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For whom is the funhouse fun? Perhaps for lovers. For Spencer H_______, it is a place of fear and confusion. She has come to the Rosewood Founder's Day Festival with her family for the holiday, the occasion of which is one of the most secular holidays each year in their sleepy little town, and has been told by both mother and, caringly, sister to avoid Toby C________, age seventeen: A somewhat tangential character to the main narrative being described in this Recaplet, but one upon whom rest many responsibilities, both within the story and within the young man himself, not the least of these in either sense being his crazy-looking face.
What begins as a flirtatious meeting with this forbidden paramour, within the Funhouse of the title, is eventually interrupted and transformed by the interrupting context of the death of one of Spencer's closest friends over a year ago, whose vengeful spirit by turns aids and harms the eponymous Liars as they seek to uncover the clues regarding her murder -- and whose delightful gift of a snow globe to her favorite member of the Liars contains a key which opens a storage container which contains a lunchbox which contains a USB drive which contains footage of the girls dating back years, and which proves that the videographic stalking of Alison D_______ began well before her disappearance, and that her retrieval of this footage -- barring the fact of her horrible personality causing someone to finally crack -- most likely caused her death or disappearance.
But the antagonist in this part of the story will be played by the character A, a black-gloved little wonder who locks Spencer in a revolving door until such time as her sketchy brother-in-law and former romantic partner, Ian T______, comes to rescue her, but only after it is revealed that a misadventure in Hilton Head, an island resort town off the southeast coast of the United States of America, has once again been incorrectly explained by Ian and his wife, Spencer's sister Melissa, whom first said and now must recant that she joined him on his journey to this island town. In the end it is Toby's lips that Spencer kisses, in a last-ditch attempt to demonstrate not only for his own sake and that of her family's perceptions, but also in the theatre of Rosewood at large, that she and her lips will not be constrained by their paranoia.
The young policeman who maintains belief in Spencer's innocence in the murder of her friend has been following her, and will now be investigating also her friend Aria M________'s boyfriend and English teacher, Ezra F________. Initials, blanks or both were often substituted for proper names in nineteenth-century fiction to enhance the illusion of reality. It is as if the author felt it necessary to delete the names for reasons of tact or legal liability. Interestingly, as with other aspects of realism, it is an illusion that is being enhanced by purely artificial means. In this particular case, it is Ezra himself who is blanked, erased, smudged from the public record when Aria, having discovered a fiancée of whom she had not been made aware, forces Ezra to take pictures with her in which both of them are wearing paper-bag faces over their real faces; i.e., to make the metaphor completely concrete while similarly indulging Aria's need to be a total gaywad at all times.
Wearing a similar paper-bag face, by implication, is the latest of Emily F_____'s beloved lunatics, a Paige M_________, who has taken the step of contacting lesbians for advice about lesbianism and then putting over this act the paper-bag face of disappearing for long stretches, forcing Emily to bond with the new and very lovely S_______ over their relatively non-compromised if shameless tribadism. (S_______'s name recalls also a story by the English playwright M. Somerset M_______, in which a man's inevitable death comes for him regardless of where and how he flees it, but this reference should be considered only tertiary to the story at hand.) In the end, a limit to Emily's compassions is reached, and Paige is once again consigned to the garbage heap of people who have burnt Emily, no doubt to be forgiven by week with hugs and vigorous hand-holding.
So consigned also is Caleb R_____, a former lycanthrope and charming rogue of the Artful Dodger character subgenre, whose recent betrayals cause a closing of the ranks between Hanna M_____ and her sometime friend Mona V_______, whose vicious loyalties cause her to intercept and destroy a letter containing the phrase "I love you" which Caleb intends Hanna to read before he goes searching for his mother in Flagstaff. Ashley M______, Hanna's mother, discovers within herself a sympathy for Caleb which she has too long denied, but it is too late: Caleb is gone, to Mantua as it were, without Hanna ever receiving his missive. (Mantua here is a reference to the star-crossed lovers of William S_______'s famous tragedy of Romeo & Juliet, in which -- as with the M_______ story above -- the inevitability of the protagonists' death eventually compromises and finally rehabilitates entire kingdoms.)
