The Past
A brief recap of the main events of Season 1. Encouraged by her aunts, Chuck takes up bee-keeping after the death of her father.The Present
It's been over six months since the events of "Corpsicle", and Chuck is beginning to feel restless, the same dissatisfaction with her life that, a year before, prompted her to take that ill-fated cruise.When Olive snaps under the pressure of being everyone's Secret-Keeper, Aunt Lily suggests an extended stay at the remote convent where she herself stayed, thirty years previously, when secretly pregnant with Chuck. Olive agrees, and Chuck decides to move into Olive's vacant apartment. Ned, who was perfectly happy with their home life, is deeply hurt, but tries to hide it.
Meanwhile, Emerson is hired by Dusty Fitz to find out who killed his wife, Kentucky, found stung to death by the bees she cared for. As Kentucky worked at Betty's Bees, a honey and honey-products firm, Emerson enlists bee-expert Chuck to go undercover at Betty's Bees. There she meets the eponymous Betty, who's been demoted to a figurehead after Betty's Bees was bought out, and is resentful of its new owner and new bee-girl Chuck.
Tropes
- Bee-Bee Gun: The cause of death for Kentucky Fitz. Chuck avoids the same fate because, as a bee-keeper herself, she knows how to stay calm when swarmed.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Chuck suggests she should move out so she won't walk in on Ned doing something he doesn't want her to see him doing.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Woolsey Nicholls who led a hostile takeover of Betty's Bees, is reducing the quality of the products and wanted to drop Betty as the face of the company in favor of Kentucky.
- Fan Disservice: Kentucky Fitz is a very pretty Southern Belle, who spends most of her time on-screen wrapped in nothing but a sheet. However: the sheet is because she's lying on a slab in the morgue, and she's also covered in pustulent welts from the bee stings that killed her. And a bunch of the bees made it into her lungs somehow, and fly out at our heroes. Sleep tight!
- Female Gaze: Chuck pouring a hive full of her own bees over a shirtless Ned, to revive them. Was that method necessary? Probably not. Did ABC get many complaints? Again, probably not.
- Homage: To the opening scene of The Sound of Music after Olive leaves for the convent.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Olive says she needs to "get somebody's... something" in order to speak privately to Chuck, who is hiding from her aunts, who have walked into the Pie Hole for the first time.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: Olive has a near-nervous breakdown over it.
- Men Don't Cry: Emerson aggressively reinforces this paradigm after Chuck encourages Dusty to cry for Kentucky.
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Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: The murderer is Woolsey Nicholls played by French Stewart of 3rd Rock from the Sun fame (although viewers may have trouble recognizing him without his trademark squinty eyes). - Nuns Are Funny: Olive gets shipped off to a convent after her breakdown.
- Shout-Out: reference to the Happy Time Temp Agency, from creator Bryan Fuller's previous series, Dead Like Me.
- Trade Snark: By the Narrator, of all people.
- The Worm That Walks: Chuck brings up the possibility of a bee-based one as the culprit.
