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Well, first of all Holden actually is in a Fight Club or is a Real Life Superhero. Details forthcoming, but I just wanted to get that longshot out of the way.
The picture of Naked Kate released last week occasions the school to hold an all-night anti-bullying rally along the lines of MTV's excellent If You Really Knew Me series, aimed at reforming Hanna and her gals from sending out more pictures with thumbs covering the nipple every time. Of course, observant Hanna notes evidence of Photoshopping, and by the end of the night the Liars have trapped Kate into admitting that she released the picture herself.
Last week's claim check has led us to Vivian Darkbloom's raincoat, which contains a phone number that the Liars keep calling -- and by episode's end, they've made contact with (surprise!) a creepy old guy we'll be meeting with week. Aria spends the episode atoning for a Truly Outrageous chartreuse number that must be seen to be believed but eventually ends up getting stuck on the roof... Where she is saved from a very angry Noel Kahn -- hunting the halls for Caleb after he bitches Jenna out hardcore -- by the brutal roundhouse of her beard. (And here you thought A had finally noticed her existence, but no.)
Also showing new and exciting talents? Miss Mona Vanderwaal, who apparently is some kind of mockingbird ventriloquist impersonator and advanced computer hacker, and uses these skills to blackmail the VP into letting Emily back on the squad. What with these sudden friendships she's forming with everybody, it gives one cause to wonder, especially as she seems mostly motivated by Emily's apologies for standing by during Alison's tortures.
While everybody was looking particularly gorgeous and everybody -- including the Suspicious Little Moms -- got some pretty great stuff to play with, it's probably Spencer that gets MVP. She's kinda been back-burnered for a while, beyond the endless moaning about Toby, so it felt right that she got the meatiest sandwich of all, not to mention one of the biggest reveals ever on the show. As some have suspected, Jason is Spencer's half-brother by Mr. Hastings. She has a huge meltdown with her mom about it, takes some time staring out of windows, and eventually commits herself once again to the chase.
So. For a bunch of ladies trying to keep a low profile, maybe having individual public freakouts in class encounter groups wasn't the best idea. But in keeping with the philosophy of the event -- not to mention the show itself -- disclosure turns out to be the best policy, and everybody ends up a lot healthier, or at least less oblivious, than they were when the episode began. Nothing quite like the satisfaction of having one or two questions answered now and again, and certainly this was a high point -- and a halfway point, come to think of it -- for what's shaping up to be a very dynamic demiseason indeed.
week, presumably: Fallout from the Jason reveal, more clues to the whole Vivian Darkbloom deal, the crazy facts about Holden the Scroggle, and hopefully more from the Jenna-Mona-Noel Kahn corner and/or Kate's outrage.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Holden was bruised, and secretive about it. Emily was barred from the swim team, maybe forever. Jenna started up with Noel Kahn, lucky girl. Alison turned out to have multiple identities. Hanna sent everybody a naked picture of her stepsister, always with a thumb over the nips. Oh, and something strange was going on between Spencer's dad and Alison's brother Jason, where sometimes he was protective of the boy and other times just acted super berserk about and toward him.
VICE-PRINCIPAL TAMBORELLI'S OFC
Ashley Marin: "I can't believe Hanna. It's always something. I need a drink."
New Mrs. Marin: "I can't wait to see you and your daughter get boned on this one."
Tamborelli: "Amusingly enough, I am an African-American man. Mrs. Marin?"
Both: "Yeah?"
Both: "Snerk."
HASTINGS HOUSE OF DEAD GIRL DRYCLEANING
Spencer: "That whole thing with the claim check and the Vivian Darkbloom and all that, what I ended up with was this cute raincoat."
Liars: "That doesn't seem like something Alison would wear, unless it's stained on the side we can't see with somebody's vital juices."
Spencer: "No, it's what Vivian Darkbloom would wear. You guys clearly don't understand the purpose of disguise. Whereas I have been practicing the spycrafts since I was a child."
Aria, verbatim: "Can I touch it?"
Spencer, ditto: "Yeah? It's a raincoat, Aria, it's not a mummy."
Aria immediately finds the clue, a phone number in the pocket, while they discuss this latest of Hanna's many problems.
Spencer: "Uh, obviously let's call it."
Emily: "Okay, stop. Now I feel like we're in a bad place."
Spencer, for real: "We're in my living room, Emily. We are holding a coat."
Emily: "Maybe we should contact the Board and see if we're allowed to touch it."
Questions: First, why wouldn't they call it? Second, why did Alison even come up with Vivian Darkbloom? Third, what were her errands on the occasion that she acted in this capacity?
Objections: One, from Emily, which is that she still thinks the coat is haunted for some reason.
Spencer: "It's probably easier to find out whom Alison was calling when she called this number by actually calling it rather than, say, hiring the fat lady with the tube top at the farmer's market who's gonna tell you your fortune..."
Emily: "I'm not scared!"
Aria: "Okay, but that lady with the tube top makes really good apple butter."
Liars: "Dating a gay teen in a Fight Club has made you kind of awesome."
Aria: "No, you know what it is? I'm talking about something other than fucking Ezra Fitz."
Voicemail Lady: "Leave a message."
Liars: "This is a friend of Vivian's. Can you just give me a call back on this number today? It's really important. Thanks!"
TAMBORELLI
Ashley: "Well, a mistake has been made."
Isabel: "Or your daughter is a bitch!"
Ashley: "Well, point."
Isabel: "Also, this was sent from her phone. I don't see how this is a debate."
Ashley: "She said she didn't do it."
