Emily is trying to stuff grapes and she is doing it like a maniac, dough all over the place, including the wall, because that is where she is slinging it in fits of such temper. Ezra wanders in, surveys her frazzled nerves, the ingredients on the wall; he points his finger at her face and says, “I knew you didn’t take home ec!” She stabs him in the face. She tells him Pam Fields offered up her secret empanada recipe, and he’s like, “These empanadas better be slammin’, Emily. Not like this grape mush here, which is most assuredly not slammin’. I am a slammin’ guy and all aspects of this business must reflect that slam. If you need some inspiration, peek your head out of the kitchen and check out Boots the Newsie’s ‘books’ sign. That is a thing that is slammin.’”
Through some miraculous force of will she does not remind him of time he said to her, “Some people have real problems, Emily.”
In the dark of night, two terrible things happen.
One) Hanna goes to an RV park looking for Holbrook because his dad lives in this RV park and Holbrook is rumored to be taking care of his dad. Well, Holbrook is not there. His dad is, and some creepy ass fuck who is chopping up deer guts and also a child who seems even more terrifying than that one who lives in the basement of the Brookhaven Doll Hospital. Holbrook’s dad thinks Hanna is Alison or one of the hundred people in the northeastern United States who look just like Alison, so he’s surprised his son isn’t with her. The awful kid, I think, chews the head off Hanna’s Ballard College stuffed dog and fills it with real live animal guts, so that’s a disgusting surprise Hanna gets when she returns to her car. The guts spill out all over her. I can’t talk about it more than that or I will vomit.
Two) Hanna and Caleb retrieve that bloody knife they’ve all rubbed their fingerprints on and decide to destroy it by putting it in the kiln in Rosewood High’s art classroom. You can tell this is a thing Spencer has been wanting to try for a long time, just waiting for the right piece of evidence to turn up. I mean, she obviously doesn’t understand what kilns do, but she’s really excited it. Unfortunately, Caleb ruins her fun by getting himself locked inside the kiln and very nearly cooking his brains. Spencer rescues him, but the knife is gone.
The next morning, Aria goes to Emily’s to comfort her because of losing her girlfriend and she only slept three hours because of her kitchen stresses and sometimes even the Gryffindor-est among us need a hug and cry. Just joshin’ ya; Aria goes to Emily’s to read her the letter she sent to Jackie Molina at Talmadge. She says her secret relationship with Ezra “kept me in a fishbowl separating me from my family, my friends, even from myself.”
It’s true? It’s the truest thing anyone has ever said on this show of lies? And Aria knows it’s true? But she doesn’t think the effects of the abuse are real? She doesn’t think it actually hurt her? She’s just using the truth to explain true things she thinks she’s making up to bond with Ezra’s ex-girlfriend who knows it’s the truth and knows the effects are for real? Emily thinks it’s a damn terrible idea because — wait for it — it’s going to hurt Ezra’s feelings. So Aria goes to Talmadge to try to get the letter back but gets accepted into college instead.
I can’t wait to see how victimized Ezra will act when he finds out Aria told someone the truth about being his victim.
Comments
daaaamn it heather hogan I miss your pretty little liars recaps so much but I haven’t been able to watch any of season 5 and I hate spoilers and it is so damn hard for me not to read them! Also my little punk-ass bitch cousin told me that Mona died and I still have not recovered, so I’m not sure how to proceed from here.
“The laser pointer these kittens are chasing today”: ACCURATE.
This was such a meh episode, but hilarious recap!
God, Aria is the worst. Less Aria please. Less Toby. And way way way less Ezra.
Caleb can stay, but only if he stops ruining Spencer’s evidence-destroying fun.
I’m sorry but saying what Aria said in that letter is true is insulting to the very premise of the show. Aria was never isolated from the Liars, in fact she grew closer to them as that relationship developed.
Because all a woman needs is a man and her life will get better, right?
The thing is, he DID victimize Aria. He targeted and seduced an underage girl who is way more than three years younger than him. And before her friends and family found out about the relationship she was isolated, she couldn’t talk to anyone about her relationship.
Ezria is SO NOT the premise of this show
NO she was not Isolated from her friends, ever, she was not friends them before in fact.
Yes she was. It was a running joke among fans for s1-3 that Aria was on a different show from the other girls.
That running Joke was always stupid.
And again, she had NO relationship with them before Ezra
I wonder why you’re so keen on defending the relationship between a grown man and an underage girl, Jared. In the comments to the last recap, you even used the mighty argument of “it’s been done this way for thousands of years”, which is quite possibly the worst argument in human history to ever be used. It’s called ethics. Our understanding of it is continually evolving; that’s called PROGRESS. Are there other time-honored traditions you like to uphold regardless of the consequences they have on those in the position of less power? Do tell.
So, Spencer heard a window blind clacking from all the way down the hall? Or is that what her brain told her she was doing while she was cooking Caleb? Did she close the window, or close the kiln?
#SpencerIsCocoaForCuckooPuffs
Why are they turning Hanna into a genius? That’s the role that Spencer already has. It’s sort of coming out of left field, too. They’ve slowly built it up, but she’s spent the first three…four seasons being…sort of an idiot really. Using words the wrong way, or giving them the wrong definitions. That sort of thing. So why now are they making her über smart? You would need such a person to catch A, who is apparently also a genius, but once again, Spencer fills that role. However, what if Spencer is A? You would need to build Hanna up in order to catch Spencer. On top of that, both Troian Bellisario and Ashley Benson know who A is. That’s not conclusive in and of itself, but it’s one more thing to throw on the pile.
