Pushing Daisies s01e03 Episode Script

Previously on Pushing Daisies: Charlotte was a nice girl.
What if you didn't have to be dead? Nobody can know.
You touch murder victims, you ask who killed them.
You touch them again, they're dead.
- You collect the reward? - That's it in a nutshell.
- Who's the girl stuck to Ned? - Childhood sweetheart.
- Do they touch much? - Wish they would.
- What's she doing? Dead Girl's gotta go.
- Dead Girl's not going.
Haven't seen each other in 20 years.
Don't you wanna know me? - I wanna know all about you.
We all have secrets.
At this very moment young Ned was 9 years, 34 weeks, He was a gifted boy.
Not academically, nor athletically.
He was gifted in a way no other boy was gifted.
Young Ned could touch dead things and bring them back to life.
But if he touched a dead thing twice, it died again forever.
The consequence of not touching a dead thing twice was as cruel as any consequence.
And that was: Something else had to die.
Young Ned rationalized this consequence was beyond his control.
He was not to blame.
But to remain blameless, he had to understand.
He realized to give life, he had to take it.
Death, however, had a grace period.
What young Ned did not know was how long that grace period was.
One minute.
Fearing the consequences of his actions Ned vowed to never, ever again bring the dead back to life for more than a minute.
Until he did it again.
The expression "pie in the sky" entered popular culture in 1911.
It refers to a dessert so sweet it can only be found in heaven.
If you're craving something before you die I recommend where the Pie-Maker makes his pies.
But if you're like Chuck you may enjoy the pie even after you die.
Her 60 seconds came and went.
She stayed alive.
And instead, someone else had to die.
He kept Chuck blissfully unaware of this fact.
She was alive again.
That was that.
Which birthday do I celebrate? I've got two of them now.
First day alive, first day alive again.
One that requires less explanation.
You remember my 8th birthday, right before my dad died? You remember what you got me? - A T-shirt.
- With a beaver on it.
He had lipstick kisses on his cheek.
He was holding a sign saying, "Be kind to animals, kiss a beaver.
" I suppose I should be celebrating every minute now, shouldn't I? I could be anybody, anybody I want.
I like that.
Gonna give that thought.
The Pie-Maker liked that idea as well.
As long as her thoughts didn't fall on Why is it only a minute? - Hmm? - A minute seems awfully arbitrary.
A minute's a long time.
A lot can happen.
The longer someone's around that's not supposed to be the more likely it is that something will happen.
Not necessarily directly or by any fault of theirs.
- You know, butterfly wings and such.
- What about them? - They cause hurricanes.
- Oh, right.
Am I a hurricane? Little bit, but I like the weather.
Mm.
- You really shouldn't do that.
- Mm.
Chuck wasn't the only storm brewing in The Pie Hole that evening.
An innocuous low-pressure system was forming that would soon become Hurricane Olive.
Watching the Pie-Maker kiss the woman that wasn't her Olive stopped breathing.
It was as if all the oxygen had left the room.
Espresso? Please? - We have coffee.
- You have an espresso machine.
- It's broken.
Sits there pretty, but nobody touches it.
- Decaf or regular? - No flavors? Hazelnut? French vanilla? Why can't sugar be enough? Here's your sugar.
Oh, I forgot to breathe.
- Ever felt like the oxygen left the room? - Oh, my, yes.
In that moment, Alfredo Aldarisio recognized a kindred spirit in Olive Snook.
He also lived in constant fear of the oxygen leaving the room.
But his pathology ran much, much deeper.
He was haunted by the notion that at any moment, Earth could lose its atmosphere.
And he would be sucked into the vacuum of space.
Excuse me.
A traveling salesman by trade Mr.
Aldarisio sells pharmaceutical alternatives which he also uses to manage his condition.
Medicinal.
You're not wrong about the oxygen.
Planet's losing atmosphere, affecting gravity.
Volumes aren't what they used to be.
Had to adjust the kilogram.
Well, if you ask me, the kilogram needed be taken down a peg.
Decaf or regular? Regular.
Lots of sugar.
More than enough.
Emerson Cod, private investigator, made a business of murder.
But before he could get down to business I feel like ice cream.
Musing on setting someone on fire doesn't mean you really set them on fire.
