Pretty Little Liars – Join the A team, or disappear

Masquerade! Burning glaces turning heads
Masquerade! Stop and stare at the sea of smiles around you
Masquerade! Seething shadows burning lies
Masquerade! You can fool any friend you ever knew you
Masquerade! Leering satyrs, peering eyes
Masquerade! Run and hide but a face will still pursue you …

– from Andrew Lloyd Weber‘s The Phantom of the Opera

The Season 2 finale of Pretty Little Liars left me just about as breathless as the show is known to do. The one problem? All the good moments were saved for the last 20 minutes. (But isn’t that the way it is with most teen dramas?)

I spent the better part of the past week — make that month — ruminating over who A could be. In a way, no matter who A was, it would be both obvious and a surprise. We knew who the contenders were: Melissa, Jenna, Garrett, Lucas, and Mona. The fact that Mona is discovered to be A — or, at least, one of the As — was fairly satisfying to me, merely because her motive was a bit more subtle than, say, Jenna’s. Mona’s revenge, as well as her personality disorder (as diagnosed by the long-lost Dr. Sullivan), is a lot more self-reflective, as well as representative of the current state of adolescent and teenage social issues.

Bullying is a theme that flashes and glistens throughout each episode of PLL; and we now come to understand that beneath Mona’s glamorous, superficial exterior is a wounded persona. One element that I think took everyone by surprise was how smart and cunning Mona actually is. Her intelligence not only played a huge part in her scheming as A, but also served as her own Achilles’ heel: not only could she not get out of the Liars’ lives, she could not get outside of her own head.

But of course, all is not resolved in Rosewood. Mona’s reference to “The A Team,” not to mention evidence from past episodes, points to the fact that she is not the only omniscient one. (Especially during the end credits, when Mona says weakly, “I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to.” Is she talking to Jenna? Or someone else?) The writers do a good job of leaving us in the lurch once again.

Speaking of which, you know how I said that PLL saved all the action for the last few scenes? Well, even after all of the Mona action at Lookout Point, I could not have prepared myself for the last scene. Watching Emily run in terror toward the house, and discovering that the body that was found was most likely Maya’s — that was a shocking twist that we are all just going to have to wait until the summer premiere to explore.

Some other scenes worth mentioning in this finale:

• On the Liars’ excursion to the the creepy motel: Oh, Hanna! Don’t you know that you should never, ever take a shower during a high-tension scene like the one in the Lost Woods Resort? Have you never watched any of the Friday the 13th movies?! And Emily. Why, after advising Hanna not to shower in the creepy motel, would you run out into the storm all alone in the dark to get a better cell signal?
• On the Ezria coming-out party: Well, they’ve sort of kissed in public before. Remember when Aria ran after Ezra in the parking lot on his last day at Rosewood High? But the thing that most struck (and annoyed) me was the little Twitter trend in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen: #Ezriagoespublic. And I noticed it last week too: #IsMonaA? #IsMelissaA? and so on. Can’t I disconnect for just one minute? I suppose not.
• Did Mona’s reference to her toffee shade of lipstick have any connection to the toffee ice cream that Melissa enjoyed at the beginning of the episode? Or was that merely coincidental?
• So, we know that Jenna can see now. And we are to assume that she could see before she played dumb with Toby and handed page five of the autopsy report into the police? (Plus, we know from a previous episode that she knew that she had page five — she even asked if it was what Garrett was handing her.) Was it her plan all along to turn on Garrett, or was that only after he and Melissa started seeing each other? And furthermore, is Jenna now out for Melissa as well?

• “I know how Jenna Marshall went blind, and so did Garrett. If he killed Alison, it’s because he thought she deserved it.” — Melissa
• “A is all-knowing, alright? It’s like a genius on steroids.” — Hannah
• “They’re all going to be at the party. You know what you need to do.” — Jenna, to A/Mona (presumably)

Clacked by Rachel Blum-Jose
on Mar 19, 2012 @ 22:00 EST5EDT