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“Pretty Little Liars” recap (5.15): Give it Up, You’re All Going to Hollis

Welcome to the recap of Pretty Little Liars, where Emily Fields finally discovers that “A” is in fact a plate of poorly made empanadas. SPOILER ALERT!

We open in Litchfield, where Officer Toby visits Ali in jail. She demands that the Liars need to see her or at least return her calls. She also says that Spencer needs to “cut this embargo crap,” which is verbatim what Raul Castro said to President Obama. I love it when this show gets political.

Ali tells Toby that he has to remember how much it sucks to be unjustly imprisoned, despite she herself being the one who imprisoned him. Karma is a bitch, but not as big a bitch as Flashback Ali. Ali says that the Liars will be in jail next, or worse, dead!

The Liars convene at school to discuss who could have set off the Fireworks of Death, and Aria thinks it’s Holbrook. Toby tells them that Holbrook was off this week taking care of his sick dad, and everyone wants him to snoop around for the real deets. Spencer tells her friends to back the fuck off, because Toby’s been a cop for five whole days and he probably shouldn’t be breaking all those cop rules.

Hanna got accepted to Ballard College, so she’s going this weekend for a tour. Spencer asks her how many colleges she got into. Damn, judgy Spencer is judgy. All this college talk is giving Aria the sweats, as she’s been rejected from everywhere so far and will have to become a beauty school dropout like Frenchie from Grease.

The Liars are worried that Holbrook is Wilden 2.0, but Hanna assures them that he’s better because Holbrook didn’t bang her mom, he just made out with Hanna a little bit. Everyone is like, “Gross,” even Aria who has never not been dating a grown ass man.

Aria goes to pottery class with the hopes of building herself a Vase of Shame that she can live in after every college on Earth rejects her. Ezra is panicking about the opening of the coffee shop/bookstore thing and Emily is annoyed because she wants a raise. Emily is desperately trying to scrape together enough money to fly to see Paige over spring break. It’s a nice turn of events to see Emily chase after Paige, as it’s usually the other way around.

Long distance relationships categorically suck, and anyone who tells you any different is full of shit/owns a teleporter. No amount of skyping, texting, or carrier pigeons can replicate holding someone’s hand, cuddling, or real life sex-having. Being in a relationship means sharing your life with someone, and that’s nearly impossible when said someone is in a different time zone.

Emily says that Paige didn’t even notice when she said she might be going to a liberal arts college in Oregon, aka Lesbian University.

Aria doesn’t have time for Emily’s lezzie drama, because she is having a full tilt meltdown about her college rejections. Her back-up school Talmadge wait-listed her, and her hair is falling out from stress. Knowing Aria, she’ll probably use that hair to make hideous accessories. Lemons into lemonade, y’all. Emily tells her to write a personal letter to Talmadge begging to be let in, which is the most Emily advice ever.

Meanwhile, Ashley Marin and Jason are going through Mrs. DiLaurentis’s paperwork. Jason is taking over the family business…which is what again? Ashley wants to quit, but Jason begs her to stay on because he’s too pretty to do math or something like that.

Officer Toby is doing very important police work by searching Mona’s backyard for clues. He immediately stumbles upon a bloody knife, and instead of being a cop he buries it in some leaves and ignores it. WAY TO COP, TOBY. He tells Caleb and Spencer that the knife was stolen from his house, and Caleb remembers the knife from that one time he played with Toby’s toys or whatever. They realize it’s another “A” frame job, and squabble about what to do with it.

Caleb and Spencer want to destroy the knife because they’re certain it’s a plant, but Toby thinks it might have Ali’s finger prints on it, thus locking her away for good. Toby is caught between doing the right thing and covering his friends’ asses. They make a pact to do nothing, which seems like an across the board bad idea.

Over at the New Brew, Aria is helping get everything ready for the launch party when she chats with Artsy Guy over the lettering on a shelf.

Ezra’s caterer quits on him, probably because no one can make so many cakes in such a short time frame. Emily volunteers take over the catering job, despite having no cooking experience and being a high school student. Ezra is like, “Did you even take Home Ec?” and Emily is all, “Maw, I don’t do classes, I mostly get terrorized in the school at night. Y’all like empanadas?”

At the office, Ali calls collect to talk to Jason. Ashley answers the phone, but Jason refuses to talk to her. It’s awkward.

Hanna is touring Ballard College with a nerdy tour guide when Caleb calls to tell her about the knife. Hanna tells Caleb to bring the knife to her so she can dig a hole with a beer mug and bury it behind a sorority house. Sidebar: I would love it if someone would make a chart or infographic ranking the Liars’ ideas from dumb to dumbest.

Emily is working on catering a party from scratch, despite barely being able to make a sandwich. Aria shows her the letter she wrote to Talmadge, and Emily tells her it needs to be more personal. Aria continues her meltdown and Ezra overhears her panic. He assures her that there’s a college out there that will accept someone who spent seven years in high school but never finished a single class. He also tells her that Talmadge is a burned bridge, as his crazy ex Jackie is now head of admissions.

Spencer storms into Caleb’s loft and acts all upset that he told Hanna about the knife. Girl, it’s season five: you should know by now that nobody can keep a secret on this show. Caleb tells her he can’t get arrested, as he was previously brought in for some hacking-related murder that happened when he was living in the school air vents. They can agree on one dumb idea though: they gotta get their hands on that murder weapon!

We then get a mini-montage of Aria re-writing her Talmadge letter and Emily peeling grapes by hand. It’s supposed to sad, but I could not stop laughing at Emily fucking up those grapes. What is she even doing?

