Pretty Little Liars Recap 307: All the Bitches Be Crazy

This week’s episode of Pretty Little Liars was in that category where at first you’re like “Holy shit! They just revealed everything in the show!” But then you realize that they actually revealed nothing and just made the plot line even more complicated and they’ll probably just do six seasons and a TV movie. It was also in the category of “so creepy I had to watch three episodes of Ugly Americans just to fall asleep.”

We open on Hanna chatting on the phone with her mother, seemingly unaware of how much the front of her shirt reminds me of vag.

Wilden comes by to look 100% like a child molester, or maybe just to ask for a blood sample. The blood found on Ali’s anklet is O negative, just like Hanna’s blood. I suppose Wilden just found himself a warrant for Hanna’s medical records. Lucky for Hanna, her mother being out of town means they can’t subpoena her blood for shit. Take that.

Hanna tells Wilden to fuck off and we cut scene to the Liars walking to school.

The Liars Swing by The Life Cafe for a morning double mocca frappaccino where they overhear someone who “looks and sounds exactly like Alison” except neither looks nor sounds anything like Alison.

It’s like when your friend does an impression of Chris Farley by just saying “Fay guy in a little coat.” She does, however, look a tiny bit like Kristin Chenoweth.

Her name is Cece and she doesn’t look a day over 40 so she’s probably supposed to be 22. Cece immediately recognizes the girls as Ali’s friends and tells them to stop by her shop if they want to talk or shoplift anything. I’m serious about that last part, she actually offered to let them shoplift. It was uncomfortable for everyone.

Starsweep to school where Aria waltzes in to Chez Ella’s Classroom and Dry Cleaners. Why is Ella’s dress in her classroom?

Because Ella has a hot OKCupid date! Actually that doesn’t really explain why on earth she would bring her dress inside her classroom but that’s really not the biggest mystery on the show. Regardless, Ella probes Aria for some last minute date advice. In my online date experience it’s a good date as long as your date doesn’t tell you about their staph infection or offer to pop your anus back in should it ever prolapse.

Outside the school, Spencer uses some computer program to stalk A/Mona/Ali that I could not elucidate no matter how many of Grace’s screenshots I looked through.

I think it’s like a Minority Report meets Pinterest situation. He who shall not be pictured shows up and wants to know why Spencer is avoiding him. Or he’s mad at Spencer. I honestly can’t really remember but there’s something going on in their relationship and it has to do with Toby being pissed about Spencer and Hanna lying to him last episode.

Spencer has forgotten the golden relationship rule, which is that your relationship is over when you spend more time talking about it than living it. My interest in Toby was over like 32 episodes ago.

Outside the Life Cafe, Emily is clearing tables when Nate comes up seeking girl advice. Being that between Emily’s exes, one tried to drown her, one died mysteriously and one had some straight up crazy-girl eyes, she is obviously a relationship expert. Nate needs to know if a candle is a personal enough birthday gift or if he should go with body chocolate or a four DVD collection of The Anal Girls of Tobacco Road (I looked it up, this is a real porn series). Honestly I think he should have just gone with a donation to Autostraddle in Jenna’s name because I’ve always thought she was a big ‘ol lezzie. Nate also tells Emily about how Jenna is always saying they’re BFFs and she was super BFFs with Maya too. Everyone is BFFs with everyone. Emily clarifies that actually she has no friends because she’s trapped in a dark and stormy place right now.

Nate also doesn’t get a hint and keeps telling Emily what a hottie she is and if she would just let him give her a good dicking she would find out that she actually really does like men.

Back over at Hanna’s, there’s an Ouija board! Does anyone else chronically want to pronounce this “Ooh Wheee Geee Ahhh?”

Hanna flips the guide thingy over only to prick her finger Sleeping Beauty style. Only instead of falling asleep for a hundred years Hanna just, like, bleeds a little.

The whole situation comes with a nice little note from A saying “Dear Hanna, I just thought this would be cute for a second. Love you baby! Always, A.”

Hanna flashes back to a night when she and Mona used the board to ask the spirit world what happened to Ali. The guide moved to “LIVES.” OMG GUYS ALI LIVES.

Okay I need to come clean about something. Every time I’ve ever used a Ouija board I was the one moving it. It was me. Sorry to the entire 1998-1999 Wildwood Elementary sixth grade girls. Just at this terrifying moment, Hanna to maybe-not-really-but-maybe see Ali at the window. Meep!

Oh right, and then someone throws a potted plant at Hanna’s doorstep.

Outside the school (but somehow still the same day) Spencer tracks down Jason. He’s going for a run around the school because you know, the high school girls just love watching him run or something. Spencer inquires about Cece and Jason lets her know that she’s crazier than a chihuahua on cocaine.

Nate and Emily swagger on over to Cece’s boutique to pick out a gift for Jenna. Emily notices some truly hideous earrings which I guess she had given to Maya a week before her death. Nothing like a good pair of death earrings to really bring down the vibe. Nate recognizes the earrings which means he totally killed Maya or at least tried to bang her (because I so don’t believe he’s her cousin).

Cece inquires about Emily’s feelings for Nate and, upon realizing that Emily isn’t attracted to this one particular guy, declares that Emily must be The Friend Who’s a Giant Lezzie. Emily admits she prefers a good fingerbanging, but explains she still doesn’t want Nate and Jenna together because Jenna is a wacked out bitch with a serious tendency to be completely creepy.

Starsweep to The Life Cafe where Ella is all dressed up for her hot date. After some light flirting with the baker, Ella’s date shows up. There are only six men in Rosewood so obviously it has to be Pastor Ted! Wait, wasn’t he Ashley’s man?!

Ella’s date goes swimmingly except Ted eats his ice cream wrong. I mean, who does this guy think he is? Just going around eating ice cream however he wants. The nerve!

Just after Ella leaves The Life Cafe, Nate and Emily show up. Emily patiently and carefully explains to Nate that before Jenna was in her current cuddly incarnation, she was a psycho bitch who was probably in cahoots with Garret.

Nate takes this to mean that Jenna is an angel (of both the biblical and Victoria’s Secret variety) and he should definitely be in love with her. This guy is so fucking dumb I just want to slap him in the face until he’s a somewhat sentient being.

Meanwhile Spencer and Hanna continue their ongoing passionate love affair. The two see Ali’s dad and Spencer encourages Hanna to go apologize for some unknown indiscretion, as it seems that the blood test was Ali’s family’s idea.

Hanna approaches White Hair McGee but he wants nothing to do with her or her cute curly bob. He claims, “A true friend would never do what you did,” and I, of course, have no fucking clue what he is talking about.

Since everyone else seems to have a date, Aria gets jealous and heads over to the mental hospital to see Mona.

Mona’s visits are now supervised by a nurse, but that’s okay because the nurse was clearly hired due to her ability to zone out and not pay attention. In proper cray cray style, Mona builds a card house and Aria tries to pry details out of her.

For some reason ever since Mona went to the mental hospital she’s been really sweaty all the time. Is that what the directors think mental patients look like? Just really sweaty? Either way, eventually Mona just says it isn’t her and asks Aria to tell Hanna she’s sorry. For like, fucking up everyone’s lives and stuff. So Aria leaves in sexual frustration.

It’s suddenly nighttime and we catch up with Emily leaving The Life Cafe (presumably from work/using the free wifi) where she runs in to Cece. Cece wants to know how talking to Nate went and makes awkward small talk. Oh, she also makes exactly the type of joke about Emily’s drink order that people make when you’re gay and they’ve just found out. Like a wink-wink-nudge-nudge we’re in on some joke together except back the fuck off bitch this isn’t a joke it’s my life. Um. Like that kind. But also there’s maybe some light sexual tension so that’s okay.

