Damn that “A”! She’s like a pesky little toddler — you know, the one who is always standing on her head, doing cartwheels, and annoyingly tugging on your shirt, while continually screaming, “Look at ME! Look at ME!” . . . during a funeral service . . . for her Grandma. As the weeks progress, “A” just seems to get more and more insistent on keeping the girls’ attention, with her mean-spirited messages and evil tricks.
This week, the girls actually did what I thought they should have done in the first episode (well . . . after calling the cops, of course). Namely, they made a concerted and unified effort to cut off all communication with the mysterious “A.” Well, it turns out, when it comes to Stalker Teens, I’m not nearly the expert I thought I was. Because this actually ended up being a HUGE MISTAKE!
Let’s revisit, shall we?
Spencer Ruins Saves the Day! (And the girls sexually harrass Mr. Fitz.)
The first moments of the episode, feature our favorite cyber-stalking victims, gathered on a park bench. (Well. . . the first few moments, aside from Hanna’s SUPER lame, blink-and-you’ll miss it, run-in with the cops, which I refuse to recognize as an actual scene, due to its sheer pointless ridiculousness. “So, you STOLE and totalled someone’s car, Hanna the Infamous Shoplifter? No big deal! At least you’re not fat anymore . . .),.
The purpose of this bonding session? To create a memorial for Alison, the same “Dead” Chick who currently seems to be making all their lives a living hell. And, based on the flashbacks shown, Alison more or less made their lives a living hell, while she was alive too.
“Kiss my psycho stalking ASS, BITCHES! If you don’t, I’ll never make you cheap ugly friendship bracelets AGAIN!”
(SERIOUSLY! Even BEFORE she died, Alison seemed like a majorly annoying, judgmental b*tch! Why did these girls bother hanging out with her, in the first place? I can understand Emily, because she obviously had a BIG lesbian crush on the girl. And Hanna needed Alison to make her popular, despite her weight. But Aria and Spencer? I just don’t get it . . .)
So, anyway, the girls fight a bit about which one of them should get stuck holding on to Dead Alison’s fug bracelet. Fortunately, Spencer, who clearly enjoys stealing other people’s things (like, for example, their term papers and their boyfriends), gallantly offers to take the ugly piece of fabric back to her place for some “good loving.”
For SALE! The one and only friendship bracelet that spent time in an ACTUAL coffin and LIVED TO TELL THE TALE! If you sniff closely, you can even SMELL the rotted flesh! It can be yours for the price of $29.99 (plus shipping, handling, and a small portion of the corpse’s estate tax.)
Then, Spencer, who apparently takes her laptop EVERYWHERE (including the bathroom), randomlywhips it out (no pun intended), and uses it to prevent herself from receiving texts, calls or e-mails from any and all unknown numbers. (Who knew small town parks had such excellent WiFi?) The other girls borrow the computer from Spencer and quickly follow suit.
While they are doing that, Mr. Fitz rides by on his bicycle. Fitzy is looking Super Femme, with his ghostly pale stick legs and tight ass bicycle shorts.
“LIVE STRONG, underage minors that I will eventually screw! LIVE STRONG!”
Although I was fairly unimpressed with the whole “Fitz and Bicycle” package, the girls apparently liked it just fine. Spencer and Hanna, in particular, took joy in hooting and hollering at Fitzy, with all the class and tact of an overweight construction worker, or a middle-aged Wall Street type, trying desperately to “score some hos” at an overpriced, slightly seedy, Titty Bar. Noticeably silent during this love fest, were Closet Lesbian, Emily, and Aria, who totally could have totally shouted out “I’ve tapped that” . . . but didn’t (unfortunately, because that would have been funny).
Just when the girls are beginning to celebrate their newfound freedom to sexually harrass their professors without killjoy “A” looking over their shoulders, an “Alison is Lost” flyer conveniently falls in their laps. “Ding Dong the B*tch is Dead!” is scrawled across the front in marker.
My sentiments exactly . . .
Re-Learning To Kill a Mockingbird, as taught by a Very Pissy Professor
“That Scout character seemed kind of cute. Think she would date me?”
