When did Pretty Little Liars become the most enjoyable thing on television? I mean, really. ABC Family’s original order was 13 episodes, and so last night was meant to be the finale, before it got picked up for a full season. That’s how come: the lightning pace, the down-to-business-sleuthing, the big reveal, and the exits and psuedo-exits. [*sniffle*] The frantic tempo made everything seem creepier than normal, too, and I’m not even kidding when I tell you I made my big dog sit right in my lap while I watched.
Spencer sneaks downstairs to spy on Melissa and Ian, but not for her usual reason of concocting a plan to nick her sister’s beau. They’re all whispers and conspiracy, and they both whip around when they hear the stairs creak. Melissa springs from her stool and shouts, “IS SOMEONE THERE?” Like they’re in the middle of a graveyard in the middle of the forest on All Hallows Eve, and not at the breakfast bar in the kitchen of her parents’ house on a Tuesday. IS SOMEONE THERE? IN THE LIVING ROOM?
Upstairs, Spencer gets an email from “A”: Married for love or an Alibi?” Alibi, capitalized. “A” is a lumberjack, a con artist, a stunt driver, a photographer, a postman, a video editor, a world-class sprinter, a born PI, a student, a teacher, a peasant, a monarch, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, and s/he’s clever with punnage. “A” would be a real cancer-curing asset to humanity if s/he wasn’t hellbent on playing out Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game in real life.
In the daylight, Spencer glides downstairs again. She’s traded Jordan Baker for Annie Oakley, and as my friend Sarah pointed out to me last night, she’s kicking off an episode-long bird motif with her skirt. (Wait’ll you get a hold of Aria’s earrings.) Ian springs from behind the refrigerator door, all, “Booo! I’m going to kill you! Just kidding. Want to have sex with me? Just kidding. I murdered Alison! Just kidding. Think of me as your brother! Omelet?”
Spencer has never heard of burying the lede, or, you know, self-preservation, and so she seriously goes, “Have you ever played golf at this resort indicated on the golf tag on your golf bag? I only ask because Alison visited the same resort and was bludgeoned to death approximately 15 minutes later by an older guy she was f–king. By the way, we found your name carved into a tree with Alison’s name in the Forbidden Forest where her murder video was filmed. So many coincidences, right?”
I think something happens next with Melissa wandering in and amping the creepster factor to like twenty, but I got distracted. I can’t, for the life of me, remember why. And I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with Spencer’s proclivity to brandish her tongue.
Over at the Montgomery’s, everyone is sitting down to a nice breakfast of bacon, eggs and juice with Aria’s earrings. “Been to Brobdingnag again?” her dad asks. “Yeah,” she says, “just to pick up some jewelry. These earrings. A mood ring.”
Aria’s brother gets super weird/dumb when Papa Montgomery tells them their mom is dating other people and it’s not really his cheaterpants place to tell her not to do it. “That’s just so you, Dad!” he says, slapping down his morning newspaper (which: I am so sure). “You lie and cheat, but you draw the line at hypocrisy!” Um, a) I’m not sure “hypocrisy” means what you think it means. And b) Adulterer or not, your father is better off with the police than wandering around on his own.
In that one outdoor cafe in Rosewood, Emily is enjoying a nice cup of coffee and thinking how much better food tastes without the crushing awkwardness and disappointment her mother serves with every entree these days. Spencer calls South Carolina and Scarlett O’Haras the front desk like a real live gumshoe. It’s the first Spencer plan that doesn’t require air quotes: She pretends to be Ian’s wife and asks for the dates of his previous visit, so she can deduce if he was boning/planning to murder Alison the weekend she was supposed to be staying with her grandma in Georgia. He was there, oh yes he was. Busted! Plus: Alison hated old people. Double busted! I hope to one day be on a jury where someone presents the evidence: She loathed the elderly.
Rosewood may be shit at keeping its citizens alive and its banks unrobbed, but it’s got an uncanny team of medical professionals. Hannah is already out of that cast. (Maybe she did have her spleen removed. Maybe the doctors just grew it back real fast, like a starfish.) She joins Spencer and Emily and Agent Cooper for breakfast. You know, Agent Cooper: The FBI employee who is happy to share the details of a murder investigation with a group of teenagers. “Boo Radley Van Cullen may be out on bail, but he’s not going anywhere. And we’ve got a solid case against him. So, unless you girls have been threatened, taunted, teased, tortured or mowed down by any suspicious persons who might offer alternative evidence … ?” They’re like, “OK, then! Bye!”
At school, Noel Kahn’s presence brings the temperature down many degrees. I’ve decided it’s his face. It’s weirdly symmetrical and his eyes are always open a little too wide and his smile is always a little too eager. Like Bowser. The PLLs are all about Spencer snooping through Ian’s stuff in her kitchen, but who’s got time to solve a crime when this is Bianca Lawson‘s last episode. (WHY? WHY? WHY?) (BRB, CRYING FOREVER.)