Cece says she needs Emily’s phone number so they can meet up to to shop for new strap-on harnesses. Obviously Emily complies, passing her phone on over. Instead of entering her phone number and taking a cheesy picture of herself, Cece dials Jenna’s phone number and goes batshit cray cray.

She tells Jenna that she’s Nate’s girlfriend and if Jenna ever sees Nate again she’ll scratch her eyes out. That’s an eye threat to a previously blind chick. She went there.

In other words, it’s safe to say that Cece is out of her fucking skull, cracked up, nutso, wigged-out, off the deep end, kooky, over the moon, loopy-doopy, mad as a hatter, shit-housed, redic, a few cards short of a deck, deep in it, out to lunch, off her rocker, bonkers, Michele Bachmann, no holds barred, bananas, psycho, wacked out, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, a screw loose, freaky-deaky, insane in the membrane, needs a check up from the neck up, cray cray cray cray crazy.

Emily having left The Life Cafe means that Ella is free to waltz back in. Ella is clearly unimpressed with the Ted situation, but that doesn’t stop her from pursuing the wildly age inappropriate barista/baker/owner.

I feel like this is a good time to show you my actual notes from this scene:

Clearly I’m actually, technically, legally psyched about Ella’s new love life.

Outside the mental hospital Hanna is waiting. Hanna is unimpressed with the dirt Aria dug up (none) and thus thinks this is a perfect moment to go gallivanting back inside the mental hospital. While this is no doubt Illegal it’s also Creepy and Hard To Do. But that’s not going to stop Hanna! So Aria teaches a really important lesson about friendship.

Off the two go in mental hospital (which they insist on repeatedly calling insane asylums as if that term didn’t go out with the 1950s). The two, of course magically waltz in to Mona’s shockingly insecure room without issue. Mona moans (get it) about how Aria doesn’t know something. Trigger the pastel flashback coloring. I guess one day Mona and Hanna were talking about secret codes using the first letter of each word in a sentence.

Just then, Ali’s dad, followed by second season Jason even though this theoretically took place during first season Jason’s reign, starts yelling at Hanna. I guess after Hanna thought she saw Ali at the window she went ahead and told Ali’s mom about that. So that was a dumb idea and obviously a newly added plot element that could have been addressed back when Ali’s mom came to town.

Unfortunately, while Hanna and Aria were watching the flashback Mona slipped out of the room! If there’s one thing my mother taught me, it’s that you always close the door behind you when sneaking into mental hospitals. Aria and Hanna’s mothers would have taught them too if they weren’t so busy trying to date a man of the cloth.

While Hanna and Aria are running off to find Mona, let’s check in with Spencer. Where is she? Coincidentally driving right behind a very very drunk Jason who totals his car. Classy. Spencer could take this moment to drive her car away and call it a wash with her half brother, but decides this is a great time to add a whole new set of lies under her belt. She tells Jason to scootch on over and she drives them both home.

Back at the Hastings Ranch, Toby is hanging out on the couch Melissa style. I’m not really sure when it got kosher to just hang out and jerk off in your high school girlfriend’s living room, but then again I’m not the one desperately trying to fill in the plot-holes in this shipwreck.

Spencer runs in and gets settled just in time for Wilden to come a’knocking. I need 100,000 snacks to deal with this dick face. Wilden tells Spencer her car was found at the scene of a hit and run. Toby, in his only likable moment ever, covers for Spencer faux-chastising her for leaving doors open. This is only really funny in light of the fact that Spencer actually does this constantly throughout the show. It’s probably the reason A is winning. Wilden is unconvinced but leaves anyways since showing up to minor’s houses in the middle of the night to question them is probably illegal.

Back over at the mental hospital, Mona has run down into an old Children’s Ward. The ward is still filled with old kid’s stuff which tells me that the hospital is clearly not in touch with reality/doesn’t know about the bed shortage in hospitals throughout the nation. Mona grabs some creepy dolls and soft strokes their hair.

This scene was actually too scary to watch a second time, but Mona just kept giving her best Ophelia impersonation and repeating a few phrases over and over again:

Hanna and Aria hear someone coming, even though for some reason this place isn’t alarmed, and sneak out through whatever magic portal they entered.

Aria decides to stay the night with Hanna, partially because they’re scared shitless, but also because her mom is still out getting it on at her after-date-date.

Reflecting on the night, The Liars huddle together sleepover style. Mona’s statements initially just seem totally unnerving and illogical, until Hanna has the sudden realization that she needs to use Mona’s old word code. So “No one to save Ali from Evil” is actually “NOT SAFE.” Well, we already sort of knew that. The big break comes from “Where were we? Maya’s away sleeping sweet; until Garrett’s all rosy, count on me.” It becomes WWWMASSUGARCOM, which is obviously the website www.massugar.com. Obviously.

The liars direct on over to the site and lo and behold it shows Maya’s not-dead-yet-face and requesting a password. Based on Mona’s comment to Aria, I’m guessing the password is MAYAKNEW.

Wait. Maya knew?!? Maya knew what?! YOU NEVER TELL US ANYTHING.

As usual, we end this episode with some creepy black gloves doing something completely bizarre and not nearly as telling as I’d like it to be. This week, A pulls a tape recorder out of Mona’s dolls.

Tune in next week when A’s plot will be revealed or maybe we’ll just have to watch Spencer and Toby fight while Ezria makes out. Who knows, maybe we’ll get to see Emily smile. But probably not.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 306: The Remains of “A” Freak Out and Leave

In response to Pretty Little Liars throwing us a bone last week, this week’s episode features absolutely no lesbosexy content. Yup, no lezzie canoodling, hot girls in ties, secret lesbian lover notes, dykes drinking, scissor bumping, actual scissoring, feelings, adopting cats, light bondage (restraints, hand-cuffs), heavy bondage (Japanese style, suspension), cameos by aging lesbians or impromptu Tegan and Sara sing-a-longs. None of it.

In fact, Emily shows up for a grand total of 195 seconds. That’s three minutes and 15 seconds. Six percent of the 45 minute episode. Three minutes and 23 seconds if you include the “last time on Pretty Little Liars” and the opening sequence. That’s still about six percent though.

I’m going to try really hard not to be irritated by the Lack of Screen Time. It’s really hard seeing as the writers dedicated ninety percent of the episode to making Girls Are Dumb jokes about Hanna BOTP. Also there’s a super annoying mosquito flying around my childhood bedroom (where I’m obviously writing this from) and it keeps biting me. I just can’t kill it no matter what I do. And there’s no AC in here.

We open on Hanna and Spencer in the hospital having just found Garret’s note under his mother’s hospital bracelet. Hanna, dressed like a farm-to-table style wedding floral arrangement of local sunflowers surrounded by campanulas, perfectly imitates Garret’s handwriting to swap in a new note.

Instead of revealing that April Rose has the proof of something or other, the note directs it’s reader to the organ at the church that Hanna uses as her secret hideout. While Hanna is hiding the note, Mrs. Reynolds heart suddenly stops which makes about as much sense as when Leonardo DiCaprio joined the cast of Growing Pains.

It’s Morning Time at the Ezaria household where either Aria came over really early for breakfast or her parents have completely moved on from trying to stop this spring-autumn relationship. Spencer updates Aria as to the morning’s events in what can only be referred to as the least sensitive texts ever.

Aria and Ezra chase each other around with a cool vintage camera. To be honest, I don’t know if the camera is actually cool or not. I thought about calling up my photographer roommate and asking her but I knew she’d be like “I don’t know and please stop calling me about asinine things at 2:00am.”

This whole scene actually made me really like Ezra. But like, if he were actually just a mid-twenties butch dyke English teacher and not an overgrown man child English teacher.

Onward ho to the Hasting household where Spencer is repeatedly and fervently searching the web for April Rose.

Once again, Spencer and Toby are making out for no good reason. I still think Spencer is going to have her shit knocked up baby style. I’m hoping for a dramatic abortion or secret adoption plotline, but I feel like we’re more likely to see a dramatic last minute miscarriage that I will be forced to feel sad about. As you may recall, I’m no longer displaying Toby’s face.

