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“Pretty Little Liars” recap (2.15) — Dysfunction Junction, What’s Your Function?

One of the best things about Pretty Little Liars is how it’s not just a show I watch on Monday night; it’s a whole Monday night experience. For starters, it takes me at least two hours to get through an episode because I am always pausing it to giggle and clap and watch Spencer’s face do the things it does in slow motion. Also, my roommate doesn’t watch it very often, which means she only knows the things I tell her, so when she’s watching it with me – like Monday night – she’s constantly interrupting to be like, “I thought you said there were werewolves.” “Where are the zombies?” “Is that blind Hitler robot not in tonight’s episode?” (“Yes. She’s in the limo. Maybe she is the limo.” “She’s a Transformer?” “Obviously. God. Pay attention.”)

But then when it’s over, I’m off to Twitter to read the always amazing #BooRadleyVanCullen tweets, and then the Twitters of the show’s creative team because it’s fun to watch the pros love a thing as much as the fans. Lately my favorite part of my post-PLL euphoria is Nia Peeples‘ tweets. Because she’s seeing the episodes for the first time, so she’s tweeting her reactions like a fan, but also she’s tweeting them like she’s actually Pam Fields. Like if Pam Fields has been kidnapped by A and is being held hostage in some attic in Texas with Dr. Sullivan and Mrs. Hastings and Coachprah, and every week “A” shows them a video of the various ways she’s getting homicidal on the Liars’ asses.

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, A’s cell phone fell out of his/her pocket when, in a grand show of cosmic comeuppance, Hanna hit him/her with a car.

Six seconds later this episode starts, which is awesome because usually everything ends like a deathtrap from Adam West‘s Batman, and then the next Monday the girls are all cuddly and shiny in Spencer’s bedroom talking about, “It sure was a good thing you had that shark repellent in your pocket, Aria!” Which: Obviously Aria would have shark repellent in her pocket; half the time her purse is an actual shark on a leash. She just tucks her lipstick and cell phone into his mouth and hoists him over her shoulder and calls it a regular accessory day.

Emily and Spencer want to talk about the various ways they can use A’s cellphone to destroy him/her. They’re both open to the idea of hacking it and/or beating A to death with it next time they coax him/her out of hiding. Aria, however, wants to debrief the awkwardness of the previous ten hours. She’s all, “OK, so then Ezra was like – you know that face he gets that’s like as cute as a baby panda mixed with a sheer terror of a kitten being chased by a wildebeest? He had that face, and he was wearing that vest we got last month when we drove to Philly. Not the midnight blue one, the black one. With that button-up I got him for his birthday. So then he told my dad -” But Emily has had it. She’s like, “Yeah, Aria. I came out to my parents too. It’s tough. My mom tried to poison my girlfriend. But in case you missed it, our archenemy just launched an intercontinental ballistic missile at my head and I still have l GLASS IN MY HAIR.”

Aria is dismayed over Emily’s outburst, of course; Ezra led her to believe that lesbians adore micro-processing, all hours of the day and night, in any kind of hellscape. They don’t have time to bicker, though, because A’s phone rings and it turns into a game of dodgeball, all four girls pelting each other with the phone as hard as they can. Just: “You answer it!” “No, you answer it!” And, like, at first I was all, “I am so sure. What is A going to say if they answer the phone?” But then I realized A probably keeps one of those voice manipulators in the car for just such an occasion. Probably s/he uses it to sing along with the radio. Like satanic autotune.

Spencer’s all, “We have to take this phone to Caleb so he can do his technology voodoo.” And Hanna is like, “No! I’m the only person on this show whose significant other has not been murdered at least one time!” They bicker for like half an hour, but Emily is just done. Finally, she’s like “F–k all y’all. I’ve got Caleb’s number from that time he helped me hack into Maya’s phone at Jesus Camp. I’ll call him my damn self.”

Unfortunately, Caleb doesn’t have time to do much technology voodoo. For one thing, he has to stop every ten minutes to make confused eyes at Hanna’s passive-aggressive eyes. And for another thing, A shuts down the phone during the file transfer. Caleb says words like “encrypted” and “corrupted” and Emily’s like, “Do it anyway or whatever. You’re going to die like everyone else and I’ve got to go wash my hair.”

