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For a little bit I thought Holbrook's tantrum at the police station was staged for Hanna's benefit, and then stopping her on the dark deserted highway was a trick to get her to admit to something. Which she did when she revealed that she knew about the contents of the storage locker. But no, he's just another creep. That scene where Talia put her arms around Emily to tie her apron for her was very unsettling. If a relative stranger like Talia surprised me like that, she would have gotten a sharp elbow to the chest. It just came across as way too handsy and agressive, and as I noted last week, makes Talia look like she doesn't have appropriate boundaries. Johnny seems nice, and has a good not-from-Rosewood perspective, but his hipster DB lifestyle puts me off. I don't know if he's competition for Toby or just a devil to tempt Spencer off the path to college. He reminded me of the guitar-playing man-candy Aria hooked up with when visiting some college for a weekend. I liked Spencer's conversation with her mother. They usually have good scenes. I laughed when Spencer said something like "can you remember for 5 seconds what it was like when you were my age?" because I thought, given the actors' age difference, Veronica's response should have been "oh honey, that was like 3 years ago." I liked the A-tag, since this is one of the few times we've seen the PLLs were ahead of A. I'm sure next week A or a minion will steal that tape back, and no one will hae thought to make a copy of it.

I completely agree. Elijah has only "kept this secret" for a few weeks at most, ever since Esther unlocked the Red Door. Hell, I'm not convinced he actually did kill Tatia. At the time Esther revealed the so-called truth, she was tormenting him to try to get him to agree to being swapped out of his vamp body into a rando-human. I figured it was a lie + false memories she made up to help with her case.

I'm kinda hoping that Talia is A's next murder victim. Sure, Emily's love interests getting killed is becoming a cliche, but I really dislike this character. She's known Emily for all of 6 minutes (thanks for that quote, Tanner, I'll be using it a lot now), yet all her conversations with Emily have been way too personal. It gives me a creepy "respects no boundaries" vibe, like we'll visit her apartment in a couple of episodes and find she's built a shrine complete with candles, surreptitiously taken pictures, newspaper clippings, and Emily's discarded hygiene products. Aria / Ezra: still don't care. I wanted to punch her in the throat when they were discussing what Caleb and Spencer found in the storage locker, which might have included Mona's festering corpse stuffed in a barrel, and she immediately changed the subject to her stupid admissions letter. Shut up Aria. Otherwise blah episode. It was completely lacking the snappy dialog and wit of the last few, as evidenced on the PLL Quotes thread. No clever quips from Hanna or Spencer. Dull dull dull.

When she said that I thought to myself "So a character in the story has acknowledged the writers' wibbly-wobbly time line."

I'm trying to remember Finn's reaction when his mother told him about [witch whose name I can't remember who stole his older sister]. I wonder if the writers will make this into a situation where he has to team up with Klaus and Elijah to defeat her because she's an even bigger worser threat. Alternatively, since he's such a lickspittle, he could side with her against them. Either way, I think the writers will do a good job with it.

Josh and Aiden making out on the stairwell... guys, it's a huge compound, I'm sure you could have found an empty room and shirts (at least) could have been removed. Come on, Show, make with the eye candy already! I do like their romance, but it's got some serious problems, mainly how easy it woud be for each to unintentionally kill the other. Even if they figure out the vamp/wolf equivalent of safe sex, there's still the issue of Josh not aging while Aiden is still mortal. More of a long term problem, but still there.

Aria's drama is so contrived I don't care. I'm sure it'll be resolved with her finally confessing to Ezra in some overly dramatic fashion, and he'll have a complete non-reation. "I understand, you just wrote that to get into college, you don't really mean it. Here, lets put bags on our heads and drink overpriced coffee pretentiously". Toby last week: "There are things I can't know!" Toby this week: "What did you and Caleb find!" Shut up Toby. I liked the Marin family drama, but Hanna needs to realize that her mother slept with Jason for a reason. Maybe Ashley's being self-destructive because she doesn't feel like she deserves Ted. Or maybe she's trying to drive Ted away for his own good before Rosewood's atmosphere or water or telluric currents or whatever turn him into a teen-chasing perv. Or maybe (this is my theory) she's realized how bland and uninteresting Ted is and wants to dump him. Also, I don't agree that Ashley needs to tell Ted what happened. If it was a one-time mistake, then she should keep it to herself. Confessing would make her feel better, but would make Ted feel worse. I'm pretty sure I hate the Talia character. She's known Emily for maybe a day and was way out of line giving relationship advice to a total stranger. Emily was letting her hostility show, but really she should have just let into the woman and told her to back off. I've fan-wanked that her catering business isn't a full-fledged enterprise but just a side thing. My aunt used to make wedding cakes as a source of supplemental income, but it wasn't a full-time job. Basically a few steps up from a hobby.