Only one actor is ever on contract to play a Hasting parent per episode, and this episode it’s Papa Hastings. Papa informs us that Mrs. Hastings, being the best lawyer ever, wants to prove some of the evidence against Garret is inadmissible. Spencer is, of course, devastated because even though A is constantly framing folks for things, Garret definitely killed Ali. Definitely. It has to be. For sure. He killed her. She know he did it. For sure.

Meanwhile over at the Life Cafe, Emily enters her first of four scenes.

For 38 whole seconds Hanna explains to Emily about the latest plan to catch A by the organ.

Emily gives Hanna the address from where her jacket was donated. Riverside and State Street. RIVERSIDE AND STATE STREET GUYS. I have nothing on this.

Hanna flees the Life Cafe for greener pastures and church located spying/donation sorting. Unfortunately, Hanna shortly discovers that the church is holding a party that night. How will we ever know who A is if everyone is town is at the church function. Speaking of which, since when is church a thing in Rosewood?

Starsweep to Jason and Spencer having some brother sister chitchat time on a park bench. Spencer wants to know if Jason, who is my fourth least favorite character after Toby, Wilden and Celeb (in that order), knows anything about the mysterious Miss April Rose.

Spencer thinks, perhaps, that Rose was a Rosewood Girls Gone Wild Caught on Tape victim turned rogue. Jason is pretty sure she wasn’t, seeing as he was the mastermind behind that whole “film girls” plan, but admits she could have been involved. Apparently Garret and Ian were paying girls to set up their friends to get spied on.

Speaking of spying, Papa Hasting watched the whole conversation! So that’s creepy.

Also I’m growing increasingly concerned by Jason’s complete lack of control over the English language and his insistence on redundancy.

Jason: “At that time I had kind of walked away from it all at that point.”

Back over at the Ezaria household, Aria continues to get ready while Ezra showers. I guess it’s still only like 9am. These girls seriously do it all by breakfast. Pulling on her cute floral Doc Martins (which I totally spotted in Topshop in London and almost bought), Aria realizes she lost a sock!

Even though Ezra probably has size 1000 feet, Aria goes snooping around in his sock drawer to get a loaner pair. What does she find? A hundred gazaillion dollars in cash money!

Now this is the point at which I, as a confrontational gold digger, would pull out the cash and make it rain all over the room. Aria instead freaks and leaves without even giving Ezra a proper goodbye BJ.

The girls, sans Emily for some reason, meet up at The Cheesecake Factory where they discuss cheese fries and A. Here’s the thing. If for one goddamn minute the girls calmed the fuck down, opened up about all their lies and experiences with Ali, they would probably be able to figure out what the hell is going on. I will admit the cheesy fries conversation is the best moment of this episode.

Instead, Hanna plans to hide inside that cool chair all organs seem to have where the sheet music is stored and pop out and yell “Boo!” when someone shows up. Aria silently ruminates about Ezra’s sudden piles and piles of cash, worried that, perhaps, he took the money from Jason. Since this seems very likely, it almost definitely didn’t happen.

Meanwhile, outside some miscellaneous building, Papa Hastings confronts Jason. Papa is all, “Listen, bro, back the fuck off my daughter. She’s had enough trouble these past few years without you digging up dead bodies — I mean dead issues — and dragging her along.” To which Jason replies, “Dude she’s my sister. ‘Cause you’re my father. I have feelings.”

Back over at the church, where Hanna has been magically transported, Ashley announces that she’ll be going to the church dance too with Ted which is apparently the name of that old guy from the previous episode. You guys know how little I care about the characters over 40 on this show, let alone the male characters. For some reason this revelation throws Hanna through a serious loop. Maybe Hanna freaks because she’s really not okay with her mom dating. Maybe it’s because the last guy she dated turned out to be Detective Wilden and he turned out to be a major character and a major pain in my ass. Either way Hanna refuses to ride to the dance with her mother claiming that Toby is taking her. She claims she needs him to scare off some imaginary guy hitting on her.

This lie is a problem for two reasons:
1. This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever
2. Now we have to see more of Toby this episode

Hanna must now convince Spencer to convince Toby to come with her to the dance so she can… what? Avoid Toby while she also avoids her mom and tries to see who A is? Here’s a better plan. Hanna should just tell her mom that she’s actually upset about Caleb and stay home and forget this goddamn bust A plan since it’s going to be impossible with all those people there. Maybe, best case scenario, they could set up a video camera (since everyone seems to be so good at recording things these days). More likely, they should just call this one a wash and just be glad they prevented Garret’s recipient from getting the real message. Then they could all ditch the church party and find a cool drag bar to go to and do karaoke. I dunno just a thought.

While Hanna and Spencer give the Hanncer (Spanna?) shippers something to animate into gifs, Emily goes to Riverside and State Street.

Little did Emily realize she accidentally walked in to Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks.

The 1940’s diner triggers a flashback for Emily. Is it of the end of WWII, decolonization and the creation of the UN? No! It’s, of course, a flashback from “that night.” In the flashback, Emily sees a half solved placemat maze with the phrase “sorry I left you” written on it.

She also remember someone with a dark mark tattoo. Holy crap, A is Malfoy.

More importantly she remembers the waitress saying “Get this drunk chick the fuck out of my restaurant before I call the cops.” This would be a great time for Emily to ask the waitress who she was with that night. Or run away. That works too I suppose.

Starsweep to Jason who announces to Spencer that he found April Rose and she is actually a vintage shop. Hm. Didn’t Mona say she and Ali met in a vintage shop out of town?

Okay so let’s get our bearings. It’s party time and Emily is coming back from the diner to meet Hanna at the church where she’ll be arriving shortly with Toby. Spencer and Jason are off finding the vintage store and Aria is…. um… at work or something. Why do these girls insist on doing different things at once necessitating confusing cut sequences?

Hanna and Toby enter the Church Party which looks, without variation, exactly like a wake.

Ashley makes a couple of well timed jokes about needing to booze up. Well timed with when I got up to get a dozen Caronas. Unfortunately Ted informs us all that booze is a No Can Doozeville Baby Doll. This is a sober party.

While Hanna and Toby wander off to stand around awkwardly, Ashley and Ted flirt it up. Ashley tries to make plans with Ted for Sunday but he’s busy. He’s also busy the next Sunday. And the Sunday after that. See where this is going? Just to remind everyone that being a middle aged single woman is the most terrible thing imaginable, Ted tells Ashley he is a pastor. This, of course, causes her to crash in to a wake of terror and disgust with her awful slutty sinful self.

More importantly does this mean he’s Father Ted? Because I was pretty sure we already had a Father Ted.

The party proceeds as completely lame and, though he is a completely useless, Toby figures out pretty quickly that Hanna’s excuse makes zero sense. So he’s like mad and stuff. God I can’t stand him.

Guess who else I can’t stand at the party?! Wilden. Ashley sees Wilden and, based on her slutty slutty dirty past with him, bolts from the party. There’s a lot of that going on today.

Starsweep to April Rose Vintage Gear and Things where Jason and Spencer are puttering about. Spencer finds Ali’s charm bracelet anklet we’ve never heard of that she, apparently, wore every day with every outfit. I’m pretty sure the only way to make a charm bracelet even lamer is by wearing it as an anklet.

This is, of course, revealed to us through a pastel faded flashback.

The store owner initially doesn’t want to sell the anklet, but apparently $400 can buy a lot of pleated old man pants and he finally folds. Super sleuth Spencer even holds the anklet with a hanker-chief so that she doesn’t get any teeny tiny finger prints on it. The infallibly related duo skip off in to the night to turn the anklet in to the Po-9.

Back at the church dance Emily finally shows up! This is great because she looks absolutely breathtaking and also because she, conveniently, does not burst in to flames.

