Previously: Mona got murdered maybe.
—
How the ‘A’ Stole Christmas
Samantha: I love a good holiday episode. This one starts with the girls walking outside on a picturesque Hollywood Christmas set, otherwise known as a street in Rosewood. Spencer says that since she’s out on bail for murder she’s not really vibing Christmas. Fair. Her and Toby agreed to just surprise each other with gestures. Hannah confuses gestures with jesters and I love her. They decide to write wishes down on paper snowflakes for a wish tree. Hannah sadz that the last time she was here she was with Mona. This throws us into a brief flashback that I feel comfortable calling an Ali-back just because Hannah is looking very Ali here. Mona and Hannah giggle and declare themselves bffs.
In the present, Hannah says that wishes are bogus cause people die. Spencer agrees that hope is a dirty 4-letter word. Aria expositions that Ali is throwing an Ice Ball to rub her ruining their lives in their faces. Christmas AND a dance?! Hot diggity, I hit the first episode jackpot. Spencer snarks that only her life is currently ruined and I love when people snark Aria.
Marines: Same. Especially when it’s to remind her that she makes most things about her. They usually aren’t actually…
Samantha: Some creepy older guy is weirdly staring at them, 4 highschool girls. Aria wonders if he’s a reporter or a cop and I just shrug cause they’re all pedoes. He turns out to be Mona’s lawyer, there to deliver something to Hannah from beyond the grave. I’m not sure how he found her walking down a random street. (M: Probably just asked some other creepy older man where the hot chicks were…) Inside the envelope are drawings of Ali’s house and hiding spots, as well as a letter from Mona telling Hannah to keep fighting. Hannah looks hella guilty and I remind her that Mona also threw a car at her. (M: THANK YOU.)(J: Yeah, Mona didn’t have the best track record when it came to the Liars.) They decide to use the drawings to find evidence that Ali killed Bethany and clear Spencer’s name. Aria gives a Salvation Army Santa a dollar and he gives her a snow globe? Inside the snow globe is a picture of the quartet, along with the message “A takes a holiday. You should too.” I laugh and laugh at all the improbabilities. Starting with, I’ve never seen a Salvation Army Santa give anything but a candy cane away.
Mari: Imagine if Aria didn’t have any cash on her like what the heck. How many Santas are walking around with Liar globes and are they giving them away to randoms? AND PEDOS?
Jessica: New plot twist: Santa is (and always has been) A. Mystery solved.
Samantha: DiLaurentis House. Ali is napping, I guess, on her bed. Why can’t this show even make sleeping look natural? A banging wakes her up and her mom creepers in. Ali WTFs and then her mom is like, “She’s got a lot to show you. Pay attention.” Look, we’re trying but 5 seasons of not much happening is rough.
SHHHHHH (with a slight Christmas twist!)
Mari: OMG, there is a HO HO HO! that randomly kicks in while The Pierces are singing. I’m creeped out.
Samantha: Ali lays on the couch with a photo of her mom. She falls asleep and then wakes up in a terrible transition moment. The room is bright and Christmas cheerful. A little blonde girl plays the piano and a ghostly punked out Mona hovers nearby and startles Ali. She apologizes for her corpse look and glances at the little blonde girl, who is Lil Ali. Holy hell, this is a Scrooge episode, isn’t it? (M: Yeeep…)
Jessica: The best Scrooge was with Muppets. Do you think they’ll ever do a Muppets PLL episode?
Samantha: Depends how glam looking they can get those muppets.
Mona is the punk corpse Ghost of Christmas Past. Ali doesn’t recognize herself, which is weird, but whatever. Mona tells her she needs to see this Christmas. Lil Ali hits a key on the piano that won’t play correctly. She opens the lid and finds gifts stashed inside. If you have a child who can play the piano, this is a pretty terrible hiding spot. She pulls out the two gifts and opens them to find identical dresses in each. Her mother comes in and nervously chastises her. Lil Ali wonders if her mother and father got her the same present and thinks her father will find it funny. Mrs. D tells her that there’s only one dress and that’s what she has to tell her father otherwise he’ll leave them. Great. Cool. Honestly, no wonder Ali is a disaster.
Hastings House. Toby sits in a wheel chair with a broken leg and a big camera. Spencer is changing and explaining their “find evidence at Ali’s and then probably lose it” plan.
Mari: BE FAIR. There is also a chance they’ll just get caught and not find anything.
Samantha: They plan to keep Ali distracted at the dance while they search her house. Toby is Rear Windowing it from Spencer’s, to let them know if anyone is coming. Spencer worries that it’s her last Christmas and comes out of the closet in a sexy Mrs. Claus outfit, her gesture to Toby.
