Pretty Little Liars is pushing all the girls to their wits’ end

Oh my God! Was that a major freak out moment at the beginning or what? Thankfully the girls held it together as Ian walked in on them reviewing the video. His face was plastered right in the middle of the laptop; any other person would have taken notice of that immediately. From the opening frame, Pretty Little Liars has me on the edge of my seat every single week.

Just as they are getting ready to go to the police and give them the evidence video, Spencer finds her laptop is missing in her bag. Perhaps Ian saw what they were doing after all, because the only people who have gym locker combinations other than the students are teachers. And Ian is a coach. Great! But, in spite of the fact he and Alison were in that video together, I don’t think he is A. He seems pretty decent most of the time, and it would be hard to pull that off unless he were a really good actor. He seems to fall more to the nice side than the vindictive killer side, and I still think Alison is going to be alive.

Aria’s mom, Ella, brought her old babysitter, Simone, (a small-time published author from New York portrayed by Alona Tal) to work with her English class, and for some reason thought it would be a good idea to introduce her to Ezra. After all, he’s a single good-looking guy. Holly Marie Combs has been so absent I didn’t even remember that she worked at the school. Aria’s going into hyper-drive over the situation, and she’s lucky her friends are there to bail her out. She needn’t worry about Ezra’s feelings for her, although I would have been in the same frame of mind she was during the dance.

It’s not that I don’t like Emily and Maya, but I could care less about this “sending Maya off to juvie camp” storyline. I think I even missed the reason she went — was it because of a tiny bit of pot that Emily’s mom reported to the cops? Just get her back, enmesh her in the storyline and be done with it. But, given the tone of the phone call, it didn’t seem like Maya even wanted to talk to her. Maybe there are plans to write her off the show and find a new girl (or guy?) for Emily. A different girl would force Emily’s mother to realize her heterosexuality wasn’t compromised by Maya, but just because it’s who she is. That could work, now that I think about it.

A has promised Hanna money for every dance she dances with Lucas. When Sean gets upset, she gets a text upping the ante to $500 for every dance with Lucas. I think we’re going to see A make Hanna do a lot of things that might come between she and her friends. Her self esteem is still vulnerable and whatever A makes her do will certainly do more damage to Hanna inside than it will to help her get the money back to keep her mother out of jail. It’s heartbreaking to see her in so much pain, and associating herself with how Alison used to treat others. What an awful feeling that must be for her.

Seriously — this show has so many twists and turns and happy and sad moments it really makes my head spin. In a good way. In the way that I wish it would just spin right into next week!

Other tidbits:

• The bad-boy (didn’t catch his name) who hacks phones and such — hot! More please.
• Have you seen less dancing at a dance-a-thon? Outside the numbers on their back, I have no idea how they would track the number of danced they did.
• Number 32 is A! Did Ella recognize him (based upon the gloves) or not? She didn’t use his name, so I vote no on Ian.
• Spencer’s laptop was back. The video gone, but a photo telling them not to turn their backs…and a shadow following her in the photo.

Clacked by Carissa Pavlica
on Jan 24, 2011 @ 21:51 EST5EDT