In the end, it is Spencer who triumphs under Cupid's arrows; Hanna whose heart continues to malinger; Aria whose secret romance is once again in danger of discovery; and Emily whose refusal to lie or hate herself will have painful consequences, assuming that she does not get rid of her insane girlfriend immediately and start dating the super-hot girl from the other school. week being the end of this particular season of the show, it's to be presumed there will be: Confrontation of Jenna C_______, a blind snakebat torturer of children, the vindication of Spencer H_______, and yet more trouble in what is or will be soon be known as the Most Photographed Barn In America.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Ah, dinner at the Applewood Grille. Nothing finer for a nice loud public conversation about your blackmailing by a serial killer than when horrific stuffed heads and monster mannequins are being set up all over town. This episode is visually stunning, one of the most beautiful to date, but it does sort of strain credibility that the entire town is being turned into this sort of Orgy Of Halloween-Gras for the Founders' Day Festival. I talk about the visual brilliance on this show a lot, the Hopper and Register and the way the colors work, but dang, seriously, some of the scariest shit you've ever seen is just hanging around in the background here, so that scarier other shit can jump out at you the whole time. Back in Stars Hollow it was like, paper stars and maybe some bales of hay. Not Pinhead and the Cenobites and Christina Aguilera masks all over the place.
Liars: "So to recap the last scene from last week, your SPENCER bracelet had some bloody sweater fibers on it. So now everybody thinks that you stashed the sweater at Toby's house to get him in trouble or something, even though that's now the second blood sample that was either inconclusive or came from a rat named Spencer."
Spencer: "Somebody is watching us."
Liars: "Firstly, somebody is always watching us. Secondly, don't be silly, Spencer! You're always wrong about everything despite being about 240% more competent than the rest of us combined."
Somebody: (Is Garrett the Cop. Is totally watching them, standing among a horrible bunch of mannequin monsters somebody has set up to stare into the Applewood Grille, like a reverse nativity scene of those quiet dudes from Buffy.)
The other thing that is going on with the bracelet is, maybe somehow Jenna got Caleb to steal the bracelet -- "He doesn't need an invitation, he broke into a vending machine with a spork!" -- so that she could frame Spencer somehow, because we still think Jenna has something to do with Edna Garrett's Teahouse & Bracelet Concern, but the only reason this comes up at all is because we need to remember that Hanna is feeling terrible about the Caleb thing because she may have literally slept with the enemy, so please don't talk about Caleb or use the C Word if possible. Because the Liars have no patience with each other but especially not with Hanna, they immediately task her with finding out from Caleb for sure.
Mrs. Hastings: "Melissa, tell me all about each of your prenatal vitamins!"
Melissa: "We are the most interesting people."
Mrs. Hastings: "You're telling me!"
Melissa: "Actually, I am telling you. The whole town is abuzz about how Spencer's SPENCER bracelet had fibers on it, and how also the cops searched our house. Once again, Spencer is ruining everybody's lives and should be drowned in a sack like a cat."
Spencer: "Morning, bitches."
Mrs. Hastings: "Morning, sweetie. We were just saying how fun it would be if you, Melissa and the guy you've both dated who has now impregnated your sister were to work all day together at a Founders' Festival booth run by Sean Ackard's mom, the church lady."
Spencer: "Sorry, what part of any of that sounds like a good idea?"
Mrs. Hastings: "The sad truth is that your jury will be made up of your peers, and in a small town like Rosewood that means getting in good with everybody while the good-getting is good."
Spencer: "And since Mrs. Ackard is literally the most judgmental person on the planet, I should kiss her ass?"
Mrs. Hastings: "Precisely. And no more hanging out with that Toby. They'll think you started a club of people who have killed Alison DiLaurentis."
(Toby calls, of course, for their hourly meeting of the People Who Murdered Alison DiLaurentis Club so he can read the minutes; Melissa and Mrs. Hastings play keepaway with Spencer's phone for over an hour, tossing it back and forth over her head, because even though Spencer's Mom is actually pretty rad, and wrong about very little but especially not this, nobody escapes Melissa's black hole of suck.)
Hanna's still being super sad and Ashley's super worried about her, but I guess she's still going to wait for Hanna to explain herself and her sadness and what she's done with Caleb. Before Ashley can extend the "mental health day" privilege -- parentally known as the nuclear option for when things really are that bad -- Mona Vanderwaal appears with a sound like a big pink gum-bubble bursting and annoyingly asks if she can "steal" some coffee. I hate that, don't do it.
