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PLL doesn't know how to provide useful plot-relevant information until a finale episode. The next 7 episodes will be a tedious repeat of the "I'm not playing the game!" AD forces one of the PLLs to take a turn, new puzzle piece. Lather rinse repeat. Final episode will be crammed with exposition, flashbacks, and the big nonsensical reveal that this entire thing has been a massive computer simulation by Stewie Griffith. Must have more Red Herrings. We should also get a "Melissa Hastings is back and acting shady but it's unrelated to the Game" 1-2 episode arc somewhere around E14 or E15

"Hang on, you don't sound like you smoked 2 packs of Camel unflitereds before lunch -- you're a different Barry!" I would have liked it if her reaction upon seeing who Savitar is echoed the inevitable viewer reaction: "oh, come on!" disbelief.

For a while there it seemed like they might be going down the ST:TNG "Measure of a Man" path with FrameWard's arguments with Simmons regarding real-world vs Framework world, and whether the people in the Framework were independent moral agents (i.e., "alive" for lack of a better term). Like, how do you tell the difference between real and simulated sentience? Ward (and other NPCs) sure look like they could pass the Turing Test. That could make an interesting dilemma after they've escaped: do they turn the Framework off (consigning billions of simulated humans to oblivion), or do they leave it on and maybe try to improve it by making it less of a Hydra hellhole but potentially causing other problems (thus setting themselves up as fallible gods)? I doubt they'll really get into this in much depth, though, because we seem to be headed towards our actiony conclusion full of action. AIDA herself first suggested it. Fitz and Coulson and Robbie were trapped in some other dimension. May and company had the Darkhold, but knew it was too dangerous for a human to read. AIDA volunteered, and used the knowledge to rescue Fitz and Coulson... and to build the light-brain that became the basis for LMDs.

I take back my complaints about Freya's apparent Suddenly Sexual story line -- they're playing it as a no big deal thing, which is a really nice way to handle it. Sort of like Josh: an interesting character who happens to be gay rather than a Gay Character. When Hayley hugged her bear and pulled out a human jawbone I creeped out. What weird parents, hiding THAT in their child's toy. I guess she didn't play with it any more since it was in the storage locker but still, eww. Now that the Mikaelsons know that it's a necessary part of the Hollow's original witch body, the wise thing to do would be burn it, crush it to powder, and spread it all over the Caribbean. Instead, they'll use it to set a trap to capture someone, which will go horribly wrong and result in Hollow!Witch getting reborn. I'm actually a bit disappointed that the seasonal-villain is yet another witch. LOL, i thought the same thing when Hayley told Freya "I think this [i.e., search the storage locker] is something I need to do by myself." In other words, thanks for helping me get in here, now fuck off. Yes! I love how much of a smart ass he is about his position in the pecking order. He knows he's a newbie and that any of the older vamps are going to constantly threaten him and he's "yeah, whatever with the threats, what do you want me to do?" Plus Steven Krueger is smokin' hot.

Listening to the Bustle podcast now and after 10 minutes I had to ask "did you even watch the show?" They think Addison is working for Jenna (no context for why), they thought Hanna was trapped in the woodshop at school. One of them suggested that Noel isn't actually dead, because of the realistic masks. I know the police / coroner's office is utterly incompetent, but surely they did an autopsy on Noel's corpse and would notice the fucking mask.

Listening to the BrosWatchPLLToo podcast -- they're not liking this episode much, mainly because of too many scenes in the highschool (amen) and too many scenes where character have to be coaxed to say what's bothering them. When you've lost the Bros... One joke had me laughing out loud. They're discussing the magical board game: Benji: "What is powering this thing?" Marco: "Guilt, secrets" They were also convinced that Aria was going to visit Nichole and murder her, in various colorful ways including poison, a dagger, piano wire, a magically animated Pigtunia...

I'd chalk it up to the writing. Back when Alison was dead, Sasha P had some good material to work with and did a great job. (My particular favorite was the Veronica flashback where Ali showed up at the Hastings house). Pretty much since she executed the plan for rescuing the girls from the dollhouse, they've written her horribly.

