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Title: Pretty Little Liars S5.E10 “A Dark Ali”
Released: 2014

THIS WEEK’S MVP

EMILY FIELDS. For finally, finally saying what we’ve all been thinking.

Runner up: Caleb, for finally shaving that mustache, and also forgetting that he was ever in a ghost curse at all. FINALLY.

THIS WEEK’S LVP

The Bluelight Cafe and their undrinkable coffee.

Sidenote: How is it possible that Rosewood’s single street boasts another coffeeshop we’ve never seen?

BIGGEST SURPRISE/BEST SHOCK

Dark Ali!!! DARK ALI!!!

BIGGEST NO-DUH

Don’t give Spencer things you need to keep hidden.

THAT’S ALI, FOLKS

Ali’s true machinations come to light, and they’re just as awful and manipulative as we’ve always known they would be. Some people really don’t change.

PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS

Everyone was the worst, then some people were the best. 

THIS WEEK

Let’s just say that Catie’s rant from last week about the Liars falling apart is answered this week in a majorly satisfying way. Boom!

Logical Breakdown

Where’s Alison? Oh, just sitting completely alone in front of a man who has just confessed kidnapping her, trying to decide what to do. Liar Logic apparently dictates that if Ali says that she (somehow) recognizes this guy as her kidnapper, A will bring the hurt and the police will find out she’s been lying. If she lets him go, everything will be okay except that he could maybe not-kidnap her again.

Ali Logic, which is somehow even dumber than Liar Logic, suggests fingering the man (his name is Cyrus, who knows why) for the crime, which will apparently cause him to run to A. They can follow him to A, and win! Again: eeeven dumber.

We always have to remind Ali which of her lies are lies, Spence. Always.

Alone, the four core Liars deliberate. The Liar Schism, which Ali has been indelicately forcing open for the past few episodes, is wide as ever. Or maybe it’s not so much a schism as a spectrum: on one end is Spencer, who Does Not Trust Alison and wants them to go to the cops with the “insurance policy” they stole from Noel. On the other is Emily, whose kind heart still believes that Ali is maybe really damaged from her time on the run. In the middle is Hanna, who’s pissed and just wants the truth/Ali gone. And then there’s Aria, who has basically no thoughts or feelings beyond “KEEP LYING SO THE COPS DON’T FIND OUT I KILLED SHANA.” According to Aria’s neon leggings-addled brain, literally any truth-telling could cause the whole scheme to fall down, so yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and no, sir, I certainly do not know my English teacher in the biblical sense and neither did Alison DiLaurentis. Never been to New York, nope, and isn’t it a shame that Ali was kidnapped for two whole years.

They send Emily as their envoy to Alison, to convince her not to commit perjury by identifying Cyrus as the kidnapper. Why Emily? Well, she’s the prettiest. And super hard to disappoint. (Yes, Ali has proven for years how little she wants to disappoint Emily OH WAIT.)

So Emily goes to talk to Ali, who is somehow having conflicted feelings about a fake situation. “I can’t just say this guy is innocent!” she complains to Emily. “YOU MADE UP THE ENTIRE THING,” Emily reminds her. Mr. DiLaurentis comes in, and tries to comfort Ali by saying what a horrible difficult shame this all is, and how OF COURSE they ALL want Cyrus to go to jail for a very, very long time. Emily’s like, “Uh…yes. We all want…that.”

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Mike exists! And apparently is looking out for his mother’s well-being. Good for him, because she’s in breakup sweats, on the couch, struggling to cancel with wedding vendors who have apparently never had a wedding fall through before because they keep asking if she wants to reschedule or something. We don’t actually SEE Mike, but we do see Aria bringing her mom a sandwich and a shoulder to lean on, both of which he suggested. Ella says that she should have seen this coming, that she was too old for Zach—no, actually, it’s the opposite problem. Anyway, Aria reminds her that age isn’t a real thing anyway, it’s just like a magic made-up number that people tell you when they want to keep you from living your life. She also reminds her mother about how Ella specifically told her “second chances exist”! Buuuuuut… apparently Ella was talking about Zach, so. Womp womp.