I totally didn't see the Freya reveal coming. Well done, Show! That's her in the coffin, but is she preserved like Esther was back on TVD and going all poltergeist on the house, or is that just her body in the coffin and her ghost is haunting the house? Probably just splitting hairs at this point. One of the things I appreciate about the writing on this show is that they are willing to draw on continuity. Finn was using the same mystical circle on Mikael and Esther that a witch used on Rebekkah last season. (Papa Tunde I think).

Could be. I doubt she was Blond Wig, though, because (for the same reasons Mike wasn't Blond Wig) she's too tall. Mona's assailant wasn't that much bigger than her, and she's tiny. Granted, this show has been really bad about body-doubles not even being close to the right size (e.g., Mona vs Emily in the hothouse). I wonder if she said "lonely" but meant "horny" because she's in a relationship with a minister and he's keeping it chaste.

I agree with that whole-heartedly. I think part of my problem with it is that I'm so used to the Three Act Structure, and it appears that we've been mired in the "protagonist's attempt to resolve the problem initiated by the first turning point, only to find him- or herself in ever worsening situations" part for 2000+ pages. Based on the alleged 7 (or is it 8 now) number of books, things need to start moving towards Act 3 soon. I'm just not seeing much of "They must not only learn new skills but arrive at a higher sense of awareness of who they are and what they are capable of, in order to deal with their predicament, which in turn changes who they are. This is referred to as character development or a character arc. This cannot be achieved alone and they are usually aided and abetted by mentors and co-protagonists." Arya seems in that stage, learning new murder skills. I guess Sansa learning to be Littefinger Jr is also, and maybe Bran turning into a tree counts. Jon learned and grew and was stabbed for it. Dany is decidedly not learning how to be a ruler because few of the lessons she's learned in Meereen are translatable to a completely different culture in Westeros.

Okay, that makes a little more sense. The knife was supposedly buried under all the snow during the (unseen) winter. Incidentally, if Mona was killed on Thanksgiving, and it's 3 months later, it'd be late February, right? Totally light jacket weather, since Pennsylvania is well known for its mild winters. Just ask the Continental soldiers at Valley Forge.

I see that the building inspectors in Rosewood are just as incompetent as the police: a walk-in kiln like that should have some sort of emergency shutoff button inside to prevent just that sort of "accident" from happening. Speaking of incompetent police: why are they just now searching the grounds around Mona's house? Did Tanner get an Anonymous tip that they might find the murder weapon 3 months after the murder? Caleb and Spencer were totally right that it was A setting someone up, but they should have taken the knife to a foundry. Too expensive to shoot on location I guess. Lucky for them that A was being lazy, because I half anticipated that they would be caught while in the process of destroying evidence. The girl who was just recently under suspicion of killing Mona happens to be in possession of a bloody knife: yeah, that doesn't look suspicious at all. Since when does Emily even have a college fund? A couple of seasons ago (which with their timeline means two weeks ago last Thursday), her family was in dire financial straights with A having put a car through their house and Pam losing her job at the police station. Emily was desperately seeking a scholarship at that sorority that Grunwald used to work at, because otherwise she couldn't afford to go to college at all. I'm sorry, I was expecting some continuity on this show. My mistake. Aria drama: I don't care. Is A messing with her, or is it that she's too arty-farty even for east-coast liberal arts colleges to stomach? Wait, I forgot, I don't care. Ezra is such a spineless twerp. He doesn't think Emily is up to the job of catering his party (which she isn't) but rather than confront her directly he just hires her replacement and blindsides her with it when she shows up to work. I liked Hanna telling off Ali, but the scene was so stupid. Ali has no expectation of privacy while in jail, so saying she was going to meet with Cyrus (the guy she fingered as her 2-year-long kidnapper) to discuss their "deal" was just so dumb it took me out of the scene. Then again, Rosewood correctional officers are probably just as incompetent as their police, mental health professionals, high school administrators, building inspectors, etc.

