Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Destroy Everything You Touch Today
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 20 | Aired on 03.07.2011
"I thought it was just some generic bitchiness with all the pretty girls," he says, which is kind of amazing and awesome, and not only on its own but because of his awesome speech during the dance episode when he was like, "We all lie about who we are all the time, and especially girls, because they have to." I love how his misogynistic statements aren't really misogynist, it's just that he's the only character can say them because if a girl said it she would be whining, right, or betrayal, and because they're always true: Not all girls are bitches, but these bitches are total bitches.
Anyway, he insinuated himself into her life -- using the outré and byzantine con-man methods of getting accidentally caught in the school in the middle of the night, mind you -- and but then Jenna started doing her usual totally creepy bullshit to him, and he realized this was not generic bitch games but actually a really bad scene, plus he really liked Hanna, because she is awesome and has become a very kind young woman.
So he was already going to break off the Jenna arrangement by the time Hanna slept with him -- which is why he finally handed over the owl the next day; it was supposed to contain Hanna's phone logs but in fact just contains a bunch of fake GIGO gomi -- and the Symbolic Owl of the forest was actually hooting, "Jenna is going to fuck this up!"
While Hanna makes it clear Wolfy's still in the doghouse, Spencer and Toby are still on the couch. Actually, they are so miserable that they have slid down to the floor and are just leaning nihilistically against it. Spencer apologizes for blinding his sister that time, and he's like, "Whatever. All of this is my fault anyway." (I guess because of whatever was going on with him and Ali.) Spencer, this is neat, fixes him firmly: "It's the other way around, Toby. We happened to you."
I love that so much, like, she's fully taking responsibility not only for the Jenna Thing, and the Toby Thing, but she's also saying that Alison was part of her team -- that she was on Team Alison -- and that this is something that indicts all five of them, even unto Ali's actual death and all the fallout of that. It's one of the most stunning admissions/realizations any of these Little Liars has come to yet, and very satisfying. I don't believe particularly in penance -- because it can turn into addiction way fast and stops being about the Thing and starts being about your personal narrative surrounding the Thing -- but I do believe in redemption.