Okay! Finally! The big nighttime race thing. Let’s see, what’s important here. Well to me the most important takeaway from this episode is that, over by the volunteer tent, Aria’s wearing the coolest sweatshirt ever.
PUTTING THE STUD IN FEMME STUD
She and Caleb watch in amazement as people fawn over Mona. Apparently the cool kids loved her sob story video. They hadn’t been as worked up about anything since the Google commercial featuring the It Gets Better Project videos. Aria asks Caleb about the whole not knowing his dad thing. He found it generally non-favorable.
GIVE THE WHOLE RANGE OF OPTIONS I WOULD HAVE JUST COME OUT SOONER AND BOUGHT THREE CATS
Grandma Paula Deen sings the national anthem (uninvited) and the racers are off!
WHO TOLD YOU YOU’RE ALLOWED TO RAIN ON MYYYY PARAAAADDEEE
Spencer: Why is your grandmother singing the national anthem?
Hanna: Because she can.
Wait– where’s Emily? Oh yeah, she’s under house arrest! But her dad is leaving for a few hours and in a stroke of genius (kind of) Emily switches she and her father’s phone cases.
QUICK FINGERS. FROM ALL THE PRACTICE.
Using the power of Technology, Emily disarms the house and skip off to the nighttime charity run (I’m still not believing this is a real thing). Did she really need to sneak out? Couldn’t she have just had Paige over for some late night sneaking in IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
COME TO MY WINDOW
Spencer, Aria and Hanna ditch the racetrack and go down to Creepy Janitor’s office. The three find Emily down there trying to break into the office with a paperclip. Obviously that will never work! Spencer takes over and successfully breaks into Creepy Janitor’s office using a bobby pin. The last dozen times I tried that while locked out of my apartment while my puppy was locked in it worked approximately not at all.
EASIER THAN GETTING INTO AN ASSHOLE
Quit cut to the finish line where Mona sees Meredith. She gives her this look I’ve only used when incredibly hot girls cut me in line at the bathroom. Like a, “I’m having a lot of feelings about you but also that was fucked” look.
I’M GOING TO FINGERBANG THAT GIRL.
Once in Creepy Janitor’s office, the girls find Ali’s diary. It was just sort of out in the open you know? Why doesn’t anyone in Rosewood seem to use bookshelves. Or safes. Or leave private things at their homes. Either way Ali’s diary instantly flips opens to a passage about Aria’s dad. Cue the pastel flashback. Look! Grace got me this amazingly perfect screen shot.
A LITTLE SUMPIN’ SUMPIN’
So yeah Ali was blackmailing Byron. C’mon guys give me something New! Aria is, understandably, upset. The Liars rip out the page and rush out of the office when they hear someone coming. The Creepy Janitor confronts them but TobAy sweeps in to the rescue as per usual. Next time he’ll probably bring a white horse. I couldn’t hate him more if I tried.
EMILY IS A LITTLE LATE TO THE SURPRISE PARTY
Just The Liars and TobAy walk out of the building, the storage shed catches on fire!
WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE, IT WAS ALWAYS BURNING SINCE THE WORLD’S BEEN TURNING.
I’m going to be honest, this probably would have been exciting/scary/thrilling except I had turned away for a second to crank up the heat in my freezing cold basement. Slightly ironic that I missed the beginning of the fire scene in doing so.
Instead of getting to watch this fire burn down, we cut to a comercial break and then to Emily’s bedroom. Is Paige in there calming Emily down with scissoring? Nope, but her dad is there on the phone with Emily’s principal.
THIS IS BOURN.
He is unimpressed. It seems Meredith was hurt in the storage fire. Emily’s dad wants Emily to let him in but is concerned his army career kept him away so long that they no longer can connect with Emily as well as he did back when she lost it and came out. He reminds her that he knows what it’s like to lose people. Like lose lose people. Um, abcFamily, we get it, he was in the army. You don’t need to constantly remind us and have him exclusively wearing army clothes. We follow this show with enough zeal to remember basic facts like that.
I’M NOT LIKE OTHER DADS. I’M A COOL DAD.
Also where is Emily’s mom? Is she not on payroll this week?
Over at Aria’s, Byron has just gotten home from driving Meredith home from the hospital. I guess they’re dating again? Or maybe she just doesn’t have any appropriate friends or family. Either way, Byron turns his previous personality on its head and goes apeshit on Aria about how he “knows what her friends are capable of.”
THE SCREAM
Turns out someone sent Meredith a note leading her into the fire and she thinks it was The Liars.
I KNOW I’M OBSESSING OVER SOMETHING SMALL, BUT THAT’S THE WEIRDEST QUESTION MARK I’VE EVER SEEN.
Aria keeps saying “No we didn’t do that,” and her dad keeps saying “Yes or Nooooo.” It’s a whole big thing.
SOUTH COAST BOUTIQUE IS HAVING A FIRE SALE?
After Aria kicks her dad out of her room she calls Spencer who has just come from giving yet another pep talk to Jason.
Aria: A set us up.
Spencer: What?
Aria: That’s why Meredith opened up that shed. A sent her over there and made it look like we did it.
Spencer: Does A go by the name of Mona? Is this her way of proving to us that she’s worthy?
Aria: I gotta go.
Spencer: Wait, Aria is it your dad? Do you want to come stay at my place?
Aria: He’s never going to let that happen.
But wait! Someone’s behind Aria’s door! Who’s at the door?
IT’S NEVER EVAN RACHEL WOOD BISEXUAL
That’s right, Byron heard that whole thing and now he knows… um… I guess I’m not sure what he knows? That A is back I guess? And that his own daughter is scared of him? There are just so many questions he won’t have answers to.
