Despite all the pressing matters concerning the Liars that carried over from last week’s episode, Emily (Shay Mitchell) still found time to fit some good old-fashioned teenage superficiality into “To Plea or Not to Plea.” It always amazes me that the writers feel the need to disrupt the momentum by squeezing in average girl problems when the Liars are obviously not average. Scrutinizing Aria for her caviler attitude about kissing a boy who’s not Ezra seems like the kind of thing that might be important if you didn’t have a psychopath framing you and your friends for murder. And, to make it even less relevant, Aria and Ezra were all but a conversation away from being old news.
Even more ridiculous still on this episode of Pretty Little Liars was Spencer’s (Troian Bellisario) reaction to everything going on. Frankly, the entire scenario is one of the more far-fetched storylines that the writers have concocted, at least in recent memory. Since Toby (Keegan Allen) joined the police force, complete with an air of mystery around the whole affair, her relationship has been on the rocks. The writers have hammered it in that police, even the ones who seem like they have the best intentions, are not to be trusted. Ergo, Toby is a cop, he can no longer be trusted – naturally, Spencer and her friends being the last ones to catch on to that.
Spencer is typically one of the more logical characters on the show, but tonight’s episode didn’t do anything to showcase that character trait. Like the other Liars, she was overwhelmingly inconsistent. One moment she’s set on putting London behind her and the next she’s off the see Shakespeare on a psuedo-date, and then once again she’s racing home with no consideration for why her mother would be so desperate to keep her away from Rosewood for the time being. Her thought process was clearly compromised in several scenes by her general know-it-all demeanor (err, the alcohol probably didn’t help either). Let’s hope her brain starts working again once she’s stateside.
Pretty Little Liars gave fans a busy episode this week, but there wasn’t very much that moved the story forward.
