, though it looks like 1957 from the way Sonnenfeld and Fuller has drawn it up). But it's ironic that the Halloween kiss from Olive is what brought it about. "She got into your subconscious and dropped a bomb with her saliva," is how Emerson put it.

The P.I.'s not-so-subtle allusions to how some people are "Neopolitan kind of guys" and that some guys want "one to have, one to hold" were not lost on Ned, who's got the enviable choice of the adorable Chuck or the adorable Olive. We know who he's going to go with, but the writers and Kristin Chenoweth have gotten us to really like Olive; we wish someone would give her some lovin' at some point, whether it be the homeopathic drug guy or the tall jockey (who looked suspiciously like the brother from Old Christine) or even Ned in a particularly weak moment. She's just too damned cute to see her pining after someone week after week.

It was also fun to see everyone participate in the investigation part of the mystery, with Olive going so far as donning a wig and calling Digby "Pickle," and naming herself "Pimento." Ned wasn't so creative; he just switched names with his companion, trying to get some free dream analysis from the pet shrink wife, Heather. And it was quite clever that Chuck had a ready reason for her fake blindness when she visited the seeing-eye trainer wife, Hallie; it was the exact cause of her Aunt Lily's right-eye blindness.

Other fun stuff:

• Emerson on Chuck's horror that he's accepting reward money from Hallie's blind students: "I guess I can pay my bills with blind kid's smiles."
• Notice that Simone was the only Hundin whose first name didn't begin with an H. That's because she was a different wife than the other three; she and Harry were in a business relationship, while the other three "sister wives" actually loved the guy.
• Maybe I'm just getting used to Jim Dale's narration, but I didn't find it to be intrusive at all this week, especially considering how the Halloween episode's narration was very noticeable. Maybe it's because the narrator didn't rhyme this week.
• I liked how Ned's touch was utilized a little differently with Snuppy. They brought him to Harry's funeral to see which wife would react to him being alive.
• Interesting story about how Olive came to the Pie Hole. Her horse Pie died and she felt that a diner shaped like a pie was a sign from somewhere. So it's not only proximity to Ned that's keeping her there.

Nothing from this episode made me think that Daisies is doing anything but being as consistently good as it's been all year. The surrounding tweeness in this episode was a bit much, but the underlying emotions in the stories of Ned, Chuck, Emerson, and Olive are always what's going to drive the series. And this episode did a good job of exploring everyone's emotions.