About:
How to even write about this episode? It was TOO GOOD FOR HUMAN WORDS. We will just have to transcribe for you some of the noises (gchats) of utter delight and shock and terror and awe we made throughout the hour:
Rosemary
YASSSSS
F*** YES
AlexisYES
YES
CatieYAASSSSSS
I’M SO HAPPY
Alexismy HEART
i love you guys and am so glad you are here with me for this, the best moment of my life
Like you all weren’t saying the exact same things every five minutes. DON’T LIE. The REAL A is always watching…
And with that reminder of the real-life monitoring we are all constantly subjecting ourselves to, let’s talk fictional terror.
(It’s obviously not REALLY too good for human words. Don’t worry. We came up with a whole ton of them.)
THIS WEEK’S MVP
Mona for sure—and not just because we are ecstatic that WE WERE RIGHT SHE IS IMMORTAL.
Spencer is also a viable MVP contender; after all, she managed to rig up an electricity-stopping copper wire camera to help the girls escApe the dollhouse. But Mona caught on to what she was doing IMMEDIATELY and knew how to ask for the materials to help. PLUS there’s all the “WE HAVE THREE MINUTES DURING WHICH THE ELECTRICITY GOES OFF, I HAVE BEEN TRAPPED HERE ALONE FOR THREE TO SIX MONTHS AND INSTEAD OF GOING SLOWLY CRAZY I HAVE BEEN MAPPING THE LAND AND PLOTTING MY ESCAPE. NOW COME, LET US PLAN A FAKE PROM SLASH DESTROY OUR COMMON ENEMY.”
THIS WEEK’S LVP
Tanner? Ezra? All adults? We can’t pick. And we loved too much about this episode to linger on negative thoughts in the award section.
BIGGEST SHOCK/BEST SURPRISE
Um…EVERYTHING???
The dollhouse being underground. (THE DOLLHOUSE, PERIOD)
Mona being alive.
Mona being Ali.
Mona not being brainwashed.
How psychotic and inhumane ChArles is.
The twin DiLaurentis boys.
That even when the Liars escape, they’re STILL #TRAPPED.
BIGGEST NO-DUH
Let’s call it a tie between the fact that they didn’t actually show us A/Charles (OF COURSE THEY DIDN’T) and the fact that both Spencer and Mona just happened to have the schematics of a portable pinch memorized (OF COURSE THEY DID), and the fact that, for real, THE MALE GAZE IS A (OF COURSE IT IS).
THAT’S ALI, FOLKS
She’s ready to be completely honest…that her utter lack of anything left to lose might as well allow her to be completely honest.
PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS
Ali was murdered; Ali came back to life. Mona was murdered; Mona’s glamrock ghost came back to haunt Ali/remind the rest of us what to live for. Four normal teenage girls with normal teenage secrets were targeted and tortured, digitally and IRL, by every person who had ever worn a black hoodie and also all men and other adult representatives of toxic American patriarchy. They did their best to be good and clever and outsmart the corrupt adults who always went out of their way to disbelieve them, but ultimately the girls fell victim to the mutually hostile narratives constantly at war between adults and teenagers. AND NOW THEY ARE ALL IN JAIL.
THIS WEEK
Welcome
Orange-jumpsuited and packed in a jailbus trundling down a lonely country road, the Liars (minus Ali) are being hauled to the penitentiary. Their crime? Being accessories to Mona’s murder—and by accessories, Aria wishes Spencer meant one of Aria’s feather earrings, but no. Not even Aria can découpage her way out of this jam.
Thanks to some sly work-for-gossip bartering on Hanna’s part, they know that reason Ali isn’t with them (although Hanna, who was already arrested, IS) is that the warden at Ali’s lady prison got an anonymous tip from Rosewood’s bitchiest neighborhood parrot that some local teen witch coven was plotting something big, so some local teen witch coven needed to be separated from its charismatic blonde Machiavellian leader. But not from each other. Because even when they are literally being punished for what the Rosewood PD thinks is an ingenious long con that culminated in the murder of a known manipulator of time and space…the adults still don’t see these four, Ali-less teen girls as credible, threat or otherwise.
