After taking a quick break on writing these, nothing brings me more joy than to return to recaps and know that this is the final time I’ll have to write about this piece of shit show that has dicked me around for the past 7 fucking years. Seriously, I. Marlene or whatever the shit her name is, has been a massive television fuckboi in my life. Just when you think you’ve gotten over this shit and Charlotte is A, yadda yadda, her she strolls back in with some brand new crap that hooks you back in.
Frankly I’m so done with it and her and this and where is my bottle of wine.
ME: I’m so done with PLL and Freeform. I’m never watching this show again.
I. Marlene King: I’m making a new show that’s kind of similar
ME:
WE’RE BACK
The Liars are all sitting around the street corner, talking about how they miss A so much. You’re supposed to have PTSD from getting tortured, not FOMO. Whatever. It’s clearly a dream sequence because Lucas’ weird ass is tap dancing around and Jenna is riding a fucking horse in the middle of downtown.
Turns out it’s just Mona’s crazy ass looking through a fucking snow globe. Dolls and snow globes? I feel like this show is just obsessed with shit you had in your room when you were 8. Where’s the Polly Pockets in this bitch?
ONE YEAR LATER
Another time hop, goodie.
Emily and Alison are feeding their blonde-haired, white twin girls. Ah yes, I can certainly see the resemblance to ethnic-ass Emily in these babies. Unless the dad was a fucking albino, I call hard bullshit. Ali goes to meet up with Emily’s mom in the super secret location that is the Radley. No one ever goes there, so it makes total sense!!! Who knows what they are chatting about and frankly, I don’t give a fuck.
Aria and Ezra are getting married soon and celebrating that their shitty book is now being made into a movie. Are they going to feature Nicole in it? Now that she’s like, un-kidnapped? I’m sure she’s super happy this traumatic life experience is going to be shown to the world and make her ex and his new wife like, super rich.
Spencer is looking like an American Girl doll and working at a barn with horses, while Toby, who looks like he’s been sleeping on a park bench for a few weeks, comes strolling in. They talk about horses and his time in Africa with all the birdies and the monkeys. She’s in law school apparently too. Spencer shows him a horse who loves her and I’m pouring wine because it’s way more important.
Hanna and Caleb are arguing over the fact that Hanna has invited Mona to live with them. Hanna’s pretty quickly forgiven Mona for trying to kill her, whereas I have friends I stopped speaking to because they never gave me back my favorite backless top from H&M. I’m looking at you, Hailey.
Ali’s back to teaching and is apparently teaching Ezra’s book in class? Good to know some schools banned To Kill A Mockingbird but keep a good romance book on deck. Thanks, Betsy DeVos!
That bitchy girl Addison is there and Ali tries to threaten her, which is like, not a good look as a teacher. Addison gently reminders her that she’s a dyke who has been a victim of attempted murder like 50 times and strolls out. Am I Addison?
Some deaf girl is looking in her locker and sees a doll with a knife through it. Seriously? Who picks on the deaf girl? Also, how many people with disabilities are on this show? I think I knew like, one kid who was partially blind in high school.
Speaking of blind, did you know Jenna is? Idk if that’s ever been said on this show!
Jenna is the new “life skills” teacher at school, which seems way more relevant that Geometry. Maybe she can teach them how to do taxes instead of forcing them to learn SOH CAH TOA. Addison tries to fuck with Jenna, who tells her that she can “smell a bitch from a mile away.” Is this a skill all blind people have? Is this why I know so few of them?
The Liars decide to throw a joint Bachelor/Bachelorette party (my nightmare) for Aria and Ezra at the Lost Woods Resort—which is nice and clean and has less dead people in it now. 4/5 stars on Yelp! Of course, they are being watched by Melissa? Huh. Okay.
Every PLL Watcher When Melissa is under the hoodie:
Hanna and Caleb are arguing the whole time, yadda yadda. Everyone leaves to go bone (except Toby and Spencer who play Scrabble like the losers they are), Melissa takes off a mask (shocking because this never happens!!!) and reveals that it’s Mona the whole time.
Every PLL Watcher When The Melissa mask comes off and it’s Mona:
Hanna and Caleb are trying to get pregnant apparently. Like wtf? Aren’t they like, 26? And housing a fucking murderer in their apartment? I feel like maybe they have some other things to figure out.
