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“Pretty Little Liars” recap (2.01): I Spy a Zombie

You know how sometimes you run into your ex at a party and at first it’s like, “Oh, hey, I didn’t know you were going to be here. Cute scarf” or whatever, and then it’s like, “Inside joke about the last time we had Jägerbombs together” and then it’s eye-f–king across the room and then she’s back at your place and it totally doesn’t matter that tomorrow your friends are going to be like, “What the actual hell were you thinking? That girl was up, that girl was down, that girl made you crazy, that girl was crazy,” because your brain has gone blind in a dopamine-fueled haze of ecstasy?

That’s how the second season premiere of Pretty Little Liars made me feel. Like, “When I remembered to remember you, it was never this good, but Jiminy Cricket, how I missed you, you crazy, crazy bitch.”

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, one girl got herself axe murdered. One girl came out of the closet as a raging homosexual. One girl stocked her closet with every classic literature costume you can think of. But, like, every classic literature costume as designed by Lady Gaga. Like if The Great Gatsby happened on the planet Zoltar in 3014. One girl learned the hard way what happens when you lose your virginity to a vagabond. And one girl got into the most lesbian relationship imaginable with her Gilbert Blythe doppelganger of a literature teacher.

Actually, oh my God, I just realized something. Not to give JennaBot any ideas, but if you put all four Liars in a blender and then poured them into a Human Bean mold, you would literally have the perfect lesbian. Think about it. Spencer’s wardrobe, Emily’s swerve, Hannah’s intuition and Aria’s industrial strength micro-emotion-processor. It’d be like if Ellen got bitten by one of those radioactive spiders that turned Peter Parker.

Anyway, we pick up right where we left off, in the parking lot of Rosewood Presbyterian Church. The Liars are trying to figure out if zombies are an actual thing when lace aficionado/JennaBot-lover Officer Garret comes over, all, “Remember how you called the cops and told them Ian was trying to murder Spencer, but then a winged vigilante swooped in and murdered Ian, and then Ian’s body went missing? Yeah, you’re gonna have to come on down to the station and explain that shit to the chief.”

On the way to the station, he pulls into an ally and gets sinister about how they can’t tell the cops about their treasure trove of compromising videos, especially the ones where JennaBot is making incest with Toby. Hanna’s like, “Don’t even worry about it, those things are stored safely on a flash drive in a spaghetti noodle box in a cupboard in my kitchen.”

The girls spend the night cuddled together in Spencer’s bedroom like a basket of kittens.

When they make their way down to the kitchen for coffee – Spencer gaying it up in a hoodie and flannel pajama pants – the Liars’ parents are standing around trying to look authoritative. I mean, God love them, but they all need a solid month in a Lorelai Gilmore-sanctioned boot camp. A visible shiver passes through the Liars as their parents start explaining how they need to go see a therapist because their collective craziness has reached nuclear proportions. Spencer’s like, “Just to clarify, you do believe me when I say Ian’s attempted murder of me resulted in his own personal murder, right?” The parents look all sketchy out of the corners of their eyes and scuff their toes on the carpet and Spencer’s like, “Right. Good to know.”

There’s a knock at the door and Toby’s gorgeously bizarre-shaped melon comes poking in like, “Hi, guys! Is Spencer home?” Mr. Hastings kicks him out, and that is just the last straw for Spencer. Not believing her when she explained how her brother-in-law murdered her best friend is bad enough, but not letting her ex-con/vampire boyfriend in the house? INEXCUSABLE! The Liars bounce up the stairs in solidarity and disgust, Emily murmuring about, “I feel ya, girl. Remember that time my mom found barely any pot in Maya’s backpack and next thing I knew she was cuddled up to Jesus in the woods at juvie camp?”

Meanwhile, The Jenna Thing is in the car with The Garret Thing talking about how The Jason Thing is living in the DiLaurentis house again for the first time since The Alison Thing was bludgeoned to death by The Ian Thing. She gropes him real good and hisses about how The Things can’t collide. It’s gross. Garret is the second grossest.

At school the next day, everyone’s whispering about “attention whores … liars … bitches … thieves.” Someone even drew a little hangman on the chalkboard with the word Liar underneath. Mr. Fitz arrives and erases it while staring a pointed stare of lesbian understanding at Aria: “I’ll be around to process this later if you need me.” And Aria stares back with: “Oh? I thought you’d be using up all your processing on your ex-fiance who is also your new co-worker.” And then Mr. Fitz stares back with: “I only have processes for you.” And then Aria’s stares back with: “Are you really trying to out-stare me? You have seen my eyes, have you not?”

