This week on Pretty Little Liars, it was revealed that Ally was a big Nabokov fan, Spencer has seen The Notebook 365 times and Aria reads a lot of magazines. Furthermore, The Liars combined their mindmelding Captain Planet powers to summon a flashback involving a brief scene for which none of the aforementioned Liars were actually present. And the hair? The hair was shiny, reader. The hair was so shiny that even sunglasses and visors couldn’t protect Jenna or Toby from the stunning glare and therefore Tammin Sursok and Keegan Allen weren’t on payroll this week.

whoever smelt it, dealt it

Before we move forward towards anything remotely relavant, have y’all read Nabokov’s Pale Fire? Because I feel like Ally has.

oh my god jenny, bette is going down on jessie spano!!!

So, this week on Pretty Little Liars, A threatened Hanna that if she didn’t “cut off the techno-boy toy,” A would reveal The Lasanga Safe to the cops, since A is such a notoriously reliable whistle-blower always sticking her face in other people’s faces. By “tell the cops” A likely means “send the cops an Olive Garden gift card with a limerick pasted on the back in invisible ink that will reveal the location of another clue which will eventually lead the fortune-hunter to The Olive Garden’s Culinary Institute of Tuscany in Tuscany, Italy, where all the answer will be hiding is the Lasanga Rollata al Forno.

Regardless, it’s not Hannah enlisting Caleb’s brooding hacker skills, it’s her sketchy friends who are always breaking glass and uploading photos from History into their AT&T Extreme Magic Dash Phones. Hanna eventually busts her friends for trust-breaking and tells Caleb a little slice of the truth, which inspires him to go all Brian Krakow on his bicycle to Jenna’s ’cause nobody told him Tammin Sursok was off this week.

I love the way he leans on his handlebars

Also much to Hanna’s dismay, her Dad has moved to Rosewood along with Hanna’s new stepsister Kate (the spitting image of a Regina George/Paris Geller mashup).

is definitely wearing a thong

Spencer gets Spencerly Obsessed with Kate from the get-go, eventually deducing that she knows Kate from her sister’s summer camp, back when everyone called Kate “Lucy Caboosey.”

look i'm not gonna tell anyone what happened between you and dana fairbanks at tennis camp, i know that you're famous now

Aria continues to wear inexcusable ponchos and engage in mystery dates with her Humbert Humbert in dark cars while Mom and Dad think she’s pigging out on pesto with Holden Holdem.

look, maybe we should say or do something interesting this episode

At some point, Aria and Holden Holdem end up accidentally having a real date ’cause both of their sketchy situations fall through. If the first rule of Fight Club wasn’t to never speak of it, I’d float some theories regarding Holden Holdem’s “deal” but it is, so I won’t.

i want you to know that i wrote that line of the recap about fight club before getting my intern's screencaps and WHADDYA KNOW she named this jpg "i-hope-its-from-fight-club." DEAL SEALED.

Spencer has taken to crying a lot about Toby…

i know, those earrings made me cry too

… and wearing, alternately, Toby’s underoos, conservative sweater sets and a vintage raggedy hat originally worn by Oliver Twist in the 19th century (that’s where he kept his pet rat.) Spencer is adorable all episode long ’cause she’s got NEEDY on blast. This would be a perfect time for her to go Lez, but alas, she does not.

listen ladies, real talk: it's a hard-knock life for us.

Well enough of that heterosexual nonsense, let’s move on to the lesbian parts, shall we?

We open in Spencer’s Special Kitchen, where Aria is dressed like Jeff Spicoli meets Jem and the Holograms with neon green mobiles dangling precariously from each ear as Caleb does his very best Garcia with A’s phone and Laptop Magic. Hanna doesn’t want Caleb involved because then A will kill him with a shovel, so she’s not been told about this secret meetup.

oh my god is that paris hilton's actual vagina

Spencer spots a fake ID in A’s found video and Caleb superzooms to reveal another Ally fake ID that “looks nothing like her” except that actually it does look a lot like her, but with dark hair and a sultry book jacket facial expression.

this totally will get her in to "Let's Bolt"

Meanwhile Hanna is blowing up her friends’ phones like the World Trade, desperate to take a bubble bath and play Strat-o-Matic baseball while watching a Goddard film, but they’re all liars, duh.

doesn't wanna spend another night alone at home watching "jane by design"

Also, later we’ll get that flashback I mentioned in paragraph #1, wherein Allison’s “hair guy” (was he also her “phone repair guy”? Those exist, you know) calls Allison “Vivian Darkbloom,” because Allison has an evil twin according to my own personal theory which I’ve been trying to sell to my girlfriend for like a year now.