She does, however, run in to Holden who I completely forgot about. Remember when we thought he was a queermo but then he actually was doing secret martial arts on the side and then he roundhouse kicked Noel Kahn? Those were the good old days.

Holden offers Emily a cupcake, because Rosewood runs of lies and cupcakes, and Emily notices he also has a Dark Mark tattoo. She inquires and Hodlen reveals it’s actually just a stamp from some sort of party.

Holden: I used to see your friend there
Emily: What friend?
Holden: [shrugs] Girlfriend?

With that in mind, maybe Holden is a gay and the stamp is from a secret gay bar. The gay bar I go to stamps your wrist RAMROD or sometimes PASTDUE. Also we’re lead to believe by Holden’s evasiveness that he is talking about Maya, but he could totally be talking about Paige. Maybe she’s going to the same bar. Or maybe it’s from the mix martial art events. Paige has an awful lot of rage.

Hanna and Emily race in to each others arms, trying to free themselves from the church’s oppression, and exchange stories.

Hanna announces she will hide in the organ room and wait for A or whomever. Emily announces she will cry alone in the dark for an undisclosed amount of time. Maybe until Paige shows up and personally fingerbangs everyone in the room.

Hanna hides and is stuned when Wilden appears with fire in his eyes. He informs Hanna that a nurse found the note and wisely turned it in to the police. If only they had just left the original note! Wilden assumes Hanna and co. wrote the fake note and encourges her to come clean. Why does Wilden insist on coming off like a rapist 100% of the time? But the Hanna Badger don’t give a shit and keeps on keeping on with the lies.

Elsewhere, Aria and Fitz snuggle like two fifth grade classroom chinchillas. The oogle and ahh-gle and Aria admits she’s been freaked out by the money.

Ezra explains that the money is from selling his grandfather’s car. He didn’t tell Aria because he was embarrassed that he used to be a teacher sleeping with high school students and how he’s just a regular funemployed guy sleeping with high school students. We believe him zero percent.

Speaking of dramatic reveals, Spencer’s dad confronts her in the kitchen and announces that Garret has been freed. The anklet that Spencer and Jason turned in had traces of Ali’s blood and someone else’ — not Garret’s.

Spencer calmly and patiently leaves the room, walks up the stairs to her bedroom where she freaks the fuck out.

Just in case it wasn’t obvious, A texts Spencer letting her know “Garret isn’t their killer.” Plot twists aside, I appreciate A’s use of gender neutral pronouns since I am wholeheartedly guessing either Ali or Maya is still alive.

Scary final scene pictured A circling Rooms for Rent ads and then dialing one of the numbers. Biggest plot hole in this episode? Everyone knows that you can’t dial an iPhone with leather gloves on.

So this is what an episode with under three and a half minutes of Emily content looks like. Lame.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 305: That Girl is Poison in Your Drink

This week’s episode of Pretty Little Liars featured actual conversations between lesbians and maybe just maybe even some flirting/reconciliation/future scissoring. I have this fantasy where I breeze through the not-gay parts first before I get to the shit we care about, but Pretty Little Liars has gotten so intertwined that I honestly can’t address Emily without addressing everyone.

We open on the liars who just happen to be hanging outside Garret’s house when Ms. Garret’s Mom gets wheeled out on a gurney. Isn’t it convenient that everyone on this show lives on the same cul de sac? There’s nothing more sinister than a middle aged woman having health complications.

Just then, Emily spots A! Could A have possibly poisoned Ms. Garret’s Mom? Perhaps A just paid a couple of Hot Cops to pose as paramedics.

Starsweep to early the following morning where Ezra “Funk Master” Fitz and Aria “I Can’t Believe It’s Not 18” Montgomery find themselves strolling along the piazza before the school bell rings. If memory serves I never had time to shower let alone take stroll before first period. Actually, I always showed up to first period late because it was Jazz Band and, you know.

Aria has taken it upon herself to break open her My Little Ponies piggy bank to nourish and feed her much much older boyfriend who probably has a savings account and maybe even a 401(k). Either way Fitz doesn’t want Aria paying for stuff or worrying about his money. Then Lucas was banging on some door. Yawn.

Starsweep to Rosewood High where Paige is trying her best to sneak past Emily. She probably owes her a lot of money or something. Now the that love of her life is conveniently dead, Emily can holler at new girls without sullying her eternal love with Maya. So Emily’s all “Holler holler holler holler holler” and Paige is all “I thought you were ignoring me.”

Emily claims she wasn’t ignoring Paige and just had a ton of exams and crying to do. For the record, every time someone has ever said they thought I was ignoring them, I was. Every time. Actually, “tons of exams” was usually the excuse I used. Especially when the last time I saw said individual they kissed me while I was in a big fight with my dead girlfriend. Just sayin’.

Regardless, Emily has tickets to the new Katy Perry movie which has inexplicably arrived in Rosewood a year early since it’s only 2011 there. Obviously the writers went for product placement over something more realistic. Like tickets to see Dar Williams. Or women’s soccer. Or A-Camp. Paige essentially agrees to give her old girlfriend another shot (giving new girlfriends everywhere a hernia) and hop aboard the Teenage Dream Firework Katy Perry Money Making Express.

Just then, Jenna appears all able to see and stuff. I guess Jenna broke her deal with the Liars where the Liars don’t tell anyone Jenna can see and… um… Jenna continues to fake blind. Spencer shows up to try to sort out with Emily just what the fuck they think is going on. Actually that deal never made much sense and honestly I see no reason the Liars shouldn’t be ecstatic that Jenna is out of the closet so to speak. Either way Jenna is celebrating her new found sight by throwing herself a coincidentally timed birthday party.

Just in time for Jenna’s birthday party, Garret is being released from prison to see his ill mother. Huh. What amazing timing. He’ll probably catch some cake in between crying beside his comatose mother. What do the Liars think of this?

Starsweep to the Marin household where Ashley finds Hanna down in the dumps. I’m not sure there’s anything I hate more than when girls on TV get all mopey because of break ups. I mean, high school relationships are special and important, but I feel like these extreme character reactions sort of over-validate them. Your spouse didn’t leave you for your best friend, you broke up with your 17 year-old boyfriend of like nine months because you didn’t want to tell him about the crazy axe murderer stalking you and your friends. Anyways Ashley is making Hanna do some volunteer work to gain perspective. Actually I have no idea why Ashley suggests Hanna volunteers, but that’s the reason I would use.

After school, Emily is gay baristaing when she discovers that Jenna plans to hold Sightapalooza at her very own Life Cafe! What are the odds? And Emily’s boss says she has to work the party. Which I think we can all agree is a totally dick move.

Jenna is gabbing along about her party with some middle-aged curly haired photographer who looks like a lesbian in a 90s sitcom. The photographer is named Laurel Tushman and I actually couldn’t have even made that up.

Luckily, Emily overhears Tushie discussing how her former assistant used her darkroom to develop his own film and, since being fired, now wants his negatives back. Okay, so here are some things.

1. Who the hell is shooting party photography on film? That kind of work has basically all gone digital. Yes, some artists still shoot in film, but are we to assume Tushie/Lucas/A is some analog color medium format purist?
2. I seem to recall from his yearbook days that Lucas actually does shoot digital
3. I was under the impression that being an artist’s assistant generally comes with the perk of being able to use their studio space and resources. That’s a thing in pottery at least.

Either way Nate shows up to ask Emily about Garret’s release because apparently A is the only person in Rosewood who knows how to utilize text messaging. They talk or something. I dunno. Then Nate flirts with Emily. Snore.

While Emily continues her life as a working girl (which by the way makes zero sense since she’s also supposed to be catching up at school) Spencer and Aria debate whether it is more girlie to wear virginal white or head-to-toe pink.