Isabel: "Hanna's resumé speaks for itself. She molests virgins, she drunk-drives into the side of barns, she both gets run over by and runs ghosts over with cars, she throws up on wedding dresses. She murders gambling hermaphrodites at sea."
Ashley: "Again, I cannot disagree."
Isabel: "It's because you're a terrible mother!"
Ashley: "It's because I am a working mother! Because you are a whore that stole my husband!"
Isabel: "I concede your point in turn."
Tamborelli: "This mess does not interest me, but it is quite topical since we're having Challenge Day tomorrow."
Everybody: "What's that?"
Tamborelli: "You should really read the stuff we send home. It's an anti-bullying rally that works wonders on MTV. It's happening tomorrow. It's an all-night lock-in."
Ashley: "Oh, see, I wouldn't even have noticed she was gone. I would be drunk."
Tamborelli: "It's a guided workshop. The goal is to break barriers, forge new connections, and own up to bad behavior. As several people will be saying in that episode. You have to bring a sleeping bag, a toothbrush, and a change in attitude."
...This last so terrifying that it's the kick to the credits.
LOCKERS
A sour young lady slams her locker. I think she needs to forge some new connections.
Liars: "So, just to update us from moments ago, people still think you sent that picture that your phone sent to everybody?"
Hanna: "That is the long and the short of it."
Emily: "Did you guys know I'm not on the swim team?"
Liars: "Yeah, Emily. That's your only storyline for the last month."
Emily: "I just didn't want Hanna getting more attention than usual."
Liars: "Would that be because of this new character, the black Vice Principal with the Italian surname?"
Emily: "Yeah. Get ready to retroactively hate him for existing prior to this episode."
Hanna: "I see he's allying himself with my stepsister because of how I victimized her, to all appearances."
Emily: "Did you guys know I'm not on the swim team?"
Aria: "For what it's worth, I am dressed as a retina-burning hooker from Cool World."
Liars: "It's possible this is your most ass-ugly outfit ever. I like how the radioactive glowing safety-chartreuse reflective trim everywhere matches your reflective chartreuse whore wedges. It shows that -- despite all evidence -- you put some thought into this."
Aria: "It's so I don't get run over by cars. Or approached by anyone in a friendly manner."
Emily: "...Yeah, like I was saying, it turns out he's got a private sponsor on the hook and doesn't want any shovel-finding bitches sullying the school's name or pool. So I'm not on the swim team."
Liars, verbatim: "How much longer are we gonna have to pay for picking up that stupid shovel?"
Okay so now even the show knows that's ludicrous? I find that immensely comforting.
TRUTH UP!
Aria: "Hey, Holden!"
Holden: "Hey, Arrrrrrrrrahhh what the fuck are you wearing?"
Aria: "I'm in a contest with Björk that she doesn't know about. Today might be the day I win."
Holden: "Help me affix this butcher paper to this wall without the use of thumbtacks or any visible means of support, and for no real reason I can fathom."
Aria: "I'm there, dude. How is your horrific bruise you're always getting so Luka about?"
Holden: "Just don't ask me how I am, Aria. Hey, would you hold up this butcher paper, still for no reason?"
Aria: "Sure. Now I can't move, so I guess I'll just stand here looking like a complete asshole in my stupid clothes."
Holden's Bag: Tosses out a big plastic bag o' pills.
Holden: Quickly, and somehow still adorable, gathers them up again.
But Nothing: Gets by old Aria Montgomery. Girlfriend is on the case.
CORRIDOR
Jenna & Noel Kahn: Get they sweet cuddle on.
Spencer: Is enraged, of course. Why?
Jason DiLaurentis: "Spencer, hey! I was just dropping off some forms."
Spencer: "Yeah, you're like twenty-five?"
Jason: "It's for the many young people I counsel, having myself been -- perhaps I've mentioned -- once addicted to the wacky weed."
Spencer: "Okay, I have to go."
Jason: "Me? I've just been in Georgia. Hilton Head. You know, where many things happened. Can you ask your dad to call me?"
Spencer: "Every time I bring you up, he throws more of my sports equipment in the fire. So, no."
Ella! Ella! Ella! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Ella: "Jason, what on earth are you doing here at this high school?"
Jason: "Uh, looking about ten times better than I did before I left."
Ella: "Yeah, it helps that you don't have twink porn hair anymore. So listen, being such an agreeable and forthright young man, would you like to come help out at Truth Up Challenge Day Night tomorrow night?"
Jason: "Will there be tons of young people here that I can talk to about marijuana?"
Ella: "Honestly it's going to be about 90 percent making sure nobody gives anybody else blowjobs."
MARIN COUNTRY
Knock-knock.
Hanna: "Come right in! No big deal, just staring weirdly at this naked picture of my stepsister with my thumb over the nips, like I'm constantly doing for some reason."
Ashley: "Hey, honey, this Truth Up thing seems like maybe it'll parent you in a way I have not seen fit to do."
Hanna: "Mom, duh. This whole Truth Up thing is about me bullying that jackass Kate. It's basically a schoolwide referendum on what a bitch I am."
Ashley: "Let's make some lemonade, huh?"
Hanna: "..."
Ashley: "On another note, you know that if anybody was messing with you I would jack them up, right? Just annihilate them?"
Hanna: "That's sweet, but..."
Ashley: "Or I mean, maybe this is my fault. Maybe covering for you all the time..."
Hanna: "-- Ha! Yeah, that's probably it. I'm probably a trainwreck because of how overprotective you are."
