PRETTY LITTLE LIARS Recap: CTRL A

This week I’m going to try something different for the Pretty Little Liars recap. Instead of recapping the show scene by scene I am going recap the story lines of each of favorite little liars. Let me know what you think of this new format.

Here we go:

Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) – the shortest little liar with an insane fashion sense. I never know whether her outfits should be between the covers of vogue or tossed along the side of the road. Either way I am usually left thinking “What the heck is she wearing?!”

This week Aria continues to lie to her parents, having them think that she is no longer dating the forbidden Mr. Fitz. We all know that this totally illegal pairing stopped dating only  for about 2.5 seconds before reconnecting in Philadelphia in an overly dramatic down pour rain scene in the middle of the street. Complete with slow motion, longing glances, wet hair and intense kissage.

Much to my dismay Ella Montgomery seems to think that her daughter is some how trust worthy after a mere couple of weeks of supposedly telling the truth and should be given a little more slack on the parental overseeing. While I love Hollie Marie Combs and she can do know wrong in my eyes, her character Ella is making me want to shake the television and scream “HOW NAIVE CAN YOU BE?” Byron Montgomery on the other hand knows how these things really go, having been on the teacher end of an inappropriate student-teacher affair and doesn’t trust a word that is coming out of his daughter’s mouth. To quote him, “I’m just not ready yet.” Some people are calling Byron a hypocrite and choosing sides with Team Ella thinking that Aria should be given some slack. While I agree that he is a complete hypocrite and has no room to judge anyone. I don’t think they should let the little brunette out of their sight. Can people buy those ankle tracking devices retail? Because if so, I advise the Montgomerys to invest in one. Aria is not to be trusted.

On the Holden front we find out that he is something of a ninja in that he practices Tang Soo Do a Korean martial arts form. So not exactly the dirty basement fight club people were thinking of, but yes some form of fighting/sparring is involved.The pills we saw fall out of his bag last week were unused pain meds to treat his battle wounds from sparring. I still think those were A LOT of pain meds, but am willing to believe Holden is not going to sell them for their street value because I’m trying to be optimistic here.

(Side note: I am very aware that Tang Soo Do of Korea has pretty much nothing to do with Ninjutsu of Japan. I’m using the term ‘ninja’ as more of pop culture reference than a historical one.)

So close, yet so far Byron. Try again later to catch your daughter.

Back to Holden. Via Aria’s mother we find out that our favorite faux boy toy has a heart condition and that is the reason his parents like to keep an eye on him. Now we know why he is lying to his parents; his martial arts practicing can pretty much kill him. Aria worried about the guy blows off her date with Fitz and goes to Holden’s tournament to watch him fight. After a couple of heart stopping (on the part of the audience not Holden’s)  kicks to the chest the match is over with Holden being the victor. Good thing Aria didn’t go out on that date with Mr. Fitz because her dad calls her to check to see where she really is and even asks to speak to Holden. Score one for luck and chance because Aria was able to hand the phone to Holden and calm her father’s fears.

Let’s back up. Earlier in the episode Aria made plans to meet Fitz at a vegan french bistro in Philadelphia. She is just excited that they can go out to a restaurant like on a real date, and he is all “It’s french vegan food, I must love you.”  I honestly don’t get what he is trying to say here. I like french food, I like vegan food, point me in the direction of this bistro and I am totally there! As stated above Aria ends up blowing off this date to go watch Holden, sending a perfectly timed text to Fitz saying she will explain later. Fitz gets this text just as he was about to walk into the bistro but it stops him.  This is perfect because who none other than our favorite hypocrite of a dad, Bryon Montgomery, is sitting inside the bistro waiting to catch his daughter and her forbidden lover in the act. Earlier in the day Bryon received a note on his car giving him the place and time his daughter would be that night from ‘A’. Not that running over Hanna with a car and trying to kill Emily with garden tools wasn’t bad enough but when you start to involve the parents ‘A’ , you have seriously crossed a line.

