Archive

“Pretty Little Liars” recap (4.15): I Kissed a Ghost and I Liked It

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, Caleb returned to Rosewood to break up with Hanna because being best friends with a ghost for three years did not prepare her to understand how he is now best friends with a ghost. Ezra enticed Aria to go for a ride with him to his murder cabin by waving some feathers out the window of his car, all, “Hey, little girl…” Spencer agreed to help Toby help her dad shut down Radley for good, even though her brainspace and heartspace aren’t quite ready to let the secrets (and secret lesbian zombie waltzes!) of that place go. And Emily lost her damn mind trying to wrap it around the fact that the first murdered girl she loved had risen from the grave.

The Liars are not very happy that Hanna nicked Ali’s journal from [Ezr]A’s lair over in Ravenswood and sat on it for like a week before revealing its existence. She tries to explain the way that Horcrux diaries work, but they’re too stubborn to listen to her. The book isn’t just full of stories about Ali and also the shrapnel of her undead soul; it’s a coded expose about all of their lives. Stuff they want to forget, stuff they don’t know about each other, shitty shitty things Ali thought about each of them on the regular. Reading it is like playing out your nightmares on a stage in front of your family and she thinks they might not be ready.

Emily grabs that journal from Hanna’s hands, says, “I didn’t get to be Emily Fields by ignoring the hard stuff and hoping it would go away.”

She stays up half the night reading the chronicle of her love for Ali and is rewarded with a spectral visit from the young woman herself. I’m trying to think of a scene on this show that is harder to watch than this, and I honestly can’t come up with one, and I’m including that dog I thought A was going to kill for digging up evidence in Jason’s yard. I talked to Dana Piccoli about this on her LadyTV podcast a couple of weeks ago, but I haven’t really written about it much in my recaps: This stuff with Alison and Emily is almost unbearably real. My Lord and Savior Mona Vanderjesus has done some monstrous shit, but it’s all so adrenalized in its hyperreality that it only woos me to her. She hits people with cars, wears masks on top of masks on top of masks for a chance to dance with Hanna on a haunted train, buys the blind girl’s time-traveling Mustang and wears the blind girl’s sunglasses while cruising through the Rosewood High parking lot, blows up the substitute history teacher with dynamite during a school-sponsored 5K just for giggles. You know, mad crazy TV stuff. But Alison DiLaurentis, man. What she did to Paige, what she did to Emily, what she’s doing to Emily: I only know maybe three gay girls on the planet who haven’t had their heart smashed to bits in this way at least once in their lives.

It goes like this: Ali flies in through Emily’s open window and says she needs Emily’s help to come home, says she always loved Emily best because Emily always saw the best version of her, says she knows Emily is probably a little mad but maybe she deserves some slack because she did save Emily’s life twice. But Emily is not mad. Emily is livid. She loved Ali, mourned Ali, wore that goddamn friendship bracelet around ages after everyone else had taken theirs off. Wore that thing the whole time she was dating Maya, the first time she dated Paige, was wearing it when she met Samara.

Ali laid out postcards and played Emily’s heartstrings like a harp, planning an imaginary world of togetherness and letting Emily kiss her and collecting her secrets with a lover’s whisper, promising to keep them safe. But Ali didn’t love Emily. Ali loved Emily’s love. Watch her face, even now, when Emily screams, “You destroyed me!” Ali gets off on it, emotionally, to have infiltrated a heart as pure as Emily’s. It takes a long time sometimes, as a lesbian lady, to realize that a girl who loves your love doesn’t necessarily love you. Sometimes it’s malevolence on their part, sometimes it’s that you’re not even speaking the same language because your heart and your body have a whole different vocabulary than girls who don’t like other girls. With Ali, I think it was both. Emily Fields is probably the only person on earth who ever loved Ali with the kind of love all human beings crave. Sometimes she reflected the song of Emily’s heart right back at her and other times she distorted Emily’s heartsong and played it back in a way that made her afraid and ashamed, like there was something unnaturally wrong with her deepest longings and desperate desires. And once Ali realized that’s the kind of thing that works on gay teenagers, she recorded Paige’s heartsong for Emily and did the same exact thing to her.

