Pretty Little Liars - Recap: Dead Girls Can't Smile
As if we didn’t already hate the dentist enough, now A has control over our fillings. Pretty Little Liars continued tonight, and one of the Liars might have just cracked a huge part of the case.
I should seriously try recapping one of these episodes as Alison or Ezra. I’m not sure if I wrote a review as Aria that I’d actually cover any of the plot. Anyway, Episode 17 opened with Emily and Aria crashing Mike Montgomery’s (Cody Allen Christian) pizza party. Needless to say, Aria wasn’t too pleased with her brother to begin with for celebrating their father’s absence with a house party, but she was simply infuriated by the time she stumbled upon Mona checking out the wallpaper in her bedroom. Much of Episode 17 focused on Mike’s budding new relationship with Mona, the girl who ruined his sister’s life for a year and who is probably working her way back into her old gig in the present.
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Aria was peeved to discover this new friendship happening right under her nose, but the next day at school, she saw something that seemed absolutely unforgivable… canoodling! As it turned out, new guidance counselor “Jessie” runs this group therapy session for kids to discuss their issues. I think Mike suffers from some sort of depression. Mona ran Hanna over with her car. You get the drift. In any case, the two clicked, and Mike doesn’t seem to feel like he owes Aria any real explanation. Aria, on the other hand, was dedicated to protecting her younger brother. Stopping by this Jessie character’s office by herself, Aria came to realize that her booming anger wouldn’t earn her any favors with the new guy, the guidance counselor with a Jelly Belly factory in his office. Also, don’t teachers or school officials who go by their first names always sort of seem odd or desperate? To me it’s a no brainer that you wouldn’t by any means encourage this boy to hang out with the girl who ended up in an insane asylum for torturing his older sister. I’m just the hack writing the recap, though. I’m no guidance counselor!
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Mr. Fields (Eric Steinberg) returned home from his duty overseas this week to ensure that his daughter wasn’t coming undone after, you know, that car came crashing through her living room. It’s a little late for that, in my opinion, but Emily’s anxious attitude did little to calm his nerves. When his attempts to quell her fears came up short, he turned to her trusty teacher, Ezra, in order to make sure that Emily has structure and a sense of security. Something about that time she spent sleeping in her dead best friends bedroom seemed to have taken a toll on his daughter. Ezra, now handed the perfect opportunity to trap Emily in some new sadistic scheme, drummed up the idea to give her extra homework to help get her mind off of things. Mr. Fields, you’re clearly the best dad these Liars have among them, but more projects during senior year?! Emily is going to hate you. Also, it’s important to note that Ezra might be enlisting Mona’s help for something, and with Mona now iced out of the Liars’ group, why wouldn’t she bite? A needed to be in too many places during Episode 17.
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Hanna has taken to reading James Patterson crime novels in reverse in order to enhance her mystery solving skills, and, you know what, that’s brilliant. Along Came a Spider over chick flicks? This new Caleb-less Hanna is working wonders on the narrative, which has seemed a little frozen since we discovered that Ezra is something big and awful. Hanna found an unlikely new friend this week in Detective Holbrook (Sean Faris), who amidst apologizing for helping to get her mother unjustly locked up for a few months, manage to offer some more reading suggestions. Finally, a cop who doesn’t seem like a crooked wreck. In the end, Hanna came up with the idea to schedule a dentist appointment at the same office that would have housed Alison’s dental records thanks to a tip from Holbrook. It’s always in the teeth, everybody. If they buried someone else as Alison, then the dental records would have been switched, and someone would have needed to do that manually. Meaning, someone would have scheduled an appointment during the time “Alison’s” body was dug up and analyzed.
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Pretty Little Liars loves to make Spencer look like a haggard nutcase, huh? Not that the above photo is any indication. Troian Bellisario is certainly always game for some tired-eyed fun. Why aren't the other Liars ever exhausted from all of this? Who would ever sleep? This week, fellow mathlete Andrew was brought back in Spencer’s quest for drugs. Yes, Spencer Hastings has turned to some sort of up-all-night medication to juggle studying with her quest to rescue her dead best friend from some murderous stalker. In other news, Andrew has a crush on “that carpenter’s” Liar. Does Toby have stiff competition here? By the way, is Toby’s mom in Alison’s tomb?