Mona: "I'm around so seldom that I can be pretty much bent into any shape this show requires, so this time I'm going for violently loyal. I can't wait to kill Caleb and I wish I could get in my time machine and kill him backwards because I'm such a good friend."
Ashley: "So you know the details of this breakup?"
Mona: "No ma'am, I do not."
Hanna: "My life is misery."
Ashley: "Is there any other level to your motivations in this episode? Besides how you're totally A?"
Mona: "No ma'am, there is not."
At school, Caleb comes to Aria with apologies in his wet puppy eyes, but Aria just stabs him in the ribcage and keeps walking. The only notable thing about this is how insanely adorable Ella is, walking by and being like, OMG is that the boy you like? He is so cute! and Aria being simultaneously mortified by her mother, scared by the continued inquiry after last week's sexting debacle, and also trying to be as mean to Caleb as possible while still maintaining her precocious idea of what dignity entails. It's so great it nearly makes up for Aria's scene, which frankly I found to be For The Birds.
Nearby, Paige giggles crazily and pulls Emily into an alcove so they can talk about how they're going to see Passion Pit after all but she's bringing along a third wheel so her dad won't think she's doing lesbian things. It's not a fake boyfriend, it's just an extra chaperone kind of a thing, and it's totally dumb. But also Paige is making strides, like she has contacted a gay student group at a prep school in town to find out how best to tell your parents that you are a lesbian. If the haircut's not getting the job done, I guess.
Paige worries about meeting with the pride group, though, because their school is "like two miles from here," which confused me before just now, because I thought she was saying she couldn't make it there despite taking Emily to faraway bars in the woods, but I realize now that she's saying it's too close for comfort. Emily suggests that she meet one of these lesbians live and in person, and offers to come along. So they can discuss with some other person the thing Emily is always trying to explain to Paige. I must admit I don't fully understand this plan, but I do applaud Paige for having a plan at all and for talking about it so clearly for young viewers who maybe could use this kind of group support to help them figure out some things.
Aria... This is so stupid. She comes up to Ezra all "we need to talk" and then a few seconds later she's like, "Can we just talk about this later?" and "Can't we just do this over dinner?" and it's like, you are the one that made such a big deal about talking about something -- what it is, is never clear, it's like, are they going to the festival or not, which the answer is no, you're not going to the festival together, what the fuck are you talking about Aria -- and now you're acting like he's pressuring you in some way other than to get to the end of your sentence, and that's annoying. Like in a whole new way, where generally Aria is all about drama? But at least there's a point.
And even more so, it's annoying because of the intense amount of business that is going on the whole time they're having this bullshit conversation that makes no sense, which is that she keeps splashing his coffee all over him for no reason, and Ella, I don't know, exists and that's a problem, and Aria produces copious napkins from her purse at one point, and it's so ludicrous and at the end it's zero-sum, because: Before now, they were going to have dinner. Now, they're going to have dinner. So well done acting like a total fucking freak for no reason, Montgomery. And sorry that your pedo boyfriend can't take you to the Children of the Corn Festival you people are having this weekend.
Hanna finally sits down with Caleb to grill him about why Jenna wolfed him into her basement, and Caleb says that okay, the thing Jenna actually wanted was a key. A mysterious key, which Hanna's dead friend Alison might have given her, or one of her girls, and which is -- like every episode in the back half of this season -- some hugely important prop that has never come up in all the conversations these girls constantly have about this shit.
"Remember how our best friend broke that girl's neck at that party we saw Ian raping people at?"
"No, but do you remember that very important key or thumb drive or laptop or video camera or golfing trophy or sweater or tree stump or bracelets bracelets bracelets?"
"No, but do you remember how weird Jason was being at the funeral and how he talks so weird?"
"No, but do you remember Old Mrs. Potter's young nephew who was impersonating somebody else and wasn't really an architect?"
"No, but do you remember that one adorable cop from Popular that was up our asses for weeks and then just vanished into Hanna's Mom's boudoir like the little sister on Family Matters?"
"Nope, but do you remember Noel Kahn?"
Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes ma'am I do.
Caleb: "Hanna. What's with you guys and Jenna Cavanaugh?"
Hanna: "We blinded her. We blew her up, and now she's blind. And I slapped the shit out of her last week in the bathroom. Also, I think she has magic powers."
Caleb: "I really miss you. Every time an owl hoots and swoops toward its prey, I'll..."
Hanna: "-- Um, yeah. I still kinda feel like a ho? Peace."
At the professor's love nest, Aria discovers a Facebook picture of Ezra sitting in Italy with some girl that looks like Ezra and is wearing an engagement ring. Since Ezra is not currently in Italy, and you can't get photographs from the future, this picture is clearly from the past and has no bearing on reality. Aria, as reality's number one enemy, sees things differently; immediately she assumes that she has been trapped into a polygamist lifestyle. The only interesting thing here is that when Aria says the word "romantic" Spencer immediately changes the subject to Toby Cavanaugh. Which, I had totally forgotten about their awesome motel parking-lot kiss until just now.
Liars: "Let's spend an entire scene listing thirty-seven thousand things that a key might unlock. Houses, tennis club lockers, whatever."
Hanna: "I feel kind of violated about this whole key/Caleb thing."
Liars: (More of Mona's sort of weirdly intense circling-the-wagons violent hatred heading Caleb's way.)
Aria, of course: "Let's not be too hasty. Sometimes nosy people are still very artistic and grown up for their age."
Spencer & Hanna: "Wrong. We are going to rip off his head and piss down his neck."
Emily: "I see I'm going to have to throw down some Emily right now."
Everybody: [Chills.]
Aria: "We are going to talk about me if I have to slap all three of you bitches in the face."
Liars: "Fine. Is it about Ezra?"
Aria: "You know it."
Liars: "Ugh. Proceed."
Aria: "Here's my problem..."
Liars: "Not actually a problem, Aria."
Aria: "They were eating g
elato in Italy."
Liars: "Oh, well. That changes everything."
Hanna: "I will fucking kill him."
Aria: "Um... For what?"
Hanna: "WHADDAYA GOT."
Some ridiculous scheme involving Facebook, but every time Aria's mouth says Facebook it's dubbed over so Lucy Hale says "website" instead, like, "I saw his website page," which is the first problem, but super funny. Like Tim & Eric funny to hear the people on this show -- which is even more about social media than Gossip Girl is -- and they're talking about his "website page" in these serious voices. Brilliant.
The second, majorer problem is the concept that she wouldn't already have seen his "website page" and they would have already had the fight about how he doesn't have one because he is a teacher and then probably he would make one and his codename would be Seymour Glass and she would be his only friendster on the Facebook because that is how they roll. It's not like she just heard of Facebook, or in this case "website pages"; not even Aria is that disingenuous/pretentious that she would avoid Facebook. I mean, she would say "I don't own a TV" for sure, but she isn't old enough to have that "I don't Facebook" disease the older versions of her particular type of douchebag can have.
And then the third problem is the scheme itself, which is where they pretend to be an alumna from the school where Ezra and this gelato-sucking whore went to school and then, I don't know what. Befriendster her on the Facebook and act real sketch for no reason. Pretend to be friends, find out if polygamy is on the menu, see if she's into a threesome, get incriminating pictures of her sucking some other pedophile's gelato, who knows: Hanna is just firing blindly into the crowd this week, and only Aria seems to be confused about that.
Spencer drops by Toby's house to make sure they are still in love, and they are. Of course he did not assume that she planted the sweater in his stuff after she killed her own best friend, because that's the kind of fevered paranoid thinking that only Spencer indulges. They decide to meet up at the Funhouse at the Festival, because it is a metaphor.
As Spencer is leaving Toby's house of horrors -- Jenna's all, "Toby, stop fixing your bike and being in love and drive me someplace so I can do dark magicks and whatnot" -- that cop who's suddenly everywhere is suddenly everywhere. Garrett's position is that he is on Spencer's side but that he is in uniform and thus has to do his job.
Spencer, awesomely: "Well, if you put on a pair of jeans this would be called stalking."
Garrett, also fairly awesomely: "Look. If being trailed is gonna help clear your name, better it's me than someone who thinks you're guilty."
