PLL Roundup, Halloween edition

[impy]

Well HOLY SHIT.



I'm serious, if you're ever planning on getting acquainted with Pretty Little Liars, I would not advise you to read beyond this point since I'm going to ponder and muse and spoil the hell out of things.

I mean it.


You've been warned.


And once more: I'm not known for my patience, but this is one of those shows I purposely do not spoil for myself. I avoid them as much as possible (which is actually pretty easy) and all I knew going into this episode was this:

Starting at the left, we go down the columns for anyone who has no intention of watching the show any time soon (or fears not the spoilers, whatever): Aria, Caleb, Emily, Ezra, Garrett, Hanna, Jason, Jenna, Lucas, Noel, Pagie, Spencer, and Toby.

You can scratch the main four Liars out of the running right off the bat, so that'll leave you with:
Caleb, Ezra, Garrett, Jason, Jenna, Lucas, Noel, Paige, and Toby.

Okay, we'll figure that even if Paige is slated to die sometime during the run of the series, it's not likely to be right now. She just cheated death at the hands of the guy who killed Maya and this show does not need yet another dead lesbian any time soon. Which isn't to say I think she'll live, but she's just annoying enough to make it. Anyway, she's safe for now. Toby just set the entire summer ablaze with the reveal that he's on the A-Team, so while it's actually possible to kill him off, it would be pretty senseless to have a big dramatic reveal only to kill him in the very next episode. So he's safe. With Toby being a Bad Guy (possibly? I still cling to the notion that he's working this from the inside because I'll be beyond pissed if they misled us with the whole moral center of the show thing because holy FUCK does this place need one) it's highly unlikely that they'll knock the other piece of eyecandy off the show, which means Caleb is also safe for now.

Ezra, Garrett, Jason, Jenna, Lucas, and Noel are left.

Ezra just had a Big Dramatic Reveal that his Baby Mama is Alex Mack sooooo, yeah. He's safe. Jenna's a delightful bitch so she's probably not going anywhere in the immediate future, though I really wouldn't bank on her surviving the series.

Garrett, Jason, Lucas, and Noel are left.

Things just got tricky. *paces* Jason still has story left in him so we'll allow him to live. I love Lucas (I think it's just me and one other person at this point) which should mean he's dead, but... there's story left that would work better with him alive rather than dead and that means that if Jason gets to live, so does Lucas.

Garrett and Noel. Both are at iffy places in their storylines. Noel's been treading water pretty much since his thing with Aria imploded and he was revealed to be an ass. There's story there, but it's not necessarily going to add anything... but he's working with Jenna and it's pretty likely that the villains are at a better advantage than the friends of our heroines.

Garrett, however, has been proven not to be Ali's killer, and while he and Jenna did set the Liars up, he's also in the position of knowing shit AND being on the outs with Jenna.

Garrett's worth more to the storyline dead than he is alive.

This write-up took way longer to do than my thought process, btw. The moment the episode started and I remembered "hey, someone DIES" I told Ozma kitty it was Garrett.



Anyway, the episode was both amazing and filled with some serious WTF.

Guest star: Adam Lambert, you are so very pretty but you added nothing to the events here. Nothing. I feel bad saying this, but I really hope you are the first and last such guest to waltz through Rosewood. The time you spent sucking up facetime on the episode could have been spent elsewhere. Better spent. :/

If people are trying to KILL you, you don't get on a speeding train decked out for Halloween. No, you and your friends throw a slumber party in the safest house you know (preferably one with family not likely to leave you alone in the middle of the night) and you stay your asses inside. Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

By the end of this episode I hope Rosewood shuns these girls. Where they go, death follows. It's just ridiculous that they're not feeling the fallout from this sooner. o_O

People acting shady:
Toby's freely throwing creepy looks around which makes it very hard to pretend he's a good guy, dammit. But I have faith!

Ezra ditches Aria to go to a meeting. On Halloween. Right. Mmhmm. I'll eat my hat if he didn't spend Halloween with his son and the suspicious behavior wasn't meant as a red herring.

Byron Montgomery. What the everloving blue hell are you doing hanging out with Ali in flashbacks? Don't you know how creepy that is? Good money's on Ali blackmailing him but I'm not seeing him as a killer.

Spencer: When you have someone confessing their secrets to you, you do not run off in the middle of the confession. You get all the secrets out of them in one go and then, and only then, do you run off to get your friends so they can hear the BS. Otherwise someone's going to come along and kill the person with a big mouth. DUH. You're smarter than this!