At school, Aria once again visits Ezra Fitz in between classes, to tell him how much fun her friends had objectifying his man parts at the park the other day. Fitzy’s eyes noticeably lightup, as he mulls over the possibility of a Pretty Little Fivesome, with himself as centerpiece. But, for now, he will have to settle for being a One-Cradle kind of Robber. He tells Aria that they need to “talk,” and invites her over to his studio apartment for some noodles and sex. Aria, desperate to learn what’s underneath those bicycle shorts, promptly agrees.
Fitzy and Aria start talking about how Aria thinks her dad is probably boinking the teaching assistant again. When Fitzy gently suggests that she let her parents work out their problems in their own way, Aria gets WAY TOO UPSET! Suddenly, she’s going at Fitzy like a pit bull in heat, only not in a hot way. In fact, Aria actually kind of reminded me of Joe Pesci in that famous scene from Goodfellas. Except, instead of repeatedly asking Fitzy whether he thought she was efffing “funny,” she continually demanded to know whether he thought she was effing “immature.”
“So what? You think I’m a BABY! A f*&king BABY? Like I’m immature? Do I look like a wear a f*&king poopy diaper to YOU?”
Aria then storms out of the house, leaving Fitzy to clean up the trail of poopy and spitup his baby left behind . . .
The next day in Mr. Fitz’s class, the group get into a discussion about Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
And the whole scene made me feel as old as dirt. I read the novel my freshman year of high school (which wasn’t THAT long ago, mind you). However, upon viewing this scene, I quickly realized that, while I recalled a few general things about the characters in the story, I remembered next to nothing about its plot. It truly shames me to say that, before I wrote this recap, I headed off to Wikipedia, and read the To Kill a Mockingbird entry, in hopes of truly understanding what went down here.
First off, you just knew Fitzy was in a BAD MOOD, when he started calling Atticus Finch a hypocrite. Now, like I said, I don’t remember that much about the book, but I KNOW that NOBODY messes with ATTICUS! That’s like the literary equivalent of kicking the Pope in the nuts.
“You are going DOWN, Fitzy, you muthaf*&ka!”
Fitzy’s point, I think, was that, while Atticus looked down his nose at his hometown, for its failure to provide justice for Tom Robinson, he was more than willing to help Boo Radley escape the arm of justice, after the latter had killed Bob Ewell. Aria then makes some lame argument about there being an equal “exchange,” and Atticus’s son Jem having been “raised right.”
Fitzy interrogates Aria, like a scorned lover, in front of the ENTIRE class. Then, when another student tries to offer his opinion, Fitzy jumps down his throat for no reason whatsoever. Later that night, Aria, scolds Fitzy for his bad behavior. They kiss and make up . . .
The Femme Ranger rides AGAIN!
But then, Aria comes home to find that “A” has spilled the beans to her mom about her father’s affair through a letter. The letter seems to suggest that Aria knew about the affair all along (which she did). Aria’s mom looks PISSED!
Creepy Toby strikes again!
“Emily, after Chem Lab, I would very much like to eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Sound good?”
Like I said, I don’t remember much about To Kill A Mockingbird. But I DO remember the characters. Particularly, I remember reading about Boo Radley. I remember how, for most of the book, I was absolutely certain the dude was a child molester. And then, at the end of the novel, Boo ended up being kind of a nice guy. . . just misunderstood (Sorry for spoiling it for you, if you haven’t read it yet.) It’s highly possible that the writers wanted us to feel that way about Toby Cavanaugh by the end of this episode — namely, that he is a nice guy who is simply misunderstood.
That might end up being true. But you know what? He still creeps the crap out of me! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, next week, we learn that Toby chopped off the heads of the kids who put shaving cream in his locker this week, and used their teeth to make a neckace . . .
At the beginning of the episode, Emily is flirting with her almost-girlfriend, Maya, when the latter gives the former a bright red leash scarf.
Emily seems flattered by Maya’s gift. However, she is so embarrassed by the prospect of people knowing the two of them are “an item,” that she takes it off, anytime anyone seems to be watching her. So, of course, Emily’s new lab partner, Creepy Toby, has to make some awkward comment about how “nice” it looks on her, even though he only actually saw her wearing it for a split second. Emily freaks out a bit when she opens her chemistry book, and finds in it those missing pictures from last week of Emily and Maya making out in the photobooth.
When Emily confronts Maya about this, she denies having anything to do with putting the photos in Emily’s book. However, she doesn’t appear to be particularly concerned about their being made public. Later in the episode, Emily more or less “dumps” Maya, claiming she needs “her space.”