Noel Kahn busts up into the classroom, late as usual, still working that half-smarmy/half-sexy/full-blown sinister thing like he belongs to an actual pack of wolves.

Out in the hallway, Mona scampers up to Hanna and pees in the floor a little bit because she’s always so excited to see her Best Friend. She shouts down some third-rate gossipers and then goes, “Would you look at Suzy Lipton’s ass in those skinny jeans. I heard she lost all that weight drinking breast milk.” Hanna’s face pulls a Hanna, and Mona is all, “You can buy breast milk on the internet, I heard, but really I was just throwing the word ‘breast’ out there to see how you’re feeling about them. Breasts, I mean. Boobs. Boobies. Actually, just for fun, would you like to touch mine?”

Hanna says she misses the way things used to be and Mona stares at her rack for a full ten seconds before she can bring herself to look away. I’m not even joking.

Spencer’s wearing a vintage Naomi Campbell floral print blouse. She hops on over to the Cavenaugh house and knocks on the door. Someone looks through the curtains for a while before opening the door, which is totally weird because the person who opens the door is JennaBot. So, like, either she really can see or her house really is haunted. Either way: terrifying. Spencer asks if Toby is home and Jenna sniffs the air and goes, “Hmm, smells like Hermione Granger and sounds like if my most erotic fantasies had a narrator. Must be Spencer Hastings.” Then she sets her stunners to “annihilate” and forces her off the porch.

What fresh horrors await Spencer at home? Oh, Melissa is out of the hospital refusing to believe that her husband is a homicidal, child-molesting psychopath. Also she refuses to believe he’s dead. Spencer exercises her usual amount of tact, screaming about, “IF I’M LYING, WHERE IS HE? WHERE IS HE? DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD-” Melissa interrupts to shout about how Ian’s coming back for her and then they’re going to take their satanic little fetus to a place where Spencer will never find them. “A dense forest, probably. Because my child, like my husband, will feast on malevolence and fresh deer carcases!”

Spencer’s mom is like, “Spencer, you’re really upsetting your sister with all these accusations of murder. Cool it or go to your bedroom.”

Emily’s at home inexplicably watching one of Ian’s TobyBot pornos. A realtor Apparates in and starts yammering on about how Emily will have to paint over her height chart on the wall before the new people move into her house and she moves off to Texas.

Lucas brings Caleb safely back to Rosewood. (So I guess it wasn’t them in the car that nearly killed Melissa and Spencer, after all.) Caleb visits Hanna and looks at her with his Bambi eyes and explains again that yes, he originally started dating her because he was JennaBot’s prostitute, but then he really fell for her and can’t she ever forgive him? Hanna is pitiful. She says no, which: Sure. But also: Don’t tell me she can’t spin this into some kind of Pretty Woman scenario in her mind. Her own mom spent half of last season hooking around to keep Hanna out of jail. It happens.

Caleb’s like, “OK, but I did give a letter to Mona to give to you. It explained about my undying sixteen-year-old affection. But I’ll go. If you ever need me, I’ll be in the air conditioning vent at the local library.”

Hanna takes her ass over to that one cafe in Rosewood and yells at Mona about Caleb’s letter. Mona’s like, “I did it to protect you because I love you! He hurt you and I wanted to keep you safe! My over-involved feelings are totally platonic! I meant what I said about how you can touch my tits!” Noel Kahn comes in dressed like a monochrome Dwight Scrhute and Hanna storms out.

And, I mean, in high school, I tried to run over my Best Friend’s boyfriend with my car. So I ain’t throwin’ no rocks at Mona.

Toby is hanging out at Emily’s house, waiting for Spencer. It’s lovely. They’re lovely together. I’m so glad this scene is happening. Toby rescues Emily’s height chart by tearing down the wall with his pocket knife, and then they have a really sweet conversation about how Emily is sorry she ever believed he was a murderer. He’s like, “It’s cool. I did trap you in the chemistry classroom and break a bunch of glass beakers and kidnap you and stuff your unconscious body in the backseat of my car.”

Emily says, “I always knew I was different. I got so good at hiding it. But you saw it.” And that’s so perfect. I love that this show continues to address Emily’s sexuality in such authentic, tender ways, even when they don’t have to. Even when it’s not imperative to the narrative. Toby says, “I saw the way you looked at Maya. You loved her.” And then he tells Emily they’re good together, as really great mates, and they’ll always be good together if she doesn’t push him away.

