About:
You guys! How can there only be two episodes of Pretty Little Liars left this season? What am I going to dooooo? I feel sad, like maybe when the show is on hiatus, A won’t send me chocolates and clover anymore. And I won’t have any show that I watch to make fun of yet secretly enjoy! My life is RUINED!
Anyway, in typical PLL fashion, the last few episodes have been crapballs crazy. Let’s see what happened!
Previously on Pretty Little Liars: the girls go to therapy at Annabeth Gish’s office, which gets trashed by A; Em and Hanna are sharing a room; Ian, Jason and Garrett are in a creepy high school club; what if A is several people?; the girls know about Jenna and Garrett; Mike is having Issues; Kate, who is now known as Gertie because the Kates of the world do not wish to be associated with her and I don’t know any Gertrudes, is a crazy biatch out to get Hanna; Emily needs to unburden her soul to Annabeth Gish; A creepily molested Emily and is basically torturing her, and Holly Marie Combs, Child Bride, thinks Spencer is getting Fitzed.
Show! Emily is tossing and turning and can’t sleep. She gets a text message that makes her even more worried, and for once this show employs subtlety and doesn’t show it to us. A few hours later, Em sneaks out of the house and drives away, which wakes up Hanna. Hanna tries to call Emily, but she left her phone behind.
The girls think maybe Emily has randomly driven to Texas. They don’t know where she is! I do! Because the show cuts to her, running like crazy through the woods. Poor Em. I know I’ve said this before, but: why can’t it be Aria?
Anyway, it looks like A has sent Emily a photo of Aria being Fitzed, which allows Spencer to grumble a bit about her reputation as a Fitzee. Oh! But there was a text from A attached to the photo. (Well, they went for subtlety for a while! Good for them!) “Clue Ella in and I’ll let you out. -A” Aw, poor Emily. At least you know that if that message were being sent to Hanna, Holly Marie Combs, Child Bride, would be clued in. In like a second.
Annabeth Gish’s office! Emily shows up, ready to talk! Well, good, cause the other girls have been there, talking about how worried they are.
Seriously, if the penultimate episode of the season consists of a therapy session, I’m gonna Write A Letter.
Credits. Necromancy. Family show!
Annabeth Gish’s office. Emily doesn’t want to keep asking her friends to take care of her! Um, that’s what they’re there for! That and holding your hair back when you vomit. Annabeth Gish is all, HOLD THE PHONE. EXPLAIN THE PREMISE OF THIS SHOW TO ME NOW. So I guess they’re going to do that now.
Luckily, they’re doing it off screen, cause we cut to Toby, sadly beshirted, doing work. He’s distracted by a noise and comes across Jenna eating cherries in Garrett’s unsubtle stakeout car. Oh, the subtle symbolism of this show. Garrett comes over as Toby skedaddles and Toby witnesses Garrett kissing Jenna. Ruh roh!
Therapy Appointment of Explaining The Plot To People Who Haven’t Seen This Show. The girls are explaining A to Annabeth Gish. She’s shocked this has all happened and they’ve kept it a secret. As a therapist, don’t you think her first reaction would be “mass hysteria?” That would be my reaction. Hell, I watch this show and sometimes that’s still my reaction.
School! The girls are back from their therapy appointment and talk moves to Gertie and how Hanna hopes to win her over with a book of horse pictures. Then the girls overhear Jenna on the phone, upset about something. They question, again, if she is A but Aria points out that torturing people isn’t going to bring Jenna’s eyesight back. Well, you never know, Aria. Who knows what sort of deal Jenna has arranged with the devil?
Just then, Hanna’s grandmother appears. She is not Paula Deen, but she looks and sounds enough like Paula Deen that I will henceforth refer to her as such. I heard something the other day about Paula Deen being declared the most dangerous person in America, on account of all the butter, I guess, and I think people who say such spurious lies should take a gander at Ina Garten’s recipes. They should also watch their mouths about what they say about my fictional Aunt Paula, or I will smack them.