I had to rush to Google to make sure I wasn't being a perv. Thankfully Cody Christian is 20 years old so I don't feel bad at all saying he is smokin. I could totally see Mike being in cahoots with Mona to fake her death. Unfortunately, he's too tall and muscular to be Blonde Wig in Mona's snuff film. I always thought it was Lucas in the wig. The scene we saw from the snuff film didn't show any blood (thankfully; it was disturbing enoug as-is). Presumably the rest of the video shows the gore, so the police should have better evidence that Mona actually is dead. Or did the battery conveniently give out before the actual bloodshed? I'm pretty sure there was blood near the door when the girls found the crime-scene; if Mona was faking it she would have had the bloodshed "happen" out of frame. And underneath would have been a mask of Alison.

Regarding Ali's dream-sequesnce flashback to the two dresses: I assumed the second dress was for the girl who wound up buried in Ali's grave. It was an idication that Mrs. D had been having an affair with her father for a decade, and that it was common for Jessica to give the same gift to Ali that she gave to Bethany. In otherwords, a justification for why they were dressed alike on the night of her murder. So while Bethany and Ali aren't literally twins, Ali's mother treated them as such. One relevant thing did happen: they found that letter proving that Ali knew Bethany. I sincerely hope that they made multiple photocopies, scanned it and stored it on servers located throughout the world, and faxed a copy to Spencer's attorney and her parents, otherwise it went into the fire as soon as everyone was outside looking at A's Christmas lights.

I think the last we saw of Hope she was in the house in Arkansas with Hayley. At least, I don't remember seeing Hayley in any of the subsequent New Orleans-based scenes.

The nice thing about this is that they're not all working together. Sometimes they do, like Cal and Raina working with Hydra, but even then their agendas were at cross-purpose. I think their are gradations to their villainy that make the show more interesting: Hydra: Flat out "take over the world!" villains. Ward: Despicable evil human who is actually pretty directionless, which explains why he's teaming up with... Agent 33: Mind-controlled by someone who is dead, so she's directionless. Also, who knows if or when the mind-control will break Cal: Crazy murderous nutjob Raina: Completely out for herself, but not necessarily evil. Plus, she's achieved her goal by being transformed, so who knows what direction she'll go. Blind guy: No idea what his agenda is, other than to find Skye and Raina. Maybe to kill them, maybe to recruit them, maybe to protect them.

Agreed. Besides, Registration has been addressed already in the X-Men movies. I know, MCU isn't allowed to use the dreaded "M" word, but two of them will be in Age of Ultron so they can't ignore that mutants would be a prevalent target for any type of Supers Registration.

I wonder if they're using the TV show as the origin-story for the Inhumans, so they don't ave to do that in the movie. If you look at the MCU's list of movies in production, pre-production, pre-pre-production, development, announced or just fanstasized about, a lot of them are going to have to include origins. The show can provide a background for what the Inhumans are, then the movie can focus on specific Inhumans without having to go into a lot of detail explaining what the hell they are.

I'm expecting this kind of ending

I'm kind of thinking that Targaryen blood might be necessary but not sufficient. IIRC, Barristan Selmy told Dany a story about her parents in which a woods witch propesied that The Prince That Was Promised would come from the marriage of Aerys & Rhaella. The only surviving decendants of that union are Dany and Jon (most likely). Since the dragon has three heads, we'd need a third: 1. Fake Aegon is actually Real Aegon 2. Tyrion is Aerys's bastard and somehow that counts 3. Yet another undisclosed secret Targaryen bastard, either Rhaegar's or Viserys's secret love child. 4. Dany has a hidden twin sister working in a brothel in Lys. Number 1 would be boring. Number 2, I guess GRRM could quibble on that prophecy: because Aerys was forced to marry his sister whom he didn't love, he wound up raping Joanna. Technically, Aerys & Rhaella's marriage "caused" Tyrion's birth. It'd be a prophecy twist, but one that strains credulity. Number 3 would be really hack writing, like introducing the killer in the last 15 minutes of an Agatha Christie movie. GRRM is already in dangerous territory with Aegon being introduced so late; this would be even worse. Number 4 is fan-ficcy.