I like how there are now males you can actually trust, like, the show is willing to posit that they exist. I mean, Lucas was sort of 60/40, and Caleb was -- don't tell Hanna I said this but you know I'm right -- about 80/20, and now you got Garrett who is just straight-up transparently saying, there's a system and I'm in it, and you Little Liars are not, and that doesn't necessarily need to be a problem.
Emily goes to meet Paige for some unnecessary lesbian pedagogy, but Paige never shows up. The girl Samara is very hot, and very into Emily, and you can see Emily weigh the options of like, you are relatively stable if you're willing to meet for coffee to talk to some insane bike-suicidist about her silly closet problems, versus the whirlwind of dysfunction that is Paige. I mean, Pam Fields wouldn't necessarily love Samara, would not be over the moon about her having a vagina for example, but God. At least she's a person and not a collection of annoying revolutionary tics, or a drowner with a nutty haircut.
(Honestly, I've tried to imagine the scene where Emily presents Paige to her mother, and I think it's literally unwritable. The film would catch fire from the weirdness. There is no narrative reason to have this happen, frankly, unless her hot skinny angry dad were there... How great though, if Paige and Emily ended up sisters!? Interrobang! "Moommmm, Paige tried to drown me and lock me in the closet and give me a shitty haircut!" Honey, I'm still trying to explain to your dad why I picked this hot dickhead when he's clearly the only truly wonderful man in Rosewood.)
Hanna: "This is how we murder Ezra's brain using Facebook."
Aria: "Yeah, I was just kinda... You know how sometimes you can't think of anything to talk about, so you talk about what you're thinking about when you don't have anything to think about? Like, boys? You know how when you're exhausted of thinking topics so you think about whatever boy you like? It was like that, but with my mouth."
Hanna: "If I don't ruin one motherfucker by the end of this conversation, I will go Drunk Emily so fast. You will pay the price. I got anger."
Aria: "Then yes, by all means let's stalk this random girl using the magic of website pages."
Samara: "So I'm gonna assume you're just being super weird by being all my friend the lesbian should be here shortly."
(It's really cute because of course what are you going to say? "Yeah, I'm totally hot and stable and well-adjusted, like yourself, but I am here with my insane suicidal homicidal girlfriend. Wait until you see her haircut.")
Samara: "Okay, I believe that you're not this 'Paige,' and I'm supportive of her journey and all that, but let me tell you a shortcut, which is that if you exclusively date bisexual and closeted people, it's 100% drama and plus you end up like Jacob."
Emily: "...Sobering. That is food for thought. I haven't even mentioned her many attempts to off me."
Anyway, they get into the mess because I don't know if you know any lesbians but what they like to talk about is feelings and feelings and feelings. Especially about their S.O. lesbian partner-friends, or also people who are not there: People who could be doing better with their feelings and their feelings and their feelings and let's talk about it for about like a hundred million years. And the best thing about it is, they are not being bitches; quite the opposite. They just honestly think this is the main issue of life.
And maybe it is -- probably it totally is -- but I'm not a lesbian so I don't know, but it seems to work for them okay.
Samara: "I make homemade jewelry with an organic collective of like-minded progressive womyn and we will be selling it at the Founders' Day Festival despite several of our womansisters -- we don't like to say 'members' -- our womansisters' resistance to the entire idea of 'founders' because it's phallocentric and like what about the non-white non-male non-founder founders, but momma's got get her bulgur wheat money somewhere, so you should come by. You can pay by barter, spirulina, or like PayPal."
Emily: "Um, you had me at how hot you are. Like three hours ago. That, and how you haven't tried to blackmail or murder me, which is a total first."
Samara: "So yeah, just bring all your belongings in a U-Haul. I will supply the first cat."
Sean's mom is whatever, nonentity, and Melissa and Ian the Happy Couple are like, "You're so cute!" and Mrs. Hastings is all, "We have so much Christian non-suspicious fun together as a family!" and it's real gross and you know Spence can't deal. Mrs. Ackard awkwardly (and I don't mean like it's awkward how she does it, I mean there is no real reason for her to mention it so it's awkward) mentions the whole "remember how your daughter's best friend died and probably your daughter over there murdered her," and weird faces commence.