Another thing I found annoying -- the epic battle between Killer Frost and Vibe was a 10 second flashback (while in the future, so flashforward? flashsideways? flashdiagonal?). I noticed some unmotivated camera moves: when Barry was walking-and-talking with Future!Cisco the shot dipped down low to show that something was up with his hands. It was distracting as hell, I actually said aloud "why did they just show his hands; was that product placement for the gloves he's wearing?"

Legends of Tomorrow: "Don't touch your past selves or you're cause a time storm!" ends with dinosaurs in LA. Flash: "Give me a bro-handshake, past self" ends with nada.

They have two pieces of the puzzle, and Spencer has identified them as a map. How hard would it be to get a Google, excuse me, Xter Map and line it up with the pieces so they can fill in the rest of the picture now? Sure, A.D. probably has something specific marked on one piece indicating where they should go, but if they had the map NOW, they could start identifying any creepy abandoned doll hospitals, icecream factories, death-rictus mask makers, etc. that are within the plotted area and set up some cameras. Being Rosewood, that should only mean 20-30 buildings they'd have to monitor.

I think AIDA tipped her hand this week. She's set up the scenario inside the Framework so that Frame!Fitz will develop Project Looking Glass so she can have a fully human body back in the real world. When she says she just fixed one regret in each person's life, she's omitting information. "Leopold regretted that his father wasn't part of his life, so I changed that." Left unsaid is "I also made sure that there weren't any good influences in his life like his mother or Jemma Simmons and turned the world into a Hydra-ran hellhole so he'd turn evil and I could manipulate him into helping me with my ultimate goals." We have a winner! Much better than DupliFitz.

Nah, she'll be another Peter Hastings' daughter.

So now we get to play the guessing game of who in the Framework gets a real body back in the real world! I'm going to say... [rolling some dice]... Mack's daughter. Except that's way too happy-ending and they'll want to set up a plotline for next season (assuming they're renewed). So now I'm going to guess Ophelia/AIDA will get a body and it'll get killed, and Framework!Fitz will also get a body and survive, so next season we can deal with DupliFitz. That might also save Real!Fitz from having to deal with the trauma of his behavior in the Framework, if all the memories go with DupliFitz.

I hope that's the last we'll see of Addison. Thank goodness for Paige, and apparently A.D. who seems to have saved Emily. I thought Aria was either going to lose the ring or accidentally bake it into one of the stuffed mushrooms. I guess not. I really liked Holden in this episode until he started shilling for Ezra. "He's probably more torn up inside than you are". Fuck that, Ezra is a self-absorbed weasel. He probably is torn up inside, but he's only thinking about how this situation effects HIM. He couldn't give a shit that he's hurting Aria. Now he's got an apartment in NYC near Nichole's therapy place? Jenna should be in jail. I don't care what sob story she told, she recklessly pointed a gun at them repeatedly. Don't care about Hanna's dress situation. Though that was nicely shot when she was locked in that cage and having PTSD flashbacks. Spencer needs to piss off with her bad attitude towards Veronica. And as far as selling the house, can you imagine the listing? "4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bath, detached guest house with full amenities, occasional neighbor's corpse in a shallow grave in the back yard."

I rewatched the pilot this weekend, and knowing that now made any of the Aria / Ezra scenes really hard to sit through. I yelled "you creepy perv" at the screen so much that my computer is probably developing a complex.

This caused me some "hey, wait a minute..." fridge logic. They stole the security card from Jack, who at the time was entirely composed of mega-nanobots. I mean, his clothes reformed when he got back to his office after using the swarm for quick transportation. So was the security card real? If so, how was he carrying it as a swarm? If it was reforming along with his clothing after a swarm attack, how did it still work when Mon-El swiped it? I know, I should just turn off my brain (like when watching LoT) but crap like that bugs me.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." This is a really stupid thing to get hung up about, but the swarm looked more like the pieces of Replicators from Stargate SG1. Way to big to be called "nano". I liked Kara and Snapper's interactions for once, but I'm really confused on what the hell the publication is. She called it a magazine, and Snapper said they were working late on tomorrow's cover. Is it a daily magazine? Are there such things? In print, that is. I liked most of the episode, mainly because Lena Luthor always makes a good guest star. She's nice and gray. Her actions tonight were mostly selfless and heroic, but her little speech at the end was kind of unnerving. Then Terri Hatcher showed up and I said "holy shit". I'd like the writers to find some way to keep Wynn but ditch James and Lyra. Maybe the two of them can fall in love and run off to Barbados or something.

