I’m a little angry with the Pretty Little Liars writers. The past few episodes have been good,
but light on material. Not much has actually happened. This episode, however,
was too much. There wasn’t a moment where something unimportant was going on,
save perhaps the scene of the Christmas decorating, but I’ll get to that. Now,
I know this was a summer finale episode, so there should be some bombs dropped,
but I truly think too much happened in one hour of television. So let me get
into recapping it all…
WARNING!!! SPOILERS FOUND BELOW!! If you have not watched
this episode and do not want the twists ruined, do not read below!
The episode begins on Thanksgiving Day outside of a house
where Hannah, Emily, and Aria all stand in shock and disbelief. Now we knew
from all of the promos that someone was going to die in this episode. So right
at the beginning, we are meant to think that it is Spencer who died. But I
didn’t believe that for a second. Spencer has too much unresolved conflict and
is too important to be killed off quite so randomly. And in my opinion, Spencer
is the best character, so if she had been killed off, I would be in mourning,
and I don’t know if I could continue to watch the show.
We then flashback to thirty-six hours previously. We see Ali
in the police office taking a lie-detector test. With all we know about Ali, we
know she has sociopathic tendencies, and honestly, by this point the police
should know that too. So a lie-detector test would be ineffective. Sociopaths
can pass those tests when they’re lying the whole time. Sociopaths tell so many
lies so often that the actually believe what they’re saying. Unfortunately, I
know this from experience.
The next scene had me screaming at the television screen,
“FINALLY!!!” We know that Ali is no good. She strikes a chord in me that is too
familiar. She obviously lives for drama and tragedy. The girls are finally
wising up to that fact, and they go to Mona for help. I think Mona is extremely
devious, and she is not someone you want to have against you. However, she can
be a great asset. Mona is more intelligent and more resourceful than most
grown-ups, and the bitch is still in high school. She could go on to be a
dictator. We also find out from Lucas that Ali has turned Mona’s army against
her. It’s now “Saint Ali” and “Crazy Mona”. This is what sociopaths do, people!
The next scene, I thought, was interesting. The writers used
this opportunity to spell out why Ali assembled such a motley group as her best
friends. She had all of the important qualities in the different girls. Spencer
is the intelligent one; Emily is the loyal unquestioning follower; Hannah is
the sycophantic admirer; and Aria is the compassionate one. This combination of
personalities is a prefect group for a sociopath. There will always be one
there for whatever Ali needs, and she will always have one ally. That is, until
now it seems. The sentence is finally spoken aloud: “Ali is A.”
Then we see Toby announcing to Spencer that he has gone
through and graduated from the police academy… Wait… What?! He just announced
the decision to go to the academy like two weeks ago! There is no way that he
could have finished that fast. I go along with a lot of bends in reality in the
storylines, but this is one I can’t accept. The writers get an F in believability
for that one…
As I alluded to earlier, Mona is a bad bitch. We see her,
with the help of Lucas, hack into the police files and get some important
documents and a recording of the lie-detector test Ali just took earlier in the
episode. I know you’re probably wondering why I would believe that and not the
police academy thing. Well, allow me to explain. We have already seen that Mona
has the ability to do a lot of things you would think were out of her capacity,
so is stealing police files really so far of a stretch? Secondly, it is
entirely possible that Mona has a connection to someone, which was alluded to
in the episode, that allows her to have access to special high-tech programs
for hacking. However, it is not at all possible for someone to enroll, go
through, and graduate from the police academy in such a short period of time.
It is impossible to bend the laws of time and space; it is NOT impossible to
bend the laws of society… Yes, I realize I spend too much time thinking about
these things…
The next scene is the one part of the episode that gave up
some downtime. We see everyone at Emily’s house decorating for Christmas. This
is a bit premature in my opinion, but it was necessary. They are setting up for
a special Christmas episode this season. The past few years the special
midseason episode has been a Halloween episode, but this year they decided to
change holidays.
Next we get to see and hear part of the lie-detector test
done on Ali thanks to the footage Mona stole. When questioned about Spencer’s
actions the night of the Ali’s disappearance, we hear Ali say, “It was my
fault. I pushed her to that place…” This sounds like she’s taking up for
Spencer, but she quickly follows that with, “I didn’t kill Bethany Young.”