Ackard: "Oh, completely unrelated to what we were talking about, I'm thinking of vacationing either in a list of places that make sense together, like Hawaii, or possibly Hilton Head, SC. Do any of you Hastings family members have anything super weird to say about that out of nowhere?"
Spencer: "Mrs. Ackard, I would love to say something out of left field that is totally weird about Hilton Head, SC."
Melissa: "I can't wait to add more things that are clearly lies, meaning even my whole abortion/miscarriage story was a lie and we're back at square one!"
Ackard: "Cool, that's me done for the day. I'm a plot device!"
Ian: "Spencer, what the fuck."
Spencer: "The usual fuck! Duh."
Melissa: "Why are you so like how you are?"
Spencer: "The only abortion here is your lies."
Ian: "Take one fucking day off a week, little lady."
Spencer: "I am Spencer Hastings. I got voices in my head telling me to be righteous and destroy everything all the time until the only thing left is the truth."
Melissa: "But I mean, we all know that whatever the truth is about all this, it's twice as sad and half as incriminating. I'm actually a fairly pathetic character no matter how you slice it."
Spencer: "I will not rest until my entire family is all dead or in jail. Or that guy that worked at the tennis club comes back, from the footlocker where I locked him the last time I was convinced everybody was A."
Mrs. Hastings: "Good point! I haven't gotten drunk in a while, that'
s always fun."
Samara: "I like girls."
Emily: "I do too!"
Samara: "Do you like earrings?"
Emily: "Sure, whatever!"
Samara: "Don't tell the director! Apparently it makes sense to have your hair covering your ears for the two scenes, while we talk about these earrings forever and ever, that the audience will never see. Apparently that means we're doing our jobs."
Paige: "Um, nice earrings? That I can't see?"
Emily: "Hey, this is Samara the girl you screwed over yesterday. We're pretty much dating now. I told her about your dad and all your details."
Paige: "WHAT?"
Emily: "Um, that is what us lesbians do. Don't get weird."
Paige: (Gets weird, because have you met Paige.)
Emily: "Sorry about my nuts girlfriend."
Samara: "I can wait."
(The Marins' gorgeous house, made even more gorgeous by this gorgeous episode.)
Caleb: "I brought back your screwdriver on the off that Hanna would be there, but also because that's the kind of hacker werewolf I am."
Ashley: "Here's the deal. You're obviously okay. We kind of skipped over that rewarding part of the storyline, but it's okay to impute the fact that I've realized that. Mostly it's because of that thing Hanna told me which is that I'm twice the grifter you could ever be."
Caleb: "So we're going to sleep together? Or what."
Ashley: "No, not even this show is that fucked up."
Ashley: "But I will tell you that you should go to the Founders' Festival so that Hanna's regular issues and everybody's boy issues don't get mixed up with her daddy issues. One more boy skipping out of town is not what girlfriend needs right now. She already feels like a ho."
Caleb: "Even though you are the worst mom of all time, you are still a pretty good mom. Maybe if I had a mom like you I wouldn't be a drifter and a loner and whatever."
Ashley: "If I were your mother I guarantee you would be even more fucked up than you are, but I understand and appreciate the sentiment."
Caleb: "So what are my chances to fix this before I leave town?"
Ashley: "The only correct thing I ever told my daughter is that you would fuck her up."
Caleb: "Yeah but like, that only happens to be true."
Ashley: "Nevertheless. She's been listening to Elliot Smith up there."
Caleb: "Whoa."
Ashley: "Yeah."
(Coffee joint for teen lesbians.)
Paige: "Emily, what stuff did you tell her?"
Emily: "All of it. All the stuff. You are not that complicated, or that interesting, that it didn't take a fairly short amount of time."
Samara, out of nowhere: "Hey, imagine running into you guys here!"
Paige: "I realize that you are trying to be totally nice and I literally requested your presence, but I don't appreciate your attempts at support or kindness, no matter how hands-off and sensitive you're trying to be."
Samara: (Like a duck's back. She's like Emily part two.)
Emily: "I'm out. They don't pay me to be part of bitching."
Paige: "Where are you going!?"
Emily: "You were totally mean to Samara for no reason, and um you tried to drown me one time before, and plus I'm suddenly carrying your sex shame and being your secret and everything that this season has been about not doing. It Gets Better."