The next morning, Aria sifts through the various livestock in her closet trying to decide how to best ornament herself. She decides on a tarantula. She strings it around her neck and wanders out into the hallway, where Bryon starts shrieking to high heaven. He’s like, “Nope!” And she’s like, “Since when do you care which poisonous animals I use to adorn myself?” And he’s like, “Since I found out you were keeping company with a velociraptor!” And she’s all, “You’re the one who made me watch Jurrassic Park!” Ella busts up in there, like, “Enough with the metaphors. Aria, you’re not allowed to have anything anymore. No friends, no freedom, no lesbian erotica. By which I mean: No more Ezra.”

Aria’s stomps her foot and says, “I thought you liked him!” And Ella stomps hers right back: “I sure did like him. I liked him a whole lot, Aria – until I found out he was boning my teenage daughter. You know who else people used to like? Stalin. And then he collectivized agriculture and killed ten billion Russians.”

Spencer stops by Toby’s house to tell him she can’t stop by his house. He’s like, “What else can’t we do? Makeout in this truck you bought me?” And she’s like, “Correct, we can’t do that either.” And then they do. Before they can even round first base, Garrett runs up and prostrates himself on the front porch and wails Jenna’s name: “Jenna, baby, let me in! It would have been OK without that third person!” Spencer and Toby’s faces both go, “THIRD PERSON?!” Toby is thinking, “My god, what kind of hellish threesomes have been happening under my very own roof?” And Spencer, like always, is thinking, “Incontrovertible proof that everyone in range of my hearing is A!”

Hanna and Caleb are at school trying to hack the data from A’s mobile phone. Caleb’s humming that T-Pain song about “she’ll be waitin’ on me nekkid, with one of my chains on” when Lucas wanders into the courtyard. Hanna’s like, “Lucas, why are you being sketchy all the way over there when you could come over here and be sketchy right in our faces?” 

Emily is making up a test from one of the times she missed school when she was recovering from being murdered, but she didn’t have really time to study last night because of the GLASS IN HER HAIR. Ella is like, “I’ll let you do a re-re-makeup test if you’ll clue me in on what other perverse activities Aria has been getting up to behind my back.” Emily’s like, “Look, Mrs. Montgomery, me and the other Liars made peace a long time ago with the way Aria strangles chickens with her bare hands and uses them as backpacks. She was a high-functioning sociopath before she strung that tarantula around her neck and she’ll be a high-functioning sociopath when she wears a live cobra as a belt tomorrow. Don’t try to understand her; just love her.”

Spencer is lying in wait outside Ella’s classroom ready to pounce on Emily like some kind of Hermione: “How did the makeup test go? Was it difficult for you? It wasn’t difficult for me. I was worried the essay on Atticus Fitch, about parents instilling a conscience in their children, but I think I made up for it in the one about perceptions of Boo Radley. Do you want to get together and go over our answers? Or break into Jason’s house and go through his shit?” Emily doesn’t have time to do either of those things because she’s got to go work at Rosewood’s Crisis Hotline. 

But first she tosses Spencer a bone and says Hanna will stop being an ass to her if she’ll let her use the Hastings Lake House for Caleb’s birthday party. Hanna has fond memories of doing it with Caleb there, after all. Spencer pulls the Spencer-est face. She goes, “That was my Nana’s couch.” Slow-mo time!

Under the guise of studying, Lucas is trying to get an invitation to Hanna’s pants party, but she’d rather plan Caleb’s surprise party. Lucas is even jumpier than normal. Jumpier than Spencer. And Spencer, as you know, is, on average, jumpier than a kangaroo on a pogo stick on a trampoline.

At Rosewood Crisis Intervention, Crisis Coach (CC) explains how they usually they get two kinds of calls. Either: a) Rosewood citizens are stuck Out Of Town and can’t find the portal home, so they just need some directions to the nearest warp zone. Or b) Someone is hunting down four teenage girls like prey and needs some advice about psychological warfare. Occasionally, though, this kid that sounds like Patrick Star from SpongeBob SquarePants calls in and wants to talk about muddy shoes and unrequited love and his personal demise. Like last night. CC reads one of Patrick Star’s transcripts, all, “I lost an ambiguous thing last night and botched up an ambiguous plan and will soon be killed to death by an ambiguous duo! Also, I can’t see my forehead!”