As usual, Aria’s brain immediately spins someone else’s sadness into her own problems: if second chances DIDN’T exist in this ONE specific instance, maybe they ALSO DON’T EXIST FOR EZRA?? Our hearts swelled very timidly here, thinking that maybe just maaaaybe Aria was going to finally settle her creep-ometer on “Ezra is a manipulative predator.” 

But alas, the only -ometer that ends up settling in her head is the one measuring Ezra’s physical safety, because as soon as she reaches his apartment to check in/up on him, he threatens offers to confront Ali about how her business ruins everyone else’s, and all Aria can see is flashing NYC ambulance lights and bloody, bloody gunshot wounds. So, of course, she forbids him. With that word. FORBIDS him from seeing Ali.

Look, we don’t want him talking to Alison/anyone ever at all either, Aria, but it’s not like they’re going to be MMA fighting (or ARE THEY). 

Anyway, she makes him PROMISE that he won’t get on Ali’s crazy train. There’s a tiny twist to his face when she says she wants him to be safe, like vindication for all his many manipulations finally paying off. It’s grosser than gross.

Like five minutes later, Ali is at the Brew alone (of course she is) and Ezra goes right on up to talk to her (of course he does). He first sounds all supportive—“You are not in this alone”—but it quickly turns into a threat…ening observation. Ali swears, if ONE MORE PERSON tells her what she should do, she’ll scream. Or hold her breath until she passes out. Because there’s nothing that Alison DiLaurentis likes better than resorting to dramatic histrionics to get her way (we joke, but also: this is basically the foundation of this whole series: everyone in the world deciding what these girls should and will do, and ignoring their own pleas for agency; Ali does it in the shittiest way possible, but all she is doing is trying to run her own damn life).

Luckily, Ali’s dad walks up and breaks up the tete-a-tete, but not before Aria sees them all cozied up. Cornering Ezra outside, she blows up. Yes, Aria, ignoring your direct requests and putting you in danger is what we call A WARNING SIGN!!

Buuuuuut, then. At home, Aria opens up to her mom. A reasonable parent might say, yep, it sounds like that guy who pursued you when he knew you were underage, and stalked and secretly recorded you for several years even while you were dating, maybe you’re well rid of him. But Ella Montgomery is just like, “Well, people CAN change! And you can’t just base all your decisions on what went wrong with Zach and me!” And the hopeful music swells, and our tiny, fragile hopes are stomped on once again. Do the writers really think that demonizing Zach makes up for lionizing Ezra?? And even within the show, does NO ONE see the obvious parallels between these stories?? We’d really, really, really like to believe that they do, and that we are meant to be screaming about how obvious the parallels are so that later we will be all the more satisfied when Aria sees them for herself.

Really, really, really.

Eat Your Greens

This week, Hanna is on a mission to achieve some normality in her life. Sort of. She starts by aggressively cleaning Caleb’s hovel, and insisting that both of them eat actual, un-fried vegetables and go on runs and generally do things that normal people do.

Caleb reminds her that normal people aren’t being hounded by A. But maybe Hanna just wants to be normal people for a change, all As aside. And her first step toward normalizing is going to a “stupid audition” for a “stupid chorus solo” at school.

At said audition, some annoying girl in the corner is doing some full vibrato vocal exercises. To no one’s surprise, it’s Mona, who is acting like a total diva.

And that’s even before Mona faints right away in the middle of the practice room. Hanna—who even with her blackened hair and soul, is really just a softy at heart—runs right over to help. When Mona wakes up, she’s frantic about the location of her purse. Hanna goes over to retrieve it, but snoops inside herself first, where she finds a mugshot of Cyrus, the man who confessed to kidnapping Ali. Dun dun dun!!!

We’re All Pawns

Evidently Spencer gave up on stashing Noel’s photos and recordings of Alison during the time she was “kidnapped” at the Easily Infiltrated Lake House, and is now just carrying them around on her person at all times. Yes, Spencer, very good! Oh, what’s that? You hid the tape recording of Alison telling her fake story to the doctor in a secret compartment in a chair in your room? Oh, and now it’s missing? *Facepalm.*

Someone buy these girls a safe already.

