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“Pretty Little Liars” recap (2.23) — The Jenna Thing’s New Eyeball Thing

Previously, all the Liars’ significant others were in Out Of Town because nearly all the Liars’ parents were home from Out Of Town, and this show’s supporting cast is way too huge for them to be able to budget everyone for every episode. So, it was – Ezra: New Orleans. Caleb: Montecito. Maya: Murdered and/or San Francisco. Alternately: Time-Traveling Wizard Vigilante. Toby Radley: Ninth circle of hell, apparently.

The Liars have a seat and a cup of coffee in an outdoor cafe so they can do their weekly expositing of the things that happened between last week’s cliffhanger and this we – Aria Gaultier Montgomery, are you seriously still wearing the dead girl’s coat? Take that thing off this instant! It’s like I think you’ve reached the tippy-top of fashion lunacy when you string an ice troll eyeball around your neck and call it a pendant, but no. Now this. The Lord.

Anyway, Duncan from last week is actually Duncan from last year. Or year before last year. I’m still a little confused about the timeline of this show. Which happens when the space-time continuum is constantly being ripped in half, I suppose. He met Vivian Darkbloom in a bookstore in Brookhaven and then he moved to Florida. Aria’s going to meet him in the courtyard at Rosewood High a little later on, a move the Liars deem “safe,” because if there’s one thing these girls know a lot about, it’s being “safe.”

Speaking of ice trolls, though, a chauffeured town car pulls up to the square and out strolls JennaBot and our baby Boo with a brand new haircut and a scowl like from the days when he was murdering Emily in the chemistry lab. The Liars are like, “Oh, man. She got some new eyeballs, didn’t she?”

Morning at Marin Mansion. Ashley and Hanna are fighting about why her mom won’t just go on down to the Verizon store and sleep with whatever clerk to procure Hanna a new iPhone. Ashley’s like, “I’m not opposed to doing that, Hanna, but first you need to tell me who it is that keeps killing you and all your friends.” Hanna tosses her diamond earrings in the blender and shoves her laptop in the dishwasher and smashes all the cash in her pockets into the garbage disposal and dumps a whole bottle of that elven-tear face moisturiser into a baking dish and crams it into the oven at 450 degrees. Then she storms out shouting, “So there!” Ashley just shakes her head and asks if Emily will let Hanna borrow her phone if she gets run over today, like usual.

You know why Hanna doesn’t have to worry about destroying her possessions? Because Mona Vanderwaal has got it handled. She’s already got Hanna a phone, conveniently billed to her own personal account, so that: a) She can monitor Hanna’s every call via parental notifications. b) She can monitor Hanna’s every move via GPS. And c) She can speak to Hanna at all hours of the day and night about nail polish, extortion, etc. What’s even better is that the Liars line up and hold out their hands while she doles out antibacterial hand gel and shouts commands at them. It’s like:

Theory one: Mona is “A.” After being bullied by Ali and the Liars, Mona decided to use Ali’s death to become the new Ali. Mona and the Liars. It has happened. Just look at them. (Plus: Computer hacking skills, blackmail skills, voice-changing skills, unlimited supply of money for building a lair.)

Emily gets a text from an anonymous number and for once it isn’t a treasure map leading to the decapitated head of her therapist, stuffed in a treasure chest, buried in Spencer’s backyard. It’s Maya. She says she’s safe and not to worry and also not to tell anyone that she texted. Emily sighs and thinks about how dating a werewolf was less dramatic than this.

Spencer spies Toby and tries to have a conversation with him without just bursting into tears, because she misses him so much and he looks hotter than ever and all that work to free himself from the robotic claws of his sister-lover were apparently for naught because he’s marching around like her minion again. He goes, “I can neither confirm nor deny your accusations, but I can tell you this: Jenna got one brand spanking new eyeball installed in her socket sprocket, so you’d better watch out.” JennaBot chooses that moment to smash her way through the door. Her sex appeal barometer rockets to “off the chart,” which can only mean Spencer is in the vicinity. So she hisses, “Sssssspencer.” Mona scampers by and picks Spencer up by the scruff of her neck and carries her off to safety.

Out in the courtyard, Duncan, like, grabs Aria by the neck and lifts her off the ground and goes, “If you really knew Vivian, you knew Vivian’s real name!” And Aria is like, “… Allison?” Duncan drops her back down onto the picnic table and Aria says, “Well, if that upsets you, you’re gonna lose your damn mind over this: Girl is dead.” Duncan rips his clothes and falls to his knees and lets out such a wail. And I just … I mean, you and I both know Rosewood, PA is surrounded by a force-field that keeps all Evil within the city limits, but I’m starting to suspect the force-field also repels media. OK, because when a gorgeous teenage girl goes missing and stays missing and then is found a year later buried in her own backyard? That’s like ’round the clock CNN stuff. And every time one of Ali’s old buddies returns to town, they are shocked – SHOCKED! – to find out she was murdered. And also, Dateline: To Catch a Predator should clearly set up an office in the town square. Maybe Out of Town doesn’t get news from Rosewood and Rosewood doesn’t get news from Out Of Town. Rosewood does have its own newspaper, but that thing is clearly run by Gossip Girl.

