The Top 50 Gayest Parts of Pretty Little Liars Season Three

It has been quite a gay season on Pretty Little Liars. We’ve added two new lesbian/bi/queer characters and Paige even lived through the season finale! More than that though, it seems the whole city of Rosewood has gone lesbosexy crazy in their actions, fashion and sexual innuendo. So let’s see what made our Top 50 Gayest Parts of Pretty Little Liars Season Three.

50. Paige’s Toyota Matrix

49. When OK Cupid hit Rosewood

48. Mona’s sneaking into Hanna’s bedroom in the middle of the night because she needed her

47. When Emily wore this fedora

46. Ezra’s codependency issues and refusal to break up.

45. That time Cece IDed Emily as gay within minutes of meeting her

44. Everyone needs therapy.

43. Aria’s boss looks like the lesbian character on a late 90’s sitcom.

42. That time Shana and Emily bury the hatchet about both having dated Paige because it was mutually beneficial for both of them… but then were totally in a fight again the next day.

41. Aria’s career as a wine drinking photographer.

40. Emily’s job as a barista.

39. That time Shana got super jealous of her ex.

38. That time Emily made this face in response to seeing Spencer play strip trivia with a guy.

37. Spencer’s health shake.

36. Emily’s new super gung ho attitude

35. Wesley’s sweater collection

34. Maya’s feelings letter to Emily

33. Hanna trying really hard not to make Paige jealous but also being sort of weirdly intentionally hyper-aware of their relationship but in a way that makes you think maybe she sort of has feelings for Emily

32. Emily’s lesbian sitting posture

31. That time Emily identified the patriarchy

30. Emily’s love for cut-off button-ups

29. Emily’s love for plaid button-ups

28. That time Emily had total revisionist history about how she came out

27. That time Paige wished she’d taken wood shop while wearing a bald eagle cut-off shirt.

26. That time Paige tried to help Emily put a tie on

25. Hanna’s reaction when a boy tries to hit on Emily

24. Paige’s vest collection

23. Mona’s possessive feelings towards the Liars

22. That time Our Gay Boyfriend Adam Lambert was performing on the Halloween Train dressed as a vampire

21. Maya’s crazy video diary website that’s mostly just dedicated to Emily

20. That time Paige got drunk off whiskey while wearing a slouchy hat

19. That time Paige saved Spencer from a bad guy while wearing a tux

18. That time Hanna wore this outfit

17. Aria’s combat boots

16. That time Paige acted super understanding about Emily kissing Nate even though she was secretly totally raging about it

15. Paige is a martyr for love

14. That time Ali planned a fantasy trip for her and Emily to Paris

13. Emily refuses to believe her girlfriend is A even when all of her friends do

12. A’s love for whiskey

11. The amount of time Paige and Emily spend crying and comforting each other

10. The amount of time Paige and Emily spend processing their feeling and then bringing them to the table to discuss.

9. Paige fighting with Spencer because both were obsessed with thinking they knew what was best for Emily

8. That time Emily and Paige had metaphorical Barbarella energy exchange

7. Hanna being pissed that Shana isn’t into her

6. Paige’s bicycle

5. That time Emily brought Paige kale for lunch

4. Jenna and Shana being a thing and having lesbian hand sex

3. Caleb’s feelings.

2. That time Hanna went to a gay bar while trying to spy on Paige flirting with her ex-girlfriend but ended up flirting with a girl and starting a huge fight

1. All of Paige and Emily’s lesbosexy make-out kissing action

There you have it, feelings, feelings, more feelings, a bunch of super dykey clothing and even some actual lesbosexy action. I can’t wait for Season Four.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 324: A Dangerous and Ultimately Confusing Game

Welcome to the third season finale of Pretty Little Liars! Did we ever think we’d come so far? I didn’t, and with good reason! Look at this sample of classic abcFamily TV shows canceled before a third season!

But not these Liars! They’re going the distance with a complete third season and more to come. What’s the secret? Well if I had to guess I’d say “lesbians.” Either way, abcFamily celebrated this victory by creating a scene by scene replication of the pilot episode! We’ll explore that later, but first let’s jump right into the thick of it!

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We open on Hanna, Emily and Aria sitting in the Hastings’ kitchen waiting for SpAncer to grace them with her royal, uptight, crazy-face presence. Hanna, having just purchased a necklace of paint swatches, muses that maybe, just maybe, the body found last episode isn’t TobAy. We, of course, already know it isn’t TobAy’s body because we saw the tattoo rub off last episode. Plus, the only people who die on Pretty Little Liars are those about to revele deep secretes to the Liars.

Emily is taking TobAy’s loss particularly hard, as he was modeling for a full sized diorama installation depicting the earliest human settlers that she was creating for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. This was going to be Emily’s big ticket into college! Oh well, back to swimming and scissoring her way through life.

SpAncer takes that moment to walk down the stairs all cryptic-like, doing her best impersonation of the big reveal from She’s All That. Plus we get our first dose of the pilot episode coming back to haunt us!

The she answers some really important questions that have been plaguing us all season!

SpAncer gives a longwinded monologue about not wanting to be a victim and Radley and not being strong and seeing TobAy and all this other stuff. Blah blah blah sad sad sad TobAy TobAy TobAy.

The end-game is that SpAncer’s parents invited everyone to a good old fashion Look We Swear Our Kid Isn’t Crazy Party! I know something’s up with this party though, because the soundtrack is playing the scary music, and I’m always up for letting the TV soundtrack tell me how to feel.

Starsweep to the A-Mobile where A reminds us once again the only thing you need for hacking is a black hoodie and some study leather gloves.

A grabs a phone number off of a laptop, 251-469-3561 and sends it to her iPhone just as MonA walks in.

MonA has graduated from black hoodie to chic black tee shirt and is using her classic “Scary A Voice.” Is it wrong that I miss Season One Trying Too Hard Mona? I loved her. MonA sits looks at SpAncer’s party invite and tells the other A that she’s likes her plan.

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The next day at school, the Liars discover that Ezra has posted up a wanted ad for a babysitter. He and Aria are technically still together and while dating a student was kind of hot, dating the babysitter is just too cliché.

The Liars canvass about who the hell picked Malcolm up from school, even though we know it was SpAncer. It was approximately exactly like when your friend in the closet has a conversation with a straight girl about boys and you just stand there wide eyed and uncomfortable. Hanna really wants to hit Malcolm up for details, and needs an extra $10/hr, so Hanna grabs the sheet. She’ll just have Malcolm draw her a picture of who picked him up.

Just then, out of the blue, Shana shows up at Rosewood to practice with her swim team or maybe to suck Emily’s face. Who knows! Looks like Shana is swimming versus Emily in a swim meet later in the week.

I didn’t even know Shana was in high school! Rosewood truly does have an abundance of hot high school lesbians. And they all like it slippery and wet!

Emily: Hey! What are you doing here?
Shana: Our coach arranged for us to practice here this morning. But I say if it’s water it’s wet right?

Shana and Spencer have a bizarre and potentially flirtatious interaction that is never explained and probably never will be except for in the elaborate slash fic I’m writing entitled Hastily Seeking Hastings.

As for Hanna, well she isn’t too keen on Shana due to her massive Straight Girl Problems. Why does she hate Shana?

Even Emily is unimpressed to see Shana, which is sort of weird since she just introduced Emily to Missy Franklin like two episodes ago. Plus they were texting flirty style last episode. I think maybe this is one of those things where Shana is the dyke that you and your friends all know starts drama and you all pretend to be uninterested except secretly you all seriously want on.

Aria runs into Ezra in the halls where he’s just finished having a job interview or something. The two do an awkward hallway walk which is highly reminiscent of Season One. In a bad way. Fortunately we don’t have to worry about this happening anymore, because Fitz tells Aria that he probably won’t get the job anyways.

Elsewhere, at She and TobAy’s house, Jenna talks on the phone while a mysterious A figure stalks outside. We haven’t seen Jenna in a while have we. I kind of forgot she existed.

Jenna You said you were going to make it all go away. I’m worried! Now the police have evidence! Look, I need to see you today.

Outside Jenna’s, A texts the number they downloaded. Just as A sends the text, Jenna receives one and says she’s gotta go. I think the biggest plot hole in Pretty Little Liars is A’s ability to text with leather gloves on. That’s just not science. I understand there is plenty to complain about with my very favorite show, and I let a lot slide. But this?! This is impossible.

Starsweep across the neighborhood, where Aria, sportting some hot new after-sex hair, is doing her homework. Papa Crazy shows up to do his daily freak-out enraged that Ezra is going to take a job at the high school.

Aria’s all, “No no no [eye-roll] he didn’t get the job. Duhhhh.” Except, according to Byron, actually he did and he’s taking the day to think about it.

Speaking of Ezra, he and Hanna meet to discuss the exciting world of babysitting. Hanna’s only experience with babysitting was the time she and Caleb rented Babysitter Sluts 7, which, for the record, Caleb made them turn off because it was heterosexist and oppressive to women. Still, Hanna is completely unable to not sound like a porn star during this entire encounter.

Pretty Little Liars Season Finale Open Thread and OMG Celebration

[SPOILER ALERT!!]

What on earth did I just watch? I’m so confused. I’m going to have to watch this another four times just to make heads and tails of what I saw. I guess here’s the working theory: Spencer and TobAy were both just on the A-Team to save each other (barf); Shana and Jenna are boning and also on the A-Team along with Wilden and Melissa; Ali is Red Coat, Ali’s twin who is the girl Ali and her friends know is the one who keeps saving the girls; no one died the Night Ali Died And Blackmailed Everyone. Or something. I’m lost here.

Instead of making everyone wait until I can form a cohesive thought I guess I’d better just open up the floor for comments. Did you totally see this coming? Were you blown away surprised? What are we going to call Jenna and Shana? Shanenna? Jenana? There’s so much to discuss!

Pretty Little Liars 323: I’m Your Sock Puppet

This week on Pretty Little Liars we set ourselves up for the big season finale. Let’s build all the tension!

We open on the grim sad grey walls of Radley where the Liars are finally visiting Spencer. Honey Badger, aka Spencer, don’t give a shit.

The girls aren’t just here for chit-chat and feel betters, they actually have big news. The police found a body out in the woods! Except it wasn’t TobAy’s body. It was some other bro. Probably because TobAy is definitely not dead and this is just the most obnoxious ploy ever.

The Liara want Spencer to come home but she’s so super not ready. I feel like this complete personality change doesn’t make any sense, even in light of the TobAy break-up freakout. Old Spencer would be shitting her pants at the lost college application time.

Back in her room, Spencer has something under her pillow. Is it a knife? A bow and arrow? A huge dildo? An illogical yet effective lesbian plot line for this show? Those all sound pretty impossible. Regardless, we won’t find out yet.

Back at Emily’s house, she and Hanna act all Odd Couple, as though they’ve never had a sleepover. Which is off since they lived together last season for some long but ultimately undetermined amount of time.

Hanna is still wicked worried that Wilden is hot on her tail what with her sinking his car and all. Emily, on the other hand, thinks there’s nothing to worry about because, contrary to popular belief and the movie Cars, Honda Civics don’t just un-sink themselves.

Pam rocks up so that she and Emily can marvel at what a disgusting slob Hanna is. Why are the pretty, put together ones also the messiest? Is that a thing? Then Pam dishes out more of that awesome parenting advice that she and Ella both read in Rosewood Parenting Monthly (subscriptions now only $19.99 per year).

Over at Le Petite Cafe Petite, Aria and Ezra share a Krispie Kreme donut. The two discuss going back in the Inappropriate Age Closet. Aria thinks they should be on the DL as long as Ezra is teaching again. Ezra, on the other hand wants them to be here, queer and for corporate sponsors to get the hell used to it.

Just then, Ezra gets a call from Maggie. She needs Ezra to pick up Malcolm at Karate the following day. I’m starting to hate that kid Malcolm, but only really because I misspelled his name “Malcome” fourteen times before realizing it. Unfortunately, Ezra has a second interview for a substitute teaching job, which is funny because last time I checked the only credentials you needed to sub were a pulse and to not be currently fucking a high school student. Oh.

Aria volunteers to babysit Malcolm and Ezra agrees even though the last time she babysat Malcolm literally busted his face place.

Outside the school, Hanna and Caleb do more of that lesbian shit where they talk about all of their feelings about Caleb’s dad.

Starsweep to the locker set of Rosewood High, Emily is getting text messages from Shana. And Paige is out of town. Aria immediately identifies this as sexy time crush texting and Emily can barely deny it without her ovaries bursting forth with lesbionic love waves. I know we all love Paige now and forever, but this is one step closer to seeing Emily hug Shana with her legs in friendship. I wouldn’t say no to that.

Hanna meets up with the other two and Emily convinces her and Aria to come check out the body at the morgue. Hanna doesn’t have anything important to contribute, but she does drop this little gem.

Back over at Radley, the only doctor in town shows up. That’s right, Wren hits the scene! Just in time to because Lamb the Orderly has just given Spencer some complicated MonA board game.

Wren peaces out and Spencer takes a better look at MonA’s board game. She realizes it’s actually a map. A map for sneaking out of Radley through a window. I would be a hell of a lot more excited about this if abcFamily would stop telling me to tweet #MonasMap. I know what a map is, abcFamily, I saw Treasure Planet.

Over in Ella’s Classroom of Language and Love, Ella pulls Hanna aside. Ella can’t get ahold of Ashley because she’s out of town and everyone knows cell phones don’t work in New York City. Ella goes against the logic any parent might use ever and tells Hanna that Jamie potentially stole a church bell and replaced it with a cheap knock-off. To the tune of one hundreds thousand million billion dollars. Why is a church spending so much on a bell anyways? Aren’t there underserved who need serving in Rosewood?

Hanna and Caleb have dinner with Jamie which would be super nice if we didn’t know that Ella thinks Jamie is a snake who tried to sell the city of Rosewood on a monorail and a bunch of invisible instruments.

Jamie even gives Hanna a thank you necklace which would also be super nice if it wasn’t clear that this is not a girl who lets middle age men pick out her accessories. Jamie gets a phone call and leaves the dinner table. You can see the metaphorical shit launching into the air towards a window fan on the other side of the room.

When Jamie returns to the dinner table he has horrible but predictable news. He’s been fired for potential theft!

Meanwhile, Mama Hastings shows up at Radley to try to bring Spencer home. Spencer is sort of not really okay at all and wants to stay. All of the Pretty Little Liars usually crazy Spencer schtick aside, it’s actually a good scene. I can’t help but think of how many times overbearing mothers have tried to drag their type A, high-achieving, over-extended, bursting at the seams daughters out of mental hospital.

Mama Hastings presses Spencer to tell her what in grape juice’s name is going on with her. She remarks that the last time she saw someone “hold on to secret so tightly” it was Ali. Before she DIED. Obviously.

Cue the fuzzy pastel flashback.

We zoom in on Mama Hastings up for a little wake and bake when Alison shows up at the door with a bloody lip.

She was supposed to be in Spencers bedroom but she had snuck out momentarily. Ali begged Mama Hastings not to say anything and keep the whole encounter a secret. And then she DIED. That’s right kids, the moral of the story is that lying gets you dead. Wait. I think I just figured out this TV show.

Timewarp into the night where the Liars are back in their candy striper outfits. Why? To please us, I think. And to track down the John Doe found out in the woods!

The Liars have snuck into the morgue using their Mary-Kate and Ashley detective kits and a stolen medical ID. At least I assume so since the the whole hospital/morgue break-in took place off screen. Someone please inform the PLL writers that you need about a million ID clearance swipes to get to a morgue. Or into a hospital.

Hanna, scared that the body might be actually be TobAy’s, suggests they just look for his tattoo. Because there is only one of every tatto and there’s no way to give a tatto to a dead person. Anyways the girls get nervous that someone is coming and finally just unzip the bag and it’s Alison!

Just kidding it’s one of those freaky Alison masks. They pull it off and I think it’s not TobAy based on the Liars reactions, but I can’t be sure because all white guys look the same to me.

The sun rises on Radley, home of the best metal healthcare in Pennsylvania. Lamb shows up again and Spencer brings up the board game and Wren. Lamb is pretty tight lipped. He won’t give Spencer any details on the game. He pretty much hates Wren and thinks he’s a bad dude. That being said, I still think Lamb is probably drugging Spencer with all those pills. Or is he?!

Good thing Spencer is cheeking her pills!

Outside school, Hanna and Caleb have a little heart to heart. Well Caleb wants to talk about all of his feelings but Hanna wants to study and ignore them. C’mon Hanna, Caleb needs to talk about this!!

Caleb feels like the church committee is fucking with his dad for no good reason. Hanna feels like if he stole that dice dice baby dollar from the church collection box there must be more theft afoot. Caleb has a lot of feelings about it.

At Malcolm’s Karate class, Aria shows up to play Mommy Pick-up. The Karate instructor informs her that Malcolm has already been picked up. By Aria Montgomery. Oh fuck that’s Aria! Obviously this means Malcolm is with A. The annoying thing is that Malcolm knows who Aria is. She’s his babysitter. You would think he would have said something. Unless Aria has a secret evil twin we don’t know about!

According to a flyer in his cubby, A took Malcolm to a carnival. Did I say a carnival? Because I mean the creepiest carnival ever. Lets take a minute to explore the things Aria encountered as she approached my worse nightmare ever.

Aria runs all over the fairgrounds looking for Malcolm, but surprisingly, runs into her mother. This is never explained or rationalized. Unless it’s cleared up in the next episode I’m going to assume Holly Marie Combs had an extra 3 minutes of screen time in her contract to kill.

Elsewhere, Orderly Lamb and Dr. Wren have a run-in outside Spencer’s room. Lamb wants to give Spencer a book but Wren is like, “Bro, back off, there’s only room in Spencer life for one age inappropriate man and that’s me.”

Wren: We’re not having the same problem, are we?

Sounds to me like Orderly Lamb and MonA were getting down with their bad selves mental hospital style.

Caleb’s dad comes by Hanna’s house for god knows what reason. He says he’s been running all over the place trying to figure out where the real bell went. Odd isn’t, that the good people of Rosewood would jump to firing the contractors before anyone’s made a single call to the shop.

Caleb confronts him about the dice dollars and Jamie explains that he was given that as a cash upfront for his service and the both laugh the whole thing off. Just kidding, Caleb just blows up at his dad without explanation. He also cries a bunch and brings up a few very valid points about how being a good father tends to include not abandoning your kid.

Adults in Rosewood are unable to control their own emotions or act like grown-ups and Jamie stomps out. Why is this plot line taking so long?

At the carnival, Malcolm is, yup, still missing. If only they’d installed a tracking device in this kid. Aria decides she’s going to go to the police. A doesn’t much like police, so just then Aria notices a puppet show.

She walks in and Malcolm is sitting alone claiming that the next show is about to start. Aria is confused as to why Malcolm didn’t wait for her, but he’s all like, “Nah, this shit is NBD. I go with strangers all the time.” He is literally the most docile kid ever. Which is weird because last episode he was bouncing off the walls and right into the hospital. Then again, earlier this season he was played by a totally different actor. So.

This would be a really good time to bust out your cell phone and show Malcolm pictures of the people you know and ask him which person picked him up. Or ask the Karate instructor. Wait. What the fuck was Ella doing there? Could Ella be A?! Nah, Piper would never do that to us.

Emily shows up to the police station in a super fresh leather jacket. Aria texts in the knick of time that Malcolm is A-OK so Emily is left without a good reason for being there. Pam is unimpressed. She’s trying to cultivate a high powered career here Emily! She can’t have her teen dramarama daughter showing up all the time!

Spencer sneaks out of her room in a babydoll nighty. I’m not sure if Radley is supplying the most inappropriate nightgowns ever or if Spencer has just been ordering her clothes from the American Girl Catalogue.

Spencer follows Mona’s map downstairs to that room where MonA lead the Liars a million billion years ago during her stint at Radley. Spencer finds Ali going through old records. I love how seeing Ali isn’t even surprising anymore. Whether she’s an illusion or a twin or not dead, this Ali seem to be an incarnation of our favorite version of Ali, Gay-Ali. They slow dance, I assume to KC and Jo-Jo’s I’ll Make Love to You. This is high school after all.

Ali leads Spencer to a rocking horse. The horse has a detachable head (a mighty fine feature if I do say so myself) and it’s filled with MonA’s old ID badges and visitor passes for sneaking people in and out. Just then Wren walks in.

Aria and Ezra meet up for dinner. Aria looks like she needs a huge glass of wine. Why? Because she almost got Ezra’s kid killed. Ezra doesn’t care though. Malcolm reported all’s clear in the atmosphere. Aria tries to break things off with Ezra and he’s like “Nah, we got this.” Except Aria is actually totally serious and wants out. I wonder how long until she shacks up with Wesleywolf.

This is how his face goes.

Back in Spookyville, Spencer freaks out at Wren, pointing out that he signed a vistors pass for Cece to enjoy a conjugal visit with MonA. Wren explains that Ali got Cece kicked out of college for “some stunt she pulled at a frat party.” I’m going to assume this is referring to the time Alison pushed some girl down the stairs at one of Ian’s parties. Wren thought Cece could help MonA heal her pain. Clearly, Wren thought wrong.

Pam pulls Emily aside and tells her that she knows something that Emily can’t tell her friends. Like Pam will lose her job level can’t tell her friends. Which is dumb because Pam knows Hanna will be back soon. Adults on this show need to stop telling teenagers not to tell their friends stuff. That’s just not how teenagers work.

Either way, Pam tells Emily they found another body out in the woods. One with “significant damage to the body” which I’m pretty sure means no nose. Gross. Anyways they won’t know more until the morning even though they’ve already had a report that TobAy’s been murdered and they have his prints on file. Rosewood literally has the most incompetent police of all time.

Hanna and Caleb follow everyone else in town to the carnival. I mean, they don’t go into the carnival, that would mean potentially making new friends and these two have some episodes of True Blood to Netflix and a serious knitting project to work on when they get home. They’re just stopping for a coffee nearby.

Caleb is upset and feels stupid for giving his dad a second chance. I’m pretty furious his dad isn’t even calling to try to explain himself. Just then, of course, A texts Hanna revealing that she was behind it all along. Yup, this plot line of shit continued its journey across the living room over the coffee table and finally collided with the fan we spotted like four episodes ago.

Caleb goes off to chase down his dad and Hanna meets up with Aria to commiserate. What bad luck they’ve been having. It’s almost like someone is plotting against them.

Emily, doing the opposite of what her mom said, runs over and tells her friends that they found another body. Great, now they think TobAy is dead too. Guys. He’s fucking faking it. Clearly.