Ashley: "I mean, like if I ask you whether somebody's stalking you, you shut me down. When I ask why you're constantly getting framed for awful shit, you shut me down. It's like you don't want me to know there's this vast conspiracy using me as a hostage."
Hanna: "..."
Ashley: "Okay, well. Good talk. I'm going to have some wine."
Hanna: "Mom? I did not do this thing with the picture. But that's all I can say."
Ashley: "My pissed face looks a lot like my worried face."
Hanna: "Honestly, that's the best sign that you're a good mom. Ella's the same way."
TRUTH UP!
Ella goes around being awesome and taking away everybody's cell phones and telling them to get in line, pick a line, it does not matter which line, just do it, cut momma a break. It's adorable.
Holden: "Hey, Aria. It's nice how you're going to be wearing this lovely red top for the bulk of the episode. Thank God Challenge Day wasn't yesterday or we'd be looking at that foul mess all night long."
Aria: "Well, look closer because I'm wearing cutout black jeans like an '80s stripper, but otherwise I do look pretty cute. Anyway, are you hooked on drugs? Or dealing drugs? And who are you secretly dating? And why don't you tell me anything about anything?"
Holden: "Yes. Among the many men of Rosewood, I'm the sketchy one."
Aria: "No, you're adorable even when you're being sketchy. I just... Listen, secrets kill. And right now, you're the only one who seems to be keeping secrets for no real reason. You're not drinking Spooky Milk, you're not molesting any Underaged Girls Who Are Probably Spencer, you were out of the country when Ali died... What else could you possibly be concerned about?"
Holden: "The thing is that all of your suppositions are true. It's not an either/or. I actually am a gay drug-dealing super hero in a Fight Club that is hooked on drugs and dates black girls and is being beaten by his parents."
Aria: "All at the same time?"
Holden: "...No, you idiot."
Whoosh.
OH & ALSO
Aria and Emily have this conversation like six times over the course of the episode:
Emily: "Are there any messages from that number?"
Aria: "What number?"
Emily: "Uh, the phone number we found in Ali's coat."
Aria: "What coat? Who's this now?"
It is weird every time.
RM. 206
Hey Jenna Thing, whatcha knowin'? Oh, just gonna tunelessly play the piano while everybody files in? Sounds like a plan. All minor chords, huh? That's my girl.
Aria: "I will be damned if I'm going to break barriers, forge new connections, and own up to bad behavior in the same room as Jenna."
Caleb: "I hate her too. I have that same paranoia thing you Liars do, where you always think it's Jason or Ian or whoever Spencer's obsessed with each week, only my pool of suspects is limited to Jenna because you're keeping me in the dark about everything and she's the only villain I've come into contact with -- besides Garrett, now -- so I can only assume that everything that happens on this show is due to Jenna."
Aria: "We do that too, about every third episode. And now that she's with Noel Kahn it's like, Who Knows."
Jason: "Mrs. Veronica Hastings! Nice to see you."
Veronica: "Yeah, nice 'n' creepy. Please don't ask me about my husband."
Jason: "Is your husband here?"
Veronica: "No, he is away on... He's visiting some... He is in space."
Jason: "In space, you say."
Veronica: "Yep. Flew into space. Space shuttle."
Aria: "Oh, boy."
Caleb: "You know that guy? He's gotta be like twenty-five."
Aria: "Yeah. He's my dead friend's brother. We kind of dated. Well, not 'dated' so much as I used him to make my elderly pedophile gentleman a more ardent lover."
Caleb: "And you're the normal one."
Aria: "He brought me pictures of the inside of my nostrils where it looked like I was dead. He had them framed."
Caleb: "And now he's here to help us break barriers, forge new connections and own up to bad behavior."
Aria: "Just don't antagonize Jenna Thing, or Jason DiLaurentis. They are unknowns."
Caleb: "I will be damned if I don't bitch Jenna out today."
Aria: "It is your funeral. And mine. Everybody we know, basically. But you go right ahead."
GYMNASIUM
Have I mentioned how obsessed I am with Challenge Day? Oh my God. On TV it works so well. I like to imagine that Tina Fey invented it. I don't know how it works out in real life, but on MTV it was always like, "Oh man, you're poor? I'm secretly gay!" And vice versa. And then the slut of the whole school would make everybody cry, and then the quarterback is all, "I cannot read!" and the big gay kid is like, "I am a pretty nice person!" and everybody just hugs and hugs and hugs, and it's like that forever, and nothing is ever the same at that school. Ever again.
Ashley: "Take a step forward if ... you'd rather not be here."
Mona: "How about we skip this step and just jump out the window?"
Ashley: "Miss Vanderwaal, you are welcome to try."
Ashley: "Take a step if ... you feel you've ever been mistreated by a student of a faculty member of this school."
Emily: GIANT EMILY STEPS
Ashley: "One step at a time, as they say in my daughter's future."
Ashley: "Take a step if ... you've ever felt the school was an unsafe or unwelcoming environment."
Everybody on this entire show: GIANT EMILY STEPS
Ashley: "Right, because we live in Rosewood PA, the Bad-Touch Capital of the Eastern Seaboard."
Ashley: "Emily, I noticed you once again took two giant steps. You juicin' again?"
Emily, verbatim: "One step is not enough! It's not safe! Or welcoming! For some of us, it gets worse every day!"
Ashley: "In the three-ring binder they sent us, it says the overdramatic lesbian's not supposed to crack until like 11 AM. It's still first period, sweetie."
Emily: "I AM NO LONGER ON THE SWIM TEAM!"
