Previously: Spencer and Toby were the worst at passing secret messages and parent/teacher conferences are awkward when the teacher is dating the child of the parent.
—
The Badass Seed
Lorraine: Rosewood High is holding auditions for a play, and our Pretty Little Liars are all gathered for the occasion. Can I tell you how hilarious these episode openings are? I know that all shows do a certain amount of rehashing, but PLL is almost shameless in its beginning of the episode, expository conversations.
Anyways, Spencer is explaining to her friends what the play, The Bad Seed, is all about. Hanna says she didn’t read the whole thing because she just wants to be the drunk mom of the play. Spencer gives her, “MMMHMM.” eyes, allowing Hanna to exposit that she once brought a flask to a dance. Oh, yeah and also, Caleb is still living in Hanna’s basement and A found out and Hanna has decided to tell her mom about it before A does.
Sara: I love when the girls spill secrets before A gets a chance. Good job, ladies!
Sweeney: As a general rule, they should all be pretty focused on minimizing their secrets, rather than creating new ones.
Lor: Mona sasses over to say she nailed her audition, but encourages the other girls to still go for the small, un-yearbook-worthy parts. After she’s gone, Aria gives Ezra statutory rape me eyes, and now would be a good time to mention that she’s wearing a tuxedo tank top, and leg warmers on her hands. I’d concede the tux-tank as age appropriate but fingerless gloves? Stop it.
Spencer keeps up her tradition of teasing Aria about her pedo-lationship, and the rest of the girls jump in to be sad that they can’t double date with Aria and their English teacher. Life is so unfair.
Lor: Minus all the stalking, murder and blackmail, of course!
Just then, Jenna, who really does look old enough to play someone’s drunk mother, comes over to ask Ezrafitz if she can compose some music for the play. I mean, that’s her excuse. She’s really here to say creepy stuff about how she’s fascinated by the nature of evil, and then turn to look at where the girls are sitting, because is this bitch even trying to pretend she’s blind? (If she turns out to be really blind, I’ll apologize.) (But, like, probably not out loud.)
Sweeney: She’s trying aggressively hard to pretend she’s lying about being blind so I probably won’t apologize.
Lor: And on that note, we roll credits. SHHHHH.
Night time at Spencer’s house. She comes downstairs, although nothing good has ever come from Spencer going downstairs in the middle of the night. Oh, but wait, there is a baby cooing and this is a dream. In the dream, Spencer approaches the cooing baby, and someone grabs her from behind. She wakes suddenly to some loud noise. She goes downstairs for real this time to find Ian, her brother-in-law, packing up some boxes.
Sara: Ian is capable of doing anything in a threatening manner.
Lor: Spencer asks him what he’s doing, and he says he’s just putting away some old junk to make room for the baby. He asks Spencer for some help taping up a box, but Spencer looks like she’d rather not get within easy-murdering-distance from him. Ian picks up on this, and points out that he’s only holding a tape gun. Then he shares that Melissa told him that Spencer thinks he’s a murderer. THANKS A LOT, MELISSA, JEEZ.
Sara: RIGHT? Awkward.
Sweeney: A surefire way to get someone murdered is telling potential uncaught murderers that someone knows their murdery secret. I hate Melissa.
Lor: And, I mean, fine if you don’t think your husband is a creepy murderer, but why would you rat out your sister that way? That’s never going to be not awkward.
Ian doesn’t do a good job of convincing anyone he’s not a murderer when he says Alison was looking to get killed, because she was a psycho stalker. For the record, “I’m not surprised her behavior made someone want to kill the shit out of her… BUT NOT ME, LOL.” is not a great thing to say when someone accuses you of murder.
At the Marin house, Mama Marin is wondering where all her groceries are going, because she doesn’t know she’s feeding a teenaged boy. Hanna covers by saying Caleb’s been staying for dinner, because his home life sucks. She uses this as her opportunity to ask if he can stay in the guest room for a few nights. Mama Marin says no, because they need their privacy. One second after she leaves to work, Hanna lets Caleb in from the basement. He heard the whole conversation, and offers to leave, and replace the groceries. Hanna eye-sexes him as he heads of to take a shower.