When Emily let go of Ali, she let go of all the shame Ali had hexed her with over the years. She came out, she loved Maya hard and real and out loud, she found a soul connection so deep with Paige that she started planning a future with her. She stopped apologizing for being. She looked inside herself with the light of Maya’s affection and her mother’s acceptance and her father’s protection and Paige’s adoration and Samara’s lust and the other Liars’ loyalty and she realized there was nothing to be afraid of. Ali’s resurrection fucks up Emily so bad because, yeah, she loved that girl, but also she can feel the creeping, crawling, strangling shame sneaking its way back up on her and wrapping its disgusting, grimy fingers around her perfect, perfect neck. It doesn’t just make her remember the person she used to be; it makes her feel like the person she used to be, back before she realized it wasn’t darkness that made her different. The light of her heart shined in a whole other direction, but it was still light. It was beautiful.

She loved Ali. Ali loved her love. Emily gave and Ali took, and when Emily asked for anything in return, Ali called her a freak for giving in the first place. For wanting.

What a funny thing to try to shake this storyline down into some kind of shipping war when what we’re talking about is is the subtle shading of a courageous soul. Emily’s mad. Hella mad. And scared and heartbroken all over again too.

Anyway, Emily tells Alison to slither right back out her window – “I always liked Beyonce the correct amount, bitch!” – and then her alarm clock goes off and she doesn’t know if it was real or if it was just a dream.

Also living in a dream world is Hanna, who tells her mom that everything’s hunky-dory, thank you very much, and she doesn’t need any time off of school or life or whatever just because her true love left her to live in the basement of a desaturated funeral home with an angry seer and a phantom mistress.

Spencer – who, note, is wearing a jacket-cape that looks like if Sherlock Holmes and Olivia Pope opened up a store in Diagon Alley – stops by Toby’s loft to deliver some coffee and the news that she thinks he should not get into cahoots with her father. It’s not just that he spends 50 out of 52 weeks a year in Out of Town or that he one time let his oldest daughter date his oldest son. It’s that he’s definitely up to something, as is the Hastings way, and she can’t figure out what it is. Toby says he needs to shut down Radley, so Spencer shuts him down by making out with his face. Also, she presses her thumb into his chin dimple, which really made me swoon, because that’s the way actual people in love touch each other, all sweet and silly and in ways no one else is allowed to think about.

At school, Ezra peeps Emily walking around with Ali’s journal and his eyeballs bug out of his skull. I really like the way this Ezra stuff is filmed: It makes him seem like a shadow person and it ups the intensity factor big time because it’s like, how long have the Liars been boxed in by his glare? Is Mona watching him watch the Liars, or did he watch Mona watch them? It’s all very “The call is coming from inside the house!” It’s one of the smartest things PLL has ever done and I hope to goodness they keep him evil like this.

The Liars’ morning roundtable is way more intense than usual. Emily has started a color-coding system to help them decipher which one of them is the subject of every story in Ali’s diary. Emily also mentions that Ali doesn’t seem to have a hard line on how she feels about any of them. Once second she’s writing about how Emily would rob a bank for her and the next second she’s saying she admires Emily’s loyalty to her friends. Hanna drops the bomb that she and Caleb broke up but tries to play it breezy before snatching the diary from Emily and saying Spencer should probably go next. It seems like she’s trying to protect Aria from something, which is at least 75-percent true. They are able to decode a poem about a B&B called “The Busy Bee” that is, no joke, in Homocideville. (Just kidding: Killingworth.) Ali was apparently using it as a hideout and since it has been shut down and, they decide to ride on out there tonight to do some investigating.

The whole time they’re plotting, Ezra just stands there rubbernecking and scowling, but he makes it back to his classroom in time for a little visit from Aria. She cancels plans with him to do recon with her girls and he goes, “All four of you, then? Together, alone, in the dark?” He drums his fingers together under his chin. “Excellent.” Aria wants to know what he’s working on and he explains it’s a short story that he hasn’t yet written an ending to. Will five girls die or only the one? He simply cannot decide. They lock pinkies. He gives her a lollipop. Once she peaces, he pops in his earbuds and watches some videos of Alison begging not to be murdered.