Once Duncan gets it together, he goes, “That day you said Alison was murdered? I saw her that day.” And Aria is like, “Of f–king course you did.”

The Liars walk down the sidewalk and debrief the fact that Alison met with everyone on earth the day she was murdered by everyone on earth. Emily straggles behind and kicks rocks and weighs her choices for making out: Drive to San Francisco and possibly get killed by the people who killed Maya, Drive to Paige’s house and possibly get drowned in the bathtub, track down boring ol’ Samara and possibly get murdered by that horrible Quinn. There’s a screech in the distance and the Liars look up to see Garrett just squealing his tires driving away from the Cavenaugh place.

A texts: “When you see smoke and fire, you will know that I have blown up another thing.”

Theory two: Melissa is “A.” She hates everyone, obviously, but she’s killed most of them (Ian, Alison) already. Now she just needs to get rid of Garrett, which she’ll do by framing him for burning down Jason’s house at the end of the episode. (Plus: Access to Hastings lake house; access to Smitty’s; ran like the wind when she found out her dad knew his gun was missing; heart is appalling dumpheap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable, mangled up in tangled up knots.)

There are like 20 fireman in the Cavenaugh’s backyard and apparently one of the things Toby learned while he was away was sign sign language because he does the official ASL sign for, “Four girls blew up my sister” over and over and over while the four girls who blew up his sister watch from the sidewalk.

At Wren Kingston General Hospital, Jenna and Toby wait to have her new eyeball checked out. She talks about how she wants Toby to help her fill her room with all the stuff from the Blind Girl Craft Fair so that when she finally takes off those damn sunglasses she can see for herself how talented she is at throwing ceramics. She says a lady did it in a movie once. Toby literally goes, “That lady was a mean old bitch.” And then, as if conjured by the phrase, Wren appears to check out Toby’s now cast-free arm and talk to him about how soft Spencer’s skin is under her t-shirt. Toby’s head actually explodes.

At school, Emily talks to Spencer about what a rough season it’s been for her, what with Maya coming and going at her leisure, and also both of her parents doing the same thing, and the ninja from the greenhouse, and getting gassed in that barn, and then making out with a ghost. Spencer agrees that times are tough for the two of them. Why, the only time her parents show up is when they’ve worked out a plan to simultaneously inflict the most emotional damage on her. She hasn’t decided yet if getting a new brother is a plus or a minus in the wins column. For some reason, he just wanders into the school courtyard at dusk and reminds them that he’s got another sack of Alison’s shit that Maya dropped off before leaving town.

Theory three: Maya is “A.” As a member of the Dark Legion of the Lesbian Sisterhood, she is sworn to do the bidding of their Imperial Sith, Quinn The Worst. Quinn murdered Alison for one time looking at Samara and torturing Emily and her friends has just been a bonus for the one time Emily also looked at Samara. (Plus: Maya has had access to all of Ali’s stuff, including journals and various headless dolls, since the pilot episode.

Ella stops by Ezra’s office. He’s just lounging on another piece of gorgeous furniture (as is his wont) reading through his notes about today’s feelings (also his wont) and wearing the most adorable tie/shirt/vesy combo (more wonts). Actually, that’s sort of Ezbian in a nutshell, isn’t it? If only he had some organic apples that he picked from himself from the lesbian co-op just up the road in Vermont. Ella goes, “Aria said you sometimes need to process your feelings more than once, so here I am.” He offers her an apple (there it is), but she declines. She just dropped by to say that while she’s not on board with him boning her teenage daughter, she’s not going to make a scene about it like her husband. And that’s it. That’s the thing they needed. Some common ground. Ezbian goes, “I’m drinking chocolate milk, Ella, the most non-threatening drink there is. And we both hate Byron. And I’m adorable with my coy half-smile. I think we should be friends.” She agrees, but can’t say so. As she’s leaving she goes, “Do you know of anyone who would want to use your relationship with Aria to hurt her her or you or me?” Ezra sighs: “There was someone once. Jackie Molina. But Aria and I dumped her dead body in a dumpster months ago. She was a mean old bitch.”

Rosewood High. Mona is multitasking: Chatting to Hanna about boy troubles, ordering some dynamite from Amazon.com on her phone, mentally inventorying her stockpile of body armor, and diagramming the best way to trap Jenna inside Jason’s house. It’s not just that Jenna stole Noel Kahn away; it’s also that Jenna is bonking her brother again and Mona cares about Spencer too much to let incest touch her life anymore than it already has. Mona’s like, “Don’t worry, I got this.” And Hanna believes her like we all believe her. Like we believe in the sun. Not only because we see it, but because by it, all things are seen.

