Archive

“Pretty Little Liars” recap (5.6): I Know Why the Cannibal Bird Sings

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, Hanna and Aria and Spencer and Emily and Ali danced around a maypole with flowers in their hair singing a song of triumph about how A was gone and life goes on and no more Satans at fashion shows. And then Toby’s house exploded and exploded and the Liars’ phones dinged and dinged. “Y’all are some dummies,” A said in her group text message, shrapnel and brimstone raining down from the sky as Toby’s house continued to blow up. “I’ll see you soon. A moment of silence, more bursts of flame, another series of phone-dings. “Just kidding. I see you right now.

So one thing you didn’t know about the Cavanaugh-Marshall house is that, in addition to the award-winning snowglobe collection housed in Jenna’s room, they also had a stockpile of Acme TNT in the basement, which is why the Liars stand in the road and watch it blow up over and over for two hours. But that’s not even the best part. The best part is: How many times have they convinced themselves A is gone? Like how many giggles did they giggle when A was like, “Show me your boobs.” But A has never been gone. Never, ever. And yet! They are shocked to their very cores when A texts to say hi and explain that she’s the arsonist of this hellfire situation. They’re all, “No! It can’t be!” Like Emily says that as flame-cloaked shingle is flying right in front of her face. “It’s impossible!”

The second best part is everyone is like, “But where’s Toby???” And Spencer just shrugs.

They go back to Emily’s to talk some more about how it’s not true this is happening and finally decide that A was just on vacation and now she’s home and rejuvenated and also has bombs. Ali is all, “Yeaaaah, I probably better get going to Out of Town.” And at the same time Emily and Hanna, respectively, go: “No! Absolutely not! You just got here!” And: “I’ll pack you some snacks.”

What do you think A even does on vacation? Probably a lot of those Haunted America walking tours of Savannah and New Orleans and Gettysburg. Like how dentists go to conventions where they hand out toothbrushes and stuff. A goes to the French Quarter, just talkin’ shop with all those ghosts, everybody telling stories about their spooking techniques and showing off pictures of their parrots.

The next morning, Hanna spots Caleb brooding at the Brew. He’s mad about a lot of things, like how he’s locked in a death curse and his ghost best friend’s vampire uncle’s psychic housekeeper won’t help him figure out how to break it. And also that Hanna didn’t remain faithful to him while he was not returning her calls and texts because he was busy getting killed over and over and doing exorcisms and stuff. Hanna goes, “You don’t have a monopoly on getting perpetually murdered, jerk.” Before he heads off to Montecito, he advises Hanna for like the three thousandth time to go to the police with all this shit and she advises him that, like all the times before, there’s more stuff in play than he can even imagine. (Which may have been true when he left town, but definitely is not true now that he’s spent weeks with the Grunwald.)

Aria and Ezra sift through his True Crime Novel research before school, just tossing around theories about how Bethany Young, a former Radley patient, might be connected to Mrs. D, a former member of Radley’s board of directors, and casually chatting about the myriad of ways he surveilled Aria and her friends and conducted interviews with all the people complicit in their torture. She says she’ll come back after school to help him brainstorm, but no more sex. He says, “So sex this afternoon and then we’ll continue to dig into the ways I have exploited you. See you then!”

Also before school, Spencer sneaks home to grab some school books and Peter accosts her and asks why she and her mom are staying in a hotel. They go back and forth about, “Mom said you’re a murderer!” “She said I’m a murderer? She’s a murderer!” “She said you’d say she was a murderer which proves you’re a murderer!” “Well you tell her only a murderer says someone is a murderer because they say someone else is a murderer!” Spencer has been so hornswoggled by her parents’ constant machinations that her brain is addled to the point that she’s wearing a khaki romper.

Aria takes a call from Ezra at lunch, which makes Spencer’s eyebrows go to that judgey place like they do.

Aria explains that she slipped and fell naked onto his erect penis twice the night before and that’s why she also brought him to Emily’s to hang out with a bunch of his former students, half of whom he stalked for two solid years. Aria’s like, “Let’s not forget he took a bullet for us.” And Spencer is all, “Yes, on top of a roof where he – not to put too fine a point on it – stalked us, yet again.” There is no time to bring Aria to her senses before Ali and Emily and Hanna show up, and A Snapchats over a video of Mrs. D getting buried in that hole, talking smack about, “Watched her bury you and then I buried her! P.S. That powder blue blazer makes you look like a real estate agent in Orlando, bye!”

After school, the Liars go to Hanna’s to talk some more about who A is and isn’t and why she killed Mrs. D and probably it’s not Peter at this point because he says “FaceSpace” when he’s talking about Facebook so there’s no way he’s a cyberterrorist. They run down the list of usual suspects: Mona, Mona. Could be Mona. Possibly Mona. Ali really wants to go on the lam again, and every time she says it Emily starts trying to like peel the skin off her bones because she’s so anxious about how she can’t protect Ali if Ali’s not with her.

