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“Pretty Little Liars” recap (3.04) — Cousin Lovin’

I apologize for the lateness and brevity of this recap. I was in Montecito causing car accidents and locking down insane asylum visiting privileges with my mind, and that kind of thing wears a girl out. Just kidding. My laptop died a painful death and after a full day of resuscitation attempts, I had to feed it to the wolves.

The citizens of Rosewood are so happy to have a new establishment for the purposes of eating eats and drinking drinks that everyone in the town has practically moved into Rear Window. The Liars are there debriefing whatever clues they think they pieced together last week, which is to say they’re accusing the usual suspects of being the Black Swan over and over again until Melissa interrupts them to shout, “SPENCER, MOM WANTS TO KNOW IF YOU WANT SOMETHING TO EAT?” And Spencer’s like, “MOM’S STANDING RIGHT BESIDE YOU; WHY CAN’T SHE JUST ASK ME HERSELF.” And Melissa’s like, “BECAUSE SHE HATES YOU, OBVIOUSLY.”

But not as much as she hates Spencer’s half-brother, Jason DiLaurentis, whose eyes have not bored holes into our heads in quite sometime. He smashes through the front window of Rear Window, flaps around some fliers he’s made about how he’s a Skeleton Seeker now, shouts at Veronica for having the nerve to defend Garrett Reynolds, slaps Melissa in the face just because, and exits to the roof, where he flies away in a Black Hawk helicopter he hired just to make an impression. The Liars whip their heads around to stare at Aria because that girl almost went there one time. She’s like, “What? He said he liked my pink hair!”

Back at home, Spencer asks her mom, hypothetically, what would happen if the police discovered that four known teenage troublemakers were hanging around Alison’s grave the night it was robbed. Veronica’s like, “Depends. How many shovels were there? No shovels? Life in prison. At least one shovel, I’d say, death penalty most likely.”

At school, Hanna and Aria make plans to crawl all over each other like a couple of adorable, weirdly dressed puppies you’d see in a magazine called Posh Paw or something. But first, Aria’s got to do something about the fact that her dad has fallen in love with someone else before her mom has even started dating. And of all the truly unbelievable things that happen in the town of Rosewood, that one takes the cake. Like Ella would have any trouble finding a thousand suitors. Like anyone could ever love Byron Montgomery. Aria invites her mom to a mother-daughter dinner to take her mind off of being divorced, but Ella smiles wanly at her, all, “Honey, I moved out of that house to get away from you and your horrible brother and father. No offense, but no thanks.”

No offense taken, you magnificent creature.

Hanna goes to Radley Sanitorium for Mona’s Morning Storytime – today she’s reading Cosmo‘s “50 Ways to Glam-Up a Hoodie” – but a non-Wren-shaped medical professional tells her Mona’s visitation privileges have been revoked due the way she started flipping tables and screaming her head off last week. Don’t worry about it, Mona. Jesus got kicked out of the temple for doing the same thing.

Because she has no parents and is now living in an abandoned boxcar down by the river, Emily has taken a job to support herself. HGH don’t come cheap. Luckily there’s a new restaurant in town that serves millions of creepy men and soon-to-be dead girls every day of the week. Emily’s boss is fabulous. During the episode, you guys were tweeting that he looks like Jean Ralphio, and at first I didn’t see it but now I totally do and that makes him even better. Anyway, he’s like, “Emily, is that your real name? You can do better than that. I’ma help you out right now. Your new name is ‘Uniqua.’ Uniqua, whip up a batch of our signature gluten-free, sugar-free, low-fat biscotti, OK? Also brew some black eye, black tie, breve, and bombón.” Emily is saved from this coffee wanker talk by Mr. Nathan St. Germain, whose arrival was foretold by wetpaint.com lo those many moons ago, and whose presence we have been anticipating like the apocolypose.