Great relationship. Real relationship. Four for you, Marlene King. You go, Marlene King.

Back at the Hastings House of Horrors, Spencer gets naked and every lesbian on earth blacks out for the rest of the episode. Melissa’s like, “Cute outfit, are you wearing it for Emily?” And then every lesbian who escaped the first black out blacks out. This scene is kind of dumb besides the nakedness. Melissa’s like, “Where is Ian? Tell me again.” And Spencer is like, “Dead. Like I’ve already said a gajillion times in the last 48 hours. Dead. Just f–king dead.” The whole point of the scene is that the devil in Melissa’s belly is gonna be called Taylor. Also the point is this:

Ezra is also walking around his apartment naked. What’s he been doing while Aria processes all alone without him? Crunches and push-ups, apparently.

Ezra explains about how he is in love with Aria even though he was still in love with his ex-fiance when they first met. (Dumb. You never tell a girl something like that. Lie, bro. Lie.) They don’t break up, but Aria doesn’t promise that they’ll stay together. On her way out of his apartment building, A texts a picture of the inside of his actual apartment. Which means she stole the key from under his welcome mat. Which means she’s probably been eating his leftover Chinese carryout and trolling around his website page, goofing on his profile, changing his interests from like “Keats” to “Beats … off.”

The Liars visit their new therapist, Annabeth Gish. The first visit is a bust. They creep around the truth and stare at each other and almost say something and then change their minds and say nothing at all. Annabeth Gish is like, “This is a safe place, girls.” Aria’s like, “That’s what I thought about my boyfriend’s apartment.” And Hanna’s like, “That’s what I thought about the parking lot of Camp Mona.” And Emily’s like, “That’s what I thought about the swimming pool at my school.” And Spencer’s like, “That’s what I thought about this fun house I went to one time that had messages written on the wall in blood. Not my smartest hour, actually.”

At their next session, they’ve decided to tell Annabeth Gish about A. But just when Emily’s getting ready to play her one of the videos, they spot Mr. Fitz’s framed degree on Annabeth Gish’s bookshelves. “We need to figure out what we want to say so we can communicate it more effectively,” Spencer lezzes. They run out of there like their heads are on fire, Hanna swiping the degree as they go.

For her noble efforts, Annabeth Gish gets stalked at night on the way to her – hold the phone, is that a BEAUTIFUL … Chevy? I’ll be damned. There’s a new product placer in town. Watch yourself, BEAUTIFUL TOYOTA.

Annabeth Gish calls the Liars’ parents and explains that the Liars are, professionally speaking, batshit crazy, and that they’re speaking some kind of twinsies language that makes it impossible for her to understand them. So the parents decide the Liars should start seeing Annabeth Gish separately. And also that the Liars should stop seeing each other, full stop.

It’s a smart move, story-wise. It puts the Liars under an extra kind of pressure, which opens up more ways to tell the same story, and it makes us root for them even more. It’s clever. It makes me really happy. It does not, however, make the Liars happy. Most unhappy of all is Spencer, who digs Melissa’s cell phone out of the couch cushions and finds a text from Ian. She sends an SOS to the other Liars and they all go running to … a Hufflepuff greenhouse? Where the hell are they? I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter. There’s a bunch of Mandrakes. Venemous Tentaculas. Devil’s Snare. It’s the middle of the night. I hope they don’t wake up Professor Sprout.

Spencer sends a message to Ian to see if he’s really Ian. Posing as Melissa, she asks what they’re planning to name their kid. He immediately texts back “Taylor.”

So it’s him. He’s alive. Or Spencer was wrong and zombies really can text.

Guess who’s looking to rent Emily’s house when she moves to Texas? The Risen Mitten. Actually, that’s a lie. The Risen Mitten is only pretending to want to rent Emily’s house so it can erase Ian’s videos off of Emily’s laptop.

The sinister music is sinister. The Risen Mitten is risen. The zombies walk, the werewolves howl, the questions remain unanswered: Who is A? What does s/he want? Is Ian really still alive? Will Emily run the field like a lezzer Lothario? Will Spencer fill her closet with even more hats? Will Hanna knock over a gas station to buy some new Chloe’s? Will Aria and Spencer take their Mystery Machine canoodling to a whole new level? Who will live? Who will die? Where does ABC Family pile the bodies?

Sing to me, A, my angel of mayhem. Answer my questions. Tell me more lies. I am, as always, your most faithful servant.

And now for the best part of the whole night: Your #BooRadleyVanCullenTweets!

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