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“Pretty Little Liars” recap (5.10): Get’cha Head in the Game

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, Alison DiLaurentis was trouble when she walked in. (Trouble, trouble, trouble.) Emily was like, “Stay, stay, stay! I’ve been lovin’ you for quite some time, time, time!” And Hanna was all, “You don’t have to call anymore. I won’t pick up the phone. This is the last straw. Don’t wanna hurt anymore. And you can tell me that you’re sorry, but I don’t believe you, baby, like I did before.” Spencer was like, “Forgetting you was like trying to know somebody I never met.” And Aria didn’t really have a Taylor Swift song for Ali because Taylor Swift is just way too mainstream for her, except she really likes that one that T-Swizzle wrote for John Mayer about how pathetic it is to lure girls half your age into your bed/web of deceit.

Alison’s dad has returned from Out of Town to the news that the police caught the guy who killed and kidnapped all the blonde-haired ladies in Rosewood, just wandering around in the Marin’s backyard, home to known blonde teen Hanna Marin. His name is Cyrus Petrillo and has confessed, in detail, to doing all the things Ali said he did, but that’s not enough for a murder conviction in Rosewood. They gotta find a shovel on your person to send you away in this town. So, according to Wackadoodle Law, Alison has to officially name him as her kidnapper, despite the fact that she said she was blindfolded the whole time, and she has 48 hours to do it, or Cyrus is free to go do more mayhem.

Mr. DiLaurentis goes, “Where is Alison?” And Tanner’s face is like, “Maybe if you had a better handle on that she wouldn’t keep getting buried alive.”

In the interrogation room, Mr. D tries to get Ali to say Cyrus is the bad guy; instead, she says, “I don’t know.”

“YOU SAID YOU DON’T KNOW?” Spencer screeches the very next second, in a fun bit of editing that lands Ali in the room with the other Liars. They are staged on the complete opposite side of her, all four of them, for the first time this season. And Spencer isn’t done. She’s like, “Just a quick reminder: you were not actually kidnapped.” But it’s time for an Ali Plan. Obviously, she says, A set up this confession so Ali would name Cyrus and then A would bust her as a Liar. So obviously, she says, what they need to do is let this guy go. So obviously they can follow him to A. And then obviously shut down A’s deal, once and for all. Even Aria is like, “The only thing that is obvious is that when this plan inevitably backfires, we are all going to jail. Besides you somehow.”

Spencer has had it, dudes. As the Liars are leaving Ali’s, walking by a full dozen cops, she’s like, “And well thank god these guys are here so none of us get imaginary-kidnapped!” And Aria goes, “…by a Montana sheep farmer!” Spencer pats her head. It’s nice that she’s trying, at least. Emily would like them to please keep their voices down. Hanna doesn’t give a damn what they do, if you want to know the truth; she just wants to stand there in her gay outfit with her gay haircut looking gay and you can deal with it. Spencer convinces Emily to go back in and use her puppy dog eyes/boobs to keep Ali in line while she goes home to hide Noel’s #PLLinsurance, even though the best person at hiding things is Hanna, and even she couldn’t think of anything better to do with her mom’s gun than bury it in the ground in the backyard of a frat house using a plastic cup as a shovel during the middle of a rager.

Emily’s plea for Ali to please not dive into an A trap and name Cyrus is somewhat ineffective on account of it is interrupted by Ali’s dad begging for the exact opposite thing. He’s like, “Tell her, Em.” And she’s like, “Uh, yeah, Ali” while vigorously shaking her head behind Mr. D’s back.

Tanner really wants to pin every crime ever committed in Rosewood on this dude. She wants to nail him for Ali’s kidnapping and Jessica’s murder and Bethany Young’s also. I mean, you can’t blame her. Once this deal is done she can go back to solving easier cases. Like deciphering the Zodiac letters and figuring out who wrote the Voynich Manuscript and the discerning the identity of Jack the Ripper and uncovering the mystery of Stonehenge and pinpointing the exact location of Atlantis. Life sure made more sense when she was trying to track down the Loch Ness Monster.