Everybody: "Oh my God, we know."
Tamborelli: "Fields. Come here so I can dress you down in front of everybody, subverting the point this entire exercise in such a grotesque and flagrant way I should probably be fired."
Emily: "But I..."
Staring Mona: Who could ever predict what that girl is thinking.
Tamborelli, and get this shit: "If you're feeling unsafe and unwelcome, maybe it's because your behavior has made your teammates and other students at this school feel the same way. Now, you're not helping your cause by attacking me..."
Emily: "I totally wasn't doing that? This is not about you?"
Tamborelli, scary: "You're no saint, Emily. Maybe it's time you take a look at what got you to this point."
Which, valid. I mean, not the shovel part, but the college fraud and the HGH stuff? Maybe she didn't mean to do about one and a half of those things, true, but you take your lumps. It's not this guy's fault that A arranged things in such a tremendously unhelpful way -- it's kind of A's thing -- and Emily's pointing the finger at this guy because the plot demands it, rather than because it makes sense for her (or anybody, but especially Emily) to do so.
On the other hand, he's kind of a cocksucker and he is ruining Challenge Day, so fuck him.
OH AND
There's a nice shot here where Mona considers Emily, and vice versa, while Ashley's voice can be heard reading:
"This exercise is about discovery. Discovering yourselves, and discovering your classmates..."
I love how so many of the milestones these girls have set for them has to do with making amends to Ali's victims. I mean, they were Alison's victims too, of a certain stripe, but part of cleaving to Ali was making sure that she didn't come after them, and the shit kept rolling downhill. They were de facto quislings about a lot of that shit. (Where it came from, above Ali on that inclined plane of rolling shit, we have yet to learn. I've got some ideas. This show's allowed to do a lot worse stuff to Ali than it can to the main four, if you think about it, and they've taken a fair amount of pretty horrible abuse already.)
But so Mona and Lucas, in addition to being awesome characters and fun to watch, are also pretty symbolic of the Liars' development. So much about growing up has to do with taking out the things you're least proud of and the things that make you feel the worst or the scaredest or the ugliest and actually just looking at it, figuring it out, so that it can't shame you anymore. In alchemy, actually, the word albedo refers to this process, this washing-and-rewashing, and it's the most important step.
So Lucas has been taken out and looked at by all of them, pretty much, and washed clean -- no pun intended -- and now it seems like it's Mona's turn, first with Spencer and now with Emily, seeing those other parts of her that Hanna sees.
(And how interesting it is that Hanna, the neediest and the least secure of them, is the first one to ever do this work? She was the first one to work with Therapy Anne, the first one to break through, the first one to bring in any of these people. I have this theory that sometimes it's hard to see the healthiest people for what they are, because they're always churning up so much shit in the interest of becoming more honest and more healthy, that it just looks perpetually crazy. Which is not really functional either, so it all flips over again and doesn't matter, but: Hanna Marin, is she an artist? Maybe.)
But where it gets really weird is, that means this road ends with Jenna, which is just brilliant. The thing that they're afraid of most is the job they have to do in the end, the thing that they have to fix the hardest. The first Thing is the last and scariest Thing. I mean, they had no problem accepting Alison -- who was more repulsive than Jenna could ever be, which is exactly what they liked about her -- so it doesn't really matter that she's a very bad guy. Because that's on her. It is irrelevant. But this part, the part where their psychological and maybe spiritual health is contingent on getting their shit together, that part's on them.
Aria came close when she was Anita -- Anita, with tears pouring down her face for the vulnerability, and the loss, and the fearful brave ugly beautiful terrible humanity of Jenna -- and I don't think it's an accident that the beautiful vase Jenna made came back to her, via Mike. I think it was a message that Aria misread, that read something like:
"If you were able to love Alison DiLaurentis, and it damned you, then you're going to have to find a way to love Jenna Marshall. Because that's what's going to save you."
If I were a vase, I'd probably say something like that. Frankly, I think that's the day Jenna will be able to see again.
Because in order to change anything, you have to be able to look at it as it is, not how we want it to be or how it affects us. Christianity is a good thing in a lot of ways, but it has not done us a favor in at least one way, which is giving our culture a handy tool to divide things easily into Good and Bad. Which is just a shortcut to ignoring, or destroying, or otherwise limiting -- this is why Jenna's eyes are covered; this is what Vivian Darkbloom is in part about -- the things we think are Bad. But you can't change anything until you can see it for what it actually is.
Which is why I love Challenge Day, because it carries at least the hope that by the end of things you'll be able to look at the Bully, or the Slut, or the Fag, or the Bitch, and see: A Person. That no matter what the things are that divide us, the things we have in common will always outweigh and outnumber them. And that most of the time, the thing we share the most in common -- the precious thing, therefore, we need to look at most -- is just our loneliness. That's what puts the Challenge in, and it's what's being Challenged on, Challenge Day: That simple, nasty thing we all have in common.
ANYWAY, COURTYARD
While Aria's getting a text from A threatening Caleb, and staring around at the people in her group (Jenna pops some scary gum in her mouth!), this is Ella's group: Hanna, Kate, Noel Khan, hangers-on of Noel Kahn.
Kate Wants: To go back to her old school, where Hanna is not.
Noel Kahn Wants: Half days on Fridays, and no Trig.
Ella Wants: You to pull it together.
Ella: "What's so great, Kate, that they had at your old school?"
Kate: "Nice people."
Ella: "We have some of those. Somewhere around here."
Kate: "Also, I would like to decide the punishments for those who wrong me."