While Spencer is tearing her room apart on the off chance the recording just got antsy and went for a brief constitutional, Melissa pops up and surprises her, acting very sketchy. They’re both interrupted by a call to Spencer’s phone, which she thinks is from Alison but is really just someone playing the doctor’s office recording over the line. And then, an A text:

Spencer doesn’t even need Study Aid to stay up all night scanning her surveillance footage to ID who stole the tape. Amped up on KNOWLEDGE, she harasses Caleb and Hanna on the street as they attempt to jog. Hanna doesn’t want anything to do with it.

Look, Spence: Hanna goes all in, no matter what she does. You didn’t want her to drink all-in, don’t stop on her running…in.

Instead Spencer finds Aria to show her what she’s found: a video of Melissa handing a suspiciously tape-shaped object to someone dressed all in black. Aria asks if Melissa could have sent the A text. “She always liked chess…” says Spencer.

And then Spencer lays out #SpencersPlan which is not so much a plan as a general good rule of thumb for leading a successful, happy life: tell the truth. Specifically, cut the cord with Ali, and cash in Noel’s “insurance plan” immediately, by going to the cops and coming clean. Aria says, astutely but also in a case of total Liar Logic:

Well then you shouldn’t have NAMED YOUR SHOW THAT, guys.

About That…

Emily goes back to Alison’s house later. Her dad is gone, out doing more well-intentioned things to help his imaginary kidnapped daughter. Emily continues trying to convince her to not identify Cyrus; she knows Ali looooooves being the center of attention and having everyone believe her every word, but she can’t let some stranger go to jail. WELL, Alison tears up…

Turn out, SAYS ALI (with a very heavy emphasis on the SAYS ALI) he was squatting in an abandoned basement with her for awhile when she was first on the run. But then he stole her money and her stuff, and gave her that nasty thigh scar.

A flashback seems to corroborate this, and Ali is in tears as she “remembers” this traumatic incident from her past. This is a hard one for us, because obviously the flashes of memories ARE Ali’s, and she CAN’T share them with Em. But we also know how fantastic Ali is at convincing herself of her own lies, so. Her flashes may be her Hyde half convincing her Jekyll half of what could have been true, in another life.

Either way, good, trusting Emily—of course!—believes her.

Hastings Showdown

When Emily gets home, Spencer is already in her bedroom, holding the “insurance policy.” “Get that out of my house!” Emily tells her. “Do you even remember how many times our walls have been blown up or crashed into in the last month?? A LOT. WE GOT A SPECIAL ON NEW WINDOWS.” Anyway, Spencer tells Emily #SpencersPlan, but Emily has now drunk Ali’s Kool-Aid. She tells Spence it’s now her turn to do her part, and talk to Melissa. Sorry Spencer, but that’s what you get for sending in the one Liar who still loves Alison to talk to her, ALONE, about a major plot twist!

At the Hastings Manor, Melissa is participating in Rosewood’s favorite pastime, lurking in the shadows. Spencer comes in from snooping in the barn, and Melissa confronts her. “I saw those plane tickets on your computer,” Spencer says. “Are you going on vacation to all of these tropical locales, or running away?” The ominous music tells us that something here is Not! Good!

Spencer and Melissa shout back and forth using incredibly ambiguous language and not asking or answering any real questions. Melissa keeps saying about how she “wants” to tell Spencer the truth, but she “can’t.” Because a secret-keeping curse has been put on her vocal cords? We don’t know. The Cliffs Notes version, though, is that people are going to find out Alison is lying about being kidnapped. And when that blows up, Melissa doesn’t want Spencer to be hit by the shrapnel.

BlueSnarking Around

Luckily, Mona recovers from her fainting episode quickly enough to hop into a rented black sedan and get her bluetooth-sniping game going. Hanna just pops right into her car, and this is now our dream team.

Mona explains that she didn’t set up Cyrus, but she’s here to find out who did. “Great. Me too.” says Hanna, and settles in. She even spins a yarn about how great her audition went when Caleb calls to check in on her. “Back to lying to your boyfriend, I see,” Mona smirks wickedly. Hanna’s eyes roll all the way across the street and back. “Yeah, like Mike Montgomery even knows one single real thing about you. Anyway, what’s this do? Blue scarf?”

Snarf,” Mona sighs in exasperation, pulling her toys away like she’s dealing with a toddler. Mona wants Hanna to leave so bad, but Hanna reminds her that Ali brings out the A in Mona, and she isn’t leaving until she finds the kinds of answers only MonA can get. 

