Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 76 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT To Any Port or Foreign Shore
By Jacob Clifton | Season 4 | Episode 13 | Aired on 10.22.2013
LIARS
Liars: "Man, I can't believe Hanna turned into a statue. That girl has just been through the wringer lately."
Emily: "Wait, is that her hat on the ground near a bloody message on the wall?"
Aria: "Great, so now A kidnapped Alison and Hanna? We are not batting a thousand this evening."
STILL DIALING THE PHONE
Hanna: "Whatever kind of phone this is, they suck. I am glad technology improved."
Surprise, a ghastly scream is her only answer once it connects... And then of course she realizes she's locked into the phone booth. Through the waxy glass, she sees multiple pilgrims approaching with flashlights, that eventually close in on her from every direction until it's like sunlight in there, and then they vanish. The phone rings, and it's just a scratchy old Victrola on the other end: The 1915 hit "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier."
It's hard to imagine, for me at least, but it was only like fifty years between the Civil War and World War I: This song was in some ways prescient, in some ways a protest song. Two years later we joined in, but the gasmask iconography would already be in the air. I know jack shit about WWI so I'm excited about this aspect of the new show, but for now, it seems plain that this is more about the town being creepy, the specifics of that, rather than anything to do with Hanna or Redcoat or whatever. Unless somehow this EzrA thing ends up tying into the Ravenswood Curse, which... This reference would put at almost exactly a hundred years, whatever it turns out to entail. Hmm.
MIRANDA
Miranda invites herself into a creepster location similar to Hanna's hotel, and looks at a bunch of folks in various photographs and paintings all over the place. One in particular, which creates a giggle on the soundtrack, involves two little girls staring at a woman.
MANSION
The Liars come up into the piano salon, which has been rearranged with music stands and whatnot in preparation for their entrance.
Aria: "A door in a crypt that leads to a tunnel that comes up inside a mansion? What the hell are Ravenswood zoning laws doing?"
Emily: "Could be for getting around Prohibition, could go back to the Underground Railroad. There are a million historical reasons for the tunnels under America. Some of them are sadder than others, but all of them have the potential to creep you out."