Pretty Little Liars S2E12: Do as the Chuckie Doll Says

Let me begin by saying I was warned by a few friends that this mid season finale was extremely confusing.  Lucky for me, they gave me a recap of the most recent episodes in the “previously on Pretty Little Liars…” bit.  The episode then really starts with Hannah, Aria and Spencer sitting in a police station covered in dirt (which I’m sure they’ll get to later, as these writers do a great job of explaining things), and a familiar face comes in to tell them they’re “going down.”  Except, I don’t think I have seen this character since early season one and by midway through the second season I truly have no idea who he is. Given the nature of this show, I am sure you can understand why I lost this character along the twists and turns of a beyond fictional unrealistic plot.  Clearly the writers had the intention of making this a very intense scene, but I spent the whole time trying to figure out who he was and completely missed what he was saying.  I’m gonna go ahead and assume that most of the other viewers did too, so well done writers, really dropped the ball on that one.

I know we previously discussed how annoying of a human being Spencer Hastings is…but I am beginning to have a very serious problem with Mya (Emily’s first of many unrealistically hot lesbian girlfriends).  Does she know how to speak at normal volumes or is she a seductive whisper only kind of girl?

Flash to Spencer and Toby who are discussing if they had a real baby, what would it look like?  First of all…a real baby?  As opposed to what?  A fake baby?  Yeah, there’s only one kind of baby Toby.  Second of all, I will tell you what this baby would look like.  Not the “newborn with a 6-pack” that Spencer has in mind.  I’m thinking more along the lines of a cross between a centaur and a mousey looking female.  Something like this perhaps?

Side note...who in their right mind would do this to a picture of their child???

 ABC Family is really going to have to stop showing pictures of creepy women or choose a new photographer. I just finished seeing the Lying Game’s photo of the MJ look-a-like mom from last night every time I closed my eyes and now I have that awful mug shot looking photo of Dr. Sullivan that was sent to Aria via text.  These pictures are scarring.  Naturally once Aria shows the other girls the message, they also get a LARGE box delivered and automatically assume that Dr. Sullivan’s ear is inside. Yeah, I’m sure that’s what is inside that box.

Not only could they have been less wrong about what was in the box, but the writers took this opportunity to introduce yet another outrageous way this fictional (not physically possible) character of A decided to rule their life.  In which once again, they mindlessly obey, instead of hmm, i don’t know – telling their parents, the police, their mailman, actually any number of options come to mind.  At this point, I don’t even remember what A is ultimately holding over them.  The whole thing is so unreasonably far-fetched.  But back to the point at hand, if you receive a doll in the mail that looks like you and tells you to do something and you unquestionably do it, SEEK HELP.

Wait, but actually we have now experienced three or four shows in the last week that are time jumping.  This episode we went from the present, to twelve hours earlier, to ten hours earlier (aka you could have just let it continue, no time jump needed), to the present, to six hours earlier and this was all in the first 20 minutes.  Time jumping makes your already confusing and ridiculous show even MORE confusing and ridiculous.  And aside from myself and a small group of friends, the average viewing age of this show must be about 13.  Let’s dumb this show down a bit for the masses.  I don’t watch this show because I think there writing is intellectual or for time-bending forms of cliffhangers.  Be true to yourself, Pretty Little Liars.

I would like to also point out to the writers that there could have been over 100 possible digs that Caleb could have made to Hannah’s new step sister in defense of Hannah.  The fact that you had him say “you should know it gives you back fat” only made him gay.  Once again, I can’t even focus on what is actually going on because you have in some way distracted me with offensiveness.

I want you to know that I had to step away during the writing of this post. Because with ten minutes left of the episode, Emily questionably dies and is greeted by an angelic looking Allison in some alternate universe who sits there and strokes Emily’s hair.  When Emily asks who A is, Allison says THE MOST OFFENSIVE THING YET. “I can’t tell you, because only two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”  In case you were confused, yes those are the lyrics to the opening song.  Again, writers we have a problem.  You are only midway through season two, this is NOT the time to play with alternate universes or get bored of writing dialogue.  Get it together.

I actually am very excited because I now know what happens when  you “die.”  You get to choose whether you want to die and know some secrets or go back to Earth and live.  That’s pretty cool and super realistic right?  Emily chose to live, shocker.

So I know that Spencer is supposed to be smart, but come on, I doubt someone in high school is able to find a specific spot in the woods based on some latitude and longitude coordinates given to you on a shovel.  And what town is this based off of that there are “woods” everywhere?  Literally, everywhere.  So convenient that they were able to find this so-called town that is scattered among a national forest to film in and base a show off of.

It was also probably pretty smart for Jenna and Garrett to discuss killing Allison and planting that note on Jason so he thought he did it in the wide open police station.  But hey what do I know?  For those of you concerned that this was the end of the mystery of who killed Allison and who A is…I can almost guarantee my life that it isn’t.  Especially since I get to choose life or death, I am comfortable with putting my life on the line for this.