Aria gets a phone call in the middle of the night and starts crying saying she can’t marry Ezra. She’s literally the girl who has cried “I can’t get married!” like 8 times this season. Apparently that was her doctor, making a very casual midnight phone call to let her know that she’s infertile. Have a good sleep tho!!!
For the first time in the history of this show, Aria doesn’t keep this information a secret and actually tells Ezra. Damn, this one year has changed you.
Spencer goes to visit MD in jail and is acting super fucking weird. Calling her mommy and holding her hand. You can hop off MD’s tit now, Spence. She asks for help with something, which is code for prison break. This ain’t my first rodeo.
It’s Aria’s engagement party and Hanna decides to bring Mona as a plus one. Kinda a low budget remake of Wedding Crashers rn. Ali sneaks off with Emily’s mom and Emily fucking screams at high school girls (who are serving food at the dinner) about being friends with Addison. It’s very clear this is supposed to be a parallel to Alison/the Liars and it’s trying way too hard.
Ezra goes up to Aria’s dad and is like “I didn’t ask for your permission to marry Aria, my b.” He and Byron bond over the fact that they both fucked their students a few times and all is well. Don’t ya just love a happy ending?
PLL really balled out on this episode because every parent is there. Who is getting a pay cut to support this? You know they had to fire Karen from A/V in order to get both of Aria’s parents in one place. They spared Tom in accounting though by not including Jason or Mike in anything.
All the moms get drunk while Spencer drives them home. Hanna’s mom tells Hanna that inviting Mona was a shit idea and leaves. I feel a kinship with her in this moment. There is nothing I love more than getting drunk and criticizing other people. That’s why I have been working at Betches for so long.
Ezra and Aria fight because it turns out that Aria DID know for a while that she was infertile and didn’t tell Ezra. Damn, just when you think they’ve learned. He starts talking about how their love is not the same and then runs off. Can’t wait for the wedding tomorrow!
Emily starts yelling at Ali about how she was talking to her mom. We’re clearly not at the Pride parade anymore. Ali finally gives in and proposes to Emily while wearing a fugly pug sweater. You read that right. The wardrobe people at PLL are trying to really shove it up our assholes at this point.
Hanna tells Caleb that she’ll kick Mona out in the morning. Nothing makes Caleb’s dick harder than Hanna ditching her friends and they go try to make a baby.
CALEB: Mona should be good to stay here until tomorrow. Everything will be fine!
NARRATOR: Everything was not fine.
Meanwhile, Spencer decides she’s over playing games—literally, she’s sick of Scrabble—and fucks Toby. They have sex in the cabin and it looks pretty vanilla, as one would expect from tight-ass and lizard boy. Can we acknowledge how much sex is in this episode? Like wow they really waited 7 years to show us the beginning stages of missionary. Neato.
Either this is another shitty time warp, or Spencer is also back at her place in the shower. She hears a piano playing and walks out to her living room. Wait, she heard the piano playing while she was in the shower? I think the witness has made it clear she was “in the shower”.
Either way Mona hits her over the head.
MONA: Knock knock
SPENCER: Who’s there?
MONA: Hard metal object
SPENCER: Hard metal object who?
MONA: I’m gonna hit you over the head with a large metal object
Spencer wakes up in a fucking dungeon looking at a mirror. How many dungeons are in this town? There are more underground lairs than mailboxes in Rosewood. Hold up—the mirror is doing different shit than she is because it is not a mirror, IT’S HER FUCKING TWIN. THANK YOU EVERYONE I CALLED THIS SEVERAL EPISODES AGO, THAT’S IT, RECAP IS OVER.
MD comes in and is like “oh shit you were supposed to be asleep” and knocks her out again. E tu, Mommy? And the fuck bitch, why are you not in jail? Idk why I’m even surprised.
Ezra is talking to someone at the hotel when Spencer, but not Spencer???, walks in. Ezra starts talking to her, basically sealing that this will end badly for him.
Anyways, back to Spencer’s twin, Alex. She’s British. Not in a hot way—in a very fake accent “‘ello Govnah!” kind of way. SO THIS IS WHERE SHIT GETS COMPLICATED. Let me explain this quickly so not to create even more confusion (mostly on my end).
