Friends, I must once again apologize for failing to recap last week’s PLL. Stupid real life — it’s just not appropriate that it gets in the way of power ranking the Liars. But I did watch and I did rank the characters anyway and we were once again looking at a Spencer/Emily tie atop the leader board. Did they keep it up this week? Let’s find out!
(1) Emily
This girl is on FIIIIREEEEE. Emily, after being a fool about Alison for so long, has finally made a full break with that crazy nutjob. And thank goodness. First, Emily insinuates that it was actually Alison, not A, who made the TVs in the shop window show incriminating photos of Alison visiting Hanna in the hospital after Camp Mona and wrote the messages, “We’re All In This Together” and “Act Normal, Bitches.” One reason this makes sense — Ali has probably seen High School Musical, so she would make the “We’re All In This Together” reference. (Or, possibly, A is a wildcat. You never know.) Emily then decides to go to Ezra for help finding out information on Cyrus, Ali’s “kidnapper.” Look, we all know that I would never advocate seeking help from the creepiest man in Rosewood, but he actually comes through, so good call, Em. True, it seems like Paige might have moved on, which is a bummer for Emily, but what I really care about is that she isn’t pining over Alison like an idiot any longer. She even accidentally calls Alison A! I am totally on board with this Emily (especially when paired with Spencer), so here’s hoping she can keep this going next season.
(2) Mike Montgomery
Still dating Mona, still not stealing things/throwing laptops at his mother, still looking pretty dapper, especially in his 40s inspired suit. Do you, Mike Montgomery.
(3) Ezra
It pains me to put him up this high, it really does. But he provides the girls with the evidence proving that Alison was in cahoots with her kidnapper, so I have to give him props. And hey, someone’s going to die next week, so it could be him, right? (No, it really couldn’t. The teens wouldn’t stand for this. Sigh.)
(4) Paige
In her first scene with Emily, Paige looks fantastic. Good hair, good outfit, good “playing it cool” vibes. In her next scene, she is literally dressed exactly like Sandy in the last scene of Grease. When she told Emily she was going somewhere, I just assumed it was to the community theater to sing “You’re The One That I Want.” Turns out, Paige had a date with some girl at the same ’40s, black and white dress up movie that the Montgomery family attended. I’m mildly pro-Emily and Paige, but good for Paige for not just waiting around for Emily to wake up and smell the hottie (Buffy reference!).
(5) Byron
Again, I find this ranking personally offensive. But, to his credit, Byron is SUPER sassy with that mega-bully Detective Tanner. And though his mere presence offends me, he didn’t actually do anything radically terrible, so I’ll give him a pass for now. Plus, he got his fedora re-blocked, whatever that means, so that’s pretty exciting for him.
(6) Aria
I don’t know what’s happening with the rankings this week, because it’s not possible that Aria is above Spencer, right? And yet, here she is. I’m tempted to downgrade her on the basis of her outfits alone. Let’s even bypass the peach pants + leopard print jacket and skip right to the biggest doozy: a crop top with fringe sleeves featuring, you guessed it, a jungle cat on the front, paired with a black skirt with lightning bolts all over it and, to top it all off, a denim jacket with a leopard print patch on the back. It’s like she raided the closets of both Claudia Kishi and Stacey McGill. Woof. Beyond that, Aria doesn’t really do anything bad this episode. She has a heart-to-heart with Mona in the bathroom of the ’40s movie and, though I think Mona is 100% playing her, Aria is very nice. Anyway, because she doesn’t make any major mistakes, aside from her fashion, and because nothing horrendous happens to her, Aria gets a decent ranking this week. She shouldn’t get used to it.
(7) Spencer
This ranking is based mostly on the fact that her sister killed Bethany Young by burying her alive because she thought Bethany was Alison and that Spencer had killed her. Well, then. That’s kind of a bummer for everyone’s favorite Liar. Aside from that, she does get in some cute time with Toby, she wears two very cute dresses (loved the red one with the white sleeves and the striped one, which felt like a classic Spencer Hastings outfit), she realizes that Bethany Young must have been purposefully dressed in a duplicate set of Alison’s clothes because “it’s not like Alison was walking around naked” (a very astute observation, I might add), and Troian Bellisario looks really amazing with unshed tears in her eyes, a look she had going on for a lot of this episode. Go Spencer.
