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“Pretty Little Liars” recap (5.21): Prison Barbies

Cheerio, old chaps! This week Spencer put on her jumper, got in her lorry, and drove off to jolly old London-town where A tried to drown her in the Thames. It was ripping good fun.

But before that happened, we open with the Liars at the prison for their Ali apology tour. All except Hanna, who is presumably still dancing out her demons in the rehearsal room. The Liars agree that while Ali may be a bitch, she isn’t a murderer, so now they have to help prove her innocence. They relay the Mona story to Ali, who is understandably pissed off.

Ali tells Aria that she’ll throw Mike to the defense if it means her release, and Aria begs her for some time to track down the real A. Ali rightly tells them that they’ve been trying to find A for five seasons now, but Aria seems convinced that Cyrus can lead them to A. To be fair, Aria literally just started investigating, so this whole “endless mystery” thing is new to her.

Spencer comes home to find Veronica, who is furious that Spencer is skipping school to visit her friends in prison. Wren has come through with an Oxford interview, so Spencer is getting on the next plane to stay with Wren and Melissa in London. Veronica may hate Wren, but not as much as she hates Jonny Artsnfarts.

Over at Brew 2.0, Emily meets Claire, who is a contestant coordinator for the beauty pageant. Emily forgot to get her mom’s signature, because she forgot she had a mom. Claire assures her that she’s a great candidate, and could have already collected a few glass slippers.

The Liars go to casa Hastings to help Spencer pack/convince her to jeopardize her future for more sleuthing. Aria hires Veronica for a dollar (LOL Veronica Hastings dries her tears with dollar dollar bills y’all) and gets some vague legal advice. The bottom line is, Mike could do jail time if the defense finds out he withheld information about Mona’s murder.

Hanna is over all this bullshit and tells Spencer to come clean and get her mom to help them find A. Emily agrees with her, but Aria is terrified of what will happen to Mike. Team Sparia is all about them secrets.

Emily tells Talia that she needs to reorganize her work schedule for pageant business, but Talia is quitting so she doesn’t really care about who is flambĂ©-ing her apples. I hope those Brew patrons like poorly made empanadas.

Back at Litchfield, Ali is working the prison laundry and writing Mona’s name in dryer lint, which on a scale of one to gay is Portia Di Rossi.

Veronica Hastings has come to visit Ali in prison to figure out why Spencer and the Liars are visiting her. Ali tells her that they finally realized she was telling the truth, but Veronica assures her that with all the lies she’s told, no one will believe anything she says. Ali wants to take the stand to tell her story, but her lawyers don’t want her to. She asks Veronica to coach her, but Veronica isn’t sure she wants to get tangled in even more Ali-based deception.

Aria finds Andrew waiting on her porch and realizes she blew off a tutoring sesh. He invites her to a screening of All The President’s Men and Aria agrees to go because classic cinema is her kryptonite. Aria wants to know if it’s a date, because she’s kind of sort of still with Ezra, but Andrew tells her that they can go as friends. Likely story, bro.

It’s (B roll footage) of London! Spencer shows up at Melissa’s flat and is greeted by her flatmate Colin, who is generically handsome in that way that all PLL supporting men are. Melissa and Wren are off in the country, which is Britspeak for Out Of Town. He tells her to quit texting her friends and maybe read up on Oxford before her big interview. Apparently, mansplaining is a universal language.

Back at the prison, Ali returns to laundry duty to find “Mona told everything” written in the dust. This is the least guarded prison on Earth.

Back at the Brew 2.0, Emily sees Talia with her entire world packed into her car. Talia had the big honest talk with Eric, and they are separating. Emily feels guilty, but Talia assures her it was a long time coming. She’s off to crash at a hotel, but Emily insists that she come stay with her. So they broke up and now they’re gonna be roommates? That might be the lesbian-est thing Emily has ever done.

Meanwhile, Aria has skipped school and done some real actual detective work. She’s tracked down Hank Mahoney/Cyrus and found out that he was injured and is currently in the hospital. She convinces Hanna to come with her to bribe him for info, but Hanna says she can’t because she’s so broke she’s paying her college tuition with dancing lesbians. Aria finally convinces her that they can’t let those candy striper uniforms go to waste, and they head off to the hospital.

Spencer is in the middle of her big Oxford interview, with a man so British he is basically a sheperd’s pie in a sweater vest. He also refers to America as “the colonies,” which made me laugh for a full minute. I was really hoping he’d be taking notes with a quill and a piece of parchment. Spencer impresses him with some Fulbright quotes and things seem to be off to a jolly good start.

Aria and Hanna show up at the hospital and pass themselves off as Cyrus’s cousins. They are then forced into scrubs, as Cyrus is in the burn ward. Also, the nurse is in NO mood for their teenage shenanigans.