1) the idiot of the group is secretly a genius is a very old tired trope. That’s why they are doing it. They are falling into a cliche storyline
2) I choose to believe mona had Hanna’s SAT scores changed so that they could go to the same college.
I dunno, she’s always reminded of a love-child of Brittana. The things Brittany says and the ‘tude Santana says things with.
Hanna is an incredibly well written and complex character without the secret genius bull so please don’t compare her to anything glee related.
I am re-watching it all from the start and Hannah is looking more and more like A. Early on when aria and fitz first start Hannah sees them both in the classroom after the others leave, and she could have convinced Mona to do all that she did.
Maybe she is more than she seems… I’m sure all the liars have reasons they could be A.
Please tell me that hair had glass in it
I’ll just say what I said at AE:
Is it still age-inappropriate if Emily’s 18? I mean how old do you have to be to be a caterer/chef?
And I’ll add that someone over there told me the actress playing the chef is 4 or 5 years younger than Shay
I think the kiln idea worked though.
Caleb would’ve been killed for the heat to have denatured the DNA on the knife (250oC). So. I can guarantee that the kiln did nothing to destroy the evidence.
Except a gas powered kiln can get to 2700 F and steel melts at 2500 F.
Yes but they shut off the kiln before Caleb could be killed so obviously the heat wasn’t on high enough. They did not turn the kiln back on once he was rescued. Plus they didn’t check to see if the knife was still there so it’s probably gone too.
Plus, hello, there are metal racks in the kiln. They’re clearly not going to have the kiln go to a high enough heat to melt metal if they’re storing clay objects on metal racks for baking.
Yes Spencer clearly turns the kiln back on. She asks if it’s still in there, nods and she turns it back on.
The metal racks could be treated. Or a production error but not a writing error.
Judging the show that this is on, I will bet that the knife is not destroyed. And I still think it was a stupid idea in the first place to go through this.
And a kiln slowly heats up. So you have to leave it on for hours.
Hoping Toby doesn’t lose a hand in an unfortunate encounter with a seal.
Oh gosh, the trapped in the kiln scene freaked me out!
This episode was one of the dumbest fucking episodes ever. Everyone kept making the stupidest decisions, and multiple times my girlfriend and I were asking “Why the fuck are we watching this?”
Talia was the only good thing. She is probably going to be Emily’s next kissing friend.
I really liked this episode just for the Emily storyline. Everything else was just par for the course for the girls unfortunately, as much as I loved them. I knew that one or both of them was going to be shut in that kiln the second they brought that idea up.
I have lots of Feelings about this show right now. This is some of them:
– Sometimes I read the comments of recaps with statements such as, “I can only watch this show because of these recaps!” and I’m always like “Come on, these recaps are great, but the show is good too”. WELL, NO LONGER. This show has been going rapidly downhill since the “Ezra is A” letdown. I need these recaps now to get through it, so thanks Heather and commenters! (I would stop watching but I’ve invested so much time! Plus, queer women, and Hanna.)
– I don’t know if it was just the British Netflix version of this show, but did anyone else catch the Tegan and Sara?! It was glorious.(Also enjoyed the Lykke Li song!)
– I am so angry with this show right now, because it has so much potential and it is squandering it all. WHY is it introducing all of these pointless new characters rather than developing the ones it already has? (not just the Liars themselves, but their permanently Out of Town families, and people like Jenna! Noel!) Of course, I love Talia, but still. THEY KILLED OFF MONA AND SHANA COSTUME SHOP AND MAYA FOR THIS?
– Was no one else amused by the “trying to insert cream into grapes” montage?
– Likewise…was it supposed to be hilarious when Spencer, Toby and Caleb convened and Caleb was all “I’ve touched that knife before. I’ve touched it….NUMEROUS TIMES”?
– Sasha Pieterse is a brilliant actress. More of her interacting with characters other than Toby!
– And just generally…I’ve been struggling to keep up with this show for a while, but now it’s getting to point where I can’t even follow the basics. It shouldn’t be this hard, surely?
THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME GET THROUGH THIS POP CULTURAL QUAGMIRE EVERYONE!
They didn’t kill off mona to tell someone else’s story. They killed off mona to tell Monas story. And they are introducing Jonny and talia as short term love interests. They cant exactly do that with the parents. They never introduce side characters to tell that characters story but to further one of the liar’s story. You should know this by now.
Heather, can you please make a timeline for this school year? As far as I understand the school year started with the night of where Emily time travels and ends up in the graveyard, then the Don’t look away kiss, the killing of Nate, the Halloween train, the resurrection of Ali, the killing of: Shana, Mrs D, Mona, Holden, the other cop. Wait did spencer go to Radley and overcome an addiction to speed too?
If I’m right it makes sense that Emily would loose all concept of time and want to visit Paige for spring break two weeks ago.
Emily’s 18 so it’s not that inappropriate? In any case I love angry Emily and I was so confused about everything happening in this episode but apparently there was a 3 month time jump between 5×14 and this one??