At The Brew, Emily finds a note from Ali hidden in her backpack. She wants to meet up at their spot to talk, so Emily bounces in a second and puts on her old friendship bracelet and hikes on out to the kissing rock to wait. And wait. And wait, while the Digital Daggers sing about hushing it up and surrendering. Ali and Emily’s initials are still painted on the rock, like an altar, and that’s exactly how Emily uses it. She used to offer her prayers here, but Sunday School teachers can only make the story of Noah’s arc sound like a cuddly animal adventure so long before you start to peel back the layers and wonder why you worship a god whose vengeance drowned the whole world. Emily takes off her bracelet and leaves it there on that rock, a final sacrifice.

Spencer goes home and does some sock ballet in her wizardwear a little while before calling her dad for the one millionth time and asking his assistant to please ask him to call Toby. But then! She hears some whispering in the kitchen, which is weird because the fabric of time would be ripped in half if both of her parents were in this house at the same time. Alas, it is not her mother at all. It is Jessica DiLaurentis explaining to Peter that Jason doesn’t need to know something-something-whisper-something. Spencer wants to know what Jason doesn’t need to know because knowing what other people don’t need to know is fuel of her soul. Jessica says it’s about how she and Mr. D are getting a divorce, but Spencer does not believe that, so she tracks that lady down at The Brew and just goes full banshee about how she’d BETTER STOP SLUTTING IT UP IN THE HASTINGS KITCHEN IF SHE KNOWS WHAT’S GOOD FOR HER. Mrs. D sashays out of there like, “I have never!” And this random girl reading (hilariously) Confessions of a Hater looks up from her coffee like, “Jeeeeezus, lady.”

Also in the coffee shop today is Hanna, who spends a couple of minutes staring hopefully at some pastries until Hoedown Travis turns up and offers to buy her some. She politely refuses because the Ali shame was strong with her one time too. But Travis is more than just empty calories – oh ho, yes. He’s got news about the whereabouts of Cece Drake. Get a load of this right here: Someone spotted her at a train station in Maryland but she slipped away because that girl is a professional assassin! No kidding around! Someone hired her to murder Wilden! Amazing. Absolutely amazing. The day she slayed that snake with that mannequin leg, I knew she was something special.

As the Liars head off into The Forbidden Forest to test their own mortality once more, Ezra Fitzgerald calls upon Mrs. Marin in her home, playing the teacher card for the first time in his life in a way that is somehow creepier than anything else he’s done. He weaves a duplicitous yarn about how he needs to start seeing Hanna a couple of hours a week to tutor her, but really he’s just there to rifle through her teenage girl things. He’s clearly hired someone to call Ashley and keep her busy talking about real estate stuff and as soon as she’s on the phone, Ezra tip-toes upstairs and dumps out Hanna’s purse and legit scoffs at the copy of The Tempest in there. Then he opens up her laptop which is of course not password protected and reads through all her junk at his leisure. By the time Ashley gets off the phone, he’s just sitting sweetly in a chair reading his own book. Ooooh, he’s makin’ my skin craaawwwwl.

On their road trip, the Liars try to talk about Ali’s journal while Hanna keeps cranking up the music, much to Emily’s furrowed-brow chagrin. Every time Hanna does it, she whips her head over there like, “… the fuck, Marin??” Spencer has the foresight to photograph the pages of the diary but then she gets car sick (just like Aria told her she would!) so she’s forced to hand over the book to Suzy Clueless who can’t even manage not to not roll her own eyeballs when Ali compliments her street style. Spencer tries to ask about a missing page in the diary but no one hears her over the sound of Hanna up there in the front seat going “JUST A SMALL TOWN GIRL, LIVING IN A LONELY WORLD, SHE TOOK THE HALLOWEEN TRAIN GOING AAAAANNNNYYYYWHERE.” Doesn’t matter anyway. They’re obviously going to die.

Yep, there it is. The GPS that was one time hacked by a talking doll that who sent Emily to her own death in barn – whoa. Whoa. WHOA. Wait a second. Ali told Emily she saved her life twice, right? The one time it was for sure her was when she pulled her from the fire at the Lost Woods Resort, right? She flew her plane on down into the carrot patch and carried all the Liars to safety. Was the second time when Emily got carbon monoxide poisoned in that barn when she was out looking for Dr. Ann and her brown Tory Burch boots? Was that real? And the making out afterwards? What the shit, ALISON.