Emil goes, “Hang on. This call came in last night? While I was Hufflepuffing around with GLASS IN MY HAIR? Can we trace this call, or …” CC is all, “I’m not sure anonymity means what you think it means, Emily.”

(You guys, Emily looks so good in that plaid shirt I almost can’t deal with it.)

Byron toodles over to Ezbian’s apartment with a bottle of arsenic disguised as whiskey. Ezra is like, “Listen, man, I hooked up with your daughter before she was my student, and once I realized she was my student we did everything – and I mean everything – while wearing paper bag masks. And then I took a job at Hollis to make it right. I know you probably don’t believe me, but you are welcome to read every word in my Feelings Journals from this year. They will tell you all the truths in iambic pentameter.” He motions to the wall where his Feelings Journals live, and Byron goes, “That’s like seven hundred thousand Feelings Journals.” And Ezra is like, “I know, but my bookshelf will only hold one month’s worth at a time. The rest are in storage. You can read those too. I went through a haiku phase this spring, so when -” Byron cuts him off with a swift kick to the vagina, and Ezra limps back to his TV.

A perfect storm is brewing over at Rosewood High where Mona Vanderwaal, Noel Kahn, all four Liars, and Caleb almost collide, each bearing glorious news: After meeting at LegionOfDoom.com, Mona and Noel have forged a permanent unholy alliance, which they will be visiting upon Caleb’s surprise birthday party with all manner of grace and destruction; Caleb recovered a photo of A’s porcelain blackmail dolls; and Emily has the transcript of Lucas making ferret noise for a solid hour on the Crisis Hotline.

Byron, meanwhile, has ridden home in a cloud of his own huffiness – and by God, he’s calling the police! The police! And he’s gonna tell them about Aria and Ezra! Maybe that nice Officer Garrett can do something to help! Ella is like, “The hell you say! We are already living in Dysfunction Junction! The Rosewood Gazette has accused Aria of murder every day for the last two years. At this rate she’ll be lucky to get into junior college. No more scandals, you hear me?” He does hear her. And he (like me!) is equal parts turned on and terrified by Ella’s incandescent rage.

At Crisis Central, Lucas calls to chat some more about the ambiguously horrific thing he’s going to have to do.” CC motions for Spencer and Emily to pick up the phone. She covers the mouthpiece and goes, “It’s that anonymous classmate of yours who keeps making the vague threats. Pick up and see if you can figure out what his damage is.” Spencer and Emily’s eyeballs go, “LUCAS!” And then they rush to tell Hanna that her little Frodo Baggins is actually a Gollum.

Hanna’s like, “You guys, come on. Lucas may have hated Alison with every breath he took, he may have destroyed her shrine with a pick-ax, he may have been the burlap zombie that tortured her that one Halloween when Jenna had eyeballs and everyone was dressed like a burlap zombie. But he did not SHATTER GLASS IN EMILY’S HAIR.” She also points out that everyone, even the Liars themselves, wanted to strangle Alison every time she said a thing, so maybe just ease up on her wittle Hobbit, OK?

Speaking of Precioussssses, JennaBot has hailed herself a limousine and is on her way to some hospital pantry in Boston to procure herself some vision. Toby is sitting on the porch in that rocking chair he carved for Spencer watching her go when Garrett screeches onto the scene to Bella Swan like a goddamn champion. He wails and gnashes his teeth and rips his clothes in twain and dumps ashes on his head and flops around on the ground and beats his fists against the asphalt and kicks his feet like a motorboat and is the grossest. Toby’s like, “Sup?” And Garrett is like, “But she’s the love of my life!” And Toby’s like, “Loving a cylon always ends this way. You want to borrow my Battlestar Galactica DVDs? You can watch them while you wait for Jenna to get home from The Eyeball Factory.”

