Mike scurries out into the woods and hides a prize in the knothole of a tree like real Boo Radley. Andrew spies him doing it and reports back to Aria immediately. He tells her he will take her to that tree, he will take her and quiz her about world history on the way and she will get into college and they will climb that tree, he will take her there. Andrew really wants to see Aria’s bra. Aria says that there’s no need for that; all he has to do is tell her what the tree looks like and she’ll find it herself.
I swear that portal to Out of Town was around here somewhere.
An amazing thing in the Marin kitchen on a Saturday morning:
Mike Montgomery was here earlier. He said something about all women being in lesbians with Hanna.
Yeah.
Ashley: Morning, Em. You want some pancakes?
Emily: No, thank you. Ms. Marin, can I ask you a question? If your life was a hellscape of psychological warfare and you knew you could find sexual comfort — which isn’t everything but is at least one bright spot in a world of ceaseless homicide — in the arms of a partner you couldn’t see yourself with long term, would you go for it? I’m asking for a friend.
Ashley: Is that friend me?
Emily: What?
Ashley: What?
Emily: I’m really asking for me, Ms. Marin.
Ashley: Right, yes, of course. Look, the way I see it, life lasts a few minutes, really, and less than that if you’re either a teenage girl or a lesbian or a person of color in this town, and you’re all three, honey, so make it count with someone who matters for the very few moments you’re alive.
Emily picks up a pancake off the top of the stack and chomps into it. Wonderful. Ashley Marin makes everything so much better.
Spencer is at home trying to wrap her head around why Toby loves being the police so much, when Johnny comes smashing through the backdoor demanding a tool box. Spencer gives him a mirror. Just kidding. Spencer gives him a tool box. Just kidding. Spencer puts on her burglin’ outfit and grabs her little lyin’ toolbox and hops into Johnny’s GD Volkswagen van so they can go steal “their” “artwork.” I’ve got a secret and you can keep it for free: There are few things in life as dangerous as assholes who mistake their awfulness for integrity.
If Hanna and Emily are trying to be the lesbian power couple in this town, they need to just come out and tell me to my face.
Also, Johnny doesn’t even know how to pick a lock! He fiddles with the door handle of the art gallery for a good ten minutes before Spencer finally pushes him out of the way, pulls her lockpicks out of her pocket, and pops open the door in three seconds. They snag all the paintings and tuck them away in Johnny’s van. No problem. Easy peasy. But when Johnny pull the last one off the wall, an alarm sounds. He flips out and runs around in circles, but refuses to leave his precious graffiti behind, so he finally wrestles it off the wall and hops in the passenger seat of his van and Spencer drives them away as fast a Mystery Machine will go. So like 25 miles per hour.
Aria, meanwhile, is trekking into the woods to look for the place where Mike stashed his crime things. Do you see this, Spencer? Not only are you ruining your own life by scheming with my worst nightmare, you’re also going to get Aria killed! She is taking initiative in your absence! She is taking initiative in the forest by herself, trying to distinguish one tree from ten thousand trees based on someone’s verbal description of the tree, and she is doing it in the dark! While you are helping a Mugglehead commit a crime that is basically just stealing a whole different crime!
Do you want to watch the dirty parts of Black Swan after this, or nah?
Hanna and Emily are practicing and practicing and practicing their dance, getting ready for Hanna’s coach to arrive and give them a verdict about whether or not Hanna is pagent material. Caleb has ramped up his support and is providing sustenance in the form of cheesesteaks. Also he is providing rage-making news in the form of: Kate has also entered the pageant. You can guess how Hanna responds to that information, and it is by practicing her moves with even more tenacity. She’s got this coach that makes her feel like she’s the kid at fat camp who eats her own toothpaste and she’s got this evil stepsister who makes her feel like she’s unlovable by even her own father. And you know what she’s going do about it? Dance, bitches. She’s gonna goddamn motherfucking Dance.
“Hanna had the strangest desire to twine around Emily’s body like a vine…”
Is there something you need to tell me? Is Emilanna a thing?
IT’S HANNILY.
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that ol’ razzle dazzle, innit.
Surely is.
why is it every time emily and ms.marin are in the room together, i feel like they are one scene away from jumping each others pants? emily has chemistry with everyone but i feel like with ms. marin its off the charts.
also, apparently we are going to learn who A is in four episodes, for real this time. on tumblr someone has broken down the previews and says that Aria is A. thoughts?
