Pretty Little Liars Recap 503: Coincidences Happen

PLL503-00131

oh sorry i dropped my pen nbd let me bend down real slow like and grab it

Emily does help the creepy stalker fangirl, Sydney, in the locker room by showing her how to figure out how long her stroke length should be by figuring out her wingspan. This is literally referred to as an ape index. I’m going to be honest with you. I just tried this technique and it turns out I’m a negative two. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? I feel really bad for being in the negative.

Regardless of my shortcomings, Paige comes on in and makes the event SO AWKWARD where Paily start a “we’re together” “no we’re not” “we WERE together” “let’s forget about it” kind of convo.

PLL503-00137

Yeah, Sydney, we know each other. We KNOW each other. We BIBLICALLY KNOW each other. Like LESBIANS. Like we’re LESBIANS. We LESBIAN TOGETHER.

Sydney seems important and I can’t put my finger on why. New betrayal for Emily? New love interest for Emily? She does have a strange obsession already.


PLL503-00155

No, Aria, it’s Dark Knight fanfiction, it’s not Batman fanfiction, there’s a fucking difference.

In another kind of strange scene out of nowhere, Aria gives Ali Ezra’s manuscript and acts super annoyed about it. Someone’s a little jelly, perhaps?


PLL503-00160

Hanna’s already bored with this mugging attempt, but she’s trying to appease Emily’s rebel streak.

Hanna and Emily end up back at the Philly apartment they followed Jason to last episode and they speak to the creeper dude outside. Turns out he’s been delivering pizza to people in the building? He confirms Jason was in New York the night Mrs. D was murdered, giving him a pretty solid alibi in not murdering his own mother. But also, what’s going on? Jason went to this place to get clean instead of the rehab place he said he did?


PLL503-00169

Spencer waltzes on into the DiLaurentis house and talks to Jason, who tells her that he’s skipping town soon. I wouldn’t want to live in that house, either, to be honest.

PLL503-00171

Everyone knows that you don’t put the sender’s address until the very last second because what if you just hit send and you’re not totally finished proofreading your email and omg that’s really embarrassing.

She shows him the email from Mrs. D and he acts annoyed about it, but makes it clear that it might be for their father. HMMMMM.


coming_out

becoming_nah

via tumblr

Hanna and Emily road trip back from Philly, and in the car, Hanna asks Emily about coming out. Intern Grace and I were CONVINCED Hanna was about to come out during this part. Emily is really mature in her answer, which was way better than anything I have made up on the spot about coming out. Emily says it isn’t like becoming someone else, it was just who she is. Very well put. Hanna is really working through identity things in this episode, and I like that. She’s over the Queen Bee thing and now she gets to figure out exactly who she is.


PLL503-00195

Oh hey, Ali, did you see my cane? Someone shot me and it’s your fault, so.

Alison shows up to see Ezra and tell him that Aria gave her a copy of Ezra’s book. You remember that? The tell-all book that Ezra was using everyone to get info on about Alison? Mhmm. Ali thinks Ezra left things out of the manuscript on purpose, and he doesn’t deny doing so. What do you think is still left out?


PLL503-00206

Biiiiiiiiiiitch, pleeeeeeeeease.

Hanna confronts Mona in the coffee shop, because Mona knew Ali was alive when the two of them were in glamour boot camp. but Mona makes the excuse that she made Hanna memorable and popular. She asks if anyone even remembers the Hefty Hanna era Hanna anymore, even Hanna?


PLL503-00210

But they look so REAL.

Spencer tells Aria about what Jason told her about trusting their father. She’s still worried that she might have killed the girl in Ali’s grave. She’s not convinced her parents think it wasn’t her. At the same time, she brings up Aria having to see Ezra, which, in reality, would have been kind of miserable. This is the episode of exes, isn’t it? Aria and Fitz, Emily and Paige, Hanna and Mona, Spencer and her memory… it’s awkward feelings all around.

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Hansen

Hansen is the former DIY & Food Editor of Autostraddle.com and likes to spend most days making and cooking and writing. She teaches creative writing at Colorado State University and is pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in her free time.

Hansen has written 189 articles for us.

21 Comments

  1. Use of Teen Girl Squad = amazing. I identified hardcore with Whats-Her-Face as a youth.

    • I feel that. I identified pretty hard with The Ugly One. And not in some kind of self-deprecating way? Just in the “I have a crush on eeeeeevery boy!” kind of way.