Across town, Ella is melting down on the phone with various wedding vendors who have never heard of a wedding falling through. Like she’s trying to cancel the banquet hall but they’re suggesting she come have a meal by herself in a room arranged for a 300-person dinner. She yells about how she’s a sad spinster like from some old Victorian novel, but Aria takes the phone from her hand and funnels chamomile tea down her throat, which is nice, but she looks like she could really use some good day-drinking at this point. Lord, to see Ashley and Ella getting drunk together before lunch, giving voice to the deep truths of this world. Ella says she is not very good at identifying pedocreeps, something she will prove again at the end of the episode when she encourages Aria to let Ezra put a baby in her or something.

Hobo Booze and Nacho Haven.

Caleb: Will you please stop throwing away all my best shit? Hanna: Your best shit is beer and deep fried vegetables? Caleb: Uh, that’s the world’s best shit, Hanna. Have you been hitting Spencer’s pills? You seem really amped up. Hanna: No, I just had this really awful realization today that other girls my age are stressing out about stupid solos for stupid chorus, instead of worrying nonstop about when they’re going to be chopped into pieces or carted off to prison. Caleb: Other girls your age don’t have to deal with A. Hanna: I think I’m going to try out for that stupid solo, though. I think I’m going to have some legit teenage experiences before I end up in that hole in Spencer’s yard. Caleb: OK, but be careful. From what I’ve seen on Glee, high school chorus teachers get real creepy with their students. Hanna: That’ll be a real breath of fresh air.

Messy ponytail alert! I repeat: Emily Fields in a messy ponytail walking down the street with the sun shining on her like her face is the reason the Golden Hour was invented! She’s on the phone with Spencer like “Breaker 1-9” and Spence is like “Roger Wilco. What’s your 20?” But their playful walkie talkie banter is cut short when Spencer realizes her oh so super safe hiding place (under the cushion of the chair in her bedroom) isn’t so safe after all. All the stuff she had in there is gone, of course. She stashes Noel’s #PLLinsurance in her bra just as Melissa walks in like, “Ugh, this mess. No wonder you never won the tidiest space award at camp like I did, six summers straight.” They are interrupted by Ali calling and whispering in Spencer’s ear about, “I can still hear Cyrus breathing and smell the dank dungeon where he fed me bologna sandwiches on week-old bread.” When Spencer hangs up, she gets an A text talking about Check mate, bitch!

You know what she does, right? She walks right over to her closet and puts on the Sherlock Holmes outfit she’s been saving for this very occasion, and heads out into the world to sleuth like she’s never sleuthed before. First stop: Town square, where Hanna is trying to convince Caleb to turn around and jog in the other direction. He’s like, “Don’t be insane, Hanna; if we don’t stay on this loop we’re bound to get sucked into one of those portals our parents are always disappearing to at the edge of town.” Spencer blitzes by in a BEAUTIFUL TOYOTA but then reverses it right back and hops out to tell her new plan. Hanna, amazingly, just runs away. She doesn’t even look back, just takes off running.

“I’m faster than you and I have a car!” Spencer hollers after Hanna’s retreating form, rounding on Caleb immediately with a look of such incredulity. He says he’s just doing what she asked him to do, being good for Hanna, and runs off after her.

And so Spencer goes to Aria’s because she knows Aria will talk bushes with her. As in, “If you look at the bushes in this surveillance video of my backyard, you can see Melissa telling someone in a black baseball cap to do it, do it now.” The only person we’ve ever seen creeping around in the shadows in a black baseball cap is Ezra, but they’re convinced it’s Cyrus Petrillo and Melissa is telling him to confess to kidnapping Alison. Spencer wants to take this video and the #PLLinsurance to Tanner and tell her the truth about all the things, but Aria wisely points out that the truth coming from a gaggle of Liars, no matter how Pretty, doesn’t amount to much. Plus there’s that pesky thing about how she murdered Shana Costumeshop.

