#episode break down

LIVE

So as I was saying before my hand cramped up, it’s 3 weeks later and conveniently we cut back to a media gathering that’s going to fill in those plot holes we have missed. The girls have been missing almost a month, the police know Mona is alive so Ali’s murder conviction has been overturned and Andrew ‘shady-mc-hottie-pants’ Campbell is the top suspect for the kidnapping but is on the run.

Ezra and Caleb are at the press conference looking pretty twitchy as Ali comes out to deliver a well-rehearsed plea to Andrew to not hurt the girls. She emphasises “My friends have always been my rock. Without them I am lost in the woods, totally alone.”

Sidenote: I wonder if any of the actual PLL crew are in this scene just doing their job. Like the sound guys who usually have to get out of shot but still crane their boom mics to pic up the sound are like “yup, just doing ma job guys nothing to see here.” Either that or there’s some awesome picture out there where you’ve got this weird box within a box type situation where we see a set of professional camera and sound crew filming and doing audio of a bunch of actors pretending to do those jobs in this scene. Just imagine the professional crew offering tips to their actor counterparts on their break like “you wanna hold the mic like this and angle it towards her like this. Yeah that’s way more realistic.” My production mind went on a bit of ramble there sorry, back to the ep.

Also it looks like Caleb has spotted the definitely somehow connected but annoyingly irrelevant twins Cindy and Mindy. This kind of ties back to my whole ‘Mona’s still shady af’ theory because the last we saw of these two they were being double agents for Mona. We were meant to believe Ali had won them over but then we saw them smiling as Ali went down for murder so that sorted that mystery out. Are they complicit in the bigger picture I wonder?

Back inside it’s revealed that Ali is playing bait so Tanner and the cop clang can lure Andrew to them. Agreeing to use a teenager as bait for a potential murderer/serial kidnapper… classy Rosewood PD antics. Tanner reassure’s Mr D that Ali will be protected by police 24/7 and that they know Andrew has been obsessed with the girls since Ali went missing. To end the scene, Toby and Ali exchange a ‘we’re up to something’ look (Toby’s got that bad boy I-was-A-once look about him in this shot).

Sidenote: We’ll find out about Andrew’s obsession with the girls later in the episode but at this point I’m kind of disheartened. I don’t think Andrew is Charles but if it turns out Andrew has been messing with the girls for years that feels like a storyline plucked out of thin air in Season 5. If it was going to be any of the background male characters surely it should have been Noel because he’s had the most involvement with the storylines, Ali and her enemies (he’s dated most of them). Or Lucas? Andrew’s character just has no real substance to him at this point.

So back in the dollhouse we see the mystery blonde prisoner who we are all thinking at this point has got to be either Sarah Harvey or a not-dead Bethany Young, am I right? Anyway she’s providing some creepy meals-on-wheels service for the liars. Spencer gets down and looks under the door (fairly certain there was room for her to look up and see it’s not Mona but anyway) they all start screaming “Mona help us!” “Mona is that you?” “Mona!” and blonde girl starts freaking out so she totters out of there with her trolley without feeding the other girls. Rude!

Cut back to Ali’s house where it’s evening now. They all freak out over the back door opening. The cops get their guns out and wait for the person to turn the corner. But it’s just Jason looking mighty fine.

Do they think A is a fucking amateur? Yes he’s been torturing these girls for years, set up a fake murder that their dumbasses believed enough to send all 5 girls to prison for but he’s just going to let himself in through the back door and steal Ali away is he?

Theory: I’m more of a CeCe is A kinda girl so I’m not sole on the whole Charles-is-Jason’s-twin theory just yet but I do appreciate it’d be genius if Charles has been pretending to be Jason this whole time. His own Dad thinks he’s a useless junkie but he’s actually this criminal mastermind with unlimited resources and has had everyone fooled for years. That’d show them! But for real I think the Jason twin theory is too obvious after 5x25… or are they betting on us discrediting this theory because it’s too obvious? God damn you PLL writers you’re in my head!