The thought makes you happy.
For a second, then you feel bad, but that second could be fun.
- Setting someone on fire? - I was just speaking in the figurative.
Someone should set you on fire for throwing my heart under a bus.
- You told me he didn't want me.
- That was the truth bus.
Not the truth bus.
That was the bitchy cross-town express.
- By bitchy, you mean frank and honest? - Lf I want frank and honest I don't want frank and honest.
I never want frank and honest, so let's just take it off the docket.
While we're on the subject of frank and honest, I don't like that girl.
Not one bit.
Emerson Cod liked her even less.
So much so, it warranted a private conversation with the Pie-Maker.
But not private enough.
So somebody died? How did they die? They died mysteriously.
- A he somebody or a she somebody? - He.
Told you I wanted to discuss this in private.
- Chuck is part of my private.
- Ain't part of mine.
I don't know her.
Is the mysterious part the way they died or the circumstances? Find a noose around his neck and didn't know how it got there? Drown in his bed, but the sheets were dry? - You're obsessed.
- Am I? Do you think dying has made me morbid? Come on.
How did the somebody die? He said it felt like life left him, like I'm gonna leave you.
It could be like one of those untraceable poisons.
Or a four-stage poison, when you have to, like, touch four things before it actually kills the person.
Could be that.
What did you say it was, besides mysterious? - I have not yet expressed my opinion.
- Would you care to express it now? You need to take a coupon for this conversation, redeem it at another date.
- I want to use my coupon now.
- Redeem it tomorrow.
There's somebody in the county fridge I need you to talk to.
Em? In private, my private, which doesn't include her.
So she better not come.
I can write a book on hand moisturizer.
Nobody wants the last thing they been touched with to be ashy and dry.
- Take a gander.
- Smooth.
You got some serious cracks going on there.
Put those down here.
Hi.
Thought you just came by to say hello.
You won't even know I'm here.
- Because you leaving? - No.
Come on.
It makes her happy.
You remember what that happiness looks like.
Redeem your coupon.
Oh, now you're gonna listen to me.
No, no, no.
I ain't gonna say another word.
Future Me is going, "I told you so," up one side, down the other.
But Now Me is just gonna sit back and watch.
Uh-huh.
- Oh, no.
- Oh, no, what? The facts were these: Cunning and corrupt, Lawrence Schatz was a funeral director who made a living off the dead above and beyond his job description.
Two days, eight hours and 43 minutes before his death he was exposed as a grave robber.
Oh, I was just prepping the body for burial.
Your wife's gorgeous.
How did you guys meet? But before any legal action could be taken before the spoils of his grave-robbing could be found Lawrence Schatz found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He was 44 years, 17 months, 10 days, when he found himself in close proximity of the Pie-Maker.
But to keep his Sleeping Beauty alive meant that someone else had to die.
What if you didn't have to be dead? One minute later.
The Pie-Maker took a life and gave it to someone else.
Why are you running away? Vertigo, dizzy.
The room started spinning.
I think it's my shoes.
They're stiff and they pinch and I think they're cutting off my circulation.
That was mean, a very mean thing you did.
Really? Future Me is here now and he's got something to say.
You didn't touch him.
How are we supposed to find who killed him? - Already know who.
- Mysterious part is how he was killed? - Already know that.
- How was he killed and who's the killer? Yeah.
Who is the killer? The Pie-Maker's eye twitched in anticipation of the lie he was about to tell.
But instead, what he told was the truth.
- Me.
- What? You killed someone? - Who did you kill? - I didn't - You didn't.
That's why somebody died.
- Stop talking.
- You didn't what? - Look, you need a ticket to ride this ride.
Your ticket gets punched, gotta take somebody's.
- Why are you still talking? - Rip the Band-Aid.
I'm not a ripper.
I pull up a corner a little, run it under water pull it up a little more.
It's a process.
- Better to rip.
I didn't actively kill.
I'm not an active killer.
I'm not a killer.
You killed someone for me? It wasn't my fault.
It's a random proximity thing.
There was no choice or decision-making whatsoever.
- It just happened.
- But you knew it would happen.
I was incapacitated with not being able to think.
I had one thought.
It was of you.
It clogged me up.
No thoughts could get through, including to touch you again.
