Previously: All the Pretty Little Liars get kissed- Aria by her pedo-bear teacher, Hanna by her waiting-for-marriage boyfriend, Spencer by her sister’s fiance and Emily not by a girl. Yet.
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To Kill a Mocking Girl
Lorraine: Our Pretty Little Liars are walking through a wooded area. You know, the kind where pretty girls get raped and killed and stuff. Emily is leading the other, somewhat reluctant girls back to the shed (site of the original murder-y slumber party) to build a memorial to Alison. Spencer thinks going back to the scene of the crime looks weird and Emily asks if she’s worried what other people think. Spencer is all, “UM, WE HAVE OUR OWN STALKER DETECTIVE WHO THINKS WE KILLED HER, SO YES I CARE.”
Sweeney: Word. I love how Emily tries to make it a whole BE YOURSELF! ish thing both because of the pot/kettle thing and, more importantly, being investigated for murder is a whole other level of “Yes, what other people think of you matters. Specifically: do they think you are a murder?”
Sara: And if by they, you mean us, then yes. Because we think everyone is a murderer.
Lor: It’s easier that way.
Hanna is of the opinion that they shouldn’t memorialize Alison until they are sure she’s dead and using God’s unlimited messaging plan to send them those texts and not alive and standing outside of their windows.
Rosewood apparently has some of those really loud twigs common in Sunnydale because they suddenly all hear one CRACK! Spencer thinks it’s a rabbit and then they all get text messages from the rabbit! Wait, no, fuck. That isn’t right.
Roll Credits: Very fashionable cadaver, Big Eyes and seriously guys, SHHHH.
A half naked Detective Wilden is standing in the Marin kitchen trying to lose any credibility he could have ever had in a case against the girls. Mama Marin comes in and shoos him away. Hanna complains about this creep being there all the time, but Mama Marin says she has to keep screwing him until the store drops the charges against her. Hanna gets it, but also didn’t count on having to buy him a father’s day card. Mama Marin: If you’re buying anyone a card, it should be me.
UH…
At a coffee shop, OH MY GOD, ARIA HAS A DEAD BIRD BEHIND ONE EAR AND DOESN’T NOTICE.
What? It’s only that she’s inexplicably wearing one overly large feather earring? OH. In that case:
That seal is a thing we are totally making a thing.
Aria tells her parents she’s got about 60 pages left in To Kill a Mocking Bird and see, that’s significant(ish) because of the episode title. Piper from Charmed goes into the coffee shop to buy something, leaving Aria with her father. He asks if she likes her English teacher and she’s all, “WHAT? WHO TOLD YOU WE WERE DRY HUMPING?” Her guilty looks says it all. Aria changes the subject back to the book, but she needn’t worry because it’s her dad’s turn to drown in guilt.
He squirms around as a young, attractive blond lady approaches. A nice little flashback helps us place her as the girl Papa Cheater was cheating with. I wanted to call her Home Wrecker until I realized she’s the girl from Center Stage. CENTER STAGE, YOU GUYS. I used to watch the shit out of that movie. (S: ME TOO, BUT I DID NOT MAKE THIS CONNECTION. AWESOME. Also weird.) (S: I always recognize her by her eyebrows. There’s something weird about those eyebrows, right?) Papa Cheater introduces Center Stage to Aria who gives her Big Bitch I Hate You Eyes. After she’s gone, Aria wishes she’d graduate, but whatdya know, she’s now a teaching assistant.
Sara: I’m assuming Center Stage knows that Aria knows about their cheatery cheating, but she still strolls up and acts like it ain’t nothing. Girl’s got balls. And a shitty turnout.
Lor: A+
Over at Spencer Hastings’ house, Mama Hastings is comforting Melissa over her broken engagement to doctorfiance. Mama Hastings looks like a poor man’s Mariska Hargitay, so I’m actually gonna start calling her MariskaMom. Enjoy. Spencer enters the kitchen and Melissa makes a big show of throwing away wedding magazines and pushing Spencer out of the way. Spencer tries to explain that Wren kissed her and that maybe Melissa should wonder why he felt the need to. MariskaMom shoots her BITCH, NO. NOT NOW. eyes and eventually breaks up the argument by telling Spencer to go get ready for school.
Sweeney: Melissa’s a bitch so I’m not sorry she’s being taken down a notch, but probs not your best move if you’re trying to get her to not be mad at you. Either wage war or make peace. Girl needs to choose.