Back in her room at Radley, Spencer eyes her little baggie of pills. For a terrifying second I thought she was going to take them all, but she doesn’t. Instead she reaches in her pillowcase again and pulls something else out. Oh, and a black hoodie and tickets to a puppet show. Because, according to a voice over, Spencer’s officially on the A team.

Wait. Was Spencer giving her pills to Malcolm?! Did they drug the little kid? Bold move A-Team. Bold move. Letting someone see you and know you’re A. Someone who’s unpredictable and hard to control like a kid? That’s like asking to get caught.

In fact, I think that’s entirely what’s going on here. I think the A-Team isn’t really letting Spencer in. If they did she wouldn’t still have questions for Wren. Plus then she would know that TobAy isn’t really dead. So the A-Team is just playing Spencer for a fool, trying to get her caught by the other Liars so that they can’t even trust each other anymore.

This makes perfect sense as a set-up for next episode. First the Liars will bust Spencer for helping the A-Team. I. Marlene King promised Red Coat and potentially also another A would get revealed next episode, but even if Spencer figures it out, the other Liars won’t believe her.

Top contenders for the A-Team?
1. Ali’s Evil Twin
2. Cece
3. That guy who knew Emily’s name who will turn out to be someone’s secret love child.
4. Lamb
5. Wren

I’ve specifically left Shana and Paige of this list in hopes that the Gay TV Gods supply us with a rockin’ lezzie threesome.

In our final cut scene it’s revealed that whoever Spencer saw out there may have had TobAy’s tattoo, but it was a lick and stick. Obviously. Because TobAy is totally totally totally still alive.

Tune in next week for the season finale when everything I’ve predicted all season long will turn out to be true and I will reign supreme, shouting “I told you so” from the rooftops.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 322: Will the Circle Jerk Be Unbroken?

Welcome back to Pretty Little Liars, the only show on television specifically devoted to fucking with your head and casting former child stars as parents. This week, Emily meets an olympic swimmer and Spencer reenacts the entire plot line of Girl, Interrupted.

As you might remember, when we last visited Rosewood, Spencer had a borderline offensive “Break with Reality” out in the woods. We open on Rosewood High that very same morning where Spencer, obviously, hasn’t shown up to homeroom or even lunch. MonA spies on the girls, I assume to figure out if they know where Spencer is so she can get back to fucking with her.

Melissa stops by the school to see if the Liars know where Spencer is at, but they’re just as confused as she is! The Liars realize if Melissa doesn’t even know where Spencer is something must seriously be wrong!

So where is that rascal Spencer anyways? As it turns out she is in Radley Asylum for the Criminally Insane. Remember, in Rosewood they don’t take sick girls to the ER, they take them to mental hospitals that looks like prisons. She’s playing solitaire because at Radley the only things you’re allowed to do are play cards or speak in riddles.

An orderly comes in and changes Spencer’s bandages. It becomes apparent that she’s still being called a Jane Doe. He also explains that Spencer is only in the hospital because there’s a law that lets paramedics take you to the hospital instead of jail. Wait. Why on earth would Spencer go to jail for being out in the woods?

Either way, the orderly tells Spencer she is going to have a psych evaluation for her amnesia. Spencer moves on to the “riddles” portion of staying at Radley, but it’s still pretty obvious she knows exactly who she is. This girl doesn’t have amnesia for shit. For a moment I was really excited and thought maybe Spencer was just trying to get into Radley to dig up dirt on MonA.

That afternoon at the Marin’s, Hanna and Ashley are still on pins and needles. Hanna’s not so worried, but Ashley won’t even pick up phone calls from her pastor boyfriend because she’s so nervous she could get arrested for murder any day now.

Over at Ezra’s Annex, Aria does some stressing of her own. The Liars still haven’t found Spencer and Ezra is all stressed out.

Ezra is super stressed about money and work. He seems to want to go back to teaching. That would probably be fine right? As long as he only teaches college students. Or puppies. Then this little pearl of total lesbianism happens.

Over at the church, Hanna and Ashley meet up with Ashley’s boyfriend Pastor Ted. He is so freaking psyched that Caleb’s dad is rebuilding the steeple so well. But we don’t have time for that plotline because Wilden shows up!

That’s right, the guy who we thought was dead. Just kidding, I don’t believe anyone on this show is dead until I see their face in that ridiculous blue makeup they use for dead people. I’ve never been happier to see Wilden– mostly because I think the Caleb’s Dad Story is boring. Wilden doesn’t have much to say except P.S. I’m not dead.

Back over at Radley, the only therapist in town shows up to do Spencer’s psych eval. No, not Wren, he’s the only doctor in town. It’s Dr. Sullivan again!

Don’t worry, I’m sure Wren will be by to accidentally fall on Spencer’s mouth or offer her unsolicited medical advice in whatever his specialty is these days. Dr. Sullivan hits the ground running and gets Spencer to admit who she is and even that she saw TobAy’s dead body. That might be the most impressive therapy we’ve ever seen from this woman.

At Aria’s house she and Byron have a nice little heart to heart. I like how now we don’t suspect him at all. Either way Aria wants Byron to give Ezra a job. Byron is like, “Meh.” I’d probably have the same reaction if my 17 year old daughter wanted help for her 35 year old boyfriend.

Starsweep to Radley where Dr. Sullivan has taking a quick T.O. to let Spencer recuperate from all the amazing therapizing she’s getting. Melissa shows up and tries to figure out what the fuck is going on. Melissa sobs explaining that it never occurred to her that Spencer might be in real pain. She just figured she was a huge bitch who needed to get the fuck over herself. Mostly I just want Melissa to fess up about what happened The Night Ali Died Maybe or GTFO.

Over at the Life Cafe, Emily, Hanna and Aria converge to have a big group think session. Melissa lets them know that Spencer is okay and at Radley, but now what to do about it? They think about hatching a plan to get in to see her, but then they lose interest and wander off.

Oh and then A texts Hanna a screenshot of Wilden pulling her mom’s car over. There was no threat or reason to do it, so I’m guessing it was just so we didn’t go a whole episode without a message from A.

Timejump and it’s nightime at Radley. The same male orderly comes to give Spencer some meds. He claims they’re just antibiotics but you just know that Spencer just got slipped tranquilizers. Just before he leaves, Spencer notices that his badge says “E. Lamb” just like TobAy’s did. It’s unclear if this is a coincidence, Lamb just slipped Spencer drugs or if he was sent by Mona to just fucked with her.

At the Marin’s, Hanna tells Ashley all about Spencer.

As the most plugged in and the least mature adult in the Liar’s circuit, Ashley decides she wants to cancel her trip to New York. Oh didn’t I mention? Ashley has a big job interview in New York that we’ve never heard about before now. Unfortunately if she gets it she and Hanna will have to move to New York City which would be terrible. And by terrible I mean that’s literally the only good plan for getting away from A anyone has ever come up with.

Elsewhere, in a random location in the middle of Rosewood, Emily finds Dr. Sullivan outside her office. Emily asks a ton of questions and Dr. Sullivan reveals everything about Spencer’s situation making 1000 HIPAA violations.

The next day, over in Ella’s Classroom of Language and Love, Byron stops by to discuss The Ezra Situation. Ella thinks Byron should help him because she supports free love and recognizes the importance of teaching, growing, learning and loving. Byron thinks it’s a good idea because if he’s got a big boy job, maybe Ezra will shack-up with Maggie Mack and his son and leave Aria curbside.

Dr. Sullivan starts off day two of her her evaluation of Spencer by basically telling Spencer she’s crazy and didn’t see TobAy’s dead body in the woods.

Dr. Sullivan explains to Spencer that no one can find TobAy’s body. Spencer proceeds to cry and cry and not even consider the idea that this could be A fucking with her.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 321: Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Out of the Closet

This week on Pretty Little Liars nothing got better and everything got worse. The Liars dug themselves in even deeper and for the most part A stayed out of it and just watched the shit hit the fan.

We open on the starlit town of Rosewood in Spencer’s bedroom, just exactly where we left off last week. Spencer is finally ready to tell the other Liars about TobAy but she doesn’t want to perform without a proper audience. I think this is sort of like how doing karaoke for one person is weird, but doing it for a packed bar is awesome. Spencer manages to wrangle up Emily and Aria, but Hanna is nowhere to be found.

Despite Spencer’s misgivings and overwhelming need for attention, she reveals the big news.

Why isn’t Hanna here for this big moment? Because she’s still dealing with her mom running over Wilden. Speaking of the I Know What You Did Last Summer twins, the two return to their house to make a game plan.

Ashley, because she’s an adult, wants to call the hospital and the police. Hanna, on the other hand, know that the Rosewood Gods need a big juicy secret in order to keep the stars aligned. Somehow Ashley is convinced by her 17 year old daughter that keeping this all a secret is a grand old idea. The a police siren sounds, a dog howls and everything is suspicious and scary.

Back over at Spencer’s, the Liars try to wrap their minds around the news. Aria is pretty signed on from the get-go. I mean, just a few weeks ago she was prepared to believe her dad was A. Aria loves to jump on the A bandwagon.

On the other hand, Emily refuses to believe that TobAy is a bad dude. I mean, why would a man ever hurt someone?! He loves her and nothing says respect and safety like high school love.

The big beautiful sun rises the next day and Emily still isn’t satisfied. At work she calls TobAy and explains she really need to talk to him. Obviously he doesn’t pick up so Emily does what every good lesbian does a just redials over and over again so that when he eventually looks at his phone it say “You have 37 missed calls from Emily.” Classic.

Nothing good can come of this except that TobAy will just convinced Emily that Spencer is insane or something. Fortunately, Emily still has a key to TobAy’s loft in her secret jar of keys. Time to go clue huntin’.

Starsweep to Ezra’s Annex where Aria is still doing that unannounced drop by thing. Guess who’s there? It’s Malcolm, Ezra’s long lost son!

Now that Maggie and Malcolm are getting evicted, Maggie’s decided to try to move the two to Rosewood. I mean, new jobs are just so easy to find these days. Aria tries to excuse herself, because she’s more appropriately aged to be Malcolm’s big sister than his mom, but Ezra insists she stay. Ezra wants to set a good example for his son about age appropriate women.

Starsweep to TobAy’s loft where Emily and Hanna sleuth it out. Well, Emily is sleuthing. Hanna is mostly justing watching TV. Classic Hanna. Hanna is also officially the gayest looking girl in this episode. She’s rocking an outfit she clearly purchased after her foray into the amazing world of dyke night at the gay bar.

Actually, Hanna is only watching the news in case something comes up about Wilden’s death or disappearance. Not because she wants to be informed. Everyone knows being informed is so 2009.

Emily’s pretty ripshit that Hanna isn’t helping. She really just wants to clear TobAy’s name so they can live happily ever after being continuously blackmailed by some unidentified person. I guess she’s torn up because TobAy was apparently such a big part of her coming out. That’s not how I remember it. I remember picture and blackmail being involved. I feel like this is just like how Finn help Santana come out. I want to vomit. Like worse than the time I drank a ton of dirty martinis, ate a bunch of questionable oysters went to sleep and woke up four hours later and boarded a plane. Worse than that time.

Emily finds TobAy’s Radley parking pass, with the name “E. Lamb,” inside a book she gave him. Exactly where A would leave it there for her to find. How are the Liars not getting any better at this?

Back over at Ezra’s, Malcolm, Aria and Ezra are having the best time ever. I mean, who wouldn’t when there are trains involved! Who doesn’t love trains?! Except Taylor.

Just as the trains were reaching maximum fun capacity, Maggie comes home! I’d forgotten that she was Alex Mack and looks exactly the same. Obviously I will henceforth refer to her as Maggie Mack.

Maggie Mack and Ezra try to sort out who’s going to be with Malcolm when that evening. When neither is free, Aria offers to help. That’s right, she’s going to be Ezra and Maggie’s high school baby-sitter. I’d also like to point out that if Emily was ever with a woman as old as Maggie Mack there would be worldwide outrage.

At Spencer’s, we finally get to see why A was making a funeral wreath. Looks like it wasn’t for Wilden, but just to threaten Spencer. Remember the good old days where we never found out what A’s final cut scene shenanigans were about? When we would just watch A have coffee in a diner or something? Those were the days.

Spencer responds by calling an official meeting of the Babysitter’s Club at the Life Cafe. Things are tense because Emily still doesn’t believe TobAy is A. This is getting annoying. I hate naive Emily.

Just then, the Liars notice MonA is hanging around. How dare she order a coffee with delightfully wind swept hair. Spencer stomps right up to her and tries to be direct without actually being direct. You know, saying things like “I got your flowers” instead of “MonA knock it the fuck off and stop harassing me and my friends. It’s a fucking pain in the ass.” MonA says some cryptic weird shit about orchids dying and then gives Emily the major sex eyes.

It’s worth noting that Spencer continues to be styled as “sad Spencer” and still looks better than I do most days of the week.

Timejump to later that day when Aria is searching through all her old toys. Ella stops by the house and wants to know if something weird is going on or Aria is just going to a hipster Transformers party. She also mentions that Ezra called about a job for “a friend” named Maggie Mack who is definitely not his baby-mama, just some woman he knows.

Aria immediately starts lying and saying she doesn’t know who Maggie Mack is or why Ezra might have called Ella looking for a job. Ella isn’t really buying it, but then again she’s not exactly one to ask questions. I wonder if she’s still dating that biker guy.

Starsweep down the block where Emily, still on the hunt, shows up at TobAy’s parents’ house. No one is home but she meets some guy outside. He says he’s just filling in for TobAy on his construction job. Emily presses him for details but Builder Boy doesn’t have the details. Still, he’s a guy between the ages of 15 and 40 living in Rosewood so I imagine he’ll be smooching on one of the Liars by the end of the month.

Spencer spends some significant time staring at the funeral wreath in her living room. All of a sudden, she realizes something that no one else in the world would ever see. It took me two watches before I saw it. This, my friends, is how you get a 1600 on your SATs (or whatever that equals in the newfangled grading system).

Spencer invites Emily over, claiming that the wreath proves that TobAy really is bad. The “Deepest Sympathies” banner is entirely shiny, except an “E” and an “M.”

Spencer takes this to mean Emily is is next on A’s list. Emily takes this to mean that TobAy is probably just planning the most elaborate anniversary gift ever.

Starsweep across town where Ashley Marin is still freaking out about maybe killing Wilden.

Just as she is deeply pondering all this, Ashley thinks she sees Wilden across the street. Or maybe not. It could just be one of the many hallucinations experienced by Rosewoodians based on whatever the fuck is in the water. You never know with this show. Actually, I’m pretty sure she did see him and he’s just on the A team now. Or maybe he always was.

As the longest day ever continues, Hanna joins Aria over at Ezra’s Annex for baby-sitting time. Aria fixes Malcolm a snack, because babysitting is literally the easiest shit ever when you just let the kid play videogames the whole time.

Aria and Hanna finally speculate on why TobAy makes sense as A. Hanna notes that TobAy did manage to bring Dr. Sullivan back in just the knick of time. She, of course, ended up diagnosing MonA with a mental illness that resulted in her going to Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane instead of jail. Finally someone thought to put those pieces together.

Gosh this really is a long day.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 320: Hawt Water

This week on Pretty Little Liars Paige and Emily get some major jealousy time followed by some major smooching time. Plus we watch as the show pays homage to — or maybe just completely rips off — a thoroughly mediocre ’90s thriller.

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We pick up the same night we left off just hours after Jason bolted from the hospital. The Liars gather after-hours at the Life Cafe for one of their trusty circle jerks where they try to put all the A pieces together.

Too bad each of them always holds enough back to keep them from getting to the truth. Like how Spencer still hasn’t told the other Liars that TobAy is on the A team. Seriously Spencer, lock it the fuck up.

Detective Wilden busts in and claims Jason’s been making up dirty dirty rumors about him. The worst kind of rumors too — the kind that are true. Wilden is totally annoying because he’s the sort of character writers bring in when they’re temporarily out of bad guys. The useless type.

Aria heads back to her house to find that Wesleywolf has bolted. Remember, he was supposed to sleep over until he accidentally fell onto Aria’s lips.

The next morning, Ashley and Hanna walk to work/school/yogalattes. The two discuss all those TV mother/daughter things like their feelings about other people’s babies and whether asparagus makes your pee smell.

It’s here that they see Detective Wilden shove Cece into his car. Ashely isn’t completely blind so she notices when Hanna freaks out. She tries to get Hanna to explain why she knows that much older girl, but “All my friends sleep with much older men” doesn’t seem to be a good explanation. Hanna fesses up that she and her friends think Wilden knocked up Ali, but doesn’t give the full explanation. This is what drives me nuts. Why lie when there’s no reason not to tell the whole truth? Exposing that Cece filled them in and then Emily found a picture doesn’t expose any secrets or even make Hanna look suspicious.

At the Hastings’ residence, Melissa is still in town! With a fancy new haircut that is super becoming on her. Well, if I were on her I’d be…. you know the rest. Melissa tells Spencer to get out of bed and go to school or else she’s going to have to tell on her to Mom and Pop Hastings. No one wants to make Papa Hastings mad. He only gets like twelve total minutes of screen time per season and it’s a shame to let him spend it all shouting when he could be hiring private investigators or burning evidence.

At school, Emily is looking fresh to death in a plaid shirt with some sort of combo leather/denim jacket on top. Drool. Hanna fills her in on the dramarama of Cece getting shipped off in Wilden’s police car of doom.

Without explaining anything about his Houdini move, Emily says that Jason texted her. He’s laying low in a farm up in the country. Everyone who has ever had a pet gerbil knows that means he’s dead. Either way, Hanna wants to do a little sleuthing and proposes the idea that maybe they should talk to that costume girl. The two decide to hit Paige up for more info after school. I’d rather Emily hit her up for something else after school. Heyooo.

Hanna reveals to Emily about the dice on the collection box dollars and how Caleb’s dad maybe thieving them and all that good stuff. Unless Caleb’s dad ends up being Mona’s secert older boyfriend, this plot line bores me.

After school, Aria is still doing that thing where she shows up at Ezra’s Annex unannounced. She’s on the phone with Wesleywolf telling him they need to talk about their big lipsmack when she realizes someone else is in the apartment.

Who does she find? Wesleywolf? Nope! It’s Ezra.

Aria wants to know why he hasn’t called or texted or gchatted her in weeks. Ezra apologize for shutting Aria out, probably because he’s a person over 25 who has ever been in a relationship. He’s super excited to be back and double plus extra in love with Aria which makes her feel soooo bad for kissing all up on his brother. I mean who does that? Just goes around kissing every werewolf who reads poetry to you in your bedroom. Anyways Ezra wants to discuss his whole big new fatherhood life over dinner.

Starsweep to Rosewood High where Spencer is hiding out in Ella’s classroom of literature and love.

Enter Ella who’s wearing a black jacket she probably stole from her own daughter. Spencer admits to Ella that “things have changed.” I mean, she was half a virgin when she met TobAy!

Outside the school, Hanna and Emily run into Paige. She’s getting into her sweet ride for a mission and doesn’t even ask if Emily wants to come along for some road head.

Ridiculous. Everyone who’s ever been a high school lesbian knows that you’re supposed to invite your girlfriend to do every last thing with you. Emily wants to know how Paige could dare to do something without her. Paige claims she’s on her way to get even more little elf braids put into her hair.

Just kidding! They’re all going to the costume store is Paige’s sweet Toyota Matrix.

Back inside, Spencer rushes into the bathroom trying to hide. Aria, having just been hit by a huge gust of air just as she was putting gel in, spots her and follows her in. Spencer refuses to talk to Aria and hides out in the bathroom stall like a child. Spencer: grow the fuck up.

At the costume shop, it becomes apparent instantly that something fishy is going on between Paige and that biddie Shana. Like sexy fishy. Wait, I mean sexy fishy like there’s history there, not like a bacterial infection or anything. Geez why do you guys always go there?

I hope Paige kissed her on the face as part of some bizarre misguided attempt to get information out of her. Paige is such a sucker for bizarre misguided attempts at stuff. Also how does Rosewood have more lesbians than the entire city of Providence? How is that even statistically possible?

Paige was hoping to wrangle some good info out of Shana, but her lips are now officially closed for business. Apparently all costume documents and transactions are super confidential and for trained costume employees only. I’m curious why no one has tapped the potential for a really good threesome here.

In a stroke of genius, Emily fakes like she has to use the bathroom. She sneaks into the back where, magically, she finds the shop’s computer. Did I say computer? I mean company iPad. She instantly knows how to use the system, despite the fact that nearly all small businesses have shit for computer systems. It’s super user-friendly! This might be the least realistic part of this TV show.

Emily has been on this show for like three seasons, so she knows that when someone says they’re going to the bathroom, that actually means they’re snooping around in back. Her acting skills in the role of “Someone who cares about costumes” are lukewarm at best. Shana immediately knows something is afoot and tries desperately to kick Paige and Hanna out. I think we can all agree that Hanna would have had better luck if she’d attempted the role of “Wants to get on Shana.” Particularly because Shana is smoking hot and, if inviting Paige down to the store only to turn her away says anything, clearly desperate for attention and batshit crazy. I love her already.

The shop’s computer system actually records every person who rents a costume, and Emily finds the Queen of Hearts costume log just as the phone starts to ring in back. What is this?! A dramatic comercial break before we find out what happens?

Pretty Little Liars Recap 319: What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted Crazy Ladies

This week on Pretty Little Liars, Caleb and Hanna bring their relationship to new and improved even higher lesbian levels and I spend the whole episode worried about my Friday Brain Sciences Exam.

We open in the hallowed halls of Rosewood High, where our Liars discussing Spencer McCriesalot. Looks like she hasn’t been coming to class or even *gasp* the academic decathlon team practice.

Around the corner, Team Dictator MonA has one of her new lackies tell Spencer she’s donesville. More importantly, it’s reveled that Spencer has officially entered the “ugly sweater” phase of mourning the loss of TobAy. It took a while, but I finally figured out this guys name is Andrew. Let’s see here. We’ve got a new guy who’s almost as smart as Spencer phased in just in time for the big TobAy revele. What’s the under/over on how many episodes until he and Spencer bone? I’m guessing 2 episodes max. I hope they have them do it to “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve.

Spencer is so angry she decides to just open and slam shut her locker over and over again until she feels better. When this proves ultimately unfruitful, she resigns to talking to Emily.

Emily wants to hang out after school and paint their toenails together but Spencer already has plans to longingly look at old pictures and wallow in self pity. She goes to storm out of school but just as she’s putting on her sunglasses there’s a note from A.

