Pretty Little Liars Episode 212 Recap: Over my Dead Body a Lesbian Kissed Me

Holy fucking Christ on a cheese cracker! Just when you thought Hanna, Emily, Aria and Spencer’s hair couldn’t get any shinier, Pretty Little Liars gets totally fucking insane. What a mid-season finale! We won’t see the girls again until the Halloween Special which looks fucking awesome. I hope they all dress up as slutty Shovel Murderers.

Also, if we don’t find out who A is by Thanksgiving, I’m gonna tattoo Dr. Sullivan’s face onto my face and then sit in diners eating pecan pie until I die. I don’t even like pecan pie. That’s how much patience I have left.

my tattoo

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This week on Pretty Little Liars, the Liars maintained aforementioned goldilocks while destroying their entire lives in order to save Dr. Sullivan, who has been kidnapped by A, or maybe by Crazy-Jenna and her boyfriend Goofus Garrett.

Anyhow, let’s get this party started! Where do you wanna start? I wanna start at the end, just like in Southland!

filthy/gorgeous

The episode opens with the girls captured in the police station where Creepy Cop from Earlier informs the muddied-up liars, who look like seven-year-olds in pretty dresses who snuck out of Easter Brunch to climb trees with the boys, that homicide is a capital offense in the state of Pennsylvania. This is astounding as they’d been operating under the assumption that homicide is a misdemeanor. This hair is far too shiny for the electric chair:

tressame ooo la la tressame

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The Emily/Lesbian parts begin straight away — oh! Wait. I didn’t recap last week (but Lizz fashioncapped, so!) but FYI Maya returned last week, looking not a day over 31, just like she did when she left:

i rode here on a moonbeam of clam-power

The not-really-romantic reunion was interrupted by a call from Dr. Sullivan saying that she knew who A was and needed Emily to come immediately to her office, because A has a big lezzie crush  on Emily and doesn’t like to see her with other women.

you have no idea how much i need to get laid, maya

So, this episode we open with Emily and Maya sitting chastely on a couch/bed thing while Hanna grills Maya about the Betty Ford Clinic. Maya learned lots of songs, like “Rehab” and “Rumors,” and met lots of interesting people and likely engaged in lesbian activities with Lindsay Lohan.

i dunno, i guess she's been busy for the last few months and didn't come back to school or whatever and forgot how to use a phone or realized she was 31 and got a job or something

Anyhow, Emily’s had enough of this chit-chat and is ready to hit that, which means Hanna’s got to GO. But first Hanna notices Maya’s sporting those magical boots Hanna’s obsessed with, which also coat the feet of Dr. Sullivan and A, although clearly Hanna doesn’t know about the A part… YET. Hanna leaves to go check Zappos via Bing on her Verizon KIN Two, leaving the lesbians alone to wallow in a bed of sin.

you see those birds on your shirt in your chest area? yeah? i wanna be one of those birds, maya. just let me be one of those sweet sweet birds.

Instead of taking off their clothes and sticking their fingers up each other’s asses, Emily and Maya talk about friendship and lightly touch hands like two old people sitting in bathtubs in a Cialis commercial.

Because lesbians irrationally prioritize emotional processing over dirty sex, Maya’s not ready to get back together despite all the times they shared hugging in candlelit rooms and pecking each other on the cheek.

dr.drew told me this is a very fragile time to start a new relationship

Maya: “You have great friends. I kinda feel like that’s where we have to start again.”
Emily: “You… just wanna be friends?”
Maya: “No, I’m not saying that… So much has happened… and I don’t know this Emily.”
Emily: “I think you’ll like her.”

I mean, not to brag, but I presented at the Glaad awards this year

You know, this Emily! The Emily who has been psychologically tortured and emotionally terrorized constantly every single day since Maya flew the coop!

Would you like me to illustrate it for you, Maya? Because I have an Intern who takes orders very well. Yes?

Okay. Let’s begin!

Old Emily visits the hospital… New Emily gets visited in the hospital!

+

Old Emily is cheerful, bright and totally closeted… and New Emily is scared shitless running in the woods at all hours escaping ghost ninjas!

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Old Emily swims… New Emily drowns!

i don't know why this graphic makes me LOL, i must be fucked in the head

Old Emily encounters psychopath drama at school events in private… New Emily encounters psychopath drama at school events in public!

