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“Pretty Little Liars” recap 2.13: The VIP Tour to Neverland

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, nothing! This is it! The genesis! The First Secret!

Once upon a time, Alison DiLaurentis was alive. And sometimes, when she wasn’t being a perfect asshat to her peers, she would stop by Hefty Hanna’s house to torture the children Hanna was babysitting by hacking up innocent vegetables right in front of them like some kind of Ian Thomas and telling stories about twin sisters murdering each other because of Barbies. The best part about this particular “horror” “story” is the dad’s face when he walks in to find that one of his twins has literally stabbed the other twin in the heart. The mom kind of faints, but the dad’s face is just like, “… seriously?”

And the homicidal twin’s face is like, “Duh.”

Rosewood, PA. October 2008. There are a couple of things we need to address right away. For starters, Alison DiLaurentis was apparently a game-jammer. All game was lost within a 100-foot radius of her person. The Liars are barely recognizable. They’re all so wide-eyed and timid and uncorrupted. It’s gross. And the second thing we need to address is Spencer’s glasses. Spencer’s glasses. My guess is that some point between then and now, she corrected her vision with the power of her mind – but those glasses! Can’t they come out to play in the present day?!

Alison takes a poll to see which Britney Spears costume Hanna should wear for Halloween. The Liars are all like, “She should be who she wants to be, obviously.” And Alison goes, “That is the exact opposite of my life philosophy.” They’re saved from a squabble by Noel Kahn, who pulls up in his convertible talking about, “Get in, loser, we’re going shopping.” He molests Aria with his eyes, invites Ali’s hangers-on to his Halloween party, and then I’m pretty sure Alison tells him to go f–k a sheep. Ben texts Emily, and since she hasn’t yet learned: a) that she’s a full-on lezzorama, and b) to flinch at the sound of incoming text messages, she grins and says he wants her to go as a sexy cop for Halloween, but she’s going as an Indian girl instead.

The Liars are like, “SQUEE! WE GOT INVITED TO A PARTY!” Now, Alison may be a bitch, but she is so correct when she goes, “You guys are an embarrassment. Stop.”

There’s a house in Rosewood that we’ve never seen, and it is haunted. More than regular, I mean. Also, there is a Radley Sanitarium car from like the ’60s parked out front, which is hilarious on about seven different levels. Emily’s like, “There’s somebody in that house!” And Spencer goes, “People go in that house all the time around Halloween. It’s a rite of passage in this town. Like getting murdered.” The hilarious thing about Spencer’s apathy is that in three years, she’ll spend every waking hour standing outside the DiLaurentis place howling like a werewolf on a full-moon about, “There’s somebody in that house! There’s somebody in that house! There’s somebody in that hoooooouuuuuse!”

Emily spots Toby unloading a moving truck, so she hops over to say hello, because Emily is the sweetest one in 2011 just like she was the sweetest one in 2008. Emily goes, “What’s in the boxes?” And Toby’s like, “Robot parts and snow globes, mostly. A couple of books about incest. It’s my new step-sister’s stuff.”

Over at Party City, Ali is shopping for a Halloween costume when Noel Kahn Apparates onto the scene and tries to murder her. As a joke. She’s like, “Man, that’s my favorite joke. Lily Kane probably loved that one too. Let’s do it some more.” Also shopping for a Halloween costume is Jenna, pre-bot. On Twitter last night, everyone’s reaction to this JennaBot reveal was incredible: “HER EYES! HER EYES! HER … Oh, my God – her eyes.” And you’re right: Tammin Sursok is kind of a goddess. Also, she had a pop career in her homeland of Australia. (No, really. Click on that link. I’ll wait.) (Now, tell me you’re not dying to see a musical episode of Pretty Little Liars.)

Right before she leaves the store, Ali gets a text talking about “I’m watching you!” And then the first giant baby burlap zombie of the night makes its appearance. In her face.

Alison is preening for Ian’s brand new HD video camera. He’s like, “You look different fully clothed without your bedroom curtains in the way.” She takes the camera from him, just like the night she was murdered a hundred times, and is all up in his nut about liking what she sees. He blushes a little, and then Melissa screeches into the room, punching Ali in the tit and hissing the Hastings family motto, Ex igne ultio (From the hockey stick, vengeance!).