Honestly their conversation wasn’t really that relevant to anything I care about, but Spencer had some delicious moments. Basically Spencer points out that when Aria pays for things for her geriatric boyfriend he feels emasculated.

Spencer: Every time you baby squirrel Ezra you take away his nuts.

Starsweep to Emily’s house where Paige is inexplicably in Emily’s room without adult supervision. The sexual tension is so thick I can only assume it was made with cornstarch and water. I assume Paige is there to watch internet bootlegs of The L Word and then make out with some light petting. Emily is fumbling with a crisp white button-up and clip on tie as though we’re supposed to believe that she didn’t play in the middle school orchestra. Paige leans in to help Emily with her tie, and the two have a conversation that seems contrived exclusively for Tumblr.

Giving up on the clip-on tie, Emily searches around for the tie she has “from an old Halloween costume” i.e. from the last time she did drag. Maybe Emily could find a tie if she were in the closet? See what I did there?

While Emily is in the closet, Paige goes a snoopin’ through Emily’s things and finds her flask. Luckily there’s still some booze in it! Since all lesbians love to drink, Paige wants in on the boozefest. Paige explains to Emily that they should probably get hammered together and have sex because she saw that once on this serious documentary about lesbians called The Real L Word. Emily is like so over that and tells her to keep the flask and the booze. Hm. Wonder where this is going. Spoiler alert: obviously Paige is going to get hammered.

Starsweep to the night of Jenna’s party where Hanna is forced to volunteer at the local clothing drive. Ashley Marin flirts a bunch with some old man (who she did not meet on OKCupid) while Hanna finds an old jacket of Emily’s. This was pretty confusing until it was spelled out that Emily wore that jacket the night of Ali’s grave digging. Thank God Hanna found it too because that was a cute fucking jacket.

Meanwhile, Spencer heads over to do some Scooby Dooing at the hospital. Can we talk about how much time has been spent at the hospital in this show recently? It’s like Grey’s Anatomy up in here. Spencer spies Garret putting a notes in a flower arrangement for his mother and convinces herself that it’s a note in code for A/Melissa/Jenna/Mitt Romney.

Either way Spencer runs in to Wilden who we still don’t care about. Honestly he adds nothing to the plot line. Like, we know the police might end up pinning shit on the Liars, this horseface doesn’t need to show up every three episodes to remind us.

Wilden scares Spencer off enough that she goes home to make out with Toby. Their make-out scene adds nothing (unless an unplanned pregnancy is in Spencer’s future) and I honestly can’t even look at pictures of Toby anymore.

Meanwhile, Aria and Fitz head off to Jenna’s party like some age appropriate couple. Probably stirred by Aria’s earlier attempt at charity, Ezra has bought Aria a really cool old camera. Like actually, that’s a nice gift. That’ll get you in to a girl’s pants. Fitz doesn’t really want to go to the party because he’s 100 years old and just wants to eat some dinner and go home and fuck like normal adults, but Aria secretly wants to scope the photographer scene.

The lovebirds scurry off to the party where whole bunch of stuff happens. Mainly, Ezra really wants to leave so he can eventually tell Aria about his new job, but Aria spills a drink on Tushie’s equipment to create a situation where she can check out Lucas’s stuff in the photo studio. But that’s not what’s important here. What’s important is that this is a fucking crazy hat party.

Yes. A hat party.

And I want to make it clear that at no point does anyone ever say “This is a hat party, right?” Instead, everyone just acts like this is a totally normal party where everyone just happens to be wearing stupid hats.

I’m sorry, but do you see that silly little hat Jenna is wearing? I mean, there are a lot of stupid little hats to choose from. I think she could have done better. Like with a propeller hat!

Or a stewardess hat!

Or a fez! (Which Riese called “those tiny hats monkeys wear.”)

Sans a hat, Emily is passing appetizers as an excuse for us to see how amazing she looks in a tie. She looks just like she did in this dream I had once involving the two of us and a soft pretzel at J. Crew. Paige and Nate both, of course, show up to battle it out for Emily’s honor.

Paige is super cute and flirty with Emily in a little gay vest hat combo.

Also, and I’m just throwing this out there. That hat is totally from Lindsey Shaw’s personal collection from back when she was on abcFamily’s vastly underrated 10 Things I Hate About You.

Of course, as we’ve already discussed, the only thing lesbians like better than vests and slouchy hats is drinking copious amounts of alcohol.

So Paige gets her private party on with Emily’s flask booze. Meanwhile Nate is awful and just awkwardly hits on Emily. At least Emily doesn’t seem to give a shit about him so we don’t have to slog through that shit.

Nate, of course makes Paige jealous because alcoholic lesbians are notoriously jealous of straight men. Paige’s response is to get slam hammered.

She confronts Emily in the kitchen and then sticks her fingers in every single cupcake. It can safely be called the best part of the episode and, I’m willing to say, the best part of the season thus far.Jenna is, of course, horrified, but I think Paige is easily the life of this boring crazy hat party. Emily comes to Paige’s rescue because that’s what you do when your sort of ex-girlfriend slash sort of friend slash the only other lesbian you know is drunk at a party.

In her drunken state Paige faceplants and hits her head. While it was just five episodes ago that Emily was making a drunken ass of herself, she still manages to keep it together, help Paige up and get her to the hospital.

SO Emily and Nate bring Paige to the hospital. That means Hanna can come visit Emily at the hospital and confirm that she found her jacket to confirm someone took it off Emily the night of the grave digging. Doesn’t much seem like it would have been Jenna because she would have just given it back when she got busted.

Okay that’s not actually that important but I felt that we all needed to feel secure about that jacket getting back to its rightful owner. More importantly, Spencer shows up to try to get into Garret’s mom’s room again. When Nate sees Garret being brought down through the hospital he goes ballistic because Nate is clearly unhinged. For the record, this also seems a bit racist on the part of the show. Just sayin’.

This distracts the police enough that Spencer can slip upstairs to Garret’s moms room unnoticed by the police or Wilden. Thus Spencer is able to discover a note Garret left not in the flowers (those had a very touching card) but rather sneakily hidden in his mom’s ID bracelet (talk about insensitive).

While Spencer sneaks about in Mama Garret’s room, Aria drags Ezra over to Tushie’s photo studio. Aria manages to grab Lucas’s film, but Lucas stops her at the door. Lucas attempts to do the scary man in your face intimidation thing, but the second Ezra gets out of the car he runs away like a fifth grader who just wet himself.

Starsweep to Emily who is still waiting at the hospital for Paige to get cleaned up and sent out. The doctor (probably Wren) stitches up Paige’s head and also apparently transplanted in a magical liver that fast tracked all the booze out of her system. The two seem okay even though Paige has just made a fecking ass of herself. 

THESE ARE THE SEX EYES YOU GIVE FOR HAVING SEX

Despite being a total mess herself, Emily seems to genuinely want to look out for Paige. I feel like these are the part of Pretty Little Liars I wait for. Yeah, they’re not sucking face and that’s a bummer, but in other ways this is even better. We don’t get this kind of caring between gay women on TV very often. We get unsubstantiated declarations of undying love and “OMG my mom doesn’t like you.” We don’t get a lot of staying all night at the hospital. Even though Emily and Paige’s relationship has been largely friendship, at least it seems to be grounded in a common sense and caring. It’s not just girls kissing, it’s two gay young women watching each other’s backs. I mean, since Paige stopped trying to drown Emily.

Paige: You didn’t have to stay
Emily: No. I wanted to.

Paige reveals they did a tox screen on her and found traces of a totally made up sleeping pilled called Millizopam. We’re going to call this getting dosed with M Bombs. Where could these drugs have come from? Why Emily’s flask of course!

Wanna guess what Aria finds in Lucas’s film? You guessed it. M Bombs.