I feel like you’re completely correct about Emily and Ashley. Their chemistry has always freaked me out. It’s like how Spencer and Jason have such crackling chemistry. I want it to stop!
If Aria really is A, that would just … I don’t even know. HOW could that be possible?
RIGHT!!! I literally replayed that scene just because the energy around them was so charged.EVEN before they said anything. but its weird too, nothing can happen, ashley marin would seize to be ashley marin if anything happened.i think the world between these two is best explored in fanfic.
remember a season or two ago when we would watch an episode and be like “it would be lovely if aria was in this show”. that she seemed so immune to the trauma the other girls were going through, so it makes sense to me in a way. Honestly, ezra was the perfect A so now they really have to sell the “real A”
A is not going to be revealed. There’s going to be a big reveal about A. The writers don’t control the promo department for pll and Spent the next day on Twitter doing damage control. Follow the writers on Twitter not the official account.
I feel like those poor writers spend half their lives damage controlling the promo people.
For a second I thought this said “porno people”.
Dammit!! i was really looking forward to that
So, Marlene King has very strategically shied away from saying we will find out exactly who A is, BUT, she has also SPECIFICALLY said that
1) We will see A without the mask/hoodie
2) We will see their haircolor
3) We will have enough information to figure out who A is.
My money is on either Aria or Toby.
I think A is going to be a boy, I don’t think the writers would make the mastermind of torturing these girls another girl again…plus they love giving us hints with movies and unrelated dialogue, so now that we know about the trial of the century I think it’s safe to say it’ll be a boy.
After to this episode I started thinking A is going to be Andrew…he seems to be around for a few episodes almost every season, he’s always being suuuuuuper helpful like when he gave Spencer her speed.
Toby has time to run errands for his family but zero time for Spencer. That’s the issue. Spencer was basically the rebelling teenager trying to get attention….from her boyfriend.
As much as Jonny sucks I liked how he made Spencer look like an even better criminal.
Toby knows that if he spends time with Spencer she’s going to ask him things he can’t tell her and tell him things he can’t know.
Well a relationship where you can’t talk to one another is still a bad relationship.
“I’m working on this new theory where Pam is A and this is all an elaborate pantomime to teach Emily a lesson about not talking to strangers.”
That’s crazyness. Nobody would ever do that!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/05/sheriff-boy-kidnapped-to-teach-him-a-lesson/22961305/
Holy shit. I take it back.
It was unbelievable the level of douchebaggery employed in this episode with Johnny (UGH FUCK JOHNNY), Eric, and pre-confession Mike. It’s disturbing how awful every guy is on this show, and how it just reinforces my misandric worldview. (Except Caleb. Because there’s always that one guy who will be saved in the Matriarchal Culling.)
Also, that dance scene with Emily and Hanna was…umm…quite wow. Me gusta. Shay can dance like whoa.
Matriarchal Culling! Hahahahaha!
Thanks to your description of dancing I now have abs like Hanna, is how hard I was laughing.
Also I was gonna say Johnny was Larry, Spencer could totally be a Piper. I’m not sure about Aria as Alex, except for maybe their kind of gothic looks and their astronomical height difference compared to other humans.
I keep watching that Hanna scene over and over. I have watched it more than any other scene in TV history and it still hasn’t lost its luster.
If I tried to watch it again I would implode!
You should at least watch the GIFs.
– They name dropped Jenna. Please let her come back.
– Mike, if you’re doing something shady, then the word you need to live by is S-U-B-T-L-E-T-Y.
– I actually like what Aria is wearing this episode. That star on her back is adorable.
– Yes to Aria and Andrew. He’s mature, which she likes, but not OLD.
– Stop focusing on Hanna during the dance. I want to see Emily.
– Does Johnny drive a VW bus? What a hipster douchebag.
– I want to draw your attention, once again, to the fact that Spencer can pick locks.
– I’m going to have to side with Toby on this one. Spencer, when you act shady, you can’t blame Toby for acting like a cop…when he’s a cop.
– That pizza that Hanna was nomming on was the worst pizza I’ve ever seen.
PS – Mike was going to use Mona’s blood to make a Mona wolf that would hunt Spencer at the end of the Hunger Games. Until then, Mona Wolf would hang with Foxface Wolf, because Hanna’s not into zoophilia.