Sara: Well, he really should replace the groceries, at least. Free Old Lady Money doesn’t last forever.
Lor: Or, like, very long at all.
Ezra is sweaty and in his apartment when there is a knock on the door. He goes to answer it, and of course, it’s Aria. He has the same, “…uh. What are you doing here?” reaction he ALWAYS has when Aria shows up unannounced, which is like 74% of always. (S: Baby girlfriends, man. Don’t they know pedophiles only want them around when their infant presence is specifically requested?)
She babbles about how she wanted to talk to him before school, and Ezra thinks this is about Aria’s dad, Papa Cheater, wanting to grab a beer with him. Ezra offers to bail on that bro-date, but Aria thinks it’d be great if her dad was able to see what a catch her grown-ass-adult boyfriend was! Best plan ever, Aria! She also mentions that it’d be cool if her friends could know how great he is, though she lies about having told them about him. Anyways, Ezra thinks he’s got enough friend points because he cast Hanna and Spencer in the play. Aria asks who the stage manager is, but he hasn’t picked anyone yet. She begs to do it, because they can spend more time on campus together, and have an excuse to be seen together off campus. Ezra concedes, even though he’s saying no while he does.
Sweeney: As it should. Because jail time.
Lor: Back at the Marin house, Hanna needs something from the bathroom, and Caleb says it’s fine for her to get it while he’s in the shower. Because the Age Appropriate Love Gods love them some Hanna, her mother chooses this exact moment to come back home, looking for the cell phone she left in the bathroom. Hanna shouts that she’s in the shower, and Mama Marin lets herself into the bathroom, so that Hanna has to jump into the shower with Caleb. Wet, naked, wackiness ensues.
Sara: HELLO BAD BOY LIP BITE. Caleb + Sara might not be age appropriate, but I think I can deal with that.
Sweeney: TYLER BLACKBURN WAS BORN IN 1986. WE’RE ALL GOOD.
Lor: PHEW.
At school, Emily congratulates Spencer on her part in the play, and thinks she’ll volunteer to handle the props, since all the other PLLs are involved in the play. Em’s phone starts ringing and we see that it’s Paige calling. She tries to “nothing to see here!” but Spencer notices and wants to know what’s up. Emily doesn’t fess up, and instead changes the subject to the super coded message from Toby. Spencer hasn’t figured out the message yet, but they are still working on it. In fact, she’s going to see Toby after school to drop off his French book. Emily asks if she can instead, because she’d like another chance to talk to him. After Spencer passes the French book, she notices Ian and Jenna talking to each other. They do not like this development, because that is just way too much creepy together. The girls watch as Ian hands Jenna a bag.
Ezra is leading play rehearsal. He’s handing out additional material to read, but thankfully for Hanna, Caleb is standing in convenient gazing distance. Mona notices her quick glance and resulting twitchiness and wants to know what’s up. Hanna shares about the kinda-sorta shared shower, but she isn’t sure if she likes him. She’s confused, and I’m sure knowing what he looks like naked confuses all sorts of things. Mona says Hanna better decide soon because “bad boy only showers once a year.” LOL. But, also if that were true it would un-confuse things very quickly. (S: Word.)
Ezra is being a fidgety weirdo during this rehearsal, and drops his papers everywhere. Aria tries to help him pick them up, but he tells her to go do something else, and I’m not really sure what’s going on here. Whatever, no time to dwell because the Great Contrivance Spirit delivers Ian, who interrupts rehearsal looking for some other meeting. He, “oops! My bad!”s and heads off, leaving the Liars to whisper conspiratorially. Aria can’t believe Spencer ever kissed him (ARIA: NOT ALLOWED TO JUDGE EVER.) and Spencer defends herself by saying that they all wanted to kiss him when he was big man on campus. She references a party Alison got them into and this sends us into an Ali-back, which is again sponsored by Instagram.