Ugh, I hate when A makes them hate on each other. I only like it when A forces Emily out of the closet or forces Aria to tell Ezra about his baby situation. C’mon A, let’s up the entertainment value here and force Emily to take Paige to a Tegan and Sara concert or something.

After school at the Life Cafe, Aria and Hanna obsess over totally different problems while Emily works like a real person. There’s a lot of bending over going on.

Aria wants to help Spencer with all of her deep emotional feelings about having feelings about her feelings. Hanna, on the other hand, wants to get all up in Caleb’s business. She’s still dwelling on the Caleb’s UncleDad issue. Hanna thinks she can track down Caleb’s uncle, Jamie, and prove he’s Caleb’s dad, and then Caleb will be happy forever. Aria suggests Hanna stay the fuck out of it.

If she really wants to make Caleb happy she can just buy him a new Sleater-Kinney CD and a Form 6. Oddly, as the two are sorting it all out, Ezra’s mother calls Aria and asks about Wesleywolf. Aria tells her that she has no clue where Wesleywolf is hiding out. Even though she totally knows he’s at Ezra’s Annex. Liar liar pants on fire. As usual.

Elsewhere, in between dropping it super low to buss tables, Emily runs into Cece. Emily asks her if she knows whether Ali might have been doing the nasty with Wilden. Cece denies ever seeing the two bump uglies, but claims every idiot and their brother wanted on Ali. Emily’s like, “As if” and then jots down some lines in her notebook to incorporate into her new book, Fifty Shades of Alison.

Cece: Yeah, and four million other Delta Phis and they all wanted to rush Ali.

Over at the Hastings’ residence, Spencer is making nearly the grossest smoothie of all time. I’ve had more conversations with PLL fans this week about this smoothie than any other topic including, “Who the fuck is A.”

Spencer is either pregnant or aiming for “death by carrots.” I guess she could also be on a Fruit Feast which is what the yoga girls in my med school call a fruit fast. Nerdy Andrew swings by and tries to explain why it’s totally not his fault that Spencer got kicked off the team.

Andrew explains that BOTP, the team doesn’t need Spencer anyways. He’s apparently so fucking good at history. Spencer challenges him to a history trivia match. He’s not interested. So Spencer proposes that they play strip trivia. He’s still not very interested. I’m very interested.

I’m not sure how I never thought to play strip trivia in college, but I wish I had. I would have ended up a lot less naked then all those games of strip poker.

Up at a mysterious ranch, Hanna tracks down Caleb’s uncle Jamie. In approximately 2.4 seconds it’s confirmed that Jamie is, indeed, Caleb’s father. Jamie wants to tell Caleb, but he has a dark past involving a police record for petty theft. Hanna is mortified, which is hilarious since she got busted for petty theft in season one.

Back over at Naked Nerd Central, Spencer and Andrew go tit for tat until Andrew gets Spencer down to tit. Well sort of. She does that all important “take your bra off under your shirt” move. You know the move I’m talking about.

We’re just one wrong question away from seeing Troian Bellisario goodies when Emily stops by.

Emily, normally I love you, but please stop ruining this for us right now.

Emily wants to know what the fuck is going on with Spencer’s spiral. She also unfortunately implies that Spencer was only getting naked with Naked Trivia Andrew to get back at TobAy. C’mon Emily, that’s pretty anti-feminist. There are lots of reasons Spencer might be rushing into a new sexual relationship. Like to piss off her parents or seem cool to her friends.

Emily keeps insisting that whatever happened with TobAy couldn’t be that bad. I’m unclear as to why the writers don’t have Emily appropriately hating men. Don’t they know anything about lesbians? Mostly Emily just wants Spencer to knock it the fuck off and get her head back in the game. Like any game at all. Except that smoothie game, because that shit was really gross looking. I think getting her head back in that strip trivia game is probably a solid plan.

This was a good moment. To quote Riese, via email to the whole team, “Holy shit Emily Fields is finally yelling at somebody for real and it’s awesome.”

Emily is so over it. Me too.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 318: Who’s Dead To Me At The Door

Welcome back to Pretty Little Liars, the most lesbian show on television to regularly not feature any actual lesbian content whatsoever. This week we ask the question “Who’s At the Door?” so many times we start to wonder exactly what show we are watching.

We open at 6:15am at the Life Cafe where the Liars are all super miserable before school. Spoiler alert: everyone spends this whole episode sad forever.

To start this off right, Aria has tons of feelings because Ezra has left to see his son. Aria literally can’t get past herself to imagine what this might be like for Ezra. As previously mentioned, I think this is a good thing because, um, sons trump girlfriends. Particularly when you’ve never met him before. And you’re in your twenties. And your girlfriend is a high school student. And she’s being stalked by a psychopath. And she wears car parts as jewelry.

Getting up for a hot sexy coffee refill, Spencer gets a text from her private investigator Secret Agent Man who has all sorts of TobAy key details. According to a commenter on the last recap, this is the same super secret detective sleuthman who Ali hired to figure out who was stalking her in the The Days of The Flashbacks. I guess Rosewood only has one private investigator. I’d bet a cat he was also the person Spencer’s parents hired to dig up dirt on Melissa. I’d bet a second cat that Mona has this guy on speed dial under the name PI In My Pocket Who Reports to Me.

Jason is on payroll today and strolls into The Life Cafe with Big Ali News. Since Ali’s body was dug up on the Halloween Ghost Ride of Lesbosexy Feelings, they’re reburying her. Again. Looks like there’s a ceremony. Again.

Jason has arranged for the Liars to attend Ali’s Hundredth Mourning of Sadtimes Murder Death Ceremony. Unfortunately, Spencer is all set with Ali’s death. I tend to agree it’s probably not healthy to keep opening old wounds. Then again it’s probably not safe to be constantly stalked by a theoretical murderous texter who is maybe also your dead best friend.

Everyone sort of wants to be like, “Spencer, stop being the worst,” but instead they just let her storm out and move on with their lives. Besides, it’s 7:05am which means it’s time for the half hour walk and talk to school. Aria and Hanna rush over to school for their early morning 1976 disco fashion walk off.

The two worry about how they still have some of Ali’s things. You know, things that were originally buried along with Ali but instead A has is planted piece by piece to attempt to frame the Liars. Also Aria is going to go lie around at Ezra’s apartment after school. Yeah that sounds like an A++ crazytown idea.

Starsweep to the locker set where MonA confronts Spencer. MonA is concerned Spencer’s off her A game. Get it?

MonA is having the most fun ever fucking with Spencer. Particularly because MonA knows exactly what’s what with the big TobAy reveal. Is it weird if I like our new A in action MonA the best?

Spencer, on the other hand, is letting Mona completely get to her. Now, this would be a great time to go talk to the school counselor or the principal and claim that Mona threatened her. I mean, who are they going to believe? Might as well play dirty too. But instead Spencer just stews in it.

Hanna finds Caleb alone in a classroom with all of his feelings. Caleb has some complicated backstory about his aunt who put him in foster care. Honestly I can’t remember if this is new or if I was supposed to know it already. Either way, Caleb’s been invited to come search through all the old things at the house and decide if he wants anything.

After school, Aria hangs around Ezra’s in the creepiest was possible. Like in his bed listening to music. I’m not going to say this is totally creepy, because technically they’re still together and he made her a key. I’d say it’s worse than sneaking over to your girlfriend’s house to do your laundry, but not as bad as showing up drunk to your ex’s in the middle of the night dressed like a pirate. Yeah, somewhere in the middle.

She’s about four minutes from rolling around in a heap of Ezra’s clothing when there’s a knock at the door. Who’s at the door? It’s Ezra’s werewolf brother Wesleywolf!

His American accent is 25% better but his excuse for being at Ezra’s is 100% worse. Something about fumigating the dorms at St. John’s Academy for Vampires and Werewolves. Aria becomes uncomfortable and tries to leave, what with the small shrine of Ezra’s chewed gum she’s started, but Welsleywolve suggests Aria stick around instead. They can be BFFLs.

Spencer meets up with Secret Agent Man in one of Rosewood’s many sketchy back alleys. They talk and he reveals dramatically that he’s been tracking TobAy’s credit card. Looks like TobAy bought hydrangeas before skipping town. Or something. I promise I really trying my hardest to care. The Secret Agent Man wants a million dollars to track the key to a specific door. Spencer’s unsure. A million dollars is a lot, but she, like everyone in Rosewood, and the world, wants to know who the fuck is at the door.

Emily stops by the police office slash Pam’s new work place to snag a picture of the picture of the picture of the picture of Officer Wildenmansir at everyone in Rosewood’s favorite vacay spot, Cape May. The photo is gone, but Emily ends up with early dinner plans with her mom which, in my homesick opinion, is even better.

Before the two can leave, Emily finds a French postcard from A in her mom’s purse. But what does it say?! What indeed?! If only I wasn’t one of those Americans who speaks only 1.002 languages. FYI, the .002 of a language is Chinese so that’s not much help here.

The next day, after an all important costume change into the most lesbian outfit of the episode, Emily decides to bring in some French reinforcements.

Emily probably could have just used Google Translate, but I’m guessing she wanted to air out her shoulders side by side with Spencer. She swings by Spencer’s bedroom of misery and despair to find Spencer eating all of the ice cream in the house and watching The Notebook.

Emily reveals that the postcard is one of 25 postcards she put as mementos in Ali’s casket. I mean, not the French, just the postcard. Wait, as a token of her everlasting love and friendship, Emily put 25 blank postcards in her friend’s casket? I have no clue.

Emily attempts to read the postcard but fails miserably in basically the cutest way ever. Spencer tells Emily to stop freaking out until she reads it. She then proceeds to put on the sexiest French accent ever and we all melt and leave the room to change our underwear.

The postcard essentially calls Emily a murder. We’re supposed to immediately understand that this is in reference to Emily’s kerfuffle with Lyndonate. I sort of air-balled that one and spent the next five minutes trying to figure out who the hell Emily was supposed to have killed. My bad. Emily knows exactly what this is all about, understandably, shocked and scared. Spencer, who’s currently claiming a monopoly on being sad, tells Emily she shouldn’t feel bad, and that she only killed Lyndonate in self defense. Spencer pushes all of Emily’s feelings on the back burner and proceeds to eat an entire carton of Cherry Garcia. Instead of telling Spencer to stop being an insensitive prick and get the fuck over TobAY, Emily just tells her that maybe something else happend. Maybe Spencer has the whole TobAy situation wrong because men are amazing flawless creatures brought to earth to make women happy.

Emily explains to Spencer that last week Hanna thought Paige was hooking up with another girl. Even though it looked really suspicious and Emily briefly thought Paige was cheating on her, the two talked about it and realized it was all a big misunderstanding. Paige was just flirting with the costume shop’s clerk. Much like how there’s only one private investigator, one police detective and one psychiatrist, there’s also only one costume shop owner. And she’s got a big lesbian crush on Paige. At least the lack of costume shop choices explains why everyone keeps wearing that creepy baby ghoul costume.

Also I’m so annoyed this whole situation was resolved off-screen without us getting to hear any lesbosexy feelings talk.

Aria and Hanna hang around in Hanna’s bedroom talking about boys and stuff. I kind of tuned this part out because I had just refreshed my mango salsa, but basically Aria thinks Wesleywolf is a hot snob who loves money. Aria is worried Wesleywolf is too comfortable with/attached to his trust fund. I would be attached to my trust fund too if I had one. Also Hanna convinced Caleb to go to his aunt’s house and dig through old toys and feelings.

Elsewhere, Emily has magically transported through time and space to the only psychiatrist’s office in town. I guess Dr. Shrink is taking same day appointments. Despite the fact that Emily has no reason to believe that anything she says will be confidential, she figures it’s time for some help.

You know, because at the midseason finale she killed someone. Yeah yeah yeah, it was totally in self-defense. Completely justified and that’s important to keep in mind. But jeez, if the writers were going to pretend that Emily could have a totally traumatic incident and not have any residual symptoms they must have thought their audience was girls ages 12-17. Oh. Right. Dr. Shrink responds with a couple of truly inspired facial expressions such as this:

and this:

and this:

Riveting shit.

Dr. Shrink suggests hypnotherapy. Not to bring back old memories (which, duh, is going to happen) but to reframe the ones she already has. Or something. I’m not really sure this is a thing. I think doing some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy twice a week is a better idea. Maybe some Lexapro later on if she still feels anxious. But what do I know?

Back at the bedroom of misery and despair, Spencer is more convinced than ever that her screen time is best spent crying along to soft music. This time I couldn’t Shazam the song fast enough, but imagine it was like Sarah McLachlan meets Adele. She resolves to pay the Secret Agent Man the one million dollars and have him dig up more info on where TobAy’s key leads.

Starsweep to the next day where our second favorite lesbian couple throw on their fanciest farmer chic to go through Caleb’s old things.

Caleb’s uncle lets them in and he and Hanna bond over old children’s books. Hanna, clearly projecting her own abandonment issues onto the situation, asks Caleb’s uncle a series of inappropriate and invasive questions. Caleb’s uncle is pretty aloof about the whole situation, but he seems to genuinely care about Caleb. It’s pretty awkward. I mean, Hanna, who do you think you are? A first year medical student?

Starsweep to bustling downtown Rosewood where Jason runs into Spencer. She’s taking one million dollars out of the bank account cash money. Jason really wants Spencer to come by Ali’s Hundredth Mourning of Sadtimes Murder Death Ceremony. Spencer still isn’t convinced. I feel like this is a good time for us to remember that Spencer and Jason are half siblings. You’d think Spencer would care more. Oh wait, I just remember that Spencer lives in Taylor Swift Land where the only thing that matters is crying about boys.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 317: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Lesbian Bar

Welcome to the 317th episode of Pretty Little Liars. Wait, that’s not right. The 17th episode of the third season of Pretty Little Liars— there we go– the only show on television where the time frame is so warped that the writers have committed to completely ignoring weather/seasons. This week something so gay and exciting happens that I don’t even want to waste my time with build up.

We open on on the lovestruck town of Rosewood to Spencer and TobAy doing making the beast with two backs.

Wait…. didn’t our big reveal just happen last episode?! Oops! It did. This is just the worst dream sequence ever.

This is how you do a dream sequence:

Elsewhere, Aria is still on that goddamn couch! This is just like that time Melissa wouldn’t get off the couch. She was pregnant. Just saying. Aria talks on the phone with Emily about whether or not to tell Spencer about Melissa being at Ali’s the night of her murder. The two are dead set on believing Byron even though he’s a ragehead who they thought killed their BFF last week.

Emily’s mom is back on salary and appearently working at the police station now. Isn’t that convenient/going to go terribly wrong.

On a potentially related note, the family of Nate aka Lyndon Jame aka that creep from earlier in the season sent Emily a box.

It’s a collection of every super lezzie birthday card, love note and life sized cardboard cutout Emily ever gave Ali. Ooooh and a notebook! Isn’t that every teenage lezzie’s dream? To have all your unrequited love shoved back in your face? Classic. Particularly since this means Lyndonate had his little mitts all over them.

Starsweep to the Marin residence where it looks like all the moms are on salary this week! Ashley checks in on how Hanna’s doing. Probably because Hanna has been insisting on sitting alone in the dark. Hanna is doing bad, what with the whole MonA thing.

Ashley is nervous about the MonA situation and wants to call the principal, but unfortunately Hanna won’t give her the go ahead. I mean, that would be, like, so totally embarrassing. Hanna is actually shockingly honest with her mother. While she doesn’t tell her about the new A notes, she admits she’s worried Caleb will do something stupid trying to protect her.

Starsweep to Aria’s again where Meredith’s “motive” is revealed. Surprise! Her motive is that she’s just totally crazy. Seriously, they didn’t give her any other motive. Not even a drug problem or thinking she would somehow get in trouble with the police. Not even a hilarious miscommunication a la Spencer’s Dad Think Melissa Killed Ali from last season.

I hate when women’s motives are just craziness. That’s so lazy. Byron’s all, “She shouldn’t be anywhere near my family,” and Aria is all “coolbeans let’s try not to get dead, cool?”

There’s also a super emotional part where Byron shares all the feelings about not protecting Aria well enough. I tuned that part out because I really couldn’t care less about the adults on this show. Where are the titties?

The next day, Aria, Hanna and Spencer walk to get coffee together before school at approximately 4:30 am. Hanna is particularly excited to tell the girls about her new gig as a 70s lounge singer. It becomes instantly clear that Spencer hasn’t told her friends that she knows TobAy is A. You can tell Spencer is emotional about the whole thing because for the first time ever Spencer’s hair doesn’t look washed and her shirt is so not tucked in. Spencer’s hair at its dirtiest is still pretty perfect.

The liars meet Emily outside the Life Cafe where they go through Ali’s old stuff. It includes Emily’s bio notebook which Ali borrowed. I know I always like to review a little miosis before sneaking out and getting murdered. The girls flip through the notebook and discovered Ali was doing that thing where you write notes back and forth on the same notebook. Like with a friend or scissoring partner. There are notes back and forth between Ali and someone else, mostly detailing the elaborate Truth or Dare game Ali had been playing with some Beach Hottie. The girls don’t know who Ali was writing with, but there’s something written about TobAy.

If you’re like me, you probably really really want to see what’s written in the notebook. So here it is. Honestly I’m not sure it reveals much of anything but it’s weirdly gratifying to read anyways.
At school, everyone is on their cell phones dialing the phone sex psychic hotline. Hanna is all about eavesdropping. Hanna overheads Aria telling Ezra to come by at lunch. She suggests Aria just rip the baby band-aid off. She also overhears Paige on the phone with Caleb.

In the hallowed stalls of the girls bathroom, Emily tracks down Spencer. She tries to tell her about the notebook but Spencer doesn’t give a shit anymore because she’s totally busy pulling a Twilight: New Moon and not speaking to anyone ever. At least until she meets her new werewolf bestie. Not that I read those books.

Emily finally convinces Spencer to read the portion of the notebook where it talks about TobAy. Cue the pastels. We flashback to Ali’s meeting with TobAy while TobAy was in juvenile detention. Ali confronted TobAy about the notes from A, which he denied writing. He does say he wishes he knew who had because he would totally offer his services to them. Seriously he said “services.” I assume he means BJs and stuff. Oh and Ali also was also all like, “I bet you wish you could kiss my face.”

It’s a whole thing but, like I’ve been saying, I just don’t care about Ali anymore. Also the costume designer took her cue from Half Past Dead.

Spencer cries and tells Emily the truth about TobAy. Just kidding, she tells Emily that she and TobAy broke up but doesn’t give any details. Then she flips out about Ali.

In class, Aria texts Spencer that Ezra freaked out and dumped her. Spencer reacts by completely losing her shit and storming out of class. Ella, who is there by magic, tries to stop Spencer. Instead of coming up with literally the thinnest lie she would need, “OH MY GOD. MY PERIOD,” Spencer screams at Ella/the class about how reading is dumb and a waste of her time. It is, quite literally, the least Spencer moment of all time.

Spencer finds Ezra using his laptop alone in the middle of the park. Because that’s a thing people do. Spencer goes off on him about what a horrible terrible no good awful person he is for dumping Aria even though all she did was lie to him for months about the existence of his son. It is instantly clear that Ezra has no idea what Spencer is talking about. Like instantly obviously Ezra has no idea. Fucking A strikes again. That girl is good.

At work/the police station, Emily’s mom asks the police officer if she should be worried about the package. I’m unclear exactly what Pam’s job is. For some reason I thought she worked at the Banana Republic.

An officer, who I think is supposed to be Detective Wilden but I’m not sure – Is this the same actor even? – Wilden claims that he knows what Emily went through. I guess he also killed someone in self defense. Weirdly he just seems to be trying to lead Pam into saying Emily killed Lyndonate. Or maybe he just has a lot of feelings. I don’t feel bad for him at all because I saw the first two seasons of this show where he was an assface.

Meanwhile, the younger Fields does some digging of her own. Flipping through Ali’s notebook she finds a picture of Ali and Cece at Cape May.

Remember Cece? She owns a clothing store and spends her time getting involved in high school drama that probably shouldn’t concern her. So basically she’s like every other 20-something year old in Rosewood.

Ezra, unable to wait until 2:20pm when high school lets out, finds Aria at Rosewood High. He confronts Aria about the big baby situation. My favorite part is how after over a year of trying to cover up their relationship Ezra does basically his best to blow it by obviously having a lover’s spat in the cafeteria. Ezra is, of course, pretty pissed about the whole not telling him about his son thing. Oddly he refers to Aria as “the person I’m spending my life with.” Ezra may or may have not just officially joined the Lesbian Club. I will say, for the record, Ezra does the angry/disappointed thing without turning into Scary Angry Man. I appreciate that.

I can’t believe an entire page worth of stuff has gone by and it’s not even 2:20pm yet!

Pretty Little Liars Recap 316: Misery Loves Company and Kale

Welcome to Pretty Little Liars, that other TV show about four girls making bad choices as they try to grow up and find their way.

We open on the starlit town of Rosewood where Aria is still sick/pregnant.

Maybe she didn’t get a flu shot. Did you get yours? No seriously, go get one. Fortunately she has Meredith by her side nursing her back to health with super special peach infused green black mango peppermint tea. Oddly the concept of tea seems to have eluded Emily.

The Liars debate about what to do with Ali’s notebook pages. Aria decides that she’ll hide the pages until her dad comes home from some conveniently timed conference. She’ll confront him then and take it from there. She hopes this is just some wacky misunderstanding (which, knowing Pretty Little Liars it probably is) but if he really did kill Ali she’ll have to go the police.

Elsewhere, a hooded figure listens to some “hardcore rock music” and disarms some sort of alarm system. No wait, it’s two figures. Looks like MonA and TobAy have a new death metal stalker A lair of doom together.

Either way the two are hatching a new plan. Whoever’s on top of Mona has sent word from the top that it’s time to show the Liars what’s what. Scare the shit out of them. Oh I can’t wait.

The next day, our favorite lesbian meets up with our least favorite man after Finn. TobAy lets Emily study at his place because she’s realized that all the hot lezzies at the library are just too distracting. Tobey tries to chitchat about A and MonA and that kind of close knit shit, basically trying to get Emily to open up to him. Just before he leaves, TobAy gives Emily his keys. As soon as he walks out the door, she calls Spencer and announces she has TobAy’s keys. Looks like The Liars have a plan. Could it be that they’re on step ahead and know all about TobAy being on the A Team? Almost definitely not, but it’s fun to fantasize.

Starsweep to Hanna’s where she’s making the worst choices ever about how to dress for a job interview. She really should have read my Style Thief: Bette Porter. Either way Hanna has a hotshot interview with a fashion designer and she has Caleb over for some fashion advice.