Spencer is A: http://forums.afterellen.com/threads/spencer-is-a.98/
Or maybe Mike will make a Mona clone.
http://forums.afterellen.com/threads/is-mona-a-clone.1060/
If Mike makes a Mona clone, I retract every mean thing I have ever said about him.
100% agreed with actually siding with Toby because duh he’s doing his job THAT YOU SUPPORTED AND ENFORCED, SPENCER.
And I ship Andrew and Aria. Unfortunately, Andrew is probably going to turn out to be horrible too, but for now he and Caleb are the only decent guys around.
I understand that investing in this crazy wonderful show requires an insane ability to suspend my disbelief but there’s something that’s been bugging me for almost a week now…Didn’t Spencer and fucking Johnny vandalize the roof of a building? Did they tear down the entire building because of spray painted rabbits or were they always going to tear it down? Did that gallery owner hang chunks of roof in his gallery? If they were already going to tear it down, does the gallery now have an asbestos problem?
Maybe I should just go watch Hanna and Emily dance again – that seemed to stop my brain…
I think it was an awning!
Well that just makes too much sense!
I thought it was the roof, too, because of the ladder, but then I was like, “I don’t care where they painted. I still hate that ass so much.”
I’m so glad that someone else has been confused and annoyed. Maybe in rosewood they have technology to transfer stuff from concrete to canvas. Idk… I think I’ll take your advice and just watch them dance for the 1,000,000th time. I will never get tired of that magic.
So here’s a question. If Mona isn’t in the barrel, who is? It would have to be someone we already know, and it would have to be shocking.
My guess: Cece.
Oh my god! This episode was so full of dancing and all kinds of craziness with Mona maybe being alive but probably still really dead that I forgot all about #whatsinthebarrel!
Oh, shit! NOT CECE! Why can’t it ever be Johnny in the barrel?
It should always be Johnny in the barrel
Can we make “Johnny in a barrel” a thing when people get their comeuppance? Kind of like “Johnny on the spot” for people who are ready for anything?
For example: That asshat from PLL is totally Johnny in a barrel with his mansplaining. It’s no wonder the coven of Rosewood Young Lesbians crucified him.
Yes!
Ezra read Aria’s college essay. #JohnnyInABarrel
This is great! I love your take on Toby’s arrest scene. “You’re super under arrest.” “Spencer, where’s Aria?” Bahaha. Good riddance to Johnny Barndweller, and Talia, too! And yay for Supportive!Emily and for the laughs I get from Detective!Aria.
Yeah, I actually really love Detective!Aria. She’s one of my top five favorite Arias.
All this Sparia VS Hannily is stressing me out! And what about Spemily? D: D: D:
It doesn’t have to be so dramatic, but Spencer is so dang competitive!
This was hilarious and that shit about the trial of the century just made my head explode.
It’s so crazy It’s like the genesis of victim blaming culture in our country, kind of.
Yes! Heather, including the explanation of the Trial of the Century was amazing, and really showcases how intelligent these writers are to drop in these kinds of references. (Ditto for contextualizing that movie from last week’s episode that Mike was watching.)
Hanna Marin owns angry contemporary but Jenny Hartmann remains the queen of angry pizza ballet.
Miss you every day, Jemma!
My money is on either Aria or Toby to be A.
The Toby theory goes that Bethany was actually his sister, and their mother, Marion, was Jessica DiLaurentis’s twin sister. (This would explain Jessica’s interest in Bethany, the yellow dresses in the piano, and Toby’s going-nowhere subplot a couple seasons ago about finding out what happened to his mother in Radley.) Toby becomes A to get revenge on the people who killed his sister and mother.
Interestingly, there’s a subtheory of this where Bethany is actually Marion’s daughter by Mr. Marin, Hannah’s dad, and Mrs. Marin is the “Black Widow” at Jessica DiLaurentis’s funeral.
The Toby as A theory makes me sad though, because Toby is one of the less objectionable males on this show, and him being A would make his relationship with Spencer really predatory and gross.
I am still hoping that Aria turns out to be A though! This Tumblr outlines the Aria has multiple personality disorder/is A evidence really well:
http://idontneednoroad.tumblr.com/ariaisa
http://idontneednoroad.tumblr.com/ariaisa2
http://idontneednoroad.tumblr.com/ariaisa3
Yes, there’s a substantial amount of flimsy evidence like “the shovel is pointing towards her” and “her hand is kind of shaped like an A if you squint” but there’s some good stuff buried in there too. I find all of the allusions to movies and books about people with mental illness around Aria particularly compelling and subtle, not to mention all the As in her shots — just look at the Ace of Hearts on the Christmas Tree in UnMasked.
