Monday hailed a big kiss goodbye to those adorable Pretty Little Liars for the first season, and while a few lingering questions were tied up in the finale, there are still so many left unanswered. For instance, where the hell was Emily’s gay storyline?
Admittedly, there were plenty of loose ends regarding the overarching “A” / who killed Regina George wannabe bitchy Alison story, but PLL still managed to incorporate passing moments of all the girls’ love lives into the finale – but with hardly a nod to our little Lesbo Emily. Where was the duel at sunrise on the football field between the lovingly awkward Paige and the pretty but – I believe – manipulative Samara over Emily’s honor? Where was Paige’s epiphany that she couldn’t bear to lose Emily so she’d rather come out while performing a synchronized swimming / aerial number above the pool to a reprise of P!nks “Glitter in the Air?” Why didn’t Maya return from juvie / homosexual rehab to proselytize about the dangers of lesbianism until Emily changes her back in to a raving homo with a single kiss?
Well, none of those things happened. There were a few passing lines about Em’s gayness and one big piece of crappy news for Em fans courtesy of Mama Pam. While the episode didn’t offer much in the way of a gay storyline to recap, I committed to retelling Emily’s story through my personal twisted lens, so here goes…
For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ep 1:22 SPOILERS
The PLL season finale kicks off with the Emily (Shay Mitchell), Aria (Lucy Hale), Spencer (Troian Bellisario) and Hanna (Ashley Benson) crowded around Spence’s computer, since Em found a key that unlocked a storage area that held only Alison’s old lunchbox with a flash drive containing incriminating video of Jenna on it. Whew… that was a lot to say. I do wonder why the girls didn’t just investigate who pays the bill on the storage space but this is much more fun.
Here's a quickie update on Em's love life before moving on to this week's relevant bits…. Last week Em met Samara (Claire Holt), the pretty, if not sycophantic manipulative hippy chick type, and an out and proud member of a local prep school’s Pride organization, who was supposed to be helping Em’s former bully / occasional make-out partner Paige (Lindsey Shaw) come out of the closet. But when Paige bailed on a coffee meeting with Samara, at which Em was supposed to lend support, and Em and Samara ended up in an impromptu coffee date replete with Em fondling Samara’s homemade jewelry, the writing was on the wall for Paige.
Later, Em met Samara at the town festival where Samara was hawking her wares and trying to buy off Emily with the gift of a pair of crappy earrings. When Paige finally did show up Samara alienated her and threw Emily – who spilled too much about Paige’s situation over coffee – under the bus, saying that she knew about Paige’s problems with her dad. Em and Paige exchanged words and Samara came off to Em like a hero.
Toward the end of the episode Em received a text from “A” suggesting that Emily has a type, and that they are blond and dangerous. I was really hoping that awkward Paige would profess her undying love for Emily in such a grand manner Em would ignore the manipulative Samara but it appears Em will learn her lessons the hard way… Or will she?
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The first mention of any of Em’s suitors in the finale arrives when Emily is in her room and receives an email from Samara that reads, “It went well yesterday – Samara.” This vague exchange prompts Emily to giggle, although we have no idea what went well.
Em begins to reply when mama Pam (Nia Peeples) raps at her bedroom door. Before we get to what Pam has to say this has me wondering if teens really email anymore? I thought email had gone the way of fax machines and landlines and used primarily for business. Shouldn’t’ Samara be Tweeting this to Em? Or adding it to a Tumblr page? I’m just trying to keep up with what the kids are doing these days.
Anyway, Em’s expression changes and she shuts down her email with suspicious alacrity. But Pam doesn’t appear to notice. She’s got something on her mind.
“I need to talk to you about something,” Pam says with doom and gloom.
“Is Dad okay?” a concerned Em asks about her father who’s in the military. Talk about your pregnant pauses… Nia Peeples holds on to an expression of fear mixed with grief before crossing to the bed, causing my PLL-viewing buddy and I to scream, “What the fuck happened? Spit it out Pam!” at the TV. And apparently Emily is thinking the same thing.
“Mom!” Emily demands.
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“Yes Honey, he’s fine, he’s fine…” Pam finally offers, likely causing collective sighs of relieve across the country. But after Pam let’s loose with what she’s about to say, PLL fans are going to wish daddy had just simply gotten shipped back to a war zone where he couldn’t’ take his family.
“The extended your dad’s assignment, and he wants us to come to Texas,” Pam says. Well damn. They may not have killed her dad but moving to Texas might just about kill Em – although Sue Ellen’s in Dallas is a kick-ass bar and Em would look great in cowboy boots and a hat doing tequila shooters at the bar -- when she’s 21 of course! I’m not promoting bad behavior here.
“You, you mean for a visit?” Emily asks.
“For a year,” Pam responds. “Look honey, we’ve been separated too long. It’s not good for us.”
“Mom, I get it but…” Em tries to interject.
“You know, maybe this is what we need -- a fresh start,” Pam says, implying that Texas could help cure Emily of her affliction of northeastern lesbianism.
“I don’t need a fresh start. I felt like an outsider for so long. I’m just starting to feel like I belong here,” Em declares.
“You’re 16 Emily. You belong with your family,” Pam says, causing Em to give her a bit of a confused side-eye.