Emily, figuring they will have time enough to ponder the mysteries of A’s new gambit once they get where they are going, changes the focus of the jailbus summit to seriously, Hanna: how hard is prison going to be? “Well the moment they shut the door behind you you feel ashamed. They treat you like a criminal and it’s hard to remember that you’re not one. And when the lights go out at night? It’s basically the loneliest feeling ever. And since you, like me, have been broken up with by a ghost, you understand the height of the loneliness bar that tops.”
While Em is wishing she’d asked Hanna to sugarcoat it a little, Spencer puts her foot down. “NO,” she declares. “I did not accept A shooting fireworks messages at us at Christmas; I do not accept the defeat A/the world/everyone wants from us. They can take everything from us, but they can’t take us from each other.” She grabs Aria’s hand and says fiercely, “I don’t care how far apart from you guys I am, I will still be with you.” And from across the jailbus, Hanna and Em chime in their agreement, and they all declare their love for each other.
Before this episode, a lot of people posted a lot of theories about who Big A would end up being—with prime suspect spots often reserved for several of the Liars themselves. But suspecting a Liar has always felt wrong to us*, and this moment is exactly why. What Spencer tells the other girls; the way they all strain against their jailbus chains to try to hold hands? The core relationships on this show aren’t Ezria/Paily/Emison/Spoby/Haleb (or Wrencer/Tranna/Jaria/Ezalia/whoevencares). It’s the girls. Together. That’s been the premise since episode one, when they all got that first group A text and stood together at Ali’s first fake funeral realizing that it was just the four of them against the whole, cruel, secret-wielding, text-messaging world. And through five seasons and seventy hundred months-within-a-month or however time works in Rosewood, their friendship has been the unshakable center of the show. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool my best friend? You’re dead freakin’ meat.”
So in the jailbus, these four best friends who would (and probably someday will be mAde to) walk into traffic for each other, (try to) hold hands and hug and share a round of love yous. And then, because this show is this show, the jailbus crashes and there is a commotion outside.
“I think we had an accident,” Emily says. “Yeah, in my pants,” Aria responds. Guys, get a room. The back door to the jailbus swings open to reveal black-hoodied, black-masked A…wielding an enormous gun.
As the girls cower with fright, A launches a canister into the jailbus and the jailbus fills with smoooOOOooookeeeeee AHHHHHHHHH.
CREDITS.
Wilkommen
The next morning, Toby is at Spencer’s house with DEUX HASTINGS PARENTS (somewhere, a wormhole cracks open) to deliver the news: while the girls were being transported to lady prison, the drivers were roofied, and now the girls are missing. Veronica looks great, by the way. The stress of having a fugitive daughter hasn’t aged her a day. Anyway, she thinks it was an abduction—the girls were set up to begin with. “If Mona was alive…I keep thinking this feels like that,” she says, correctly, because Mona-as-A would 100% pull something like this off. Only, probably much more glamorously.
Anyway, kudos to you for being one of the few adults to take the awesome potential of a smart teen girl seriously…but anti-kudos for only doing so when malicious intent is involved. And speaking of only believing in genius teen girls with malicious intent, Peter Hastings is convinced Alison is behind it, but Toby is certain (mostly certain) she couldn’t pull off something that elaborate from prison. But seriously, Peter still thinks it’s Ali. But it’s not. But it COULD BE.
Honestly, we wouldn’t put it past her.
So anyway the good/weird news that Toby adds to the bad/weird news he started with is that no one else knows about the jailbus heist/Liar seizure yet—Tanner wants to avoid a “civilian” mob. Because parents of missing minors, absconded or abducted, apparently rank no higher than “civilian.” Tanner must be aware of the Laws of Rosewood Parents Physics and how we can never see more than two at once or else a teenager gets randomly flung across the ocean to London. She must also know that Emily doesn’t even have parents anymore, just a disembodied voice on a hotline guiding Emily to her grandmother’s for holiday meals. She must know that the Marin household can’t even be looked at sidelong because the good women of Pastor Ted’s parish can pluck gossip straight from the ether. She must just know everything, because there’s no other explanation. Who doesn’t tell the parents when their daughters are missing???