Spencer hangs up the phone and walks over to her own house. After she’s out of sight Mona comes out on to Jason’s front porch with a bandage. At first I’m sure you’re thinking what I was thinking, that Jason had started a new all mummy rock band, but no. He has a big round stab wound. But Jason took all those pictures of Aria and seemed pretty in love with her, why would he want to throw her off a train? Unless he thought that only Garret was in the box and that he had killed his sister’s murderer.
NOTHING TREATS A GIGANTIC PUNCTURE WOUND TO YOUR ABDOMEN QUITE AS WELL AS A BAND-AID.
In the final cut scene we get our usual dose of hooded A. A loosens someone’s front bike tire. I was so fucking scared it was going to be Paige. You know how she loves a good late night bike ride. Instead it was some boy with an Academic Decathlon textbook who, unsurprisingly, has an epic bike fall moments later. Looks like A needs to boost his extracurricular if he wants to go Ivy League next year.
I JUST UPGRADED MY FIXIE
Tune in next week to see A whack off members of the Anime Club, Scrabble Club and Women in Wood Technology Club (all real high school clubs I was president of). Maybe we’ll even figure out why abcFamily has to show the scariest commercials ever when I’m all alone in my basement at 11pm.
In the meantime, for those of you who miss the fashioncaps, abcFamily just started putting out Style File with the show’s costume designer Mandi Line.
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Yeah, this episode left me feeling a bit disappointed mostly because nothing really did happen. However, there was something else bothering me about it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on until I read your recap. There was no Paige!
I know! There were definitely some ups and downs in there but all I would have really needed to be like BEST EPISODE EVER would have been a 15 second scene of Paige trying not to convince Emily to sneak out and instead stay in a play scrabble.
Yes. When I got to the end of this episode and realized I hadn’t seen the slightest glimpse of Paige, I was like, “Wait…so…I just spent 45 minutes of my life on this episode for nothing?”
The lack of Paige was disappointing when you consider that all of the other couples got screentime, but I guess it’s okay since she’s back next week (with her cute braids! Yay for cute braids!) and Lindsey Shaw is doing a pre-show live-chat over on the ABCFamily website (y’all should totally go ask questions).
OH AND Hanna’s grandma is literally my favourite character on this show and should be a key feature in every episode.
“Let’s take a bathroom break and a page break.”
And also a Paige break, apparently.
You’re 100% funnier than me.
Oh, snap.
This episode was kind of meh. But I did have two questions.
1. Could Emily and Hanna possibly have talked just a bit louder when scoping out the janitor’s office?
“OH MY GOD! WHERE DO YOU THINK HE GOT MONA’S STUFF? WHY DOES HE HAVE MONA’S STUFF?”
2. How many boxes of shit did Ali have? Seriously, every time we see Jason at the house he’s carrying another box of stuff. They need to send the Hoarders crew to that house.
Also, I greatly appreciated the inclusion of the Pokemon clip. Right in the childhood!
Spencer and Toby were gonna hot-tub it after their run and boom, they’re in and it’s night alright. It’s like they spent 6 hours in there. Not healthy. Glee taught me you can get pregnant that way.
I feel like they’re taking a lot of tips from Glee. Like introducing a lesbian character, having a dramatic big coming out, have her find love and then go episode after episode without showing them in a relationship.
the relationships are all so disturbingly stable. i mean, they are sitting side by side in a hot tub and then one of them is like ‘oh sorry gotta go’ while ominous music plays. it’s like a play about middle-aged malaise. prediction: paige was on wine tour, will return with grown-up jewelry for emily, they will hug politely and then attend a lecture about public health safety. caleb will reupholster mona’s couch without the liars’ permission, setting off a competitive string of competitive mini-renos, culminating in A pursuing them through a craft fair texting them menacing quotes attributed to Hafiz. the end.
love this comment! Except I’ve only ever used Hafiz quotes when I’m hitting on someone, not so much menacing…
I’m stunned that nobody has mentioned how the first convo between Hanna and Grandma Broadway was one of the gayest exchanges I’ve ever heard on PLL. That, with the muffin basket, alone reignited my Mona Is In Lesbian With Hanna senses.
But where do we find Aria’s studded sweatshirt, Lizz? …Unless I take some studs to my old black hoodie.
That weird question mark looks like it’s a “2” footnote.
aaaand Hanna’s grandmother is obvs Paula Deen.
AHAHAHAHAH totally paula deen!!!!!
Meredith. Same actress as the lead woman in the movie Center Stage, right? After Cooper Neilson, who could blame the girl for chasing after Byron.
yep, guess bad feet Sawyer couldn’t cut it after all
Every time Chad Lowe is onscreen, all I can think of is Life Goes On.
Real talk though, my hoodie pulls are tied up Caleb-style right now. My defense is that it keeps the cat from trying to kill the pulls dead and subsequently scratching my whole torso.
I have a weird confession and Lizz I love you so I’m going to use this thread to make it. I haven’t been reading autostraddle much for the past few months. Really the past 6 months. I still check it everyday, but I’ve just been…I dunno. Really let down and discouraged from the majority of the content. It could be a personal thing, idk. This is fucked up to say I guess, but it’s honest, and that is – Autostraddle seems to be becoming a lot of what I dislike about a lot of other queer publications. It’d take too long and be inappropriate to use this thread to go into details.
My point here isn’t really a valid point, just an expression of frustration again. But I love your writing (you should write for cracked too! You’d do great there), and riese’s and this recap held me in it’s soft, smooth arms and cuddled me back into happy autostraddle land and so I thank you for that. I hope you kick schools’ ass Miss Lizz!