Samara: "This is just what I was saying about lesbian drama, before. I dump girls like this, and then date normal non-drama girls like you and me, and they can go fuck themselves. Which they were going to do anyway."
Emily: "Yeah, gimme a minute. Without a mentally ill rabbit to constantly pet and rub and love and stroke and kiss and hold and nurture I don't know that I have a lot to offer."
Samara, generally: "Oh my GOD it is not this complicated."
(Word, girl.)
(Whatever booth Hanna and Mona are working.)
Mona: "Did you really expect me to help-help, Prom Queen? I'm here to verbatim make sure you don't host a pity party for yourself and invite a cheesecake."
Hanna: (Sweetly smiles because that's actually a funny line and nobody's gonna get anywhere by treating eating disorders any other way than what they are, which is a fabulous way to fuck yourself over like an idiot.)
Mona: "Here comes Sketchy the Wolf. You duck over there so I can absorb the total heat of his sexy apology energy, promise to give you a letter, open that letter immediately -- the actually shitty part -- and then tear it into pieces and pour a slushie all over it like Rachel Berry's cute little crazypants face."
Hanna: (Nonetheless surprised that Caleb came all the way over there and yet did not apologize wonderfully like anybody would.)
The Letter: (All I know is, it said I LOVE YOU HANNA, and I got a little teary.)
(Jesus Camp.)
Ian: "Spencer I swear to God I am going to murder you."
Spencer: "Kiss my ass. This train to Crazytown is an express line, there are zero stops."
Ian: "No but for real, you are going to be murdered. By me."
Spencer: "Every time you say that, I grow another head."
Aria and Ezra: (Forever with this bullshit.)
Ashley shows up to ask what's up with Caleb, presumably he brought his wonderful letter because he is wonderful, and Hanna asks the same questions, which is: Why, given Ashley's whole deal, is she batting for him now?
Ashley: "First because he's leaving town, so it's no skin off my ass. Secondly, because you were totally right the entire time: He is a much better person than I am."
Hanna: "That is a push."
(Actually they are both pretty awesome.)
Emily has a flashback to this time Alison came over right after Hilton Head, I think literally between all the other things and the big night death, to drop off a snowglobe -- containing, duh, the "key" that suddenly exists in this episode -- at her house, because they were secretly lesbians in love who just happened to be neither. Verbatim, just in case it matters: "I brought you a present back from my trip, but you have to keep it a secret. I didn't bring anything back for the other girls, so if they ask about it, you have to lie. It's vintage, my grandma gave it to me. I wanted you to have it. You're the only one that really understands me, Em. The only one that I can completely be honest with. I have to go, I have a prior engagement. Don't have any fun without me. Make sure you keep that in a safe place. It's a lot more valuable than it looks."
Emily cracks that shit open, and what do you know. Thanks, flashbacks. week they'll have a flashback like, "Hey, remember when we killed Alison as a group?"
OMG I totally forgot about that until you said.
Whatever, the fallout from the whole thing with Aria -- and by the way, I forgot but at some point she deletes the fake "website page" Hanna made for her because she is the Almighty Shusher and needs to have some kind of moral compass -- the resolution to Ezra having proposed ill-advised marriage to some girl on a Florence trip, or maybe he killed her and we'll find out season that this happened, was that they both put on giant brown-paper grocery bags with faces markered on them and took a picture so they can have a picture together even if it's just their totally incriminating selves, clothes, and his apartment in the picture. So dumb, so very Aria, so very very whatever. /p>
Spencer gets a text from an anonymous number and, since that's never happened to her before on this show or even in this episode, assumes that it's legit. She heads into the legitimately fucking freaky Funhouse, and immediately gets locked inside one of those darkroom door-things from high school where the Lazy Susan goes all the way around you before you can go to the other side, and that's when A (presumably) jams a crowbar, literal, in the door.
At this point Spencer shits herself, for reasons unknown, and like starts doing '80s Dumb Girl shit like dropping her phone and completely losing her capabilities to do anything but scream for what -- even more bizarrely -- turns out to be like five minutes of the show. I will say, and I do give the show this much credit, it's entirely possible that she has some kind of claustrophobia -- heck, maybe even related to That Night -- which we'll see come into play week. Every Superwoman has her Kryptonite, mine is Sagittariuses, maybe Spencer's is tight spaces. Meanwhile, the other Liars are all getting messages from Em about how they need to head to this one storage facility because luckily she has located the one clue that randomly appeared this episode five seconds after it came into existence.
