SHOWDOWN #2

After the swim meet -- that is, between the swim meet that just ended and the swim meet that is about to start -- the girls have another staged showdown.

Emily: "I want the box! The one that Jason gave Aria! Containing meaningless girl things that only girls would care about!"
Liars: "Fuck you!"
Emily: "Spencer is going to fuck is over! We have to cut a deal with..."
Spencer: "Emily! Don't say that name in front of all of our boyfriends and Officer Garrett!"
Emily: "You forget, we all learned how to keep secrets from the same person."

I have been taught by masters.

Anyway, it's clever because they're using everybody's propaganda to help the story: The fact that Spencer is this Heather Duke taking over the group in Alison's wake, and the idea that she's this horrible heavy that rules with an autistic iron fist; Emily as Perennial Outcast drug using lesbian Christian etc., that of course it was just a matter of time, and so on. (Hanna as bulimic lapdog, I guess. Aria as self-absorbed bystander.)

MONTGOMERY

Ezra: "Listen. [A ton of wussed-out throat-clearing.] I am in love with your daughter."
Aria: "It's all true. We fucked in a bar bathroom. I was totally drunk and thought he was a young boy."
Mike: "Hey guys, what's up?"
Ella: "Mike? You're gonna wanna go upstairs."

Basically Ella sticks with total denial, Byron gets as alpha male as he possibly can, and Aria and Ezra shiver and feel awful. Watch Holly Marie Combs act the hell out of the scene, and then watch Mike punch Ezra in the face and run off.

Aria: "We are like the bad idea people of all time."
Ezra: "My nose!"

PARENTING

Byron: "Wait, did you know our daughter was getting statutory raped?"
Ella: "No! I thought it was Spencer!"
Byron: "Well, that's all right then."
Ella: "I mean maybe this is my fault because I didn't lay out a red carpet for him to grow some nuts that night at the police station. It being a totally inappropriate venue for that conversation, and all, I guess it could have been hard for him to step up."
Byron: "Don't blame the victim! Which is me!"