Paula Deen is there to wipe the dew from her lily, and she needs Hanna’s help with that. I agree with Spencer that I don’t need to eat ever again after hearing that.
At Aria’s House of Woodland Delights, Holly Marie Combs, Child Bride, and Actor/Director Chad Lowe are arguing about whether Mike needs to be on drugs. Psychiatric drugs, that is, not just, like, fun ones. Holly Marie Combs, Child Bride, is all, “he just needs to talk about his feelings,” and Actor/Director Chad Lowe is all, “uh, remember my brother who killed himself after years of mental disease?” The risk of starting teenagers out on SSRIs can be high, but at the same time, Holly Marie Combs, Child Bride, is being stupid. If Mike had cancer she wouldn’t try to cure it by having him talk about his tumors.
Hanna’s Kitchen of Carbs and Cash. Hanna’s on the phone with Caleb, who is greatly enjoying himself in California. He’s gone swimming! In the ocean! Ah, the adorability of land-locked children. Hanna’s dad calls to ask her to say a toast with Gertie at the rehearsal dinner the next day. Paula Deen, who is presumably Hanna’s paternal grandmother, is all, “why is he marrying that skankface?” Prozzie Mom comes home and Paula Deen gets passive aggressive about the placement of the kitchen dishes. Then she tells Prozzie Mom that she needs to fight for her man. Prozzie Mom is all, “no thank you?”
Aria’s House of Woodland Delights. Aria comes into Mike’s room to talk to him. She tries to get Mike to talk, but he’s not interested in anything but his laptop. Holly Marie Combs, Child Bride, comes in and tries to take Mike’s computer away and Mike hits her and storms out. Then Holly Marie Combs, Child Bride, tells Aria to lie to Actor/Director Chad Lowe and tell him that she fell down the stairs. THIS IS NOT HEALTHY, HOLLY MARIE COMBS.
School! Toby’s driving Spencer there! They’re discussing the Jenna/Garrett union. Toby wants to dig and find more, but Spencer doesn’t want to give Jenna any reason to try to break them up again! Toby assures her it’ll never happen and does some leaning kisses. Swoon!
School. Hey! It’s Annabeth Gish! She’s there to talk to the school about the bullying that goes in during high school. Jenna smiles during all of this and Noel looks bored. Annabeth Gish is all, “don’t bully people online or over the phone!” Some of the kids look intrigued. I think, though, this is probably a scene used to fulfill contract obligations for actors, since both Lucas and Mona are there.
Afterwards, the girls confer about the assembly. Aria has, by the way, some sort of velvet bandanna in her hair, like she just got off her night job as an extra in The Help. What is this, Aria? Don’t do this.
Here is an example of Aria’s look for the episode. don’t judge her; she has Problems At Home.
Jenna walks outside and asks Aria if she attended the assembly. Jenna thinks Annabeth Gish’s assembly is too little, too late -it would have been more timely when Ali was ruling the school. Well, she’s got a point. Fed up, Emily insults Jenna and stomps off. Go Em!
Rehearsal dinner time! Paula Deen is trying to passive-aggressively undermine her son by being rude to Isobel’s friends. Meanwhile, Hanna is trying to apologize to Gertie, and they seem to be getting along, although I don’t trust Gertie at all. The cheerfully work on the toast, but Gertie adds some vodka into their lemonade for courage. I’m liking Gertie now. Gertie can be my friend.
Hanna’s Kitchen of Carbs and Cash. Prozzie Mom is totally sad. She should have gone after her man!
Annabeth Gish is walking down The Only Street in Rosewood when her phone rings. She answers it but only hears a recording of herself – from her therapy session with the girls. This totally happened to me once in high school! There was this person who’d call and hang up, and then one time, s/he called and instead of just breathing, played back a tape of me answering the phone several times. Creepy!
Commercials! If you happened to miss The Lying Game, sorry. They’re re-airing it like twelve times this week, so there’s no way to escape it.