Bienvenidos
Spencer wakes up in her orange jumpsuit…in her own bedroom, with Patsy Cline singing about walking after midnight, hoping to be found, playing in the backgroun. Well, it at least LOOKS like Spencer’s bedroom, only, the pictures in the frames are blank.
One by one, the other girls awaken—each apparently in her own bedroom, each room with a handwritten message that says some variation “Home sweet home.” But something’s not right: the doors are locked, the books are just props, and there are cameras on all of them. It’s actually, eerily, a lot like an actual film set. This isn’t real.
Aria holds up a framed photo of a family of mannequins. Desperate, Spencer throws a rocking chair at the window to break it, but outside it’s just a cement wall, to symbolize the eternal jail A has trapped them in but also A’s cold, hard heart. It was* legitimately the most terrifying thing we had seen on this show yet. #LiarsAreTrapped!!!!!
*was, because, the whole rest of the episode
Please Exit Your Room, And Follow The Lighted Pathway
Catie
that’s mona’s voice
isn’t it
you guys this is my favorite episode of any tv show ever
A cheery airport voice—MONA’S CHEERY AIRPORT VOICE—comes through a loudspeaker, as the doors to each room clicks open. The girls meet in the hallway, each sharing identical findings: this is A’s dollhouse, and they’re the dolls. The voice keeps repeating that they should follow the lighted pathway that has appeared in front of them.
“We heard you, bitch.” Hanna is our patronus. #WelcomeToTheDollhouse, and we’ve all keeled over with insane joy.
Rosemary
On a group text with my college friends, one of them said “This is like our freshmen dorm only with less drunks and more murders.”
At the end of the hall is a room dressed to look like the DiLaurentis living room where a girl wearing Ali’s trademark blonde mermaid hair and Ali’s trademark yellow Labor Day shirt and that horrifying porcelain Ali mask everyone and their twin has ever worn around Rosewood is playing piano. But when she takes off the mask, IT’S BLONDE MONAAAAAA [cue group descent into ecstatic joy].
Rosemary
I AM DYING AND SCREAMING SHE HAS RISEN HALLELUJAH PRAISE MONAAAAA.
When the girls refer to her as Mona, however, she makes a face like they’re the crazy ones and then pads over to the mirror. “I know it’s been awhile, but I haven’t changed that much, have I? You guys, it’s me. Alison.” W H A T.
Please, Follow the Lighted Pathway
Meanwhile, the PLL Boyfriend Club team-sleuths some cyber highways trying to track down the missing jailbus. Caleb hacked into RPD’s “command center” (probably just, like, a golden retriever sitting in front of an EasyBake Oven) and finds out that A bluesnarfed the jailbus from an overpass. He typetypetypes, codey codey numbers, and pulls up traffic camera footage of the overpass, but when it loads, it’s a creepy old cartoon.
Ezra punches a pole with frustration. Go away, Ezra, you have literally nothing to offer here. Caleb is trying to find a secret code that will allow him to prove to the RPD that A took control of the van. Toby IS the RPD, sort of. You? Well, since apparently the l33t true crime reporter hacker skillz you had when your scantily clad teen girlfriend’s pictures were on the line seem to have completely vanished, you’re just a an ex-English teacher-cum-sexual predator who now owns a coffeeshop. Make those other boys a latte.
Back at A’s PLL Dreamhouse, Mona is a better barista than Ezra, serving the girls tea with assorted baked goods from a creepy little tea set in the middle of “Alison’s” “living room.” Hanna puts her hand on Mona’s knee, and calls her Mona—but Monalison recoils: “You know how much I hate that bitch.” The girls start to tentatively play along and call her Ali, just as four chimes sound.
Rosemary
scones and shit?! mona cray.
Catiewhat if it turns out all of their memories are a lie and this really IS alison
Alexisoh god
Catieshe’s RESPONDING TO CHIMES
AGHHHH
Four chimes means game time! Monalison’s Pavlovian response kicks in, and she stands up abruptly and silently leads them down the hall to the playroom, where Spencer finds a set of blocks and glances at the letters, picking one up to examine it. There’s also a board game on the table. But not just any board game. It’s Mystery DreAm Date! Complete with pics of the Liars’ actual dream dates, all dolled up in their winter best at the Ice Ball.