Aria also dealt with some more Ezra drama during Episode 17. That horrible Maggie (Larisa Oleynik) rolled back into town sans Malcolm in order to ship some things back to Seattle. Ezra had anticipated a reunion with the little tyke, and his disappointment eventually led the perpetually enraged Aria to lash out at the woman in a one-on-one moment on the street. Eventually, Aria accidentally sent Maggie’s box of fragile goods smashing to the ground before apologizing and bolting. Honestly, I can’t think of a situation where another person could take legal action to see someone else’s child. I could see Ezra suing for his family’s money back, though. Eventually, Aria had one last run-in with Jessie at the café in which she came to consider personal sessions to cope with the stress of her situation. Remember when the Liars used to see an actual therapist?
To recap the second half of Episode 17 of Season 4, three of the Liars had their own encounters with A. First, Emily seemed to be working all night on Ezra’s extra project, all alone, at the school. Is that even legal? While she finished photocopying countless pages, the lights flickered, death metal music blasted over the intercom system, and Emily was sent into a panic, barely making an emergency phone call to her dad. Locked safely for the time being within a storage closet, Emily eventually found herself running out of time. Smashing the window, she hollered down to her father, who promptly shimmied up the gutter pipe to rescue his daughter from the shadowy figure pounding on the door. In the nick of time, Emily was brought safely on the school lawn below while A watched from above. Unfortunately, her father suffered from some serious heart pain in the process. When the ambulance arrived, he revealed the truth behind his visit home. He has some sort of serious heart condition. Meaning, A’s latest scheme could have ended up killing Emily’s dad in the process.
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Spencer, given the cold shoulder from Emily all through Episode 17, took to analyzing another of Ali’s diary stories in an effort to discover her attacker. Eventually, she pieced together the plot like a Mad Lib, leading her straight to a pub called The Hart and The Hunstman. Apparently, Ali had been sharing her literary work with some unknown figure, someone with a bizarre taste for boysenberry pie and beer. It’s not really that odd of a combo, if you ask me. That’s just a very specific type of pie.Hanna did a great job of making her way into the dentist office and covertly sneaking into the file room while her dentist prepped to have a filling redone. Not realizing that Hanna was snooping through the private records, the dentist assumed Marin simply left rather than choosing to endure the waiting process. Hanna, not in turn understanding that she’d been left behind at the dentist after hours, eventually found the pages she needed and hopped back in the chair. Unfortunately, Dr. A was the only one on hand to redo her filling, and before she knew it, Hanna was put under in a flash thanks to some laughing gas.
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Episode 17 closed with the four Liars reconvening at Aria’s house. Emily shared the truth about her father and made up with Spencer in the process. Spencer kept her own massive findings to herself. Hanna, who explained the entire ordeal of how A operated on her mouth, admitted to subsequently feeling as though she’d been “chewing on a sewing kit.” Spencer, with the help of some tweezers and a magnifying glass, yanked the tiniest scroll I’ve ever seen from Hanna’s mouth and read the note out loud.I told you: Dead girls can’t smile. Stop Looking. – AABC Family "Pretty Little Liars"
A ended Episode 17 by lining that poor parrot’s cage with the shredded files from the dentist office that he’d procured from Hanna’s purse while she was under. How does this all tie back to Cape May and Wilden’s boat? Should they fear Ezra or Alison?
What did you think of Pretty Little Liars Season 4 Episode 17, “Bite Your Tongue”? Will Spencer find more proof that Ezra is A, or will he outsmart even her? Are we sure he was out to get Alison? How will Aria handle discovering that this “monster” might be Ezra? What are Mona’s motives with Mike? Can A really control all of their technology, like the GPS in Emily’s car, from anywhere?
Thanks for reading my Recap and Review of Pretty Little Liars Season 4 Episode 17, “Bite Your Tongue”!