The second Aria leaves, Cop Garrett shows up to ask Ezra some questions. I'm pretty sure he saw her, and I hope that he did, but what he sees inside the apartment is even more awesome: The paper-bag hostage masks, a rope tassel from 1992 curtains, and whatever. The little girl leaving his apartment with her hands looking held hardcore. "I'd like to talk to you about one of your students," he says, and Ezra swallows an entire Adam's apple, and honestly, it seems like such a cliffhanger that probably Garrett's going to be like, "So listen, on a scale of one to ten, how fucking creepy is Jenna Cavanaugh? Am I right and do you have a beer."
Where's Spencer: Being murdered by clowns, literally.
Who cares: Nobody.
Those bitches are off to see the Wizard, because the assumption is that Spencer is so on top of things that she would have somehow gotten Emily's text milliseconds before everybody else and is probably already at the place and already solved the mystery and A is sitting somewhere in Batman bags on the steps of a building that says POLICE.
And who saves Spencer? Duh, Ian. Holding that selfsame crowbar that only we know about, nobody else, in the most utterly threatening position possible -- like Spencer's head/our POV is a bat in the attic -- for about five times as long as a person would, while he stares at her like how weird and not the expected probably since you think I killed your friend and I'm going to kill you and also probably I am, this might freak you out amount of time, and then apparently what we didn't get to see is how the entire family has been running around all crazy for the last -- I don't know -- five seconds she was in there, desperate to get her out. When it comes to Spencer's family, including Ian, being super caring about her business, it doesn't really translate. Except for her beautiful mom, who makes me cry.
And whatever, that sucks tinily and this episode is really outstandingly pretty. Art Dept, I wanna have your baby. The visual art of this series is something that is never going to be written up in your high-fashion magazines, but we do notice, don't we? That amazing dance with all the videos on the walls, and the Marins' house generally, and also how just watching these pretty girls sit around feeling weird about themselves in wonderful clothing is also just a very good time to be having. But still, this episode and this particular Funhouse are just so hardcore. And you know the budget is buh-zero so that just makes it sexier.
But what we do see, is you got Toby just standing there like he does, and Mom being all "We gotta get out of here, because now we know for sure that somebody is after Spencer" finally, and Melissa making her usual barf faces, and there's Toby over there wondering how this went wrong, and then you know what Spencer does? She thinks real hard, she gives him a sort of sad smile, she heads with the Hastings some more, Troian Bellisario just says fuck it and runs on over there and kisses him, kisses him, kisses him.
And I mean, the rest of them are at the storage and they're locating the one thing sitting all dramatic in the middle of the room and it's Ali's old Tweety Bird lunchbox that of course obsessive Emily remembers and inside that lunchbox is yet another thumb drive, this one not disguised as a woodland pendant, and then on that thumb drive is videos, millions of them, including a big party of the five Liars at the Fourth of July, which proves Toby was not the Peeper that got Jenna blinded, but also, maybe it's because of having this video that Alison was killed. And what I'm saying is, who cares, because Spencer just kissed her boy. And he's not my favorite boy, but he's a good one, and it's wonderful in a specific way having to do with her absolute certainty about things and who could have ever thought the #1 person (besides Ian) would be the one she would really like (besides Ian) and how her total persecutor thing and his total outcast thing so fit together this time. But then also, isn't there a mystery here?
Which may well be true, but That One Night was already so fucking complicated and now you got Alison dropping off secret keys to secret storage facilities apparently without a paper trail in order to be as cryptic as possible about how she had this footage that was somebody else's footage that she shouldn't have, I mean, when does it stop?
One hopes never. See you in a hot minute for the finale. I assume you understood the joke of this week's recaplet, which was a reference to a Barth story, but it occurs to me 24 hours later would probably be super fucking annoying if you didn't know that. But then, it's generally regarded by people, also me who hates postmodern anything, as a pretty much essential short story of the last thirty years, so I say: Give it a spin and stop whining. They can't all be "A Rose For Fucking Emily."
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