Show! Annabeth Gish has the cops in her office, trying to find bugs. And Babycop!Garrett is there! You didn’t want to mention that you suspect a cop, girls? He tries to get the names of her clients, using about as much subtlety as is in his stakeout car, but Annabeth Gish isn’t biting.
Rehearsal dinner! Gertie and Hanna are working on the toast and then move on to talk of Caleb. Hanna, why are you being so trusting of this awful girl? And then Gertie tries to get Hanna drunker.
Hanna, I can’t deal with your hopeful face; it breaks my heart.
Hanna’s Kitchen of Carbs and Cash. Prozzie Mom is trying to rearrange her kitchen. Emily is trying to flesh out Prozzie Mom’s feelings about the wedding. Aw, I like these two together! They’re a fun pair! Prozzie Mom counsels Emily a little about Samara and relationships and repairing them. Then Em texts someone.
Aria’s House of Woodland Delights. Actor/Director Chad Lowe comes home and counsels Aria to be patient with Mike. Aria, of course, wants none of it and stomps off to get cartoon birds to braid her hair upstairs.
At The Only Restaurant in Rosewood, Emily is nervously waiting for someone. For a second I worry that Samara will come back and I’ll be forced to deal with her awful friend’s awful hair, but NO! No! It’s Maya! MAYA IS BACK! I have no idea how since technically her family was living in the DiLaurentis house, which Jason is living in now, but whatever, I don’t care, I’ll take it! I HAVE MISSED YOU KENDRA!
Car! Ooh! Spencer and Toby are making out like crazy. This show is being so nice to me today! But Toby is distracted by what he thinks might be someone watching them from Butthair’s house. Spencer decides to confront them! Toby’s all, uhhh . . . and then buttons his shirt.
But! It wasn’t Butthair spying on her from his room. It was . . . Pa Hastings? Hilariously, Toby’s still trying to do up the buttons on his shirt.
Show! Spencer is all, “Why are you at Jason’s house?” Pa Hastings avoids all of Spencer’s questions and Toby stands up for Spencer. Pa Hastings gets super angry at Toby tells him to get the hell out of town. He orders Spencer in the house but she and Toby drive away. Pa Hastings has quite the nasty temper. This whole scene is the plot of a country and western song! I’ll call it “Leany Kisses” and the chorus will be something like: “Well, me and my boy and some leany kisses!/A ring and a vow and then I’m a Mrs./Get ourselves a six-pack, yeah, I think this is/the start of a lifetime of leany kisses!” Or something; I’ll work on it.
Annabeth Gish’s office. She’s going through patient files, when she thinks she sees someone out the window. It’s a hooded figure, so . . . Mike?
The Only Restaurant in Rosewood, home to wonderful lesbian reunions. Maya only lives 45 minutes away now! They’re all giggly! I’m giggly too! Maya is all, “Is your mom still an awful cow?” Emily and I are both pleased to say she is not! Maya’s wondering what made Emily decide to call. Emily says she used to be afraid of her feelings for Maya, but she’s not afraid anymore. Then they hold hands! Oh, Maya. Please don’t break her heart. Cause I think you might. And that would break my heart!
Aria’s House of Woodland Delights. Mike is staring at middle-distance and crying, worried about Holly Marie Combs, Child Bride. Mike is really upset and doesn’t know what is happening to him. Aww, Mike. You know what has been missing from their portrayal of Mike’s cyclical nature? The week or so where he talks really fast and stays up for days and tells you that your parents never wanted you.
The Rehearsal Dinner. Hanna and Gertie are in the world’s largest bathroom and Gertie leaves Hanna alone with the wedding dress (after telling her how good it’d look on her. I know your game, Gertie!). Hanna, of course, picks up the dress and spins around with it and then pukes all over it. Gertie’s face is triumphant.