Aria gets mad and refuses to play. WHY WILL NO ONE HEAR HER SAY SHE IS SINGLE? Also, don’t hurt Ezra, etc. etc. Her fit is interrupted by two chimes from the PA, which signals a Blue’s Literal Clues mail time, mail time, mail time, it’s maaaaaiiiiil tiiiiiiime moment: A has sent them each an invitation to HELL PROM. And they’re playing Mystery Dream Date to figure out who their prom dates will be.
(Alexis got legit chills at the sound of this, as it implied that Paige would also be in play, which would further imply that she would have once again been kidnapped by someone obsessed with someone loved by Emily, and oh god that poor girl.)
Hanna angrily addresses the cameras that are trained on them and threatens A—“him/her/it/bitch,” she screams, channeling/paralleling 5×01 Spencer—if A brings Caleb into it.
She throws open the door to leave, and after agonizing minutes of trying to get Mona to admit she isn’t Alison DiLaurentis and just follow, goddammit, an awful siren blares. Monalison screams that the only way to make it stop is to go to their rooms, so they divide and run, and once they are all in their “rooms,” facing the hall and staring at each other with their hands clapped over their ears, the doors are slammed shut as one. And just as Monalison promised: silence.
(We’ve got three minutes. Come on.)
Somehow, Hanna actually managed to fall asleep in her uncanny valley dollhouse room. She wakes to a rattle at her doorknob: Monalison. Only, no! It’s the real deal this time! “We’ve got three minutes,” Mona Our Queen says, “c’mon.”
They gather the other girls and Mona leads them down the hall, explaining rapidly that every night, the generator shuts down and the backup takes three minutes to kick in (we can literally think of no good explanation for this other than, it is convenient to the story. But we welcome theories!!). As long as she’s been trapped here, one night at a time, Mona has channeled Maze Runner and run flat out for those 90 seconds in every possible direction. And what she has found is that that there’s no way out. One hall ends in a ladder, but it is too tall to climb and get back down before the three minutes are up; the other hall ends in a sealed vault. “Like a bank vault?” asks Spencer. No, a gymnast’s vault, and we were just waiting for Shawn Johnson to come perform a double front handspring and get us out of here.
Mona explains that if you don’t get back to your room in time, you get left behind with no food or water for days, while a recording of people crying at your funeral plays. And here she starts to crack, asking the others how her mom is doing. Hanna, of course, is honest: her mom wasn’t at Ali’s trial, and while everyone figured it was too much for her, the girls have also not been super good about checking in on her. Mona manages to both look truly concerned about her mom, and also a teeny bit gleeful when she hears that Ali was arrested for her murder. Just a teeny bit. Then the girls hear a click. “We have 17 seconds,” Mona screams and they bolt. Guys, 17 seconds is plenty of time to ask if she knows some girl named Lesli Stone, and also what were those anagrams hidden inside her mirror???
Good Morning
At lady prison, Alison “2 Chainz” DiLaurentis meets with the Lawyers Hastings (double the barrister, double the fun), who accuse her of somehow being at fault here, even though she is literally in about 400 prison chains. Alison swears she doesn’t know where the girls are, but she does know who took them: A.
But Mona’s dead, the Hastings exclaim, because parents are so clueless, amiright? “Mona was A, that’s true,” Alison explains to them/reminds most of the audience who have been distracted by #EzriaForever the last three years, but it all started again after she died. A new gAme, a new puppet mAster. But this time, the stakes were higher than ever. “This A killed my mom…and Mona.”
Mr. Hastings asks why Ali’s never gone to the police with these accusations. Awfully CONVENIENT to have a new mysterious ‘A’ figure to pin Mona’s murder on, right after you get convicted of just that crime, isn’t it?? Uh, remember Hanna, Peter? She went to the police. And now she’s in lady prison. Well, now she’s in lAdy prison, which is even worse, BUT YOU SEE WHERE WE’RE GOING WITH THIS. The Rosewood Police always do the exact opposite of what would be helpful and correct in any given situation, and usually manage to do even that poorly.
