Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Nukes & Cookies
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 14 | Aired on 01.24.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Man, Lucy Hale is awesome. Just firing on all cylinders tonight, in another Buckley Dreamboat performance that's so dazzling it's almost enough to make you wish Aria Montgomery could find happiness.
...Almost.
Ella (hi!) brings in Aria's old babysitter -- now a famous New Yawk writer-lady and played by my beloved Alona Tal -- to demonstrate the possibility of a non-Rosewood existence, and hooks her up with Ezra in a way that manages to be slightly menacing. Of course all Aria can do is perseverate on this woman Simone and her age-appropriate wiles -- even though everywhere people are getting murdered and run over and A is still fucking up everybody's lives -- to the point where even Ezra has to roll his eyes.
Maya's phone has been reprogrammed, just like her mind -- oh, and FYI it turns out in a deleted scene that she had a history of drug use, which is why her hippy parents flipped so quick, if you were wondering -- but luckily Hanna has a heretofore unknown but strangely tense relationship with this bizarre slacker-hacker narc of the Quileute Tribe, and he's willing to adjust Emily's phone to get through the roadblocks. I don't know much technology, but it's all very hand-wavy and Zero Cool and leads to many excellent hacker conversations. Not so excellent is the convo with Maya, who is taking to her brand new cult like a duck to creepy, crazy water and sending Emily off the deep end.
Spencer's laptop with the Ian footage has gone missing, and only Ian could have taken it, so there's a lot of Thin Man, classic Spencer-stomping hardcore no-bullshit action for her. (Appropriately enough, Spencer is dressed like a thin man the entire time. Her outfits are getting to be like if Blair Waldorf's clothes had a baby with Scott Fitzgerald's clothes. It's so shocking and so very hot, but never fear: Aria's clothes still come out slightly ahead, with the usual brazen touches of mental illness.) She also crosses sneaky paths with Hanna's narc friend, so I guess he's here to stay. I just wish every boy on this show were played by Noel Kahn, and then we wouldn't have these problems. No: Every boy on every show. That would be pretty cool.
Everybody looks especially delightful this week -- even Ian, still doing his Sinister Julia Child routine -- which is nice because they're having a danceathon, like in Stars Hollow or the Dust Bowl days of olden times. It brings Ella and Byron together (she rocks their encounters hardcore, of course), but more importantly it's one of the most luxurious visuals I've ever seen on this show. You could watch this dance with nobody talking and still be getting your money's worth, so gorgeous is it. The lights, the projections, the music... It's how I've always wanted my birthday to look! But with way more molesters, obvs.
Not so nice for Hanna, anyhow, since she's having no luck finding a job at even the weirdest boutiques, and must rely on A's bizarre generosity one horrible soul-crushing task at a time. Next up: $200 a pop to dance with poor old stalker Lucas...
And that's when everything goes impressively bugshit.
Before you know it Emily's drunk as hell and bitching out Hanna for stringing Lucas along (like Ali did with her), bitching out Ian for killing everybody or whatever, Toby's unfair lo-jack, and stumbling around the place like a gorgeous zombie. Hanna's over here getting dumped by Sean and rescued by poor old sweet Lucas, who thinks this is a teen movie where she finally loves him, and not actually the disgusting prostitution that it is. Aria tries to eat Simone's face off and Spencer's stealing a dance with Ezra to keep Aria from embarrassing everybody, only to get pulled into dancing with Ian so he can threaten her with certain death if anybody finds out he molested her... I mean, it's intense. Annnd fabulous.
So back at Spencer's, Hanna agrees with Drunk Emily that she was acting horribly tonight --but doesn't explain about the cash money because we're not talking about Ashley's stealing thing -- and then finds Spencer's laptop randomly on the coffee table. Needless to say, the Ian video has been wiped... But there's a picture of Alison heading merrily to her death, with somebody following behind. And in the little thing at the end, and it's even creepier than normal, Ella smiles warmly at A as she hands over that leather jacket/gloves combo in coatcheck, because they totally know each other.
Next week: A finally detonates some landmines, leading to what looks like (but is probably in all fairness not) a full-on Girl War between the Liars.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Later in the Quad, Emily's having no luck contacting Maya at True North, due to that being the point of bootcamp, and when Hanna asks what she's even doing -- "Building a log cabin?" -- Emily's still got her wits about her: "Building character," she says with a withering tone. It's awesome. Turns out Maya's phone has been reprogrammed and only her parents can call in. Hanna notes new guy Caleb doing shady shit in the corner, and takes him Emily's phone so he can reprogram it. In addition to wearing a knit-cap and looking all kinds of Quileute, he is also some kind of hacker.
Hanna runs into Lucas on the steps, and he is predictably icy. (Not that the whole reprogrammed-phone thing sounds all that plausible, but if it were, isn't that the kind of thing Lucas can do? I just miss Lucas. Cute fun eBay Lucas, not stalker whiner scorned Lucas.)
Seems Simone's sponsoring all four Liars for the danceathon; Hanna could care less because she's still all about finding gainful employment. Spencer heard that Rosewood PD is hiring, and Hanna quirks one eyebrow: After all, she has experience with them. Getting ready to head over there with the laptop, Hanna notes that Spencer's music library is online. How can this be? Because what seems to be a laptop in Spencer's messenger bag is actually a yearbook. Sneaky! Of course, she's had the bag all day... Except for PE, when it was in her locker. To which only the coaches -- meaning Ian -- have access. (!!!)
Saturday. Emily tracks down Caleb on one of the cobblestone lanes where all the stores are, and he's sassy and very much the con-man, although he seems fairly friendly if you discount the total narcness of him and the fact that he's extorting more money out of Emily's lesbian desperation. And considering the show is positioning him as the new Noel Kahn -- getting into every one of their storylines eventually, even having separate one-on-one scenes with three of the Liars in this episode -- it's nice to imagine him eventually becoming an ally. Every group of girls, once they're reached a certain amount of power, inevitably needs a hacker werewolf for their technology. Emily is not interested in having a chili-cheese dog with pretty pretty Caleb, but the fact that he offered to tell her his narc biography means I think that he can be trusted, eventually. Insofar as anybody on this show can be trusted.
Sean drives Hanna over to this little boutique, where this totally weird Lily Munster/Nicolette Sheridan hybrid lady sadly states that she cannot hire Hanna, even though she's a shopaholic and knows the entire inventory, because once again Ashley Marin's subprime ways have her in debt. Hanna stomps back out to the car and won't talk to Sean about it, and generally just acts pissy and weird, because Hanna gets what she wants, and on the rare occasions when Hanna doesn't get what she wants, total destruction is usually the result. (In this episode, the part of Hanna will be played by Emily Fields. Kaboom!) Just in time, A sends her a message: Another task for cash, coming soon. Hope it's totally awful!