Spencer’s house. She sneaks in, only to find Pa Hastings waiting for her. I guess he feels like it’s truth time, because he tells Spencer that Ali’s grandmother (the one in Hilton Head) died shortly after Ali went missing. But a week before Ali went missing, Grandma DiLaurentis changed her will to cut Jason out completely. What does this have to do with Pa Hastings? Well, when the DiLaurentis discovered this, they asked their lawyer (Pa Hastings) to destroy the latest will and make it look like Grandma DiLaurentis’ previous will (in which she split her inheritance 50/50 between Ali and Jason) was the last one. Why? Because otherwise it would look like Butthair had real motive to kill Ali.
Spencer’s jacket is very nice!
Flashback time! Drink! The girls are in Hanna’s Kitchen of Cash and Carbs and Paula Deen is there, showing them how to cook! She tells them anecdotally that lots of vinegar forces a person to go into labor (or, one assumes, a first-trimester person to miscarry), a fact that seems SUPER interesting to Ali. Show! I was not expecting this twist! Well done! So now we get to play Who is Ali’s BabyDaddy?
Ali asks Paula Deen if she’d ever disown someone. How much would it take to disown someone? What if someone were selling off family heirlooms to buy drugs, for instance?
Present day, Spencer is sure that Ali coerced her grandmother to change her will and then Butthair killed her because of it. She wants to go to the cops, but Pa Hastings won’t let her! He could be disbarred! Spencer wants to know what the hell the DiLaurentis have on her family, but Pa Hastings declines to answer. He’s all, “I think there have been enough answers for one night.” People on TV always say this, and it’s so stupid, because no one ever says this in real life. “I think there has been enough truth-telling for one day! I think we’ve eaten enough brussels sprouts for one dinner!”
At Annabeth Gish’s office, she’s figuring out who A is! She cross-references her notes from the sessions with the girls against her notes on another client (who refers to people as “nosey bitches”). Mystery Client is seeking help for “overpowering feelings of revenge and Anger Management.” Annabeth Gish knows this person!
But we don’t, because it’s time for commercials. Damnit!
Rehearsal Dinner. Hanna is trying to fix the wedding dress but Deadbeat Dad and Paula Deen come in. Deadbeat Dad is really mad at Hanna! Paula Deen sticks up for her. (Gertie, by the way? Not drunk at all.)
Aria’s House of Woodland Delights. Aria goes down to talk to Holly Marie Combs, Child Bride, and Actor/Director Chad Lowe. She’s tired of keeping secrets. Well, about Mike, I guess. The other secrets she’s okay with keeping. Mike comes downstairs and it looks like he’s going to ask for help. Yay! Aria fixes everything again! I guess it’s not hard for her to be Mike’s best family member, though, with her parents as the only other options.
Rehearsal Dinner. Paula Deen is comforting Hanna when Gertie comes in. Paula Deen, being from the South, knows a snake when she sees one and confiscates both of Gertie’s bottles of “vodka.” One, of course, is water. Hanna vows to take Gertie down.
The Only Restaurant in Rosewood. Emily is telling Maya all about her failed relationships with Kat from 10 Things I Hate About You and Awful Samara. Then she gets a call from Annabeth Gish! Annabeth Gish wants the girls to come to her office as soon as possible! She knows who A is! Couldn’t just say over the phone, huh? You had to do it in person, even though you know your office is bugged? Annabeth Gish, you are so dumb.
The girls all get the text and rush to meet Annabeth Gish . . . but no one is in her office. Then they all get a text, of course. “The doctor is out. – A” Um, does that mean you killed her, A?
Credits! Gloved McEvilson is packing up all of Annabeth Gish’s notes . . . and the bobblehead Freud doll under which the bug was secreted.
Next week! PLL Marathon! And then the season finale! And Emily has an afterlife experience! I can’t wait, and not just because I wake up at 4 am and don’t like staying up till 9:30 on weeknights!
What do you guys think will happen? Will we ever figure out what the boots are for? (Maybe A’s just stylish?) Will A be revealed and the mystery switch to who Alison’s babydaddy is? Is that why a page is missing from her autopsy – because she was preggers? Sound off in the comments and I’ll see you guys next week!