Emily hops up from the table and kisses Maya in front of the whole cafeteria, and I don’t know what’s sappier: The looks on the PLLs faces, or the music. Either way, someone is going to have to hold me so I can make it through this recap. Emily says they’re on for later, and Spencer chirps, “What’s later?” Studying is the order of the day, and Hannah says, “Is that girl-on-girl code for romance?” Emily is coy and adorable. She says, “No, it means calculus and sometimes touching our bare feet together.” It’s sweet. It’s so sweet how happy her friends are for her.
Spencer is shocked when Maya tells them Emily is romantic. I guess the werewolf and/or vampire didn’t bring it out in her. Maya says that yeah, they study, but Emily really would like candles and moonlight and dancing and the whole shebang. One day, maybe. (SPOILER ALERT: DO IT NOW OR YOU’LL NEVER GET THE CHANCE!)
Noel Kahn and Mr. Blythe have a pissing match about how Mr. Blythe has too much integrity to change Noel’s grade, but not enough integrity to refrain from dating an underage student. I’m on Gil’s side over Noel Kahn, you know I am, but I think maybe this is the kind of situation that would send Aria’s brother’s Hypocrisy Meter into overdrive. Out in the hallway, the police escort Boo Radley Van Cullen to his locker to get his books because his ability to remember the Pythagorean theorem is important all of a sudden. For some reason, the custodial staff didn’t bother to clean the murder accusations off his locker, which reminds everyone to hiss at him as he walks by. Taunting a suspected murderer whose sister-lover is a Cylon? Real smart, guys. Real smart.
Hanna finds a hundred dollar bill taped to the inside of her locker, and she follows some instructions to a bakery where “A” has order half a dozen pig face cupcakes on which she is instructed to gorge herself. (“Sit here and eat every single one.”) It somehow seems even worse than when “A” ran over Hannah with her car. I can’t explain it. It’s awful. Hannah flashes back to when she used to walk around with pillows under her shirt and eat a lot of snacks when she got stressed out. Alison taught her to binge and purge, because of course she did.
Some Rosewood High jocks watch Hanna eat her cupcakes and they laugh and laugh because – actually, I have no idea why they’re laughing. Maybe they just found out her boyfriend doesn’t have a penis? OK, I think the reason this is so heartbreaking is because “A” is turning Hanna into her bitch. She’s harming herself on purpose because “A” has something on her mom. And that’s exactly what she tells Aria when she sits down beside her and tells the jocks to f–k off. Did I mention Hanna’s ring? It’s a giant, gold hippogriff feather.
Hanna hops over to the bathroom to kick start her bulimia, and finds like six hundred-dollar bills taped to the paper towels inside the dispenser.
Mama Fields comes home to the absolutely horrific sound of two girls giggling in Emily’s room. She peeps through the crack in the door and sees Emily and Maya’s toes touching, and so she bursts into the room shouting, “EMILY FIELDS, WHERE ARE YOUR SOCKS?!” and then “WHO KNOWS WHERE THIS WAS HEADED?!”
Maya’s like, “It was headed to Geography, actually.” And Mrs. Fields just screeches, “And I suppose the first order of business was a tour around the Isle of Lesbos, was it?!” Maya’s like, “Yeaaaah, I better go.” And once she does, Emily rewires the worst ever parent bomb and drops it directly on her mama’s lap: “For the first time in my life, I am ashamed that you are my mother!” BOOM, BITCH! BOOM!
But Mrs. Fields is just getting started. She sits down on Emily’s bed after Emily has stormed out – check out the photo of Emily and Maya on the nightstand! – and starts snooping thorough her daughter’s girlfriend’s stuff: mix CD, notebooks, breath mints, pencils – wait a second, those aren’t breath mints! She pulls up the Juvie Camp App on her iPhone and rubs her hands together and twirls her mustache and gives herself a high five because she just found the source of Emily’s sapphic confusion: Marijuana Cigarettes! (If this “mom” thing doesn’t work out, she’s got a real shot at becoming the third member of Aria and Spencer’s Scooby gang.)
When Emily gets home from … swim team practice, I guess, Mama Fields follows her into her room and casually asks if she’s stoned. She reaches to touch Emily’s face, and Emily smacks her hand away ’cause shit is about to get real and she knows it. Mama Fields tries to convince Emily of the thing she’s trying to convince herself: That Emily is mixed up in a confusing drug situation, and it’s making her think she likes breasts. (And feet.) She forbids Emily to see Maya, and just as she’s starting to feel the return of that once-familiar sense of control, Emily lays it out for exactly what it is: You can lie to yourself. You can build a fortress up into the sky and stick me away in the highest tower. You can surround it with a moat, a dragon, an army of guards, a million enchantments. You can punish me. You can banish her. You can hold me prisoner there forever, and I’ll always be as gay as I am right this second – in my very own bedroom.