Hanna leaves the room to slip into something more comfortable, but overhears Caleb on the phone. Super sleuth computer cracker Caleb is sneaking around and agreeing to get in on something sneaky. For once ever, Hanna confronts him right away. So mature.

Hanna: Why are you talking about me on the phone?

Caleb: Whatever, I do what I want.

The two talk it out, but Caleb doesn’t back down because he’s a man and blah blah blah manhood.

Hanna resumes picking out her job interview look.

At Spencer’s TobAy is taking a shower. There’s a long elaborate reason why, but whatever. He wants Spencer to come over and make love for their anniversary that night (gross) but Spencer has to go to a super fancy award ceremony family dinner elsewhere. As soon as TobAy leaves it becomes obvious that there is no family dinner. Momma Spencer is on payroll and helping Spencer plan a big surprise anniversary dinner for TobAy over at his place. Oh, that’s why Emily wanted his keys. Lame.

At Aria’s, Meredith sneaks around the house like the worst person in the world. I guess she wants those diary pages back. My favorite part is how she’s searching around the living room like that’s where a a high school girl would hide something important. Yeah, that makes sense. Meredith has Aria drinking cup after cup of that good old special tea and snoozing away the afternoon. Oh. Shit. Meredith is drugging her. Duh.

At school, Emily brings Paige a super fancy meal of rosemary chicken and kale salad. God I love kale. I wish I had a girlfriend to cook me delicious kale. I wouldn’t even need the rosemary chicken as long as the kale was cooked really well.

Is it just me or is kale kind of in style? Wait. Or maybe kale is just really gay. Or both. Either way Emily has the lunch set up all fancy. Like with a table cloth and everything. Guys, a real live table cloth. This is so unfair. Why are these fictional characters living my fantasy meal moment.

Emily tells Paige she still has a lot of feelings about Paige’s feelings. Like all the feelings feelings. They discuss whether or not to get a cat but decide they should wait until they can decide between naming it BOTP or Ani DiFranco Jr. Paige informs Emily that she’s going to see someone that afternoon about all the anxiety she’s been having. Awesome, that’s one girl in therapy. How do we get the rest of the kids in town into some? Seriously there are not enough therapists in the state of Pennsylvania to deal with the number of traumatized kids in this town. At what point should the town start trying to train monkeys to listen?

Hanna shows up and needs some Em-Em time.

Hanna wants Emily to follow Caleb after school Veronica Mars style. Emily’s not so sure this is a good idea because, um, it’s a terrible idea. I guess Hanna doesn’t really understand about trust and stuff. C’mon Hanna, I just gave you all sort of maturity cred like five minutes ago!

Meredith runs by school and tells Ella that Aria is feeling much better. Liar! Ugh, every time I want to point out that someone’s lying I feel like an idiot. I should expect this. Three seasons later and it’s still in the title. Ella calls Aria to check in, but it turns out Meredith has her phone. What a fucking snake.

At TobAy’s apartment, Spencer cooks up her epic big meal for TobAy. She goes for lasagna which is a super good idea as far as I’m concerned. Seriously, pay attention here. Lasagna is a great dish for when you want to impress someone but also need to make sure it doesn’t blow up in your face. Spencer also scored some red wine! And a scrabble board. Unclear.

Over at Corrie’s Boutique of love and mystery, Hanna goes to interview for her new job. Before she can even get in the door she sees Ali’s reflection in the window. Or does she? Who knows.

Inside the design studio, Hanna gets caught amongst dozens of naked mannequins. Good old fashioned hoodied A is everywhere and pushes a whole row of mannequins into Hanna.

It’s shot really dramatically but actually, when you think about it, it might be the least scary thing ever. Like… an open show room with mannequins? Seriously? Are we running out of actually scary shooting locations? What’s next, A chases The Liars through a children’s birthday party?

Through the choir room?

Through the shooting location of The Real L Word?

Wait. That last one was actually scary.

Hanna is all shook up. Fortunately, she realizes, A dropped a key. Upon several re-watches it looks kind of intentional, but that could also just be poor acting.

Starsweep to the mean streets of downtown Rosewood where Emily tails Caleb after school. I must say she’s the hottest little spy I’ve ever seen.

He goes to a coffe shop but Emily can’t see who he’s meeting with. But we can! Turns out it’s Paige. I guess the person who Paige was talking to isn’t a therapist, it’s Caleb. Talking to your girlfriend’s friend’s girlfriend about your problems instead of a professional?

Oh wow, that’s healthy. Nothing like a raging moment of martyrdom to really seal the deal on a codependent relationship. Paige and Caleb hatch a plan to beat MonA. They decide they’re going to sniff out MonA’s cubby hole of hoarder shit. I hope that when they do find A’s Lair they actually go ahead and alert the Hoarders productions team. Rachel and I used to watch that show together and and shit gets so real.

At Hanna’s, the girls wonder what’s up with the A key and Hanna’s attack. They also muse over why Hanna has chosen this specific moment to show off her new Uncle Sam costume.

What if underneath Hanna’s face was another face only that face was another face that looked just like Hanna. Whoa. Deep.

Okay I think I need an emotional page break.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 315: Mona-Mania Versus Spanking Spencer

Welcome to the fifteenth installment of the third season of Pretty Little Liars. Wow fifteenth episode? How long have I been doing this? This week’s episode of Pretty Little Liars totally beat the crap out of last week’s pathetic excuse for an episode. This week’s episode was so good that even though I just spilled mango salsa on my pink shirt just as a load of red laundry finished (so now this shirt won’t get washed until the next reds wash in a million years), I don’t care because I’m giggling. Questions were answered, faces were shown, people were confronted and, of course, more questions were raised. Plus Mona was all over the place. Was she scheming? Was she redeeming? Who knows! She’s wacky and unpredictable!

Not that I care about that stuff. I’m actually just thrilled that Paige had some serious screen time and Paily was the only couple that kissed this week! Victory! I’m pretty sure the future is now.

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We open on Aria watching scary movies. Yeah, that’s what a girl constantly stalked by a murderer would be doing. Papa Rageface shows up to make amends, apparently the police figured out who really set the fire at the school that hurt Meredith and he feels super bad for blaming The Liars for no real reason. Byron leaves the room remaning 100% creepy and with us remaining 100% certain the police totally got it wrong. The Rosewood police department are literally the worst ever.

Cut to the other three Liars who are inexplicably sneaking into their school to try to steal Ali’s diary. The three apparently haven’t learned to take flashlights on these little outings. They stalk down to the basement to file through Creepy Janitor’s stuff again. They also do some good old fashioned shit talking about their friend behind her back! “Like, omigod did Aria’s dad really kill Ali? What a slut.” Oh to be young again.

The Liars suddenly realize someone is the room with them! Unfortunately, due to their continuous lack of flashlights they don’t see who it is. Hanna sees his shoes though!

Unsurprisingly, the office has been totally cleared of Mona and/or the Creepy Janitor’s stuff. Plus, you guessed it, Ali’s journal is gone and replaced with an identical empty one. ‘Cause that’s how we roll A style.

The next day, the four Liars meet to discuss the previous evening’s events over a hot cup of joe. I want to clarify, because of the constant dead bodies, that I’m using slang for coffee. Not an actual cup of a dead guy named Joe. Mostly everyone has been having nonstop constant stress nightmares. Aria’s been having nightmares that Republicans take the Senate and make elaborate accessories illegal. Hanna’s been having nightmares that Clairol stops making Nice ‘n Easy Born Blonde permanent hair dye. Spencer has been having nightmares she’s shown up to a polo match but forgotten her riding crop! Emily has been having the exact same nightmare except she’s showing up to a lesbian bondage orgy.

Spencer reveals that she’s now running unopposed for captain of the Academic Decathlon Team. Remember that last episode A took the front tire of someone’s bike? Looks like A’s got Spencer all set up to be the new team captain.

Mona shows up and everything gets super awkward. It’s just like when your former friend who turned out to be stalking and threatening you shows up at the local coffee shop at 5:30am before you got to school. Just like that. She announces that the Creepy Janitor was at their school stalking her and that she (and now the police) think that he started the fire. Just as the police went to look for Creepy Janitor he went missing. How convenient.

The Liars mull over the situation, by which I mean they go around in a circle making what the fuck is going on faces. Zero Liars believe Mona. Spencer remarks that, now that Meredith doesn’t think they attacked her, Mona sort of did them a favor.

A favor from Mona? What would that even look like?

After school, Hanna confronts Lucas. Super sleuth Hanna recognized Lucas’s shoes from the night before. Because they used to be besties. Awww. Lucas is super scared of Mona and doesn’t want to be seen talking with Hanna for fear that it will set her off again. He seems to think other people believe that Mona has reformed.

Also, as it turns out, Lucas was the one who went all pyrotechnics on the school storage locker. That’s right, it wasn’t Mona or the Creepy Janitor who tried to burn the building down, it was that third string male character I always forget about.

Inside, Paige and Emily leave class together! Adorable! Yay forever! Except Paige is acting sort of weird.

At first I thought she was going to break up with Emily because of all the bullshit that went down with getting kidnapped, but I promise she doesn’t!! She just explains that her parents are super tweaked out and restricting her every move. Because, um, she was sort of gagged and almost killed in the woods. So obviously she and Emily make plans to go to a party in the woods!

Also, a french braid? Be still my Katniss heart.

In her humble classroom of literature and love, Ella and Aria catch up a bit. Aria has stopped by to show her mother her new Flintstones costume and Ella is totally unimpressed with everyone’s reaction to Garret’s death.

Shockingly, while the whole town is obsessing over a man’s death, Ella remembers that a young girl’s murder remains unresolved. Ella is beside herself that she wasn’t there enough for her daughter. Apparently she and Byron partied a little too hard and she was out like Hammer pants all night and hungover for realz the next morning. Sounds like Byron wanted her dead to the world IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Starsweep to the Academic Decathlon meeting. Remember when I said that Spencer would now be unopposed as Academic Decathlon team captain? Welp, not exactly. Looks like Mona wants to be captain too, and her super genius photographic memory is probably going to take her there.

Okay wait, you expect me to believe that Mona, after breaking literally hundreds of laws, is not only facing absolutely no legal consequences, she’s also not facing any consequences at school? Who is she, Chris Brown?
Looks like all the six-person team has to do is vote. Shocker: it’s a tie. With the (totally obviously bribed and/or blackmailed) team at a split, we’re gonna have a Speech Off. Is this where we start chanting? SPEECH OFF! SPEECH OFF! SPEECH OFF! Hm. That doesn’t have as much umph as I thought it might.

After the meeting the current team captain goes over to give Spencer a little sumpin’ sumpin’. Is he going to be an actual regular character on the show? Because they seem to be flirting and I wasn’t informed.

Guy: Spank her like I know you can.
Spencer: Good pep talk.

Phew. Is it hot in here?

The next day at school, Mona confronts the Liars with a whole new batch of apologies and tears.

Blah blah blah I’m not allowed to have a computer or phone or internet, blah blah blah. Turns out Jason has been “supervising” her in the computer lab and that’s the only way she was able to post an apology video. It’s maybe sort of sad or maybe sort of supposed to make us think Mona is sneaky. I’m unclear.

After school, Aria, Emily and Hanna meet for a rehash gab session. They go over all the details of the day and Aria totally not subtly at all drops that she’s been feeling queasy. Calling it right now, Aria is pregnant.

The Liars wonder whether Byron might have intentionally gotten Ella drunk, and end up arguing over the details of Aria’s father’s meeting with Ali. Unable to come to a conclusion Aria goes and looks for the diary page, where she left in, in her left boot. I think we can all agree this is the best hiding place of all time, and take a five minute break so you can all hide your diaries/cigarettes/sex toys in your Doc Martins.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 314: She’s Better Now, Or At Least Back For The Winter Premiere

Hooray! Pretty Little Liars is back! I missed it so much during its hiatus I had to do lame things like spend my time getting good grades and keeping up with my classes!

We return to Rosewood just a few days? Weeks? Months? after the super scary Halloween episode. I’m still unclear about the timeline, but I can tell you there’s still no snow in Pennsylvania.

On this week’s episode nothing happened. I mean, yes, people talked, people went places, but nothing was revealed, discovered or particularly shocking. It’s like the writers busted their cannons on the last few episodes and now the show has about as much plot line as this season’s Christmas episode of Glee. Or any episode of Glee.

We open on Mona playing cuddle bunnies with Hanna in the middle of the night.

That’s right, Mona is back. Like back back. Just like when Brock came back to Pokemon!

Mona’s been released from Arkham Insane Asylum without any consequences or jail time and now she’s free to frolic unsupervised all over Rosewood. Supposedly she’s better, which is totally possible in the real world. People really do get better. Except this isn’t the real world. It’s Liar World.

Mona announces she has to go back to school the next day and while baby face mask and talking dolls are scary, nothing is scarier than high school. Hanna opts not to call the police and tells Mona she’ll think about it.

Elsewhere, TobAy tries to run over some skateboarder with his car.

Starsweep to our favorite lesbian’s bedroom where Sargent Papa Fields is back in town and he’s decided to put Emily on lockdown.

Not because of the gay thing, Sargent Papa Fields specifies that Paige can come over to scissor whenever Emily wants. Emily just can’t leave after dark. Like the house’s alarm system will go off and everything will explode Mission Impossible IV style. Gosh what kind of parent won’t let his teenage daughter go out after dark? Oh yeah, they kind whose kid keeps almost getting dead. Parents just don’t understand.

Emily is super bummed about her new electronically instated curfew because this week’s Big Event is some sort of after dark charity run. Or maybe it’s a marathon. I wouldn’t know because I haven’t seen the inside of a pair of sneakers since Borat was popular.

Starsweep to daytime where Hanna’s Grandma Paula Deen is babysitting for unknown reasons. In case you don’t have a keen an eye as Intern Grace, that’s Betty Buckley. You probably know her from when you saw her star in Cats on Broadway in 1970. Or maybe when she played Mrs. White in Stephen King’s Carrie: The Musical. Okay I guess she started in Eight is Enough. Honestly I have no idea who Betty Buckley is but everyone else seems to know.

Either way, Grandma Paula Deen encourages Hanna to forgive Mona. I mean, Mona even sends her a muffin basket. I personally would totally forgive Mona. But then again we all know how I feel about a good muffin basket.

At school, Mona is there and it’s weird.

The Liars also remind Aria about what Garret said about her dad, Byron, on Halloween. Aria throws a hissy fit and then reminds her friends/the audience that Ezra has a son he doesn’t know about. Basically the girls recap what happened the last two episodes.

The proceed on to social studies class where they are confronted by Meredith as their new teacher. At first I couldn’t remember who the hell Meredith was, but then I realized she’s the former student Byron slept with. You know, the reason for Aria’s parents’ divorce. Awkward sauce. And the end of class the four try to have a Jets and Sharks style face off with Meredith, but instead it’s just awkward and no one knows the dance routine. You’d think Meredith would be remotely the adult in the situation and explain things to the principal to have Aria excused from the requirement or transferred to some other class.

In the halls, Hanna tries to comfort Mona who is getting the stare-down from everyone in school.

Mona opens her locker and it looks like brain is for lunch! I’m not going to lie to you, I gasped. Still, I’m pretty disappointed in whoever pulled that prank. Someone worked really hard to carefully remove that brain completely intact from a cow skull and now it’s just been trashed. Preserved tissue doesn’t come cheap in this economy you know!

After trashing the brain Mona walks parted red sea style back to her locker, stopping to whisper to Lucas. Remember Lucas? He used to be another male character we didn’t care about.

Post brain situation, The Liars convene in their office aka the girls bathroom to smoke cigarettes and take uppers. Mona wanders in and tells them she knows they didn’t put the brain in there because she totally helped Emily “figure out who killed her girlfriend.” Um. Says the chick who tried to pin Maya’s death on Emily’s current girlfriend.

At lunch, Caleb and Hanna rehash the situation. I’m so proud the writers even thought to have someone ask, “Do you think Mona did that herself?” It insults my intelligence when the main characters don’t ask the obvious questions. I assume they’ve been reading these recaps and altering the dialoge accordingly. Hanna comments that Lucas has been limping and reminds Caleb/the audience that Aria stabbed someone in the leg on Halloween.

Over at another table, Spencer and TobAy watch as Jason and Mona canoodle. Spencer is generally just grossed out about the fact that Mona looks about 12 and Jason not a day over 45. She then changes the subject to Jenna supposedly leaving town. Spencer muses that maybe Jenna thought she was next to get whacked. TobAy pointed out that Tammin Sursok was probably just off filming Sleeping Around with Jesse Bradford and she’ll be back next episode. Maybe then she’ll get whacked. It’s hard to say who will get whacked next.

Starsweep inside of the school where Emily is checking in with her totally paranoid dad. Just then, she notices that the creepy guy working reception at the Lost Woods Psycho Terror Resort is working as the school janitor and chatting up Mona.

Emily grabs Hanna and the two sneak down to the basement of the school, which we’ve never seen, to scope the janitor’s office.

He has a big box of Mona’s stuff including the creepy baby face costume I hate so much.

Starsweep to Ezria land. Aria also makes an incredible discovery over at Ezra’s apartment when– just kidding. Got you! Nothing happens. Aria just gets a mocking jay pin for good luck from Ezra.

Aria also gets another gift. This one is a threat from A telling her to tell Ezra about his son.

Elsewhere Spencer and TobAy go out for a run in prep for the aforementioned nighttime charity 100K. The two see Jason, and Spencer warns him not to cozy up to Mona. Jason is unimpressed. He insists it’s his right to hug whatever potentially unbalanced teen girl he wants. I suppose, constitutionally, it is.

Starsweep to the Life Cafe where Emily is working and Hanna and Aria are crime solving. Caleb is, for once, actually acting like a high school boy and hitting Emily up to feed him some free food. The scoobies muse over the fact that, according to a file Caleb stole, Mona actually insisted she go back to Rosewood High. In retrospect, I’m sort of shocked the school doesn’t have any sort of anti-bullying zero tolerance policy. So Mona’s up to no good at the school. Riveting.

Back at the Hasting’s ranch, TobAy and Spencer catch a little tubbin’. Not to be overly observant, but is it just me or are hot tubs kind of weirdly back in style?

I feel like I’ve been hearing a lot of pro-tubbing talk going on these days. For the record, however, there are literally infinity people I would rather see Troian Bellisario in a hot tub with.

+ Spencer and Emily
+ Spencer and Paige
+ Spencer and Samara
+ Spencer and Santana
+ Spencer and the Kool-Aid Guy

You get the idea.

As the two are tubbin’, Spencer starts to hear some rustling in the bushes. She gets up in the tub to investigate calling out to the big great wooded unknown. Spencer turns her back to TobAy as she leans over the edge of the hot tub towards the woods.

Just then TobAy tries to– Ha! Got you again! Nothing happened there either. Spencer just looked a bit crazy and ominous music reminded us that TobAy is bad. Okay, so my theory is that while obviously TobAy is on the A team, his job is basically just to divert Spencer and slowly drive her mad. And maybe get some booty.

While TobAy and Spencer get hot and wet, Aria sits at home dreaming about her older manfriend. Her father walks in and tells Aria that Meredith, lying, said that class had gone very well. Just as he’s about to leave the room, Aria asks her dad what he thought of Ali. Byron’s all, “I think all your friends are lovely amazing young women who will make incredible future leaders of America.”

This would have been a really good time for Aria to say, “Okay, but I heard a rumor that Ali was fighting with you before her death. Is this true? I just need to know.” Instead, she just acts like she still misses her friend a lot.

Starsweep to the Marin residence where Hanna watches the hit new Youtube video “Mona’s Apology” over and over again.

Basically Mona says that because she was bullied and thought she was ugly, she lashed out and became a psychopath trying to kill people. Grandma Paula Deen points out that anyone who wants to be forgiven that badly is probably a creepy weirdo.

Speaking of creepy weirdos, Lucas shows up at Hanna’s door. He has the last of Caleb’s money, reminding us/the audience that he borrowed some to pay off debt last season. He reveals to Hanna/reminds the audience that Mona has been sneaking out of Arkham Insane Asylum all season. We’re obviously not shocked since we saw it go down, but you think Hanna would have been a little a little surprised. Nope.

Hanna confronts Lucas about his leg injury and he says it happened in a skateboarding accident. Hanna assumes this is a lie and that he was just stabbed by Aria. Obviously we’re supposed to think he was run off the road by TobAy. I think this is just total misdirection and Lucas was actually just hurt in an unrelated freak masturbating incident.

Are we ever going to get to this stupid night race? Is this thing really happening? Let’s take a bathroom break and a page break.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 313: This is a Dark Ride of Unclear Lesbian Costumes

This week’s special Halloween episode of Pretty Little Liars was Spooktacular. Yeah, I just used the word “Spooktacular.” It was seriously that good.

I was not expecting greatness in light of last years flashback awkward-face mismoshed excuse for an episode. Boy did I get my socks knocked off. Way the hell off. Oh, and it was fucking scary.

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We open on Radley Sanitorium where Mona has just finished adding Brunettes Painting While Singing Teddy Bear’s Picnic to my list of irrational fears. That’s right, she’s painting a full headed creep-o mask situation. Mona says some other creepy pseudo-non-sequitur Mona shit, and then gives some pills and bullets to some hooded figure. Normal A fare.

Starsweep to the Liar’s neighborhood where they are walking home thinly explaining why four girls who’ve had potentially the most traumatic last few months would ever want to board a spooky themed train on Halloween. They’ve also agreed they’re all going to go as different movie characters and surprise each other which I feel like is sort of an adorable thing BFFs actually do. So that’s cute. Either way I’m just glad Emily won’t be reprising her outrageously offensive “Sexy Indian Girl” costume situation from the previous year. Mostly I was crossing my fingers that all the Liars would show up in the same costume and that would be the hilarious crux of the episode, until I realized I wasn’t watching a CBS sitcom.

Back at the Hastings residence, Garret shows up looking for Mama Hastings but is instead confronted by Spencer. Spencer is so not into Garret hanging about, but luckily Garret announces his impending departure. He says he wants to tell her everything before he goes. FYI this is the moment when you know he’s either going to die to not actually know anything of value.

Bummer for everyone, this is the moment Toby aka The Worst Person in the World shows up and kicks Garret out. As you may remember, last we saw Toby he was sleeping with Spencer and then turned out to be working with A. So we hate him.

Flash over to where our second favorite lesbian couple, Caleb and Hannah, are making out in a broom closet at a dentist’s office. The rationale for why this is going on is weak at best but I think it has to do with sneaking around so A won’t find out. Haven’t we been down this road already? Didn’t Caleb get shot and put an end to all of that? I thought the sneaking around portion was over.

