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!Hanna: "Always working an angle, aren't you?"
Caleb: "Like you're not?"
Hanna: "You don't know the first thing about me!"
Caleb: "No, you don't know the first thing about you."
Caleb! The pith is strong in this one. He's like the Greek chorus of Girl World. I don't even know what he means exactly but it's a strong indication that we need to pay attention to the stuff he says. If Toby were capable of expressing himself I think he's say the same stuff, essentially, but since he's hamstrung by being looney-tunes, and Mona's hamstrung by being an insane bitch, it's nice to have somebody around telling the true things. (Well, about people other than Sean, Lucas.)
And speaking of Lucas, the fix is in: $200 in tax-free A money for every dance. Oh, that's good. That's even better than the cupcakes, actually.
So while Spencer's getting Ian's keyring, Hanna's got to figure out a way to dance with Lucas without Sean wigging out. Since this is impossible, Sean wigs out. But at least Hanna goes about building her case in a rational way: Essentially, it's mean to exclude Lucas and the whole reason she's dating Sean is because he was nice to her when she was Hefty. Therefore, he can't complain when she tries to do the same with Lucas, like trickledown freakonomics.
Sean's not into that, though: "You were sweet! This kid's looking to get bitchslapped every time he opens his mouth!" Sean is very hard to disagree with, it's true. Especially in his plaid banker's shirt, sweater vest and sleeves rolled up past his elbows like some kind of '80s preppy sex god. Sean's such a part of the Obstacle Course Of Life most weeks that it takes a lot to make him noticeable, but he's definitely working it this week.
No less suspicious of Hanna's charity is Lucas himself, who at least tries to be diplomatic about telling her to fuck off. Finally she goes back to her usual "you've been treating me like a bedbug for weeks" complaint, and points out that they're only dancing for a good cause, exposure to civics, and everybody's gotta dance with somebody. He says he doesn't like the song, she grins and reminds him that he actually loves this song, and finally he gives in, and it's pretty cute.
(...Which is repulsive! Because now Lucas is Ducky, and Hanna's finally giving him a taste. Which in terms of his fantasy/reality equation resets their entire relationship to the long-ago eBay level, when the biggest problems between them were Mona and his muddy shoes... But none of that is actually true, and Hanna's sweetness and charity are now the biggest lie of all. The best thing about her, her protectiveness and compassion for Lucas, are now total prostitution and the opposite of her better nature. Even though she's not actually faking, and totally wants to be friends and dance with Lucas, none of it counts. Isn't that so gross? I loooove it. What a nasty little tale.)