At Hollis College, Ezra is wearing a hoodie and reciting some of his original poems to a buddy. The buddy looks bored. Aria zooms through and smashes into him and later when she’s lying in bed, she’ll realize she’s got a tingly feeling in her left arm. She’ll wonder if it’s an anxiety attack due to her dad being the worst person on earth, but really it’ll be the lesbian haiku dust that brushed up against her bare skin when she touched Ezra’s Moleskine (not a euphemism). She’ll spend the next three years seeking to recreate the lesbian haiku dust sensation, and one day she’ll find it – in the boy’s bathroom of a pub in the arms of that same gay lady, Mr. Ezra Fitz.

Byron’s mistress is in his office, and so Aria is like, “Why is your mistress in your office?” Byron does some Jedi mind tricks about, “This is not the mistress you are looking for.” And it works.

Hanna, of course, is watching scary movies by herself in the dark in her cupcake pajamas. She gets prank called, which scares her, but not as much as the scare she gets when the doorbell rings and Officer Snape is at her door with a very drunk Ashley Marin hanging on his arm. He’s like, “Mind if I come in and bone your mom? I did give her a ride, after all.” And Hanna kicks him in the nuts and tucks her mom into bed, whispering assurances that Tom Marin will prove himself even grosser than Byron Montgomery in the end. “And also, mom, I promise to vomit on Isabelle’s wedding dress. Sweet dreams.”

I still have no idea what office it is that Spencer is running for, but she’s got a whole booth set up with Spencer-face buttons, and posters plastered all over the wall with her head hovering over an American flag. I swear to God, I would hang one of those posters in my office.

The other Liars’ main worry, though, is that Ben is telling his buddies that he banged Emily. Aria jumps up from the table like a maniac, screeching, “WE WILL SHUT THIS THING DOWN RIGHT NOW! YOUR VIRTUE, EMILY! YOUR VIRTUE!” Emily, awesomely, is like, “Meh.” Immediately Hanna starts asking for blow job tips or whatever, and then Ali wanders up to declare Emily “Shy in the streets, sexy in the sheets,” which is the most G-rated interpretation of “Nasty Girl” I’ve ever heard. Somewhere, Ludacris is just rolling around giggling.

Oh, and also: Mona is a neeeeeerrrd. She tries to sit with the Liars at lunch, but is banished by Ali to the yearbook table. Later Mona literally chases Ali and Aria down the street, shouting, “Hey, guys! You guys! Aria! Alison!”

Remember in the pilot episode when Aria flashed back to her dad getting stupidly adulterous in a car parked in front of their house in the middle of the day, like he’s Don Draper or something? Well, that happens again, in real-time this time.

Alison goes home to write in her diary – “Met the new girl today at Party City. Nice eyeballs. Would look good in the head of one of my porcelain dolls” – but Jason busts up her reminiscing to deliver a package and threaten to kill her, which, according to flashbacks, happened at least twice a day for their whole DiLaurentis life. PLL editor Lois Blumenthal tweeted during the episode to say there are some clues in Alison’s room if you look hard enough, and those clues live riiiiiight here:

The package is a voodoo doll with a note that says, “It’s my turn to torture you.” Ali hides the note in an air conditioning vent in a secret compartment in the skull of a doll. Like you do.

The answer to the greatest PLL mystery of all is solved in this episode: Spencer makes her own clothes. While she’s doing just that, Ali drops by to explain that Melissa wants to see Spencer fail, which she’ll be doing pretty soon, actually, since Spencer is about to lose the ambiguous student election. Alison proves her soulless-ness because when Spencer starts to cry, Ali’s heart doesn’t shatter into one badrillion pieces. Instead, she starts speaking in Parseltongue about opening up the Chamber of Secrets and maimimg everyone who ran against Spencer in the election, so she’ll win by default. Spencer sniffles, “Yeah, OK. I mean, murdering innocent people sounds kind of mean, but I do want to win.” That a girl, Spence! Now drink a bucket of coffee and start killing like you mean it!

Frikkin’ Byron is just hanging out in Aria’s room, stroking her face in a photo album and practicing the speech he’s about to give. He goes, “I have destroyed our family, Aria. And now it is your responsibility to keep our family together by not telling anyone how I have destroyed our family.” She’s like, “I guess this’ll be the beginning of my daddy issues, then.” And Byron cries and I don’t feel sorry for him even a little bit. I mean, dude, you are married to Holly Marie Combs. Cheating on her makes you worse than … everyone.