Lor: Outside of school, Emily is parking her bike when Maya comes over to flirt. They are interrupted by Ben, Emily’s boyfriend. He tries to kiss her but she’s all, “STOP, YOUR PENIS DISGUSTS ME.” It’s all in the context clues. Ben tells her that some guy named Noel is having a party that night and Emily pointedly invites Maya to join them.
Aria gives Ezra Statutory Rape Me Eyes in the very crowded hallway before heading over to talk to Spencer who is all over the place. Spence has a paper on Russian History due, but her schedule has been full of kissing her sister’s fiance and being hated by her entire family. Those two have to stop talking because the ominous music swells so loudly they probably can’t hear anything else. See, Jenna and Creepy Toby walk through the hallway giving everyone We Killed Alison looks. I also foresee us talking a lot about Toby’s face, on account of it being SO WEIRD. He’s got vagina lips and a pointed nose, but such a pretty hot body. It’s very conflicting.
Sara: Toby’s face? Meet a paper bag. Fixed it!
Lor: Okay, fine. Fair.
Emily shares with Maya that Creepy Toby got sent away to reform school for setting fire to the garage with his step-sister in it. BUT WE ALL KNOW IT WAS ALISON.
Detective Wilden tells Hanna he’s pulling her out of class for a chat EVEN THOUGH SHE IS A MINOR AND I HATE HIM. As the remaining PLL whisper about Hanna being the easiest to crack, Jenna passes by and tells them they really suck at whispering. She doesn’t say that, but they do.
Sweeney: She basically says that. I shouldn’t pick on the blind girl, but Jenna is a grade A lurker. I wonder if she and Angel took lurking classes together. Although, Jenna’s lurking is hindered slightly by the ominous-music-blasting stereo that seems to follow her around.
Lor: After a Not Commercial Break, Detective Wilden is accusing Hanna of losing weight between ninth and tenth grade and curling her hair. That’s not a joke, I’m serious this time. Hanna says Alison was the one who helped her make those changes. Wilden thinks maybe Alison started to see her as competition and Hanna LOL. YEAH RIGHTs us into a flashback:
Alison encourages Hanna in a bulky sweater to ask Sean (her current boyfriend) out.
Wilden politely waits until Hanna is done flashbacking to ask his next question. He goes on about how he’s going to figure out what happened that summer, as the past informs the present. Hanna finally has had enough and wonders if maybe Wilden is still the same party boy he was in ’98. Two can play the stalker game. Hanna goes on to HBIC that her tenth grade picture isn’t even in the yearbook, and he must of seen it while he was in a towel in her house. “Is that how the police build their cases these days?” BAM. I think she’s my favorite.
Sweeney: Mine too. Her or Spencer, as they seem to be the only ones who understand this “We’re being investigated” thing. Aria and Emily don’t seem to have gotten that memo.
Sara: I don’t know if Aria has even gotten the memo that she lives in a world with lots of other people who aren’t Aria.
Lor: The other girls wait for Hanna, but she just blows by their questions of what happened with Wilden. They agree to meet at lunch.
Aria follows Ezrafitz into his classroom and tries to ask him out on a date to her mom’s job. LOL. That’s what happens when you date Gerber Babies, Ezra. They flirt a little more and even touch pinkies but a teacher who probably isn’t banging her students walks in. Guilty looks all around.
Spencer sits on a stoop with doctor(ex)fiance Wren. (Sorry, whenever I say stoop, I hear Hey Arnold in my head. STOOP KID’S AFRAID TO LEAVE HIS STOOP. Moving on.) She wants him to tell her family what happened that night, as he made the move on her, and she pushed him away. He says he’s tried but her parents won’t listen to him. Wren apologizes for the mess he made but mostly he’s sorry he fell for the wrong sister. Spencer’s all OH GOD. FEELINGS. GOTTA GO. I know, girl. Story of my life.
Sweeney: Also, I have to point out yet again that this guy is in med school, so it’s not like he’s 18 or 19 just-out-of-high-school. And she is 16. Yet again: Pedobear Alert! Sorry, I know I said this is the new sunlight but that means we have to acknowledge it a few times before accepting that it’s just going to be a thing that every adult male on this show should be investigated for pedophilia.