1. A lonely British boy walks into a bar after hooking up with his fiancée’s sister (Wren)
2. Happens to meet Alex who works there
3. Thinks it’s Spencer. Hopes it’s Spencer because he’s a fucking weirdo. Tells Alex about Spencer.
4. Alex becomes obsessed with Spencer.
5. Everyone just stab Spencer!!!!!!!!!!!!
The learning lesson is that bars are a magical place where dreams come true and families can be reunited, I say aloud in my AA meeting.
So not only is this girl AD, but she’s also been pretending to be Spencer. Once when she comforted Hanna while she was getting tortured, once when she kissed Toby and said goodbye to him and also when she fucked him like a day ago.
Alex says she’s jealous of Spencer’s life, friends, family and Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! Not sure why she’s so jealous of her family—their dad has impregnated every bitch in this town. She wants to be Spencer SO BADLY that she even had Wren shoot her in the same spot Spencer was shot.
Okay I’m fucking scrambling to write this all down now. Here are my notes—written raw, by my drunk ass.
1. Why is Wren not mad his girlfriend is fucking a lizard part time
2. Wren is clearly obsessed with Spencer too
3. Everyone needs therapy here
4. Wren tells Alex to admit to Spencer/the Liars who she is and they will forgive her
5. Probs not
6. She says “probs not” too. We are in agreement. Stupid Wren.
7. Wren tells her that he loves her as Alex, not Spencer. Still shoots her doe? Kinky.
8. Spencer asks where Wren is.
9. ALEX KILLED HIM AND TURNED HIS ASHES INTO A DIAMOND?!?!??!
10. CAN YOU EVEN TURN ASHES INTO DIAMONDS?!?!?!
ALEX: I loved Wren
WREN IN HEAVEN: 🙂
ALEX: But I’m going to move on to Toby
WREN IN HEAVEN:
They all go to Aria’s shitty wedding, Alex pretending to be Spencer, and are hanging out. Alex asks to hold Ali’s babies and tells them that they have Wren’s eyes—so yeah, he’s the Dad. Fuck man. This shit is getting SKETCH.
Also, Aria’s dress looks like something my grandmother thought was ugly in the 1930’s. Take it off and go fuck yourself, PLL wardrobe.
MD comes to Spencer and tells her that she’s stuck in there too. She tries to feed Spencer and she’s like no thanks.
MD TO SPENCER:
MD tells Spencer more about Alex while they eat. MD didn’t know where Alex went but apparently sold her off like some Old Testament stuff. I think that was illegal even in the 90’s but whatever. She sold her to a British family who thought she was too crazy and brought her to an orphanage. The girl who shot herself so she could stalk her twin?! Crazy?! What were they thinking!!!!
MD comes in to hug Spencer and locks her back in her cage, like the caring mother she is. Spencer stole a bobby pin from MD’s hair though… and apparently is going to use it to get out of this high-tech cave. How did Orphan Black even afford this place?
Aria is now freaking out because guess who isn’t at the wedding—her brother Mike. LOL jk fuck that guy, Ezra is missing.
Ezra ends up in the AD cave with Spencer and they both are like, “hey we’re in some shit right now.” Apparently Ezra asked Alex something that Spencer had mentioned and she couldn’t answer correctly. He got suspicious so Alex kidnapped him. Seems legit.
So Alex comes back, says she’s going to kill Ezra, but first wants to tell Spencer about her life. Like anyone cares. Here we go:
1. Wren introduces Alex to Charlotte and they bond over being sisters and stalkers and into shitty British guys.
2. Charlotte and Alex say they both want family, yet spend YEARS torturing their own twin.
3. Charlotte happens to meet Rollins on a plane and they “have one of the greatest love affairs of all time.” Ah yes, Snaggle and Charlotte. Up there with Romeo and Juliet, really.
4. Jenna introduced Noel to the A team in exchange for money for her eye surgery.
5. Her eye surgery failed and Noel got his head chopped off, sad.
6. Not before he killed Sara Harvey for being too fucking nosey (and annoying).
7. Snaggle did the whole “marry Ali and blackmail MD” shit on his own. Rogue One over there.
8. Sydney was irrelevant and being blackmailed.
9. Charlotte gave AD all the money from the Caresemi Group, hence, dope AF underground lair.
10. Basically everyone is irrelevant and this plot makes no sense.
After Charlotte died, Alex came here to pick up where she left off, because they are sisters—they stick together!
