About:
Happy Hump Day, FYA! It’s raining here. Again. I’m not complaining, since last year we got no rain at all and everything died and there were tons of wild fires. But said rain is causing my allergies to go on some sort of hyper-alert state, as if they sense that the soggy conditions might at some point be ripe for the scantest of mold spores to breathe into life, and until such time, my histamines will just act as guard detail. In other words, I’m siiiiiick. Feel sorry for me!
This season of Pretty Little Liars has been a little bit crazy so far, what with a new A, Melissa’s fakeby, the suspicious appearance of Hot Nate, and Lucas’s squirrely behavior. What will happen next?!
Aria, Goddess of Woodland Creatures
Oh, Aria. Aria, Aria, Aria. You continue to exist. You continue to date Fitz. Why do you do these things?
Aria is concerned that her overage boyfriend is poor, on account of how no one wants to hire a guy who fucks his students, so she keeps buying him sandwiches. Since Aria doesn’t have a job, I’m guessing that she’s buying these treats with her allowance, which just makes the entire scenario even more sad and pathetic. “Hey, honey! Don’t worry about lunch this week! I got twenty bucks for doing the dishes every night!” Yikes.
Fitz feels all emasculated, on account of how he doesn’t have a job, but then he starts buying Aria expensive vintage Rolleiflex cameras, because Aria is now interested in photography. Her interest appears just in time for photography to be a big clue in this episode, but we’ll get to that. Aria’s all worried that he’s spending his savings but worry not, Aria! Fitz has found a job as an editor! Because in case you don’t know, publishing houses are DESPERATE for people to come take their VERY HIGH PAYING editor jobs and are sad because they have so few over-qualified people to choose from. Anyway, congrats, Fitz! Maybe you’ll meet an intern you can have an ill-advised affair with!
I mean, look, Ian Harding is kind of hot, and that ain’t no lie. But why does Fitz continue to exist? He brings nothing to the story!
Back to Aria’s sudden interest in photography. She spies Lucas banging on the windows of a photography studio which is conveniently located on The Only Street In Rosewood. What could that be about?! Well! The studio belongs to a lady who I will refer to as Ms. Cliché, since she’s a photographer who wears a goddamn trilby and has frizzy hair and probably, like, frames the view with her hands. Apparently Ms. Cliché taught Aria in a photography class last year, but I don’t remember that, so maybe I was drunk during it. Aria finds out that Lucas was Ms. Cliché’s assistant, but that he started stealing darkroom equipment in order to develop his own photos. Suspicious! Maybe he was stealing darkroom equipment because he enjoyed huffing the stopbath. That shit is the bomb! Or it can make a bomb. I’m not really sure. I know it stains your clothes though, so if you ever find yourself secretly making out with a boy in the darkroom and you don’t want people to know about it, DON’T bump into a tray of stopbath without realizing it and then walk around school with a giant yellow-bleach stain on the ass of your jeans. Just a tip! Anyway, Ms. Cliché is now holding the rest of Lucas’s negatives until he pays her back for the equipment he stole.
Aria manages to worm her way into the studio and finds Lucas’s camera bag and rolls of film. (Aw, film! How cute! Lucas is so old school! I miss film.) She runs into Lucas outside of the studio and he begs her to let him go in just for a minute. She declines and he keeps passionately insisting, until Fitz comes to rescue her from the weirdness. Lucas is on drugs, I think. He should share them with Fitz and that way they can both be interesting.
Back at Fitz’s apartment, Aria can’t tell from the film negatives whether Lucas was the one taking photos of them at Alison’s empty grave, but she does find something else . . .
Which leads us to:
Emily, Class(y) Drunk!
Guess who’s back in Em’s life?! Kat from 10 Things!! YAY!!! My favorite couple! Emily asks Paige if she wants to go to see the Katy Perry movie. I laugh and laugh and laugh. Two lesbians going off to see a movie about a lady who pretends to be a lesbian to get guys’ attention and then turns around and uses gay as a pejorative term in her next hit? Emily claims that she bought the tickets for Hanna, who’s the actual fan of KP, but Hanna’s too busy eating her feelings to watch someone shoot whipped cream out of their tits in three dimensions. Paige agrees to go, which just shows us all how much Paige really likes Emily.
But! It turns out Emily can’t go, because her hilariously hyperactive and coffee-attentive boss needs her to work that night. Because Jenna is hosting a birthday party! Oh, by the way? Jenna can see. I mean, we all knew that, but now everyone knows. She pretends to be miraculously healed, just in time for her birthday party! I think it must be her 50th birthday party. Seriously, the actress playing Jenna is fine but she looks way too old in the eyes to be a teenaged girl. Or even a pre-menopausal woman.
Emily breaks the bad news to Paige, but then they decide to just hang out at the party instead. Meanwhile, Paige finds the flask that Emily was drinking from the night that she woke up at Ali’s empty grave, and Em says that since she’s done with being an alcoholic, Paige can have it. Raise your hand if you know where this storyline is going!!