In the Ali-back, Alison hilariously passes out fake ID’s to the girls RIGHT IN FRONT OF the guy checking IDs at the party. It’s fine , though, because they get in. Aria wants to know what they are supposed to do, and Alison suggests they act their new age. Aria spots Ian, and Hanna gushes about how cute he is. Emily points out that he’s a little old for her.
Lor: The girls watch as Ian heads off with a Drunk Ginger Girl upstairs. The Liars all speculate about what innocent things they could be doing, but Alison bluntly says that Ian will soon be on top of that drunk girl.
After the Ali-back, Emily tells Spencer that she should’ve told Melissa about her skeevy boyfriend that very night, but Spencer doesn’t think leading with, “I crashed a frat party…” would’ve been a very good idea.
Mr. Fitz cuts into this conversation by asking Hanna why the janitor in The Bad Seed knew that the little girl wasn’t lying. Spencer saves Hanna by offering that the janitor was childlike himself. Aria goes to tag on her two cents, but she calls Mr. Fitz “Ezra” as she does so. He freaks and she stutters a bit when she realizes. Really, this show is a PSA against pedo-lationship, right guys? Because look how hard they are! You have to always remember to call your teacher by their teacher name. Sigh.
Emily visits Toby to drop his book off. He tells her that Jenna was the one who turned him into the police, as her way of keeping him close to home, though I guess if he went to prison, that kind of would’ve backfired on her, yeah? Emily invites Toby to celebrate not being a murderer over breakfast. I’m not being facetious when I say that a big ass stack of pancakes would be an excellent way to celebrate not being a murderer. Okay, maybe I’m being a little facetious, but for real, pancakes are delicious.
Papa Cheater arrives at Rosewood High and tries his hand at complimenting Ezra. Really, it’s not Papa Cheater’s fault that basically everything you could ever say to Ezra will make him feel bad about being a sexual predator. In this case, Papa Cheater throws out a, “my daughter thinks you are hot stuff,” and “it’s very bold of you to expose yourself to your students.” Indeed, Papa Cheater. Indeed.
Hanna is running through her lines when Caleb shows up. She’s very short with him, I guess because now she knows how long he is, ifyouknowwhatImean. Caleb tries to break the tension by referencing the kinda-sorta shower together, but Hanna’s not having it, and leaves.
Sara: Oh, Hanna. You deserve some of that hot Caleb action, girl. Get you one.
Sweeney: +1 to all of this.
Lor: At the most awkward bro-date ever, Papa Cheater notes that Ezra is more comfortable talking about his writing than his day job. Ezra insists that he loves teaching high school, but Papa C says that you always bond with your first class, but those kids will move on. Aria is looking at colleges in California, for example! Ezra looks taken aback, because thinking about how your underaged girlfriend will eventually become of age is depressing. Something like that.
Toby visits Spencer, and she convinces him that he has to steal Jenna’s phone so they can see if Jenna has been calling Ian. Note that Spencer is not jumping at the chance to steal Ian’s phone.
The next day, Emily walks to Toby’s place to pick him up for their celebratory breakfast. Jenna is on the porch cleaning her flute and informs Emily that Toby’s not in. He left early with Spencer. Emily looks hurt, and Jenna says that being second choice sucks. It’s almost the same, except for the part where Jenna is his creepy step-sister.
Emily turns to walk away AND THEN JENNA PROVIDES HER OWN FLUTE OF FEELS. SHE ACTUALLY PICKS UP THE FLUTE AND PLAYS WHILE EMILY WALKS SADLY AWAY.
This is the best thing Jenna has ever done.
Sara: The PLLs should hire Jenna to play all of their feels music from now on!
Sweeney: THIS WAS SO FANTASTIC. I will now assume Jenna is playing the flute of feels all across Taumaland.