I'm just here getting my wig styled. You?

Anyhow, Vivian Darkbloom is a name from Nabokov’s Lolita, which is a brilliant book about a profoundly fucked-up man.

There’s a golden ticket in it, too!

In some romantic moonglow pool-esque hideaway, Maya and Emily are cuddling in bed with a kind of awkward familiarity that reminds me, painfully, of the first few times I was lying on a bed with a girl who also liked girls. Like I knew I was allowed to touch her but I didn’t know when or how.

i could touch your hair all season long, maya

Real Talk: Maya is either totally awesome or a completely sketchy selfish motherfucker. Either way, Emily’s drawn to Maya because Maya is bold and fearless and Emily isn’t — or, wasn’t. She’s getting bolder and bolder by the minute, but the fear never goes away. So sometimes when everything is scary, it’s nice to relax into somebody impossible to scare.

look, it's not like you were on intervention or anything

Seemingly unaware that she’s dealing with a swimming-slaughterhouse-strangler victim, Maya treds into PTSD territory by offering to sabatoge Emily’s swim team with a sickle and a semi-automatic — well, not exactly. But the girl gets morbid:

Emily: “It’s just so weird, watching them celebrate and not being a part of it.”
Maya: “What can I do? Steal their swimsuits? No, no, no, drain the pool. No no no I got it, I got it — fill their shampoo bottles with Nair. Talk to me.”
Emily: “No, making them bald would actually give them an edge on the competition…. Trust me, I’ve already considered it.”
Me: “Also, Nair smells like Nair and hair grows back, swimsuits are easily replacable objects and pools are easily re-filled. Also, it’s so obvs that the actress who plays Maya is about 15 years too old for high school, despite the petite figure and generous lipgloss producers seem to think will fool the audience. YOU CAN’T FOOL ME!”

let's make like lasagna and layer up

So, Emily’s Mom is coming into town and Maya’s curious if Mrs. Fields still hates the living shit out of her junkie ass. Emily says her Mom is a “totally different woman” now, because she is, and it’s sweet and true. Besides, says Emily, it’s not her fault Maya’s allegedly hippie parents shipped her off to a two-year marijuana recovery program intensive.

she should take off those rings before somebody's cervix gets hurt

Maybe one day, Emily and Maya will kiss WITH TONGUE!

Next up, Emily’s walking from nowhere to somewhere else and spots an arts & crafts project dangling perilously on her locker door — preparing for another excerpt from A’s Sex Cheques, Emily cautiously opens the note…

what if it was from paige and then she showed up behind emily with fangs and a machete

UT-OH IT’S A! Then Emily flips it over and finds a pot cookie! JK, it’s not a pot cookie, it’s the kind of cookie Moms can make on airplanes. LOOK WHO’S HERE!!!

look i even cried two golden tears and made them into earrings, this is how much i missed you

Firstly, Mom looks great! HUGS!

guess mom isn't mad about the whole prison thing

I’m waiting for Mrs. Fields to reveal she’s staying in a fancy hotel and ask if Emily wants to throw a fancy hotel party there, but no dice. We have no clue where this woman is staying but regardless, Mrs. Fields would like to take Emily out to dinner, probs at Benihana:

Mrs. Fields: “Is there someone else you’d like to invite? Someone special? Someone new?”
Emily: “In a way. It’s Maya. We started seeing each other again.”

Mrs. Fields invites Maya to dinner, isn’t that nice?

Emily: “I know you weren’t crazy about Maya.”
Mrs. Fields: “There was a lot going on back then. I feel like I never really gave her a chance and it’d be nice to have another opportunity.”

Emily and Mrs.Fields show up at a medium-fancy restaurant to find Maya consorting with Noel Kahn, who’s got his man fingers all over Maya’s mobile.

Emily: “Since when has Noel Kahn been your phone repair guy?”
Maya: “He saw me struggling and offered to help. He’s really sweet!”
Emily: “No, he’s not. But his smile takes up half his face so I can see how you could be confused.”

Emily! I do declare! You’ve gotten sassy and I love it.

Before we move on — just to recap, Noel Kahn apparently spotted Maya in public “struggling” with her phone, which I assume looked like this:

I'M STRUGGLING WITH MY PHONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

— and offered to fix it for her because nobody upgrades in Rosewood and if your phone breaks or needs something, the best way to repair it is to let a strange guy with ambiguous “phone-fixing” knowledge take it off your hands for a few hours/days/weeks. Henceforth this strange guy will become your “phone repair guy.” “Phone repair guys” are the new “lawnmower guys.”