Emily Fields (Shay Mitchell) – the little liar formerly known as the weakest link. This little swim master is known for trying to stay out of trouble and doing whatever she needs to please her parents. Except for being straight because it’s all lady loving for Rosewood’s apparently only out teen lesbian. When it comes to incurring A’s wrath Emily has gotten it bad; having almost been killed twice by the mysterious nemesis.

Emily is now back on the swim team and leading them to victory. We first see her after a championship swim meet carrying a trophy, being greeted by her girlfriend and friends. Once the friends walk up Maya mysteriously disappears. I’m not sure if that was something we were supposed to just ignore or if it had to do with what we find out about Maya later. But more on that a little further down. Hanna says her mom is willing to have the victory party for the team at their house and there is a Spencer and Emily hug in there that made the Spemily shippers go wild.

Emily is not losing Maya without a fight!

Before the party at Marin Manor, Maya comes baring fruit and needs to speak with Emily. She reveals that her parents found an old joint of hers amongst her stuff in storage and want to send her back to True North, the teen reform camp she just recently camp back from. Having just really reconnected with Maya in a very serious way (please see all the Emaya scene from episode 2.18 for more information) Emily is not willing to let her girl go, “No, I’m not going to say goodbye to you again. Never!” Go, Emily! She really has come a long way from being the quiet, shier girl of the group from season one.

During  the party Hanna notices Maya sitting alone on the steps looking a little down, while everyone else is around a computer looking at the footage from the swim meet. Let’s pause to recognize that Emily mentions Paige while looking at the footage. Paige is a  fellow swimmer and blast from Emily’s past. She is completely closeted and at one point tried to drown Emily in a moment of gay panic. Emily being the sweet heart that she is forgives the girl and tries to help her come to terms with her sexuality. They even date for a short stint in there. Poor Paige just couldn’t come out and thus ended the relationship with Emily who could no longer be anyone’s secret. Back to the episode. Hanna alerts Emily to her forlorn girlfriend on the stairs and Emily goes over to check things out. Maya wants to go someplace and poor Emily being slightly clueless as to what her girlfriend means says, “After the party? Sure.” I can’t tell you how my twitter feed blew up with people type screaming at Emily, ‘ NOT LATER, NOW!’ Emily is called back over to the group and Maya says she is fine and Emily should go. Which she does, even though it totally obvious that Maya is not fine.

Later Emily finds Maya about to blaze one and gets upset because Maya lied to her about the “old joint.” Maya explains that she doesn’t fit in as well as Emily, and although she hides it well it actually does bother her (is this why she disappeared when the friends popped up earlier?). So apparently Maya gets high to deal with her feelings of being an outside. Someone give that girl a hug and some help. Maya refuses to go back to True North and says she going to head to some friends in San Francisco. She asks Emily to come with, but of course she can’t. Maya leaves hurt that Emily won’t come with her and later after the party is over we see Emily calling Maya leaving a message trying to fix their broken relationship. We are left to wonder if Maya has already started headed out for the West Coast, or if Emily still has a chance to save their relationship.

Hanna Marin (Ashley Benson) – our party planning little liar extraordinaire. Next to Aria, Hanna has the most interesting fashion sense. Whether she is going to school or has just woken up that morning, she usually looks like she has just walked out of the pages of Elle or Teen Vogue. Hanna has also caught some of the worst of A’s antics having been blackmailed about her mother stealing money, forced to eat an entire set of pig faced cupcakes, and of course that whole being run over by a car thing.

In this episode Hanna learns a few lessons from Caleb on basic computer skills and the wonders of having your own mobile hot spot.

Upper and lower case, numbers and punctuations. The keys to password perfection.

