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“Pretty Little Liars” recap (1.19): Snog-o-rama!

Last week Keegan Allen (the guy who plays Boo Radley Van Cullen) tweeted to say this week’s episode of Pretty Little Liars was his favorite. And then Marlene King retweeted Keegan Allen’s tweet. And then ABC Family retweeted Marlene King’s retweet of Keegan Allen’s tweet, and I was like, “Who do you kill this week, Boo? Who do you kill?” But it wasn’t murder that made it his favorite at all. No, it was his favorite because he got to: a) kiss Spencer, after b) hearing her morning voice, after c) being the little spoon to her big spoon all night long. I will not throw a firecracker at your head, good sir. (But I almost will.)

There’s this sort of unwritten law in TV Land that the last three episodes of the season should be a fizz-popping, gut-punching arc of epic epicness, which usually means the fourth-to-last episode is pure filler. You know, so you can catch your breath before the Apocalypse. What Marlene King did with her filler episode is phenomenal in the fan-ficiest way possible. The plot inched forward, but no one’s talking about that. The thing everyone’s talking about is how last night’s episode was the snogathon of the century, a shipper’s solace, a pash paradise! (That Australian slang is for you, JennaBot!)

The PLLs all take a turn in the Rosewood PD interrogation room because of that time they accidentally tried to pass off rat blood as Alison’s blood. (Which: same/same, really.) It’s nifty camera work: They morph into each other over and over again, just lying their balls off. “Psh, no. Spencer never engaged in any inappropriate behavior with Ian. Why would you ask that? Ha! Ha ha ha! Ludicrous! Inconceivable! Unthinkable! Seriously, no.”

My favorite part of the whole shebang is when Emily says, “Spencer called Hilton Head.” Like that just settles everything. “Spencer called New York, OK?” “Spencer called Shanghai.”

When Spencer wakes up the next morning, her mom and dad are hovered over her holding a straight jacket and some electro-nodes from one of those insane asylum movies of yore. Her mom’s like, “Sorry you’re such a big fat liar.” And her dad’s like, “Also sorry. Our fault, really, for not understanding that the brutal murder of one of your best friends might have bummed you out to a sociopathic degree.” Ian appears, too, on Melissa’s arm, and he’s like, “I forgive you. Go in peace.”

Instead, Spencer goes in a rage to the local motel with Boo Radley Van Cullen. He’s going to stay there for a couple of days because his parents are out of town and JennaBot has reached a new level of creepster. There’s that flute, for starters. She’s been acting some kind of superior since Watson’s little stint on Jeopardy. And anyway, her new upgrade includes a cock-blocking mechanism and things are just getting good with someone he’s not related to. Boo is lodged in room 215, conveniently placed next to room 214, known to one and all as The Room of Doom. They decide to stake out the joint. Boo provides the chin dimple. Spencer provides caffeine by the bucketful and every board game ever invented.

Boo makes the risky move of crushing Spencer at Scrabble. Risky because you never know how smart people are going to react to being outsmarted. Like, it either really turns them on. Or it makes them angry. Or it turns them on in an angry way, which is a whole other kind of treat. It works for Spencer though, really gets her going, so he asks if she prefers the top or the bottom. Her brain goes to a French place like, “Excusez-moi?!” He giggles and offers her one piece of his pajamas. (She’s a top, by the way.) Boo takes off his shirt, and she is just dazzled by his sparkly chest. They fall asleep in the same bed, wake up spooning, and then discover that “A” was just messing with them about Room 214. They kiss in the parking lot and talk about well, that was unexpected!, which is a dumber lie than the lie the Pretty Little Liars lied to the police. (I’m not bitter. Shut up. You are.)

Aria’s relationship problems have nothing to do with legality this week, which is a nice change of pace. JennaBot has just learned a new French phrase called roman à clef from her friend Dan Humprhey on the Upper East Side. See, with Mr. Fitz’s help, JennaBot is writing a story about four girls – Banna, Bemily, Bencer and Baria – who are loose and free and six shades of malevolent in a small Pennsylvania town called Bosewood. Mr. Fitz thinks the story could win a prize. (A small sort of accomplishment, I suppose. When Dan Humphry wrote a poem named “Sluts” about his girlfriend Serena, it was published in The New Yorker.)

Anyway, Ezra can’t shut the f–k up about it. He keeps grabbing Aria’s hands and twirling her around and around, all, “Isn’t it such a coinkydink that Jenna, a robot who was blinded by fireworks, is writing a story about a robot who was blinded by fireworks! And that the villain has a name that rhymes with yours! Baria! Baria Bontgomery! What a gas!”

After a chat with Emily, Aria decides to come clean. She snuggles up to her literature teacher and says, “We are hotter together than the sun; it’s true. But I foresee one bump in our otherwise smooth journey toward wedded bliss, and that bump is: “I did not set JennaBot’s head on fire.” Ezra is like, “So you did not set JennaBot’s head on fire?” And she goes, “Correct. The head that was on fire was JennaBot’s, but it was a fire I did not set.” And so Ezra says he loves her and they cuddle.

By the way, I did a Punnet Square to see what Ezra and Aria’s kids will look like one day.

DIBS ON ADOPTION!