      Overcompensating much, baby Hansen?

  2. Emily – You deserve the best of everything.
    Paige – That’s what I had.

    Me – CRYING SO HARD RN GUYS ;______; can they just be happy pls? I really don’t want Emily/Ali to happen!

  3. I didn’t think Hannah was going to come out, but I did think she was going to say that Mona should come out. She def knows that Mona is in love with her, right??

    • Do you think so? I kind of thought Mona was in love with Ali. Then, once again all the trouble in Rosewood can be boiled down to lesbians!

      • I think she’s in love with Ali too. Also I think Hannah and Mona walking down the hall holding hands is Emily’s root. Did you see her gay little face??

      • That scene in the car was making me squeal in anticipation then disappointment. I was convinced either Hanna was going to come out or be like “I think Mona’s been in love with me this whole time.”

        However, dressing Hanna up as Ali is a good reflection of Mona being obsessed with Ali, too. Both work.

        • Exactly. It’s like Ali role play, or something. No matter what, Mona is definitely queer, bisexual, sexually fluid, label-less, not hetero. Like, I refuse to accept otherwise.

          And I do think all trouble in Rosewood will continue to revolve around dyke drama, and I’m mostly okay with it.

        • Everything about the flashbacks with Mona converting Hanna and then having Hanna bring it up with Emily around “coming out” (plus all the other “Mona is uncomfortably obsessed with Hanna/Ali” moments from past episodes) – it’s way too deliberate to be an accident, so I’m convinced that Mona’s sapphism is canon.

  4. Paige didn’t really get super jealous in my opinion. Just protective of her girl, just like Toby and Caleb have been. I mean Ali is the bully who drove her to self harm and thoughts of suicide and the fact that her GIRLFRIEND is more concerned with Ali’s feelings would be a awful blow to anyone. That said, I still have a lot of hope for their relationship down the road, but Emily needs to take the blinders off for real.

    Oh and about this line Hansen, “Do they have queer writers yet?” They have the showrunner Marlene King who is gay, but more relevant to this episode, they have Joseph Dougherty who is an executive producer, writer and director on the show and he wrote this episode. He’s an amazing ally and one of the biggest supporters of Paige and Emily’s relationship. He even writes AU fanfiction for them in his spare time on Kindle Worlds! How many other shows can say the same of their writers? LOL

    http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_lbr_one_browse-bin_0?rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A%21133141011%2Cn%3A6118587011%2Cp_lbr_fan_fiction_universes_browse-bin%3APretty+Little+Liars%2Cp_lbr_one_browse-bin%3AJoseph+Dougherty&bbn=6118587011&ie=UTF8&qid=1403896761&rnid=2272759011&lo=digital-text

      • Yeah, Marlene doesn’t get nearly as much credit for being a succesful lesbian in hollywood as some people do. And I am pretty sure that her being gay is a big reason why this show has avoided so many of the tropes and cliches other TV shows with queer women routinely have. Marlene has no patience for that crap. LOL Also why it has had more queer women over the past five years than any other show on US TV in that time.

  5. hand-holding Hanna and Mona/cut to Hanna asking Emily about coming out/I had to pause the show to die for a bit.

    • I know right I was hyperventilating and freaking out when she said that and I may have gotten my hopes up a bit lol.

    • Loved this recap. I have hope for Emily&Paige as I have liked them from the start . I know it’s crazy but I also like Emison so I would also be stoked if they went a bit down that route. And Hanna and Mona this episode had me freaking out because they sure made it sound a certain way lol. I wonder what they have in store for next week?

    • oh my god i had to pause and rewind to fully process and then when i realized it was not actually headed in that direction i may have yelled at my laptop for a bit. if hanna doesn’t come back with an alternative lifestyle haircut I’m going to be so disappointed though.

  6. Watching PLL stoned is such a delight: that slo-mo hand holding in the hallway was so fucking crazy I had to rewind to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

  7. It is unfair in some sense because paige broke ONE promise to emily and it turned out to be the most unforgivable criminal offense while every other love interest has done much worse like toby being A and ezra’s flirtatious background with alison.

    “she practiced what she was going to say” You’re not a human being if you have never done and felt this before.

  8. Love the recap. Love this especially: “welcome to the hour a week we suspend disbelief”
    Because people take this show way to seriously instead of acknowledging it’s awesomeness.

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