Over at Rosewood High, ol’ Noel drops by Mr. Blythe’s class to see how he’s feeling about that grade change. Gil gets in Noel’s face, all, “It was the exact same paper you turned in last time, and guess what? I found some new mistakes, and so here’s your new grade – ‘F’ for fu[BLEEEEEP] you!” Just kidding, there weren’t any bleeps; what is this, US Skins? That’s the Blythe sentiment, though, and Noel sniffs and tells him to enjoy his time in the clink.
Spencer has started tiptoeing everywhere like Spy Vs. Spy, and this time she spots Boo Radley walking down the sidewalk. Some people spit on him; others throw tomatoes at his face. He smiles sweetly at some kids with some ice cream cones and they scream like Macaulay Culkin and bolt to the other side of the street. Spencer follows Boo into the alley where he slides down against the wall and cries and cries and cries. Forced to bonk a robot, sent to reform school for blowing up the selfsame robot’s eyeballs, stood up at prom, arrested for the murder of the worst human being to ever roam the earth, and now despised by small children everywhere. Spence feels sad watching such a spectacle.
At the Montgomery’s, Ben weaves a yarn about how his new BFF Noel Kahn is going to bust some teacher tomorrow for having an affair with a student. The hoot of a barn owl. The caw of a crow. The screech of Aria’s chair. And like the Lady of Shalott, she’s out of there.
Gil’s place. He lights one of those three-foot candles in the wine bottle like something out of Lady and the Tramp, and tells Aria some really sweet – but barely believable – things about how she’s the truest thing he’s ever known. I mean, Ian Harding sells it and everything, and I’d like to believe it, but the only thing they ever did was make out at that pub and also snog each other’s faces off in front of the stained glass window at Alison’s funeral. Right? He says he’s going to resign the next day, take the power away from Noel, and they cuddle up on the couch and admire the candle she never even touched.
At school the next day, Emily is bereft. Maya’s parents – the hippies who met at a “no nukes” rally, remember – have shipped her off to Juvie Camp. I couldn’t even get in a good giggle in about Juvie Camp because there goes another lesbian character, into the ether. No circumstance. No pomp. No value in our life or Emily’s life. So long, and thanks for all the fish. (I was wrong. I’ve never been so glad to be wrong.)
Mr. Blythe is slow-mo turning in his resignation at Rosewood High, and juuuuuuuuust before he reaches the principal’s office, the law reaches Noel Kahn’s locker. The answers to three midterms are hanging out in there, and Aria looks at Gil like, “Did you …?” And Gil looks at Aria like, “Did you … ?” And “A” texts them all like, “Bitches, please. You can barely tie your own shoelaces.”
At home, Hanna’s mom tells her to find a safer place to hide their recovered wad of cash. A different pasta this time. Mac and cheese. Spencer’s sister tells her she and Ian are trying for a baby. She and Ian bounce, after she promises Spencer can keep a secret – “see that wocket in her pocket?” – and Spencer invites her buddies over for study group.
Emily arrives last. They smile at her, giggle a little. She says, “What? What?” And they send her up to Spencer’s room where Maya is waiting with a enough candles to fill a chapel.
Emily’s best friends broke her girlfriend out of juvie camp so her girlfriend could have one last shot at making Emily’s dreams come true. That’s not normal writing, my friends. The easy way out was juvie camp with no goodbyes. No more mentions of Maya. No loose strings.
Remember earlier when Spencer was so shocked to discover Emily is hopelessly romantic? They’d known her with boys, before; with a longterm boy named Ben. But they never knew her like this, because she never knew herself like this. No one ever forgets the girl who helped her out of the closet. No one ever for forgets her first love. Emily’s mother can take away her freedom. Emily’s mother can take away her car. She can withhold her approval, her affection, her attention. She can lock Emily away in her castle in the clouds for a thousand years. But she’ll never be able to take away this moment: Emily slow-dancing in the candlelight with the first woman she ever loved.
It doesn’t change the way I feel about her.
Emily and Maya say goodbye. A real, proper, you’ll-always-hold-my-heart-in-your-hands goodbye.
“A” is at the window. I thought s/he was going to axe-murder Maya. I thought I was going to punch my TV in the neck. But no. S/he texts the PLLs: “Don’t say I never gave you anything.” (Besides a broken femur, s/he means.) They crowd around Spencer’s laptop to watch Alison’s full murder video. She prances and dances and taunts and flaunts, and the camera turns, and it’s Ian. She falls to the ground, clutches at the dirt.
The PLLs gasp their best collective gasp yet. They hear a noise outside. They run screaming into the night, looking for “A.” They run and they run and they run and they run. They send up a howl like a flock of wild banshees.
I had to run out and purchase a brand new laptop in the middle of writing this recap. I don’t have any image-editing software on it yet, so once again, I am abject, pleading apologies for not being able to publish your #BooRadleyVanCullen Tweets. Next week. I promise.