There’s a goddess singing her scales in the glee club room and that goddess is Mona Vanderwaal. It’s like. When I think my heart has reached maximum capacity for loving her, my heart actually grows bigger to accommodate the way my affection keeps expanding. She’s warming up with Sara Bareilles’ gravity, which you might remember from the lesbian film Loving Annabelle, the story of a gay lady teacher falling for a gay lady student. Thematically appropriate as always, show! Only, in Loving Annabelle, the teacher actually gets arrested and carted off to jail at the end of the thing. The point is: Janel Parish’s singing voice sounds like god created her to be the star of his own personal choir. Like, “Box to the left, Beyonce; you can be Vanderjesus’ understudy.”

Sadly the rest of this episode is not just Mona delighting everyone but Hanna with her vocal prowess. I would watch a full episode of that. I would watch a full season of that. On her way into the audition room, Mona passes right the heck out. Hanna, who side-eyed her the whole time she was getting her sang on, rushes to her side, panicking hardcore about her health and well-being. No mouth-to-mouth is required at this time, unfortunately. When Mona wakes up, she starts flipping out about finding her purse, because in her purse is Cyrus Petrillo’s mugshot.

After school Emily redoubles her efforts to keep Ali from naming Cyrus as her kidnapper, but Ali weaves this yarn about how Cyrus isn’t a stranger to her. They were living in a van down by the river, dating or something, and then one night he stole all her shit and sliced open her thigh with a pocket knife and left her alone in the dark. It’s a hugely traumatic flashback, like practically a symbolic rape, the way it’s filmed. Emily is like, “Alison. Jesus. I love you beyond reason or explanation. But you have to listen to me, OK? You have been victimized in ways I can’t even wrap my head around, but this one specific way, you haven’t been victimized, and if you say you have been, the police are going to find out it’s a lie, and then they’ll never believe any of us ever again about the actual ways we’ve been abused. You have to back away from this, for the good of all of us.”

Emily’s Bedroom of Substantial Sapphic Shenanigans.

Emily: Dude, I told you to meet me outside. I don’t want this #PLLinsurance in my house. I don’t want A to fly a goddamn helicopter through my bedroom wall. Spencer: Your mom invited me in for a snack of carrots and vodka. Emily: Listen, Aria told me you want to cut off Ali and go to the police, but I’m telling you, man, that Cyrus guy really hurt her. Spencer: I’m sorry, what??? Emily: Mmm hmm. It’s not Ali we need to worry about; it’s Melissa. Spencer: I know you’ve got gay stuff going on with Ali, and I get it, I really do. I excuse Aria’s most heinous behavior, including that phase where she kept dressing like live-action Bratz dolls cosplaying Candy Land characters – but we have got to draw a line somewhere, even when we’re in half-love with people. Emily: We’re all in this together, Spence. And it shows when we stand hand in hand, make our dreams come true. Specner: Girl, you gotta get’cha head in the game.

 

Aria goes to Ezra’s house and demands that he not seek out Ali to talk some sense into her, which he promises not to do, and then absolutely does, in plain view of the world at The Brew. (A quick search of my episode notes reveals the phrase “Ezra’s bullshit” 11 times.) Mr. D shoos Ezra away and then Aria spies him and takes him out to the parking lot and tells him to suck a moose nut because she is so over how his deal. He honest-to-god cannot understand why she’s so upset. Like, “All I have been doing since literally the second we met is lie to you and manipulate you and refuse to respect your agency in even the smallest ways, what’s the problem, honey?”

I have seen it posited many, many times that Zack and Ezra have been juxtaposed this season so we can see how a “bad guy” acts with an underage girl and a “good guy” acts with an underage girl, but I absolutely cannot believe that is true. The Zack thing only highlights Ezra’s creepiness even more.

Anyway, Aria goes home and cries and Ella says not to cry because Zack is not writing the book on their family, and Aria shakes her head because Ezra is the one who wrote the book on their family and it was a true crime novel and she found it in the woods and took it on a ski lift and then Shana shot Ezra in the gizzard.