Sometimes this show feels like the results of a writing exercise wherein young aspiring screenwriters were challenged to construct a multi-season teenage-focused thriller about primarily on cell phones.

So, Mrs. Fields tells Maya it’s great to see her, and it sounds genuine, but then Maya — who acts drunk for the entire meal despite being sober, sidenote  — busts out with “You know what they say about clean living!” Which is just like — whatever, what do they say about clean living? Is it marijuana’s fault that my hair looks like shit today and Maya’s looks straight out of a Vidal Sassoon Academy commercial? Mrs. Fields volleys back with, “Well, whatever you’re doing, it’s working,” ’cause Mrs. Fields wants to take the high road (not to be confused with “getting high,” which is the one-way road Maya took, heading North.)

if clean living could make my teeth look this good, i'd give up whiskey forever

Emily, painfully attempting to steer the convo south of Awkward City, reveals that Maya has joined the Jolly Juicy Jazz Band of Clean Living at her new school.

Mrs. Fields: “You know actually when I was in college, I had a huge poster of Miles Davis right over my bed. I absolutely worshipped that man.”

FYI, this is the huge poster Maya’s gonna have right over her bed at college, DUH:

Does anybody dislike Miles Davis? I thought the entire world was in agreement that Kind of Blue is the best album of all time. Still, Maya is “surprised.”

Maya: “Really, That’s surprising.”
Mrs. Fields: “Really? I mean what kind of music would you think I would have been listening to?”
Maya: “Oh, I don’t know. Classical music I guess? Something very sophisticated.”
Mrs. Fields: “Well I think jazz is sophisticated.”
Maya: “Oh me too but — jazz musicians are also known for–“

Because pretending to smoke an imaginary joint is far more discreet than saying the word “weed” or “drugs,” Maya does just that (If only Maya had whipped her belt from its loops, fastened it around her arm and dramatically searched for a vein, because weed wasn’t the only drug jazz musicians were “known for”). Maya’s whole line of reasoning is non-sensical as fuck, as judging musicians by their drugging/drinking habits would leave a person stranded on an island with nothing to listen to but Taylor Swift.

but she sure is pretty isn't she

Maya: “Sorry about that, it’s just my stalker.”
Mrs. Fields: “Excuse me?”
Maya: “Oh, nothing, I’m just kidding. I dated this guy while I was at True North and he’s having trouble accepting that it’s over. But it’s cool, everything’s fine.”

Gah! Now Mom knows that Maya is indecisive, confused, slutty, having a phase, just dating boys because she’s in denial about her lesbianism, only dating girls because it’s trendy, unable to maintain a monogamous relationship, dishonest, homicidal, an alcoholic, ran out of things to fuck and needed something new, a Katy Perry fan, just waiting for the right guy to come along and fuck the gay right out of her, a cheater, the prize in a game show wherein bikini-clad lesbos and their juicehead male counterparts wrestle to the death in a hot tub of bubbling pre-cum, mentally unstable, trying to seem hip in order to promote her new movie and/or memoir, always up for a threesome, attention-seeking, having her cake and eating it too, planning to date women but ultimately marry a man, would never be seen with a woman in public, greedy and flaky. Also, let’s be real: a jazz musician.

really papi

We cut to other scenes and then return to this one, where Maya’s manic drunk-o crazyface remains in full-force and Emily’s acting like Maya punched her in the face with a penis.

Emily: “Why were you acting like that?”
Maya: “You’re the one who’s been freezing me out for the last 30 minutes.”
Emily: “Because you completely torpedoed dinner!”
Maya: “How do you see that?”

Um, like this:

Emily: “You kept making jokes about weed–”
Maya: “I made one joke and –”
Emily: “– and every time I tried to change the subject, you brought it back to True North.”

That’s the thing about True North. It’s everybody’s favorite direction to go in. Honestly I keep thinking about the NYU dorm Third Avenue North.

Emily: “I asked you to start over with my Mom.”
Maya: “And that’s what I was doing. I was trying to be honest.”
Emily: “Being honest is fine, you were trying to get a rise out of her. Why else would you bring up dating that guy? I finally got my Mom to come on board with me dating girls, and you bring that up? It’s confusing for her.”

you realize my mom is paying for this dinner right

Maya: “Is the fact that I dated a guy confusing to your mom, or for you?”