Aria being A is probably the only way I will ever like her though, so that’s why I’m clinging so hard to this theory. :(
Well, that was quite a mindfuck!
It took me like 4 hours to read through those Aria is A links, and while a number of the posts are far too absurd, I’m really intrigued with the wardrobe and set items that are scattered around Aria.
As a Fine art grad student who drives a Volkswagen bus I just want to say; we are not all like F***ing Johnny. He does not deserve that van.
I cannot express my hatred for him. The massive Douche. I have never spoken Italian to make myself look good to a girl I liked and simultaneously piss off her boyfriend…well maybe when I was in high school…but not as an adult guys.
My hatred for him burns like the ginger of Van Gogh’s beard.
Also Emily telling Hanna she loved her made me tear up a touch which I needed what with the Johnny/Spencer lip lock…Vom. Plus Mr Talia…also vom.
Can there be an Emily and Mrs Marin advice chat show…I’d watch the hell out of that.
Glad I’m watching on Netflix so I don’t get spoilery promos :) however I have considered Aria may be A from episode 1…gleaned from comments that that’s what was suggested…?!?
Hat, I know you are not Fucking Johnny!
Also, yes to your advice show idea.
I had Hanna’s dad so much. This is why I’m not sad to have one. Does he not know how college admissions fin aid works? You can just say $1000 a month and be done with it.
Does any parent on this show know anything about how college works, really? Or any of the Liars, actually? Please recall the way Spencer applied to UPenn in the woods one night at one of Noel Kahn’s ragers. Like she gave her application to Cece at 10pm, literally in the forest in rural Pennsylvania, and then by midnight she had an email like, “Thanks for your application!” And Spencer was all, “And that’s college taken care of.”
God, I miss Cece.
I couldn’t even get through half of this recap – “it’s a-me, Mario!”
I’m literally crying for the past 10 minutes, laughing. this is brilliant.
Thank you for laughing at that! I was afraid it was too narrow of a joke!
I can’t stop laughing at the play by play of Hanna’s manic dancing. Brilliant.
I can’t stop laughing at Hanna’s manic dancing. Truly, it was transcendental!
It reminds me of a Dr Seuss book. I shed more years laughing at that play by play than anything I can think of. Pure magic.
Thank you for another glorious recap. I completely forgot that anything had happened other than the dance scenes.
I rewatched this in tandem with the previous episode, where Hanna’s dad is such a jerk. Found myself talking about how to legislate to stop people in Hanna’s situation not being supported through college by A-hole fathers, and then realized I’d lived in N.America too long. The obvious answer being that college should be free for everyone and paid for by higher taxes on wealthy cuttle-fish-brained idiots like Hanna’s dad.
Preach it!
To whom does one write to start a petition to give Shay and Ashley a dance scene in every remaining PLL episode ever?
I don’t know, but if you find out, tell me, because I will canvas door-to-door for that cause.
The Trial of the Century stuff made my brain explode. Thanks for being smart and researching that for us, Heather.
Now I’m thinking that A is either Wren or Ezra…an entitled, older dude who felt jilted by Ali.
But I would absolutely LOVE it if Aria was A. She’s been such a useless and annoying character, and having her actually be the villain would be fantastic.
I am seriously hoping that Johnny just leaves and never comes back. His character could not be more useless.
I can’t wait to see how this pageant rolls out. Emily in a swimsuit? Yumerz!
In case anyone needs to just watch the dance sequence over and over, I’ll just leave this here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ID5JvizhY
I refuse to believe I’m the only one with this video set as a tab whenever I open chrome?
No regrets.
Heather, I just love how seripussly you treat pop culture, the themes you bring out of this show, the little things you notice. You’re such an inspurration – your writing is funny, but not at anyone else’s expense, and as ridicmewpuss as this show can get, you don’t dismiss it as trash. You keep pulling things out of it that other people wouldn’t stay still long enough to notice – it’s truly amazing to read!
^ I write in cat puns. Cats are always relevant. End of! Also, Autostraddle totally condones this, as I was in the comment awards :p (Life goal achieved!)