Old Emily had a cute blonde girlfriend with a cardboard personality… New Emily hit on Jenny Humphrey and lost her paper-plate girlfriend. In other words, New Emily has plenty of room between her thighs for New Maya.

Oh, also, one thing has definitely gotten better. New Emily’s Mom is way cooler than Old Emily’s.

clearly dinner with maya did not scar mom for life

Maya: “I know I will, but I wanna make sure she still likes me… I want you to know that I’m thrilled you called me. I should’ve called you first.”
Emily: “You should’ve. I forgive you.”

Snooze.

Oh, Emily made a new face! This one’s a “Hanna get the fuck out of here” face:

not to be confused with "omg ghost ninja" face

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While Spencer’s been in the bathroom shining her hair, someone’s snuck a giant wooden box of Creep into the Hastings living room. Never one for subtlety, that A:

A loves stencils

I was hoping it would be a puppy but it doesn't look like a puppy

A reads a lot of magazines, enjoys collaging

It’s not a puppy, a dildo or seven framed photos of Aria sleeping — it’s three creepoid dolls!!! Ew!

Oh whoops, wrong picture! HERE!:

two can keep a secret if one of them is a bride of chucky doll

These dolls are psychotic and will likely come to life like in horror movies, spurt blood from their nostrils and eat Dr. Sullivan’s eyeballs right out of her head. And then she’ll be blind, just like Jenna.

Each Pretty Little Doll has got a string on the back you can pull to get your mission. Aria’s gotta “make Jackie go away,” Hanna’s gotta “stop the wedding” and Spencer’s gotta “keep Toby safe.” It’s like a scavenger hunt for Sadists.

first of all, spencer would never be caught dead in this frock of shit

Also Emily didn’t get a doll ’cause A hates gay people. Aria, unaware of her cisgender white heterosexual privilege, suggests maybe Emily’s excluded ’cause A’s spent so much time in Emily’s grill the last few weeks that a doll would just be overkill.

this will be good practice for when aria, spencer and hanna get married and you get a domestic partnership

“Maybe A’s bored with you,” Hanna suggests, which seems likely considering Emily hasn’t made out with anyone for at least two episodes/ever.

Hanna: “So we do these things and A gives her back.”
Emily: “I get that this is a game, but I don’t understand it.”

this is like ten times more complicated than chutes & ladders

Spencer’s on top of this shit like Nancy Drewster:

Aria: “Spence?”
Spencer: “No, it’s brilliant, actually. A’s being our ultimate frenemie, forcing us to get what we want but knowing that when we do, all hell breaks loose.”

Hm. Just the kind of thing Allison would do.

Aria could potentially store eggs in those earrings

So, dutifully following orders, the girls proceed to ruin their lives to save their therapist, ’cause ruined lives need therapy and The Liars are masochists who likely would prefer root canals, drinking cow blood, apartment-hunting in New York City, waiting in line at the DMV and taking a 7-hour flight with a crying baby to actually defying A.

she didn't say "cheese"

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3181 articles for us.

53 Comments

  1. “Oh look, Emily’s doll is in the back seat with her legs sprawled open like a tart. A respects Emily’s ethnicity and has therefore purchased a Josefina Montoya doll and, for mysterious reasons, dressed her up like a Mormon.”

    Best.

    My main complaint with this show is how haphazardly everyone handles coffee cups. I know they’re empty, but WHERE IS THE ILLUSION OF FULLNESS.

  2. OMG THIS SHOW. I actually think this show is going to drive me crazy. It makes me want throw things at my TV which is actually my computer screen LIKE JUST TELL US WHO A IS/WTF IS GOING ON ALREADY. Like I feel like a while ago I really didn’t care about this show and now as irritated as I am they are making me want to know what is going on so badly. Dr. Sullivan’s face at the end = the truest and the best.

    Amazing recap, as usual. And thanks for including the preview for the Halloween episode… actually looks kind of awesome. Ally was only a bitch because she was being manipulated too…? wtf :o

  3. Maybe Alison had an identical twin who no one knew about, like that one time in Charmed when Prue was dating some guy and he sent his twin to check her out or something weird and creepy like that. Although I guess her mother would remember giving birth to 2 babies…

    This show is making my hair jealous.