Every minute I've been celebrating wasn't really mine to celebrate.
As Chuck considered the life she was living that was not her own Olive considered the life she was not living.
- Might I make an observation? - Compliment or criticism? A neutral thought, I would say, is neither complimentary nor critical.
Neutral thought gives me pause.
Neutral for this portion of the conversation.
I have complimentary observations as part of a follow-up discussion.
I headline with an offer to repair your machine.
- Your thought? - You seem decidedly unhappy.
- I haven't decided that.
- No anxieties? Neuroses? - Pathologies? - Garden variety.
- What are you beating at? - I'm beating at happiness.
I've beaten it into submission and bottled it for convenience.
It's homeopathic.
Meaning it deeply relates to gay people? Gay only in that they are bright and happy.
Never have to worry about the oxygen leaving the room again.
Don't go bothering the customers with this.
This is a pie house, not some herbal crack den.
Chuck, say something.
Can't for the life of me think of anything.
Oh, I forgot, it's not even my life, is it? Not now.
I feel violated.
That was my information.
There's your information and there's my information.
That was our information.
You let a man die, a man who could have been me.
- But it wasn't.
- Could have been.
That was a business associate.
- He hooked us up with Corpse Bride.
- He stole stuff off dead people.
Regardless how he ran his business, he never interfered with mine.
- You made me an accomplice to murder.
- Stop that.
I didn't murder.
There was no malice aforethought.
Okay, maybe accidental, involuntary manslaughter.
Oh, you accidentally, involuntarily let Dead Girl live? - Well - That's what I thought you'd say.
Schatz was murdered enough for his brother to hire me to find who killed him.
Why did you take this case? You want me to take this case.
I'm making sure nobody else solves it.
I didn't wanna go down this road.
I'm sensitive to your experience.
I understand it's traumatic.
But now, I need to chat with Schatz before he goes into the ground tomorrow.
I'm not going back.
Returning to the scene of a crime is sloppy.
- And by the way, to ask him what? - I wanna ask Lawrence what he did with all those precious heirlooms.
So you can return it to the families and help heal the grieving? Yeah.
Because after the grieving stops, you have joy.
And with joy comes money.
And Louis Schatz will stop asking questions about how his brother died.
I'm not touching Lawrence Schatz.
It's too traumatic.
I am fragile on this issue.
- That how it is? - Yeah.
That's how it is.
Whatever you say, killer.
The Pie-Maker rationalized circumstances beyond his control were responsible for Lawrence Schatz's death.
He was not to blame.
Rationalizing those rationalizations to the man he inadvertently killed was something he'd rather not do.
I wanna talk to Lawrence Schatz.
- Oh.
- I want you to talk to him too.
Why would I do that? So you can apologize and I can say thank you.
As the Pie-Maker found himself back at the scene of his crime Chuck found herself back where her second life began now with the understanding of how it began.
- Have you already been here? - Hmm? - Lawrence Schatz? - Louis.
Lawrence is dead.
- Hey, Emerson.
- Hey, Louie.
Darling Mermaid Darlings.
Buried their niece, "Lonely Tourist" Charlotte Charles.
- You see, they're on tour.
- I do.
It's exciting.
Tour's canceled.
They're in a dark place, kind of an emotional relapse.
- Have we met before? - No.
The cause of the Darling Mermaid Darlings ' emotional relapse was this: After losing Chuck Aunts Lily and Vivian had a better appreciation of the preciousness of life.
With luggage packed, bonnets cinched, and sunscreen vigorously applied they were ready at last to start their long-awaited comeback tour.
But not today.
To their surprise, there was something in the morning mail alongside the Thrifty Nickel and the Pennysaver.
It's from Charlotte.
In that moment, only for a moment, Aunt Lily forgot Chuck was dead.
Or, at least, dead to her.
Then she remembered.
Poor, poor Charlotte.
And with that, The Darling Mermaid Darlings canceled their comeback tour.
I'm having a martini and going to bed.
Larry died on the same day we buried "Lonely Tourist" Charlotte Charles.
We don't often bury a celebrity.
- Celebrity.
- Burying a celebrity even a pseudo-celebrity who's famous for how she died must be a coup for any funeral home.