What was I even talking about. That’s right. The GPS. So the GPS takes them off the road onto some little unpaved side path and then the BEAUTIFUL TOYOTA betrays us all and shuts itself down. Hanna texts Travis to come get them in his tow truck but because a tornado is about to swoop down and carry them all off to God knows where – Noel Kahn’s Rustic Hideaway for Endangered Bisexual Women of Color, probably – Aria decides they should just hike on up to Ezra’s cabin, the address of which is stored in Google Maps on her phone and the key of which is on her keychain. She says it’s her uncle’s place and these girls just follow her deeper into the forest like a bunch of dummies.

How many cabins do y’all have to be murdered in before you stop going to cabins? I mean, just off the top of my head, Hanna drowned Lucas at Spencer’s Nana’s cabin, they were nearly burned alive at that Lost Woods cabin, Paige was kidnapped and almost garrotted by Cousin Nate at a cabin, Emily had to stab a guy to death with his own pocket knife at a cabin, Emily gave her face to a strange man at a cabin, Jenna was almost murdered at Paige’s aunt’s cabin, Aria and Spencer were attacked by the windows and doors in Noel Kahn’s cabin. Enough effin’ cabins!

Inside Ezria’s Love ShAck, Aria freaks out any time anyone touches anything at all. It’s so weird Spencer has to be like, “Look, I’m rich. I’m not going to steal any of your uncle’s light bulbs.” One good thing is that Hanna finally comes clean about the missing diary page. It turns out she was the one Ali called The Cradle Robber because she made out with Mikey Montgomery one time. You know how Ali played it: Called her hefty, told her Aria was going to hate her if she ever found out, promised her she’d one day find someone to love her fat ass even if it took her longer than the other girls. You know, just sewing the seeds of shame that could destroy a soul. A regular old Tuesday in the life of Alison DiLaurentis.

Hanna cries her way through the story and then Aria goes, “Honey, for starters, I want to high five Mike because you are absolutely the hottest person he’s ever going to make out with. And also, do you seriously think I, of all people, am going to judge you for a little May/December sexual high jinks?” The Liars suggest that maybe what she’s really upset about is Caleb but she runs out the door talking about “phone service!” because if she starts crying about that, she might not stop. Emily chases her outside because she’s familiar with this scene and you may have heard it sometimes ends with her killing a guy.

Ezra arrives on the scene and locks Aria and Spencer in a closet and steal’s Ali’s diary and clomps around and makes howling ghost noises and jiggles the door handle and giggles about how scary he is. Next time he’ll put a sheet over his head and do it like a ghost! Oh, or no! Maybe a paper bag! He’s already got two of those all drawn up and ready to go!

Aria and Spencer call for help out the window and Hanna and Emily arrive to save them – but as soon as they’re free from the laundry room, there’s a knock on the outside door. If you didn’t know this was a Norman Buckley-directed episode before now, you absolutely do when this happens:

Beeeeaaautiful.

Sadly it is Travis and not someone whose head they can bash in. He takes them home and then sits quietly with Hanna while she starts to fall apart about Caleb. Over at the Hastings’, Peter yells at Spencer about going after Mrs. D and makes the rookie mistake of telling Spencer she has to follow his rules if she lives under his roof. She just shakes her head and rolls her eyes and goes, “My boyfriend makes roofs for a living, FATHER.” Toby happy to have her there when she arrives with her suitcase. Who knows what costumes are in that wheeled bag and also she knows how to make flan.

At Emily’s, Aria calls to lie to Fitz about where she’s been and he pumps gas in his A outfit and lies right back to her.

Emily finally comes clean to Aria about her otherworldly visit from Alison’s seductive ghost, but they don’t have time to dig into it too deeply because A texts to say thanks for decoding Ali’s diary for him. Aria and Emily look at each other all, “Finders keepers, remember?” And they rush out the door and into the night because they seriously never, ever, ever learn their lessons.

The Risen Mitten sits at a school teacher’s desk, which you know because an apple is sitting right there on top of it, and hacks into the BEAUTIFUL TOYOTA’s GPS to restore the factory settings. Too far, dillhole!

How about showing some love to my screencapping partner, @margaretrosey, who made the time to make the pictures even though she’s on a very exciting trip right now. Hearts for you for always, Maggie!

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

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button