Wouldn't surprise me if he was the bio daddy for all the Liars. Ella explaining to Aria: "Honey, it was the 90s. We were all on cocaine. Key parties were pretty much mandatory back then."

Embrace the healing power of "and". Depends. CeCe told that flashback (where Ali told her she might be pregnant) so a) unreliable narrator and b) might have been a lie on Ali's part. She was desperate for money that summer (blackmailing Byron, selling her face to that weird mask maker, etc.) She might have told CeCe "I need $ for an abortion" when she really just wanted the cash for other reasons.

Yeah, Addison can die in a fire and I haven't even seen the episode. She's obviously going to try to blackmail / scheme her way back onto the swim team or some crap. Given how much the PLLs have endured, I hope Emily just laughs in her face. "Amateur. I spent a month locked in a dollhouse being psychologically tortured, do you think I give a shit about anything you say or do?"

I listened to the Bros Watch PLL Too podcast. Benjamin Light is ALL IN on the Twincer theories, like Mary had a second baby right after the extra from Mad Men dropped Spencer in Veronica's lap, so no one knows about her existence. The evidence is: 1. The drunk doctor who delivered Mary's baby said that it was a ward of the state, but tonight's flashback shows that Spencer went to the Hastings immediately after birth. 2. The letter that the game board spit out was worn and folded, like it'd been in someone else's possession (i.e., the unknown twin). 3. When Hanna was being cattle-prodded in 7.01, she imagined Spencer was there comforting her, but the Spencer she imagined didn't have bangs, so (allegedly) that was the Twin there for real, pretending to be Spencer. I can't even with this. Another twin? In the last 10 episodes? It reeks of "introducing the murderer in the last 2 chapters of a mystery novel" hackery. Peter Hastings because why not, he's fathered everyone else on the show so far. Jason would also be a good option, so the baby would be 1/4 Hastings, 1/4 DiLaurentis, and 1/2 Fields. That is until we find out that Peter is Emily's father also. If I did my math right, this would make the baby 1/4 Fields, 1/4 DiLaurentis, 1/2 Hastings and 100% Targaryen.

Yeah, I don't really buy that either, considering three of the six regrets she fixed were pretty innocuous: 1. Mack gets to be with Hope 2. Radcliffe saves the life of whats-her-name (human with a brain tumor that AIDA is modeled after) 3. Mace gets to be an Inhuman So really it's down to three regrets getting fixed resulted in the algorithms creating a crapsack world: May didn't kill the little girl, Fitz was raised by his dad, and Coulson didn't join SHIELD. I'm still betting on the Darkhold being the reals source of this dystopia.

Oh wow, I hadn't pieced that together. I thought Ezra was horrible because he didn't call her for a week, but he's actually more horribly horrible than I realized -- the last communication she got from him was "They didn't find Nicole, I'm headed home" then SILENCE for a week. What An Asshole.

Witches, werewolves, ancient vampire cults, demonic spirits, that's nothing compared to the Feds. "May I speak to Klaus Mikaelson? This is Bill Jones with the IRS. We'd like you to come down to our office - seems you haven't filed a 1040 for the last five years. You were being held prisoner? Okay, we'll need some proof of your incarceration. Bring your receipts." Way too many agents to compel, and there's no way Freya could cast a big enough protection spell.

Not at all. Aria is a pretty wretched person, but I think she'd improve with Jason, Holden (though I'm betting he turns out to be gay so IMK can say "see? we did have a gay male on the show!"), Liam, or even no one for a while (focus on her career kinda thing). The only pairing for Ezra I'll be happy with is him and a grand piano plummeting out of a 4th story window.