Ali wants the deets on Emily’s night of passion with the werewolf Ben. Again, Emily’s like, “Meh.” And Alison, who has apparently never had sex with a teenage boy, goes, “Was it that bad?” Emily’s smirk is glorious. She’s like, “It didn’t happen.” And then she proves some more how she’s wiser than me and you and everyone combined. On the surface, she’s like, “We’ll do it eventually, so people can either talk about it now or talk about it later.” But on the inside, she’s like, “And if they think it now, that frees me up to: a) not shag a boy, while b) keeping it a secret that I do not want to shag boys.” Ali’s mouth says, “I can’t figure you out.” And Emily’s face says, “One way we could rectify that is by making out.”

At school, Lucas is wearing a pumpkin shirt that makes me love him a hundred times more than even when he was wearing those MUDDY SHOES. He accidentally spills some coffee on Ali’s feet, which he tries to lick clean while apologizing, but Ali retaliates with that story that he’s a hermaphrodite.

The principal announces that Spencer won the election by two votes – and if anyone knows how to coax that Basilisk back into the toilets in the girl’s bathroom, could someone please let him know?

The Liars are getting Halloween-ed up in Spencer’s bedroom when Spencer glances out the window to see one of those ubiquitous burlap baby zombies in the yard. She’s like, “What the actual f–k, man?!” And Ali’s like, “Oh, girl. If you can’t handle a zombie peeping on you, you’ll never make it in this town.” Aria tries to skip out on the party due to the deep depression she’s spiraling into, but Ali threatens to make her life even more miserable if she doesn’t cheer up and come with them. She’s like one of those parents who go, “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!” Aria doesn’t need another thing to cry about, so she agrees to come to Noel’s dumb party.

Three really great things happen at the dumb party, though: 1) Spencer launches into a diatribe about Mary Queen of Scots, whom she’s channeling this year, red wig and all. 2) Jenna completely ignored Ali’s warning and came to the party as Lady Gaga too, causing the Liars to shriek, “Another Lady Gaga?!?!?! But she’s so obscure!!!!” 3) While dancing with Ben, Emily the Virgin swipes her eye-f–king V-card with Jenna.

You guys. Listen to me. Before Alison accused Emily of liking Beyonce too much. Before Maya almost got poisoned to death by Pam. Before Paige tried to drown her. Before Samara tried to bore her to death. Before Quin’s face made us all want to die. Before she ran the game, Emily Fields eye-banged Jenna Marshall! JENNABOT, YOU GUYS! JENNABOT.

Alison ruins the whole thing by slithering up behind Emily and going, “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me, lessssssbiiiiiiiaaaaaan.” (And then she goes on to throw a rocket at Jenna’s head so she and Emily can’t look at each other anymore.)

When she realizes she can’t have all the attention to herself at the party, Ali pouts her way over to that one haunted house in Rosewood and texts the Liars, “I’m in trouble. Come alone.” And, I mean, right from the beginning these guys just go wandering off into a slasher flick by themselves. Ali didn’t even need to tell them to come alone. Of course they were going to come alone.

Anyway, they creep around the haunted house for like an hour by themselves, and then Ali locks them in a room and makes them watch her get roughed up by a burlap baby zombie. They scream and wail and gnash their teeth and fall to the floor and rend their garments and pull at their hair and cry and shout and plead – and try to call 9-1-1, but there’s no signal in that haunted house, obviously. They’re pretty sure Ali is dead (You’re not that lucky yet, girls!), but they find her sitting in a rocking chair smirking about how she can really trust them now. It was just a hoax, see. A loyalty test. It was Noel Kahn who was beating the shit out of her.

Back at the party, Noel Kahn is like, “Sorry I didn’t show up to beat the shit out of you.” Ali goes, “Uh, you did beat the shit out of me.” And Noel’s like, “Dude, if someone beat the shit out of you, it wasn’t me. Must have been a different burlap baby zombie.”

The Liars are like, “Wha? Who? How? Wha?” And just then, Alison gets a text: “Dying to know who I am? You’ll find out. – A”

The music does the Risen Mitten thing and Ali looks around into the night, where one hundred gazillion burlap baby zombies are staring back at her.

And now, the greatest part of Halloween – your #BooRadleyVanCullen tweets!

Now, if you didn’t get to see the winter premiere trailer after last night’s Halloween special – treat yourself!

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