Meanwhile also!! Garrett’s mom had, like, a heart attack or something and is now in the hospital! So Garrett’s been granted a furlough to go see her. This pisses Emily off because, like, she hasn’t been granted a furlough to visit Maya in Heaven! It pisses Hot Nate off, and he vows revenge. I really wish they’d address exactly how Maya died. Everyone on the show has said that Garrett is in jail for killing two women (Alison and Maya). I thought he’d been arrested for Ian’s death too (since didn’t they prove it wasn’t suicide?), but apparently not. So, but okay, everyone believes he killed Maya, yet no one will say how, or what the evidence against him is. Hot Nate implied that if Maya’s parents hadn’t threatened her with Gay Away camp, she might still be alive, which suggests she overdosed, but then if so, why is Garrett charged with her murder? I can’t tell if this is one of those things where they’re purposely trying to be twisty-turny or if they’re just lazy and forgot to explain it. But it’s annoying me.
At the party, Paige sees Emily talking to Hot Nate (who, by the way, Jenna is quite taken with), and it makes her sad so she drinks from Emily’s flask. Oh, Paige. I love you so much. Drunk you is even better. Then she hilariously sticks her fingers in every single one of Jenna’s cupcakes to find the coconut one. Hee! Paige falls and bashes her head open, so Emily and Hot Nate go to the hospital. Hot Nate sees Garrett and confronts him! With violence!
Paige is released and tells Emily that the doctors ran a tox screen – there were powerful sleeping pills in her system!! This causes Emily to eye her flask suspiciously. . . right in front of a cop. Seriously, the camera pans over from the cop to where Emily is sitting, contemplating her flask. Come on, show runners! If I can figure out this stuff drunk, then you should be able to do it FOR YOUR JOB. Ridiculous.
Anyway, those sleeping pills? Were what was in Lucas’s film canister! BWAH? AND! They’re used to “subdue violent inmates,” among other things. Could these pills be Mona’s?
The Hapless Hanna
Hanna’s upset about having broken up with Caleb for the eightieth time, so she’s moping in the Kitchen of Carbs and Cash, refusing to wear any pants that lack an elastic waistband. She isn’t emotionally ready to handle zippers! Prozzie Mom kind of hilariously (but nicely) makes fun of her outfit before asking/forcing Hanna to volunteer at the Church clothing drive.
At said Clothing Drive, Prozzie Mom flirts with a guy who I’m pretty sure is the new Preacher at the Church. They bond over sharing a giant cookie. Get your minds out of the gutters, perverts. That isn’t a euphemism. Anyway, it looks like Prozzie Mom may finally start dating a nice guy? It works out perfectly, too, because he’s a Preacher, so he’s an expert on the Bible, and prostitutes were all up in the Bible! It’s a win/win!
Meanwhile, Hanna sees a jacket that she recognizes! She stuffs it into her bag (belatedly paying 20 bucks when her mom’s new beau catches her) and then questions Emily. That’s the jacket Em was wearing the night of Alison’s grave-digging! But it wasn’t on when they found Emily at the grave! So where did she leave it . . . ?
Spiffy Spencer
Spencer continues to be hilarious and criminally underused. She advises Aria to stop treating Fitz like a baby squirrel, and that “every time you baby squirrel Ezra, you’re taking away his nuts.” Oh, Spence.
Spencer figures that Garrett is going to try to slip a message out to A during his furlough to the hospital, so she follows him! She sees him writing a note for the flowers that he buys for his mom, which raises her suspicions because, um, Garrett’s mom is in a coma and thus unlikely to be able to read said note. Spencer wants to get close so that she can read the note, but she runs into Jerk Detective, who does his ol’ jerky tap dance routine for a bit. It spooks Spencer enough to go home.
Where Toby is waiting! And there are leany kisses! They talk a bit about what a crock of shit Jenna’s “miraculous recovery” is, but then they wisely shut up and kiss some more. Horizontal kisses!!
Spencer goes back to the hospital after the kissing is over and sneaks up to Garrett’s mom’s room. The note with the flowers . . . was just that. Garrett promises his mom he’ll always stand by her. Aww. This display of familial affection naturally disgusts the youngest Hastings until she finds a tiny note tucked under Garrett’s mom’s hospital bracelet! What does it say?? “April Rose has the proof.” Bwahh? I’m guessing there’s a type of rose that natively flowers in the Rosewood area and that its name will provide another clue! Cause otherwise the proof is in a stripper who probably dresses like a Laura Ashley model.
Credits!
Son of Gloved McEvilson is investigating a pill bottle. A bottle of Melozipam. Which was prescribed to . . . MAYA. Whaaaa?
And that’s it for this week! What’d you guys and gals think? Is Hot Nate involved in any of this? What is Lucas’s role? Is April Rose a stripper with a heart of gold or a geriatric great-grandmother who likes to snoop around the neighborhood? AND HOW DID MAYA DIE??