Timewarp over to our favorite inappropriate power dynamic couple where Aria is trying on part of her costume just as Ezra comes home.He mournfully reveals that he can’t make it to the Cool Kid’s Train Party because he has a job interview. At night. On a weekend. On Halloween.

Finally we get to our favorite lesbian couple as they prepare for the night. Just kidding! We don’t see them. Actually we cut to Ashley and Pastor Ted handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. This leads to a whole side plotline about a really creepy, cold little girl — the same one from last years Halloween episode — who may or not be a ghost and also wants to call her mom and then talks about her sister and disappears.

More importantly, Ted and Ashley are dressed as a sexy doctor and sexy nurse — it’s uncomfortable for everyone involved, but mostly for me.

I’m bored. Let’s get on that Halloween Train Party.

The crew all meet up at the Life Cafe where they make overly grand costume-revealing entrances and await The Train’s departure. Hannah is dressed as Marilyn Monroe in the Seven Year Itch. She arrives and gets her picture taken by Lucas, who I guess is good again because he tells her she’s beautiful. That’s a life lesson guys, always trust people who tell you you’re beautiful. Always.

Aria follows Hannah in, sporting a Daisy Buchanan a la The Great Gatsby costume and a complete misunderstanding of the concept of “dressing up as movie characters.” There have literally been four Gatsby movies (with a fifth on the way) and Aria takes the time to point out she’s the book character. Hannah asks Aria “Where’s your writer?” It took me three days to realize this was because Fitz’s real last name is Fitzgerald. I need to get out more.

Next up Spencer and her psychopath boyfriend show up as Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not. At least I think that’s who they’re supposed to be.

Wait. Maybe they’re Bonnie and Clyde? Michael Corleone and Kay Adams? Al and Mae Capone? Okay: mobster and mobster’s girlfriend. I guess it doesn’t really matter because Spencer is smoking hot and I want to put my mouth on her face. Moving on, we finally we get to see our favorite abcFamily lezzies!

Yeah, I know. I literally had to pause the episode to throw some ice cubes down my pants. Shesh. That Barbarella outfit is unreal. If you’ve never seen Barbarella, you’re obviously going to need to immediately. This is a need. I honestly couldn’t have asked for more. For the record, I have no idea what Paige is dressed as but I’m guessing the giant flower means some derivation of Carrie Bradshaw. Alternatively, she might be going as Your High School Prom Date. Regardless I would like to cordially invite you all to wear either of these costumes at your leisure. And send pictures.

Just before the train arrives, Team Rocket aka Noel and Jenna make their entrance.

Noel is dressed as some sort of cross between a matador and Prince William. I think there’s a good chance that Jenna is actually, yet again, just dressed as Lady Gaga. What can I say, Gaga’s look has gotten a bit out there. Then again, Jenna might not be dressed up at all, she does have a thing for tiny hats. Of course I’m just joking around, Noel and Jenna are in a couples costume as lego pirates.

Just before everyone boards the train, Noel fakes choking which you should never never never do ever. Seriously. Don’t do that. It’s not funny. Stop it. No okay. Never ever ever.

All is forgotten, however, when the Liars board the train and discover Our Gay Boyfriend Vintage Vampire Adam Lambert performing with what I have to assume is his new band The Sidecuts.

He sings his new song “Cuckoo,” and even though the celebrity guest star cameo-ness of it all is almost too much to bear, I love it. Don’t judge me.

During this scene a few things become painfully obvious. First of all, no one, not even Tobychabod Crane can resist Glambert. Secondly, the band’s lady guitarist is super hot. Most importantly though, Paige is breaking one of the most important rules of Halloween — don’t wear a hat or wig if you’re going to be fussing with it all night. She just needs to set it on a table or something.

Cut to Radley where a nurse goes to check on Mona through a window. Obviously the mask Mona was painting is there instead combined with the classic pillows under the blanket trick. Mona is out and about.

Meanwhile, mid-song, some masked figure grabs Hanna’s ass. Anyone who has ever followed this show knows it’s going to be Caleb. I was going to have Intern Grace make an overly dramatic chin analysis of the masked figure to prove it was Caleb, but then they show him like three scenes later. I never get what I want.

Elsewhere, in the Dining Car, Toby and Jenna have a little run in.

Jenna: Do you like my costume?
Toby: [covers Jenna’s other eye] I liked you better like this.

Toby needs a metaphorical slap. Like I get that we’re supposed to hate Jenna, but all the blind jokes are uncalled for. They just make everyone else look like a complete dick. Lay off already — it’s just awkward for everyone now. As a side note, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we found out there was more about Jenna and Toby’s relationship we don’t know. Like more fucked up shit.

Over in the Passenger Car, a James Dean clad Jason confronts Spencer. He wants to know if why the hell Spencer was fraternizing with Garret, aka Jason Enemy #1, at her house. Spencer’s all “wah wah wah he was there to see my mom. I do what I want.” I think this would have been a good moment to be like, “Hey Jason, remember the time your shed was full of pictures of Aria and we thought you were A? Yeah, looks can be deceiving, dick.” Alas, none of that happens and instead Jason goes running off into the distance with Lucas.

Starsweep to the Hopelessly Devoted Car where Aria looks longingly into the bottom of a glass of whiskey dreaming of her older, well educated, vest-wearing manfriend.

Concerned by her long face, Adam Lambert strolls on over to make sure Aria is okay. FYI their conversation is completely weird and somehow the most unrealistic part of the episode. That’s right, the least realistic part of an episode of Pretty Little Liars was a conversation where no one died or threatened to expose some grand lie. They set themselves up to fail since it’s totally bizzaroland that Glambert would even be strolling around a Pennsylvania suburb’s train party on halloween night. Shouldn’t he be attending some sort of gay celebrity halloween bash? Or giving a halloween benefit concert in New York City? Or handing out candy to trick-or-treaters since he’s like 30, works a million hours per week and probably feels ready for a quiet night in with Sauli Koskinen? Also, Aria also draws her name on the glass because she can’t wait the 3.5 seconds until the train finishes going over some noisy tracks. Also Glambert kind of hits on her which is weird since he is credited as himself and last I checked he was Our Gay Boyfriend/Sauli Koskinen’s Gay Boyfriend. So that happened.

Just as Glambert is heading off, some sneaky Joker walks by, opens his poison ring and dumps some white powder into Aria’s drink. I’m pretty freaked out by how easily these girls are getting drugged in their drinks, particularly because I think it might be realistic. I’m also starting to wonder why any of them drink in public anymore. Clearly that game plan isn’t working out for them.

Fantasy sweep over to the Lesbosexy Privacy Car where Paige and Emily get their feelings time on.

They tell each other they can’t believe they’re together for about the hundredth time. Like I get it already, can we just get to the part where they’re both not totally insecure anymore?

I get that they’re high school students so actually the shock and disbelief that someone hot loves you is totally real, but I’d like to get to the part where they get a Ezaria/Hanneb/Spoby sexy scene. Like let’s do that now. Instead they just exchange some hot words and hold hands palm to palm.

Wait. Wait just a damn minute. Emily is dressed as Barbarella… and in Barbarella that’s how they have sex… with emotional transference when their “psychocardiograms are in perfect harmony.”

Basically Emily and Paige have the nerdiest most lesbian sex ever. Beggars can’t be choosers. I’ll take it.

Just then, outside the This is Where High School Students Go to Make-out Cars, Spencer is grabbed by the zombie figure from last year’s Halloween episode.

There was a commercial break to build suspense, but I don’t have the ability to go to commercial break, so let’s take a page break instead!

Pretty Little Liars Recap 312: The Lesbian Lady Killer

My general feeling about the mid-season finale of Pretty Little Liars was OMG. Sometimes it was OMG what is going on. Sometimes OMG I knew it. A lot of the time it was OMG I totally saw that coming. Not in a coherent/told anyone way but in a “knew it in my heart” kinda way. Why? Because as promised, ABC Family revealed the latest member of the A-Team.

Who could possibly be on the A-Team? Well these were my picks as of last episode:

So I had a lot of feelings. So many feelings, in fact, that we had to have an open thread for them and it took me over a week to process. Sorry for the delay! No, seriously, sorry. I’m feeling really bad for leaving you hanging like that. Let’s get to it!

We open on Rosewood during a sun-drenched day where the Liars are all getting along, applying to college, trying out new and interesting extracurriculars and dating age-appropriate significant others. Just kidding, we start in the middle of the night, ambulances everywhere, one injured person and one in a body bag. Hanna is freaking out and doing her best Rachel Berry impression.

Meanwhile Emily stands in shock about “the victim.” Who is this victim? Is it who Hanna is crying over? I hope it’s Wren. Is it Paige? Where are all these feelings coming from. I wish I had one of those giant body pillows. I am concerned.

But this is the end, sort of, and we backtrack in time to figure out how the hell we got there.

Two days earlier the Liars are still not doing any of that fun, sun-drenched shit I mentioned. Nope, the city is abuzz with reporters for Garret’s impending trial.

The Liars plan an ambush/intervention about how Paige is definitely totally absolutely A. Like Spencer totally has it right this time. She couldn’t be wrong again. Hanna and Aria have some doubts. For example, why the fuck would Paige drug herself? Well, Spencer suggests she could be just going all Basic Instinct and creating the best alibi ever.

I think the best alibi ever would be, I dunno, if maybe she was hanging out with her parents most of that night. Oh wait, I think they were out of town that night like they always are. Gosh, Emily and Paige should be doing a lot more finger banging over at the McCuller’s residence.

Speaking of Emily, she shows up at Spencer’s under the pretense that the Liars are ready to apologize for suspecting Paige or something. Unfortunately when she shows up they just pounce on her, How I Met Your Mother style.

The Confederate Liars are like “Yo. Your girlfriend is A!” And Emily is like:

Because Paige being A makes as much sense as a box full of monkeys and I don’t know if you’ve seen a box full of monkeys recently but they definitely don’t make any sense at all. Aria presents her grand evidence — the earring from Ali’s coffin — and Emily goes ahead and states the obvious. A plants things where she wants them to find it all the time. Mona used to plant stuff and now this new A does. Easy peesey lemon squeezy. Everyone agrees this makes a lot of sense but decides to stay in a fight anyways because, welp, why the fuck not. Emily again points out the obvious that A (and Ali for that matter) loved to pry the girls apart. So A wins again. Womp womp.

Starsweep to the majestic outer gallery of Rosewood High where Aria and Hanna still aren’t really going to class or anything. Instead they’re just dicking off outside talking about all their feelings. Aria discloses to Hanna what she discovered about Ezra’s seven-year-old bundle of joy but that she’s hasn’t told him yet.

Hanna, who has become increasingly wise as this series progresses (as opposed to Aria, who is basically the same) tells Aria she really needs to tell her main squeeze about his little lemon or she’ll live to regret it.

Hanna: Remember what Ali said about secrets keeping us together? She was wrong, they tear us apart.

And then they did some hand holding.

Meanwhile, in the set that must be listed in all teen dramas as “Hallway Lockers,” Paige and Spencer have a confrontational situation moment. Emily ran to Paige crying because the other Liars were mean to her that morning. That sounds exactly consistent with high school girl-girl relationships, but Spencer is unimpressed. She wants Emily all to herself so they can compare long brunett hair length and argue paid shirt versus plaid skirt.

Paige is having none of that because she and Emily need to be together forever and ever and ever U-Haul style. Spencer tells Paige “I know who you are,” making Paige the one thousandth recipient of this comment from Spencer. It is painfully obvious in this moment that Paige thinks Spencer is speaking about Paige’s past/anger/self-perceived unworthiness and not implying that Paige is a psychokiller.

Rosewood High lacks any on-campus authority figures or attendance policy, so Paige goes to Emily’s place to commiserate. This entails that they cuddle intertwined and I find it to be highly effective in convincing me that they are the cutest couple ever (except for Portia de Rossi and Ellen because duh).

Emily explains that there’s a new A and Paige seems sort of faux-surprised. Paige tells Emily she’ll never leave her alone… and then promptly leaves her alone after receiving a text from A.

Back over at recess, the remaining Liars discuss their current situation. Spencer finally fucking remarks that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to tell their parents.

Honestly, at this point, the Liars don’t have too many secrets on the table. As they continue to lie they only create more problems for themselves. Unfortunately, this idea is promptly followed by a text from A. A wants them to play by her rules or Emily gets hurt. For someone so clearly self-sufficient, everyone sure is worked up over keeping Emily safe.

This is possibly because just when you thought we were safe from Mona, she’s actually leaving the mental institution dressed up as a nurse from the 40s.

While this isn’t a new idea or trope, it’s still absolutely completely terrifying. I have got to stop watching this show alone. Have to. Like it is 1:05am and I am too scared to watch this scene alone again. I just think scary nurses are a particularly terrifying trope.

Back in someone’s bedroom, the Liars-sans-Emily get a conveniently timed email from A. A wants the Liars to come to graveyard at 10pm with Maya’s bag. Plus A has a picture that makes Aria, Spencer and Hanna look like they dug up Ali’s body while leaving Emily in the clear. Oh yeah, this is totally not a setup.

Just then there’s a bump at the door? Who could it be? Crazy faux-nurse Mona?!?!

Nope, honorary Liar/lesbian Caleb shows up. Caleb is still 100% fishy in my mind, but the Liars let him in on the shindig nevertheless.

Over at Emily’s house, Pam is showing her only moment of overly relaxed parenting by letting Emily go away with “Nate and his family” for the weekend. I know what you’re thinking: What the fuck. First of all, it’s ridiculous that Emily’s “traditional” mom would let her go away for the weekend with a college boy without talking to his parents first to ensure that they’ll be along. Not just because of sexxxxx but mostly because of thing like booze and drugs and generally bad decisions.

Secondly, its weird that Paige and the Liars, in light of how much THEY CARE FOR EMILY THE MOST, would so willingly let her go off with a guy who is clearly creepy and the whole lot of them barely know. This is particularly true for Paige who probably would not be thrilled at the idea of her girlfriend gallivanting off with a guy who she busted her kissing like a week earlier. But finally, and most importantly, why the fuck does Emily want to go away for the weekend with a guy who freaked out about her not wanting to be with him only like a week ago?!

And yeah, not to ruin the surprise, but in this moment (if you haven’t been calling it all season long anyways) you just absolutely know Nate is a psychopath who is going to try to kill Emily.

Elsewhere, Spencer is looking at a Halloween Train Ride advertisement when she sees Toby’s cro-magnon reflection in the glass.

Spencer turns and they slow-mo run in to a kiss that is shot (again in slow-mo) with a spinning 365 degree camera. It is the fucking worst and feels so overblown and out of place. I forgot Toby even left.

The only thing to do now is to segue into Spencer’s room for a dramatic sweaty bodies virginity-losing extravaganza. Should I feel bad for Spencer that she is currently nailing a cave man? Maybe. But I feel more bad for me for having to watch this scene more than once. Or even once. I feel even worse for the ABC Family exec who decided it would be okay to instruct me to tweet #Tobyisback at the bottom left of the TV.

Also, for the record, the two don’t talks about boundaries, protection, birth control or STDs which is like a really important pre-sex thing to do.

Speaking of high school sex, guess who decides to stop by Ezra’s house? Ta-da! It’s Maggie (aka Alex Mack aka Dawn from Babysitter Club) who was just stopping by in the neighborhood and thought she would drop in on the long lost father of her child.

Maggie looks adorable and professional and like she’s a thirty-one year-old cast to play a twenty-six year-old. Ezra looks like an overgrown man child in a grey hoodie who’s fucking a high school senior. Oops. I know I should be over this by now but I’m not. Obviously Maggie immediately recognizes Aria but begs her to keep the secret child secret. Nothing says Pretty Little Liars like a conflict of interest.

Speaking of men in gray hoodies, Caleb has one on at Hanna’s house where he packs up a night bag. What’s he bringing? Oh, toothpaste, flip-flops, contact lens solution, a gun. Wait — a gun?

What a fucking idiot. Doesn’t he know about Chekhov’s gun? So you know at this point someone is getting shot. I spent most of the next 40 minutes crossing my fingers that it wouldn’t be Paige.

Elsewhere, in a crack bathroom, Mona is up to her old tricks again. That’s right, she’s got her black hoodie and black gloves all nice and prepped for some A’in. Don’t you think it would be easier to blend in if you didn’t have the black gloves and sweatshirt on all the time? As Mona grooves on herself in the mirror, she receives a call. What’s this? Spencer and Toby are fucking? Nate is creepy? Caleb has a gun? Who knows — they only give us Mona saying “I understand.”

In light of her phone call, Mona goes over to the new A’s Lair, which is just as creepy as the old one except this one also has psychedelic rock music playing in the background. Mona informs another A that there’s been a change of plans.

I’d like to point out at this point that, as previously mentioned, this shit is actually really scary. As I write this I have to use the bathroom but I am literally too scared to walk across the room, open the door and walk in to the hallway. Who knows who’s in that hallway.

Nate takes Emily up to the Lighthouse Inn, which isn’t really an inn so much as a cabin in the woods where you take someone to kill them. Emily falls asleep on the couch, heaps of her shiny hair splayed out, and Nate covers her with a blanket. This would be cute if we didn’t already know he’s clearly a psychopath.

Super double extra prepared for this latest potential encounter with A, the Liars assemble at the graveyard with Caleb in tow.

He sneaks out of sight, but not before taking Maya’s bag as leverage and activating an imaginary voice activated iPhone app that streams every sound it detects.

And so the Liars wait for A to keep their favorite lesbosexy best friend safe. Except where is that lesbosexy best friend?

Oh yeah, she’s asleep on the couch at the Lighthouse Inn where she is awoken by a telephone call from a distorted voice informing her she had one minute to get out.

Instead of booking it for the door and running for her life, Emily decides to shuffle through some things and maybe check the blinds. God while she’s at it why doesn’t she just run up a few flights of stairs and into the back corner of a room? While riffling, Emily finds her un-mailed thank you card to Maya’s parents and gets suspicious. In retrospect, she should have just called Maya’s parents and thanked them. Then when they didn’t know who the fuck she was talking about, this would all have gotten nipped in the bud.

Nate comes back with firewood approximately 40-90 seconds later depending on your time frame and acts all cool and natural. Emily takes this time to notice his shoes are cover in yellow paint, reminiscent of some yellowed painted shoes in an old picture of Maya at TruNorth. Wait a minute… at TruNorth?!?! But that would make Nate Maya’s stalker! Duh.

Over at the graveyard, the Liars realize that no one is coming. Womp womp. They suddenly decide Paige is probably off killing Emily somewhere. Despite caring so much about Emily, no one knows if she’s off at the Lighthouse Inn in Made-Up Town #1 or Made-Up Town #2. The Liars head off to Bumfucksville and Caleb drives off to Nowhereland. Caleb tells Hanna he loves her in his super duper serious voice. Then the camera panned to his gun. I was totally convinced this meant he was going to be A.

Claiming she needs some fresh air, Emily heads off in to the woods. She tries to call her friends, but, of course, there is no cell service. Instead she is caught face to face by Nate who is officially in Cards On The Table Scary Guy Mode.

Nate shows Emily a video Maya made. Now, we already know from Maya’s website that Maya prefers making videos to other, more pedestrian forms of communication, such as letter writing, phone calls or email. Too bad she didn’t just call, maybe her crazy ex-boyfriend wouldn’t have killed her.

Weirdly, Nate is creepy as all hell until he flaccidly says, “What you don’t know is how much I loved her.” Now, my deep deep unimpressed feelings are possibly just because I just cannot handle another character on this show being uncontrollably in love. It’s also possibly because it just wasn’t Nate’s best acting moment. Still, it could also be that the mystery surrounding Nate is officially gone.

Nate puts his knife to Emily’s throat and tells her that she took something from him and I feel… bored? Maybe I feel vicerally sick that as a culture we have deemed “Why didn’t she love me” as an acceptable, though psychotic, reason for why someone might commit murder. Maybe that’s it. But really, I just can’t believe they actually dragged this tired excuse out and paraded it around like it was a shiny new tricycle.

And then Nate goes to the closet door. Who’s at the door?

No seriously, Paige is at the closet door. They actually, technically put her in the closet.

Nate declares that since Emily used her slutty lezzie body to take away his perfect fantasy dream girl, he’s going to take something away from her. That’s right, Nate is going to cute off Emily’s beautiful silky locks. Or murder Paige. Definitely one or the other.

Emily pleads with Nate — who by the way is actually named Lyndon James — to let them go. She reminds him that her friends and family know where she is and that her hair is probably her best feature. Lyndonate points out that no one knows who he really is and that he’s been planning this for months. Not to be nitpicky, but how could Lyndonate have been planning this for months? He met Emily in September before she started dating Paige again. Actually, if Halloween hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t that mean that this entire half-season has taken place over like about a month? Pretty Little Liars sure does love to fuck with the time of year.

Where was I? Oh right, while all this is going on, Caleb and the Liars are still trying to get to the two different Lighthouse Inn and Majestic Fun Time Resorts spread across the greater Philly area. The Liars approach a cabin and you think momentarily Emily is going to be saved. I mean, Paige’s life is still in the balance, but if the liars show up, Emily is definitely getting out of there. Inside the cabin, Lyndonate hears something at the door and bounds up to confront the Liars. PSYCHHHHHHH!! The Liars picked the wrong town which means that Caleb and his GUN are Emily’s only hope.

Or Emily is her own only hope. Paige gives her “Please don’t leave me here to die” eyes which Emily interprets as “Leave and save yourself” eyes. Emily bolts out the back door we didn’t know about and Lyndonate chases after her. In a bizarre attempt to save herself, Emily somehow ends up climbing up a lighthouse. That’s right. She actually goes ahead and follows my earlier suggestions for Making This Situation Worse.

Emily finally gets some cell service to call 911, but Lyndonate shows up. He is stronger and faster that Emily because girls can’t do anything and boys can see in the dark. The two grapple, but since we know from the beginning of the episode that Emily doesn’t die, all I can think about is how this is eerily similar to the church tower scene. Actually that didn’t occur to me until later. What I was honestly thinking about was how much money I would have paid to watch Shay Mitchell rehearse this fight scene.

Certainly enough to overhaul this website.

After some grunting and panting Emily stabs Lyndonate right in his meany stalker stomach.

This of course is Caleb’s coincidentally perfect moment to run up the lighthouse stairs. I’ve already decided to explain away Caleb’s magical timing as TV artifact and created an elaborate off-screen narrative. In my mind, Caleb was the noise Lyndonate heard at the door, but by the time he got inside was just as Paige was tied up. Caleb untied Paige and stopped to waive his hands through his hair a bit. After exiting out the back as Paige directed him to, Caleb ran down the only path in the area which led him to the lighthouse. There, he observed the scuffle and ran up just in time to miss the action.