Guten Tag
Gloved hands tap away at a keyboard, and we see A, hooded and seated at his/her/it/bitch’s spy command center (which incidentallyyyyy looks a lot like Ezra’s chickpea #murdercabin basement of horrors spy command center) watching the girls as they sleep, or try to sleep, in their replica doll rooms.
In her fake room, Spencer has a beautifully horrifying stop-motion dream in which she watches a set of children’s letter blocks switch around until they spell out CHARLES. She wakes up, finally having figured out the anagrams. CHANDELIER’S RITUAL = CHARLES DILAURENTIS. Or at least, helacrs = Charles. She whispers awesomely, ominously: “It has a name.”
A few weeks late, Spencer. We expected more from you.
Catie
IT HAS A NAME
god you guys
i am so happy???
i just got chills
In her own fake room, Monalison awakens in the “sunshine” to find a gift box left on her table. It contains a gas mask, and a note: “Because you’re my favorite. -A.” “Should I put it on?” Mona asks sweetly, staring directly into the camera’s blinking red eye. One chime means yes. She begins to brush her hair, gas mask in place. It is genuinely horrific.
Bom Dia
At the Rosewood Idiot Convention PD Headquarters, Toby tries to tell Tanner what he, Caleb and Ezra found: “Someone cyberjacked the van and took the girls!” Tanner says she got a similar report that morning, then gets on the phone and says, “Put out an APB for Caleb Rivers.” (Not go to Caleb Rivers’ home address and knock and see if he is there. No. Not that.) Tanner asks Toby if he knows where Caleb is (YES, AT HIS HOME ADDRESS, WHERE YOU APPARENTLY HAVE NOT EVEN LOOKED) and Toby (FINALLY) sees where Tanner is going with this and lies and says it’s been a few days. He can’t believe that Tanner would arrest Caleb. “Of course I’m arresting Caleb!” Tanner retorts. “These reports show that someone cyberjacked a van and took the girls, and Caleb is a cyberjacker whose girlfriend was in that van on her way to prison. So duh, police work, it was him.”
Back at cyber sleuth house, the Hastings show up. “We know about A,” Peter says, both threat to make the boys talk, and promise that now that the REAL adults are here, everything is going to be okay.
Ezra shows them his dozens of boxes filled with creepster diary files, which apparently hold everything that A did/knows? And he’s just been…keeping them in his friend’s shed? Also his brain? IS HE A? We are confused. Ezra warns the Hastings that EVERYONE’S secrets are in there, which rings zero alarm bells for them because of course, what English teacher slash inappropriate boyfriend of our daughter’s friend doesn’t have a good dozen file boxes just brimming with lots of stalking and secrets. We know the Hastings have some effing insane secrets, but Veronica’s over it. She opens PandEzra’s box, just as Fitz himself gets a text(?) that the cops are coming for Caleb. Cops text? Are cops A? Caleb turns himself in, so the others can keep working and Toby’s “police” “career” won’t become even more endangered. Caleb Rivers: Best Person.
As he leaves, Veronica gets a call from Melissa…and we see Andrew Campbell, Formerly Hot/Now Creepy And Also Possibly A, down in the Brew (?) bluesnarfing her phone call (??) while also, of course, finishing his pre-calc homework in another browser. Andrew. Pre-calc? We expected more from you.
Please Find Your Stations
Spencer tells the girls that the blocks in the playroom spelled out a name: Charles. The girls enter a giant room that’s like a dungeon-themed hell-gymnasium, and are sent to their “stations” – each is a “prom committee” and they are in a “gym.” Because A wants them to put on a prom, of course! The theme will be “Night at the Opera,” which was the theme when Melissa and Ian went to prom, seven years ago, which is also how old all of the CDs are at the music station. HMM. So, Aria’s in charge of music; Spencer and Emily decorations; and Hanna, food. “BITE ME,” she snips at A’s red camera eye, before eating a brownie.
Monalison, of course, is in charge of prom queen and king ballots, and with a twinkle in her eye and an eyebrow raised, she invites the girls to help her fill out a ballot at her table. “Remember when I ‘helped’ you win that student council election, Spence? Ah, the memories. Anyway, let’s all help ME win THIS vote!!” When they gather close to stuff the ballots, she writes on her card “Did you guys get a gas mask from A?” The others did not. Hanna writes on hers, “I’m scared.” SO ARE WEEEEEE.