Caleb has his laptop confiscated by the police saying that someone hacked into the schools servers and it was traced back to his IP address. We know this is bogus because as Caleb rightly stated if he did something like that he would cover his tracks. Hanna shows that she has been somewhat paying attention this last year or so and correctly deduces that someone must have hacked Caleb’s laptop and put some illegal files on there in a place he wouldn’t notice. Caleb decides it is time to give Hanna a little peek into his world by teaching her how to decode his password to his laptop. You know, just in case she ever needs it. Upper and lower case letters, numbers, and punctuation. These are the foundations of a good password. Live it, learn it, love it. Hopefully Hanna is paying attention because this information will come in handy later.

Hanna gets called down to the police station with her Mom, where they find out Detective Wilden is back in town causing more trouble for our ladies. Why were only Hanna and her mom called down to the station when the reason for the visit, a photo of the girls from the morgue security camera, involves almost all of them we don’t. Even Hanna’s mom questions that as they leave the station. Hanna again denies all accusations against her, this time being that she stole a page from Alison’s autopsy report, and again we are not sure if Mama Marin believes her or not.

With Spencer’s help, the magic of Caleb walking around as a mobile hot spot, and remembering her lesson on passwords from earlier Hanna is able to hack into Caleb’s laptop remotely from hers and delete all the files before the police get the chance to see them. Remember everyone Ctrl A is your friend when you are in a hurry.

Spencer Hastings (Troian Bellisario) – the academically gifted little liar with a tendency to stay on her family’s bad side no matter what she does. Spencer is always trying to please her family, but in a family of over-achievers that is not easy to do. She is constantly living in the shadow of her sister Melissa, and with her recent arrest and community service it doesn’t look like Melissa will be losing that golden child title any time soon.

Spencer’s story line this week ties the most into the over all storyline with the girls so I will be mention it in here as well. We find out from Aria that Spencer has been staying with the Montgomery’s for about a week. Ever since she found out that he daddy was diddling the neighbor and fathered Jason Dilaurentis. Spencer goes to find Jason and sees Maya talking to him out on the streets of Rosewood. I mention this here because it is just really odd. First Noel in the last episode, now Jason. What is going on with Maya and the creeper dudes of Rosewood? Jason talks to Spence about how he found out he was really a Hastings. It involves a box that Alison hide, notes between their parents and fifteen thousand dollars cash. The newly discovered brother and sister duo postulate that Alison was blackmailing Mr. Hastings with the letters and that’s where the money came from.

Compact, behind the back. Classic.

All the girls go to a diner to meet up with the mystery voice on the phone from the last episode. The one that knows Vivian, Alison’s other identity. The guy’s name is Jonah and looks a lot  like Randall from Recess. The girls go all old school  spy movies by having Aria sit in one booth alone  while they sit in another. Hanna even busts out the old compact mirror to see behind you trick. Classic.

The guy informs them that “Vivian” owes him some money from finding out who was sending threatening text messages to her friend Alison. He made the mistake of giving the information up before without getting payment up front. He won’t make that mistake again and tells the girls in they want to know what he knows it will cost them two thousand dollars. The girls look to Spencer for the dough, but her account has been on lock down ever since they were arrested.

Spencer confronts her dad about blackmailing Alison which he denies. You know what? I actually believe the guy. After Jason and Spencer make peace from a disagreement they had over whether Papa Hastings is to be trusted, Spencer asks Jason for the two thousand dollars the girls need. She says she may know why Ali needed the money and who Ali was afraid of. She just needs the money and Jason’s trust to find out.

Last scene someone is peeking through the window at Emily and I feels chills up my spine wondering if Emily is about to have another near death experience. Haven’t these ladies realized all windows should be covered at all times by now?

So what did you think of this week’s episode? Was Maya completely out of line for asking Emily to run away with her? Do you think Jason will give Spencer the money without knowing exactly what she is going to do with it? Why was Hanna wearing these pants that made me think of MC Hammer circa 1991, although not as big?

Leave all comments and inquiries in the comments section below and don’t forget to catch Pretty Little Liars, Mondays on ABC Family 8pm est/7pmcst