Hello, friends, and welcome back to Texts From A, where I’m watching Pretty Little Liars for the first time and telling you all about it. This post covers episodes 20 of season one. Too much happens in these final three episodes of the season to cover two in one post unless I went the barest of bare bones, and I don’t think that’s fun, so…
Let’s talk episode 20.
Aria:
- Aria’s parents – Byron and Piper – are still trying to sneak around together, you know, the way married adults do.
- Aria confronts them on it, and they all agree to have dinner as a family to figure out if Piper should move back in.
- Aria sends Fitz a flirty text and…signs her name to it? Which is? Weird? I assume she’s in his contacts, right?
- BUT THAT’S NOT THE IMPORTANT PART
- THE IMPORTANT PART IS THAT THE TEXT DIDN’T GO TO FITZ AT ALL, IT WENT TO HER MOM
- I’m so confused about my emotions. If you’ve ready any single one of these posts, you know I’m not a fan of Fitz or his relationship with Aria, so part of me is like “yes god get caught end it”,
- But another part got so stressed out about the possibility of them getting caught that I had to pause the show and yell about it in one of my group chats.
- Possibly I’m just easily swayed by the emotions of others and very susceptible to secondhand embarrassment but still.
- Piper thinks Aria texting a boy is cute and sweet, and is happy that with all the family stuff going on, she still has time for her own romance. She teases Aria about it very lightly.
- But it makes Aria very upset, and having many times been a person who can’t handle even light teasing, I respect it.
- Byron and Piper have a whole conversation about What To Do about the Mystery Boy, since Aria didn’t give her mom a fake name, she just said she’s allowed to have secrets.
- Piper agrees with Aria, and thinks they just should trust her to tell them when they’re ready.
- Byron thinks they need to know who it is in order to protect her.
- Aria empties her room of various Fitz-related memorabilia (Emily hides it in her locker), except for Winesburg, Ohio, which has an inscription in it signed “Ezra”. That, she keeps and hides in plain sight.
- Which I tell you because Byron goes into her room and PICKS UP THE BOOK and starts FLIPPING THROUGH IT and I was SO TENSE,
- But Piper interrupted him and they had a whole fight about the Aria Thing, and also about what this disagreement means for their marriage.
- Mike – Aria’s brother who shows up about as much as Ghost shows up in Game of Thrones anymore – witnesses the fight, and thinks it’s Aria’s fault. He tells her to do whatever they want her to do, because otherwise, their mom won’t come back.
- He kind of breaks my heart.
- And even more so when they go down for that family dinner…and find out that Piper cancelled, saying she wasn’t feeling well.
- Which I tell you because Byron goes into her room and PICKS UP THE BOOK and starts FLIPPING THROUGH IT and I was SO TENSE,
Hanna:
- Did you think they were going to let Hanna have and keep good things? NO.
- It all begins with Hanna and Caleb being all cute and teenagers in love. She finds this owl necklace in his backpack and assumes it’s a gift for her.
- Apparently the night they were in the tent – during which it is VERY HEAVILY IMPLIED they had sex – they heard owls. So it’s a sweet thing.
- Aria and Emily overhear Caleb talking on the phone to someone at school. Presumably the same person he called at the end of the last episode to tell them he was out, because it’s a lot of the same thing – “I made a mistake, I can’t do it tonight, she’s not who you say she is, I’m not doing this”.
- Aria and Emily hear that conversation and assume Caleb is talking to a girl he has history with.
- When they tell Hanna, she thinks the same thing I do, which is that he could have been talking to anyone and neither of us know why they jumped to “It’s a girl! He’s cheating on you!”
- But Hanna is upset, and that doesn’t get better when Jenna walks by…wearing the owl necklace.
- They discover that the owl necklace is a jump drive, and, I shit you not, this is the line of conclusion-jumping that follows:
- Jenna has a jump drive that Caleb (known for being paid to do hacking jobs) gave her → it must have information from Hanna’s computer → Caleb must be who Jenna was talking to when she wrote down 214 → Caleb + Jenna = A
- I mean, because the writers control this, they end up being right about several parts of it, but I still don’t see the reasoning here.
- On a whim, Hanna tries out “214” as Caleb’s locker combo…and it works.
- Hard to say if this means the motel room was a coincidence or what.
- It turns out that Caleb (who confesses all of this) was hired by Jenna to “make [himself] available” to Hanna and learn what he could about her.
- He thought it was petty “pretty girl” drama, and he needed money. Once he got to know Hanna and things got real between them, he dropped Jenna and gave the money back.
- The jump drive was supposed to have Hanna’s call logs on it, but he says he just gave Jenna a bunch of fake stuff instead.
- I know why Hanna doesn’t feel like she can trust him anymore after this, and I know why Caleb leaves, but still…my heart! I love them together!
- The girls are all talking in the bathroom at school afterwards when Jenna comes in. They all go quiet, which they do every time Jenna shows up, as if they hope not talking will make Jenna completely unaware there are people near her.
