Hello, friends! The time has come for another Texts From A, where I yell about which Pretty Little Liars girl I want to protect the most in this set of episodes, and also which dude is the most trash.
(It’s Hanna and Fitz, respectively.)
(Fitz always wins the trash award.)
This week, we’re journeying through episodes 5 and 6 of season 1. Are you ready for rich white people dramatically playing tennis, homecoming, and perhaps…murder?
…More murder than the entire show is based on, I mean?
Heck, let’s go.
First, here’s what Aria got up to in these episodes.
- Her brother, who has been absent since the first episode, made a re-appearance. His name is Mike. He’s very angry.
- Fitz sees a text Aria got from A that mentions their ~ illicit relationship ~
- So naturally he accuses her of not being “mature enough to handle this”
- Because the problem with him having an affair with his underage student is of course whether or not she’s mature enough to hide it
- Oh, also, his first name is Ezra. I now remember having seen Ezra/Aria things on Tumblr.
- Tbh: I get why people would ship it. I won’t shame you for shipping this. I have too many trash ships to shame anyone.
- I just don’t think it should be canon.
- Aria wallows over her and Fitz’s ?breakup? in a fashion that Lorelai Gilmore would deeply approve of.
- She hasn’t told anyone about their relationship, so her friends think that she’s being a sweatpants hermit over her parents’ fighting.
- They convince her to go to homecoming, because after she and Fitz ?broke up? she decided not to go.
- Which begs the question…who was she going to go with in the first place? Like, not Fitz, right? She knew that, right?
- A lot happens at homecoming and will need to be its own section, but let me just get it out of the way that Fitz broods at her all damn night.
- Tbh: I get why people would ship it. I won’t shame you for shipping this. I have too many trash ships to shame anyone.
- So naturally he accuses her of not being “mature enough to handle this”
Now let us discuss sweet, sweet Hanna.
- Hanna sees Jenna in the building where she’s working off her car-crash debt.
- Naturally, she follows.
- Jenna is………getting THERAPY?
- Who would have thought that a girl who was (supposedly) blinded in a horrible (supposed) accident would need therapy.
- The general reaction from the group to Jenna needing therapy is that they should steal her file. They think Toby and Jenna are somehow in on Alison’s death.
- When not plotting to steal confidential files, Hanna is struggling with her relationship.
- She tells Sean that she wants to go to his abstinence club with him.
- Because that’s a thing he’s in.
- Lucas, a nerd boy, is chosen to do a Sexercise with Hanna.
- A Sexercise is where one teen is the aggressor trying to get their partner to Do It, and the other one practices ways to say no.
- Lucas insists he can’t do it because a girl like Hanna wouldn’t go for him, but not in a weirdly aggressive incel-y way, just in a “uh this is unrealistic” joke-y way
- Hanna clearly thinks he’s funny
- I must protect him
- Hanna does steal a therapy file (with Lucas’ help!), but that’s for the homecoming section.
- Okay, lowkey, Hanna is like a great friend. She doesn’t always say the right thing, but she supports her friends!
- When Mona (her second-in-command as Queen Bee) says mean things about Spencer or Aria, Hanna shuts that shit down.
- And then when Spencer asks why Hanna is friends with Mona, she also supports Mona and talks about the good parts of their friendship.
- She is capable of calling her friends out on their shit while still loving them and frankly that’s more than a lot of people are capable of.
- Hanna 2020
- OH SHIT ALSO “A” SENT HER THE PHOTO STRIP OF EMILY AND MAYA KISSING THAT’LL BE IMPORTANT IN EMILY’S SECTION.
- She tells Sean that she wants to go to his abstinence club with him.
Emily’s section is now.
- Hanna got sent the photo strip of Emily and Maya kissing, but Emily doesn’t know that yet.
- Emily is getting close to Toby, who is like…really sweet, tbh? The teen boys in this show are honestly a lot better than the adult men.
- But Toby has a tattoo that says “901 free at last”, which Emily doesn’t know about.
- (Spencer and Hanna saw it.)
- (Spencer is super convinced Toby’s Bad News. Apparently most of the town is.)
- (But Emily likes him, it’s sweet.)
- When they’re all talking about homecoming, Emily gets asked who she’s going with
- Hanna jumps in when Emily hesitates and says that it doesn’t really matter who you go with, it just matters that you go with someone you’ll have fun with.
- She’s obviously trying to set the groundwork to normalize Emily potentially bringing Maya to homecoming.
- Hanna also tells Maya that Emily wants her at homecoming.