Caleb sits down his gun to hold Emily as she is understandably freaking the fuck out over stabbing someone to death. This proves to be really effective and it seems like we’re gonna have a happy ending. Right? Hell no. Caleb gets shot and we don’t really know how or why. This is Pretty Little Fucking Liars. You know if they solve a mystery they’re going to create ten more. Please.

So finally we’re back at the beginning. Or the end. Or whatever. Caleb is being loaded up in an ambulance while Hanna loses her shit and Emily stares dumbstruck at some cops.

Only now Paige is dumbstruck with some cops too. Paige explains that she received an anonymous text telling her “10pm Saturday Rosewood Cemetery or Emily gets hurt.” She follows up that “He grabbed me before I got there.”

Paige sees that Emily is anxious to be with her friends and runs a little distraction/interference with the cops so Emily can run to them. Spencer shoots Paige a heartfelt look that says “Aww damn I fucking got it wrong again.” The lack of a passionat lesbo make-out session is noticeable and a real bummer.

And it seems like this is the end of Nate. Lyndonate was just some crazy ex of Maya’s who started stalking her and ending up killing her (confirmed by Marlene King). Though the Liars might attribute some A stuff to Lyndonate, in general he had no reason to know about A in enough detail to mimic her. Really his only desire seems to have been to get Maya back or kill her and cause Emily pain. Or to date Emily. Really the lines are blurry on this one. Regardless, there’s a problem with Lydonate’s storyline — a reason that was so predictable and easy to fix: Lyndonate should have been a girl.

Now, I know that Lyndonate being male allowed everyone to freak out and struggle over Maya’s horrifically slutty no-good bisexuality (calm down these are the jokes). But the problem is when Lyndonate shows up later, his advances on Emily seem out of place and overtly creepy from the get-go. When Emily and Lyndonate kiss, their shipping doesn’t make any sense. Emily’s actions and feelings are immediately invalidated by the She Was Mourning principal and Nate is left out to dry as an instigator. So when the creepy guy turns out to be creepy, just no one is shocked. No one. But imagine if they’d cast a slightly off girl as “Maya’s cousin.” Maybe Emily wouldn’t seem so attacked all the time. Or maybe we’d be shipping them. Regardless I might have been able to let my creep radar down for long enough to be surprised.

So the saga of Lyndonate is seemingly over, but there’s still more story to tell here. The Liars gather at the hospital with Emily’s mom. Though at this point Pam should really be taking her daughter home to sit in the same room with her and never let her out of her sight again, they all just kind of sit around.

Or maybe that’s realistic for this situation. I suppose I don’t know. Pam gets called to the front desk and while she’s gone, boop beep ding ding ding ding, everyone’s phones go off. But it’s a call, not a text, form A saying “Emily, I owe you one.” Just then, Garret and Spencer’s mom come out of the elevator. Clearly this is Pennsylvania’s only combined hospital and prison. With Nate admitting to killing Maya, Garret can go free. Which is good? Bad? I don’t even know anymore.

For once the end scene of this show is actually productive and satisfying. Mona walks back to Radley with another A-Team member. Their plan had been to plant Maya’s phone on Paige so that when she turned up at the cemetery they could frame her and get Garret out of prison. So it looks like Lyndonate didn’t send that text to Paige after all. Mona tells the other A that she’ll see them soon. They turn around.

And it’s Toby.

And I am not surprised. And you shouldn’t be either. Toby revealed himself to us the moment he met Spencer in that ridiculously overblown 360 spin make-out extravaganza. Yes, the spin cam and the completely out of place sex scene were vapid attempts by the writers/directors to conceal Toby’s true nature and thus made it more obvious. But you just fucking know that Toby is going to be on the goddamn A-Team the second he tells Spencer, “I know who you are.”

Besides the fact that the line is totally out of place and weird, Spencer has been telling every A suspect for two and a half seasons that she knows who they are. She literally just said it to Paige. Plus, Spencer is relentlessly harping on the idea that Toby is the most honest guy in town. This all makes Toby a predictable, though still deliciously satisfying, A-Team member. Best of all, Marlene King said in an interview that Toby is definitely evil and not trying to double-cross A. Like I said: satisfying.

So, I Told You So (a little). Toby ranked in at number three last week, below the painfully predictable Nate at number two, in my betrAyer predictions. Though my first pick, Wren, was noticeably absent from this episode, I am highly curious who has allowed Mona access to getting in and out of Radley. Clearly someone on the inside would have set that up.

Maybe this will all get revealed during the super exciting, super spooky, super dramatic unrelated to everything Halloween Episode Spectacular! But probably not. See you then anyways.

This article was brought to you by the hardworking people of Autostraddle, the world’s leading independently owned queer-lady website! If you loved it, you should donate to our bitchin’ fundraiser and be part of the revolution! We’ve got until September 7th to reach our new fundraising goal and you can read more about what’s in it for you here. Every little bit counts. Thank you!

OPEN THREAD: Pretty Little Liars Mid-Season Finale BetrAyal Feelings Spectacular

Holy crap did you see last night’s episode of Pretty Little Liars?! I did, and apparently so did a lot of the team because I received some super serious emails this morning.

Grace: WHAT THE EFF WAS THAT, THAT WAS CRAZYPANTS

Riese: all i have to say is OH MY FUCKING G-D
also i knew it, re: Nate, but i didn’t see Toby coming

Kate:
WHAT
DID I JUST
WATCH
WHAT JUST HAPPENED
BUT MOSTLY
TOBY
TOBY
FETUSFACE
I KNEW IT I HATED HIS FACE FROM THE BEGINNING I AM HAPPY AS A CLAM THAT ALL OF MY SEETHING HATRED FOR HIM CAN BE JUSTIFIED

Gabrielle: I have a question. How old is Wren supposed to be?

Probably yes but I think we all need a chance to talk about this:

and this:

and definitely this:

Is Wren helping Mona sneak out? How long has Toby been A? Is Jenna a good guy now? How fucking lame is Nate? So while I pick my jaw off the ground enough to write a recap (and tell everyone “I told you so”) you all: DISCUSS!

UPDATE: The recap for The Lady Killer aka Mid-Season Finale BetrAyal is up!

Pretty Little Liars Recap 311: Single Fright Female Seeking Same

This week’s episode of Pretty Little Liars is the episode before the mid-season summer finale! The fact that abcFamily managed to make that an exciting event for me is really only a deep credit to their advertising team. Some intern over there deserves a pay raise.

We open on the lovely village of Rosewood on what can only be a Wednesday because Hanna and Spencer are desperately trying to find Hanna something pink to wear that doesn’t clash with the gaping flesh wound on her leg. You may remember from last week’s episode that Hanna chose Elaborate Cover-up Scheme over Simple Lie with regard to cutting her leg.

Speaking of Elaborate Cover-up Scheme, Spencer busts the High Tea Healer of Rosewood giving Hanna a call. Maybe Wren just wants to see if Hanna’s stitches are getting infected. Or maybe he wants to get a piece of that age-inappropriate ass. It’s unclear. Either way Spencer is no dummy and knows something is up.

As the two go to leave for what I can only imagine is for a 4:30am yoga class and crime busting session, they overhear Ashley Marin speaking with her new Church Hubby Father Ted. In the most amazing moment of continuity ever presented on this show, Ted has found a flash drive in the pews. Remember? That flash drive? The one with the N.A.T club’s adolescent girls changing videos? And Jenna blackmailing Toby into sleeping with her? Well, Spencer threw it in the church during the first season finale to get away from Ian. Oh yeah, Ted found that and wants to take it to the police.

Ashley confronts Hanna about the flash drive and, instead of saying “I don’t know anything about that, why would someone want to film me” or “We think Ian was filming us in high school” Hanna goes with a good old fashioned lie and claims Mona was filming them. Well Mona probably was also, but that’s neither here nor there. Ashley takes the flash drive and says she’ll take it to the police later in the day.

A lot of anticipatory anxiety is mustered up about this flash drive, but in the end Ashley throws it down the garbage disposal after seeing that it contained footage of herself with Wilden. Oops.

Aria shows up at Ezra’s place first thing in the morning, once again, and SURPRISE it’s his birthday!

But Ezra’s a grumpy bunny because he’s still all upset about Maggie. Ezra really wants to see that’s she’s doing okay, but is worried that it’s unfair of him to insert himself in Maggie’s life and tussle everything up after all these years. I think Ezra is probably right. Who’s to say that his high school girlfriend needs or wants anything from him. There’s a good chance she put the past in the past around age 20 and moved on with her life.

This conversation launches a non-intersecting plot line in which Aria poses as a college undergrad interested in teaching in order to get the dirt on Maggie. Let’s just sum it up now so we can get to the gay shit faster.

Aria shows up to Maggie’s elementary school only to discover that one of Maggie’s students is her son, a first grade boy named Malcolm.

Aria, in shock from the news, stumbles back to Ezra’s place to bake him a “Happy Birthday and By the Way You Have a Son” cake when she runs into Ezra’s werewolf brother. Aria stupidly tells Wesley about the baby situation.

This leads to tons of awkwardness but plenty of cake when Ezra comes home and announces that he called Maggie and she said everything was fine and that she lives alone. Aria decides not to tell Ezra about The Baby Situation assuming that Mommy Dearest is probably paying for this kid’s college and first Mercedes. Clearly that’s more important than Ezra finding out about his child.

First of all, I’d like to say I fucking called it. Second of all, this finally nails down Ezra’s age at 25.

+Ezra turned 18 in September/October after Labor Day his senior year of high school (because it’s that time now)
+Maggie got pregnant the summer after senior year, in either June, July or August
+So the baby was born in March, April or May (when Ezra was 19)
+To be in first grade with a spring birthday, the kid must now be six (Aria wrongly refers to him as a seven-year-old)
+Which means Ezra is 25. So now we know.

Also if you’re wondering why Maggie looks so familiar, it’s probably because you’re waiting for the moment when she turns in to a puddle of silver goo because, yes, that is Larisa Oleynik aka Alex Mack!

Moving on, Emily, Paige and Paige’s bike enjoy a little pre-class coffee. Emily is clearly distracted in that “Fucckkkk I have to tell my girlfriend I kissed someone else” way and Paige is stone cold in that “Girl, I know you kissed someone else” way.

So things are a bit tense. Luckily, Emily just comes right out and says it.

Emily: A couple of nights ago, when I was comforting Nate, things got a little intense. We kissed.
Paige: Why do you think that happened?
Emily: In the moment it felt right.
Paige: And now?
Emily: I don’t know. I’m just as confused by this as you.

What I appreciate most about this conversation, is that Emily said “We kissed.” If Emily were worried Paige knew already, she certainly could have spun this like he kissed her and she didn’t know what to do. Or he came on to her. Or anything like that. But Emily’s phrasing signifies that she’s not trying to defend a mistake or convince Paige not to dump her. She’s really just confused about what happened and wants to talk about it with her girlfriend.

So here’s the thing, people are going to jump on that word “confused.” They just are. People are going to say, “Emily is confused about her sexuality,” and while it would be okay if she were, I don’t think that’s what she meant. The creator/writers have stated that Emily is gay, so I think Emily meant she’s confused as to why she and Nate kissed at all.

Paige’s response is lovely too. Even though she delivers it with a hint of crazy eye, her explanation reveals none of the overt anger from when she gave that trashcan a beating. So either Paige calmed down and was able to see the situation as rationally as the rest of us, or she so badly wants to be with Emily that she’s willing to make excuses for her partner’s transgressions. I have no idea which option is more likely as I’ve never had a relationship conversation this mature in my entire life.

Over by Rosewood High, where the school day is finally starting, Spencer runs in to Cece. Apparently Spencer said she’d help out with some trunk sale and forgot about it. More importantly, Cece spots Emily walking by with Paige (and Paige’s bike, duh) and freaks the fuck out.

Cece explains that Ali had a serious vendetta against Paige and, of course, Spencer triggers a pastel flashback to Freshman Year. The girls are all getting ready for some party when Hanna (who the director has eating an enormous bowl of popcorn) notices a huge bruise on Ali’s back. Ali says she fell during soccer and “Pig Skin” kicked her.

I think it was in just exactly that moment that I realized that I Fucking Hate Alison. Something about that nickname, Pig Skin, brought back everything I’d ever wanted to forget about elementary school. I certainly wasn’t the most bullied kid in the state, but I had my fair share of heinous nicknames, including but not limited to Lizard Breath and Ugly Monkey. Pig Skin is just exactly the kind of horrific nickname that only the most manipulative and horrendous girls can come up with. It has the “Pig” part which, while a reference to classically gross considered animal, also has the popping “P” sound at the beginning. And then the “Skin” part which not only references basically the most humiliating part of the adolescent body, but also has the hissing “Sk” sound. Basically Pig Skin is the perfect mean name to be hurled at someone.

Back over in Gayland, Emily, Nate and Paige’s bike are meeting up for a little chat. Nate has basically decided that he and Emily are going to go steady and be in love forever and get married and have a dozen babies together in the sunshine in a pasture of golden fields. Unfortunately, that won’t be the Emily Fields because Emily is so not interested. And Nate is just not picking up Emily’s body language at all so she literally has to tell him she just wants to be friends.

Nate: What about the other night?
Emily: I don’t regret it but it doesn’t change things.

While I feel like “kissing your dead girlfriend’s “cousin” while you have a girlfriend and are gay” is one of those things you’re allowed to regret, I appreciate Emily’s commitment to accepting one’s past actions as though they happened in some third party space bubble.

Nate then goes on to hulk out in to Scary Nate and go on about how Emily and Maya are just alike and that Maya used to claim spontaneity to be reckless with other people’s hearts. He goes on to claim he’s heard Maya “giving the same speech about 20 other guys.” How does Emily not see that Maya dumped this guy’s ass?! Either way, Emily knows when it’s time to get the fuck out and bikes off in to the sunset, hair flowing in the breeze.

Back at school, Emily tries to talk to Spencer about the whole Nate situation. Unfortunately Spencer is not hearing it.

Spencer wants to know what the fuck is up with Paige and Ali. Emily explains that Paige has never mentioned Ali and reminds Spencer that Ali had totally horrendous names for everyone in the class. Plus, if Cece is just like Ali, then it sounds about right that she would want to pit them against each other. Spencer is unfazed as her favorite game is jumping on every new person convinced they’re A. Just like everyone on the internet, Spencer points out that Paige has a bit of a dark side and tried to drown Emily a little bit that one time.

Regardless, Emily sticks up for her girl and it’s awesome.

The other Liars are so obsessed with the intensity and importance of their relationships. No one would dream of trying to tell Aria, Spencer or Hanna that Ezra, Toby or Caleb was A. So why is it constantly okay for the Liars to question the motives, history and behavior of Maya and Paige?

I’m not saying that the girls are questioning Emily’s relationships because she’s gay. I think it’s because, for a long time, Emily let herself get pushed around. But I don’t think the solution is to take Emily’s partners more seriously– I think it’s to take all of their relationships less seriously! They find videos taken of teenage girls undressing and no one thinks to question Wren or Ezra? Actual older guys who are into high school girls? A has seemingly unlimited access to every computer and database in town and no one questions Caleb. Toby leaves town on mysterious jobs and isn’t seen for weeks and yet no one questions his whereabouts. Someone out there knows their intimate secrets and yet they haven’t considered their intimate partners.

Outside, Hanna confronts Jenna. She lets her know that the flash drive has been found and not to blame them. Jenna is unimpressed. She then runs in to Nate who whines like a child that both Jenna and Emily led him on and then blew him off. Now Hanna is the one who’s unimpressed.
Is there any way that line wasn’t written specifically for Tumblr? Yeah. It was a good moment.

Unfortunately Hanna follows that one up with a “Jenna could see” slip-up that results in Nate angrily hollering at Jenna from across the school yard. He really is the fetching worst.

Starsweep to The Trunk Sale where Spencer and Cece again talk about Paige. According to Cece, the two were fighting over/about Emily. Sort of unclear but I’m going to assume they were fighting over her so as to legitimize my secret fanfic.

Apparently Alison pulled tons of mean bullshit on Paige including but not limited to FAKING LOVE LETTERS FROM EMILY. That’s right, Alison somehow managed to zoom in on Paige’s gayness and writer her faux declarations of love from Emily. She goes as far as to ask for a response to be put in a secret location. Alison shows up when Paige is scheduled to deliver her love letter and snatches it from it’s hiding place. She threatens to expose Paige to her dad. Yeah. Ali was one mean fucking girl.

What’s so weird about this entire pastel flashback is how out of control Alison seems. Yes, she has her usual cool facade, but she also seems edgy. Even a bit scared. Like I get the sense something else was going on. Part of me wants to believe this is all from self-hated same-sex feelings on Ali’s part, but that seems a little inconsistent with her character. I would imagine if Alison wanted to scissor a girl she would just go ahead and do it. The great thing about Pretty Little Liars is there could be something seriously bizarre and sinister going on. For all we know Ali is being threatened into doing mean shit by A. Or Jason. Or Cece. Or Mona. Or honestly anyone. This is Rosewood, no one’s actions have to make any sense as long as they can be explained three seasons later.

Flash forward back to modern day where Paige and Emily are studying together in blackmail-free bliss. Emily inquires about how Paige and Ali knew each other and Paige goes on the defensive.

Paige points out that everyone was boozing That Night but only Emily got doped with Roofatoxamyocinalase. Maybe her friends were involved. But Paige doesn’t get it. Emily has to trust her friends, because if she can’t trust them she literally has no one.

If A could be anyone (except the magnificent unquestionable manfriends in their lives) then trusting each other is all they have. But since Paige and Emily are noobs who haven’t yet learned how to properly have a fight with your girlfriend they both roll over their points and play dead.

Back over at the trunk sale, Spencer gets locked in a dressing room with a gigantic python! It was actually scary. I jumped. Don’t judge me.

The snake was about to wrap its creepy scaley gross body around Spencer’s perfect skin and gobble up her whole Big Bad Wolf style when Captain Cece came to the rescue and hit it with a spare mannequin leg. That last part is actually true. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

Back over at the Marin residence, Hanna and Spencer rehash the whole snake-attack thing. Spencer thinks that it was probably because she used the word “snake” when she was talking about Paige. Spencer is convinced that Paige is absolutely, no questions asked, certainly, they-couldn’t-be-wrong-again, definitely A. Spencer points out that Paige has been “obsessed” with Emily for a long time and probably hated Maya and Ali for that reason and killed them.

I’d like to point out that Samara appears to still be alive, and you would think since Emily basically dumped Paige for Samara that would have been a more sensible murder-route. Regardless, Hanna induces the aforementioned “people who love us can’t be A” clause and that includes Paige. Have I mentioned that Hanna is like the Ultimate Ally to Emily?

Speaking of Emily, she calls Hanna to let her know that Maya’s L.J. knife is missing. Even though it’s obvious to everyone with half a brain cell that Nate took it, Spencer is convinced it was Paige.

Spencer and Hanna return to Cece’s (assumed that the Big Bad Snake won’t kill them). Hanna and Caleb make out for a minute in a dressing room. Yawn. But then Emily shows up with Paige in tow. Drama drama drama.

Emily goes to try on something hot leaving Paige and Spencer to chat. Paige puts on a huge (and actually pretty hideous) display ring and points out that though it is cute, if she wore it she would look like she’s trying to be something she’s not. That her style is sort of “by default” to fly “under the radar.” Remember when I said last week that Paige was one of us? This is the kind of shit I’m talking about. She says all this, of course, while wearing a perfectly cultivated soft butch androgynous look.

Paige tells Spencer she’d like to have a fresh start, and as sincere as she sounds, Spencer doesn’t buy it. Yeah, Spencer has officially gone off the paranoid deep end.

Hanna and Spencer muse that Paige is probably just trying to kill them with kindness to bide her time until she actually just kills them. Hanna gives Paige a lesbosexy-super-corset-magic-vest thing to give to Emily to try on.

While she’s gone, Hanna and Spencer go all Scooby-Doo on her bag. Just as Spencer sees something that induces a knee shaking gasp, Emily comes back out just in time to see her friends looking through her girlfriend’s shit. This does not look good.

Emily grabs the bag and Paige and declares that they’re leaving. Although I should take a moment to point out what a smokin’ hot babe Shay Mitchell is in that dress. Ouch.

Back at the ranch, Emily brings Paige some milk and cookies on the doorstep. Now, it’s been a long time since I was in high school, but I certainly don’t recall spending that much time on the stoop.

Emily tries to explain her friend’s behavior but Paige interrupts her with the real deal on Alison. She admits Ali bullied the shit out of her because Alison was the goddamn worst. Paige is vague on the details, and it’s hard to extrapolate if Paige became suicidal or developed a cutting problem or what. Either way, Paige essentially admits that Ali’s tormenting created within her a deep sense of self-loathing. But Paige, in the end, didn’t give in to self-loathing if only because she didn’t want to let Alison win.

Yes, the Gay Kid Gets Bullied trope has been done to death, but I like it as it applies to Paige. Bullying isn’t always a circle of kids around one little nerd. When they show us flash-back Paige, she isn’t all glasses and grease like flash-back Mona. All sorts of kids get relentlessly teased, it’s not always the classically dorky girl or flamboyant gay boy. But what Paige reminds us most of all is that it only takes one person to make one other person’s life miserable. And if we’ve learned anything about Alison, it has a lot more to do with what’s wrong with the bully than what’s wrong with the victim. So yeah, I’ll allow the gay kid gets bullied trope again.

Especially if the result is lesbosexy cuddling.

Paige pops inside for a minute and abra kadabra Jenna shows up to warn Emily “about her friend.” Seeing the two coffee mugs Jenna freaks out a bit, but she tells Emily that she should be careful who she shares body fluids with. VERY CAREFUL.

Obviously Jenna is talking about Nate but because Emily is incapable of reading between the lines it looks like Jenna is warning her about Paige. Not to be completely absolved, while Emily is distracted by Jenna, Paige notices Spencer calling. She goes ahead and declines the call.

Okay, not Paige’s best move. In her defense, Paige and Emily wouldn’t be the first girl-girl couple to go through some tension merging the “girlfriend” with “the straight best friends.” Although, I am suddenly wondering who Paige’s friends are.

So why was Spencer calling? Well, meanwhile next door, Spencer meets up with Aria. Remember Aria? She was the one dealing with her old-man boyfriend’s secret son all episode. Spencer reveals to Aria what she found in Paige’s bag — the other earring Aria put in Ali’s grave.

God it’s not like A has never planted a faux clue in someone’s things before. That would be totally unlike A.