Lor: Headcanon accepted.
Toby has Jenna’s phone and he gives it to Spencer. She asks him why Alison thought Toby was spying in her window the night she died, and Toby’s answer is basically, “IDK. Bitch was crazy.” This all, however, allows Toby and Spencer to bond just a little bit more. We get a hand hold in this scene.
At school, Aria is in the play rehearsal room, taping off the floor. Ezra gets snippy with her, so she apologizes about slipping up the day before, and promises to try harder. Then she wants to hear all about the awkward bro-date with her dad, and Ezra just goes on to really reinforce why I hate him so much. I mean, it’s bad enough that he’s having a relationship with his 16-year-old student, but it just bothers me that much more because he acts like a 16-year-old girl. Instead of being all, “hey, are you looking at colleges in California?” he has a passive aggressive hissy fit while he mentions that Papa Cheater is helping him get a job teaching college.
Sara: Hey, then at least he’ll only be dating a minor, and not a minor that is his student!
Lor: Spencer gives Caleb Jenna’s special phone. He’s impressed by the technology. Spencer gives him an hour to apparently learn Braille and break into it (???).
Back at rehearsal, Mona asks a question about blocking, and Ezra says they’ll get to that on Saturday. But Mona can’t make it on Saturday. Aria and Ezra continue to nip at each other, here about a scheduling confusion, until Aria asks the cast to take five so she can have a relationship chat right there, in school, with kids out in the hallway.
Ezra says he’s angry with himself because he knew this whole stage manager thing wouldn’t work. Aria doesn’t care about the play; she just wants to know why he was talking about his future before, and not their future. Ezra says they may not be linked, because she’s looking at colleges in California! Aria clarifies that it was one college in his favorite city. See? She was only thinking about him all the time always.
Anyways, Ezra says college is for broadening your world, not packing up your high school English teacher and taking him with you. Said pretty much no one ever because HIGH SCHOOL is not about having your high school English teacher in the first place. The point is that Ezra is worried that Aria will outgrow him. Puberty be crazy.
In the hall, Spencer and Hanna have a weirdly aggressive conversation about the play and it’s really just so Hanna can say the word ‘accident’ and Emily can reply, “maybe there are no accidents.” It’s time to head back into another Ali-back, from that same frat party the girls crashed. Bulky Sweater Hanna is chatting with Emily when they hear a scream. They run to it, and see that the Drunk Ginger Girl Ian was heading off with in the earlier Ali-back has clearly fallen down the stairs. She’s breathing, but unconscious. Ian is standing at the top of the stairs because a creep.
Sweeney: It’s really great and helpful for the plot that they only remember this party a little bit at a time!
Lor: Agreed! I also like that they can remember together.
Post Ali-back, Emily says she never put it all together until just now. Aria comes over to tell them rehearsal is starting up again, and they fill her in on their new realization. It seems Ian has a penchant for pushing girls.
Sara: She never realized? What? Shouldn’t it have been fairly obvious with that creepy ass look on Ian’s face?
Lor: Maybe it’s because that’s how he always looks.
Caleb gets Hanna’s attention and gives her Jenna’s phone back. He can’t break into it. He asks again if she’s ever going to get over the kinda-sorta showering together thing, and she spazzes out and leaves again.
In rehearsal, Ezra is asking again if some people are born evil. He asks Spencer and she says that yes, some people are pure evil. She flashesback to the frat part where the drunk girl is being wheeled into an ambulance. The Liars all stand and watch and Ian is talking to the police. They want to GTFO, but Emily says they can’t leave without Alison. Speak of the devil, she strolls on up, super casually, and remains so, even when her friends tell her that some drunk girl just went stair diving. Alison says it will be suspicious if they run away now, and instead asks a nearby cop for a ride back to Rosewood. “The bolder the move, the less anyone questions it,” she tells them, as they head toward the cop car. Alison gives Ian one final, lasting look before the Ali-back is over.