I was going to say unfortunately this is the last episode of this show for a while that I will get to review.  But actually I would now like to change that to fortunately this is the last episode for a while that I will get to review because truthfully I don’t know if I could handle another episode so soon.  I can only imagine that the “Halloween Special” on October 19th will give me another dose of outrageousness big enough to hold me over until the show returns in early 2012.

Pretty Little Liars Season 2: Ep 1-11

Starring Lucy Hale, Ashley Benson, Shay Mitchell, and Troian Bellasario

Instead of analyzing the entire season episode by episode that have already passed, this post will catch us up over the summer with the highlights and then detail Episode 11 “I must confess”.

..Starting with the fact that this show is literally the most outrageous, impossible plot line on television.  Although there are tons of shows with supernaturals like zombies, or werewolves or vampires, Pretty Little Liars by far takes the cake on unrealistic plot lines.  I wish I could stop watching but somehow it just sucks you in.  This “A” person could not possibly be all the places, and see all things, and cause all the problems that they say he/she does.  And then there’s the fact that, seriously, not one policeman or detective or anyone can figure out who killed their friend and who is sending mysterious phone calls, texts, emails, and plotting to destroy FOUR different people’s lives? Even though I didn’t know what was going on for the entire first season and still the majority of the second, I LOVE this show and I actually cannot stop watching it.

Okay, so here are some brief thoughts about the season thus far:

High school student in no shape or form dress like these four girls do (especially Hannah- your formal dresses and heels are not high school appropriate).  We could also attribute this blatant disregard for factual representation to Adults Playing Teens.  Something screams TELEVISION SHOW when there are four amazingly dressed students among the rest of the grungy, normal high school kids.

One of my biggest problems with the show is most definitely Spencer Hastings, I mean, who writes her lines?  She couldn’t be more annoying.  Like the episode will actually be carrying on decent stories and then Spencer comes along and HAS to accuse someone else of murder (mind you, she is quick to judge seeing as both her and her ‘boyfriend’ were both unfairly accused of this same murder).  I really can’t even deal with any scene involving Spencer whining.

Let’s address the unrealistic nature of the relationship between Aria and Ezra.  Again I’d like to first say they are my favorites, but seriously?  She’s SIXTEEN and he’s a high school teacher turned college professor living in a small town… that would NEVER happen, aside from being really illegal.  Good message being sent to kids everywhere.

Did they cast Toby’s character with the idea in mind that they wanted someone the audience would be afraid of in the first few episodes? Well a note to the casting directors…he is still frightening and centaur looking regardless of the fact that we know he is not the killer.

The guidance counselor/shrink/therapist.  This is not an all-in-one position.  When she comes to the school to give the speech about cyberbulling, it is a clear “lesson” to the audience and also just her airing the girls’ dirty laundry in front of their entire school.  Well done with those confidentiality rules.

Another issue I have with this show that was brought back to my attention in this episode is with Emily being a lesbian.  I have no problem with lesbians, I’m all for gay rights. However, it is unbelievably unrealistic that there would be this many (6 or 7) HOT lesbians at the age of senior in high school all in one town population like 1000.  Beyond unrealistic.  Those things don’t exist.  That’s like saying there are 7 hot guys that live in my building. And by the way…I live in a duplex.

EPISODE 11 “I Must Confess”

There’s nothing like a real mood killer in the scene where Spencer and Toby are full fledged going at it in a car (which is a bit 90′s if you ask me) than seeing shadows spying on you and then having your dad barge out of the house screaming at you.  You would think these kids would learn a few things like stay indoors at night and keep the lights on or go outside only during the day, and lastly don’t trek around in the woods when you know someone is out there for you.  This goes for you too shrink lady.  You’ve now had your office broken into, tapped, and gotten those infamous mysterious phone calls so I think it’s about time you start turning on your lights in your office.

Next, Hannah’s hair in the rehearsal dinner scene looks like one of those sour patch kids from the commercial took a scissor to the back of it but this time wasn’t there to be cute and apologize.

The scene where Spencer flashes back brings me to yet another very serious issue.  First and foremost, the girl who plays Allison (Sasha Pieterse) is actually 14 and yet the way she portrays this dead friend of their’s makes her seem like a 25 year old porn star.  Seriously, who approved the direction of that scene with her being so seductive?

I have very few other thoughts about the episode, except that for some strange reason at the end, the doctor reveals that she knows who “A” is and thinks this is a good idea.  Let me quickly explain why this is NOT a good idea.  First of all, this “mysterious psycho killer torturer” is after anyone that knows any sort of information.  So why you would reveal that you know who “A” is over the telephone seems unintelligent.  Makes sense that the shrink dink went missing immediately after when the girls finally showed up to hear the information.  I just saw the previews for next week…I will DEFINITELY be updating because it seems there are dolls, locked garages with girls passing out from exhaust fumes, secret notes and more mysteries that make no sense!