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Later, after a long, hard day of school with no classes but plenty of locker conversations and a busy day of luring Spencer’s creepy brother-in-law Ian into incriminating himself regarding Alison’s murder by blackmailing him into picking up the flash drive at a remote location, Emily arrives home to find Hanna on her front porch.
“I don’t want to be alone,” Hanna tells Em. She’s still mourning the fact that her pretty boy boyfriend Caleb, with whom she cashed in her ‘V-card,' turned out to be a hired dick -- or a dick hired by Jenna -- to hunt down the key to the video that Em eventually found. Still, Caleb fell for Hanna and he’s tried to prove it a few times but her pesky friend Mona keeps cockblocking him.
“How did things get so screwed up?” Hanna asks rhetorically. “Now your mom’s back there packing boxes.”
“Hmm. Maybe we could pack her up,” Em says.
“I thought things were better between you guys,” Hanna says seemingly not at all that moved that Em is getting shipped off to Bush Country – and not the good kind.
“They are,” Emily pauses. “Texas? It’s beauty queen capital of America.”
“That could be a good thing…if that’s your type,” Hanna says encouragingly. But Em assures Hanna that beauty queen is not her type. I’ll hold full judgment until this Samara thing pans out but if we are supposed to believe that Samara and Alison are Em’s type then she definitely goes in for the ‘manipulative blond bitch’ girl. I’m not sure where Maya fits in to this equation, although I’m fairly certain Paige was an anomaly.
“You have a type?” Hanna asks a sheepish Emily. “Okay, just promise me that y’all won’t come back with big hair,” Hanna adds in her best Texas accent.
“I promise,” Em says laughing. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t want to be alone either.” Hanna hooks her arm under Emily’s and lays her head on Em’s shoulder. Cue the sound of collective ‘awwwws’ over best friends with dirty little secrets bonding.
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And that was about it for Em’s personal storyline this week. As for the “A” blackmailing / Alison’s story, here’s a wrap. The girls manage to lure Ian to a secluded spot to drop off a $10,000 blackmail fee. I’m guessing they intend to use it against him and not just blow it at the cosmetics’ counter at the Bloomingdales at the mall where Hanna was pinched for shoplifting early this season.
Meanwhile, Spence and her bitchy sister Melissa, who’s upset because she can’t find her pedo fiancé Ian, are hit by a car while Spence is driving. Spence and Melissa are basically okay but Melissa’s devil spawn baby of Ian’s she’s carrying might not be (I know, it’s not funny to joke about babies but Spencer did it first).
Spence heads back to the church, where Melissa thinks she’s left her phone, while the other are girls are off in the woods waiting for Ian to make the money drop. For protection and to help prove Ian is the culprit they’ve invited their friend and neighbor, the rookie cop Garrett along. What they don’t know is that Garrett’s conspiring with and hooking up with Jenna – a plot point that is not completely sewn up in the finale. All we know is that he can't be trusted.
With some creative crosscutting we see Spence enter the church at the same time a car pulls up to meet the girls. First we see that it’s not Ian but someone Ian paid to drop off the money, and then the door slams shut in the church and Spencer faces off with Ian, the freak who’s been tacitly terrorizing her throughout the season.
Being the smarty pants that she is, Spencer tosses the flash drive containing the video Ian doesn’t want anyone to see across the room. He runs to pick up the drive and Spencer ascends to the bell tower in a nod to Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
As there is nowhere to go but down Ian catches up to Spence and they scuffle in the bell tower while the other girls can hear the entire exchange since Spence had been calling Aria when she dropped her phone. The girls call 911 and Ian gives the compulsory -- someone in this fight is going to die so I may as well spill my guts—confession that he is framing Spence for Alison’s murder and intends to kill Spence and make it look like a suicide. However, I don’t hear an actual confession from Ian that he killed Alison. Wow. This is convoluted and not very well thought out. But who cares. It’s PLL and we suspend belief because it’s so much damned fun to watch.
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Spence and Ian struggle in the bell tower until someone in a hoodie – “A”-- runs by and shoves Ian to his death dangling in the bell tower ropes.
“What are you doing here?” Ian asks before he careens to his death, implying Ian and “A” likely knew each other.
Em, Aria and Hanna arrive to a shaking Spencer. They peer at Ian caught in the ropes and then exit the church arm and arm. But before they get very far the cops stop them to ask what they are trying to pull as the body is gone by the time the cops arrive. That “A” is crafty, a tech genius and fucking strong to have moved the body right out from under the girls’ noses.
The pretty little liars get one more text from “A” before the season ends.
“It’s not over until I say it is. Sleep tight while you can bitches…” “A” writes with particular flair.
With that we bid farewell to the girls until the second season kicks off this June. Don’t be too alarmed about the Em moving to Texas plot. Shay Mitchell’s in the promos for the next season, and I’m pretty sure there would be a lesbian uprising of Dinah-like proportions if ABC Family if they sent her away. However, and I mentioned a few weeks ago that a PLL / Glee mash-up would be a ratings smash, if they do ship Em anywhere I say they send her to McKinley High in Ohio where she and Santana can fall in love belting out the Kelly Clarkson canon at karaoke.
Photo originally posted on Tumblr by user shay-onpll and tagged “THIS IS AMAZING”.
Until season two in June…
Screen grabs by Boo!
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