Lor: I’m not gonna lie- sometimes I forget. As we’ve already discussed in comments, that’s the benefit of hiring a whole bunch of 20/30 years olds to portray child dating.
In the locker room, Emily is alone and hears creepy locker sounds. Turns out it’s just Ben and he wants to know what’s up with the hot and cold. I feel bad for Ben for like a second BEFORE HE PUSHES HIMSELF ON EMILY. No means no, Ben. We feel very strongly about that at Snark HQ. Thankfully, Creepy Toby happened to be creeping in the girls locker room (?) and punches Ben IN THE FACE. Toby holds him up against a wall so Emily has time to break up with him and go.
That night Mama Marin tells Hanna to call if there is any drinking at Noel’s party. Wilden is STILL THERE. After Hanna leaves, Wilden notices that her purse is on the counter. He pulls out the bracelet Alison gave her. Mama Marin is all SKRRRT, what are you doing, worst cop ever? He asks after the bracelet and gets confirmation that it was a gift from Alison. Then Mama Marin says if he wants to go through stuff that isn’t her vagina, he’s going to need a search warrant. She finally kicks him out.
Spencer is having trouble writing her Russian History paper and decides that in addition to stealing a kiss from her sister’s fiance, she’s also going to steal one of her papers. She goes through Melissa’s laptop and finds a suitable paper. (S: Convenient that Melissa inexplicably still has her high school paper saved on her desktop SIX YEARS LATER.) MariskaMom and Melissa walk in before she submits it, but thankfully Melissa is pretty awful to her and it makes it easy for her to justify her plagiarism.
At Noel’s party, the PLL’s are hearing Emily’s story on Ben. Their consensus is that Toby is creepy, but Emily points out that he can’t be that horrible if he took the fall for The Jenna Thing. The PLL’s disperse with Hanna going after Sean, Aria heading off to her mom’s gallery, Maya leading Emily away to a photo booth and Spencer alone again. And! Just in time to see Toby emerge from the shadows. It sends her spiraling into a flashback of the night The Jenna Thing happened. Alison is wagging her finger at Toby, assuring him she’ll tell “everyone everything.” Spencer catches the tail end of that, but is spotted and led away by Alison. Over by the other girls, Alison guilt trips and demands everyone stay quiet as Spencer watches Toby being led away in a cop car. End flashback.
Oh, wait. The guy in the shadows wasn’t Toby. Just another random shadow dude. I’ll take this moment to admit I’m really liking Spencer’s outfit, and award her with the You Go Girl! Award.
In the photobooth, Maya and Emily flirt and take like 87 pictures. Then they also kiss in front of the camera, just in time for someone to pass by and collect the “incriminating” photos.
Hanna and Sean kiss and heavy pet but he stops it. Hanna low self-esteems and Sean calls her desperate. She just isn’t understanding his issue with pre-marital sex. She cries.
At the art gallery, Aria confronts Center Stage who has shown up to the event, but she isn’t leaving.
Back at the party, Hanna gets a message:
At that, Hanna steals the keys to Sean’s car and drives off.
Aria arrives at Ezrafitz’s apartment and he still pretends that he’s hesitant about this all. Of course, the moment she starts walking away, he calls her back. She’s upset about her dad once kissing his student so she went running to her teacher. Cool.
Sweeney: I can already sense mountains of frustration with the failures of Aria Logic as we go forward.
Lor: Agreed.
Hanna crashes Sean’s car.
Maya drops Emily off. She sees Toby sitting outside of his house across the street. She goes over to thank him for helping her with Ben. He doesn’t say anything, but he smiles. Jenna, sitting in the shadows of the porch, demands to know why he’s being thanked. He doesn’t answer.
The next day, back in the woods, Spencer tells the other girls that Toby took the fall because Alison had something on him. Aria likes that they are being upfront and suggests putting up a public memorial in town, too, so the killer has to see it all the time. There is more rustling and stick cracking and this time the girls chase the noise. What they find is Alison’s name bracelet, just on top of the dirt like no one has seen it, found it, disturbed it, walked on it, or rained on it in a year.
A black gloved person prints out an unhealthy amount of photo booth pictures of Maya and Emily kissing. It might be pedo-Ezra, you never know.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something with three kids who spends an embarrassing amount of time watching teen television dramas. There's a whole lot of Internet out there, and I plan on reading all of it before I die.