Noel Kahn: "That's a good idea. If I was at a new school and got martyred in that way, I would go postal. Unless I was incredibly hot, and then I would be proud."
Everybody: "Let's find out, shall we?"
Ella, awesomely verbatim: "Noel Kahn, drop the Bad Boy act and just Get Real."
Noel Kahn: "Bad Boys? Got nothing on Mean Girls. Guys have a fight, there's a punch, it's over. Girls don't fight fair. They gang up, they keep secrets, they plot. They can cut you down with a look..."
Hanna: "THIS IS ABOUT ME! IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT ME! NOEL KAHN YOU ARE A VILLAIN!"
Ella: "Hanna, I think he was just employing divisive stereotypical language like that to oppress you. You know, like how bitches always be fighting with each other? Think of it as a handy trick men fooled women into believing, so they don't team up and start a riot."
Hanna: "He is smug! And blackmailed a boyfriend of a friend! I have to go!"
Ella: "I invite you to please chill, instead."
Hanna: "Mrs. Montgomery, you've known me a long time. Am I a bully? A Mean Girl? All that shit he was saying?"
Ella: "...Well, I mean, you're acting insane at this moment, but..."
Hanna: "FINE! EVERYBODY THINKS I DID THAT THING! HANNA OUT!"
Kate: Snerk.
Noel Kahn: "If you were paying attention, I was also admitting how vulnerable and weak men actually are, because all men feel secretly controlled by women, which is why we are so awful to them all the time. How the only difference is that men have spent thousands of years perfecting a system to control the narrative, the money, the bodies and the politics, keeping a two-way war static as a one-way system of oppression."
Random Old: "They always miss that part. Thank God, right?"
LATER
Mona: "Before we discuss anything of note, can I obsess on Hanna like usual?"
Emily: "She's fine. I mean, everybody thinks she sent that picture her phone sent..."
Mona: "Occam's Razor, right? People are toads."
Emily: "Listen, I know you overheard Tamborelli jackhammering me..."
Mona: "He is Toad of Toad Hall!"
Emily: "Yeah, but I also am kind of a bully, insofar as I let Alison terrorize you."
Mona: "Oh, honey. That was like two personalities ago."
<3. That is all.
Emily: "Anyway. I'm sorry I let her treat you so badly."
Mona: "Thanks! Now, how are we going to get you back on the swim team?"
Emily: "Did I miss the part where we started scheming?"
Mona: "If you were a guy, you'd already be back on the Sharks. Do you have any idea how much slack he cuts for the football team? 'Offensive Line' doesn't begin to describe what they get away with. I used to work in the VP's office during home room, I know a lot. You should too."
RM. 206
Veronica: "Okay, the step is to write some anonymous bitchy glow-in-the-dark things on the walls and then turn off the lights and read them to each other. It's possibly I am not understanding how this exercise is supposed to be done."
Jenna: "Not if I can help it! I am going to make this about me!"
Veronica: "Jenna, we're here to break barriers, forge new connections, and own up to bad behavior. Jason can help you write down your bitchy things, I know you guys were in that secret club together, and if not, I'm sure there's somebody you trust..."
Jenna: "-- There is not!"
Veronica: "Keep in mind that this is about forging new connections and owning up to bad behavior, but also about breaking down barriers. The possibilities..."
Everybody: "Oh boy..."
Jenna: "To what? Forgive everybody who has mistreated me? Gah! I am not one for group hugs, Mrs. Hastings. I do not need an ultraviolet flashlight to see the secrets, the phonies, the liars. They are everywhere."
Veronica: "Besides being blinded that one time, what on earth has ever happened to you?"
Jenna: "I have a huge list! Of malfeasances!"
Nobody: Can remember a single time anybody did anything to Jenna except for that one time she got blinded. Or a time that Jenna Thing acted this creepy.
Jenna: "I was in the Ladies' and I was cornered! And smacked!"
(Caleb: "Is she talking about Hanna?")
Jenna: "And this bitch goes, 'By the way, this is Hanna. In case you were confused.' Because I'm blind!"
(Aria: "Yeah, I think so.")
Caleb: "No no no. Bitch, if you'd reported that, you'd have to admit that you threw the first punch. A punch named Cyberwolf."
Aria: "Caleb please don't she's gonna kill us she's the worst"
Caleb: "I mean, we're supposed to tell the whole truth today, right? Not just the part we want to remember? By the way, this is Caleb speaking. In case you were confused."
Jenna: "Yeah, it was just like that. And she motherfucking paid for it. Feel me?"
CORRIDOR
Spencer: "Hey Jason! Weird that you're running this with my mom. And hey, what's the deal with you and my Dad, and like, why did he rewrite that will to protect you, and like, why is he always bending over backwards for you specifically, and like, why does he get so weird about you all the time, and like, what is the mysterious relationship between our families that randomly comes up whenever you're in town, and like, how does it factor in with the NAT Club and my friend's disappearance and the ghost ninja?"
Jason: "Ask your dad."
Spencer: "Fuckin'... Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks for nothing."
Emily: "Caleb went after Jenna?"
Aria: "I know, I almost shit."
Emily: "What did she do? Is he okay?"
Aria: "Nothing yet. She's always doing that. Nothing. No matter how scared we are of her. Just lurking with that stick of hers and occasionally spying on us through stuffed animals."
Emily: "Ohh, Hanna is gonna freak the fuck out. Caleb just keeps getting deeper and deeper. Hey, did anybody call from that number?"
Aria: "...What number?"