It would be, if it wasn't for Larry's grave-robbing scandal, or his murder.
He's in here.
I got it locked so no one can defile his dead body.
Are you sure he was murdered? I've been putting it all together.
And, boy, do I have a tale to tell.
And this is the tale Louis Schatz told.
He detailed a series of events that began when he caught his brother, Lawrence, in the act.
I was just prepping the body for burial.
- Your wife's gorgeous.
How'd you meet? - Oh, Larry.
How could you? When word of Lawrence's grave-robbing ways spread through the sleepy hollow of Couer d'Couers, there was public outrage.
Bulk hate mail and death threats by the hundreds frightened the truth out of Lawrence.
According to Louis, he only confessed his sins to the one person he knew would forgive him.
I buried it all where no one could find it.
You have to give everything back.
But I buried it really deep.
Louis insisted what his brother Lawrence did not confess was where he had hidden the spoils of his grave-robbery.
I'm bad, bad.
That secret, he took to his own grave when he presumably died of heart failure.
But as Louis was besieged by angry families seeking the return of stolen heirlooms, he began to wonder: What if it wasn't heart failure? What if his brother was murdered? What if, in the hundreds of letters addressed to Lawrence threatening his life, one of them was a promise? What if his brother was murdered and what if his murder was next? I told Larry it was bad karma.
The whole thing makes me sick, just sick.
Know what it's like to live in fear that you drop dead where you're standing because of something somebody else did? I feel like I could smoke a cigar with you.
I don't smoke.
That was Larry.
Here, take it.
He would.
It's true what they say about twins.
His life was my life.
Strange to share someone's life.
Feel like mine's tainted now.
I would love to get back what he took.
Um, we have a moment to pay our respects while you go rustle up that hate mail to go? Yeah.
As they stood over the man who died for one of them and was killed by the other Chuck and the Pie-Maker carefully planned their words.
- Yes? - I'm sorry for what I did.
It was an accident, but partially on purpose.
However inadvertent, I'm sorry I did it.
That's all.
Hello.
"Lonely Tourist" Charlotte Charles? You part of my welcoming committee? More like a beneficiary, in that I'm still alive, which is why you're not.
Am I a human sacrifice? - Hey, Emerson.
- Oh, hey, Larry.
What'd you do with that stuff you stole? - Why don't you ask Louis? - Louis said you buried it.
And you believed him? You met Louis? How did I die? Did somebody kill me? Hey, did Louis kill me? Nobody killed you, per se.
Yes, they did.
It was so I could live.
It wasn't personal, I didn't pick you.
Selection is random.
Didn't help you were in the next room.
- Louis has that stuff you stole? - We stole.
It was a family business.
Louis has everything but this watch.
My dad gave me a watch like that.
You were buried with it.
Well, supposed to be.
Caught me in the cookie jar.
Ha-ha.
You stole that off my dead body? Your dead body wasn't doing anything with it.
Hey, what are you doing? Hey, hey! Hey, what are you doing? If I - It's stuck.
- You better be playing.
Twenty-nine seconds.
Oh, hell, no! One minute's time was nearing its end.
Random selection was about to begin.
Five seconds! Ah! Maybe I should let him have his life back.
I can't breathe! I can't! - Not how it works.
- No regifting! Help! That wasn't cool, you guys.
Look.
Oh, that was so sweet of my aunts to bury it with me.
My dad had it and then I had it.
Then I suppose he had it, which really steams me.
- You got it back.
- Yeah, I did.
It's nice to get things back.
My aunts canceled their tour.
I was looking forward to hiding in the crowd with a big pair of sunglasses and a parasol watching them perform in their mermaid suits.
He said they were in a dark place.
He said they had had some kind of emotional relapse.
Couldn't we just? You can't see your aunts.
I'm sorry.
If Chuck could not regift the life she'd been given she at least wanted to find a way to share it with her aunts Lily and Vivian.
Anybody dead back there that shouldn't be? No.
Sweet.
After Lawrence Schatz was exposed as a grave robber the mailbox at the Schatz Brothers Funeral Home received 1867 hate letters.
Each one a catalog of heirlooms feared stolen and lost.
Louis Schatz is a big fat liar.
I say fat in reference to his size as a liar, not as a judgment of his appearance.