Or should I say the A-Team. This week’s creepy cut scene: a black gloved figure passing keys to another black gloved figure.

You’ve probably already marked your calendar for next week’s mid-season finale which promises someone will betrAy the Liars. I think it’s safe to say it won’t be any of the four Liars or their parents because that makes about as much sense as a bag of rocks. Though abcFamily is setting it up just right, I feel pretty strongly that it won’t be Paige either.

So let’s count down my Top Five Contenders for A.

5. Alison
Yup. It could just be Alison. I don’t know how or why, but it always could be.

4. Caleb
Once Mona was locked up, A needed a way to break in to everyone’s files. Suspicious that Caleb knows how to do just that — not to mention he knew how to unlock Maya’s website. Plus, he could be easily working for A under threat in order to protect his new found mother.

3. Toby
I fucking hate Toby. Besides, all Spencer does is harp on how honest Toby is — he’s gotta be a liar.

2. Nate
We already know Nate is a creep and probably the guy Maya was dating at True North. Maybe he’s not the mastermind behind the whole A operation, but there’s no reason he wouldn’t want to jump in on their action just to mess with all the girls he thinks are leading him on. Is it just me or does Nate seriously hate women?

1. Wren
Why am I suspicious of Wren? I told you earlier! Someone likes filming high school girls and Wren is the perfect market for those videos. Plus, he’s already been entangled with Melissa and Ian. Remember, he was the one prescribing pain killers to Ian back when he fell in the church. I think prescribing drugs to a wanted criminal merits a reason greater than just “owing Melissa.” Plus, Wren has unlimited access to Mona. Most importantly, Wren is close to the Liars, but not too close. The plotline can go on without him.

If any of these guys are the betrAyer — and even if they aren’t– I’ll be here to say I told you so next week.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 310: What Lies Beneath Lesbian Relationships

This week we have critically important gay stuff need to talk about ASAP. Because of said critically important gay shit, I will do my best to rush through the straight stuff that we only marginally care about. Except the parts where Spencer looks hot because obviously we care about that A Lot.

We open on Hanna moving around some plants and stuff. The reason doesn’t make any sense and also doesn’t matter because the important thing here is that Hanna finds a letter under a planter that Maya wrote to Emily.

Now, why the fuck would Maya leave a letter for Emily? We don’t know. But if I had to guess it would be because queer women love a good letter. Seriously, we fucking love them. My best queer friend from Boston wrote me a letter last week just to say good luck in med school and all about how we’re like family and stuff. It was really cute and I’m totally tearing up thinking about it. It was a seriously long letter.

Where were we? Oh right! Maya’s letter! Maya writes that she has something she wants to show Emily but not to text/call her because someone stole her phone. Well that explains all that phone shit from last season. Maya also wants Emily to meet her somewhere but the location of that place has, obviously, been washed out by the rain. Actually Maya’s whole leave a note outside plan was pretty fucking dumb.

How Maya Could Have Made Her Plan Less Dumb
1. Put the letter in the mailbox
2. Put the letter in large envelope/box so it would be seen
3. Tape the letter to the door
4. Email Emily
5. Hired someone to skywrite the letter

Unfortunately Maya didn’t have my cunning problem-solving skills and the Liars are left with half a note that doesn’t give them much info.

The Liars do, however, realize that the letter was dated the day Maya died. Emily seemed upset, but you know, not that upset. In reality it probably takes someone years to get over the death of their first girlfriend, but we only get about three months of TV Land time and 16 hours of realtime per season. So we gotta get this recovery going to get more scissoring action.

Flash forward to Ezra’s apartment where, as usual, he and Aria are having breakfast. I want to make a joke here about how all these two do is hang out in Ezra’s apartment, except I think that’s probably actually really realistic for a mid-twenties guy who’s dating a high school senior.

Either way, remember how mature Aria was last episode? Well apparently that was all a farse and she actually pissed as shit about the whole high school girlfriend Maggie got paid to have an abortion and disappear thing. Well mostly she’s upset that Ezra didn’t tell her. As if those things come up in conversation casually.

Anyways so Aria’s a brat about it but then later in the episode they reconcile and stuff. Then Ezra drops the bomb that he found the high school sweetie. My money’s on she secretly kept the baby and the baby is Alison’s secret twin. The baby is A.

Starsweep to the Life Cafe where Hanna is obsessing over Maya’s website. While Emily definitely already looked at every single minute of every single video on that site, Hanna is just giving it a double check.

The Life Cafe is the only coffee shop in town, so in walks our favorite doctor who is board certified in everything. He’s just swung by to tell Hanna he loves her always and forever or at least that he really enjoyed their kiss and would kind of maybe like to do it again some time.

Okay. Murder, secret texts, dating the English teacher are all things I can suspend my disbelief for. But not Wren. First of all, Wren did a seriously weird time travel thing. First of all, “last year” he was a med student and now he’s like an attending at Rosewood International Hospital. Secondly, at the very youngest (and if he had done medical school in the UK) Wren would be like 25. However, he could very easily be 27 if he had done medical school in the US and not taken any time off. What 27 year-old doctor has the desire to date a 17-year-old? Ezra I can believe because he’s in his early twenties and hooked up with Aria thinking she was a college student. But Wren knowingly pursuing Hanna? This I do not buy. Sorry.

Hanna, shockingly, is the one who blows Wren off because clearly this shit doesn’t make any sense to her either. And because of Caleb and Spencer. Wah wah wah.

Starsweep to Rosewood where Spencer and Emily are apparently the only ones still in school. Emily’s been reading Maya’s letter over and over again without any real results. “Dead girlfriend” is all fine and good, but we know who has the real problems — Spencer. She laments her recent failure, i.e. getting a B.

And Toby left! What will we ever do?

More importantly Spencer leaves when our favorite neighborhood future soft butch heads over.

That’s right, it’s Paige and she’s wearing a black t-shirt with an American flag and bald eagle on the front With The Sleeves Cut Off.

Also, literally the second Paige starts talking soft guitar music starts to play in the background and it’s kind of hilarious but also the best thing ever. The love-birds were supposed to have lunch but Paige has to go see the swim coach about something or other. Emily speculates that Paige is probably going to be asked to anchor the five-hundred meter breast stroke (get it?) relay. And then Paige said “I’ll let you know” (using a voice most lesbians don’t use until their six months in with girlfriend three) and gives Emily a reassuring shoulder pat thing instead of a kiss.

Starsweep inside the school where Aria walks in on her mom having a lunch date with Bakery Boy in her classroom.

Now, I feel like this is wildly inappropriate on Ella’s part as as school teacher but maybe I’m just uptight. And when I say walk in on, I mean they are making out with their mouths.

Just in case you’ve forgotten how young and hot Bakery Boy is, he’s wearing a leather jacket. Obviously age isn’t a big deal to Ella since Piper was married to Leo and he was technically like 82 I think.

Anyways Aria and Ella’s conversation is brief because Aria has to go change her panties after seeing Bakery Boy, but Ella promises to explain everything later. Later comes over by Aria’s locker. Basically Ella says she’s trying to get her groove on with three different guys. Heyyyy.

Emily strolls on over to Hanna’s house. Even though Emily’s mom moved home, I feel like these two living together was really good for the flow of the show because they don’t have to contrive reasons to just hang around at Hanna’s house. Like Emily could just be at Hanna’s because it feels like home still.

Either way Hanna took a whole bunch of those Caffeine Pills from Saved by the Bell and printed out and organized all fo Maya’s photographs. She is searching them for clues. If only Hanna put this much effort into school she could probably give Spencer a run for her money.

Looking through the photos, Emily finds one of the last pictures Maya posted — an oh-so-sexy picture of Maya in PJs. Surprisingly, Maya’s posing in front of a sign that says “Kahn.” Leaving aside the question of why Maya takes so many self portraits, this places her at Noel’s lake house during the day just before her death.

The two call Spencer, who is at school, to inform her just before she runs in to Noel. Convenient!

Spencer has some curt words for Noel about Maya and his party. She delivers them with her usual completely hot timing. Why is good timing so hot?

Spencer lets him know that she knows something is up with him and Maya. Noel says he sometimes sold Maya weed and says “weed” in a way that makes him seem even seedier. I’m really really trying not to hate every male character on this show, but Noel gives some serious crazy eyes.

We skip through time and space where suddenly Noel and Jenna are canoodling at the Life Cafe. Nate stops by to see Emily because he’s obsessed with her or something and sees the lovely couple.

Jenna gives Nate the cold shoulder because she thinks he has a girlfriend and now Jenna has a boyfriend and because he’s fucking creepy as all hell. Nate proceeds to basically harass the heck out of Jenna saying he wants to give her her birthday gift and meet up with her later and all this shit.

Jenna’s a big girl and can take care of herself, so she goes in to super firm Fuck Off mode which I absolutely love. Still, Nate comes off really pushy and a little scary here.

Emily is not impressed.

Noel heads off to synchronized diving practice and, though Spencer is supposed to be going home to study forever, Emily texts her to go snooping through his gym locker. At some point in the last six months Spencer learned how to pick locks, and she starts going through Noel’s locker and, consequently, his phone. Obviously Spencer timed sneaking in with the end of practice, so sweaty man bodies start pouring in. Actually, first Spencer hides out while some guys shower, and then the sweaty man bodies pour in. It’s weird.

Spencer should have done what I did the time I accidentally walked in to the boy’s locker room in high school and just flailing her arms yelling “OH MY GOD WHERE’S MY HEAD I CAN’T BELIEVE I WALKED IN TO THE BOY’S LOCKER ROOM!!” Instead her big plan is… um… to just like walk out in front of everybody and for some reason no one besides Noel thinks this is weird.

Back over at the Life Cafe, the soft guitar music starts up again which can only mean one thing — Paige is stopping by to see Emily! Turns out Coach didn’t want her to swim anchor in the breast stroke relay (still funny) she actually bombed a math test and now her average is below a B. Saddy. Does anything good ever happen to Paige? And then Paige dropped this awesome lesbian bomb:

Which I’m almost definitely positive was a reference to Ned’s Declassified NOT THAT I WATCHED THAT OR ANYTHING.

To cheer Paige up, Emily asks her to come over to watch a movie. I swear Paige acts like she still can’t believe she and Emily are dating. The dynamic is a bit odd, but it’s still super cute. And then they have this super cute moment where Emily kisses Paige to make her feel better and I have a hundred feelings about it.

That was lengthy but I think worth it to experience. Mostly I think it’s funny that the kisses are so chaste even though all high school students normally wanna do is grind against each other in public. With that, Emily heads back to work and Paige heads home. For the record, in the real world, when your girlfriend has a coffee shop job you actually just hang around all day every day.

Speaking of the Life Cafe, Ezraria are inside I guess being public about their relationship? It’s unclear. Either way Baker Boy is there (since he owns the joint) and Ezra peer pressures Aria in to saying hello.

Throughout their discussion we discover that Baker Boy is crazy about Ella and not seeing anyone else. Is it just me or is it a little weird that Aria is so involved in her mother’s love life? Well, it doesn’t end there. Then Ella and Aria have the most adorable mother/daughter post-yoga moment where Aria tells Ella she should be straight with her man friend about all her other man friends. Like I said, it was really cute. Holly Marie Combs can do yoga with me any day.

When Ella next sees Baker Boy, the two talk about all of the Feelings and decide to go steady. My favorite part is when Ella points out that she’s ten years older than Baker Boy. Their relationship is officially the male-female relationship I am most heavily invested in.

Also, I’m choosing to pretend that Ella was 18 when she had Aria, making Ella currently 35 which in turn makes Baker Boy 25 and therefore potentially the same age as Ezra. For hilarity I’d prefer if Baker Boy was younger than Ezra but I’ll take what I can get.

Starsweep to wherever the hell Noel’s cabin is where Hanna and Emily decide to take a look around. How is it still daytime? The two just walk in the front door because no one keeps their doors locked and find a completely destroyed living room.

They comment that it’s probably from a party but I feel like someone actually broke in and the Liars are gonna get framed for it.

The place is full of mounted deer heads and red solo cups and what else but a secret door to a secret room where someone has secretly been staying. Super sleuth Hanna even finds an overnight bag belonging to one miss Maya.

Items in the Bag

+One (1) scarf
+One (1) knife with the initial L.J.
+One (1) birthday card Emily gave to Ali
+One (1) unused ticket to San Francisco

First of all, L.J. is definitely the name of the guy who Maya was dating at True North who is also definitely probably Nate. Also, I personally think this stuff could have been assembled by A to frame the Liars, but then again I’m paranoid.

Or am I? Because just then all the window shutters shut and the door locks trapping the Liars in the lake house. Emily grabs a poker thingy and yells to see if it’s Noel. Instead of a response, the power blows. They scream. Obviously.

Emily goes in to super hot escape mode and breaks the glass out of a window like nobody’s business.

Hanna, on the other hand, somehow stabs herself while trying to pry the shutters open. Emily wraps up Hanna giant bleeding wound and the bashes the shutters open with a baseball bat. For real. The two hop out of the window (unfortunately off screen) and are confront with a big painted note from A. God, A paints fast.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Spencer gets an email (potentially from Noel) telling Spencer to stop putting her meaty little fingers all over his locker. Attached is a surveillance video from the night Maya died. 9:30pm and a girl bikes up to the house. What girl? You totally already know. Duh, it’s Maya.

Emily and Hanna get back to Hanna’s place where she’s clearly bleeding out. Hanna refuses to go to the hospital even though she could totally just say she dropped a knife doing the dishes or something. Instead Emily calls Dr. British over and Hanna tells him she cut herself “cutting a really big carrot.” He believes her zero percent. Wren stays to cook Hanna some dinner, and the two flirt. Even though Wren’s motives make no sense, I’m actually in to this because Caleb is tragically boring.

Emily finally gets home and finds Nate on her doorstep. He’s all ” Wah wah wah sorry I acted like a crazy person to Jenna earlier. Wah wah wah I miss Maya. Love me.” Emily shows Nate the bag she found and he rifles through it. Nate starts pulling things out and breaking down crying.

I really thought what was going to happen here was that Nate was going to see something and accidentally blow his cover (because I still think he’s the ex-boyfriend).

That is not what happens.

Instead they fucking kiss.

The second they kiss you absolutely know Paige is going to see them. And then I though, “Oh good. Emily is going to pull away and run in to Paige’s arms crying.” Or maybe Paige will see them kiss but not see the part where Emily pulls away upset. Except then they just kept kissing.

So Paige strolls up the sidewalk with the cutest little grin on her face– like an “I’m gonna get some lady action” grin and sees her goddamn girlfriend making out with someone else on her front step.

And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

You can just see the wheels turn in Paige’s head. What did I just see? I just saw Emily kissing someone. I just saw Emily kissing a boy. I’m so sad. No wait I’m mad.So she knocks over a trash can like a champ.

It’s perfect because Paige is having all the same feelings I was. The two finally pull away and Nate say some shit about feeling close to Emily and having wanted to kiss her for a while. But Emily doesn’t say anything. The scene cuts away before Emily can admit feelings for Nate or tell him to go fuck himself or whatever. She just looks a little blank.

At first I was mad at the writers. Really really mad. Not because I thought they were turning Emily in to a bisexual — I love bisexuals — but because I thought they were ditching our girl-girl relationship after really only two episodes of dating. How could they do that to me? But then I realized, that’s not what they’re doing at all.

First and most obviously, we don’t know what Emily said after that kiss. She could have said “I’m sorry Nate. I know we’re both grieving and wanted to feel close to someone for a moment but I love someone else.” Or, “Oh Wow. That was a mistake.” For all we know, she could have said, “Yep. Yep. Definitely gay.” Sometimes people are sad and they just kiss someone. They want to comfort themselves or act out or just feel something other than bleak numbness for a minute. I can’t speak for Nate, but I think that’s what was going on with Emily.

Even though it broke my heart in to a million pieces to see Paige’s face, I think I’m starting to understand why all this shitty shit happens to Paige. Paige isn’t one of the Liars, Paige is one of us. The Liars get stalked by mystery figures and blackmailed and constantly sexually pursued. But Paige? Paige deals with shit like being second best on the swim team. Paige has to do things like resolve unwanted sexual feelings, come out to her bigot parents and deal with self hatred. Paige gets dumped because she’s not ready to come out and then watches as the girl she likes falls in love with someone else. Paige has to learn to control her anger and maybe has a bit of a drinking problem. Paige is too scared to go to a pride group. Paige’s bike is constantly breaking. These are our real problems. So while I love Emily in all of her accidental steroid using, fake scholarship getting, breaking and entering, talking doll receiving glory, sometimes I wish she would just stop seeming so perfect and have a couple of the regular high school queer problems. And Paige? She has all of them. So yeah, of course Paige sees her girlfriend kissing a guy. So for me, it makes a lot of sense that Paige doesn’t say anything and just turns around and walks away and kicks a trash can. It makes sense that when she sees Emily again, she gets super passive aggressive and sort of acts like she didn’t see anything but maybe kind of vaguely hints that she did. Because Paige is one of us and honestly, at her age, I would have done exactly the same thing.

Moving along the Liars watch more surveillance video from Noel’s place. The video shows Noel and Jenna going in to the cabin at 1:14 am followed by Maya coming out of the cabin. And at 1:14:45 am someone grabs Maya and pulls her off screen. Dun dun dun. Sorry, these things are much more dramatic to watch rather than describe.

So:

The Events of April 12/13, 2011
9pm: Maya is seen getting in to a car with Garret
10:04pm: Maya arrives at Noel’s cabin
Midnight: Garret is arrested at Spencer’s house
1:14am: Noel and Jenna go in the cabin and Maya is snatched
Between 1:15-2am: Maya is killed at the DiLaurentis house where her body is later discovered

A few notes. First of all, the first season, which based on Maya’s death took place Labor day weekend 2010. This means that though the show is now taking place in the past, when it initially aired (June 8, 2010) it was taking place in the future. Second of all, if Noel, Garret, Jenna were all out of commission, then I have no idea who killed Maya. I do know this episode was a real trek.

Next week we’ll do more speculation on Paige’s slow but steady march in to a soft butch fashion paradise and I’ll make my strongest predictions for who will betray the Liars in the mid-season finale. Spoiler Alert: It probably won’t be Mona again.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 309: The Lesbian Crying Game

In light of last weeks glorious lesbionic triumph I almost couldn’t write about this week’s episode. How do I come back after such hot epic lesbian action to recap the usual sneaking around and boy crushing. It took a while, but for you guys, I did it. Because I love you weirdos. And Pretty Little Liars even threw us a bone at the end. Hallelujah.

We open on Spencer and Aria experimenting with their sexuality and/or grabbing a damn good muffin at the Life Cafe. As you probably obsessively remember, last we checked Maya had a website page diary full of all her deepest and darkest secrets. Aria has found a clip showing Maya with the same wrist stamp that Holden had and that Emily remembers from THAT NIGHT.

Aria is desperate to tell super sleuth Spencer but, unlike the previous 55 episodes, Spencer is done with sleuthing. Why? Because if there’s one thing more important than preventing a megalomaniacal psychopath from framing you for murder, it’s getting in to college. And Spencer forgot to apply early decision to U Penn. Shit just got real.

Just then, Craycray Cece arrived with flourish to save the day. Turns out Cece has some friend named “Steven” who works at U Penn admission. What a co-inky-dink. And there’s a party tonight where “Steven” is going to be! This just keeps getting better.

Obviously Spencer begs to go to the party to hand her resume to “Steven” in person. Much like every other super smart and privilege but slightly self involved teenager in the world, Spencer thinks silly things like deadlines don’t apply to her. (Unfortunate reality check: they do.)

An ambiguous amount of time later, Hanna and Caleb have a moment in the hall. Like a I-miss-you-no-I-don’t-miss-you-I-love-you-forever-but-also-never-ever-but-forever moment. Caleb gives Hanna the log in to Maya’s website and they talk for a hot moment.

Seconds later Hanna gets a text from A instructing her to come to The Cheesecake Factory alone later or Caleb will get hurt. There’s a subplot here throughout the episode but honestly I watched those parts while cleaning my living room. Basically Caleb was actually the one who sent the text thus proving to himself that there’s a New A. And so he and Hanna kiss and stuff. Honestly it was pretty disappointing because I was all signed on for Hanna to play doctor with Wren and for Caleb and Spencer to U-Haul their love and adopt a dozen cats. Can’t win the all I guess.

Starsweep to lunch time where Spencer and Hanna discuss their long term future together and the merits of adoption versus finding a sperm donor. The two look over to where Emily and Paige are being The Most Cute. And, understandably Emily is The Most Happy. Like the way you feel when you’re finally with someone who your mother likes, who isn’t in the closet and who doesn’t have a shrimpy friend with huge chicken feather earrings. (Remember Samara? Whatever happened to her?)

The two lovebirds skip over and want to know what the cool kids are up to. I just want to know where Emily got that adorable plaid shirt. Probably from Lesbians-R-Us. Either way, Spencer and Hanna don’t have the heart to tell Emily about Maya’s video journal from beyond the grave. Even if this situation made any sense whatsoever, I wouldn’t have the heart either.

Time dance toward to the “Outside Ezra’s Apartment” set where Aria walks in on Ezra and his younger brother Wesley having a slight spat.

Was there ever a more uppercrust name than Wesley? If I know this show, Wesley (who looks unsurprisingly age appropriate for Aria) has a few tricks up his sleeve. For one, he’s actually a Werewolf!

Secondly, he’s already dating Aria’s long lost twin sister.

Most importantly, Gregg Sulkin sounds hilarious without his british accent and maybe should have been cast to play Dr. Wren’s brother instead.

I also want to take this moment to nerd out and point out that Selena Gomez played the lead in Another Cinderella Story and Lucy Hale played the lead in A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song. If Wesley steals Aria from his brother Sulkin will officially have some motherfucking Prince Charming status. Which is a step up from his current status of Bro Brother. (Or Brother Bro depending on your preference).

Either way, Aria and Ezra hurry in to Ezra’s apartment where he dishes. Wesley is around because apparently Ezra’s get rich quick scheme to sell his car kind of blew up in his face. Something about a family heirloom. Basically blah blah blah Ezra’s mother is trying to choke hold him using money blah blah blah.

After school, Emily confronts Hanna about Maya’s website. Hanna caves like soggy bread and admits that they’ve been able to hack in to Maya’s site for a few days. Hanna gives Emily the password and tell her to see for herself. Seeing videos of your dead ex is probably a good time for therapy and community, but obviously that’s not a part of living in Rosewood. Emily’s on her own this time around.

