Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Ned (Pushing Daisies)

*A few Ned-related spoilers.*

Going back to one of my first serious TV loves, Pushing Daisies. I was so deep into this show back in the day. I watched a couple episodes from season 1 because Raúl Esparza was a guest star and he was one of my major Broadway guys at the time. I went into the show knowing absolutely nothing about it and came away sort of bewildered but determined to have more of this series in my life. As I’ve said before, Pushing Daisies is the first show that made me specifically seek out its showrunner, leading me to Wonderfalls (with bonus Lee Pace!), Dead Like Me, and later Hannibal. When it was on the bubble during season 2, I wrote letters to ABC every day. This show grabbed my brain and my heart and wouldn’t let go. Is it any wonder that it’s neurodivergent as hell?

A big source of my love, of course, is Ned, the man who makes pies and wakes the dead. Back when I wrote my Favorite Characters post on Ned, I attributed a lot of his traits to his powers and his traumatic experiences in childhood: discovering that he can bring dead things back to life with a touch of his finger, learning the caveats to those powers in devastating ways (including his mother permanently dropping dead with a good-night kiss after he revived her the first time,) and being abandoned by his father and sent to a bleak boarding school. No doubt Ned has a ton of trauma that contributes to him craving routine and consistency, hesitant to connect with others despite being lonely. And yes, some of his issues with touch are down to his magic powers, not wanting to inadvertently bring something dead back to life and vigilant not to permanently kill his alive-again dog or childhood sweetheart with an accidental second touch. Those things are definitely factors.

But those traits present themselves in very autistic ways, and besides, there’s no rule that says he can’t have magic powers/childhood trauma and also be autistic (hello, Matilda!) Ned tends to speak at a rapid pace in a low, flat tone. He stress bakes when he’s worried, both because the familiarity soothes him and because pie is his strongest connection to his late mother. He can find it really difficult to talk about his feelings—sometimes he can’t bring himself to speak at all, sometimes he broaches an issue with extreme reticence, and sometimes he blurts it out in moments where he just can’t help it.

Ned’s power is governed by three incontrovertible rules, and he’s added all sorts of additional rules and protocols to that, along with inventions that help him out with Digby and Chuck. He makes a long-handled petting device for Digby, installs a plexiglass divider in his car so Chuck can sit in the front, and wears slippers with bells around the apartment so both Chuck and Digby will hear him coming. This displays creativity and ingenuity, not to mention some solid tinkering skills. That said, Ned is surrounded by characters who, while also ND-coded, are not driven nearly as much by structure and protocol as he is. He sometimes views that as a good thing, getting help to come a bit more out of his shell and be adventurous, but when other characters ignore or actively break his self-imposed rules, he gets anxious, which can make him feel uptight and like he’s the problem.

In the initial run of Pushing Daisies and through several rewatches, I was bugged by a storyline in season 2 where Ned struggles with Chuck moving out of his apartment, eventually becoming roommates with Olive. It felt to me like Ned was trying to control Chuck—maybe not even entirely consciously, but it came across as possessive in a way that I didn’t like. On my latest rewatch, though, viewing this storyline through an autistic lens helped me contextualize it more. It’s not that Ned is trying to control Chuck and prevent her from spreading her wings beyond him. It’s that he’s being hit with a lot of change really fast, he doesn’t know what this means for their relationship, and he kind of feels like having a problem with this makes him a jerk. He’s a guy who loves his girlfriend and is badly navigating a new situation that makes him feel really uncomfortable. Even though Chuck is just across the hall and likes the “Parisian” flair of his-and-hers apartments, Ned has lost some of his solidity and is kind of spiraling about it. And while he likes Olive and is glad for Chuck to have a friend, he also feels left out and worries that maybe Chuck doesn’t need him anymore.

Chuck, of course, isn’t doing anything wrong, and Ned does ultimately come to terms with the fact that he can’t make her stay. But his difficult feelings about the whole thing aren’t wrong either. Mainly, it’s just a tricky situation that both of them could’ve handled better. I have to say, I really like it when a neurodivergent interpretation helps me feel greater empathy for characters I love in storylines that frustrate me (see also, Keeley Jones and KJPR.)