I'm not mad at him for lying.
If I could pin my crimes on some dead relative especially some guilty dead relative, I'd certainly consider it.
Sucker played me like Boo Boo the fool.
Hiring me to make him look innocent.
He knew where that dead-people treasure was buried.
It's all right, though.
I'm gonna follow his lying fat ass until he lead me to it.
Then I'm gonna take it.
- You can't steal dead people's stuff.
- I'm not the one who stole it.
I don't condone what they did, but it's once removed now.
I'm not the pirate, just looking for treasure.
- The pirate metaphor is weak.
- It's apt.
I find a dead-pirate treasure, I take it.
Doesn't matter whose it was, if whose it was is dead.
It's mine now.
This isn't a doubloon.
This is somebody's something.
Stealing from a pirate who already stole is still stealing.
It's not once removed.
Somebody buried it with somebody who can't use it.
What if Lawrence Schatz was murdered for this buried treasure? Well, was gonna be before you got to him.
- Why'd you say it like that? - There's hostility in these letters.
You realize how angry someone has to be to put pen to paper? I mean, these people are furious.
Anyone could be the killer.
Lawrence wasn't murdered.
He was accidentally, involuntarily manslaughtered.
- I appreciate that.
- There ain't no killer.
Be that as it may, murder was on someone's mind.
As Chuck cataloged another missing heirloom she considered what her aunts had lost.
And how it could never be returned.
This is depressing.
Did you say depressing? FDA-approved pharmaceutical-grade herbology.
Like a bully for your emotions.
Mm-hm.
Emotions need to be bullied.
At least groomed.
Indulging depression is like indulging a horrible, willful child.
Allow it to run roughshod, you cater to its whim.
So bully it and bully it good.
Everyone needs to be bullied sometimes.
- Do you have any literature? - A pamphlet, if you'd like that.
Our herbs contain ingredients in the proper doses manufactured with the strictest of quality control.
- Sounds more civil than antidepressants.
- And with fewer side effects.
- Can I have these? - I can't just give it to you.
It's a controlled substance.
But I have a sample pack.
Chuck wasn't thinking of herself.
She was thinking of her aunts.
Though the life she was living was not her own Chuck found a way for her living gift to be the gift that kept giving.
She took responsibility for Lily and Vivian's happiness and took action.
Even after she was dead and gone Chuck found a way to do what she had done all her life: Care for her aunts.
- Oh, you forgot one.
- Outside my zone.
Oh, it's not so far.
You wanna be a delivery boy or a delivery man? Boy.
You be a man.
Oh, but it's my day off.
Ugh.
And I'm a girl.
In her own way, Olive identified with the plight of the abandoned pie.
It was meant for someone and without a little effort it would never be with the one it was meant to be with.
And tragically for Louis Schatz he was meant to be with his brother.
- Didn't hear you leave this morning.
- Didn't hear you come in last night.
- I was having conversations with myself.
- What'd you talk about? Asked myself, if I were storming a castle to save a Sleeping Beauty from the jaws of death and in the melee, my Sword of Truth flew swift and killed an unfortunate outlaw nearby, how would I feel? Did you successfully rescue Sleeping Beauty? In this scenario, yeah.
How would you feel, hypothetically? I'd feel happy and then bad, and primarily happy.
Then I'd think about it too much and then I'd feel bad again.
That's kind of how I feel, slash, exactly how I feel.
I don't want you to think I'm a killer.
I don't wanna think you're a killer.
I wanna think of you as Prince Charming.
I'm not setting a standard for you to live up to.
It's just That's not good.
- Did? Did you? - No.
No! As Chuck and the Pie-Maker considered the dead Schatz brother in the freezer Olive Snook considered the consequences of driving several towns away to make a delivery to an address that was not part of the regular delivery route.
As she drew closer to the front door Olive considered the sheer number of crimes against delivery people and how they were on the rise.
SOS.
OS.
OS.
SOS.
Your pie smells delicious.
Pies for breakfast always remind me of Mother.
Vermouth always reminds me of Mother.
Why are we having pie? And who the hell are you? Forgive Lily.
The last time we had visitors, there was a home invasion.
That was all over the evening news.
You're Darling Mermaid Darlings Vivian and Lily Charles.