As I have written three thousand times by now, I don’t hate this guy for existing, but he is the woorrrrrrsssst now that I know him. You’re not even going to believe the shit that starts coming out of this guy’s mouth in a few minutes. After meeting him, I’m convinced he was always going to be the gateway through which the writers reintroduced Paige into Emily’s life. Like, say you were on a tropical island that sank into the sea. If you just set up residence on another tropical island right away, that’d seem pretty irreverent, wouldn’t it? But say on your way to your new tropical island you have a layover in an unnaturally handsome apocalyptic wasteland. You’ve paid your mourning dues and then you can move back to paradise without any guilt. Right? That’s always been my experience, at least.

Anyway, Nate’s like, “Are you Emily? I recognized you by the photo my dead cousin Maya/my dead ex-girlfriend Maya whom I’ve been stalking since True North sent to me. I go to Hollis College now, since it’s the only school in the country where you can register for classes any old time during the semester.” Emily’s like, “Maya never mentioned that she had a cousin coming to live here.” And Nate goes, “Well, I hadn’t planned on it, but when she died, a vacancy opened up for a single black resident, so here I am!” Nate starts saying “Dead Maya” like three hundred times but is interrupted by Jean Ralphio hollering, “UNIQUA! CUSTOMERS!”

Caleb has procured some Bon Iver tickets for him and Hanna because it’s been far too long since she’s had a nap. (Just kidding! I love Bon Iver! I recapped all of Skins S4 to Bon Iver! Double depression!) Hanna’s like, “Don’t think I don’t appreciate you trying to do nice things for me, but right now my mind is consumed by this mystery hobo who visited Mona at Radley and made her lose her mind even more than normal. She flipped over a card table, Caleb.” Caleb pulls at his shirt collar and clears his throat and goes, “Er, maybe she was just upset because she lost at Solitaire.” Hanna rolls her eyes, says, “Mona doesn’t lose at anything, dumbass.” And so Caleb confesses that he is the mystery hobo who caused the kerfuffle because he was trying to protect Hanna by trying to outwit Mona. (Which, frankly, is as inconceivable as Byron out-dating Ella.) Hanna’s mad. Caleb’s mad. Mona’s mad, but in the British sense of the word.

I, however, am not mad because it’s time for Aria and Hanna’s aforementioned puppy times. They discuss whether or not Aria would tell Ezra if “A” ever came after her for like once in her life, and Aria’s like, “Oh, yes. We process everything.” But then they get to work on a secret online dating profile for Ella. Apparently Aria’s website of choice is shovels.com, the homebase for every Rosewood serial killer. They settle on the username “HotMama” and are seriously about to set Ella up for coffee with an older, balder Ian Thomas when Ashley comes in and saves the day by telling them to try Grindr instead, because sometimes a single mom just wants to get laid.

This episode is even more time travel-y than usual. I don’t know what day it is or what time it is or what season it is. School! Hanna’s! School! Radley! Rear Window! Radley! But right now, it’s school and Spencer watches with concern as Jason tapes his “Missing: Dead Bitch’s Skeleton – $50,000 Reward” posters all over everyone’s lockers. She’s like, “Brother, people are just going to be after the money, you know.” And he’s like, “It won’t matter. Unlike you, I am a human lie-detector.” Spencer understands this to mean: “Unlike you, your sister is the Black Swan.” Because unlike regular human beings, Spencer understands every vaguery to be an accusation.

Nate’s back and he’s got two presents for Emily. One is a photo of herself that Maya sent/he forwarded to himself from her phone from True North. Emily’s like, “Yeah, I hired my best friend’s homeless boyfriend to un-jam the signals between our phones so I could send her that photo so she wouldn’t forget about me. But she did because of Jesus, I think. Or bisexuality.” The second present is a t-shirt imprinted with the I Walked With a Zombie poster from their first date. It’s so sweet and so sad! The music agrees! Emily tenderly, forlornly explains about their first date and jokes that they didn’t see much of the movie. Then Nate, this gross motherf–ker over here, he goes, “Sounds like my kind of date!” She’s talking about your dead cousin, you shitbird! How are you trying to hit on her right now?

