Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 3 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Challenged A
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 19 | Aired on 02.06.2012
But so Mona and Lucas, in addition to being awesome characters and fun to watch, are also pretty symbolic of the Liars' development. So much about growing up has to do with taking out the things you're least proud of and the things that make you feel the worst or the scaredest or the ugliest and actually just looking at it, figuring it out, so that it can't shame you anymore. In alchemy, actually, the word albedo refers to this process, this washing-and-rewashing, and it's the most important step.
So Lucas has been taken out and looked at by all of them, pretty much, and washed clean -- no pun intended -- and now it seems like it's Mona's turn, first with Spencer and now with Emily, seeing those other parts of her that Hanna sees.
(And how interesting it is that Hanna, the neediest and the least secure of them, is the first one to ever do this work? She was the first one to work with Therapy Anne, the first one to break through, the first one to bring in any of these people. I have this theory that sometimes it's hard to see the healthiest people for what they are, because they're always churning up so much shit in the interest of becoming more honest and more healthy, that it just looks perpetually crazy. Which is not really functional either, so it all flips over again and doesn't matter, but: Hanna Marin, is she an artist? Maybe.)
But where it gets really weird is, that means this road ends with Jenna, which is just brilliant. The thing that they're afraid of most is the job they have to do in the end, the thing that they have to fix the hardest. The first Thing is the last and scariest Thing. I mean, they had no problem accepting Alison -- who was more repulsive than Jenna could ever be, which is exactly what they liked about her -- so it doesn't really matter that she's a very bad guy. Because that's on her. It is irrelevant. But this part, the part where their psychological and maybe spiritual health is contingent on getting their shit together, that part's on them.
Aria came close when she was Anita -- Anita, with tears pouring down her face for the vulnerability, and the loss, and the fearful brave ugly beautiful terrible humanity of Jenna -- and I don't think it's an accident that the beautiful vase Jenna made came back to her, via Mike. I think it was a message that Aria misread, that read something like:
"If you were able to love Alison DiLaurentis, and it damned you, then you're going to have to find a way to love Jenna Marshall. Because that's what's going to save you."