Jenna eying Lucas' camera was weird. Especially as she smirked in Paige's direction right afterward. Weird.



Basic summary before I get to the thing that's a make it or break it for the episode:

The PLLs and their beloveds (except for possibly Ezra. Some people claim he was in one of the costumes on the train. I say thee nay.) board the Crazy Train and we spend too much time listening to/watching Adam Lambert be pretty. Noel Kahn pretends to choke on something, leaving one to wonder if maybe they're going to waste their death on something as mundane as choking. But since my money was still very much on Garrett, I say thee nay once more! Forgetting rule #2 of this show (don't split up!) the girls wander off from one another and their S.O.'s, which means that Aria gets drugged by someone in a funky costume. She's then taken off to the baggage car and thrown in a crate with a body.

Spencer and Garrett meet up on the train (Garrett's in the creepy baby-masked costume from the last Halloween special) where Garrett signs his own death warrant by admitting he's going to spill his secrets and then he is DONE with Rosewood. Oh, honey...

He admits that he was in Ali's bedroom the night she died, but he and Jenna left Jason and Ian in the room and went to Ali's backyard where they ran into Ali. Ali's a bitch, Jenna gets shoved, and Garrett pounds the tree behind Ali. Jenna thinks Garrett has killed Ali but surprise! She's not dead or even injured.

Garrett returns to the scene of the crime and sees Ali and Byron (Aria's dad) having a heated discussion. Spencer flips out at this reveal and leaves Garrett alone as she runs off to find Aria, not realizing Aria's been taken.

Hanna and Caleb smooch on the train as they're still in hiding and he's in costume and A isn't fooled one bit. Lucas is nice to Hanna. (D'aww) annnnnnnd we swing back to Aria in her crate.

The body? Garrett. Dun-dun-DUN.

Various As attack. Someone dressed up as the Phantom spooks Hanna when she realizes it's not Caleb (later, Mona is seen with the Ali mask that not!Caleb was wearing under the Phantom mask) while another person assaults Spencer. Paige comes to her aid and gets beaten up for her trouble. Bonding ensues and the hunt is on for Aria.

Toby, Caleb, and possibly Paige are looking for Aria while Em, Spencer, and Hanna look for her from another angle. Obviously the Liars find Aria, but not before we find out that there's a dude and a dudette trying to push Garrett's crate out of the train. The voices are muffled but the dude does not sound all that into the deposing of Aria plan. The girl? Does. I want to say this is Mona and someone but I'd have to watch that part again.

The train is stopped, the police summoned and Aria's checked out by the EMTs. When she returns to the drink car, Ezra appears and there's hugging and then Noel starts mouthing off about wanting the girls to just confess to the police so everyone else can go home. Toby gets in Noel's face, they tussle for a second and then the drink island on ice goes sliding to the floor. Along with a black bag from Charon and Sons Funeral Home.

Ali's missing body has probably been found. Hanging out in the ice that everyone's drinks have come from all night. Cue the vomit in 3...2...

(Also, let the debates as to whether or not Noel vs. Toby was staged or not begin!)

The episode ends with a hand clawing it's way to the surface and flailing about. At first this is the second most confusing thing in this episode but then it dawns on one (or one goes to comment elsewhere) that this is flashback!Ali. Which means she really wasn't dead when she was thrown in her grave... and someone else had to come along and bury her again since she stayed missing for more than a year.



Now. I've left one storyline out intentionally. Throughout the episode we've flashed to Hanna's house where her mom, Ashley, and Ashley's date Pastor Someoneorother, are dressed up as a nurse and a doctor and scaring the neighborhood children. A little blonde girl comes in the backdoor while Ash is in the kitchen and asks to call her mother because she wants to go home. This little girl doesn't really look right and then it hits you. She's the same little girl we saw in the last Halloween special playing Ali and Ali's twin (though they're never outright named as such) annnnnnnd no one else sees this girl. When Ashley touches her hand, she's cold as ice. When she leaves the room and then comes back, the little girl is mysteriously gone.

Look, show. I love you. I think you're pretty brilliant at times. But you do not need a ghost. You sure as fuck don't need a ghost kid. It's just overkill, honestly. Take a look in the mirror before going to shoot and then take off one accessory/plot twist. You don't need this one. Creepy twin? SURE. Creepy dead twin ghost? No.



Overall, we say thee yay. Not as good as last year's and yet still somehow pretty damn awesome. It just needed a few less gimmicks, that's all.