At the Hastings Lake House, Spencer and Hanna are doing some hijinks in the attic. Spencer is like, “Man, look at all this furniture that belonged to my beloved Nana. How revered she was. How devastated she would be to find a sperm stain on any of it.” Hanna’s all, “Oh Spencer, lol.” And then the food arrives and so does Lucas. He wanders into the attic and asks Spencer if she has any spare rifles or cannons lying around. She says she does not, which is, of course, a lie. Spencer carries napalm in her pocket. But she bounces out of there like her face is on fire.

Byron drags Ella and Aria to that one restaurant in Rosewood and is appalled to find that Ezra is there also. He’s like, “Fine! We will go somewhere else!” And Ella is like, “Um, there is no where else?” Aria and Ezra hold their hands up to the window, palm to palm, like you sometimes see with gorillas and their handlers at the zoo. Ezra breaths his hot breath onto the glass and draws a heart inside it and Aria bursts into tears and Byron is over there digging through the garbage looking for some chicken bones to gnaw on so he doesn’t have to eat in the same establishment as Mr. Fitz.

Because she’s Emily, Emily returns the transcript she stole from the Crisis Hotline. CC is there, of course. The only night CC ever had off was the night a hundred people killed Alison DiLaurentis. Emily’s like, “Here’s that thing I accidentally stole.” And CC is like, “No bigs. Happens all the time when your volunteer staff is comprised solely of criminals on probation.” The phone rings and Emily answers it and it’s Lucas of course, going, “Ambiguity some more!” Emily Spencers about, “Murderer! I KNEW IT!” And off she goes to save the day.

Back out on the streets of Rosewood, Byron has scraped together a sandwich of day-old bread and candy wrappers for Ella when a new love interest for Aria appears, bearing a cute little face and the name of Holden. Thinly veiled literary references being what they are on this show, I fully expect this guy to go full-on Caulfield by sunrise. Byron spots the love interest and, like the Biblical fathers of Genesis, offers to let him sleep with his daughter for the bargain price of zero dollars and misogynistic cents. 

Back at the party, Spencer is trying to convince Hanna to look at her Nana’s attic wallpaper and confirm that A’s porcelain dolls of destruction were actually sitting there at one time. Hanna’s like, “Dude. I get it. Caleb and I won’t do it against the wall in the attic. Can I get some space from your psychosis now, please?” Emily finds Lucas in the kitchen, tucking pieces of glass into Caleb’s birthday cake. She’s like, “Hanna loves the whole world, especially Hobbits, don’t kill anyone tonight, OK?”

Somehow Lucas hears her say, “Hanna wants you to row a boat with her into the middle of the Dementor’s mist. Do you think you can do that?” So he stuffs his pockets full of Honeyduke’s Best Chocolate and checks for his wand and takes Hanna right the hell out in the middle of the lake hoping to show her his Patronus of Love. And by “Patronus of Love” I mean “his penis.” The fog and Spencer’s voice in her head and the way Lucas keeps going, “Hanna! Hanna! Hanna! I have got to tell you something terrible!” start to freak Hanna out so she murders Lucas. Just pushes his ass right in the water and wallops him over the head and starts the long, slow swim toward home.

Emily and Spencer, meanwhile, are standing on the bank of the river screaming “EXPECTO PATRONUM!” at the top of their lungs. To no avail. Spencer can’t conjure her Patronus even when she pictures the 187 percent she scored on her last Calculus test and Emily can’t conjure her Patronus because she’s never even had a proper makeout session with any of her super hot girlfriends. Emily, as we know, is terrified of the water, so she runs inside to use her cell phone to call a lifeguard. While she’s away, Hanna huffs up onto the shore. Caleb is like, “This is the worst surprise party ever.” And Mona and Noah are like, “That’s because you didn’t just have skinny dipping sex like we did.” They are naked.

Someone, I don’t know who, goes, “Hey, wasn’t Lucas Hermaphrodite in that boat with you when you pushed off from shore?” And Hanna’s like, “Meh.” Caleb wraps her up in a towel and they all go inside to enjoy some cake and age-appropriate beverages. Out on Dementor Lake, A scoops Lucas’ Hobbit-y shoe out of the water and Lucas sinks to the bottom of the river and dies.

Ready for the best part of the episode? Click ahead!

Next week: Maya’s back, bitches!

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