Mona’s plan was to pretend to want to buy Toby’s pickup truck. I thought he abandoned that thing in Spencer’s yard weeks ago with all the letters she ever wrote to him and a bottle of his tears. Guess he got it back. And is now selling it. Anyway, he’s like, “Mona, I can’t say that I really know you, but what I do know about you is that when you hit someone with a car, you want to make it stick. That’s why you need a truck. I whittled the gun rack in the back all by myself.” Hanna peeks around the corner: “Yoo hoo, Mona! Oh, hi Toby. Got a sec?” He does not, in fact, got a sec. Hanna goes, “You broke Spencer’s heart!” And Toby goes, “You broke my sister’s face!” Fair enough.

Aria stops by Spencer’s, where she and Emily are going through another duffel bag of Alison’s mysteries, to let them know Duncan is going to fly her into the air in a plane made out of tin cans with a pilot’s license he got from a gumball machine when he was sixteen. Emily and Spencer both go, “Sounds safe” with no irony at all again, and get back to their spreadsheet: ShitAlisonHid.xls. When you add this bag of stuff to then seventy other bags of stuff, the music box count is 35 and the disembodied doll parts count is infinity. When Mrs. Hastings walks in and sees Jason sitting in her kitchen, she pulls a gun out of her pantsuit and blows his brains out.

Aria just gets on inside that plane with Duncan and fastens her seatbelt and folds her hands in her lap and waits for the flight attendants to come around with the pretzels and the peanuts. Oh, but wait. There are no flight attendants. Or pretzels or peanuts. Because Aria is in a toy airplane with a complete stranger whom she met outside a store with babydoll kidneys hanging in the window wearing the coat of the dead alter-ego of her dead best friend. OK. That’s what Aria is doing right now. It’s like the regular lack of self-preservation the Liars exhibit multiplied by a 30,000 foot parachute-less fall to the earth. “A” doesn’t need to torture Aria. Aria tortures Aria enough for everyone.

Once they’re far enough into the night sky to ensure that a plummet back to earth would certainly kill them both, Duncan forces Aria to fly the plane while her interrogates her about Ali’s death. He goes, “It may appear that I was unconcerned about Alison DiLaurentis’ welfare based on the following facts: After meeting with Alison on the day she died, I acknowledged to myself that she was acting even more squirrely than usual. Which makes sense since I used to fly her around in my airplane while she talked to me about getting stalked and tortured and also about how you write 100 pages a day in your diary. And yet, knowing all of these things as I did, I disappeared from her life for over a year and never even noticed her Facebook status was ‘dead.'” Aria’s just like, “Aww, she talked about me?” Duncan goes, “Yes. Also, I let flew her from Hilton Head to Rosewood that fateful day she met her demise.”

Aria’s does some quick aeronautical math and realizes Ali had a seven-hour cushion of time in which to take land this plane on her own, take the train to Philly to visit Jenna in the blind hospital, make a sex tape with Ian, borrow Toby’s red sweater, put a flashdrive in a lunchbox inside a storage building and then hide the key in a snow globe and deliver it to Emily, threaten Spencer, cull together a sleepover for the Liars, and … am I forgetting anything? This is made even more impressive by the fact that she was dragging her luggage around with her the entire time. ‘Cause she had all those suitcases and stuff when she took that cab from who knows where to her house to meet the Liars in that one flashback.

Over at Hollis, Ezra calls Byron to his office to talk about his feelings … OF SUPREMACY. I think we can all agree that Byron is the grossest. His quest to keep Aria locked away as a child virgin for all time while he acts like some kind of proprietary Puritan is straight-up Colonial Era bullshit and frankly I can’t believe Ella has managed to stay married to him this long. He’s the kind of guy who says “deflowered” probably. And you know how I feel about that. Anyway, he’s got about the smuggest face going on right now and maybe that’s the thing that really sets Ezra off. He’s like, “That job in New Orleans was maybe the greatest career opportunity I will ever get, but I’m done letting you and Jackie Molina and this “A” person make all my decisions for me. One of us treats Aria like an adult and that person is me. You think I’m taking advantage of her because you think she’s a little kid. But she’s not. I’ve seen her slay a dragon with a plastic fork because she wanted its hide for a new pair of boots, OK? She’s a capable young woman. And so am I. It just took me some time to realize it.”

Byron huffs and puffs and hems and haws and grunts and gurgles. And then he leaves and Ezra pumps his little fists in the air and calls Aria to tell her he loves her.