(8) Toby
Officer Toby or Cadet Toby? Either or, he kind of bungles that bromance intervention with Caleb, huh? I don’t really blame him, though. That conversation was boring and stupid and Caleb was being a dummy. What’s a carpenter/police officer to do?
(9) Tanner
Ya know, I’m really starting to get annoyed at this woman. Finally someone calls her on her continued harassment of the girls! (I know, I, too, was shocked that it was the winner of the Jimmy Cooper Award for Absentee Father of the Year, Byron Montgomery.) Tanner corners Emily, Aria, and Hanna (conveniently without the smart one, Spencer), buys them coffee (that seems unethical), and then apropos of nothing asks them who they think killed Bethany Young and insinuates that the police think it was them since Bethany’s body was found near where the girls were having a sleepover. And then she shows up at the Montgomery household, presumably pretty late it night since it’s after they got out of the movie event, and tells Byron, yup we’re interested in Aria, and, oh, one of the girls is going to talk to me tomorrow and I won’t tell you who it is. I mean, this woman is outrageous!
(10) Hanna
Poor Hanna spends the episode trapped in a plot line that absolutely no one cares about: what happened to Caleb in Ravenswood. Yawn, I’m about to fall asleep just thinking about it. I just went through my notes again, and I actually have nothing to say about Hanna at all. That’s just sad. Moving on.
(11) Mona
Though I’m almost positive that Mona was messing with Aria in the bathroom (that “Do you think Mike really likes me?” thing was so fake innocent, it was ridiculous), the fact is, she still had to rush out of a movie theater because freaking Aria Montgomery made her cry. For someone who used to be/is A, that’s lame, dude.
(12) Melissa
Welp, she’s a murderer. And she’s gone back to England. Or is she in Pittsburgh? Did I see that on the FedEx or did I just make that up? Either way, I don’t think she’s in good shape vis-a-vis law enforcement, because I’m pretty sure we have an extradition treaty with England and if she’s in Pittsburgh, home girl didn’t even get out of the state. I’m not sure what Spencer/the girls are going to do with this tape, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they turn it over to the police or, more likely, A easily steals it from them when they’re sure they’ve hidden it in a safe place. Buckle up, Melissa.
(13) Caleb
Caleb Rivers, the ultimate Ravenswood hispter (read: horrible person): “You were a tourist, man. I lived there.” I have nothing further.
Not Ranked: Sydney (a liar, but a damn good swimmer); Ella Montgomery (apparently in Scranton and stuck there, which sounds crappy); Ouija the movie (insert side eye emoji here at this product placement, ABC Family); this week’s music (shout out to my home girl, Betty Who for featuring in this week’s episode!) everything to do with Ravenswood (please, PLEASE tell me that we never have to hear about Ravenswood or Miranda or fireflies or Mrs. Grunwald ever again).
I can’t believe that next week is the #FAtalFinale! Who do you guys think is going to die? For me, the leading candidates are as follows:
- Melissa: it seems right, doesn’t it? Now we know her secret, we know she did what she did to save Spencer, and we know that, in all likelihood, this information is going to get out. If Melissa dies now, even though we know she’s a killer, oddly, she’ll be somewhat redeemed. On the other hand, whoever actually hit Bethany Young with the shovel will want Melissa alive and for this information to come out, right? Hm.
- Alison: as I said a few weeks ago, mightn’t this be overkill? I mean, we already thought she was dead for years and now that she’s back, we’re going to kill her again? That being said, basically everybody in Rosewood wants this girl dead right now.
- Mona: I love Mona, but as she said this week, she’s pretty much lost control of her “army” and she seems to be on her own, at least somewhat. I would never underestimate her, because I think she’s a badass, but Alison is after her and we know that psycho will stop at nothing.
What about you, readers? Thoughts on who is going to join Bethany Young in the great blue yonder? Can’t wait to find out! See you next week!
Xo,
Christine.
P.S. I can’t write a post today without including this: OMG HOW AMAZING IS THE NEW TAYLOR SWIFT SONG?! We’ll discuss soon.
The Inactivity of Old Chris-teen 