Later, Spencer starts throwing a fit about the materials like a proper Project Runway contestant melting down at the eleventh hour. WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE? PAPER? TAPE? I CAN’T PUT ON A PROM WITH THIS. Then, with a twinkle in her own eye, she imagines—out loud—creating a grand staircase for Ali to walk down, and rigging a bunch of cameras to go off as she walks down the steps. Like “Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard” which is a reference that 17-year-old girls on ONLY this particular show would ever make. But Mona is vibing so hard on Spencer’s level. She jumps in: They could use old pipes to make beautiful candelabras! Hang wire from the ceiling to create shadows, silhouettes! YES – Spencer snaps her fingers. THAT would be a “night at the opera.” We’ve got a couple of baby geniuses cooking up a plan here, folks!
The girls reconvene during their three minutes that night. If A delivers on the goods that Spencer needs to make prom magical, she and Mona can apparently build a machine that shuts off the electricity temporarily. WTF IS THIS SHOW.
Catie
omg a pinch??
like in ocean’s 11
AlexisAMAZING
Catiethis is so amazing
We are as confused as Aria as to how that will work, but we’re going with it. Because when Spencer and Mona put their heads together, they could probably cure cancer or invent a machine that produces nachos out of thin air (would buy). When they get back to the gym, Spencer is very visibly excited to see all the fun things A has delivered to them for the prom. Emily refuses to help and sits on the floor. “I’m taking a stand” she says. “By sitting?” Hanna asks. “Why are you being such a bitch?” Spencer demands. “You’re making this so easy for A!” Em shouts back. “OMG drapes, thanks, A.”
Spencer actually kicks Emily and then calls her a quitter: she quit the swim team, she quit Paige, she even quit Maya. (“She quit men” – Rosemary’s perfect husband, Aaron). Spencer and Emily get into an actual honest-to-God girl fight. Well, not actual, since it’s totally staged for A’s benefit (an A who wasn’t around for their last orange-jumpsuited staged fight, evidently). While they brawl, and the cameras swing over to watch them, and Mona grabs a stack of materials off of Spencer’s station and hides them behind the ballot boxes where she can work on assembling the magic electricity-ending camera and candelabra apparatus, Big Brother-unseen.
Ladies and Gentlemen…
Back in the real world, the Hastings flank Caleb at the police station as he denies that he had anything to do with the girls disappearing. If he knew where Hanna was, he would be with her, duh.
Veronica tells Tanner to either charge or release their client, please.
“I hacked into your system and found the van,” Caleb says.
“You just admitted to a federal crime,” Tanner retorts.
“He meant IF,” the Lawyers Hastings correct in stereo. “IF he hacked into your system and IF he found the van.”
“Have you asked yourself how four teenagers could be this good at evading the police?” Veronica asks Tanner. OHHHH BURN. “You’re not going to find the answer investigating the girls because they aren’t running from you.” And how would Tanner feel, if these girls were hurt just because the police refused to even consider an alternate possibility to The Great Escape? And because it is coming out of an adult’s mouth, Tanner listens.
And so Caleb hacks into the Rosewood PD system, both Hastings and Tanner breathing down his neck. It takes like, seconds, for Caleb to figure out where the jailbus is and, despite the fact that the screen shows us the address 1423 Clark Road in very large text, he tells Tanner the coordinates the jailbus is pinging from. Is Caleb a cyborg AND a ghost? He IS extremely perfect. The police form an assault team and roll up to search the perimeter, Toby leaping and bouncing around corners with his weapon and flashlight crossed at the wrists like he’s playing his very first policeman role. Which: yes.
When the Hastings arrive after them, Peter exclaims, “Why, it’s the old Campbell farm!” AS IN ANDREW CAMPBELL? Yes, as in. But clue or red herring, who can say? No one. No one can say. Not even after Toby and Tanner go inside and find…A’s lair.