So just when everyones getting relaxed again Ali’s phone rings and it’s a blocked number. Let’s just take a second here. I think we can safely say that everyone under the age of 35 knows that this screen on an iPhone means you’re dialling out to someone. Is Ali banking on Tanner being so old that she doesn’t realise or are PLL seriously relying on their mainly teenage fan-base not knowing how a friggin iPhone works? Also update your iOS software Ali jesus - if you can have Emily and Hanna dance to Bang Bang by Jessie J and reference Disney’s Frozen we can safely assume the writers don’t give a fuck about keeping the mise-en-scene accurate for 2012. Update that skanky tech already!

In true A fashion we don’t hear a voice just a cryptic old song and Ali keeps him on the phone whilst Detective Barry Maple (in his flashy new “I got promoted” suit) traces the call to - wait for it - INSIDE THE HOUSE I REPEAT THE CALLER IS INSIDE THE HOUSE! A has some serious balls am I right?

So what do you do when you’ve got a potential psycho loose in the house? Hide the vulnerable target in a very accessible closet alone of course. I mean bravo Tanner, by these standards I think I could be a police officer. I loved the fact there was gift wrapping paper in there. I half expected to see Ali wrapped up as a present in the back of A’s car as he drove her off to the Dollhouse singing “Happy Birthday to Me.” Spoiler alert: that doesn’t happen!

Meanwhile upstairs Toby seems to have learnt everything he needs to know about holding his gun from the Police Academy films. He’s trying to act like a total bad ass in front of Tanner but when they find a a black hooded figure rocking in a chair in Ali’s room he looks like he’s legit going to shit himself. But it’s not A, it’s not even a person. It turns out it’s just a mannequin with a pig mask on - standard.

Sidenote: There’s lot’s of reoccurring themes and imagery in this show I might have to dedicate a whole other post to. On the subject of pigs though, Aria’s hand puppet Pigtunia makes a cameo later in this episode and remember that pig in Wilden’s car in the Season 3 finale? Hmm no coincidences in Rosewood Marlene tells us!

So Ali has made a run for it. This is the first of many times we see her running through the forest tonight. Tanner thinks Ali figured out Andrew wanted to meet her at the Campbell farm because the song playing over the phone earlier was ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree’ (Toby says his mum use to play it to him). That’s right, the head of the police force is admitting a teenager outsmarted them. God I love this show, the adults are always so clueless!

Ezra and Caleb are waiting in a car nervously. You know they are nervous because they are both biting their finger nails. Genuinely, I’m not kidding. Ian Harding and Tyler Blackburn were like “how can we really convey our anxiety in this scene man? I want it to be really raw and authentic.” And they came up with synchronised nail-biting.

Moving swiftly on, Ali gets in the car and we learn they’ve set the police up to go on a wild goose chase to the Campbell Farm thanks to a stellar act put on by Officer Toby might I say. So the dream team (comprised of an ex-couple and an ex-ghost hunter) have a plan: Ezra says “Are you sure Andrew would have got the message about the rock and being lost in the woods?” to which Ali replies “Believe me he’ll be at the kissing rock. He wouldn’t miss a chance to get his hands on me.”

Theory: Ok so firstly Ali and the boys also seem convinced Andrew is A at this point but what’s more interesting is Ali seems sure he’ll meet her at the kissing rock. Was Andrew another one of Ali’s man-candy’s from back in the day? There must be some reason Ali thinks he’d get the message about meeting her there? Could he be the mysterious beach hottie? Did she see him at the kissing rock that night after Ian left? If so that means Aria has had 2 of Ali’s leftover boyfriends who are obsessed with her and end up stalking her and the liars… awkward!

The boys give Ali to a pair of boots (classy gents). These boots were made for walking… and specially fitted with a gps tracking device in the heel so they can follow where A takes her Caleb explains - #Codetastic.