These two clowns go on another date to talk about Maya some more, and I suppose this probably really is cathartic for Emily. Nate says that he’s a swimmer too, and I immediately yearn to see Paige kick his ass in an Olympic distance medley. He tells a story about how Maya couldn’t swim, so she learned to canoe so she wouldn’t be left out of anything during family trips to the lake. Too bad we didn’t know about that earlier; she could have helped Hanna drown Lucas. Emily is so happy to hear these Maya stories that she actually forgets how her life is a constant game of Woman vs. Wild, and she smiles. She smiles! Anyway, Nate bounces and leaves his book so he can have another meet-cute with Emily and say more gross things.

Hanna’s back at Radley even though the nurse told her she can’t visit Mona, but guess who can visit Mona? Detective Snape. Hanna is livid, but somebody is there to calm her down and that somebody is Good ol’ Doctor Psychiatrist Veterinarian Cardiothoracic Surgeon Wren. He’s like, “I know it’s hard, dating a guy who doesn’t understand why you want to spend every second of your day hanging out at a mental institution, but if you ever need someone who gets it, well, clearly I do.” Too bad Nate doesn’t have a British accent. Maybe his bullshit would have sounded better.

The Liars meet-up to debrief their individual days spent sleuthing, the result of which is the same as always: Multiple cuddles, zero answers. They decide they should head on up to Philly to search Melissa’s apartment, something they should have done years ago, honestly.

But before we get to that amazing thing, I have to tell you about this amazing thing: Ella and Ashley are on a date! They run into each other at Rear Window and strike up a conversation about normal things, like which of their daughters committed what murders this week. Ella’s like, “I’ve adopted Emily and I love her so much more than I’ve ever loved Aria.” Ashley goes, “Girl, I feel you.” From there, they talk about how far out of their ex-husbands’ leagues they are, and then Ashley fully invites Ella to have a threesome with her, just, “I’m going to have sex with this guy I met online. Want to join us? Or, I could cancel on him, and we could roll around in the bed together?” I know I’m not the only one who got that vibe from this scene, and seriously, just typing about it right now is making my foot tap frantically against the floor. How great would it be if that was a thing? HOW GREAT.

OK, so I think the plan is: Spencer invites Melissa to a movie so the Liars can break into her apartment and rifle through her shit. Of course the Liars don’t wait for Spencer’s signal to break down Melissa’s door with their riot gear, so when Melissa doubles back to get her purse, they’re in big trouble. Trouble made worse by the fact that Hanna keeps bumping into everything and knocking it over. They’re frantically cleaning jelly beans or something off the floor while Melissa slow-mo walks to her door. Clean, walk, clean, walk, clean, walk. It’s very intense. But they get everything cleared away and hide in the closet while Melissa busts in to get her purse and … sling her clothes all around in her closet like she’s investigating something? I don’t know.

She leaves, the Liars find a dress bag from a costume company, and inside is A ROGUE FEATHER. Aria goes, “That bitch stole my whole deal!”

Just so we’re clear, Melissa has been staying at the Hastings’, but she and Spencer drove to Philly to see a movie, and now they’re back at the Hastings’. All in the span of about three minutes. There’s a TARDIS in the barn. Melissa is chopping up vegetables in that sinister way Ian taught her, so Spencer thinks it’s the perfect time to confront her with all sorts of evidence. With the subtlety of a hand grenade, she storms into the kitchen and shouts, “WHEN DID YOU LOSE YOUR BABY IF YOU WERE EVER REALLY PREGNANT AT ALL? WHY WERE YOU DRESSED AS THE BLACK SWAN AT A HIGH SCHOOL DANCE? DO YOU WANT TO PLAY HIDE AND SEEK OR WHAT?”

No time for that, though, because Veronica arrives and would also like an answer to the Black Swan question.