Things Emily Fields Cannot Do:

  1. Look anything less than flawless
  2. Speak French
  3. Cook to save her life

In exasperation, she throws a wad of dough at the wall. Ezra sees her panicking, but she assures him she’s got it. SPOILER ALERT: She don’t got it. Looks like someone’s gonna be making a last-minute trip to Boston Market.

Hanna has ditched her college tour to go visit a creepy old trailer park to stalk Holbrook’s father. She finds beer cans, shotgun shells, and an old bearded weirdo carving up a dead deer carcass. She meets Old Man Holbrook, who is wearing a stained ribbed tank, aka the dirtbag uniform (aka what I’m wearing while writing this recap). He tells her he hasn’t seen Holbrook in weeks and thinks she’s Ali.

Hanna leaves the trailer park of death to find that her car has been broken into. Someone filled her Ballard College bulldog with deer guts and they spill all over her shoes. She seems grossed out, but after the cow brain in the locker, it’ll take more than that to faze these girls.

Spencer and Caleb go into the woods to find the cow as white as snow, the cape as red as blood, and the knife as incriminating as a video tape of their previous conversation. They find the knife, wrap it in a towel, and take it to Meryl Streep to reverse the curse.

Aria brings Emily her new and improved Talmadge letter, which consists of bashing Ezra and blaming their relationship for all her problems. Emily tells her this will obviously get back to Ezra and break his heart parts, but Aria is too consumed by Talmadge fever to give a shit. Meanwhile, Paige hasn’t texted Emily back, and Emily only got three hours of sleep before she has to stuff all the empanadas in the world.

Emily rushes into the New Brew to find Ezra chatting up Talia, a caterer who knows how to cook/is not a minor. Emily asks Ezra for a raise, and when he blows her off she storms into the kitchen to furiously make empanadas. Then, Talia disses Emily’s empanada filling and I fully expected Emily to slap her in the face Leona Vanderwaal-style.

Emily says, “If I wanted dough advice, I’d ask my mom!”

  1. Emily cannot do snappy comebacks.

Caleb tells Spencer that he tried to throw the knife into the lake but he couldn’t do it. I assume it’s because the lake is already filled to the brim with broken masks of Melissa Hastings’ face. They come up with the brilliant idea of burning the knife in the pottery kiln at school, which proves that neither of them understand the mechanics of a pottery kiln.

While Caleb tries to figure out how to bake the knife into the world’s largest ashtray, Spencer hears scuttling in the halls and goes to investigate. As soon as she leaves, Caleb gets himself locked in the kiln and starts cooking like a rotisserie chicken.

Aria goes to Talmadge to try to undo her crazy letter, but Jackie has already read it. And LOVED IT. She promises Aria she won’t share it with Ezra, and all but assures her an acceptance letter.

Spencer finally finds Caleb and rescues him from the Oven of Death. The knife is gone, because of course it is.

Hanna visits Ali in jail and tells her she knows about Holbrook. She begs Ali not to fight anymore, but Ali says that is she were “A”, why would she allow herself to get arrested? Girl has a point. She tells Hanna that “A” baited her to leave her house by setting up a fake meeting with Cyrus. Since Ali lied about Cyrus to the cops, she was forced to make up an alibi. Hanna seems to believe her, but refuses to give Ali the benefit of the doubt.

It’s the opening party of Ezra’s Books n’ Cookies, the social event of the season! Spencer shows up wearing the biggest belt on Earth and Emily is jamming her empanadas down every throat she sees. She even yells at Spencer to eat around the hair, which is disgusting/hilarious. Artsy Lesbian Man tells Spencer he’s moving into the Hastings barn, and she’s all, “Best of luck of in your new studio/crime scene.”

Talia tries to help salvage Emily’s empanadas while Emily has a meltdown over her relationship with Paige. I sympathize, as I have a total lesbian meltdown any time I try to cook something that doesn’t come in a box.

Talia saves the day and gives Emily a shoulder to cry on. Will this be Emily’s chance for an age-inappropriate love affair? JK, she already got Samara. Either way, Talia is hired as the bookstore chef (OK) so we’ll be seeing more of her in the future.

Jason stops by the Marin house to drop off some paperwork and reveals that he’s been living in a hotel. Ashley invites him in for dinner and the two start making out. Get some, Ms. Marin!

Aria gets a text acceptance from Talmadge but feels guilty when Ezra introduces her to a Vassar professor. Toby shows up and fights with Spencer about lying to his face in stealing the knife. Now that he’s a cop, he can’t just turn a blind eye to her constant law-breaking.

Hold the phone, didn’t Toby join the police force with the express interest of finding out who killed his mom? I thought he only joined to get access to police stuff. Slow your roll, Officer Toby!

After the party, Aria finds a college guidebook with a bookmark on the Talmadge page. On the bookmark is an excerpt from her Ezra letter. Between this and the deer guts bulldog, “A” is awfully crafty. His/her scrapbooking skills must be off the chain.

Hanna comes home just in time to see Jason do the walk of shame out of Ashley’s bedroom. AWKward.

Back at Litchfield, Ali gets her freshly laundered jumpsuit with a note in the pocket. Apparently the Liars will soon be joining her in prison. You know what that means? SLUMBER PARTY!

If you had to share a prison cell with one of the Liars, who would you choose? Tweet me @chelseaprocrast

Also, massive thanks to Nicole (@PLLBigA) for her stellar screencapping. She is the Talia to my Emily Fields.

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