    • YES THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I THINK! EVIL IDENTICAL TWIN!!! like you know how they are always complementing her eyes. I bet Spencer’s Dad facilitated the adoption.

      • YES! That would explain SO MUCH about Spencer’s Dad! Also also what if one twin murdered the other one and that’s why no one seems to have any real evidence for anything ever??!

    • It’s weird ‘cuz on PLL’s FB page, there was this poll asking who killed Ali, and one of the answers was “Her Twin!” and after watching this episode and not seeing any twin, I’m left with ‘What the fuck? Did I miss some hint?’ But I guess not.

  4. Please someone raise Ali from the dead world.Maya and Samara are absolutely lame, I mean Caleb is more lesbian than the two put together. J Humphrey wasn’t bad, but Ali is better.
    Plus, what the hell with the doctor? I like british accent and all but he has to stop appearing out of nowhere every time (he’s probably A).
    Now you reminded me I seriously want to make my hair shiny as theirs. How do they achieve that? they sparkle in the dark!

  5. Thanks for the recap riese!!!!
    And yes, im also super excited for the halloween episode.

    anyone read the book? Please tell me we will find out who A is at the end otherwise i might throw things at my lovely tv

  6. Wait. This recap made me really want to watch this show. Is it worth how much my friends will make fun of me for when I inevitably can’t stop talking about it?

    • I didn’t watch the show until 3 days ago and now I’m completely caught up – it’s so addictive!! As someone who is currently enduring the teasing for my newest obsession I would say YES! TOTALLY WORTH IT!

      • I realise this may say more about me and how little I have going on in my life right now than it does about the show…

        • Pfft. Mainlining television can sometimes be the best thing ever. No judgement here. (I once watched 18 episodes of Veronica Mars in one day, soooooo)

  7. just want to say that this recap is absolutely hilarious, had me laughing out loud, spitting out my coffee. brava, brava!
    “rescue me! visibility matters!” hahaha

  8. “There’s a strong possibility that in the afterlife, your straight girl crush could stroke your hair.” :)

  9. Omg I hope you know that’s not bow it ends!!!! Gosh A is- er nvm I dnt wanna say cuz I hate spoilers. But all I’m saying is keep watching. Alison does not have a twin. A is someone that is close to them…lives in rosewood…is there when all goes bad…and hates the girls. NO it’s not Toby or Jenna!!!! Or that freaky cop!!!! Just keep watching!!!!

  10. OMFG! I don’t think i will be able to watch the Halloween episode…Dolls freaked me out enough but the person in the mask in the promo nearly gave me a heart attack after like 2 seconds.

    If i watch it, it will be with every single light on in the house (even those in rooms I’m not actually in).

    • FYI, the creators have already said that it is NOT this person and that A is not going to be the same as the books.

  11. Spoiler alert

    A has to be Aria, cause she knows exactly what the girls do every second, and her brother, who actually has the time to do the dirty work.

    And I bet Jenna and the copy Garret? only hit Allison but did not bury her alive. Betting Piper Halliwell did that…

  12. this made me laugh super hard. I’m super drunk. I’m pretty sure it would have made me laugh super hard if i wasn’t, though. yay!

  13. idk what grey poupon is, but all the other captions (and everything else that has to do with this recap) made me laugh incessantly. i only just now starting breathing again.

      • it’s a reference to an old commercial where a car pulled up next to another limo and said ‘excuse me sir, do you have any grey poupon?” i don’t remember exactly but for some reason it was HILARIOUS

  14. For the love of God, someone please help me! It’s not about who A is but something much more important.
    What month/year is it in Rosewood? The timeline in this series is fucking with my head. When they started the show it was fall of ’10, beginning of the liars school year. Whether they are sophomores or juniors confuses me too. We’ve had roughly, what, 36 episodes? Has there been a winter yet? HOW MUCH TIME HAS PASSED SINCE THIS SHOW STARTED?! The inspection/registration stickers on Toby’s truck expire 3/11. He babies his truck so he wouldn’t let them expire meaning…..it’s been, at most 6 months since things started? Is that right?! That would make each half season cover roughly 2 months? 3 different women for Emily in a 6 month time span-the little vixen.