Church. Caleb and Hannah are dressed as elves and handing out presents to children. A gaggle of little girls, led by a mini Ali, are being mean to a deaf little girl. Hannah calls them over and tells them to back off because “bitches get buried.” I don’t know if this is sucky because they are tiny children or because it’s probably good advice for Rosewood. She appeals to Mini Ali’s friends and they all decide to hang out with the deaf girl instead. Mini Ali leaves with hate in her eyes.
Mari: I’m sorry. Is she trying to move away from Rosewood right now? That’s funny.
Samantha: DiLaurentis House. Ali is playing dress up with two girls, who honestly I have no idea if we’ve seen before or know the names of.
Mari: Those are the dorky twins! I’m sure we’ve had like 10 nicknames for them but I can’t remember any of them! Also, you obviously didn’t recognize them because they don’t have their glasses or ponytails on anymore so they are totally different.
Jessica: Ali has She’s All That’d them for nefarious purposes!
Samantha: Ice Ball. It’s a Winter Wonderland and the girls are decked to the nines. Honestly one of the reasons I signed up to recap PLL was for the sometimes amazing sometimes ridiculous outfits. The girls split up to mingle until Ali gets there. Spencer sits on Santa’s lap, who turns out to be Lucas. He promises to help keep Ali there so they can search her house.
The 3 couples are dancing and Spencer is hovering nearby when Fight Song starts up and Ali makes her grand entrance. She has 4 girls with her, each in a creepy Masquerade Ball mask.
Hannah and Spencer take off while everyone is distracted. Someone in a white robe A’s around. (M: A as a verb? Yes.)(J: Agreed.)
Ice Ball. Aria is tailing Ali, who wanders off to make out with a Face Unseen man in a Santa outfit. I’m pretty sure they did this solely so that Aria could tell Emily, “I just saw Ali kissing Santa Claus.” (J: And somewhere, some TV writers in a room high five each other.)
DiLaurentis House. Spencer and Hannah decide that it’s mega creepy to have broken into Ali’s house and then split up.
Ice Ball. Aria has, of course, lost Ali and her beau in the time it took to deliver her snappy one liner. Emily suspiciously eyes Lucas. (J: Those one-liners come with a price. Aria made her choice.)
Aria makes her way to Ezra, when she’s stopped by Holbrook, who is dressed as Santa. He creeps and smarms. Whatever.
Samantha: Paige, Ezra, and Caleb are talking about how Aria and Emily (already) lost Alison. (J: Is it me or did it sound like they weren’t at all surprised by this?) (S: DEFINITELY not just you.) Ezra spots her going into the Winter Wonderland Maze and oh my god, has every dance had some sort of maze? Inside, Ali wanders around, as does our White Robed friend from earlier. They bump into each other and White Robe turns out to be CeCe. Ali smiles at her.
Samantha: Not!Commercial Break. Emily is watching two of Ali’s masquerade mask girls, who give her mean glares and then head into the maze. Emily decides to follow them. They remove their masks and it’s Sydney and Jenna. They’re palling around with Ali in order to survive. They think she killed Mona, too. There’s also a weird “You’re sleeping with the enemy”/”I’m not gay” moment.
CeCe gives Ali a Christmas present of custom perfume. Ali thanks her for coming and CeCe warns her about letting her guard down. Is this the Ghost of Christmas Present moment?
DiLaurentis House. Hannah is searching a bird cage while Toby keeps watch across the street. She hits a latch and finds a passport hidden inside. Toby hears a news report of the weather becoming blizzard-like soon.
Hannah comes downstairs with the passport, as Spencer looks through newspaper clippings. The passport is for Ali, with the name Holly Varjak. This is apparently a tribute to Breakfast at Tiffany’s and also, Pedzra who called her “Holly Go Lightly”. JFC I hate Ezra so much. And I hate the general pardon the internet gives Ezra so much. Spencer realizes that Ali was talking to someone through the personal ads.
Ice Ball. The gang decides that Ali dating Holbrook would explain a lot and they wonder when it started. (M: It’s Rosewood; probably in middle school.) Emily thinks that he helped CeCe escape from New York that night. They watch as Ali, Holbrook, and White Robe head towards the exit and split up. The boys detain Holbrook with some questions while the girls follow Ali and CeCe completely unstealthily. Paige and Lucas cut Ali and CeCe off and we discover that it’s actually Ali’s two cronies dressed like Ali and CeCe.
Not!Commercial Break. Hannah and Spencer are still going through things. Hannah finds a tape recorder of Ali saying “Get out of my stuff or I’ll kill you!”
Toby gets a call from Caleb saying that they think Ali left the party and Hannah isn’t answering her phone. Toby mutters to himself. I’m not sure wtf the plan is here. Isn’t Toby supposed to alert them? Shouldn’t they have their phones glued to them? Why are they still so frustratingly bad at this? He spots someone dressed in black on the first floor, with a large knife. Spencer hides.
Hannah finds a Mad Hatter Jack in the Box which points her to a bunch of hat boxes stacked up against the wall. (J: Sure.)
