Pretty Little Liars "Out, Damned Spot" Review: Magic Mike

Pretty Little Liars S05E19: "Out, Damned Spot"

I need to start off by saying how much I like Ezra's reduced role as a local bookman/coffee shop mogul/inadvertent matchmaker so that Pretty Little Liars can spend less time focusing on his creepier qualities. He almost likeable. He generally stays within 15 feet of one of the Brew's several couches. He bumbled his way into the kitchen when Emily and Talia were having a fight. And, when Hanna vented to him about her perfect stepsister, he has the moxie to ask, "Who is Kate?" Oh, Ezra. How quaint. As if you don't have a filebox in a storage locker somewhere that contains the family histories of all the undeaged women you spied on for years.

Actually, Ezra's distance is an interesting development as matters of the heart begin to grow more complicated in Rosewood. Toby is basically a footnote in Spencer's life, as he's often away on "police business" (some sort of bicycle thief I assume, or maybe it's a cat that refuses to stay out of trees and the fire department can't be bothered), and Ezra made his intentions well known to Egg so she can have a stronger yearbook presence. And, of course, Talia is married. Talia is married?

Talia is married. And, considering how things were going in this episode—from Spencer literally falling into Jonny's arms to Andrew, a.k.a. THE OLDEST HIGH SCHOOLER IN THE UNIVERSE, flashing those dimples during Aria's tutoring session, dimples that have definitely seen more than one Bush administration—you were probably assuming, like I was, that she's part of some kind of sham marriage. Perhaps something involving a green card or a family that doesn't approve of same-sex coupling? But no, it's kind of just old-fashioned adultery.

I mean, Talia is married to a guy she loves, but not love-loves, on account of her love-loving women, but it's not like there are any extenuating circumstances keeping her and her husband together. There's no outside pressure. They just stay married while, I would suppose, they both flit around and sleep with whoever they want. They want to stay together because they're best friends. But to my knowledge, there are a lot of best friends who stay together yet have never felt the need to have their bond consecrated by law and God. A lot of best friends just have brunch.

Which leads me to believe there's something else going on. Is Eric a long-lost NAT club member? Is Talia fabricating a backstory, or is this the secret she's been alluding to this whole time? How many hoodies does Talia own? As she and Emily sat on the porch steps, presumably because Emily can't have a serious discussion about her relationships unless she sits a woman down on her stoop (it's why Paige, who knows the drill, would just wait for her there), and discussed the complications of what shouldn't be very complicated, Emily reached out for Talia's hand and said that she's got secrets, too. And they're a whole lot darker than a not-loveless-but-probably-sexless marriage. Like, with dolls and murder and stuff.

A while ago, I mostly jokingly posited that Emily could be involved in the overall A-ness of Rosewood. Kind of like one of those, "Hey, man. What if Emily was totally A?" "That's stupid." "I know, right?" exchanges. And then you think about it a little more. "No, seriously, what if Emily is A?" Because the Liars don't seem to be as protective of their DNA as they should—three of the four have forked over damning evidence on a silver platter. You may have hindsight-justified their attempts to give blood as a noble and dutiful gesture, but in what has become a round-robin of a blame game involving both family members and institutions (we'll get to Mike in a second), donating blood to strangers seems like something that should be avoidable. Again, hindsight justifications would suggest that Ashley probably coerced the girls into attending her blood drive. And that's very cunning. But the Liars have snaked and flaked their way out of much more urgent situations. I'm sure calling a study party wouldn't've been too much.

In any case, Emily didn't donate blood because of the trip to she took Haiti a few months ago (for us normies not on Rosewood time, it's been almost three years). Convenient coincidence? Does A have a soft spot for Em/did A know Em wouldn't be able to surrender her precious blood? Or did Em set the whole thing up? Aria is A, Emily is A, Spencer is A. Hanna's been showing some flashes of shiftiness herself. Again, let's just assume that everyone is A and simply keeping the secret from the rest of the group. That makes the most sense.

The blood is the episode's titular "damned spot, but it was more literal than it was in Macbeth because it was physically planted on Mona's clothes (surprise, surprise—Pretty Little Liars lacks a certain subtlety). And, much like the guilt that Lady Macbeth couldn't seem to rub off, it would be also be hard to wash out of the shirt Mona wore that fateful day. Not only because blood is notoriously hard to clean, but also because the sanguine guilt-insinuation was placed on evidence that doesn't generally make its way to the dry cleaner. Also, I'm guessing that Rosewood isn't exactly on the cutting edge of RNA degradation technology and won't be able to tell the difference between a bloodstain that occurred three months ago and a bloodstain that happened during our Moment of A. That puts Aria, Spencer, and Hanna in quite the pickle, thanks to newly-chiseled-from-granite Mike.