Let’s put this together. Ali says the only person she saw outside of the barn
the night of Bethany’s murder was Spencer, and Ali says Spencer was under the
influence, and then that she did not kill Bethany… You don’t have to be a
genius or a Rosewood police officer to figure out that Ali is suggesting that
Spencer killed Bethany. However, Ali never actually suggested that. Again, this
is how sociopaths work. They paint and manipulate the picture so you see it
just as they want you to.
After they see all of the police files, the girls realize
that Ali is no longer a person of interest, but Spencer is. The police have a
theory that Spencer killed Bethany Young to get in favor with Ali since Bethany
had some damaging information on her family. What the girls do not know is why
Spencer is now a suspect. What evidence do they have against her? Whatever it
is, it seems to reside at Radley. Mona and Spencer decide to impersonate nurses
and break into Radley with the help of the other girls and Lucas. They seem to
be looking for evidence, as if there is anything left to find, but they are
interrupted by Holbrook who has a strange conversation with Aria. When will
these police officers learn protocol and not talk to minors in an accusatory
fashion without a guardian present? Yeah, I know… Where’s the fun in that?
While the others are at Radley, Emily contacts Ali as a
guise of making up after their argument when in reality, she is keeping Ali
busy. Of course, Ali, being the evil genius she is, quickly figures out what’s
going on and leaves angrily. As she walks out of Emily’s house, we see Paige.
Isn’t it nice how Paige often seems to be in the right place to see something
juicy? Sometimes I wonder if Paige is actually stalking Emily…or maybe she’s
just a peeping Tom… Anyway, Paige sees Ali leaving the house and getting into a
car with the twins from The Shining.
That is the only way I know how to refer to these girls. Who in God’s name are
they? And where did they come from? We’ve seen them for a total of 2 minutes on
screen, and I can’t remember them ever being referenced. Although… There are 3
million characters in this show, so maybe I’m just forgetful…
Spencer was supposed to meet Toby for a celebration for his
graduation, but instead she was breaking several laws and breaking into an
insane asylum. Toby calls Spencer as they are leaving Radley, and while they
are on the phone, Spencer hears Toby get into a horrible car crash… Is that
supposed to teach me not to talk on my phone while driving, or not to have a
girlfriend who is involved in heavy stuff like Spencer? I’m really not sure…
Again, this is a cheap trick of the writers who want us to think that Toby is
now the one who has died.
Literally right after a commercial break, we see that Toby
is just fine, save a few broken bones. We now know it is Thanksgiving Day, and
the girls are at the coffee shop. As they discuss the events of the previous
days, police officers come into the coffee shop and arrest Spencer for the
murder of Bethany Young. Who
didn’t see that coming?
The final big scene was a bit upsetting to me. I feel the
director gave away what was coming. We see Mona say good bye to her mother, and
the look on her face tells us that she knows she’s about to die. Mona calls the
girls, and says she has proof that Ali is A. We also see a girl with blond hair
walk slowly up the stairs and into Mona’s room. Next we see Hannah, Aria,
Emily, and Ezra enter Mona’s house, and there’s blood everywhere. The next
scene is back to what was the beginning of the episode, and Holbrook announces
that Mona’s body is nowhere to be found, but by the amount of blood in the
house, they are sure Mona is dead. I will admit, I thought at first that Mona
would become the new Ali—that she wasn’t really dead, and we would see her
again. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong. We see her quite dead body in
the trunk of a car. For once I was completely surprised, unpleasantly, I might
add.
In a last bit of symbolism, we see Mona’s killer replace the
baby Jesus in the nativity with the creepy Mona doll that we have seen before.
Mona died for the sins of Aria, Spencer, Hannah, and Emily. She died so the
might live to fight Ali and whoever else may be part of all of this. I thought
this was an interesting touch to the end of a fast paced episode.
Overall, I really enjoyed this episode, but like I said, I
feel it had too much for one hour of TV. I truly hope the writers decide to
keep going down this road. We now see Ali as a monster, and over the next
seasons the girls need to take her down. It’s a great avenue for the storyline
to go. We’ve seen them trying to find her killer and now trying to help her for
the past five seasons. Now they realize they’ve been helping the wrong person.
However, I have a feeling, as things go on Pretty
Little Liars, they’ll flip the script a few more times on us. We’ll just
have to wait and see.
Let me know what you think of my recap and discussion. Do
you like the way the story is going? Are you upset that Mona is dead?
No comments:
Post a Comment