Spencer stays in her hiding spot as A creeps around. She texts Hannah to get out and even takes a second to put “A” in the proper quotation marks. She hears Hannah’s phone vibrate from the couch nearby. She grabs it and shows it to Toby out of the window. He frantically hits the flash on his camera to try and get Hannah’s attention but she engrossed in the hat box letters. One of which shows that Ali knew Bethany and invited her over for Labor Day.
Downstairs, Spencer is breaking the picture frame that has the picture of Mrs. D. She grabs a shard of glass to use as a weapon because she is resourceful. Although they should have probably at least brought pocket knives to begin with. #LiveAndLearn.
Mari: Girl, if they did that, they would be carrying around machetes.
Samantha: Hannah hears a floorboard creak and calls out for Spencer like a novice.
Toby frantically uses his flash again but only Spencer sees him.
Hannah creeps down the stairs and A is waiting behind a door for her. She screams and Spencer starts rushing to her. She finds Hannah laying unconscious on the floor. A window is open, presumably how A fled the scene. Except nope, we see someone horrifyingly blend into a wall of masks with their own mask on. (J: That was horrifying, but no one was stabbed, so, yay?)
After another Not!Commercial Break, Emily is on the phone with her family, promising to get on the road as soon as the blizzard calms down. The rest of the gang is sitting together, Caleb with an icepack to Hannah’s head. They think the letter proves that Ali knew Bethany and lured her here. It should clear Spencer, as long as they don’t accidentally drop it in a paper shredder. (M: “It came out of nowhere!”)
DiLaurentis House. Ali wakes up with a start as Punk!Corpse Mona sings a Christmas song. Ali ignores her so Mona blows some angry wind her way and disappears and reappears. Ali admits that she’s scared.
Mari: I was going to make a joke about how obviously we would get that if we are smart enough to follow their convoluted plots but… are we? Are we really?
Samantha: No comment?
Ali walks up to a coffin and inside is her dead body. She wonders when but Mona doesn’t have an answer. She turns around and a woman in black funeral clothes enter the church and it’s Mrs. D. She tells Ali that they’ll be coming for her and she’s sorry. Ali wants to know if she’s going to hell and starts banging on the church door. She wakes up on the couch crying out for Mona. The punk corpse herself shows up to tell Ali that it’s Christmas.
The girls are sitting on the couch in their pajamas as Emily tells them that the roads are still a mess. Most of the girls are sad that they won’t be with their parents on Christmas. Just then, the SOs (Ezra, Toby, Caleb, and Paige) all appear on the stairs. The boys are all wearing nothing but Santa boxers and Paige the same plus a white tank top. It’s so uncomfortable you guys. I can’t explain it except that I immediately thought of an awkward group orgy. I also imagined all the guys awkwardly getting ready to go seduce their girlfriends together. IDK.
Mari: Yeeeah, this is weird. I don’t mean to be a prude but… like… did the girls sign up for this group love? Are they all going to go into different rooms in the house now? Did they go boxer shopping together? Did they all change together? Did they all excuse themselves to use the bathroom at the same time? What happens now? I just don’t like it.
Jessica: My first thought was “please don’t make us watch an uncomfortable strip dance.” I’m just glad for the cut-away.
Samantha: We skip the orgy and cut to the later while Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas plays. They’re all getting a meal ready and making a gingerbread house. This leads us to Paige telling Emily that her parents don’t think Rosewood is safe anymore. They want her to move to California. So. Paige’s parents are the best of the whole show then, yeah? The girls hug.
Hannah looks at a picture of Mona and tells Caleb that Mona should be with them. They hug.
Stupid Ezra serves the Christmas chicken and they all hold hands in prayer. They pass food and laugh as Ali looks in at them before walking away. Emily makes a toast and then we hear sleigh bells and soot falls into the fireplace. Hannah cutely calls out “Santa?” They head outside and see a giant Christmas tree set up. They’re all really happy about it and I’m just waiting for it to blow up. Right on cue, lights on the garage light up with a “Merry Christmas, Bitches -A“. Their faces fall and Ezra looks extra old.
Next time on Pretty Little Liars: Ali’s got an alibi but no one cares in S05 E14 – Through A Glass, Darkly.
I'm a 28 year old graduated English major and almost librarian. I can often be found singing too loudly (poorly) in the car or spending some time (hours) on Tumblr. I am a lover of Harry Potter, the Spice Girls, and too many other things.
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.
I'm a chronic book nerd and love storytelling in all forms. I'm particularly excited by the rise of the television show as an art form with long, cinematically beautiful plots and complex character arcs (I also watch cartoons). My travels in the past handful of years have led me through three continents and most recently landed me among the majestic mountains of Colorado. Some day I will compile all my travel journals/blogs into one place. Some day. Until then, you can find me with craft beer in hand, ready at any moment to deeply and passionately discuss survival tactics for the zombie apocalypse.