(Let's discuss it! Aria finally remembers what they're talking about.)
Aria: "You call this time."
Emily: "I've still got glass in my hair!"
Aria: "But I don't know what a Vivian Darkbloom sounds like."
Emily: "She sounds like Alison! Because she was Alison! Just in a wig!"
Aria: "Uh, hellooo! This is Gretchen van Hoosler speaking, I am a bosom friend of Miss Vivian Darkbloom? I fear she may not have received my post of Thursday last, concerning a tea party at which..."
Girl: "Yeah, we got that dumb voicemail and we don't know a Vivian at this number and just to undermine everything I just said, I'm going to aggressively suggest you never call this number again unless you want to be murdered."
Emily: "...That's what you remember Alison talking like?"
Mona Vanderwaal, Woman Of Many Voices: "Will Emily Fields please report immediately to the Vice Principal's office?"
DINNER
Holden: "It's so weird to be here at night! I call food 'grub' sometimes."
Aria: "I can't eat nighttime-lunch with you on account of you are full of lies."
Holden: "That is true, I am chock full of lies and drugs. Hey, are we still going out on our usual Saturday date? I'm really 'hurting' for a 'fix,' if you know what I mean. Of drugs."
Aria: "You gotta give a sister something, dude. This is getting weird."
Holden: "Relax, sweetcheeks. It's all good."
Aria: "No, like, think about a month from now when you OD and they're like, 'Did you notice any suspicious bruises, or like, huge gallon-sized freezer bags full of pills?' and what, I'm gonna be all, 'Yeah, but I sorta had my own shit going on.'"
Holden: "But then who will be your beard?"
Aria: "I'll figure it out."
The Music: Abruptly starts acting like they actually were dating and they actually just broke up. It's weird.
THE ROOF
Oh no, that's why the music, got it. It just started early, on a weird cut from Aria making Intervention faces about ol' Scraggle, so it seemed like it was bridging the scenes. Sorry.
Caleb: "Whine to me."
Hanna: "Done."
Caleb: "I'm going to hack-trace your phone and protocol your Internets, okay?"
Hanna: "Okay, this one time you can hack a phone."
Rustle rustle.
Caleb: "Relax, it's just the ragged creepy plastic sheeting everywhere."
Hanna: "Caleb, trust me when I say we are not alone. There is always at least one ninja listening to every conversation I have."
Caleb: "No, I... Did I ever mention I was homeless for a while?"
Hanna: "Once or twice."
Caleb: "Well, I used to relax out here when I needed to get away from pretty much already being away from it all. I'd come up here on a moonlit night with some snacks and my sad feelings. And then I would turn into a wolf. And nobody ever came up here, it was always just the plastic sheeting."
Hanna: "Well, just hold me until you are proven wrong, and we're both killed."
VP OFC
Mona: "Did you know I am also a hacker? And I can impersonate any voice? And I am handy with a spreadsheet? And I can get into the school's financials and easily find ways to blackmail the administration? Did you know that while I was telling you this, I figured out Tamborelli's new password? No big deal, just a random sequence of twelve letters and numbers, some in upper case. Child's play, really."
Emily: "...You are the scariest fucking person. Mama like."
WINE PATIO
Ella: "Have some wine, girlfriend!"
Veronica: "God, I am going to need jugs of the stuff to get through this shit."
Ashley: "I brought actual jugs!"
Ashley: "I think this Truth Up thing is probably a good idea. Lots of secrets and lying and whatnot."
Ella: "You know what's not a secret? I believe Hanna. I don't think she did it. It could very well just be someone trying to make her look bad."
Veronica, verbatim: "Why? To what end?"
I don't know, that just cracked me up. I love how Veronica's this lawyer that is always so precise and firm about everything, and yet she had Ian and Melissa in her house that whole time doing God knows what, and Spencer's just completely lost her damn mind, and she's actually argued more than once that the girls are being framed over and over for this shit, that shit, the stump, the shovel, the fashion show that should have proved it to everybody forever, whatever, but right now she's just sittin' there like, "To what end?"
Ella: "Do you ever get the feeling that our daughters are being stalked by an unnatural force or conspiracy?"
Ashley: "Ever since she lost Alison, Hanna's been off the chain. And I mean off the chizain."
Ella: "That's part of the reason we went to the frozen north, to distract Aria."
Veronica, verbatim: "I don't think the moment was when they lost Alison. I think it was when they met Alison."
Even The Moms: "Well played. She was pretty gross, now that you mention it."
Veronica Hastings, you are batting 1.000 today! I love the moms on this show! All of them are so awesome, in such different ways! And yet once again I just picture Pam Fields sitting there, feeling uncomfortable and like the other moms are these drunken whores, and it just makes me sad, because I think Pam deserves friends -- other than her vacuum cleaner and Jesus, of course -- but I have no clue how to make that work out for her.
VP OFC
I love Mona but this is not my style of humor, both because of the structure of it and because I think it's unfair to an actor, especially an awesome one like JP, to give them something ungainly like this:
Mona: "Well, baste me in bling and call me Bulgari!"
Decidedly unmusical, not to mention played, like, Carol Burnett called, but this is a very good script anyway, so I shouldn't bitch. Anyway, it seems a Ryan Giraldo was caught tagging, but then put back on the team after his father, a Mr. Giraldo, who owns a Danish furniture store, offered Tamborelli a $2,000 office chair which he expensed at $29.99.
Mona: "She shoots, she scores!"
Mona, I'm begging you. Anyway, that's the bribe. Emily pulls it together finally.:
Emily: "Wait, stop. I can't blackmail a school official."