Catie
OMG
OMG
RosemaryOH MY GOD
I’M SHOUTING
AlexisHOLY EFF
CLUE OR RED HERRING? WHO CAN SAYYYYYY.
In the dollhouse, meanwhile, the girls have everything set up and ready to go for their real Great Escape. Since Aria is the photographer amongst them, they all agree loudly, SHE should take the first photo…but she should wait till tonight, because “you only get ONE ‘first’ photo.” Hint hint. Back in their rooms, the girls have insane giant prom dresses waiting for them. “A thought of everything!” Aria chirps, terrified, over her shoulder just before the doors slam behind them so they can change. Yes. Yes, he did.
Interlude—This is Not a Test: Ten Minutes Remaining
Catie
omg there are only 10 minutes left
what am i gonna do
Rosemary
NOT ENOUGH/SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED
Alexis
what?
how is that possible
Catie
i want this to be like 7 hours
Alexis
700
all the hours
Catie
what if the 700 club was just 700 hours of this
Rosemary
so much better than reality
…Please Welcome Your Prom Queen—ALISON DILAURENTIS!
Rosemary
HELL PROM
Catiei’m literally shaking with excitement
is one of the people REAL
AHHHHHH
AlexisAHHHHHH
Catieoh my god
this is TERRIFYING
At HELL PROM, Spencer’s Night(mare) at the Opera decorations are shining and shadowing and looking exactly the way she said she would…minus the room being filled with mannequins in masks and WE ARE ALL DYING THIS IS SO CREEPY. Which is the only correct response, btw. If you are not dead from creeps you are probably one of the mannequins on the dance floor. Or A. Who is also there, wearing a mask, creeping behind all the fake fancy people.
Speaking of creeping, it runs in the (SPOILER) family…
When the Liars arrive, the music kicks in. It is, of course, a 2004 throwback song (remember this show takes place in 2011, so that’s 7 years ago), because reminder: this is Melissa and Ian’s prom, not the Liars’. “Guess that’s our cue to dance,” the girls mutter, though they never seem to make up their mind whether that means with the mannequins or with each other before the music stops and Mona’s airline voice comes on to announce the arrival of this year’s prom queen, Alison DiLaurentis!!! And then Mona appears at the top of the stairs, dressed in a bubblegum pink Mona would never choose, wearing her porcelain Ali mask. Canned applause plays over the speakers.
As the applause fades, the Liars steel their nerves. “Charles?” Spencer calls out, as the Liars crowd protectively around Monalison, “Charles, we have something for you.” They unveil a king’s crown. “This is your prom, you should be crowned king.” ChArles appears from behind one of his mannequins in a tux and a mask and walks toward them. Aria holds up the “camera” as he approaches and when she hits the button, the electricity goes out with a sparking pop (NICE) and, tempting as it would have been for one of them to stay and unmask ChArles while he was discombobulated, all five girls make a run for it.
Catie
AEHGHHH
Alexisthis is so effing
frightening
Catiei’m dead
NOOOOOO
Well, all the girls make a run. Emily, Hanna, and Aria do the smart thing of running straight for the escape ladder; Spencer and Mona do the them-smart thing of running straight for the locked vault. Girls gonna get ANSWERS.
Spencer arrives first, and what she finds is amazing. And maybe more terrifying than the doll hospital/mona’s Hideaway Pines lair/Ezra’s Chickpea Murder Cabin bunker—and not just because THERE ARE THE PROPS CATIE AND I SAW IN THE WB PROPHOUSE.
What is more amazing is that there is an old home movie projecting on the far wall of the vault…of Jessica DiLaurentis. With twin* blonde boys. She also has a baby bundled in her arms. They are all at the old Campbell farm (you know, of the LOL Toby’s being a cop there right now variety), and she is holding baby Alison out, entreating the boys, “kiss your sister!!”
Rosemary
CHARLES
AlexisTWIN BOYS
CatieJESSICA
Rosemaryomg omg omg
CatieTWO BOYS??
