Welcome to the annual Pretty Little Liars Halloween Spooktacular episode!! Well it’s sort of a Halloween episode… it takes place on our Halloween and there are some costumes. So that counts right? We know it’s not Halloween in Rosewood though, because if it were the Liars would totally be dressed as the Spice girls this year!
See! Ali is Ginger because she left the group!
Did you guys know Halloween is my absolute favorite? I bet you did because we are such close friends. Almost close enough that if you thought I was dead and saw me a couple towns over you would dress up in ball gowns and break into a local masquerade. Which brings us right to the beginning of our episode!
Before we begin I want to apologize for the huge delay in this week’s recap! I’m just gonna fess up and let you know that this episode sort of had no plot and it was really hard initially to will myself to recap. It was basically a huge promotional event for Ravenswood aka Calebswood, a new one hour mystery drama which seeks to answer the question about what happens when a young lesbian boy leaves his girlfriend, six cats and Home Depot job to wear flannel and work as a small-town doctor in Colorado with his jaded teenage son and his bright pre-teen daughter.
Anyways back to the beginning. In case you’ve forgotten, the entire town of Ravenswood is entirely in technicolor ever since the great technicolor storm of 1812. The Liar line up prepared to go into a big spooky masquerade Founders Day Ball where Alison will totally totally no really for sure be this time.
Sex in the Edwardian City
They all look fabulous and, oh yeah, everyone has a huge hat.
A Floppy Hat
A Feathered Hat
A Top Hat
Seriously a Top Hat.
Emily, who looks just lovely in some sort of menswear inspired pinstriped frock isn’t so sure though. What if seeing her dead best friend isn’t exciting and amazing?! What if it’s just terrifying and kind of awkward. But the other Liars are lie, “NBD it’s gonna be awesome.” I mean, YOLO right? Unless you’re Alison in which case… YOLT. Not quite the same umph to it.
Remember, if we say “Alison” three times she’ll probably appear.
Just as the Liars are walking in, EzrA calls Aria. They’re not technically back together, but he’s calling I guess because apparently EzrA does whatever the fuck he wants and is also probably A. So.
Aria tells EzrA she is so totally busy doing stuff in Ravenswood. Like tracking down his secret alias and also maybe some light shopping if they hit a sale.
If this is about the kegal balls I already told you, nothing that isn’t silicone!
Ezra is all like “Girl, please be safe and shit because I’m about to seriously come fuck with you and your friends and possibly murder your BFF.” Arias like, “Kay thanks love ya byyyeee.”
While you’re out could you please buy me 10 black hoodies? I need them for a friend.
Except actually Ezra is directly behind the Liars staring at them in a creepy gas-mask costume.
I’m going to buy you kegal balls with braided nylon cord and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.
Cue the Pretty Little Liars intro: Halloween Style.
Nothing says Halloween like inverting the colors
We break away from the Liars to watch Caleb sit forever on a bus. He had thought this strugglebus would take him to A-camp but actually he’s just going to Ravenswood/his future. Getting to Ravenswood by car only takes 15 minutes but by bus it takes 525,600 minutes or possibly just your entire lifetime. On this bus he meets a chick named Miranda who also has no family and is searching for the answers/herself. For the purpose of my sanity (and yours) I’m going to skip the Ravenswood stuff because I watched the pilot and no one scissored so I won’t be recapping it. Also it was boring.
Wait, girl-scissoring isn’t automatically in my abcFamily Ravenswood contract?
Elsewhere the Liars break into the Ravenswood Founders Day party which takes place in some seven-year-old’s sheet fort.
In which Spencer stares directly at Emily’s rack
Amongst the Ravenswood crowd are all sorts of interesting characters! For example there are these two, who turn out to be Ravenswood characters so we don’t care:
How many dildos do you have hidden in that jacket?
And also these two who look maybe like blonde Red Coat twins. Or possibly French Red Coats with those sweet hats:
Check out the mustache on the guy in the tux
And this guy who’s giving Aria a run for her money on America’s Next Top Top Hat.
I only have one picture left in my hand.
But most importantly, the girls run into Mrs. Grundle The Four Thousand Million Billion year old Old House Mother.
I’m going to give you one last chance to tell me who stole the cookie from the cookie jar.
The Liars rush out to follow that chick in the wedding dress and, after a few completely unnecessary Ravenswood set ups, they see Red Coat/Ali and are back on the chase!
Could also just be a girl dressed as” Sexy Teletubby Po”
Sexy Teletubbies?! Why didn’t we think of that?!
Please notice that somehow Aria already lost her hat. We are now 3/4 for hats.
The Liars continue their chase right through into a crypt. The crypt has a statue headstone which they manage to move and leads to a secret passageway. This marks the official point at which the episode just becomes the Liars going through a haunted house without “direction,” “character development” or “plot.”
Four Girls One Crypt
Also I think the same sets were used for some of the haunted house as were used when Byron’s much much much younger girlfriend locked the Liars in Aria’s basement.
Are there any psycho ex-girlfriends down there?
In the basement there’s a weird statue.
I call it “Ode to a Lesbian and her Pet.”
Everyone is distracted by the awesome statue of bird-lady love when suddenly there is a huge gust of wind! Tragically hats blow away and perfectly placed shiny shiny oh so shiny hair is tussled! Spencer and Emily lose their hats, so now we are only 1/4 for hats! Life is so hard.
Is this how they get to Narnia?
And then Hanna’s gone and replaced with a marble statue. I think it’s maybe metaphor.
