"What's a rooftop full of bees compared to someone who can catch her when she falls?" — Ned

Poor Ned. The man who's so afraid of intimacy solved some of his problems when he brought his childhood sweetheart back to life, but this episode of Pushing Daisies [1] revealed the hard part of having Chuck back. Meanwhile, the team investigated why a crop duster crashed into a luxury apartment, and Olive pondered what to do about Chuck's secret. To read my take on the episode and add your thoughts, just

I love how this show works with themes: Everything in the story is tied together by a central thread — in this case, loneliness — but it's not overbearing or cheesy. The flashback at the beginning showed us an isolated Young Ned ultimately being rescued by Digby, who seemed to instinctively understand that Ned could never touch him. It tied in quite nicely to Chuck's story; she's seemed, till now, to be OK with the no-touching business, but she certainly didn't hesitate at the chance to hold someone else's hand. That's not surprising, really; after all, this is the girl who waxed poetic about the healing nature of hugs. But it was cause for Ned to get both jealous and worried about their future. What's life without a hand to hold?

The crew, meanwhile, tried to piece together what caused a plane to careen into an apartment building. The answer, in part, was a con man named Lemuel, who was off in search of diamonds his former cellmate had hidden. Olive and the aunts, meanwhile, were tending to an "alive again" carrier pigeon who had a message to deliver. Everything converged at a windmill, where it was revealed that the windmill's resident, Elsita, had been keeping up a carrier-pigeon correspondence with Lemuel that her mother had started with Lemuel's cellmate. Oh, and the diamonds? They were in her totally unexplained wooden leg.

Olive got the chance to be both villain and hero this time. She wanted to screw up Chuck's secret — but she's also become close to the aunts on their own (thanks to the pigeon plot and an awesome duet of "Birdhouse in Your Soul") and didn't want them to feel shocked or betrayed. I wasn't sure initially how Olive would fit into the show from week to week, but now I think she's going to be fun to have around.

Some other thoughts:

• Jayma Mays was hysterical as Elsita in the hostage scene. "You take a hostage like you tie your sneakers?" I also loved the way she scooted out of the bows.
• OK, who didn't say "awww!" during the beekeeper suit dance? In fact, the entire bee plotline was pretty great. "What happened to the bees that stung you? That's a suicide attack!"
• This episode was definitely shot with a lower budget, and it seemed like the windmills and the city skyline in the rooftop shot were miniatures. Still, it doesn't seem to have hurt the show; if anything, it adds to the surreal, cartoony feeling.
• A few favorite lines: "I don't ... do heartbeats," "Big daddy needs some new yarn," "We have hundreds of little problems that we've gotta sort out before we even get to the big problem, which means we're like everybody else in the world."
• Sight Gag O' The Night: Lily's eyepatch having yet another use, this time holding the light while she fixed Pige's wing. Runner-up: Lily spotting Chuck for just a second in the windmill, but losing her when the blade swept past the door.

Did any other Six Feet Under fans crack up at the National Area of Retired Mills acronym being NARM [2]? How did Chuck not realize Lemuel's hand was fake? And has beekeeping ever seemed so sexy? Weigh in with your thoughts.

Photos copyright 2007 ABC, Inc. [3]