But where it gets really weird is, that means this road ends with Jenna, which is just brilliant. The thing that they're afraid of most is the job they have to do in the end, the thing that they have to fix the hardest. The first Thing is the last and scariest Thing. I mean, they had no problem accepting Alison -- who was more repulsive than Jenna could ever be, which is exactly what they liked about her -- so it doesn't really matter that she's a very bad guy. Because that's on her. It is irrelevant. But this part, the part where their psychological and maybe spiritual health is contingent on getting their shit together, that part's on them.

Aria came close when she was Anita -- Anita, with tears pouring down her face for the vulnerability, and the loss, and the fearful brave ugly beautiful terrible humanity of Jenna -- and I don't think it's an accident that the beautiful vase Jenna made came back to her, via Mike. I think it was a message that Aria misread, that read something like:

"If you were able to love Alison DiLaurentis, and it damned you, then you're going to have to find a way to love Jenna Marshall. Because that's what's going to save you."

If I were a vase, I'd probably say something like that. Frankly, I think that's the day Jenna will be able to see again.

Because in order to change anything, you have to be able to look at it as it is, not how we want it to be or how it affects us. Christianity is a good thing in a lot of ways, but it has not done us a favor in at least one way, which is giving our culture a handy tool to divide things easily into Good and Bad. Which is just a shortcut to ignoring, or destroying, or otherwise limiting -- this is why Jenna's eyes are covered; this is what Vivian Darkbloom is in part about -- the things we think are Bad. But you can't change anything until you can see it for what it actually is.

Which is why I love Challenge Day, because it carries at least the hope that by the end of things you'll be able to look at the Bully, or the Slut, or the Fag, or the Bitch, and see: A Person. That no matter what the things are that divide us, the things we have in common will always outweigh and outnumber them. And that most of the time, the thing we share the most in common -- the precious thing, therefore, we need to look at most -- is just our loneliness. That's what puts the Challenge in, and it's what's being Challenged on, Challenge Day: That simple, nasty thing we all have in common.