'Pretty Little Liars' Advanced Recap: "Birds of a Feather"

06/27/2012

In the episode's opening, the liars discuss the questions we all want to know the answers to: Is Jenna telling the truth? Is Lucas part of the “A” team? Is Melissa the black swan? Before they can even finish their dessert, Jason DiLaurentis storms in to confront Veronica about how angry he is at her choice to defend Garrett, and he believes there’s another reason she’s taken Garrett’s case. He might as well just have announced to the whole restaurant that Melissa’s the reason because his glare at his half sister tells all. Fed up with the Hastings, he continues hanging his posters offering $50,000 to anyone with information on Alison’s body.

Because Byron has a date with Meredith, it’s a given that Ella must need a man to move on with her life. (Pshh, yeah right.) Aria and Hanna sift through a bunch of old grapes and men with uni-brows online until Ashley Marin suggests a better dating website. They create Ms. Montgomery a profile with the username, “hot mama.” Ella has a mom chat with Ashley about her current social life (or lack thereof), and she surprisingly decides to keep the profile up for a while. I have a feeling that “hot mama” is going to have some responses (and some potential candidates) within the next few episodes! Meanwhile, Emily gets a visit from Maya’s cousin, Nate, who has moved to Rosewood to attend Hollis. They talk and reminisce about Maya, and when Nate tells Emily that he’s thought about transferring because he wants to remember the good times with his cousin, she encourages him to stay.

Hanna’s visits to Radley are driving a wedge between her and Caleb, and it only gets worse after Caleb tells Hanna that he was the one who went to see Mona – since he’s basically the reason her visiting privileges are revoked. Taking matters into her own hands, Hanna sneaks into Radley to get more answers, and she stumbles upon none-other-than Detective Wilden with a court order to speak with Mona. (Okay, the only time I ever want to see Wilden on this show is if he’s wandering around a kitchen in nothing but a towel. I know he’s just doing his job by investigating Alison’s missing remains, but he’s such a jerk in the process. My perfect ending to this show would be the liars doing an “ah-hah, I told you so” dance in front of Wilden when he finds out they aren’t guilty of Ali’s disappearance/murder.) One of the more shocking things this episode is that “A” broadens his/her horizons to cause trouble while traveling… to Montecito. Caleb shows up to talk to Hanna and reveals that his mother was in a car accident, and it seems like someone was trying to run her off the road. Because Hanna’s been pushing Caleb away, and since he really only knows half of what’s going on in her life, he breaks things off with Hanna…and everyone’s heart breaks into a million pieces.

And now for the real drama: the black swan is revealed! Because the liars are not convinced enough to mark Melissa off their “A” list, they take a road trip to her apartment in Philadelphia. The plan is for Spencer to meet Melissa for a movie while Hanna, Emily and Aria search her apartment for clues about exactly when she lost her baby. However, their plan backfires when Melissa shows back up at her apartment unexpectedly, forcing the girls to hide in her closet and my heart to skip a few beats since she almost catches them. After Melissa leaves, they find feathers oddly similar to those from the black swan costume someone was wearing at the masquerade ball. When Spencer confronts her sister, she spills all the beans: 1.) She lost her baby the day after they found Ian’s body – that’s what Melissa wanted to tell Spencer! 2.) She was indeed dressed as the black swan 3.) She was blackmailed into going to the masquerade in the costume to distract Jenna or someone would tell her secret about her fake pregnancy 4.) She hasn’t received any messages since Mona has been locked up at Radley. I mean, she’s not just going to tell her family she’s part of the “A” team, right? Veronica also shares a secret with Spencer; she wants to defend Garrett since his defense team could possibly build a case that makes Melissa look extremely guilty. As if Spencer hasn’t had enough drama for the night, she runs into Detective Wilden who asks how far it is to the Hastings lake house. Grrreeeaaattt.

Who exactly did Jason write that $50,000 check to? More importantly, “A” permits Mona to have visitors again. gAme on.

Sidenote: This episode was very well-written, and we did get some answers! Honestly, I blame MuchMusic for making "Birds of a Feather" less satisfying. Usually, the MM promos are pretty intense and don’t reveal as much, but you could’ve just watched the promo and gotten the gist of this episode. Then again, it's my fault for watching it. So I do solemnly swear never to watch another MuchMusic promo ever again. But despite the revealing promo, where the heck were all of the other characters? Mona and Jenna had HUGE storylines last week, and this week, they're nowhere to be found. As a really big fan of the show, it's hard for me not to like an episode. I liked Birds of a Feather, but I think there are more intense episodes ahead!

SumOlogy: Melissa is the Black Swan, and Detective Wilden is SO annoying.

Grade: C

Leftovers

“If the feather fits…” -Hanna

For a split second, I thought that “A” was about to pull another hit and run on Spencer, and I got all angry and sad at the same time. Instead, it was just Detective Wilden driving around looking for more clues…

“Roger that! – what? We’re on a mission.” -Hanna

“The truth always comes out, Jason. One way or another.” -Spencer

I’m Team Spoby, but Haleb had me very, very emotional during this episode. It hurt my heart to see Hanna AND Caleb crying.

I want more Mona!

I love that the show is getting around to some answers, but I still have a strange feeling that Melissa and Jenna haven’t been telling the whole truth...

What did you think of "Birds of a Feather"? Comment below!

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