- Emily, Aria, and Spencer are all for just sneaking out, but Hanna walks up and SLAPS JENNA RIGHT ACROSS THE FACE.
- My reaction to this being: OH WOW UH I MEAN I GET IT BUT ALSO NOW JENNA IS CRYING AND I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE CRY!
- Later, at home, there’s crying on Hanna’s part, and Ashley trying to talk to Hanna about what’s wrong, and Hanna not being up for talking.
- She’s too busy breaking my heart by having one of those cry-faces that just really makes me want to cry.
- I mean, she’s no Claire Danes or Alyson Hannigan about it, but it still hurts.
- She’s too busy breaking my heart by having one of those cry-faces that just really makes me want to cry.
- Emily, Aria, and Spencer are all for just sneaking out, but Hanna walks up and SLAPS JENNA RIGHT ACROSS THE FACE.
Emily:
- When we last saw Emily, things with her and Paige were a little uncertain. They like each other an awful lot, but Paige is still SUPER closeted and Emily told her that she doesn’t think she can go back in the closet.
- So, they can’t really date unless Paige is willing to come out.
- Which she’s not, as evidenced by her having lunch with Sean (Hanna’s ex), who asks her out. And Paige says yes.
- It’s a complicated thing because neither of them is being unreasonable by saying “I’m not ready to come out” or “I can’t handle dating someone who needs to hide me”. They’re valid boundaries to draw and it just SUCKS that they’re also deeply incompatible when, on other levels, they’re pretty good together.
- …I mean, there was the whole thing where Paige initially reacted to her attraction to Emily with bullying and, uhm, not really trying to drown her, but not not trying to drown her,
- But since they seem to have moved past that part, I will too.
- Anyway, Paige goes on this date with Sean, and Emily’s upset.
- But then Paige shows up at her door. After the date. Like, right after.
- Paige had a great time, right up until the moment when Sean kissed her. The kiss left her feeling fake and awful.
- She wants to be with Emily, but she’s so scared to come out. (Which! Super legit!)
- In conclusion, THEY KISS.
- Still super wondering whatever happened to Maya. I don’t think she and Emily ever actually broke up.
- …I mean, there was the whole thing where Paige initially reacted to her attraction to Emily with bullying and, uhm, not really trying to drown her, but not not trying to drown her,
Spencer:
- WE LEFT SPENCER ON A BIT OF A CLIFFHANGER, HUH? The one where she’s now a murder suspect, because she lied about being “involved” with Ian.
- And yes, I am still and forever mad that people keep treating this like a 15-year-old, idk, casually dated her adult sister’s adult fiance.
- The episode begins with the police serving a search warrant on basically the entire house – including her room.
- Which Spencer freaks out about. I can’t tell if it’s because she thinks she has something to hide (maybe A-related things?) or if it’s the invasion of privacy. I mean, even when you’re innocent, I can’t imagine it’s fun to have cops tearing up your room.
- Luckily, her lawyer-mom Veronica is on her side, and thinks they can probably get the search warrant thrown out so nothing they find would be admissible anyway.
- (Related: I couldn’t remember Veronica’s name, and I’m supposed to ask my friends to Google PLL-related things for me since I’m trying to stay spoiler-free, but I thought Googling “Pretty Little Liars Spencer mom” was innocent enough! But uhhh I think I saw a huge spoiler? A huge….confusing spoiler.)
- (i don’t know. I assume we’ll get there eventually.)
- Spencer does have some things to hide. The search warrant didn’t cover her laptop, but they might come back for it, so in the meantime she’s deleting emails that look like her and the other girls discussing A.
- She also tells Toby that she doesn’t think he should be seen with her. It could be bad for him. But he figures that they’ve both already been framed for murder, sooo how much worse could their reputations get, exactly?
- Then there’s the super creepy part with Ian.
- Every part with Ian is creepy.
- But this is the part where he sat in a dark room waiting for Spencer to come home, and offers to help her run away. Which Spencer doesn’t want to do, but Ian says she should.
- He says time is running out for her, and by the time she’s arrested, it’ll be too late.
- What does that MEAN, Ian? Why are you like this?
- Let’s all really, really hope the evidence the cops found in the search warrant does get dismissed, because it’s…not great.
- They found fibers in Spencer’s name-bracelet – the one Alison gave her – and they match the borrowed sweater Alison was wearing the night she died.
- Veronica is still supporting Spencer and thinks she’s innocent, but I’m getting worried.
- (Related: I couldn’t remember Veronica’s name, and I’m supposed to ask my friends to Google PLL-related things for me since I’m trying to stay spoiler-free, but I thought Googling “Pretty Little Liars Spencer mom” was innocent enough! But uhhh I think I saw a huge spoiler? A huge….confusing spoiler.)
We end the episode on one of our classic ominous A scenes. In this one, A has some kind of a…glass heart? I’m not sure. It has “Hanna” written on it, and A breaks it with a hammer. They put the pieces in a box with some glue and a note: “Dear Hanna, try putting it back together.”
There has never been anyone more weirdly extra than A.