Maya emails Emily and says the saddest, truest thing: The risk you take when you start over with someone is that the tidy, beautiful ending you had last time isn’t in effect anymore. That candlelit slow dance and the whispered promises of never forgetting. They could have had that and the hopeful wonder of what could have been. But they tried again and it ended with messy, complicated certainty. Now they know. And that candlelight was just another stop on the road to here.

That’s seriously heartbreaking and if it hadn’t happened to me at least three times in my life, well, I probably wouldn’t be weeping openly like an Ezbian watching Fried Green Tomatoes.

Veronica skulks back into the kitchen and you can tell by the look on her face that she can still sniff the remnants of her husband’s bastard about the place. The culprit: That bag of Alison’s shit. His scent is all over it. She tells Spencer to fill it up with newspaper and twigs and various other kindling, take it over to Jason’s, drop it on the back porch, and light it the hell on fire. Spencer says, “I’m not going to burn my brother alive, mother.” And Veronica goes, “No? How about your sister, then? Because I’m pretty sure she killed Alison.”

Ella and Byron have a fight that goes like this:

Byron: Where’s my shotgun? I’m going to put a bullet through Ezra Fitz’s head the way Melissa Hastings did to Alison.

Ella: For starters, if you pulled the trigger on a shotgun, it would literally knock you back into last week.

Byron: I motherf–king defy you to find a person more horrible than me.

Ella: I cannot. Even in this town of serial killers and rapists.

Byron: Look at you! You’re sending so many mixed signals!

Ella: OK, how about this for a signal?

She knees him in the babymaker, smashes his head against the refrigerator, pours herself a glass of wine, and settles in for some DVRed Oprah.

Hanna goes over to Jason’s to retrieve Ali’s bag of clues and crap after she and Spencer realize the newspaper the doll parts were wrapped in contains a secret code. But as soon as she hoists the bag onto the shoulder, she hears a KABLANG! and Jenna’s face smashes itself against the backdoor window, hangs there for like three solid seconds, and then falls to the floor. Having slapped that very face with her very hand once before, Hanna recognizes it, and like the superhero she is, rushes in and drags Jenna from the burning building. Spencer shows up in time to help a little bit. Enough to get GLASS IN HER HAND. And then the house EXPLODES. This show!

At the hospital, Jenna wakes up gasping for air and positively flailing around looking for her sunglasses, her one un-patched eyeball just lolling around in its socket and scaring the ever loving shit out of me. Toby puts her sunglasses on her face and she immediately starts explaining that Jason texted her so she took a cab like across the road to his house, but as soon as she got inside flames started licking her face and she thought to herself, “Here we go again.” Toby goes, “Well, you forgot the part where Hanna Marin saved your life, but the rest sounds Rosewood-plausible.”

Wren, of course, is taking care of all the patients from the explosion as well as all the patients from everywhere. While he is plucking glass from Spencer’s hand he asks if she wants to agree that they didn’t make out when she was at her absolute drunkest and her voice was at its absolute sexiest. She says she wouldn’t have denied the viewers any of that, so no, they don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen. Which is good because I won’t pretend it didn’t happen and you can’t make me.

In the waiting room, Emily dimes out Maya, Jason and Veronica share a very sweet moment, Hanna cheerfully explains to her mom that dodging an explosion’s got nothing on getting mowed down by an automobile, and JennaBot summons the Liars for a meeting.

At first they think she’s accusing them of blowing her up again, and they all protest wildly and loudly about how two of them saved her, and the other two were flying an airplane and nursing a broken heart at the time. Jenna starts crying. Really, really crying. And it is terrifying. And it is beautiful. And it is perfect. Just like this show, all three of those things. Jenna says she doesn’t think they set her on fire this time, and then she asks Hanna to stay behind. She’s like, “Why did you save my life?” And Hanna’s like, “‘Cause that’s what I do.”

The Liars pick up a couple of pints of Ben & Jerrys and head on over to Spencer’s to do some post-traumatic Scoobying. The Liars are like, “Man, ‘A’ really almost killed Jenna, which is weird, because we still kind of thought “A” was Jenna. Unless Jenna is trolling herself like maybe Maya is trolling herself. Maya could have tried to kill Jenna to get her back for stealing Noel and hurting Toby. Or Garrett could have tried to kill Jenna for leaving him. Or Melissa could have tried to kill Jenna while framing Garrett, which would get rid of both of them and also destroy all of her connections to NAT Club. Or it could have been Noel Kahn because he didn’t know how to break up with her.”

I’m just kidding. They don’t say any of that. They eat their ice cream and read through those newspapers and toss out a postcard which is clearly the key to the code and think about how fun it would have been to attend the concert circled in red ink on one of the newspapers.

The Risen Mitten plants Garrett’s police badge in the garden in the DiLauretis’ backyard, where it will grow into a beanstalk which the Liars will climb and ascend into heaven so they can finally ask Alison who killed her.

OK, call it right now: Who is “A”?

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