I saw you perform at the Callum County Country Fair when I was a little girl.
- Olive is in the pie industry.
- Really? Someone has made you the recipients of pie from The Pie Hole as in "shut your.
" Or in this case, "open your," because it's real good.
Pie Hole.
I like it.
It's provocative.
- You must love pie to make it your work.
- Lots of love at The Pie Hole.
- There's Gruyere baked into the crust.
- I didn't know that.
Charlotte loved Gruyere.
We recently lost our niece, "Lonely Tourist" Charlotte Charles.
It's all over the news.
I am so sorry for your loss.
I'm sure you're sick of hearing it.
I don't want to beat a sentiment to I'm so sorry for your loss.
This has to be from that man who lived next door when Charlotte was a girl.
He had a filthy mind as a child.
He gave Charlotte a beaver T-shirt for her 8th birthday.
- What did we call him? - Beaver Boy.
Beaver Boy.
Seemed like he grew up to be a nice man.
Beaver Boy did say he was a pie maker.
I imagine he gives lots of people pie.
Beaver Boy is a pie maker who was childhood sweethearts with your niece, Charlotte Charles who is dead? Presently? The truth about the dead girl who wasn't dead vibrated on Olive's tongue.
She dare not let it out, so she took another bite.
Not realizing Louis Schatz was dead and wedged between dough and yesterday's eggs Emerson Cod prepared to monitor every move he made in hopes of finding buried treasure.
- Yeah? - Hi.
- One of the Schatz - Louis.
Louis is in my freezer.
Not sure how he got there.
Doesn't look like his doing, on account of he's dead.
- You being set up.
- We're being set up.
- Why would anyone wanna set us up? - No, you being set up.
- Why would anyone wanna set me up? - Hell if I know.
Maybe they figure, since you killed the other - Oh, have I been exposed? Somebody knows something.
And that somebody probably already called the police.
Hey, the police are here.
Hi.
You need to follow us.
- Where are we going? - To heaven.
- I got in? - And heaven's closing in five minutes.
- One, actually.
- Heaven's closing in, like, one minute.
Hey, Emerson.
You going to heaven too? Yeah.
We all going to heaven.
- That's weird.
We died at the same time.
- Mm-hm.
The rapture.
- No way.
- Yes way.
- Is Larry here? Yeah.
He told us to ask you what you did with all that stuff you stole.
First, you gotta tell us who killed you.
Heaven would want to know.
- I choked on a piece of tongue.
- Yours or somebody else's? In this instance, the tongue belonged to a cow.
Although Louis Schatz had been limiting his portions they weren't so small they couldn't block his windpipe when he was confronted by an angry customer.
He said something about a Civil War heirloom.
Then I lost consciousness.
- I usually cough it up before I pass out.
- Five seconds.
- There's no seat belts in this car.
- Wait.
What did you do with all that stuff you stole off those dead folk? Sorry.
What are we gonna do with the body? Put Schatz back exactly where he died and show whoever this sucker was who tried to frame you how a sucker gets framed.
But we don't know who the sucker is.
Yes, we do.
Wilfred Woodruff.
In Chuck's cataloging of heirlooms feared stolen by trusted funeral she came across a particularly angry death threat written by one Wilfred Woodruff.
Mr.
Woodruff claimed a Civil War heirloom buried with his grandfather, was offered in an online auction which was traced back to the brothers Schatz.
Mr.
Woodruff clearly stated in writing that punishment for insulting the Woodruff family honor in such a way was death.
- It's all locked up.
What? - I ain't gonna fit.
- You'll fit.
There's plenty of room.
Oh, the window looked bigger from up there.
Ho.
- Are you stuck? - No.
Yes, you are.
You're like Winnie-the-Pooh.
Give me your paws, Pooh.
You people stop pulling me! Oh! Oh! Oh.
Oh, this isn't good at all.
What part of "do not resuscitate" don't you people understand? Honey, did you turn off the gas? Huh? Huh? Whoa, whoa.
Wilfred Woodruff? The Pie-Maker considered the choices he made that brought him to this very moment a moment that may be his last.
The irony of being struck down by the man who murdered the twin of the man he killed was not lost on the Pie-Maker.
Also not lost, his agility.
- Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
- Oh, my God.
