Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Kook, The Crank, The Blind & Her Mugger
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 22 | Aired on 03.21.2011
The four Liars corner Jenna in the bathroom and slowly reveal that all four of them are in there with her and that maybe they are going to beat her to death, but of course she just grins and acts smug and spooky and asks what the fuck they want. They explain the kindest possible way of looking at Jenna's molestation of Toby -- essentially that they weren't actually doing anything wrong, and Toby's problem with it was just Toby's problem; which is not without merit, but also don't coerce sex out of people -- and Jenna's like, "So you can see why I wanted that video where I blackmail my brother into fucking me." Yes, it is understandable that you would hire werewolves to infiltrate people's homes to get ahold of that kind of thing.
Jenna explains that the day before Alison disappeared, aka the day she got back from Hilton Head, Ali came to see her in the hospital. Sweet, right? Like, "Sorry I blew you up and now you're blind forever," right? No, this is Alison. She was there to say, "I know you're blind and all, but you can hear the audio of this video of you blackmailing your brother into fucking you okay. Or hey, can you hear it even better now that you're blind?" Jenna could hear it just fine, thanks.
Seems Alison's whole trip to Hilton Head was actually about getting this footage, including the Jenna Thing, away from the filmer of it and into a safe place. She made sure Jenna knew to stay out of Rosewood forever -- which is why she reappeared the day of the funeral, as the girls will figure out shortly -- and to never, ever accuse the Liars of blinding her that time she got blind, and whatever else. Insurance in every direction.
Which is why the improbable lunchbox doesn't really hit the bullshit detector as high as you might think, because she did leave a trail of clues for the Liars in the event that something happened to her. And if you think about the timeline of her last couple days on earth, something did happen to her. Like a wealth of things happened to her. A nonstop cavalcade of interesting meetings, kissing, videotaping, all kinds of things. All the things that could happen to a person, essentially, found time to happen to her that day; like, for example, she got killed at least three different ways I can think of. So all this planning wasn't exactly overkill, in the final analysis.
While the girls talk about finding a way to keep Emily in Rosewood until graduation, Spencer's been out buying a burner phone so they can text Ian anonymously and offer the footage in exchange for money. By asking for cash, they'll throw him off what is actually an insane quest for vengeance, and then he can show up and say something like, "Here is ten grand for those videos of you I've been taking since you were little girls that somehow prove I killed Alison one of the times she was killed," which Hanna -- being the most subtle Liar and the best under pressure -- will be secretly videotaping, and thus the filmer becomes the filmee, which solves exactly one of these girls' problems because there's still an infinite number of A's out there with sometimes conflicting agendas. Not to mention the other six people that probably also killed Alison that night.