Episode 508: Scream For Me
The liars are in a choir singing “What Child Is This,” which sounds like a joke but isn’t.
Immediately outside the choir room, Lieutenant Tanner is grilling Ali about Shana. Ali says she doesn’t know anything and derails by positing that it was her imaginary kidnapper who killed her mother. Lieutenant Tanner says “the police have many theories,” and I’m crossing my fingers that this seasons ends like the movie Clue.
Ali reenters the room. After some disparaging remarks against Hanna that make me really angry and some more talk about the cops being hot on their trail, the girls find another message from A in their sheet music.
I wonder how many times A has left messages for them that they never found. I bet the town is littered with them.
Emily and Spencer meet Hanna at her locker and confront her about how she is probably developing a drinking problem, which bums me out mostly because we just did an addiction story last season! Oh well. They’re mad at Hanna for “almost outing” Ali’s bogus story at the Drama Dinner with Emily’s mom, which is bologna because literally no one believes that story in the first place.
Aria is outside the school in the morning (?) calling Ezra about things she definitely could’ve just texted when suddenly her mom shows up!
She reminds Aria (and us) about her Very Big Engagement Party this weekend and also wants Aria to be her maid of honor! And to come to the bridal shop with her this afternoon, except Aria is going to be busy Scooby Doo-ing it up over at Radley, so she blows off her mom and heads back into school.
We dog paddle over to the moody swimming locker room where Emily is not-very-subtly trying to see how much Hanna told Sydney about the Shana and New York. Sydney either doesn’t know anything or plays dumb and goes on to ask Emily how she feels about getting offered a position as assistant coach of the swim team. When Emily doesn’t know what she’s talking about, Sydney says this amazing thing:
And then leaves.
Hanna is on the phone with Caleb about meeting for lunch, and he calls her “babe” so now we know they’re officially an item again. Ali walks up, and Hanna apologizes for what happened at dinner, and Ali asks if they’re cool, and Hanna lies and says yes. Ali then proceeds to invite herself over to Hanna’s house for the weekend, which is clearly a ploy of some kind, and Hanna agrees to think about it. She will probably say yes because otherwise this scene was pointless.
Toby’s back! He and Spencer are going over Bethany’s fucked up sketchbook in Spencer’s kitchen. You know, for a group of people who are seriously (and maybe rightfully) paranoid about being watched, they sure have a lot of important conversations in a space that Spencer shares with Melissa The Known Conspirator.
Anyway, Toby is enrolling in a police academy, and Spencer is upset, probably because she has something against 80s comedy franchises or something.
Aria is snooping around Radley but is immediately busted. She learns that Lamb doesn’t work there anymore and then gets busted AGAIN trying to return Bethany’s sketchbook to its home under Rhonda’s bed because after four and a half seasons, it’s still amateur house at Haus of Aria.
Rhonda says she won’t rat on Aria for a price. The price turns out to be root beer and generic Cheetos, and my suspicion that the writers were watching Orange Is The New Black when they were writing her character grows exponentially.
Rhonda tells Aria that Mrs. DiLaurentis used to sign out Bethany and take her to the circus and gave her a horse and just kind of generally spoiled her. Before Rhonda can plot-exposition too much, the nurse who busted Aria the first time busts them AGAIN and kicks Aria out for giving soda to a diabetic.
Back at the Marin house, Hanna returns to find Ali spinning her sob story for her mom, who TOTALLY BUYS IT! YOU GUYS! Hanna is every shade of over it, at least, hallelujah. #blessed
Hanna and Caleb are drinking booze in Caleb’s car because all the cops in town are too busy unraveling Ali’s lie to care about under-age drinking laws. Hanna wants a sandwich and heads into the Brew, which they were apparently parked in front of? I don’t know, I’m just a girl in the world trying to recap this show.
Hanna presses her nose up against the window, which is endearing but probably is meant to signify that she’s already drunk. Aria’s mom’s fiance Zack comes out of the Brew and tells her he closed early to get ready for tomorrow’s Very Big Engagement Party but that he’ll make her a tuna melt if she wants. Apparently, this is code for “creepily hit on you.” It’s extremely uncomfortable, so Hanna busts a move on outta there.
Aria sends Emily an all-caps text that says “BIG RHONDA SPILLED BIG BEANS” because apparently she’s a fucking 1940s newsie, both linguistically and w/r/t sensitivity. Before Emily can respond, Sydney creeps into her room to give her an assistant coach’s jacket she ordered for Em.
Then Sydney brings up having a boyfriend in the way straight people do when they’re talking one-on-one with a queer person and then accidentally mentions Emily going to New York. Emily tells her she was never in New York, and Syd is #busted.
Somewhere else in the timeless void, Aria is printing out copies of pages from Bethany’s sketchbook. Her mom comes in and asks how Aria could miss their appointment at the bridal shop. Womp wooooomp.
Later, Hanna and Caleb are whiskey-drunk and hanging out on separate pieces of living room furniture. Hanna wants to leave, but Caleb wants to make out, which is not going to happen because Hanna feels weird about what happened with Aria’s mom’s fiance and blames her short skirt.
Hanna: “I’m just drunk and tired, and I want to go to sleep.”
:(
Back to the angsty choir room!
Nope, other angsty choir room!
That’s the one! Spencer and Emily are talking about the multitude of reasons Hanna might not be at school today, including “avoiding Aria” and “chasing down (her) morning muffin with malt liquor.” But then Hanna rolls in looking roooooough and with a Rice Krispy Treat stuck in her hair.
She tells them about the weird moment with Zack at the Brew, and they aren’t immediately supportive, which I’m mad at them for. Spencer and Emily ask if she’s reading too much into it, and when Hanna says no, they ask if she was drunk. Hanna leaves, and I have to pause the show to take a break because I’m so mad at everyone. Fuck you guys, you’re supposed to be her friends.