Toward the end of the episode, Emily confronts Toby about the photos, when she finds him lurking around late at night near her garbage can. (Oh, I’m serious!) Toby also claims not to have put the photos in her chemistry book, and basically denies ever having even seen them. He then makes this long drawn out speech about “being yourself” and “not caring what others think of you,” that, again, was supposed to be nice, and, again, I found INSANELY creepy . . . Hide your pet bunnies, Emily!
Open Wide, Hanna . . .
Be careful, Hanna! I read that excessive tears can cause weight gain!
So after enduring that pesky little grand theft auto issue (notice how it took WEEKS of Hanna’s mom screwing Deputy Douchey to expunge Hanna’s record of her minor shoplifting offense, but the car theft is just a blip on the radar), Hanna needs some time to unwind. She is excited to receive a call from her long absent pompous ass of a father. Convinced that her dad wants her back in her life, Hanna practically sprints to her father’s car. However, she becomes suspicious when her father makes some snide remark about her “poor driving skills.” (Haha, this guy’s a LAUGH riot! He should really get his own comedy show . . . Yeah, I’m being sarcastic. Papa Marin sucks!)
“Did you come here because of the car?” Hanna inquires, eyes blinking back tears.
“No, that would require me to actually give two sh*ts about you, which I don’t.” Hanna’s father doesn’t admit or deny her daughter’s accusation. Instead, he takes her to dinner in order to reveal to her the real reason for his visit.
Apparently, while Hanna was busy stealing clothing, crashing cars, making out with her possibly gay boyfriend, and dieting, Papa Marin was getting his screw on with his Stepford Wife-esque new fiance, and fathering her instantly unlikeable daughter, Kate. Understandably, Hanna doesn’t take the news too well. She copes with the situation by more or less threatening to murder Kate at sea, while the latter theoretically teacher her how to sail.
(Honestly, can you blame her? Just looking at this self-righteous chick makes me want to revise my current views on gun control!)
When called out for her mean spiritedness, Hanna replies by passive aggressively saying, “What? It’s a joke. And this is a fork!” (Apparently, Hanna hopes to one day add “homicide” to her growing list of criminal offenses.) When Hanna’s father informs her that she will be paying off the cost of Sean’s car repairs by working at his father’s dentist office, she takes the opportunity to make another jibe at Kate and her rather large, fake teeth . . .
And yet, by the end of the night, it’s “A,” who gets the last laugh. While Hanna is driving home from dinner (Wait! They are still letting her DRIVE?), she learns that someone has made a dedication to her on the radio!
But it’s from A . . .
The song is called “I Don’t Need You Anymore,” and it more or less adequately describes the way Hanna’s father is treating her. Ouch A! Under the circumstances, threatening to kill Hanna at sea, or making fun of her horse teeth would have been WAY more humane!
And the Reward for Most Adorable Drunk Ever Goes To . . .
So, depending on how you look at it, Spencer is either having the best or the worst day ever. On one hand, Spencer has been nominated for the prestigious Golden Orchid writing award.
. . . but it’s for a paper she STOLE from her sister.
She’s home alone, because the rest of her family went away to Europe and left her there to rot.
And SOMEONE BREAKS INTO HER HOUSE!
But it ends up just being Drunk Wren who LUUUUUUUUVES her and wants to hug, kiss, and squeeze her, forever and ever.
Except that while Spencer and Wren are getting their flirt on, some creepo is videotaping them from outside Spencer’s house! Oh, and did I mention Wren dropped a FLOWER POT on Spencer’s floor?
When Spencer leaves Drunk Wren off at the hotel, the two of them make out with one another hardcore!
And when she comes back, someone has cleaned up her flower pot mess for her . . .
But the flower pedals are arranged in the shape of the letter “A,” and a video camera is inside. SOMEONE is (or was) in the house!
And then SOMEONE wrote “It won’t be that easy, b&tches,” on Spencer’s mirror, in the color of lipstick that Alison always wore!
And that’s all I’ve got folks. What did you think of this week’s installment of Pretty Little Liars? Think you are any closer to learning “A'”s identity, or that of Alison’s killer? Were you as turned on by Drunk Wren as I was? Are you a fan of Fitzy’s legs? All important questions . . .
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