Bam. I told you it was all connected. Tune in next week when Emily’s social life will go unaddressed as Emily is used exclusively for “that night” flashbacks, Aria and Ezra will work on their star crossed romance, Spencer will hunt for clues and Hanna will mope about Caleb. I assume.

Pretty Little Liars 304 Recap: Birds of a Feather Take Charge Together

I want to impart a little life lesson for all of you in Straddleland. Never ever ever fall behind on Pretty Little Liars. While watching four episodes in a row fulfills one’s desire for instant gratification, we’re all in this motherfucking shit hole together. We need each other to keep the plot lines straight and the characters gay. I go away for four episodes and what happens? Emily’s sex life gets put on infinite hiatus. Luckily due to the writer’s deep personal respect for the good ‘ol USA, there was no episode the week of the fourth of July, giving us all time to get on the same page. After this, we band together hand in hand for the rest of the summer.

We open on the Liars enjoying coffee at where I can only assume is the Cheesecake Factory. While Melissa and Esquire Hastings bounce just out of earshot to pay the bill, the Liars resume their usual intrafriendship conspiracy theory mingling.

It’s suddenly dawned on the Liars to maybe think about the identity of A version 2.0. Is it Melissa? Is it Lucas? Is it Judith Butler? No. None of those people could be A because they either share a complex past with one of the Liars or they have shown a lifelong commitment to feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics.

Just then, Jason busts in all riled up about Esquire Hastings’s new haircut. I mean, the side bangs looked so nice– why suddenly make the switch to the harsher straight-across bangs at her age?! Also he’s pissed about Ms. Hastings defending Garret because, you know, guilty until proven innocent. I’m pissed about the return of Jason and the impact he might be having on my previously exclusively positive feelings about V-necks. What kind of person just claims an entire shirt-group like that?

Oh right, so Jason is offering a 50 grand to anyone with knowledge about the recovery of Ali’s remains. According to this one episode of this show Lie To Me that stars this really hot actress Monica Raymund, you should only offer up the sum of money to get people in the door, but then pull the reward so that you don’t get false tips. Esquire Hastings saw that same episode and tells someone or another that Jason is wasting his money and will get tons of false tips. He probably should have just bought a ton of Autostraddle T-shirts.

The next day at school, Aria and Hanna totally lez out and start dating while hatching a plan to get Aria’s mom a new boyfriend.

Clearly that didn’t happen because there is nothing scarier, not even killers, than seemingly straight characters TURNING GAY. But I swear their interactions were the closest thing to girl-on-girl intimacy we were rewarded with this episode. Speaking of middle aged divorces, Aria has clearly started modeling her own personal fashion line for the cougar who knows what she wants. I’m sorry. I can’t sign on to animal prints. I’m not ready and you can’t make me.

Also due to her freakout on Caleb, Mona isn’t allowed visitors anymore. Womp Womp.

Meanwhile, over in sex-free lesbianland, Emily got a job as a barista in a local gluten free vegan whole grain poly-community hang out cafe. Why? Because all teen lesbians work in cafes. This is a universal law like the Pythagorean theorem or how apparently celebrities come out in threes now. Can we just call her place of work The Life Cafe and be done with it? Okay cool.

The Life Cafe’s boss is both absurd and potentially my favorite new character ever. It’s about time this death-fest got some comic relief.

Maya’s “cousin” Nate hops in on Emily at work and has all the feelings about Maya’s death. He wants to share those feelings with Emily in a safe and open environment like a park bench set or maybe a different coffee shop set. As far as I can tell he is totally and completely hitting on Emily. Now let me say this right now. If this guy becomes Emily’s new romantic lead I will absolutely lose my shit all over this motherfucking place. Just all over it. I would rather see Emily engage in inter-species erotica with Optimus Prime than suddenly change sexual orientations. This is not to say I don’t respect, understand, root for, want, like, love, care about, kiss, and ultimately believe in and uphold the sexual orientation of bisexual people/characters. It’s just that Emily fought so hard in seasons one/two under a gay banner. That she affirmed her right to be a gay teenager. And yes, in the real world teenagers explore their fluid sexualities all the time and that’s awesome. But this isn’t the real world. This is TV Land where all the gay women characters keep getting killed off or turned straight.

Emily and Nate decide on a park bench for their post-work rendezvous and Nate is a fucking weirdo. Remember back when it seemed like Toby was hitting on Emily all the time but then everyone pretended later like he was just being super nice? Nate is pulling that act on steroids. Nate busts out a hilarious iPhone picture of Emily that is nearly identical to one I sent people in high school. At least the writers are doing their teen lesbian fact checking.

Either way, Nate brings a gift from Maya from beyond the grave– a super gay white tank top. Duh.

The T-shirt has a note on it reflecting Emily and Maya’s undying love. This is echoed by Nate recalling Maya proclaiming her undying love for Emily despite their only questionably healthy and extremely short term relationship. Yes, the teen lesbian fact checker indeed deserves a raise.

Over in Hanna Banana Landana, Caleb reveals that he is the reason Mona can’t see visitors anymore. Hanna is less than pleased but that’s all really boring.

So Hanna ventures over to Aria’s house for what I will forever declare the cutest subplot of all time. Aria and Hanna decide to make Ella an online dating profile!

Hanna comes up with the endlessly creative username HotMamma. Apparently MILFXXX6969 was taken.

Hot Mama Ashley Marin comes in while the girls are plotting and points out that the girls should check out a better dating site. OKCupid is just for hooking up, Match.com is full of old people, eHarmony rejects people and PlentyOfFish is just for when you’re tired of OKCupid.

Nothing follows checking out middle aged men quite like a trip to a mental hospital, so Hanna moseys on over to try to see Mona again. There she is shocked to see that detective guy Wilden with a court order to talk to Mona. I’m going to assume you care about Wilden about as little as I care about Caleb and certainly less than we all care about Finn, so let’s move on.

The liars meet up the next day to address what the best type of hair removal is. Most of the girls agree on waxing but Spencer votes lasering all the way. The Liars decide they should head out to Philly to snoop around Melissa’s place to figure out her take on the whole hair removal situation and also shed some light on to why the fuck she lied about a baby.

While the Liars trek off to Philly, we are treated to more of the cutest subplot.

Ashley runs in to Ella and makes an offhanded comment about online dating. Ella is flustered and confused until Ashley whips out her iPad and shows Ella the profile Hannaria made. Ella doesn’t know how to use an iPad and initially freaks out.

Luckily, Ashley is there to hold her hand and even receive a conveniently timed date request. Imagine that! The two share all the feelings about being divorced. Normally I don’t give a shit about anyone over 25 in a teen drama, but I totes loved this.

Philly is a great city for snooping (I assume this based on crime novels) and the Liars descend upon Melissa’s apartment like vultures.

But where are the medical records? The liars check on top of desks and in book shelves but the records are no where to be found. Well, if Melissa is anything like me, her medical records are folded up and put in to her purse and then carried around for several months until she has to fly somewhere and then dumped out in to a pile and pushed under the bed. No one was smart enough to check for an purse pile under the bed.

Just when I was getting bored of this scene, Melissa has to run back home! The Liars freak out and jump in the closet R. Kelly style.

Obviously Melissa doesn’t find them and goes on her merry way. Though the Liars never find any medical records, they do manage to find a feather in a garment bag. One. Single Feather.

I guess it’s connected to the black swan?

Cut to Spencer finally getting hotel motel Holiday Inn style real. Spencer’s all “What the fuck is up with this unspecific feather and that baby you definitely lost but not specifically on the time frame you originally presented to me?!”

And just then in a blaze of glory Esquire Hastings busts in all “I’d like to know those things too! Also has anyone seen my husband because he’s been out for at least like ten episodes now.” When did the mothers on this show finally become a force to be reckoned with?

Melissa tells all which, on this show, means she imparted exactly two pieces of information. One, that she lost Ian’s demon seed the day after his death and continued to fake preggers because it was “just too much.” Two, someone threatened to expose her unless she dressed as the Black Swan and distracted Jenna at the Masquerade Ball.