Sara: Dear Teenage Girls, here’s a fun way to get out of drinking underage! Love, ABC Family.
Lor: So thoughtful of them.
After Aria gives a pointed comment about being selfish, Ezra calls the end of rehearsal and tells everyone to put away their props and go on home. Spencer is putting some things away in a prop box, when she notices a trophy inside– one of Ian’s trophies from Hilton Head. She picks it up and we see that one of the corners is covered in blood. Spencer calls the other Liars over, and they proceed to freak out. Aria asks why Ian would hide that trophy out in the open at school, and Spencer quotes Ali and says because it’s a bold move. Emily wants to take it to the police right away, and the girls agree.
After a cut to black, we see a police officer bagging up the bloody trophy as evidence.
The girls leave the police station and Emily marvels at the fact that they had the weapon in their hands and that now Alison can rest in peace. I’m good at TV, though, so I’m going to say that this being episode 18 of season 1: NOPE. Spencer doesn’t want to go home and be near Ian and his creepy box packing. Emily offers to let her stay over, and the girls all jump on that idea. Hanna remembers about Caleb, though, and says she has to go home. Aria wants to make a stop on the way. Spencer wants to call Toby and let him know what they found, but Emily says that Spencer should be the one to let him know. Aw, Emily feels.
Aria shows up at Ezra’s apartment and she goes off on a whole relationship rant about how tomorrow isn’t promised and you should enjoy inappropriate relationships while you can. Ezra agrees and kisses her.
At the Marin household, Hanna finds Caleb getting ready to leave, since she’s been treating him like crap ever since their kinda-sorta shower. Caleb finally gets her to admit that she wasn’t ready to see so much of him. He infers that maybe now she feels like she has to show some of her too. Hanna asks what happens if she doesn’t want to. Caleb says that’s okay. Hanna asks what happens if she does want to. Caleb smiles a little and says that’s okay too. Hanna warps her arms around his neck, and kisses him. The camera spins around them trying to capture all of the pretty.
Sara: IT ISN’T POSSIBLE, CAMERA. TOO MUCH PRETTY.
Sweeney: BUT WE DO THANK YOU FOR TRYING!
Lor: At school the next day, the girls all say they got very little sleep. Just then, a cop shows up and they think Ian is going to be arrested, but nope. It turns out that there is no golf tournament at Hilton Head on the date on the trophy and the blood on it was rat blood. The cop says they’ll discuss this more down at the police station and the PLL’s all follow him out, thinking, “and THIS is why we don’t go to the cops.”
Sweeney: Because the cops are fucking incompetent! For real, for real, the cop was all, “Do your research.” What? They’re a bunch of 16-year-old girls! They found a bloody trophy, freaked out, and brought it to the cops. In theory, that’s about the correct reaction. No, we should not be telling teenagers to Nancy Drew the shit out of potential murder evidence! (Unless they are Veronica Mars.) Rosewood cops are fucking morons.
Lor: Adults in general in this town are kind of failing at life.
Later, as the girls leave the station, they all get a text message from A.
Aria has a quick flash back to the Drunk Ginger Girl at the bottom of the stairs at the frat party, and asks the other girls where Alison was that night. She wasn’t with any of the Liars. They now think that Alison pushed the drunk girl because she was in Ali’s way of Ian. Aria further speculates that Alison threw that firecracker into Jenna’s garage because Jenna was also trying to get in her way of Ian.
Speaking of Ian, he’s just hanging out in front of the police station, smiling smugly.
Sucks to be a Liar right now.
A-NONYMOUS: A feeds a rat and when the camera pulls back, we see that the cage is marked with Aria’s name. The camera pans right, and we see cages for Emily Rat and Hanna Rat. Spencer Rat’s cage is empty.
Next time: Apparently the police don’t like fake evidence on Pretty Little Liars S01 E19 – Person of Interest.
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.