And, I mean. Emily. Honey. You have poisoned yourself with Icy Hot and nearly paralyzed yourself swimming into a wall with your head and taken instructions from a doll that nearly led to your demise on multiple occasions and you gave your face to a drifter in the forest and one of your girlfriends was buried alive and another one was buried dead and another one was abducted and duct taped inside a closet in a cabin where you were on vacation with your dead girlfriend’s murderer. When it comes to keeping people safe, you’re not exactly Katniss Everdeen.

Hanna agrees to babysit Ali tonight, which Ali can’t say that she loves; first of all, because she doesn’t want anyone telling her her business, and second of all, because when Emily is the one telling her her business, the business is fingerbanging. She makes plans to escape town while Hanna is outside trying to convince herself and Travis that she wants to make it work with him even though that stopped being true the second Caleb stepped off the midnight shadow ferry from Ravenswood. He likes her too much to tell her to stop dicking him around. Hanna goes back inside to help Ali pack up her shit and get lost.

Hanna: I am so burnt out on your urgent, whispered phone conversations, to be honest. Ali: That’s because you’d rather spend all your time making a mess out of a love triangle. Hanna: And my grandma thought Mona was the best argument we have against human cloning. Ali: What do you know about clones? Tell me what you know about clones. Hanna: You seriously need to chill the fuck out. Do you want me to make you one of my mom’s Paxil-Merlot smoothies? Ali: No, I want to leave Rosewood. Hanna: Cool, here’s a train ticket.
Detective Roma Maffia (hey, girl!) is on the prowl tonight. First, she hits up Radley because the source of all evils seem to come from that place in one way or another, but no one will help her because client-patient privilege or something. She ought to go down to Coughman’s Pharmacy and hang out and listen to that guy shout out everybody’s prescriptions at the top of his lungs, if she’s looking for top secret medical information. She storms out while Spencer tries desperately to get Eddie Lamb (hey, girl!) to go to coffee with her and spill the secrets of Bethany Young. But he will not because his ethics are too ethical, and also probably he’s terrified of Mona.

Next up, Detective Roma Maffia shows up at Ezra’s apartment while he’s trying to convince Aria to just take the damn candy and get into his car. Aria hides in the bathroom and Roma Maffia, who is not very good at being a detective but is the absolute best at being a troll, asks Ezra a bunch of questions like, “Did your student Shana Fring – who was found dead holding a gun the night after you were shot with gun, both of which things happened in New York, a city where neither of you live – know your family owned the theater where she was ultimately found dead?” He says no, the only thing he ever talked to his students about was the theme of the coexistence of good and evil in To Kill a Mockingbird. Detective Roma Maffia smiles at him, real sweet-like, says, “I see” and spots Aria’s matching dragonskin purse and jacket on the table before she leaves.

I truly hope, in the end, Ezra ends up in jail because someone pieces together his crimes with Aria fashion clues.

Paige is in the locker room after a late night swimming session when Emily jumps out of the shadows at her like a ninja. Paige jumps out of her Speedo (you wish!), all, “Seriously, dude?” But Emily just keeps on creepin’. Her voice is all low and scary and she’s still scratching at her skin and prowling all around like a panther. She tells Paige its time for her to name the people in Mona’s Army.

Paige: Nu uh, man. You saw how Ali talked to her in that video. Emily: The video was edited. Paige: And? Ali still said that shit. Mona didn’t hold a shovel to her head and make her say it. Emily: I know you don’t like her, but- Paige: Emily, I love you beyond all reason, but the way you think my feelings about Alison are the catalyst for all my main life decisions, it blows my mind, it really does. I’m not you guys. All of my actions aren’t tethered to an inexplicable obsession with that girl. Emily: Whoever blew up the Cavenaugh house wants to blow up Ali’s face. Paige: Just off the top of your head can you think of anyone who has access to the Cavenaugh house who might have a reason to want to blow up Ali’s face? Just spitball with me here. Who is familiar with blown-up faces and also has a key to Toby and Jenna’s house. Jenna’s house. Jenna. Blown-up faces. …nothing? Seriously? Emily: Could you live with yourself if Ali got killed again and you had information that could have stopped it. Paige: Looking at you guys looking at Ali the way those hyenas look at Scar is a real boner-killer, I’ve got to say. But yeah, OK. I’ll give you some names.
Paige writes down the names of the people in Mona’s Army on a piece of paper from the notebook she bought at the campus bookstore when she went to sign her full swimming scholarship to Stanford University, one of the most prestigious universities on earth, and the place she doesn’t yet know will provide her with an infinite supply of women who have never even heard of Alison DiLaurentis. Paige is more awesome right now than she ever has been; she has no idea how hard and bright she’s gonna shine. Emily doesn’t know either, apparently, and I’ll be honest with you: I hope one day she is blinded by it. (No offense, Jenna.)

Spencer parent traps Veronica and Peter at that one restaurant in Rosewood and they talk about how maybe their differences aren’t so different after all. He likes to murder with poison and she likes to murder with smashing things into skulls. He likes to take Melissa killing with him and she likes to go on her own. In the end, they’re really the same, aren’t they? Compelled by their WASPy bloodlust and their insatiable desire to drive Spencer as banantown crazypants as possible. They decide that he’ll move out for a while and she’ll move back in, and they’ll just see what happens re: snooping teenagers and forensic evidence.