Back at Litchfield, Ali is zoning out/remembering the smell of Emily’s hair when a tiny barrel rolls into her cell. She opens it to find a prison Ali doll and a note that says she’ll be joining Mona in her very own barrel. At this point, A has made more dolls than the American Girl store.

Back in London, Spencer is laughing at the professor’s philosophy jokes when her purse starts having its period all over the chair. Spencer finds a broken blood vial in the purse and freaks the fuck out as blood drips all over the fancy Oxford office. The professor looks at her like, “Ugh, Americans!”

Back in Rosewood, Emily is rehearsing another dance number because this show loves us. Talia watches her dance and they talk about why Emily is really entering the pageant. Em wants to help Hanna, but she also wants to prove to herself that she can do it, because somehow winning a beauty pageant means that she can take control of her life and not continue to swim into walls/get drug-infused massages/be murdered by her own school. She just wants to act normal, bitch. She then drags Talia onto the floor to dance with her.

Back in the burn unit, Aria and Hanna meet with Cyrus, who wrapped up in gauze. He tells them it wasn’t an accident, and writes “carjack” on a packet of gauze. Before they can find out more, the bossy nurse drags them out. Hanna is ready to throw down with a middle-aged nurse, but Aria convinces her to cool it with the fisticuffs.

Spencer calls Aria, hysterical about her bloody luggage. She says she could have been arrested at airport security, and Aria tries to calm her down and tells her to come home. Spencer then gets a text from A that reads “keep calm and watch your carry-on,” which is delightful because A is really embracing these London puns.

Back at the rehearsal room, Emily is teaching Talia her dance, but Talia falls on her ass and starts crying because her world has just shattered. Emily sweeps her up in her arms and they slow dance like middle schoolers, and it’s really sweet and adorable.

Hanna and Aria are forcibly removed from the burn unit, and the nurse yells at Hanna to put on some fucking pants as if her mini skirt is made of flames. They look at Cyrus’s note and realize that he wrote Varjack, a character from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Do they finally have an A alias?

Back in the burn unit, a fellow burn victim sits up and stalks their way towards Cyrus’s bed. It is one of the creepier things I have ever seen on this show. Also, did A have someone wrap them up, or did they spend a ridiculous amount of time wrapping themselves in gauze just so they could kill Cyrus? So many questions.

Spencer is hysterically packing when Colin tries to calm her down. He talks her through a breathing exercise that he does with little kids because he’s a school teacher. Apparently British kids do meditation while American kids pick their noses. Colin calms Spencer down and forces her to eat, which is Aria’s job.

Claire the pageant coordinator comes to visit Emily at rehearsal and tells her that contestants must be of good moral character. Emily’s beautiful face falls and she immediately assumes it’s because she’s gay. Talia is also outraged, until Claire explains that it’s not her sexuality that’s raising eyebrows. It’s her relationship with Alison DiLaurentis. The directors of the pageant want no association with the Ali scandal, so they politely suggest that Emily drop out.

Hanna comes home to find that Ashley has mended things with Ted and they are now engaged. Hanna is nonplussed, as she didn’t like that Ted made Ashley wait around for his answer, but Ashley assures her that she’s glad Ted took the time. It allowed him to forgive her, and it also allowed Ashley to forgive herself. Hanna realizes that she has to bite the bullet and confront Ali.

Talia and Emily walk outside where they see Claire getting into her car. Talia tells Emily to follow her lead, and proceeds to bust Claire’s balls about Alison. She says that Ali is innocent until proven guilty, and that if the pageant directors are so concerned, they better cut Emily a check. Emily is impressed with Talia’s chutzpah, but I’m bummed because this means we probably won’t see Emily re-enacting Miss Congeniality.

Over at the Montgomery house, Aria is searching Mike’s room when she sees something on his dart board. She climbs up on his gym equipment to reach it, but A loosened the bolts last episode and she comes crashing to the ground. Luckily, Andrew is there to rescue her. He wraps her sprained ankle and tells her that the loosened bolt could have killed Mike. She starts crying and he tells her he has no problem with complicated pocket-sized women and they kiss.

Veronica goes through Ali’s file and calls Spencer, telling her to stay in London.

Hanna finally meets with Ali, and Ali tells her not to apologize. Prison has changed her: when she was bossing around the Liars, she thought she was helping them, but after living under the rules and control of prison, she realizes how punishing following orders can be. Ali has come to the heartbreaking realization that, while she thought she was protecting the Liars, she was holding them captive in a prison of her own making. She and Hanna agree to try to start over and be honest with each other, and Hanna asks her who Varjack is.

We see A packing money into prison bibles in the section on vengeance. Never one to miss an opportunity for metaphor, that A!

So, what did you think of this week’s episode? Can you believe we’re a month away from finding out who A is? Tweet me your thoughts @chelseaprocrast

All of the thanks to Nicole aka @PLLBigA for her screencaps. Cheerio pip pip!

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