Mona: "Honey, you can't be a Shark if you're toothless!"
There we go.
MEANWHILE
Jason: "Same number, same house. You know where to find me. That house. door to your house. Where I live. Your number, plus or minus two. Easy to spot."
Veronica: "Oh, hey Jason."
Jason: "That would be me, leaving your husband a message. BTW, you lied and he's not out of town. Or in space."
Spencer: Lurking, of course.
Veronica: "Yeah, I lied. But it's none of your business where he is anyway."
Jason: "Ohhhhh it's my business. It's always been my business. I just didn't know that until recently!"
Veronica: "Jason, we're here to, in part, forge new connections. True. But this is maybe not the best approach."
Jason: "Depends on how you look at it, Mrs. Hastings. It's also about coming clean and owning up to the truth, but hey, if you want to stay in denial, go for it."
Spencer: "What does this mean? Just kidding, clearly he is my half-brother. I better have a flashback to be sure."
FLASHBACK
Ali was at Spencer's, doing magazine quizzes and reading about German cannibals as you do, while downstairs the Hastingses were having at it.:
Alison: "Ready for this? Some dude in Germany went on a dating website and advertised for someone he could kill and eat."
Spencer: "Shut up!"
Alison: "I'm serious! And got, like, 220 responses. Why does every woman think that she can change a guy?"
There was a rimshot. (I am like obsessed with that case to this day. I don't even get why people like to get slapped around in bed, much less why you would want to eat somebody. To me they are... It's not a lateral move, I'm not saying that exactly, but for me they are similarly confusing. Why? How come? To what end?)
Veronica, downstairs: "...We've been neighbors for fifteen years!"
Alison: "What's going on? Are they splitting up? Do they do this every night?"
Spencer: "No, my dad's just upset because Jason gave Melissa a ride home from Philly, and they got caught making out in the car."
Alison: Love. Ing. It.
Spencer: "Ali, stop. I don't want to hear this."
Alison: "I do! Jason and Melissa? That's juicier than the guy that eats his dates!"
Veronica: "No harm no foul!"
Spencer: "My dad is freaking out over nothing. Melissa's obsessed with Ian, she doesn't even like Jason..."
Veronica: "She better not. That would be a match frowned upon by the Gods."
DINNER
Hanna: "Sorry I wasn't answering calls, but Caleb has my phone. Hey, is that a huge birthmark on Kate's side? Listen, I've been staring at this photo with my thumb over the nips for like a week now and trust me, there is no birthmark on that picture."
Liars: "Show us!"
Hanna: "No phone. Emily, I bet you still have it."
Emily: "...Sigh, yeah. Ya got me. Here."
Liars: "Okay but to what end? Why would A go to all that trouble to Photoshop her body, if the aim was to humiliate her?"
Hanna: "You guys, clearly this is Kate's doing. It wasn't A. It's not always A."
Liars: "Ah, look at Miss Smartypants explaining to us the nature of things."
LADIES'
Kate: "Hanna, I don't care to hear your apology."
Hanna: "Kate, I don't care to say an apology. I care to say that it was you that sent that picture."
Kate: "Ridiculous. To what end?"
Hanna: "You Photoshopped it..."
Kate: "-- Not all of us have to work as hard as you, Hanna..."
Hanna: "You 'Shopped it, you sent it, you reaped the bitchy rewards. Exhibit A, your birthmark. Yeah, I saw it when you took off your sweater. Bam!"
Kate: "Fine! It was that, or wait for Spencer to send out those weird pictures of me from riding camp! You girls are bitches!"
Hanna: "You know, maybe it's time I really took a picture of you, Kate. Aria, can I borrow your phone?"
(The girls all come out of stalls holding their cameras. AMBUSH!)
Aria: "Yeah, in a minute. I'm using it though. To record this conversation."
See, how much better would that have been if she left off the last clause? Always with the extra bit. Always that extra feather, danglin' from your business. (To what end?) Anyway, they rehash it and do that delightful scriptwriter trick -- "it's genius!" -- where they explain why the plan was genius -- because she gets sympathy, takes a chunk out of Hanna and gets a free-slutty card where all the guys got to see her assets -- in case you weren't there when this was obvious. But it was a nice surprise, so that's fine too.
Hanna: "Caleb still hates her, which reminds me, you have to go find Caleb and tell him to stop cracking or hacking my phone, because he assumes Jenna is behind everything all the time."
Aria: "To what end? And why me? I've still got glass in my hair."
Hanna: "Because you're in the same group, dude. Just go. Find him. If Jenna finds out that he's hacking into my phone, maybe this will cause strife in some way. Meanwhile I have to go show my mom that I am good and Kate is a bitch."
SPOOKY ROOM 206
Is empty except for Noel Kahn By Moonlight and Jenna Thing, undulating like serpents with grudges and sexy scary agendas, and the glow-in-the-dark secrets:
I'm still a virgin
My parents are illiterate
I HATE MY LIFE
I've Never Been Kissed.
Im AFRAID of my dad
I KNOW WHO KILLED ALISON DiLAURENTIS
Maybe we're the ones seeing them, not Aria, but either way she doesn't seem to care much about them. Not even the last one. Too bad about the illiterate parents. Too bad about all of it, really. Being a teenager is mostly bad. But not all bad! If I were doing a Challenge Day at that age, I guess mine would probably have said something like "LITERALLY ALL I THINK ABOUT IS DOING IT WITH DAWSON LEERY - ALL DAY - EVERY DAY - IT IS EXHAUSTING" with exhausting underlined like six times. I've never been one to keep secrets so there weren't really that many I could have picked from, even back then. Probably that wasn't even a secret, actually.
