Pretty Little Liars: Point, Set, Match!

Games, it seems, were the theme for last week’s Pretty Little Liars, and they’re only fun if everyone wants to play.

“Point, Set, Match!”

Games, it seems, were the theme for last week’s Pretty Little Liars, and they’re only fun if everyone wants to play.

The episode began and ended with the looming saga of Hanna’s mother’s stolen money. All Hanna wanted was a box of Pop Tarts, but what she ended up with was a box of lasagna filled with hundred dollar bills. Refusing to let her mother keep the secret, Hanna confronted her and dealt with the fact that she was a raging thief pretty well.

Not that she had much time to think about it thanks to Mona, who decided what her best friend needed was a welcome home party. It’s what every girl wants after someone tries to kill them. The party was the perfect set up for A to get the upper hand yet again.

At the end of the evening, Hanna’s mother arrived home to a trashed house and did what her daughter failed to do – check the lasagna box. Low and behold it was empty, leaving them thinking that they were back to their financial troubles, until Hanna opened a bottle of medication and found her pills replaced with a note and a few hundred dollar bills. With the money, A left a note promising Hanna that if she does what she says, she’ll get it all back.

The girls were too distracted to pay attention to anyone else who could be A because of Noel Kahn. I still doubt that he is A, but he was out to play a few games of his own this week. His good looks and nice attitude can only get him so far when he’s taking his paper to Mr. Fitz and blackmailing him for a higher grade and later pretending as if he had done nothing wrong when Aria confronted him.

The fact that Aria backed off as soon as Noel said that’s not how things happened was a little annoying. Did she doubt Ezra? Or was she just confused? She needs to remember that Ezra is a grown man; smart, intelligent, and pretty secure (except for the fact that he’s breaking the law by dating a teenage girl). Why in the world would he twist the facts about what happened with Noel?

Noel (and seemingly everyone in their high school) also has a past with Ali. In a flashback, we see Noel get dumped because Ali tipped her hand in hopes of getting him with Aria. When the girls asked what she did, she corrects them by saying they all did it. That is one of the many instances where the alarms should have sounded and these girls should have realized that Ali is no friends of theirs. And thanks to her Noel is double scorned by this group.

Hanna wasn’t the only one A played games with this week. She set her sights on Spencer’s boyfriend, who was offered a chance to play professional tennis in Sweden. Spencer’s type A personality reared its ugly head, and she couldn’t understand why he would pass up this opportunity. Don’t get me wrong, I like Spencer, but she should be less judgmental about things. Last week, it was Aria’s relationship with Mr. Fitz, even though Spencer has had her share of older men. And this week it was Alex wanting to work for the summer and earn money for college. That’s a lot better than say stealing a history paper that gets you a college scholarship.

A took their relationship into her own hands by emailing Alex’s confirmation that he would be going to Sweden to play tennis. In a fit of rage, Alex had a dramatic, we’re different people and want different things fit and stalked off as Spencer received a text message cluing her in to A’s game. Did anyone else enjoy that moment as much as I did?

Post party, Spencer headed home and her father informed her that the blood on Toby’s sweater matches Ali’s, but she’s not so convinced he’s the killer anymore. Her suspicions zeroed in on her new brother-in-law when the tag hanging off of his golf clubs reminded her of one that had been on Ali’s after she had supposedly taken a trip to see her grandmother. In the flashback, Ali told the girls she couldn’t tell them everything about her trip right away. Too bad she didn’t because it could possibly have a connection to her killer.

The creepiest game of the week goes to Jenna, who admitted to Toby that she was the one who turned him into the police. This led to the line of the week from Toby, who brushed her advances off by saying, “You can chain me to this porch and I’d still never touch you like that again.” Burrrrn!

Games aside, there were some other great moments in this episode. Maya’s dinner with Emily’s family was sweet and heartbreaking. The scene where her mother hid in the pantry and cried during dinner was heartbreakingly real. Any empathy I felt for her died when she told Emily that it made her sick to her stomach. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this doesn’t become a never-ending issue. I admire and commend this show for being one of the few to do a gay storyline, but I hope they aren’t like others (ahem, Glee) who beat it death.

Lucas stepped up and admitted that he was the one to trash Ali’s memorial, reminding Hannah that, “Dying doesn’t make you a saint. Not when you spent all of junior high being a monster.” Did anyone else find it hard to disagree with him?

And when the episode ended with gloved hands shoving Hanna’s hundred dollar bills into a clown bank, we were shown that clowns can be even creepier than they already are. At least A’s keeping the money safe, right?

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