Over at The Marin Home For Wayward Lettos, Hanna makes Caleb a delicious bowl of cereal. He would rather be making out, though. He kisses her neck and her shoulder and she’s like, “My last boyfriend said sex has to wait until after marriage!” And he says, “Doll, sex doesn’t have to wait until after breakfast.” It’s almost a perfect set-up until Ashley finally cottons on to the fact that Hanna is neither carbo-loading nor taking a wee standing up. The next time Caleb walks in the front door she grabs him by the crotch and goes, “Is this the doodle that has been roaming wild and free in the No Boys Allowed Zone of my house?!” He confirms that his doodle has, in fact, been free upstairs. It has not, however, been wild. She kicks him right out to the curb before he can even open the air conditioning vent and load his shiny things into his hobo bag.

Ashley is like, “Hanna, we steal, OK? We cheat. Occasionally we murder the elderly. But we do not lie.” Hanna stomps her foot and cries, “Doodle, doodle, doodle!” And then she follows Caleb out into the night.

Over some s’mores, Hanna tells Caleb about fat camp and Caleb tells Hanna about being an orphan. The next thing that happens is the most gloriously unsubtle thing to happen in the history of television. I laughed until I was bawling over it last night. Hanna and Caleb start getting undressed to that P!nk song about glitter in your coffee. They’re kissing and kissing and P!nk is just wailing about how badly she needs some sugar. The song gets really crescendo-y. P!nk sings, “Have you ever invited a stranger …” Caleb says, “Are you sure?” P!nk sings, “TO COME INSIDE?!?” Hanna says, “I’m sure.”

So the next day Ashley invites Caleb to stay with them for a little while and Caleb calls his boss and says, “Yeah, I can’t do this anymore. My doodle is now free and wild and possibly in love.”

I am also possibly in love – with Lindsey Shaw. Please understand my love for Bianca Lawson. You do. I know you do. But I don’t think she’s coming back, and my heart has to adjust. Moze is my balm, and she’s Emily’s balm. She’s double balm, and her bangs are looking much better than just a few weeks ago, so we’ve got to give her a chance. Plus, she and Shay Mitchell have some snap! crackle! pop! chemistry that is mpossible to overlook.

Emily is in the locker room after swim practice. Paige wanders in and stops short when see’s her changing clothes. Emily goes, “Oh, I thought you fell off the edge of the earth.” Paige is like, “My aunt is old.” It’s super-duper awkward, which Emily awesomely says right out loud, while slipping into an awesome jacket and flipping her awesome hair. (Like, Emily could have a party with the mirror, and the actual description she could give later is: I had an awesome time. I drank awesome shooters, listened to awesome music, and then just sat around and soaked up the awesomeness of my own reflection.” No one would argue. Not a single one of us would argue.) Emily says, “Can we please talk about this?” Page says, “There’s nothing to talk about.” Emily says, “You nearly drowned me!” Just kidding, she doesn’t care about almost dying anymore. She says, “You kissed me!”

Paige wants to forget it (lies!) and Emily storms off shouting about how it’s forgotten (more lies!).

Emily finds a note in her locker later; Paige wants to meet her in a karaoke dive bar in the desert for a date. Emily is determined to be unimpressed when she arrives. (She also leaves the door open like she was raised in a barn. No, I didn’t watch this scene sixteen times. Of course I didn’t.)

Emily: Do you come here a lot?

Paige: I didn’t realize it would be so –

Emily: Rustic?

Paige: I found it online; I thought it would be –

Emily: Remote.

Paige: You gonna finish all my sentences?

Paige’s face when Emily keeps interrupting her – this sort of amused, bewildered, lustful, terrified smirk – is only my favorite thing ever. She was thinking “refrigerator magnet” with Emily, and what she got was “mass spectrometer superconductor.” Paige says she realized she was gay when she saw Maya and Emily together, which is exactly how that works so often, and why it’s so lovely to have a lesbian writing this show. Emily explains the inexplicable: that she loved two girls, one of whom didn’t love her back, and the other of whom forgot about her after being shipped off to Juvie Camp. Paige flips it around, interrupts her, tells Emily she likes “ballsy women.”

And so, in an attempt at pseudo-ballsy, Paige pulls Emily on stage and sings karaoke with her, and they are adorable. Outside in the parking lot, Emily kisses her. Paige is unsteady and/or leaning in for more when Emily pulls away. (Superconducter!) They take their little gay selves on a picnic the next day. Emily wants to go into the city to see a concert, and Paige says there’s no way she can be seen with her in public. And this is cool. Really cool. Emily says, “I so understand. I really do. But hearing you say that? Ouch … I’m not ashamed of who I am. But I used to be. And if we have to hide like this all the time, I’m going to start to feel that way again.”

And would you look at that? A lesbian storyline beyond confusion, coming out and pregnancy. Pretty Little Liars, you really have shocked me in the best of all possible ways.

Emily tells Paige they’ll have to be “just friends” and I am so sure.

Back at Hastings House of Horrors, the police have turned up to have a chat with Spencer. Melissa drops this little bomb as Spencer walks in the door: She was with Ian in Hilton Head that one weekend that one time when Alison was also there. Because they drove 700 miles – from Pennsylvania to the vacation/retirement community of Hilton Head, South Carolina – for an abortion. (But she lost the baby on the way there, because of TV.) The police have found out about Spencer’s little tryst with Ian, and now she is a person of interest.

Baria, Bemily and Banna flit around in the woods and wonder what they’re going to do now that the brains of the operation is under suspicion. And while they’re wondering, “A” is watching them wonder. And we are watching “A” watching them wonder. S/he strokes his/her feral feline and says, “They don’t fool us, do they M.A.D. Cat? We’ll get them next time! And their BEAUTIFUL TOYOTA too!”

Bridget O’Donnell, I honor you as Pretty Little Liars Tweeter of the Year.

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