Answers:

Melissa lost her baby the day after Ian’s body was found in one of Rosewood’s seventeen billion rustic barns, and she was going to tell Spencer, but then she found Ian’s cell phone in Spencer’s bag and thought her own sister had been zombie punking her, so she … kept her miscarriage a secret from everyone.

The miscarriage was such a secret, and a sustainable one at that, that when “A” threatened to tell the whole world about it, Melissa said she’d do anything to keep people from knowing. Anything included dressing up as a Black Swan and keeping Jenna busy at the masquerade ball. Which is the most interesting revelation of all, I think. More things about The Jenna Thing. Like maybe she really has been a target and all this time she’s been working alone to try to solve the mystery of “A.” Poor Jenna Thing. A hook-up with Emily Thing would probably make all of us her feel better.

Since everyone else is coming clean and talking in complete sentences, Veronica says the reason she agreed to defend Garrett is that one of people on his witness list is the PI Spencer’s dad hired to find out if Melissa killed Alison. Which is almost as sure a sign of guilt as being found with garden tools.

Hanna decides to come clean to Caleb about the new A. She says out loud, “I’m coming clean!” And immediately receives a text that says, “Think again! — A.” Attached to the text is a photo of a car accident being cleaned up by the Montecito police. Caleb comes running in as Hanna is flipping through the photos; he’s like, “My mom from Montecito was just in a car accident that is being cleaned up by the Montecito police! I was almost an orphan again! Anyway, I received your text that said, ‘Caleb, please come over so we can discuss all the lies of been telling you.’ What’s up?” Hanna lies about the lies because she really can’t deal with anymore people getting hit with cars on her watch. So Caleb breaks up with her. It’s very sad. Very, very, very sad. But also, it’s nice to know other relationships besides Emily’s actually have “A” stakes attached to them.

Ella stops by her old place to pick up some things and let Aria know that she’s not torn out of the frame about Byron dating Meredith again. She’s like, “I appreciate your concern, honey, but I want to be by myself and with Ashley Marin for a while. Just to see.”

Nate stops by Rear Window where Emily is working her third shift of the day. He says he’s thinking about leaving town because all everyone talks about around here is dead girls. Emily’s like, “You get used to it. If you decide to stay, you’ve got a friend in me.” And Nate literally goes, “Maya was a lucky girl.” Was she, Nate? WAS SHE? Let us count the ways Maya was lucky: 1) Moved into a dead girl’s house and found her remains buried in the backyard. 2) Was sent to prison for having one and a half joints in her possession. 3) Was traumatically stalked by a stalker during her sentence at said prison. 4) Was kidnapped from a bus station 5) while trying to run away from her parents who were 6) trying to send her back to prison. 7) Was murdered. A lucky duck indeed! Emily, makeout with him and get it over with. He’s pretty, but damn.

Spencer’s out wandering around in the dark when she spots Jason out in the yard. He’s like, “I’m not writing a check for $50,000 to myself on my front porch, if that’s what you’re wondering.” He tells her he’s stopped the hunt for Ali’s skeleton, and Spencer thinks that’s probably a good idea because A has already reanimated it as a ghost corpse to do her bidding anyway.

In an airport in Montecito, “A” pays $50 for a vodka tonic and reinstates Mona’s visitation privileges from her laptop. You may think this “A” is more powerful that original “A,” but this “A” needs a machine to fly, while Mona Vanderwall could just Apparate into thin air. Team Adrenalized Hyperreality forever.

As you know by now, this Nathan storyline has been quite the bee in bonnet for a lot of AfterEllen readers. We’re going to try to provide for all your processing needs, because that’s how we do. If you want to discuss this episode, have at it in the recap comments. If you want to discuss the finer points of things like romantic attraction vs. sexual attraction, or sexual fluidity, or women-identified experience, or the lesbian continuum, or non-gold star lesbian representation on TV, please feel free to do so in this new forum thread.

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