    Oy…so many questions with this show. Is it time for Glee yet? My brain needs a rest.

  15. “THIS WILL BE GOOD PRACTICE FOR WHEN ARIA, SPENCER AND HANNA GET MARRIED AND YOU GET A DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP” This made me laugh loudly and then immediately feel depressed. Win with Em’s Facial Expression #8.

    It’s funny that now this isn’t a Fashioncap, my only other thoughts are fashion-related: Em’s hair being way too pretty after being dragged out of the barn (with her bare legs running against the ground, ouch!!) or Isabelle’s wedding dress being nicer than the one that was vomitted upon…

    Oh, right, het-drama. I am so glad that Ezra and Toby have been dumped. Those two were nauseating storylines.

  16. After watching the Ep 2.12. I can’t help thinking over and over and it make me crazy. It so confusing. I am obsess to know who A is?

    So i decided to recap from the beginning.I just finished reviewing Ep 1.1 to Ep2.12 and this is what i realized who -A is? A is more than one group, maybe 4. my basis- text messages sent to the liars and flash back with allison.
    A-Alison, A-Mona, A-Jenna, –A the N.A.T.

    1. For A-Alison she is asking help from her friends in in-direct ways. by give them the hint and clues. maybe she is also watched by N.A.T. that is why she cannot give her friends the direct ideas. That should be the liars should focus on. (people might help or on alison sides are , garret the police, the med. student – i forgot his name. On the other hand garret has something with jenna. I think he is a good cop. If garret is not on alison side – might be on the good side of N.A.T

    2. for A-Mona, i think she has the diary of alison, That makes her knew their secrets. mona’s members are maya, noel khan (mona’s bf), Chad and more. Mona could also be gay, she is jealous of hannah’s friends and caleb. This is the group the make the A-visible bulling the liars, and complicating the story.

    3. For A-Jenna- of course the jenna thing and the video that she’s afraid to be exposed. She might did something bad or make alison disappeared, but i dont believe she killed alison and i dont believe that jenna is still blind.

    4. –A -N.A.T (bad group)- members in this group are high rank government officials.This A-capable to kill. Maybe they got allison.

    My conclusion, Allison discovered or exposed the N.A.T. because of the video she got. That make her life in danger. If the liars played the whole video on ali flash drive maybe they got all the answers and solved the disappearance of allison. Alison is Definitely Alive, She is very smart and rich. She is just hiding and she is gay. i also believe that car won by emily is from her. The Liars are always protected by A-alison, But sometimes hurts their feelings is seems allison is also playing with them.

    People who have secret to reveals are Mellisa, Peter hesting, jason, jenna, mona, ezra, kate. and more secret of alison.
    Well, this is only my ideas, i am not the writer of the story. Let’s wait if my ideas will come true. I follows PLL, nikita, and I love Glee.

  17. CAN I PLEASE JUST SAY I SHIT MY PANTS READING THIS ARTICLE. i laughed so much you are so cute. those captions. holy shit, those captions. you’re talented. also i didn’t even know other lesbians watched liars and now when i watch it i am going to think of this article and you have enriched my viewing experience and my life. holy fuckballs.

  18. “Oh look, Emily’s doll is in the back seat with her legs sprawled open like a tart. A respects Emily’s ethnicity and has therefore purchased a Josefina Montoya doll and, for mysterious reasons, dressed her up like a Mormon.”

    As if my coworkers didn’t think i was weird enough being “that new girl is a lesbian”, i have lol’d at this recap so much and caused a slight seen up here in corporateville.

    ps- 100% sure i would drink emily’s bathwater

    • Naw, man. That bitch from AfterEllen is The Worst.

      Seriously, though, if it weren’t for Riese I wouldn’t even be recapping. I used to sit in my little accounting cubicle laughing my guts out over her TLW recaps. Like back when they were on Blogger and The Real L Word was nothing more than a greedy seed in Satan’s womb. What I’m saying is, Riese inspired me and continues to inspire me and I love her recaps very much.

      No need for more bullying A’s in this world, yeah? Apparently there are already like ten million of them in Rosewood alone.

  19. My fave recaps are at TWOP but when I need hilarious lesbian captions. It’s AS.

    Also… It is freakish how Naya Rivera and Shay Mitchell look alike. And I think Ezra and Aria look related.

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