We cut like Maya just made a stellar point but really COME ON. I’m a badge-blaring member of the Honesty Police with Strong Political Opinions but surely Maya’s psychotic-stalker-ex-boyfriend-from-rehab bit wasn’t a deviation from the rest of her Dinner Behavior Disaster but actually a part of it on multiple levels. Turning it around on Emily seems — well — unfair.

For starters, I’d be appalled if my girlfriend shared what Maya shared regardless of the gender of Maya’s partner — you oughtta save “psychotic exes” for maybe your third Christmas with the fam. Furthermore, she’d already ruined her chance to make a good impression before the phone even rang so probably should’ve stopped talking altogether. But, in the context of the rest of the night’s entertainment, it’s hard not to see all of it as a profoundly obnoxious gesture shared specifically to make everyone as uncomfortable as possible.

All joking aside, if my new girlfriend’s Mom was still in the “maybe she’ll meet a nice boy” phase and I was presenting as a girl-who-likes-girls and I’d just gotten out of a relationship with a boy, I would keep that shit to myself for the sake of my girlfriend. Hell, if my new girlfriend’s Mom incorrectly thought her daughter could manage a full-time job on top of school and I myself had a full-time job on top of school, I’d play it down or complain about how hard/tiring it was to do so. My personal identity/politics/beliefs/”how the world SHOULD be” sometimes take a backseat to love and family or just wanting to have a nice meal talking about music, weather and kittens.

Get them to like you first, and THEN open up the Honesty Box, you know? That’s how you change minds in the end.

i'm gonna go stand in a toilet stall crying softly to myself, brb

That being said, I don’t think Emily’s Mom is confused about anybody’s sexuality, I think she’s confused about why Maya has been a petulant weirdo for the entire meal.

What happened to the Maya who was there throughout the worst patch of Emily’s coming out process? Maya can be mad at Em’s Mom forever and ever, but this dinner isn’t about that. Also, Emily’s Mom is just visiting, why deliberately fuck with their few Precious Moments? Or maybe I’m hurting for Emily ’cause I know how hard it is to date someone your parents dislike, how hard it is to convince them there’s a side of her they just haven’t seen yet. It’s just the worst, it really is. “You know what they say about clean living!” Jesus christ.

Despite the fact that I don’t like Maya anymore and Emily should do whatever I say, Emily stops by her house in the morning for some processing.

somehow already looks this good

Emily: “The thing is, I do have a problem with you dating that guy, but not for the reasons you think. I have a problem with you dating anyone but me…”

HOLLER ANYONE BUT ME SHOUT-OUT.

Emily: “…and knowing you’re into guys and girls, it just doubles the amount of people that I have to compete with.”
Maya: “Trust me, you have no competition… and you were right. As much as I’d like to be zen about it, I’m still mad at your Mom for busting me.”
Emily: “So now what?”
Maya: “Can I show you something?”

First, props to Emily for being mature and not biphobic. Secondly, last night, Maya smoked a shit-ton of opium and proceeded to decorate her room in a style that’d get at least 1,000 reblogs on tumblr. It’s all deep blue and sparkling with an underwater glow and it works — the decor just SCREAMS “darling it’s better down where it’s wetter.”

that's why it's hotter under the water

Maya: “If the sharks won’t let you back in the water, I’ll bring the water to you.”

She’s talking about saliva:

i think tongue is going to happen

Maya: “I admit, I like to live life in the grey area, but the way I feel about you is crystal clear.”

Maya gazes into Emily’s sweet brown eyes like a psychotic vampire starving for a Big Gulp of Human Blood, and Emily opens her neckhole up to love.

Maya: “I love you Emily.”
Emily: “I love you too, Maya.”

And then they tumble onto the bed, geography be damned!

Well, now at least we’ve got this sorted out:

So. As much as I’m rooting for Emily to be with anyone at all, to have something to hold onto, I’m not sure that Maya is that thing. Two weeks ago Maya actually used “I was seeing someone else” as her excuse for cutting Emily out without any explanation whatsoever, and Emily accepted it not as a red flag, but as a Reasonable Explanation. Sure, Maya’s right to hold a grudge against Mrs. Fields, but if you don’t have anything nice to say it’s best not to say anything at all — if she couldn’t contain her resentment, she should’ve declined Emily’s invitation.

So, what do you think? Do you totally love Maya and hate me?

Oh also the best part of the episode was when Garret fronted like he was gonna hit Caleb with his car and Caleb made a face like “who the fuck are these people?”

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