- Venus de Hanna
Hanna, having been blown away by a wind so strong it instantly removed her from her friends but weak enough that it injured her in no way, wanders the tunnels alone. She walks along with seriously amazing cleavage I hadn’t noticed until now, but without a flashlight or even a fancy torch thing. She suddenly see something unnerving. A sign reading “Help me.” It was probably written by someone trying to make sense of this episode as anything other than a one hour ad for Ravenwood.
This cleavage is why we’re here
…find more cleavage.
Fearing that whoever wrote “Help me” might return to explain why they had to use red crayon to draw on the walls, Hanna drops her hat and runs away. That’s right, we aren’t even halfway through the episode and we’re already 0/4 for hats. No one quite respects a hat the way they used to.
Anyhoo, Hanna starts idly running into the dark. Like most times when the Liars run idly, she suddenly finds herself exactly where she should be. It is yet another stairway/door combo taken from the “Aria’s basement set!”
Please let this be the door that leads to the lesbian orgy dungeon.
Normally when I find an unknown door it leads to a coat closet or maybe an occupied bathroom, but Hanna has better luck than me and she charges boldly into… a mansion? No one has dusted this mansion for about six months during which a dust storm and a serious spider infestation occurred. Yes. We are literally in a haunted house now. It even has a creepy piano because nothing, and I mean nothing, is as scary as attending your music lessons when you haven’t practiced.
If only I’d worked on my fingering.
Elsewhere, Caleb and Miranda are off their long bus ride and hanging out in a graveyard. It’s unexplained why, but at this point I figure Ravenswood is actually just one large graveyard. Miranda says she’s off to her uncle’s house and Caleb says he’s off to find Hanna. The two say goodbye in exactly the way two people do when you just know they’re about to start a long term future together. I hope that after Caleb inevitably cheats on Hanna she goes lezzie with Naya Rivera guest starring as her love interest. A girl can dream.
Boop.
Back in the mansion, Hanna hurriedly walks through the halls looking for Alison or maybe for a bathroom. Unclear.
Just pooped herself.
She see’s a small telephone booth and, despite the fact I repeatedly yelled “DON’T DO IT” at my TV, she goes in. She tries the phone but it’s dead and, in classic Pretty Little Liars fashion, she gets locked in. When will the Liars learn to stop putting themselves in small boxes? They always get locked in! Always. 100% of the time, 100% locked in. It’s just science.
How the hell am I going to find a bathroom now?!
While she’s stuck in the box all sorts of scary things happen! There are lights coming towards the box! But then they go away.
Hanna: come out of the closet.
Then she thinks she sees Alison. But she goes away.
Are there any lesbians scissoring in there fogging up the glass?
Then it’s that creepy gas-mask guy! But he also goes away.
Scream 6: The Screamiest
It has a pretty flat effect. Nothing ruins terror like repeatedly causing unfound, unsupported and unresolved suspense.
We’ll catch back up with Hanna in a bit, but first lets see what the other Liars are doing!
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That sculpture is totes Leda and the Swan, aka the time Zeus morphed into a swan and raped a woman. Too tired to link it metaphorically to the plot, or lack there of…
Did anyone else notice that random Ravenswood soldier is Gene Corbett from Bomb Girls (Brett Dier)?
Ahhh, thank you, i couldn’t work out where i had previously seen him, & it was totally bugging me :P.
Yup. I instantly recognized him from the promo posters.
For last minute costume choices, the girls always look beyond put together. And I would wear the fuck out of those hats, fwiw.
Ravenswood tried way too hard with the ghostly shit. PLL has a much higher creepfactor sans paranormal activity.
A) If this show goes supernatural and Ezra is a time traveling soldier from WWI I would never ever stop laughing.
B) Thank you for pointing out that in order to drive home Ezra would most likely have to take his hand out of his pocket. Or look really suspicious. I understand if Spencer didn’t notice though, because boobs, which brings me to –
C) The moral of this story was Hanna’s Boobs.
I thought the Ravenswood girl was kinda cute. But I’m still going to need some lesbians to tune into that one.
Not a terribly suspenseful halloween episode.
STOP making me laugh so hard that people think I’m sobbing.
Every damn time.
Now I have to go and rewatch the entirety of Everwood.
Thanks, Lizz.
No, really, thanks. It was an incredibly well made show and I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoyed it.
Thank you for getting the Everwood reference! The light within me sees and respects the light within you.
Said reference made me a little sad because only season one was released on DVD (obvs I own it).
Actually, all of the seasons are on DVD now. You can buy them on Amazon.
Aw, great recap Lizz! It’s true there wasn’t a lot to work with, but this was hilarious. I thought the ep was creepy fun but nowhere near as good as last year’s Halloween train episode. This episode didn’t have Paige in a suit, so it goes without saying really.
I did like the first episode of Ravenswood and am looking forward to tomorrow’s ep. It’s fine with me if you don’t feel like recapping it yet, but I would say that with Marlene King and Joesph Dougherty writing it I feel very confident that we’ll have some gay ladies on it eventually.
I’m gonna watch too! I didn’t love the first episode but I think it’ll pick up
I didn’t love the first episode of Twisted either but now I’m hooked.
I thought it was an OK episode… it is what it is with PLL. But I kinda felt like the whole thing with each of them losing a hat one by one was going to be significant and was kinda waiting for an explination at the end.
But let’s face it, this entire show needs an explination.
Just a thought on Alison…why does she wear a bright red coat to conceal her identity? Maybe there’s some back story I missed.
A BIG let down.. sorry.. not even half as exciting as last year’s. this halloween episode has
1)no batman
2)no guest singers/band
3)no female seducing potential queers
yeah ravenswood, I found myself watching 10 minutes of you and i have to say that you’re trying too hard to be scary. plus you have no queer factor at all so pass for now.. but.. put paige in it and i might change my mind.