Was it just me or did this episode seem a little slow? Let’s discuss what happened:
1. Hanna = Courtney Love: Hopefully this doesn’t make Caleb her Kurt Cobain. But seriously, she seems to be channeling Avril Lavigne with her grungy tank tops, oversized cardigans, and necklaces. Spencer pretty much summed her up with, “yesterday your blouse was on inside out and today you locker smells like Oktoberfest.” She’s still reeling with Ali’s return and her teenage alcoholic phase is still going strong. Homegirl is going through a lot with everyone hating her for not keeping her mouth shut but things just got that much harder for her with Aria’s future-stepdad-who’s-a-baby-and-within-Aria’s-acceptable-dating-range-therefore-inapprops-for-her-mom hitting on her. That rub on the back he gave her was more of a caress with lingering fingers. And then when he got in her car and wrote his number? Why must every man in this show be attracted to young girls? There must be something in the water.
2. Aria, #1 sleuth: Aria’s still volunteering at Radley, and it seems like it may actually be good for her. The fear in Aria’s eyes was so real when Big Rhonda caught her in her bedroom. ( Big Rhonda should be on “Orange is the New Black,” she would do well there.) Probably the best bit of acting we’ve seen from her in awhile. I like this version of Aria better since she’s the only one legitimately trying to solve this mystery. She can actually function when she’s not all up in Ezra. She figured out that Bethany had a relationship with Mrs. D and the two went horseback riding. And she knows there’s something up since Eddie the Orderly quit. But then she had to go and be a poor excuse of a friend to Hanna and chew her out after she told her about Zack hitting on her. Aria finally got a backbone but of course she directs her rage at the wrong person. But to her credit, this is the first time her mother has been there in f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I bet it’s one of the staff writer’s jobs to sit there and say, “You know we haven’t seen so-and-so’s parent in 10 episodes, we should bring them back.” They had us viewers thinking that homegirl was an orphan.
3. Ali “All By Myself” DiLaurentis: Ali should work on her sympathy voice. She sounded like she was in a bad soap opera (this show is a good soap opera) when she was telling Ms. Marin her “kidnapping” story. She is by far becoming the worst. Everything she says is very “woe is me, look at me put my almost cry face on.” But dang Officer Tanner went in on Ali at the beginning of the episode when she pretty much called her a liar and that she suspected that Ali had something to do with Shana’s death. It seemed like Ali was playing the victim the whole time but she proved us all fools when she had Noel break into Hanna’s house to get Ms. Marin to sympathize with her. Nicely done but it’s scary the way that girl’s mind works.
4. Emily, faithful sidekick: She’s always the most under utilized character and this week proved no different. She kinda did some damage control on Hanna spilling the beans to Sydney about the girls being in New York. But not really. Sydney knows what’s up. If anything, the dynamic between the two of them is becoming more and more like that movie “Swimfan,” since Sydney is so obsessed with getting Emily to be her coach/cheerleader/lover. It’s a little much. The only other thing Emily did was accompany Spencer to the stables where she demonstrated her fear of horses. I had to lolz in a major way at Emily being afraid of the horse. Her very visible backing away from it and becoming mute was a treat. Nearly getting kicked to death by the horse was scary, thanks to A, but her behavior before that was just a little bit over the top.
5. Spencer & Everything: The end of an era: Tobes cut his hair!!! He is no longer “Teen Wolf,” thus this new nickname. The reason behind it? He wants to join the police force!! He doesn’t exactly seem like an officer in training but as he pointed out, it’s not like any of the officers in Rosewood are competent. Spencer wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea but by the end of the episode she seemed to come to peace with it once she realized that this new A wasn’t messing around and that her family life is legitimately falling apart. #prayersforprepprincess
All in all, this episode seemed to set up a lot of threads without anything necessarily happening. Hopefully next week picks up the pace. Until next time!
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Your "Pretty Little Liars" Cheat Sheet: Season 5, Episode 8