Well, Mona gives Hanna one answer, of sorts, right away: she fainted in choir because of a panic attack, which she’s been having since Ali came back. That’s why she organized #MonasArmy: so she wouldn’t have to face Ali alone. We feel ya, girl. And though generally Mona’s “answers” are about as trustworthy as Alison’s, we kinda tend to believe her here.

In any case, Mona is so far ahead of the game she’s already bluesnarfed her way into Lieutenant Tanner’s phone (great security, RPD), where she’s hearing Tanner’s words and spying on Tanner’s plans.

Greetings from the RPD

Those plans are: bringing Alison (and her dad) to the abandoned basement where Ali stayed after running away. Cyrus has pegged it as the place he kept her for two years, and since the cops don’t have any physical evidence linking him to the crime, they can only arrest him if Ali remembers the place. And boy, does Ali remember it: a more extended flashback shows Cyrus holding her hand, laughing with her, and then stealing her stuff, shoving her against the wall, and stabbing her in the leg.

Hanna and Mona are eavesdropping as Tanner puts in the call to the RPD, and Hanna darts out a lighting quick SOS: Ali identified Cyrus. Come quick.

EFF YEAH

Emily Fields shows up at Ali’s house to earn her MVP status for this episode. She’s full of rage at Ali, who tells her, “You weren’t there, Em.” And Em goes on the rant that she’s needed to say ever since Ali came back. Or actually, way before she disappeared: “When? When wasn’t I there? When Hanna broke her leg because of A? When I almost died in an elevator because I was trying to find out who killed you? Or when Spencer had to check into Radley because of everything your disappearance put us through?”

YESSSSSSSSS.

Ali implores her to believe that they can still salvage a win, that she can draw out A, but nope. Em. Is. Done.

Liars Summit

The core Liars gather to discuss. Hanna is back in a (black) dress, and Caleb is back to not having the world’s grossest mustache and angsty lip curl, and they are both back to telling each other full truths and smooching on each other in total lovey support. We miss Travis like whoa, but if this is how Hanna and Caleb keep going…well…okay.

Spencer tells the group that Melissa basically told her A has something terrible in store for Ali. And for them. She reiterates her plan, and surprisingly this time the group seems to agree. Emily leads the charge, telling Spencer she was right. They can’t trust Alison. If Aria can get on board, they need to cut ties with her immediately. Tonight.

DOWN A DARK ALI

Well, well. Looks like Cyrus managed to evade lockup after all. He’s in the woods, waiting to meet up with a dark-haired woman. When she arrives, he’s pissed; their deal didn’t involve him getting actually arrested. The camera pans around, and oh OH OH it’s ALISON!! IT’S DARK ALISON!!! In her Darkbloom wig. Being completely evil queen bitch again, and it is a DELIGHT. Poor, tortured Ali has been so boring and false. Evil, conniving Ali? That’s the little psychopath we know and love.

“I could have told them the truth about you,” Cyrus complains to her. “So could I,” she replies icily. “And then we’d both lose. I found you once. I can do it again.”

Cyrus drives off in a black SUV with a “bata bata” sticker on the back window. Because that makes sense, to put a very distinctive marking on your getaway car when there’s a warrant out for your arrest. At least now we know this is the person (or at least the car) Ali was talking to in the 100th episode

You Think You Know… But You Have No Idea

Melissa Hastings records a taped confession for Spencer. Ohhh no, she’s going to die, isn’t she?

A’S GAME

…is the same as ours: looking for Pepe. Also, folding laundry, which consists of like thirty black hoodies, a dozen pairs of black leather gloves, sundry other all black accessories…and a candy-striper’s apron.

Hmm…

NEXT WEEK

it’s Emily’s turn to wear one of those shirts with the chest part cut out. Once again we repeat: WHY? And also…WHY??


All of our shirts have all their parts. Until next time—

Kisses,
A (lexis & Catie)


About the Contributor:

Catie grew up in Denver, Colorado, where she often stayed up past her bedtime reading with a flashlight and once sent homemade Hogwarts acceptance letters to her friends. Now an adult, she still loves books and TV meant for teens, but is grateful to no longer have a bedtime.

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This post was written by a guest writer or former contributor for Forever Young Adult.