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!How's Emily? Well, she's lost her marbles. Spencer and Aria drag her wobbling ass back to a couch and try to sober her up, but no: There is no fixing Emily's breakdown now. She starts shouting about how Ian kills whoever he wants and marries whoever he wants -- "He's not a chaperone, he's a killer!" -- and meanwhile Toby's got a lo-jack and he's probably going to jail, and everybody's eyes are like our little Emily, who knew she'd be the first one to crack and then with her swimmer's strength she sends everybody flying and gets right the fuck up in Ian's grill: "I know what you did! We all know! And you're not gonna get away with it!"
Amazing. So Emily stumbles off to wreak some more awesome havoc and Ian swings Spencer into his arms. She lies and says this outburst was about that time he molested her, and Ian gets super scary super fast. She swears nobody besides the Liars knows, and he leans in real close: "That better be the truth. Or someone's gonna get hurt."
Gotta say, Ian's officially won me over. Because he could just mean Melissa, which is what it would mean in a normal setting, like not in Rosewood where everything is gross and strange all the time, but then he's so fucking intense --- chop chop chop squeak chuckle grunt -- and Spencer's automatically so intense, that it could really mean... Anything at all. On this show everything means everything, as long as it's creepy.
They've finally got old Emily out of there, but now the question is: What to do with Emily? Take her home to mommy? While that would be awesome, now that Em's got nothing to lose, it would also result in a murder-suicide. And Hanna's not driving her there anyway, because Pam would have a shit-fit about her flask. So then it's decided that they'll all go to Spencer's, where Emily can sleep it off and Hanna can Help Spencer keep Ian from murdering everybody in the house.
There's a sweet teen movie moment where Lucas manfully takes his chance and offers Hanna a ride and a talk -- only fair, since her boyfriend just dumped her -- and Hanna seems honestly torn about it, because she's got Liar problems and still can't handle the idea of liking Lucas. At least she's talking to him like a person. (And take note, Lucases of the world: It's almost entirely because you're acting like one.) Lucas gives in, and Hanna discovers in her jacket an entire world of money. Fattest wad I've like ever seen.
And where's Aria? I think you know: Freaking out on Ezra for her weird obsessive teenage ideas. She makes a dramatic speech here in its entirety: "If you want, you should just leave with Simone. Take her home to New York. Why wouldn't you? She's beautiful, and she's smart and funny..." (Ezra, as though it's just occurring to him that Dolores Haze always holds all the power and always is a maniac: "I met her yesterday?") "She's successful, you love her writing, she's your age! I can't... I can't compete with that!" Oh, the woeful drama. Aria, I kinda love you. "You two even look like a couple. You can dance with her! And hold her hand in front of other people! Leave your apartment at the same time without having to count to fifty!"