Alex leaves to go play with the horse from earlier, who immediately is like “neighhhhhhh bitch get the fuck away from me.” Horse is woke AF.
The police department has let the Liars know that MD escaped and the Liars don’t think “huh, wonder if that has something to do with Ezra going missing.” Fucking morons.
Jenna meets with Spencer’s mom about the deaf girl getting bullied and walks past Alex. Jenna, with her super blindness but also super nose, smells that Spencer’s perfume is different. She’s like “what kind of fucking monster changes their perfume preference?” and immediately calls Toby to tell her that Spencer isn’t Spencer.
So yes, fucking Jenna pulls the fuck through. Toby was LITERALLY inside this girl and couldn’t figure it out, while Jenna smelled her.
REPORTER: Jenna, how did you know it was her?
JENNA: Perfume rules are simple and finite. Every Cosmo girl would have known!
Toby, like all Rosewood PD officers, was way late to the game on that one. He tells the Liars this theory, saying that the book Alex gave him years ago with that kiss, is not Spencer’s. They are all like “this is so crazy! Spencer has a twin?!” while all of us at home are like ARE U FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW.
It took them 3 seconds to figure out that Spencer has a twin and like 7 years to figure out everything else. WHY.
Who saves them next? Mona, OF COURSE. She’s been spying on them and turns out, is not on the AD team. She tells the Liars where AD is hiding Spencer/Ezra (the house Toby built) and they decide to forgo calling the police per usual and go find the friend they never even realized was missing.
MD tells AD to let this shit go and they can run away together. First of all, hate to remind y’all but MD LITERALLY SOLD YOU. Probs would not want to take a vacay with her. Also, Alex says no because she “wants to bring Toby”. MD reminds her that Toby loves Spencer, not Alex, so Alex fucking punches her.
So this whole thing starts at a bar and continues because Alex is obsessed with Toby. What the flying fuck.
Spencer manages to free both her and Ezra and they are trying to escape. Meanwhile, the hash sling, the slash slinging, the hash swinging, THE AXE WIELDING EVIL TWIN is following them. They end up in the Hunger Game-looking dome with a house. Everything is fake, except, whoops, the rock Ezra hits his head on.
The twins get into a fight and the axe goes flying. Toby (with a gun) and the crew show up, asking which Spencer is real. They do the classic twin mix-up game and Toby asks Spencer her favorite poem. Ugh, fucking over-achieving Spencer can’t just say the name of the poem—she’s got to recite it. In French. Just kill them both, Toby.
Finally, Rosewood PD decides to fucking show up and everyone is saved. And by finally, I mean 7 seasons later.
Now, Aria and Ezra finally get married. In the church where like, 10 people have died, and while Aria wears a tight, short dress. GOT ITTTTTT.
They all walk off and talk about how amazing it is that they are all happy. Toby and Spencer are together—she must have overlooked him fucking her twin? Aria and Ezra are married. Ali and Emily are engaged. Hanna is pregnant. I have successfully finished a bottle of wine. All is well.
BUUUUUT we go France now? Crazy-ass Mona (who I thought was like, on parole) is in France running a fucking doll shop. She goes downstairs, sips on tea and watches her prisoners MD and AD. How did they escape? How did Mona bring them all the way to France? How fucking psychotic is she? Why am I so fucking stoked about this? Mona has finally won the game.
It’s over. I say as I down some more wine.
But then Addison goes missing in the same way Ali did originally. Fuck you, I. Marlene. Just fuck you. I’m not doing this with you. Stop trying to make PLL 2 happen. PLL ORIGINAL DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE.
Let’s recap: This was horse shit. A character that didn’t exist for literally 5 seasons has been causing me grief for years. FOR YEARS. I’m done. I’m leaving forever. I’m getting on that stupid horse that figured out everything before the Liars did and riding off into the sunset, towards shows that actually make some fucking sense. Shhhh, sweet child. Don’t ask questions. What’s that quote—don’t cry because it’s over, smile because Game of Thrones comes back in 2 weeks.
Peace out betches. – B.W.