Meanwhile over at Ezra’s, a couple of other freaks are freaking out. Aria and Ezra are trying to figure out what to do with all the evidence that implicates him in dozens of felonies. He wants to put it in his storage locker and Aria wants him to put it in her attic, both of which ideas are so goddamn Ezria I can hardly stand it.

#NeverForget

The best part of their manic tizzy is they find this drawing of a Godzilla burying Mrs. DiLaurentis in her own backyard. Just a little arts and crafts project Bethany Young did at Radley. After consulting his security cameras, Ezra sees that Eddie Lamb is the one who left it on his doorstep.

You’d think Hanna would be in a manic tizzy too, trying to get ready to get Ali the heck out of here, but Hanna already had those bags packed and that ticket purchased and those lasagna dollars ready to go weeks ago. She makes Ali some sandwiches and tells her to get in the car and she’ll drive her to literally anywhere that is not here, but Ali needs to run home and get axe-murdered first.

Emily rushes into Hanna’s room shouting about how Melissa and Lucas are working with Mona to destroy Alison, and then she spots the train ticket and the bags and the wad of Benjamins.

Emily: HOW DARE YOU LET HER DO A DANGEROUS THING SHE WANTS TO DO WITHOUT CONSULTING ME FIRST? Hanna: I think what you’re doing right now is what Paige did that made you break up with her? Emily: YOU’RE LETTING HER GO BECAUSE YOU WANT HER TO GO. Hanna: Huh? Emily: SHE’S BEEN BACK FIVE MINUTES AND YOU’VE ALREADY REVERTED TO THE INSECURE, SHOPLIFTING, DRANK-DRANKING PERSON YOU WERE WHEN SHE WAS ALIVE. Hanna: Takes a backslider to know a backslider. Don’t think I didn’t see you with the googly-eyes and the hand-holding. I saw you all right. We all saw you. Emily: SHE WAS SCARED AND SHE REACHED FOR ME AND I DID WHAT SHE NEEDED ME TO DO. Hanna: Second verse, same as the first. Of fifth season, same as the flashbacks, I guess. Emily: THESE ARE MY HATE-EYES. I AM GOING TO ALI’S. DON’T YOU FUCKING FOLLOW ME.
I know some of you guys love how Emily is being with Ali, but I do not. She’s like a Gollum with a ring. We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little Liars. Wicked, tricksy, false! Where would she be without me, gollum, gollum? I saved us! It was me! We survived because of me! Master looks after us now. We don’t need anyone anymore.

It’s freaky. I do not like it.

Emily rushes over to Ali’s, where she is being strangled to death by an A with her mother’s scarf after being walloped in the back with a fire-poker. It’s one of the scariest thing this show has ever done. It is filmed like a horror movie with a lot of wrasslin’ and gaspin’ and of course Emily gets thwacked too, so hard she’s not even going to be able to doggy-paddle now. She thwarts A and A runs for it and whew. But actually, Ali says it wasn’t A. She says this particular hoodie could have chosen to kill her but decided to strangle her and everyone knows she can hold her breath for several days so this person was just trying to scare her. They sure as balls scared me. I don’t want Ali to die again! We barely even know her yet!

It is no wonder that Hanna hustles out to some cabin where Caleb is staying to drink out of his flask and sit in front of the fire and relax in the quiet company of someone who knows what it’s like to be under constant attack by an unseen source of voodoo. Travis, he doesn’t get it, and so he breaks up with her the next day. It’s for the best, really. He’s a catch, but those who have been touched by sorcery can never find true happiness with mere mortals.

Speaking of which sorcery, I forgot to tell you! Best shot of the episode! Paige opens her locker and a dead rat falls out and she screams and the edit is amazing.

The Liars decide they’ve got to get an in at Radley to investigate Bethany Young and since Spencer’s already been in there once and Hanna couldn’t pass for crazy on even her worst day and the only thing Emily’s crazy about is: crazy obsessed with Alison, Aria decides to volunteer. Like she becomes an actual volunteer at Radley. Please lord let her be in charge of jewelry-making day.

Ali asks to please sleep with Emily tonight, but like sleep-sleep and not scissor-sleep, and Emily says OK and stays up all night watching over her and making sure no one else sneaks in and beats the hell out of her. 24 hours with no sleep: Emily still looks like the kind of human being the gods try to destroy because her face is too perfect. (Wouldn’t that be a twist? A is actually Hera.) The next morning, Emily goes to Ali’s house to take her to school and Detective Roma Maffia pulls in right behind her. She asks Ali and her dad to come on down to RPD to answer a couple of questions about alibis how one 17-year-old girl can be in two different cities on the night Shana was murdered. Hells bells, if she thinks being in two cities at once is impressive, wait’ll she gets a load of the Vanderjesus.

As Detective Roma Maffia pulls away, A sends out her best text ever: “Time for the caged bird to sing.”

Tippi, motherfuckers. Just you wait.

Thank you thank you thank you to Nicole (@PLLBigA) for the beeeyootiful screencaps. Follow her on Twitter for the latest PLL spoiler and behind-the-scenes scoop!

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button