Mona is on a stakeout in front of Rosewood PD HQ when Hanna hops into her car and starts demanding answers.

Hanna: You look good. Mona: Stop it, you’re making me blush. Hanna: No. I mean, good for a person who fainted nearly dead away this afternoon, you big faker. Who’s car is this? Is it a rental? Is it from the CIA? Are you bluescarfing right now? Mona: OK, for starters, it’s bluesnarfing. Bluescarfing sounds like something Gargamel does to Smurfs. Hanna: Whatever, are you here to follow Ali? Mona: No, I am here to intercept the radio and phone transmissions of the police department and follow Cyrus when he leaves this jail in an hour, because you and I both know this prick didn’t kidnap Alison. Hanna: Since when do you have panic attacks and pass out? Mona: Since when do you get trousered before third period? Same answer to both questions, right? Since Ali came back. Hanna: I never know if I want to make out with your face or punch you in the stomach. Hanna’s phone: *ring ring* Hanna: Oh hey boyfriend. I’m just, um, sitting down to dinner with my mom and not parked in the dark with Mona. Call you later! Mona: So not the stomach-punch, then? Take off your seat belt. Hanna: Take off your bra.
Hastings kitchen of perpetual night. Melissa and Spencer do their dastardly dance about how neither of them can be trusted and neither of them are safe and neither of them are willing to give up any information at all that could save both of their asses. They arrive at their standard impasse pretty quickly and super sadly. Melissa wants Spencer to run away with her, but Spencer will not do it. Sigh. Get a good look at your sister, Spence; she’s going to record a video for you at the end of this episode which means she’s going to be dead before the summer finale.

Tanner takes Ali to the warehouse where Cyrus said he kept her and Ali walks around for 59 minutes and 37 seconds, checking her watch the whole time and flashing back to various handheld camera nightmares with scary Instagram filters. Finally, she tells Tanner this is the place, and Tanner radios for the police not to let Cyrus go, but that clown has already been released back onto the streets.

Emily is waiting on Alison when she gets home from the warehouse.

Emily: Are you serious right now? Are you serious? Ali: I can explain. Emily: Oh, I’m sure you’ve got a story about this. You’ve got a story about everything. You’d have a story about the vegan space colony you lived in on the moon if that would save your ass. Ali: My stories save all of our asses. Emily: Your stories didn’t save me from falling down an elevator shaft. They didn’t save Hanna from getting mowed down by a car. They didn’t save Spencer from going absolutely cuckoo. I defended you against Paige, against Spencer! That’s like fighting the sun and the ocean, do you get that? Ali: I promise I’ll make it right. I can find out who A is. Emily: Well, you’ll make it right all by yourself, Ali, because I am so done with your bullshit. Goodbye for actual ever. Emily’s mic: *drops*
Emily rushes over to Hanna’s where the Liars are debriefing the even bigger shitshow than usual that they faced down today. She tells them it’s time to cut ties with Ali. She’s got the #PLlinsurance. She’s ready to cash in the policy. Caleb stands in the corner munching on a bacon calzone, nodding his approval.

In the Forbidden Forest, Cyrus talks to a dark-haired vixen of the night. He says this was not the plan they planned and he could have just told the truth. The dark-haired vixen says she also could have told the truth, or let him die because he’s a guttersnipe and no one would have cared. The dark-haired vixen is Vivian Darkbloom! She is Alison DiLaurentis!

Hot dog, the bitch is back! Thank the heavens! Fly that airplane, girl! Wear those masks! Blow up some shit and then blow it up again! Sweetness is all wrong on you!

The Risen Mitten folds some laundry and watches a dog show. A hundred black hoodies and a candy stripper uniform. It’s all happening, you guys. It’s all happening.

As always, my eternal gratitude to Nicole (@PLLBigA) for the screencaps! She’s got all the PLL scoop you need on the Twitter machines!

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