It's probably important to note that the song Mike was listening to while sweating through those bicep curls was "Wolf Like Me" by TV on the Radio, a song about a guy who enjoys being a monster (and palling around with a woman of ill-repute). So, what's he doing? Clearly, he's not a trained A assassin; bumbling into the blood fridge to steal the vials and collecting that fat stack from an ATM in broad daylight seemed like pretty egregious rookie mistakes if he's been working for the Hoodies. Is he Alison's errand boy? Although I find that possibility pretty unlikely, given how devoted he seemed to Mona, how awful Alison was to him during his formative years (interrupting his rounding of the bases with Chubby Hanna probably wasn't great for his self-esteem), and the way he insisted that no one is giving him orders "anymore."

So then why was he meeting with Hank Mahoney a.k.a. Cyrus Petrillo (man, that guy has a gift with last names)? Was the money in the package or the vials? Why does Mike have to be so blatantly shifty? If there's anything we know about this show, it's that when the Liars suspect someone and we witness that person being so so, so shady, that person is probably a halo short of being an angel. So what's up with Mike, man? What is Mona asking him to do from beyond the grave?

"Out, Damned Spot!" was a relatively entertaining episode if not a necessarily plot-thickening one, outside of Mike's shenanigans. What I'll end on is one of the things Aria insisted when talking on the phone with Spencer. There was a time when everyone accused Melissa of being A and Spencer was like, "Nah, I don't think so," but mostly because she didn't think of it first. However, now Spencer is on the "Mike is A or Ali's errand boy, which might mean he's also A" train, and Aria pleaded, "Don't jump to conclusions." Can you imagine what Pretty Little Liars would be if no one jumped to conclusions? What a laughable thing for Aria to suggest. Particularly since, not five minutes later, she was speaking into Mike's sweaty chest, demanding answers, after jumping to so many conclusions. Like, conclusions in exotic locales. Conclusions vacationing in the tropics with their families, never suspecting that they might be violently jumped upon by Aria. Ha. Don't jump to conclusions. This show kills me.

NOTES

– Get a life, Paula.

– A big reason why this episode was entertaining was due to the comic stylings of Spencer Hastings, both in terms of punchlines and rom-comminess. She made the cheesy beginnings of this burgeoning love triangle bearable. But the best part was how much shade she was throwing Emily for taking cookies and brownies without giving blood. Oh, Spencer.

– Is Aria going to attend SCAD for narrative purposes? Because investigating Ali's barrier island connection is the only reason I can see for why she would even apply there. Savannah's a cool town, though. Breakfast at Clary's, hanging out by the river. Just try not to think about the Paula Deen stuff.

– Did Cyrus choose a name for himself based on Harriet Mahoney from 1929's The Broadway Melody? Does anyone in Rosewood watch movies made after 1955? Other than Insidious 2?

– I really hope Ashley's method of "figuring out" Hanna's financial aid isn't a short skirt, high heels, and performing the art of seduction in a bursar's office. There's got to be another way.

– Is Andrew a narc? Is that why he looks so old? He looks like he could be Peter Krause's not-that-much-younger brother. A leap forward in time would benefit no character on this show more than Andrew.

– The most Aria moment of this episode: asking a person who is at best an acquaintance to just borrow their car. "Yeah, can we just take your car? Just for a little bit. We have no idea where we're going to how long we'll be gone. Chances are it'll be an abandoned candy corn factory in which one of us will almost die. That usually takes a while. Probably longer than the batting practice that you just told me you were headed to after you finish helping tutor me out of the goodness of your heart. So. Can we?"

– One more note about Old Man Andrew: Did you see his eyes when Emily said that Mike might be on amphetamines? A new customer now that Spencer's on the straight and narrow!

– I'm not sure what to think about the beauty pageant. Hackneyed sitcom trope, opportunity for social commentary, or a creative way to demonstrate how much Hanna has changed over the years? Probably all three in some capacity.

– Mr. Marin, Father of the Year.

— Your Moment of A: Black gloves dripping Hanna's blood on Mona's shirt while watching the video of Hanna and Caleb preparing to break into the storage facility. One of these days, I'd just like to see A catching up on her stories. Like binge-watching Faking It or something. A has to have some downtime.

What did you think of "Out, Damned Spot"?