Spencer wraps up this family festival by popping by to see Jason. Jason sitting out on his porch stoop, which is something that doesn’t actually occur on the east coast as much as TV likes to pretend it does.

He tells Spencer that he’s calling it quits on the crime tip hotlines scene. He is, of course, lying.

While the Hasting fam have their big talk, Hanna, Aria and Emily have talks with their respective plotlines. Ella explains to Aria that it’s like okay to be single for a hot minute after getting divorced and that the walls aren’t going to crumble down if she doesn’t have a man around to open really stuck jars. As usual, Piper nails it.

Hanna, on the other hand, gets prepped to pull an honesty hour with Caleb and explain all about A version 2.0 and calls him up to tell him she has something to tell him. Unfortunately A sends her a picture of paramedics and Caleb reveals his mother has been in a car accident.

Instead of doing what every gay kid in the country does when they chicken out of coming out to their folks and just make up some other big fake news, Hanna just tells Caleb she can’t tell him. Seriously? Never openly tell your partner you’re keeping secrets. So Caleb dumps Hanna which would be kind of sad if we weren’t getting such great Hannaria action.

A hundred thousand hours later we finally wrap up this episode by getting our final does of Emily and Cousin Nate. Emily has to return a book to him or something contrived like that and they meet up in a bar. Emily asks Nate for Maya’s parent’s address so that she can send them a thank you note for getting Maya’s gift to her. Aww. Emily has such lovely manners. Nate says he doesn’t have his little black book handy, but would happily take the unaddressed letter and send it off himself.

Now. A this point we can basically be sure that Nate is 100% not going to send that letter and at least 70% not Maya’s cousin. I vote creepy male boyfriend from True North, but he could also just be a good old fashioned A henchman. There’s also plenty room here for long lost brother to any of the other Liars.

As usual, we end with an A teaser. Today A is drinking a gin and tonic and playing on their laptop. That sounds nice, I think I’ll go do that too.

Pretty Little Liars Recap 303: Queendom of the Blind

I want to be upfront about the fact that Episode 303 of Pretty Little Liars basically contains no lesbian content. If you want to stop reading now I won’t forgive you at all. Maybe you should redirect yourself to here.

Despite that, I still thought it was a pretty good episode. First of all, Tobey Your Thirst did not make a guest appearance. So that was nice. Second of all I watched it while eating this $30 breakfast in Europe.

We pick up with our Liars right where we left off: Jenna is still faking blind which is super awkward, mostly because Tammin Sursok’s portrayal of the blind has gone from vaguely offensive to tragically offensive.

To prove she’s not really blind, Aria agrees to accompany Jenna on the piano for her next flute recital. While there is almost no evidence that Jenna is gay, I would like to point out that flute is like the fifth queerest instrument after drums, fiddle, ukulele and Your Feelings.

Of course we’re also still dealing with Dark Lucas who is 100% less fun than Dark Willow.

Now that Ella’s gone pants-on-fire, Emily is rocking a 94% on a test she didn’t finish. Instead of taking the score and running, Emily has decided this is a good time to stop all the lying and fess up.

Actually this is an ongoing theme in the show this season: no lying. I’m very into it because, with the exception of Ms. Marin stealing a shitton of money, most of the secrets are out in the open now. At some point the shit has to hit the fan, and the less shit the better because, as anyone with a sick great dane knows, shit is a bitch to clean up.

Everything is not not as it seems over at the Hastings household where Melissa is looking awfully not pregnant. At first I assumed she’d had her baby but then it occurred to me that she also lacked the characteristic TV screaming baby. Don’t worry though, she’s still sitting on that goddamn couch.

Ms. Hastings has gathered the girls to announce that she is defending Garret even though Spencer is convinced he totes murdered Ali. Mama Hastings reminds Spencer that everyone deserves a good legal defense and Spencer reminds her mom of that one time she was in a lesbian short film. Spencer answers all our confusion about skinny No Baby Melissa by saying, “I’m sorry you lost your baby.” I guess Melissa miscarried three months prior while on vacation. So that’s not really funny. I’ll just move on.

Either way Spencer suspects that Melissa’s baby daddy might be Garret, so she calls 1-800-MEDICALRECORDS to dig up some shit on Melissa. Wouldn’t you know it? Melissa never stayed at the hospital she claimed. Calling 1-800-CREDITCARDBILL Spencer discovers that Mellissa and her mother actually just stayed at a hotel for the weekend. So it looks like Melissa lost her baby way before she admitted to losing her baby. Or maybe was never pregnant with Ian’s demon seed at all! What a fucking liar.

Over at Jenna’s place, music abounds because, like I said, the flute is gay. Aria snoops while she plays and plays while she snoops and may I just say Jenna is looking goooood in those white pants.

Aria finds a sticky-note with H. Cobb on it.

The Liars assume it’s a doctor’s appointment for Jenna’s eyes. I dunno, H. Cobb seems more like a butler’s name to me (but maybe that’s because of Albert Nobbs).

Pretty Little Liars Recap 301 and 302: Excessive Drinking That Night in the Bloody New Black

Yup, it’s that time again: the start of a new season of Pretty Little Liars! I missed it all because I accidentally got lost for a while in some highlands in Scotland but I’m back now so we can share ALL of the feelings about all of the episodes. Slowly at first, backtracking a bit, but then we’ll be on track again together.

Let’s start out at the very beginning. A very good place to start. This season started like any good teen soap — with a five month jump forward and some good old fashioned inter-liar lying. I wonder how many times we can say lying today? I’m guessing approximately a million. Let’s do this.

Episode 301: Excessive Drinking Happened That Night

We join our liars post-summer vacation and it is immediately explained to us that, somehow without the weather ever changing, the first two seasons comprise just the girls’ junior year. The girls celebrate their reunion by hanging out alone at Spencer’s house in a rainstorm.

You’d think they’d learn by now to stop hanging out all together alone. Regardlessly, the girls drink a little sneaky peek and dish about their summer reading lists and who gave whom a BJ at nerd camp.

While Aria and Spencer took classes, Hannah banged her boyfriend and Emily built houses in Haiti. That’s what’s so great about lesbians, they’re always doing charity work and caring about others and stuff.

Some spooky music plays and Emily drinks far too much as she laments the loss of her one true (batshit crazy) love, Maya. She also half-heartedly mentions showing her boobs so at least that’s exciting. The liars doze off and wake up to (surprise surprise) an open door and missing Emily. Where is Emily? Standing over Allison’s dug up grave, obviously.

The liars track Emily down only to discover that she’s blackout wasted. How did Emily get there, you’re wondering? Well someone made a late night booty-call from Spencer’s phone. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise seeing as Rosewood apparently has the shittiest locks in the world and no one’s parents ever bothered to invest in a proper security system.

Back at the house, Spencer forces Emily to burn perfectly a perfectly good plaid shirt while they muse about Allison’s killer.

Then the girls make like bananas and split. They write up a fake letter claiming they were at Spencer’s lake house all night and definitely not digging up graves. (P.S. Anyone who’s ever done any underage drinking knows they totally should have been at the lake house in the first place as lake houses are 100% the best.)

The next day, back at the ranch/only clothing store in Rosewood, Hanna and Spencer run in to each other.

Spencer wants to hang out together and check out the new speed dating night going on at the local Starbucks. Hanna’s like, “Ummmm…. Nahhhh” because she heard the new speed dating night was filled with creepy guys and was hella awkward and because she has therapy or something. Lies!!! Hanna is actually visiting and flipping through fashion magazines with totally out-of-it Mona. Hanna tries to play it cool with a fake name but is busted for being a Somewhat Confused Person by the only doctor in town, Wren! What the hell kind of specialty does he have that has managed to get him into trauma, gastro and psych units?