AlexisTWIN EFFING BOYS
HELL PROM A appears from the shadows at just that moment. “Is that you, Charles?” Spencer asks, letting him slowly approach her. Whether she is asking if A is Charles, or if the second blonde DiLaurentis boy is Charles, who’s to say. But before he/she/it/bitch can come any closer, before either one of them can remove the HELL PROM mask, before Spencer can grab any one of the nearby lead-based baby dolls with which to smash him over the head…Mona arrives. And as soon as Spencer turns from (Ch)A(rles) to see who’s there, he/she/it/bitch disappears. SPENCER. NEVER TURN FROM A. GEEZ.
Mona only has eyes for the framed DiLaurentis family photos lining the shelves, and the end of the home movie still playing on the wall. “This isn’t what I expected at all,” she says, expression unreadable. “A has a soul.”
Oh give me land, lots of land, with the starry skies above…
In the old Campbell Farm lair, Tanner plays with all A’s equipment, flicking switches here, pressing buttons there. The determination on her face was enough to make us believe she was somehow in on A’s game (not a stretch of the imagination, really), but then she accidentally gets one of A’s cathode ray tube surveillance screens to play the video of Hanna’s Mystery Date “him her it bitch” speech, which if we were A, we would totally record to play back on loop, too—Hanna is incandescent.
Toby comes in at that exact moment, and he and Tanner watch Hanna strut every inch of her two-year personal growth together, and you can tell even Tanner is totally spooked, Her “Oh. my. god.” expression at this moment reminded Catie of that moment in sci-fi movies when the skeptical soldier finally sees the entire giant kraken/alien/monster emerging from the depths. Which, of course, makes Toby and the rest of us the nutty conspiracy theorist scientist who was ignored all movie AND NOW IT IS TOO LATE WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE, THE MORAL IS THAT TOO MUCH POWER IS TOO DESTRUCTIVE LET’S ALL MOVE UNDERGROUND. Also the moral is: A is not keeping the girls as Andrew’s old family farm. GREAT.
…don’t fence me in
So, wherever the girls really are then, the camera-pinch apparently gave them more than enough time to do their vault sleuthing and still make it up the ladder (and all while still in their HELL PROM skirts and heels)—which is good news. Unfortunately, it is all the good news there is, as once they reach the top and push open the giant steel door, they find themselves locked in a miniature prison yard.
Emily, Hanna, and Aria bolt across the yard to start scaling the fence while they still have all that adrenaline pumping, but Spencer sees the warning signs and hears the power return inside just in time to stop them: the fence is electrified, 10,000 freaking volts. And as the Liars back back into a protective circle and stare up at the single patch of open sky breaking the immense forest surrounding them, Billy Williams and the Westerners’ cheerful horns and Danny Kaye’s smooth voice come over the PA, begging the girls to give him land, lots of land, and the starry sky above: don’t fence me iiiinnnn*.
And then the camera pans up up up up and shows just how very isolated and alone the Liars new Dollhouse home is, there in the middle of the murdercAbin forest, with not even a single, solitary inappropriate chairlift in sight.
NO NO NO NO NOOO
Rosemary
I HAVE NEVER SIMULTANEOUSLY LOVED AND HATED A SHOW SO MUCH
AlexisI KNOW
That’s pretty much the gist of it.
*not a joke: the next video in the youtube playlist was Billy Williams and The Westerners’ “Rosewood Casket.” THIS SHOW.
NEXT SEASON
On “Unbreakable Little Liars,” the girls escape from their bunker and move to New York for a fresh start. They alive, damn it! Females are strong as hell.
(Also, we have been promised that 6A is gonna be just 10 full episodes of answers [and also a new missing girl case, and Alison getting out of jail, and Rumer Willis returning for some crazy reason]. Buuuuuuut, recall that the last time we were given a ton of “answers” it was in “A Is For Answers”, the 4B finale, and that was TERRIBLE. NO MORE ANSWERS.)
Also again, come back at the end of the week for our third seasonal BEST OF awards post! We’ve got some pretty great categories cooking (and will also entertain any categories YOU want to see, if you tell us in the comments!).
About the Contributor:
Alexis Gunderson is a TV critic and audiobibliophile. A Wyoming expat, she now lives in Maryland, where she runs the DC chapter of the FYA Book Club. She can be found talking about Teen TV on Twitter, and her longform criticism can be found on Authory.