I hope that info about Myranda being Fake Arya is wrong, mainly because I think a lot of people would see it as immersion-breaking. Myranda is a grown woman while Arya is still a girl. Even though no one in the North has seen Arya in a couple of years, passing off a 20-something as a 12 year old girl is so implausible that either a) everyone knows she's a fake in which case, what's the point, or b) everyone in the North is really really stupid. Either choice would knock down my suspension of disbelief. Regarding a Branless season: The Producer doth protest too much, methinks. This reminds me of their comment that "don't expect to see white ravens. We looked up and down, and there aren't any in Europe". Cue Episode 2.01 with white ravens. I now fully expect a "holy crap, it's Bran!" cameo at some point.

I totally agree, that was a great episode. I think the show is greatly helped out by the fact they're not having to deal with a stand-alone MCU movie happening during the season. They're free to explore their own plotlines pretty independently. I'm Unsullied regarding the comics, so I'll just take everyone's word for it that it's that city. I will be making a trip to wikipedia shortly though, because now I wonder if they'll tie Agents of SHIELD back to the movies by having one of the Infinity Stones hidden there. It'd save them having to do yet another "bad guy wants the Infinity Stone McGuffin, Superhero [fill in the blank] has to stop him, Thanos makes a cameo to remind the audience that it ties to his mega-arc" movie.

I took it as evidence that Clara treats the Doctor like he's one of her students. That's the kind of thing you say to a child when you want them to develop behavior problems. So she's not just a bad companion; she's also a bad teacher. I wondered what that meant too, until Missy started affecting a really OTT Scottish accent when she was talking to Osgood, then I figured she was the tipster. ETA: Missy's portrayal of the Master really pissed me off. He was never. to use her words, "bananas". Megalomaniac, evil, manipulative, silly sometimes, but never insane. [He typed while giving the side-eye at "The End of Time"]

Was that a retcon? I thought the first Mikaelson kid who died in Europe was a boy. Maybe not. It's definitely a retcon that (s)he didn't die of the plague, but I can accept that since it's not contradicting previous information. Also, while I love the historical background info, it needs a little more Show and a little less Tell. Apparently Esther's greatest ability is the power of exposition. Did Cami know what that knife was she almost stabbed Finn with? I know she took it from her Walk-in Closet of Mystical Objects, but did she know what it would do? I half expected her to jab him with it, and he'd calmly pull it out and explain that it was a letter opener spelled by a witch in the early 20th century who had trouble opening her UPS packages. I'm glad they didn't drag out her not knowing Vincent = Finn, that would have been tedious. Didn't like Oliver, so his death was un-moving. Really don't like Jackson; his scenes with Haley seem to be a competition in wooden acting, with Ansel joining the grove. Despite my nitpicking, I liked this episode. Klaus's huge daddy issues are actually pretty interesting. I enjoyed it when he basically told Ansel to piss off. Sure, Esther said she was afraid of what Mikael would do if he found out about their affair, but at the time Mikael was a plain old mortal and Ansel was a werewolf, so Ansel was a shit-head for going along with her. I also enjoyed the reveal of our next antagonist. Esther really is the poster child for Bad Decision Jeans. i hope Dahlia(?) is something other than yet another witch-back-from-the-dead. Female Rumplestiltskin maybe, with the whole "I'll take your first born child" schtick.

That was fucking awful. The allegedly dramatic rainfall and water ominously rising... oh noes! I was rolling my eyes. Puddles of water are not in the same ballpark as shadows or statues that move when you don't look at them, as far as menace-factor goes. I started taking notes during the episode because I was so bored. Most of them have been covered already. but one question I had: Why did Cyber!Danny drop Clara off in a fucking graveyard? He'd just rescued her from some other Cybermen, and he sets her down in what was basically a Cyber-hatchery. Dumb dumb dumb. When she basically ordered the doctor to come solve her problem despite the fact that, you know, the whole world was in danger, I wanted to punch Clara in the mouth. Seriously, lady? Death and destruction and the end of the human race is at hand, but no, the Doctor has to help you push some buttons. I can't remember when the last time was the Doctor had a solo-male companion. I guess Turlough technically was solo between the time they dropped off Tegan and picked up Peri, which was the next serial. Before that, Jamie and Two?