Meanwhile, Toby Cavanaugh, who I now exclusively associate with Kate Kavanagh, is sort of living in a tree house in Spencer’s back yard. I’m not sure the function or reason behind this plot line except to have Keegan Allen take off his shirt all the time. Spencer is a dirty slut who wants it all the time but luckily Tobey Your Thirst knows what’s best with waiting and all that.

Moving right along to the first day of school, Aria decides to finally reconcile her gayness with her femmeness by wearing a silk bandana as a triangle scarf.

What is this, Fall 2011? (Technically speaking, based on the show’s timeline, I think it actually is.) Anyways Lucas is creepy because Lucas is creepy and Aria has a panic attack which was both written and acted by people who have clearly never had panic attacks. Oh and her folks are splitting up all over again. Womp womp.

After school, Mrs. Hastings wants Spencer to come out for some Privilege People time, but Spencer reminds her mom that girls just want to have fun by studying all the time. Liar! Spencer’s actually been secretly sneaking down to A’S LAIR at the Lost Woods of Death Resort to do some serious 3D computer rendering to recreate Mona’s creepy set-up. NBD, she took a CAD class during winter session.

Meanwhile Toby and Emily are back to being BFFs and meet up for some coffee. Emily admits to Toby she’s been partying like a rockstar down in Haiti because nothing says a good time like systematically rebuilding infrastructure. Emily is pretty sure blacking out from drinking all the time is a bad thing but Toby reminds her that it’s totes no big deal because when you’re dealing with issues of alcohol poisoning, the only thing that really matters is that your friends still like you.

On a related note, I don’t really understand why Pam has been too busy hitting the sales at Banana Republic to get her daughter some goddamn grief counseling.

Unfortunately the whole night (which I forgot to say included Ezaria’s anniversary) is ruined when the Liars get called down to the police station as per usual. Luckily they have that made up lake house alibi. The only thing better than an alibi is Ali who is totes Bi. See what I did there?!

An indeterminate amount of time later, Spencer visits Garret who has been ringing her phone off the hook for days. Garret is all like, “Yo bitch, I didn’t kill your friend,” and Spencer’s all like, “Don’t call me a bitch, BITCH!” Garret says he knows who took Ali’s body just in time for a commercial break.

In conclusion, the Liars all fess up to each other about shit like visiting Mona in the hospital, Spencer’s weirdo 3-D rendering of A’s Lair, the fact that someone emptied out the hotel room before the Liars could do so, and the slight overestimation of the number of BJs given at nerd camp. Such is life.

Right so then A left a bunch of pictures in Spencer’s car with a scary text as per ush. It’s gonna be a good season.

Episode 302: Bathroom Is The New Black

We begin the next Liarfest where all good TV shows begin, with jewelry. Emily finds a string of teeth. Wait, what the fuck?

Grossssssssssss.

Because a necklace full of teeth is probably evidence, and because the Liars aren’t currently embroiled in their usual age inappropriate man-scandals, there is at least some consensus that maybe they should bring the teeth-are-forever infinity necklace to the lying police or at the very least their lying parents. Unfortunately they drop the necklace in the toilet and can’t retrieve it because the motion sensor toilet flushes the teeth away to A’s lair which is almost definitely linked in to the public sewer system. I think this is a good time to point out that automatic flushing toilets are the the fetching worst. I know when the appropriate time to flush waste is– I don’t need a robot telling me when that is based on my momentarily leaning forward to reach for a tampon.

Nothing follows a quick group toilet run quite like a sandwich and soda so the Liars head off to lunch. There, they compete for the Least Politically Correct Comment of the year award and muse that Jenna seems blinder than usual. While we’ve never been given a full rundown of Jenna specific type and severity of blindness, we saw her kill that bug and smize last season. So yeah, bitch can probs see.

Following lunch the girls attend their favorite class of the day: Feeling Sorry For Emily 101. Because of the Dead Girlfriend Thing, and since a third of gay students drop out of high school, Emily is at risk of having to repeat the 11th grade. Arias like, “Omigod did you know that my boyfriend totally used to be a teacher?!? He should tutor you!!” Everyone agrees that’s fucking weird. Eye rolls all around.

Speaking of inappropriate relationships, the college student who Chad Lowe was nailing circa Freshman Year, Meredith, is hanging around the school. Rosewood High goes through English teachers like newspaper.

So Emily agrees to meet up with Ezra for some tutoring. It’s exactly as weird as you think it might be. Even so, he suggests Emily try some good old fashioned wanking off — I mean listening to music — before she takes her tests.

Meanwhile, Hannah and Spencer continue their conjugal visits from the previous episode. Hanna visits Mona again at the hospital and has another encounter with Dr. Wren No-Specialty. He’s all, “Yo biddie, stop throwing chairs at your pseudo-comatose friend and lock it the fuck up and address your ambiguous loss.” To which Hanna responds “Waaaahhhhhh.” Spencer continues to press Garret about what he knows. Garret only wants one thing, a hot slice of Spencer’s Mom. Spencer’s Mom has got it going on. Unfortunately, when said mom finds out that Spencer has been visiting Garret she is pissed. Garret is trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool. Commercial break so the day can change and the townspeople can outlaw poolhalls.

Fueled by Emily’s reaction to the teeth necklace A leaves Aria a lovely little earring in her locker. Aria tweeks. What’s so bad about an earring, just because it’s hideous doesn’t mean Aria should freak out like that. This isn’t just any ordinary earring, this earring was dug up from Ali’s grave triggers previously unseen flashbacks. Starsweep to Freshman Year where a hair dyed alternative Aria and still breathing Ali bust in to Aria’s dad’s office. Ali finds the earrings in question and the two use their home DNA kit to determine its Meredith’s. Talking about your feelings is so last season, so Aria and Ali trash Chad Lowe’s office making it look like Meredith is crazy face. Then Aria put the earring in Ali’s casket. Unclear why.

The appearance of the earring drives Aria to guilt city and she admits to her dad that’s she, not Meredith, went all A Woman Under the Influence on her dad’s office. He reacts by wailing like a child and forcing Aria to apologize (like a child). SHOCKINGLY, Meredith announces the earring was never hers to begin with. Which makes sense since home DNA sleuthing kits are notoriously faulty.

While her ex-husband is busy freaking out at Aria, Ella gives Emily her make-up English final. Since Emily’s been studying with Fitzy-poo she can pass the test with only the power of music! Just then, Emily is tragically traumatized by a girl putting a hair clip in to her hair. Those hair clips will get you. Starsweap flashback to Emily’s drunken blackout in which she realizes none other than Blind Jenna was driving the getaway van.

Simultaneously, Toby reveals to Spencer that Jenna’s been using eye drops. While I’m guessing there are plenty of blind folks who use eye drops, this somehow could indicate Jenna’s surgery might have worked. So yeah, bitch can probs see.

Unrelated to the See-a-thon, Hanna makes another visit to see Mona–this time with Caleb in tow. Hanna gives Mona a pretty pretty princess makeover by bringing “the good stuff” which I can only assume is cocaine. Caleb gets jealous over doctor man and Mona says something creepy but ultimately probably somewhat irrelevant to providing any new knowledge. Stupidly Hanna leaves Mona with some tweezers. Uh-ho, she might start her own business creating serious tension with the patient who does threading in the room next door.

The next day at school, the girls are once again in the bathroom. They hear Jenna coming in and Spencer hatches a plan. Taking Aria’s not-cheater earring, Spencer lays it softly and gently on the bathroom sink and the Liars all cuddle in the stalls.

Jenna, of course, picks up the silent but deadly jewelry.

Oh wait!!! I almost forgot! Because of her flashback Emily didn’t fill out her whole English test and probably would have failed but then ELLA filled in the answers cheater style for her while grading it! Ella’s got secrets now too!

Okay now that’s really it.