Hostile Noel Kahn: "Looking for somebody?"
Uncurious Aria: "Sorry, I thought Caleb was in here?"
Hostile Noel Kahn: "He's not."
Both Of Them Creeps: "Is he missing? Hope so. Maybe somebody threw him out with the rest of the garbage."
Aria, awesomely: "Yeah, okay. Well, if he comes back here...?"
I love that. Trapped in a dark room with Noel Kahn plus Jenna Marshall? Fuck it. This is the scariest thing that's possibly ever going to happen, so whatever. Stay frosty, Sodapop.
Holden sees Aria flash by, still looking for Caleb, and gets worried. She heads up to the roof, where it's been said that sometimes Caleb goes and turns into a wolf.
BROCASE BRODOWN
Where is Caleb? The computer lab, doing hacker stuff. You can see him through the window as Spencer makes her way to Jason. They are both having a jacked-up night, huh?
A: "Don't be scared, Spence. We're all family here -- some more than others..."
Spencer: "I don't even have time for you right now, A."
Spencer: "Jason, take that iPod out of your ear and tell me a very fucked up thing."
Jason: "That I'm your brother? Who told you?"
Spencer, and it's lovely: "Alison, kind of. A long time ago. I just... I didn't hear it, until tonight."
ROOFTOP SHENANIGANS
It's not the plastic sheeting! It's a variety of people. First it is A, then it is Noel Kahn, then maybe Holden. So many boys wandering around on the roof, none of them Caleb. None of them the plastic sheeting. Well, it's not long before Aria loses her shit and just starts climbing up a chimney, so Noel Kahn -- who is looking also for Caleb, to beat him up for coming after his girlfriend like that, which is kind of legit -- tries to pull her down again.
Roundhouse! Brutal roundhouse! To the abdomen! Noel Kahn goes down! Even Noel Kahn is surprised! Who is even more surprised is: Aria, who has just learned that Holden is some kind of a martial arts master. Just as predicted.
Noel Kahn: "I wasn't attacking her! I was just pulling on her stripper wedge from a great height while growling at her in a menacing way. God!"
And then they just leave him up there! I hope he's okay. It gets cold at night in the PA.
Aria: "Where did you learn to kick somebody like that? Portugal? Or wait, is this part of the Secret? Your bruise? Did somebody jump on you like that? To what end?"
Get used to it, Holden. Ezra Fitz had to change his number three times, was threatened with jail time and the end of his career, and she still managed to make him go back out with her. Just give it up, bro. She isn't going to let this one slide.
BUT WHAT OF NOEL KAHN?
It's finally time to sleep. Mona takes care of Tamborelli out in the hallway, so once again Emily's hands are clean. She runs back, all excited at a job done well, and they giggle and are sweet, but then...
Emily: "Why would you do this for me?"
Mona: "It was fun? That's what friends do? But now you've got to help me."
Emily: "Ah, here we fuckin' go. The other shoe."
Mona: "-- What do people wear to a swim meet? If I show up in my wedges, are they gonna get mushy?"
And oh, how they laugh.
VP OFC
Ashley: "Hey, Isabel? I think Tamborelli wanted to talk to you."
Isabel: "About how your daughter is a psycho bitch?"
Ashley: "No, not exactly. Also, you are a whore. I just wanted to reiterate that."
The girls come out of Tamborelli's office -- and can I just say he is doing a shitload of administrative things, for it being the middle of the night -- and Hanna is happy and vindicated but not vindictive, whereas Kate is still making that face. Maybe it's just her face.
HASTINGS ISSUES
Spencer goes ballistic on Veronica, of course.
Spencer: "Why am I the last to know?"
Veronica: "You're not. Melissa doesn't know either."
Spencer: "Say what? Also, how can you be okay with this? And how can you go on living door to them for all of these years?"
Veronica: "I just found out fairly recently, and by then there wasn't much of a point."
Spencer: "Why was I not involved in this conversation about what's best for our family?"
Veronica: "Honey, first of all you're a kid. But to be honest, most of the things our family does don't concern you. We actually all live in an entirely different house several miles away, quite happily. Melissa's there, and the Devil Baby, and your Dad and I. It's great. You'd love it."
Spencer: "No! I! Wouldn't!"
EVERYBODY FEELS WEIRD SOMETIMES
Spencer: Feeling super weird.
Emily: Wakes up from her weird vibes.
Emily: "...OMG, I got like six missed calls from that number."
Aria: "What number?"
Emily: "Are you fucking serious? The number from the... Never mind. Liars, Assemble!"
Liars: Assemble. Aria dials it back again.
Aria: "Hellooo? This is Madame Brandina Alexanderplatz speaking. May I ask who..."
Duncan: "I am the latest hottie of this show. Let's meet and talk about Vivian Darkbloom. I promise not to murder you."
Aria: "Sounds good, let's meet up."
A-TAG/WEEK
You'd think a formerly homeless werewolf/computer hacker would sleep with his laptop inside his sleeping bag or something, right? Like those hobo reflexes would be somewhat retained? But no. So now A has his computer, maybe the only thing he actually owns, and A is determined to use it against him. Who knows, I suppose, how this fits into the love triangle on that show we never get to see, but if it means more Jenna and/or Noel Kahn, then bring it.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, Pretty Little Liars and True Blood for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, most recently A Friday Night Lights Companion and Fringe Science.