- What's going on? - Wilfred Woodruff found his sword.
I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.
- What line? It's autumn.
- Ulysses S.
Grant said that.
Not all of it, just the last part.
Battle of Missionary Ridge.
My great-great-great-great-grandpappy fought against him with this sword.
- You adopted? Wilfred Woodruff was not adopted.
On a hot day in the summer of 1863 Wilfred Woodruff's great-great-great- great-grandfather Fambing Woo was laying track for the Central Pacific Railroad.
The decision was made to find a better life.
As the Civil War was still raging the other men chose to go northwest.
Why Fambing Woo chose to run southeast is not known.
Some said it was the hand of destiny.
Others felt it was heatstroke.
Eventually, Fambing was forced to steal the clothes off a fallen soldier.
Returning to his journey, he soon realized he was not alone.
Fambing immediately realized he did not belong in this place at this time.
But this time and place seemed more than happy to have him.
Decorated for his bravery in the Battle of Missionary Ridge and the second Battle of Murfreesboro Fambing went on to found his own branch of the Woodruff family tree.
This sword was to be buried with my Grandpa.
Instead, it shows up at some online auction, at which I take umbrage.
Remember, mind over matter makes Pooh unfatter.
I might be stuck, but I can still reach my gun.
I was thrice named alternate sword master at the Southern Area Regional Volunteer Infantry Reenactment Regiment.
I wanted to be a Jedi.
You killed Louis Schatz and stuffed him in my freezer.
I put food in there.
It wasn't my fault, it just happened.
- Not like you killed Lawrence Schatz.
- Did not.
- I saw you.
- You didn't see squat.
Wilfred Woodruff saw more than squat when he approached Lawrence Schatz about his great-great-great-great- grandfather's sword.
He saw the Pie-Maker fleeing the scene of Lawrence Schatz's murder.
I didn't touch Lawrence until he died and in his coffin.
I didn't touch Louis, not until after he died and I rolled him onto a dolly truck.
- Because you wrote a letter? - A death threat.
Then someone died.
That has a way of coming back to haunt you.
Unless you framed someone for murder, you ass.
I had no choice.
Of course you did.
Everything we do is a choice.
Oatmeal or cereal, highway or side streets, kiss or keep her.
We make choices and live with consequences.
If someone gets hurt along the way, we ask for forgiveness.
- It's the best anyone can do.
- I can do better.
Ned? Help! Kick, Pooh, kick! At that very moment, Chuck saw the Pie-Maker perhaps not as he really was but as he would always appear to her: Her Prince Charming.
Olive Snook's blood stirred with revelation and opportunity.
She could see Chuck had faked her death for some nefarious purpose.
I could smell trouble on her like she stepped in it and it stuck to her heel.
What she couldn't see was the distant glimmer of her own Prince Charming.
The broken espresso machine sitting there being pretty, with no one to touch it had been touched, filled with water and packed with coffee grounds.
For the time being, the romantic gesture was lost on Olive.
Her espresso was much too bitter.
But this would not be her last cup.
Not bitter at all was Emerson Cod.
He learned a lesson from the brothers Schatz.
It wasn't what he had gained, it was what he wanted to lose.
He didn't want to lead the life they led.
Not to say he no longer wanted to make a living off the dead.
He made a decision while wedged in the window that day never to be wedged again.
At that same moment Lily and Vivian Charles were enjoying a wedge of happiness with Gruyere baked into the crust.
Woodruff was charged for involvement in the death of Louis Schatz a key player in the grave-robbing scandal.
The gift of life Chuck had been given was indeed the gift that kept giving.
She went about matching hate mail with heirlooms and regifting them to their rightful heirs like she had been regifted to the Pie-Maker.
- I would do it again.
- Hmm? - I think it's nice the way it is.
- No.
I made a choice and I would do it again.
I let Lawrence Schatz die.
If faced with that now, I would make the same choice.
In a loop, I'd make the same choice every time.
That's how confident I am that it was the right choice for me to make.
I'm sorry if that makes me a bad person but I'm not sorry that you're alive.
I like that you made that choice, and the fact that you did it on purpose well, it makes it far more fun than if you did it by accident.
I'm gonna see if I've got some plastic wrap.
Hmm.