- …Which makes it awkward when Toby asks Emily to homecoming and she says yes.
- I’m too bisexual for this nonsense. I want her to go with Maya and Toby
- Related, I already feel like there’s no way the show ever acknowledges Emily as bi, but I’ll keep my tiny hope alive for now.
- She’s obviously trying to set the groundwork to normalize Emily potentially bringing Maya to homecoming.
- Hanna jumps in when Emily hesitates and says that it doesn’t really matter who you go with, it just matters that you go with someone you’ll have fun with.
- But Toby has a tattoo that says “901 free at last”, which Emily doesn’t know about.
Okay, so, Spencer.
- She cheated on that essay and it won and it’s awkward, because her dad wants to celebrate it.
- He also wants her to play tennis with him and a potential new client at ~ the Club ~, and throw the match.
- Spencer is Very Upset by this, because somehow she’s never noticed her slimy rich dad be slimy before??
- Spencer does throw the match, and the only person who seems to care other than her is a boy who works at ~ the Club ~
- His name is Alex, and Spencer ends up asking him to homecoming because he’s sweet and charming.
- Oh, also, she tells her dad about cheating on the essay.
- And uh he and her mom decide to cover it up, because it would look worse if the truth got out.
- He also wants her to play tennis with him and a potential new client at ~ the Club ~, and throw the match.
Emily and Spencer’s sections are short because most of their Big Stuff happens at homecoming.
So, about that.
- First off, A is a witch who snuck messages into fortune cookies for the girls to find. It tells them that A is going to be a homecoming.
- So obviously they’re all super paranoid.
- But also very well-dressed.
- Spencer has perfect hair but that doesn’t stop her sister, Melissa, from being at homecoming as an alumni to present the homecoming king and queen
- Her sister is also the WORST.
- Remember how Melissa’s ADULT FIANCE kissed her TEENAGE SISTER and she decided to blame the TEENAGER?
- Yeah, that’s still going on, so after finding out Spencer also isn’t being punished for stealing her essay, Melissa naturally decides to sabotage her date.
- Emily arrives with Toby, which freaks everyone out.
- Maya and Emily argue because Emily said she wanted space
- But now she’s there with Toby
- Maya thinks that Emily is hiding from herself.
- Spencer has an epiphany about what Toby’s tattoo means.
- 901, free at last
- September 1st was the day Alison disappeared
- …I like Toby and want to believe the best but that is, admittedly, sketchy as hell.
- A also got into the tarot cards – there’s a fortune teller at homecoming – and wrote “say bye bye to your BFF” on one of them.
- Because that therapist doesn’t keep his files secure, Hanna steals a file – not Jenna’s. Toby’s. He’s the one seeing a therapist.
- And uh so this is also when we find out that Toby and Jenna, who are step-siblings, were sleeping together.
- There’s a few parts where one of the girls will talk about it like it was non-consensual, but from the file, but I’m not 100% sure how they got there?
- Did I miss something, or are they just assuming that from Toby’s bad reputation?
- Aria, Spencer, and Hanna are reading the file while Emily is alone with Toby.
- Toby has picked up on her feelings for Maya, and is honestly really chill about it.
- I want him to be good!
- …But then Emily gets the text from Aria, which says that he killed Alison.
- NO I am not sure how they jumped to that particular conclusion. I guess the tattoo and because Alison knew about the sleeping together-ness, they assumed he killed her out of revenge? Or to keep her quiet?
- Emily is real confused and Toby isn’t great at acting not-suspicious. He begs her to listen, and she runs.
- Toby chases her. God, that’s a bad move.
- Like seriously even if she’s wrong about your intentions, if a girl is running from you and screaming “HELP ME”, just maybe stop chasing her.
- He doesn’t.
- Emily falls, and the screen cuts to black.
- Her sister is also the WORST.
And then, we come to the town sign for Rosewood. The gloved hands we’ve come to associate with A paint over the last digit in the population number. It now reads one lower.
I know Emily isn’t dead, but I’m still stressed as hell. I want her to be okay. I want Toby to be okay, and also for him to deserve me wanting him to be okay. I want Emily and Maya to make up. I want Hanna to have not missed her and Sean being named homecoming royalty. I want Spencer’s sister to stop making her life miserable.
The entire last quarter of this episode had me in my DMs messaging the friend who got me to watch this damn show in the first place, yelling at them, and I’m sorry to be the one to leave you guys on this cliffhanger but I gotta.
See you back in Rosewood in a couple weeks.