Over in grown-up land, our second favorite mom is trying to track down our fourth favorite mom. That is, in light of the DA subpoenaing Hanna’s blood, Ashley Marin is trying to get Veronica Hastings to lend a little lawyering. No can doozeville on the legal tomfoolery, but Ashley does see our favorite man of the cloth Ted! Nothing sounds more religiously serious than the name Ted. Ashley and Ted have a little flirt fest. Aw.

Much like her daughter, I wasn’t paying goof attention and/or really didn’t care about this plot-line. Basically Ashley invites Ted over for a little nosh, but she ends up talking on the phone with Veronica the whole time. Then Ashley and Ted make out anyways.

Honestly the only parent I really care about is Ella and she wasn’t on payroll this week.

Starsweep to the Hasting’s household where Spencer shows off her most uptight outfits to Aria. She can decide between her vintage tuxedo and her Sarah Palin Halloween costume.

Aria suggests Spencer dial it back and bit and just do what she does: grab random items from across your household, string them up on fishing line and call it jewelry. Most importantly about half of this conversation adorably takes place while the two lay in bed like actual goofy high school girls who are maybe about to kiss.

Dressed to the nines, the two head out in Cece’s red convertible confirming my suspicion that Cece is actually, technically Barbie. Spencer is stil sort of dressed uptight, but in a cute way. At least she doesn’t have glasses and a ponytail. The two quickly realize that this shindig is going down at none other than Eric Kahn’s lake house. That’s right, Eric Kahn, brother of Noel Kahn.

To make matters more confusing, they all get stamped with the dark mark to get in. When I say confusing, I don’t mean because Maya and Holden also had that mark. I mean because who the hell ever got a stamp to go in to a house party?

Because Aria and Spencer are two ordinary high school kids, they are super excited to be at a college party. They immediately get some drinks and try to fit in a meet boys. JK They refuse booze and act horrified by the reasonably fun looking party going on around them.

Entering The Game Room, Cece engages with Eric in a playful game of Truth a.k.a. Who Blew Who.

The rules of Truth seem to be that you ask each other questions and have to answer honestly despite a complete lack of consequences. Seeing an opportunity to strangle out some info, Aria goes toe-to-toe with Noel Truth style. Unfortunately, Noel doesn’t have much dirt on Maya and all he wants to know is if Aria was Shaking the Speare with their English teacher.

Upset to discover people know about her little Fitzy situation, Aria bolts from the party. Running from your problems is the most effective way to deal with them, but Spencer still wants to stay and go knee deep in Truth with Jenna. So Aria decides to follow the number six rule of How to Have Fun at a Gay Bar and break the number one rule of High School Girls at College Parties and get the fuck out of there.

Aria calls Ezra but Wesley picks up. Aria demands Wesley tell Ezra to come pick her up but, duh, Wesley comes himself instead because he want to get his werewolf all up in Aria’s Waverly Place.

In the car Wesley tries to make nice with Aria. Unfortunately he accidentally reveals that Ezra and his high school girlfriend got pregnant. Wesley explains that Ezra tried to “do the right thing” and, though often times the right thing for any pregnancy is to terminate, we’re led to assume this means he tried to marry her and raise a baby at 18. Wesley gets vague on the details once he realize Aria has no fucking clue what he is talking about.

Flash forward back to the “Outside Ezra’s Apartment” set, where Aria confronts Ezra about the whole teen pregnancy thing. Ezra basically explains his mother found his desire to make his own choice unacceptable. Instead, Mummy Dearest paid the girl off to get an abortion and never speak to Ezra again. Dark.

I actually really liked this scene. Really! Me! The truth is, people get pregnant in high school and it’s really really complicated. Perhaps more complicated than I, as someone who didn’t get pregnant in high school, can really understand. And sometimes there really is a parent in the picture taking away everyone’s agency by saying “I will take care of this” and knowing that, in a lot of ways, that’s what any scared person wants to hear. I also appreciate that the writers gave us a chance to see why Ezra would want to date a 17-year-old. Aria could have bolted or thrown a fit or been a regular child about this situation, but instead was able to understand that Ezra can’t change his past anymore than he can change his mother. They finally gave us a chance to see that Aria is actually, technically, totally mature for her age. Well thank God.

Back at the Kahn lake house, Spencer gets herself engaged in the most sexual tension laced game of Truth of all time. She and Jenna eye dry-hump as they ask each other about their respected lies and That Night. Jenna even goes so far to ask about a certain tape. You may or may not remember this as the tape that proves that Jenna was raping Toby. Oh yeah. That.

The whole shindig is all’s well that ends well when Cece manages to actually give Spencer’s resume to “Steven.” Well supposedly. Spencer does manage to dig up that Noel and Jenna actually found Emily together at the diner (rather than in the middle of the road as previously expected). This lends itself to the theory that it was Jenna or Noel’s stamp that Emily saw That Night rather than Maya’s or Holden’s. But let’s get real. It was probably some third rate character we’ve not yet even met. Or Paige.

Wait. Where are those two lesbians anyways?

Well Emily for one is hold up in her room watching videos of Maya over and over again exactly as you probably would if your dead high school girlfriend left a video diary behind.

And crying. Lots and lots of crying.

The ret-conned glory of Maya proclaiming her undying love for Emily leaves only one thing uncertain. Maya is stone cold high out of her skull.

Because people in Rosewood don’t know how to use phones or recognize the warning signs of doorbells (includes: ringing) Paige walks in on Emily crying.

First of all, Paige is looking dapper as fuck. She looks like she knew she was going to see her girlfriend and changed her clothes in to get-laid-gay-chic clothes. ‘Aint nothing saying dapper high school gay like a white button-up and a blazer. Nothing. Second, much like Aria and Ezra’s scene, there was opportunity here for obnoxious immaturity. Paige could have run from the room screaming about how Emily is still in love with her dead girlfriend.

Instead Paige tells a truly adorable story about seeing her late grandfather on film for the first time. It’s a story with a few jokes, but no real pressure to laugh, and it’s relatable. Paige delivers it with perfect empathy. She doesn’t seem to presuppose that she understands exactly how Emily feels, or even a little bit how Emily feels, but she tells her through this story that she gets it.

She gets why Emily might really want/need to watch her dead girlfriend over and over again. Paige gets why Emily can’t just decide to be over Maya’s death. Why that’s the sort of thing you don’t have any say in. And if you can’t talk to the person you love about the person you use to love, who can you talk to? Obviously it is freaking lovey-dovey adorable. Paige cradles Emily’s head as Emily says “I just don’t want it to hurt anymore” and I literally died of emotional overload. Literally. I’m writing this from the grave. Ali is here and she said to tune in next week for more stoned Maya videos and maybe even some more Paige hand holding.

We end this episode as we end every episode. With creepy gloved hands doing creepy gloved things. This week it’s admiring cat artwork and renting an apartment.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 308: Actual Stolen Lesbian Kisses For Real

This week’s episode of Pretty Little Liars had so much lesbosexy content, that I could barely recap. I just wanted to lie around on the couch playing the lezzie parts over and over again on repeat. I just wanted to make animated gifs of Paige and Emily giving each other sex eyes with their shiny shiny hair. So much lesbosexy shiny hair.

That’s right, for the first time in a long time, this episode starred this girl:

We open on our Liars where we left them: daftly staring at Maya’s website-face proclaiming “PASSWORD BITCHES.” But what the hell is the password? Spencer has already tried everything in the Hardy Boys’s Website Cracking Handbook including “1234” “Password” and “Passw0rd.” Emily takes a crack at the site herself, but unfortunately the password isn’t “ShaneMcCutcheonIsSexy” or “AutostraddleLoverXXX.”

At this point, the Liars all scurry off to have separate plot lines that, for once, don’t really intertwine much at all. Thank fucking God. So let’s deal with all this shit.

Aria has a rough time of it this week. We open on Byron telling her that his barely legal lady friend (Meredith) has just gotten a job at Rosewood high school.

Remember how Byron set Meredith up with an interview there or something? Since Byron doesn’t care about his daughter at all, he plans on continuing to tap that ass while ignoring the truly complicated effects this might have on his daughter’s education. May I have a word with you Chad Lowe? Call your agent. You need to renegotiate your contract such that you don’t have to play a complete dick.

Aria skips on over to Fitz’s house where she expects to get some afternoon delight or at least show off her peplum dress (which I totally promised someone on Formspring would go out of style but then it didn’t).

Oops, actually Ezra’s Never Mentioned stuffy mom is hanging around! Her name is Diane but we’re going to call her Mummy Dearest because that’s just how we roll. Mummy Dearest has just created a line of gold plated sea shell jewelry and the launch party is tonight at L.A. Fashion Week.

Just kidding, that broach is hideous. Actually Ezra’s mom wants the star-crossed lovers to join her at some endowment for the arts. Oh? Did we mention that Fitz is short for Fitzgerald? Ezra changed it because he was concerned if he and Ella ever really hit it off she’d have to change her name to Ella Fitzgerald and just imagine what the neighbors would say!

Starsweep to Spencer’s place where she and Hanna are still trying desperately to crack the Maya Password Code. Spencer has now tried “MAYA” and Maya’s dog’s name with no luck. Spencer tells Hanna they need to get Caleb involved which approximately everyone saw coming. In fact, if you didn’t see this one coming, you should probably quit this show now.

Hanna gets a text from Wren and we can already see what’s coming here. Wren and Hanna plus Spencer and Caleb. The girls are going switch squad.

Just to emphasize that Spencer is going to nail Caleb soon, Toby shows up again. He’s like that big obnoxious zit I have just to the left of my eyebrow that keeps coming back every time I get rid of it. He’s all pissy about Spencer not opening up and Jason leaving town or something.

I think I should take a moment to clarify why I hate Toby and why I don’t want to look at his face anymore. It’s not really because of his face. It’s because his character is my absolutely least favorite type of male characters on TV. He’s the Save The Day Super Nice Amazing Guy Who Just Wants to Love You Forever. Gag me. He’s the If The Girl Would Only Open Up Everything Would Be Perfect Guy. I hate that bullshit. I hate that we’re supposed to feel like Spencer, who by this point is two dead friends deep and has every reason to distrust everyone, is somehow wronging Toby by not telling him every detail of her life. Reality check: your high school boyfriend does not need to know every detail of your life. In fact, he probably shouldn’t. I’m also still resenting him for that time Spencer wanted to do it and he didn’t because he “knew that she didn’t really want it” or some crap.

So Hanna heads out and meets up with Wren at The Cheesecake Factory. Wren informs Hanna that Mona is going to be moved to a different mental hospital in a land far far away. There’s concern that Mona has been sneaking out her drugs to someone, probably to sell them on the black market. This, like most thing Wren does, is a complete breach of doctor-patient confidentiality and doesn’t shed an ounce of light on to what the fuck Wren’s specialty is.

But Wren doesn’t care, because he’s Super Doctor! The last doctor you’ll ever need!
Hanna immediately declares Mona shouldn’t be moved. How are they going to get more details out of her? Just then, Caleb conveniently walks in to get a slice of double fudge chocolate chip cheesecake. There’s like some tension between the two and Caleb is clearly unimpressed that Hanna is hanging out with an older British guy.

Time flash to the next day at school. So wait… all that shit yesterday took place after school? These girls get so much done before 7:40am and after 2:20pm. I should probably take notes.

Spencer asks Caleb for some help with Cracking The Internets and he says yes. Also the Liars compare notes. Spencer reveals a text she got from A about Mona leaving and Hanna admits that Wren told her about Mona’s transfer. Everyone is jealous of everyone.

After school, Aria drops by Spencer’s place to find something completely uptight to wear. This isn’t a joke, Aria is actually at Spencer’s to find something uptight to wear.

Spencer’s only purpose in this episode is to just hang around and be A Sleuth so, upon seeing her mother’s briefcase, the two go to town. Snoopin’ through the briefcase, they find the name Bart Comstock dramatically circled.

But why? Is it because no matter how many times I watch the episode I keep reading his name as Cum-Stock?

Aria runs over to Cum-Stock’s address which turns out to be a movie theater. Why on earth he doesn’t have a home address is beyond me, but he’s eager to talk. He tells Aria he saw Maya get in to a car with Garret the night she died. On any other TV show this would be a dead giveaway that Garret’s the killer, but here this probably just means the two of them were canoodling/conspiring/opening a small used bookstore together.

Back at the home base, Caleb and Spencer do some grunting and eventually crack the code in to Maya’s website. And they hug. Guys they hug.

Sorry, I can’t pretend to care about this. Maya’s website is unusually cool though! Like where do I get one of these?

I will also say that Maya On Film is the most likable version of Maya.

Slipping on a little white dress, Aria sets out on the town to go to the fancy-pants thing with Ezra. Ezra arrives in his fancy pants and the two discuss how Ezra is actually mega-wealthy but currently cut off from his family for having complicated money feelings and possibly also for nailing a teenager. Clearly the writers took a page from Fifty Shades of Grey and learned that there’s nothing hotter to young straight chicks than men with a lot of money and a lot of guilt. I suppose if Ezra was a butch silver fox I’d have to agree. L’sigh.

Aria and Erza momentarily separate to look at art or something and Mummy Dearest confronts Aria. She basically tells Aria that she’s ruined Ezra’s life by preventing him from teaching high school and getting him kicked off the Holis Staff. She also kind of tries to pay Aria off to break up with Ezra. Aria should totes take the money and run. Instead Aria is, understandably, really upset but I can’t help but side with Mummy Dearest a bit.

In no uncertain terms, Aria has totally prevented Ezra from doing the work he loves. That being said, Ezra is a fucking adult and if he really wanted to teach high school he probably shouldn’t have been with a 17 year-old in the first place. Obviously Aria storms out of the party. But why, really. I mean, Mummy Dearest is totally just a composite of classic stuffy rich brunett mom characters. We’ve seen this all before.

Meanwhile, Hanna has convinced a bunch of The Doctors to give up their Friday night to hang out with her and play Pictionary. Hanna explains to the doctors that Mona shouldn’t be transfered because all of her friends and family are in Rosewood. It’s sort of sweet.

Hanna goes through this long explanation about friendship and how, even in light of what Mona did, she still wants to be there for her. She knows Mona wouldn’t abandon her and she still owes Mona for getting them both popular and stuff. It’s one of those scenes where at the beginning you think Hanna is just BSing to keep Mona around for details, but by the end of it you can really see how much Hanna needs/wants/misses Mona and how truly hurt she is. Like I said, sort of sweet.

And The Doctors agree! Wren tells Hanna they’ve decided to keep Mona right where she is! So Hanna and Wren kiss. Guys they kiss. Meh, like I said. I just can’t get excited about this.

We reunite with Aria back at her dad’s place where she shows us just how mature she is by flailing and crying in the hallway. Now, I spent many a day flailing and crying, but this still doesn’t do anything for me. Aria asks her dad if she has ruined Ezra’s life and Byron is like “Erm… No… Not really…” Oh right, and Ezra tells Mummy Dearest to go fuck herself. So there goes any hope for a scene of Ezra and Aria flying a personal jet to Maui.

Aria wipes her tears and meets up with the other Liars to scope out Maya’s site a bit. But there’s like a terabyte of video footage and it’s all so… personal (read: kind of gay).

So the Liars decide they’d better get Emily over there to go through it with them. But where is Emily? She’s not picking up her phone. Which, of course, brings us to:

After leaving Spencer to unlock the secret website, Emily meets up with Nate to show him Maya’s Favorite Spot. Obviously we’ve never ever seen Maya at this spot, but it’s vaguely nautical and Emily puts on a hat for the occasion so it MUST be gay.

Intern Hannah: My favorite part was when Emily wore a fedora and for me everything else kind of pales in comparison to be honest. (I just have a lot of fedora feelings.)

Nate says some stupid shit about Jenna ditching him, but we don’t really care about that. We care about this all important moment:

So now we know Paige is gonna show up! The anticipation is killing me!

Nate continues to babble on about wanting to kill Garret, but Emily really doesn’t want him to do that. In a town where people actually die, threatening to kill people is a big no-no.

Emily leaves Maya’s Favorite Place and heads out to find Paige. Paige is in her backyard fixing a bike because she is a big ‘ol trike dyke which I love forever.

Emily wants to talk about the whole Paige Getting Drugged thing but Paige would rather ignore it and stare up Emily’s shirt.

But seriously Emily really wants to talk.

Okay okay but seriously seriously Emily wants to talk. So Paige agrees to meet up with her the next day after school.

The next day Emily and Paige go for a run together. While I’m inclined to feel like this is unrealistic, apparently this is something athletic gay girls sometimes do. I on the other hand have the muscle mass of a baby squirrel so I don’t let hotties see me run.

Once they’re all out of breath and using their tired sexy voices, Emily admits that it was her flask that got Paige drugged. Emily is all up in arms insisting that it wasn’t on purpose, and she has no idea who tried to drug her the night Ali’s grave was burgled. Instead of seeming angry about the whole drugging thing, Paige is sort of embarrassed and awkward.

Paige admits she figured Emily’s flask had the drugs in it from beforehand and, apparently just like everyone else in town, she actually saw Emily during That Night. Around 11pm Paige discovered Emily on her front step, and took her inside to nurse her drunk ass.

Paige sets the scene. Paige was holding Emily and then Emily was holding Paige and then they kissed. Paige sounds so vulnerable and scared and confused as she tells Emily that they kissed that for a moment I expected the story to take a bad turn. A Lack of Consent Sex turn. Though it doesn’t, they just kissed, you can hear in Paige’s voice the full weight of what happened. The self-disgust she feels for having kissed someone who was drugged. The shame of thinking Emily would only kiss her drunk. And yeah, a tiny bit of romanticized glee thinking back on the whole affair.

Unfortunately when Paige walked away for a minute to get drunk-Emily a glass of water, Emily ran off dramatically in to the night. Paige realized later that Emily didn’t remember any of it, and was plagued with guilt about the Lack of Consent Kiss.

Paige explains she didn’t tell Emily about the kiss because she convinced herself what she did was A Okay. You can tell by her tone of voice though, that she means that she didn’t tell her because she knew it wasn’t okay. Emily sort of reacts in disbelief. It’s interesting– Emily doesn’t act disgusted or seem like she regrets kissing Paige. Instead, she seems to regret most that she doesn’t remember.

Here are these two girls who shared this moment that was maybe meaningful or maybe a mistake and yet the two can’t get over their own guilt to sort out their feelings. So obviously Paige runs off in to the woods.

As night falls Emily scurries off to Maya’s Favorite Place to reflect on All Of The Paige Feelings. But there’s someone at the door! Who’s at the door? It’s Doctor Octopus! Nope, it’s Nate! Duh.

I’m going to level with you guys. I think this scene might be important, but I feel asleep twice watching it. The third time I spaced out and got a yogurt. So I’ll do my best here.

Nate wants to better understand the intricacies of Having a Dead Girlfriend and why Emily would return to Maya’s Favorite Place the previous day. She explains that she wanted to come back to this deeply meaningful spot but just really needed a straight guy with a confusing interest in Maya/Emily to push her in to it. As for coming back at night, well she needed to think some things over.

Because Straight Men know everything, Emily asks Nate if it’s possible to do something without knowing you’re doing it– even if you’re drunk. Nate’s all like, “Nah, we’re always who we are no matter if we’re drunk, stoned, drugged or on the moon.” And that’s where this episode takes a turn for the scientifically and socially inaccurate. I’m going to go ahead and say that’s patently false. Has Nate ever seen a totally drunk high school student? They don’t know what the fuck their doing. I once saw a drunk high school guy eat dog food. Seriously. Nate claims being drunk is the same as dreaming, and in both situations you’re just blaming the booze/dream for your actions.

Like… does anyone else feel like this makes even less sense? I’m not going to say people never drink to intentionally act without inhibitions, but dream? I’m pretty sure my dreams are just my subconscious fucking with me. Most recently I dreamt that I was baking banana breads with chocolate chips and walnuts. That’s ridiculous because I hate nuts in banana bread. That certainly wasn’t me.

Oh and then Nate gave Emily his coat because he’s obsessed with her or something.

Starsweep to Paige’s place where Paige is woefully gazing into the pool. Emily comes up behind her and Paige immediately goes in to reactionary mode. She’s all, “I’m sorry again about the kiss. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“I’m a terrible awful person who’s going to hell for kissing a drunk girl.” Then Paige threatens to kill whoever put the drugs in Emily’s flask. And you just know Paige means it. Because Paige is my favorite breed of lesbian. The fucking totally bat-shit psycho crazy lesbian.

Remember this?

So when Emily tells Paige that she shouldn’t say things like “I’m gonna go kill that guy” she really means it. Like, “Hey, Paige. Please don’t kill anyone because like, um, that’s not cool and I know you would.” But I digress, because beyond my natural inclination to make fun of everything that feels, this was a fucking amazing scene. I loved this scene. I watched it over and over again and showed it to my mom. I want to go back in time and take this scene to my senior prom and buy it a red boutonniere to match my dress.

Emily explains to Paige that she’s had a sort of revelation about her blackout night. For so long Emily was so focused on Maya. Thinking about Maya. Missing Maya. Letting Maya be her whole word. Even before her death, it was the Maya show. And in a lot of ways, part of Emily must have really wanted to move on. Who hasn’t ever felt like they don’t deserve to move on? Or that the person they loved deserves to be unconditionally loved forever.

But even if Emily doesn’t remember it, and Paige feels bad about it, she still came to Paige’s house. And (in light of her discussion with Nate) there must have been a part of her that really wanted to go there.

And yeah, I think this idea that people subconsciously do things they want when they’re drunk is a little ridiculous. But what’s important at this moment is that regardless of the reason Emily went to Paige’s that night, she’s glad she did. Suddenly something awakens in Emily that isn’t overwhelming mourning and sadness. Because there’s nothing like the first girl you fall in love with. Or your first heartbreak. There just isn’t. But eventually you pull yourself up and find new loves. Stronger ones or more mature ones. Because as wonderful as the Emayas and Britanas and Namoily and Spashleys are, most of us in the real world don’t marry our first girlfriend (even if it’s not because she gets murdered). And that deserves a moment on TV too.

And then they kiss. Guys, they fucking kiss. Like a big kiss and I was squealing like a baby weasel. This is one satisfying kiss. Like the kiss goes on and on and on. I’ve taken shits that were shorter than this kiss.

And this is me:

After a million years of kissing, the episode cuts away. When it cuts back Emily’s phone is, as previously mentioned, ringing off the hook. But Emily’s phone is in her pocked and her clothes are off. And I think you know what that means Emily and Paige are doing.

Now that’s what I call scissoring. Or at least scissor kicking. You’ve got to start somewhere. Tune in next week when Emily will go back to sulking around silently in the background as we hear all about Hanna and Caleb’s torrid relationship.