S01:E07 - Pretty Little Stalker

The seventh episode of Pretty Little Little Liars, titled ‘The Homecoming Hangover’, picks up right after homecoming, of course. Yasemin begins the episode talking about the last week’s cliffhanger ending that was “the best thing ever”. Perhaps another hangover is brewing as the podcast’s new drinking game makes a return. Lacey is overjoyed to see a ‘Go Sharks’ sign only one minute in, whilst Yasemin yet again remains sober for another episode. 

 

The opening scene is of Aria, Spencer and Hanna rightfully panicking, but Yasemin won’t give up a chance to mock them as they’re prancing around the school hallway looking for Emily. Clearly your hosts are not the ones to call when your tinder date turns out to be a potential murderer – “stop being dramatic” is probably not what you’d want to hear upon begging them to call the police. 

 

 Whilst talking about the horror vibes of the opening sequence, Yasemin ponders on more important things, like how Spencer is able to turn the lights on using a switch - “who has light switches in their school?”. Despite the chaos, your hosts continue to mock and laugh at the liars’ worry and fear. The girls eventually decide to do the smart thing and ring Emily, only to find her phone outside the chemistry lab where it’s obvious something bad has gone down. 

 

While the girls are rightly worried for their friends’ safety, Yasemin downplays the seriousness of it all: “It’s like the tiniest bit of blood okay, it’s not like a pool, it’s just like a little bit, you know someone’s been cut, someone isn’t bleeding to death.”   

 

Luckily Emily is alive, but unconscious, in the back of Toby’s car. Your stereotypically white hosts are obviously true crime enthusiasts and are quick to ponder the possibilities that await Emily. “Is he driving to chop her up?” asks Yasemin. To your hosts disappointment, that sort of gruesome stuff doesn’t occur until the later seasons of Pretty Little Liars and obviously Emily survives to be snubbed for favourite liar another week. To cheer her up, there’s a brand new Toyota Corolla in her driveway because of course she won the raffle. “Emily’s in bed, she’s back home already, so it clearly wasn’t that big of a deal” says Lacey, further supporting the fact that Emily is being overdramatic even though she was potentially with Ali’s murderer.  

Like normal friends, Aria and Spencer dish the dirt and tell Emily all about their findings in Toby’s file, whilst insinuating Toby was up to no good with his step sister - but is Jenna a victim here? Emily does not fall for Toby being the villain, pointing out that if he murdered Ali why didn’t he bother to kill her too? 

Your hosts treat you to short, but regular, renditions of a poorly done Southern American accent because clearly Pam Fields gives off that vibe. When Pam is questioned by the police, she gets a shock when the policeman lets slip just who Emily’s real date was to homecoming.  

Pam isn’t the only confused soul as Lacey is equally confused about when the school made a guest-list. Yasemin joins the confused party saying “why would you make a note of their date, would you not just make a note of the list of people who came, you wouldn’t say X came with X.” 

Pam defends Emily against accusations from the police officer that she might be keeping secrets, which makes your hosts fangirl over her even more - “Pam needs a spin off” says Yasemin and Lacey adds that it’s “the sitcom we didn’t know we needed, Good Ol’ Pam”. 

The liars grill Emily on what happened and after revealing she tripped, Aria is adamant Toby was more involved and wants her to go to the police. Spencer is also on the hate Toby train – in reality, she never left - wanting him to go down for murdering Ali and attempting to do the same to Emily (if only he hadn’t failed). Hanna finally shows up, bringing with her the very thing everyone is talking about - the file!  

 

Unlike Aria and Spencer, Hanna is a nice friend and attempts to lighten the mood, but Emily is too distracted by Toby’s file to care - until she remembers Hanna’s comment from homecoming about Maya and confronts her on her intentions. LGBTQ+ ally Hanna reassures Emily that she and the girls will always support her regardless of who she is interested in dating, which makes your hosts reflect on this sincere act of friendship.  

The Spencer and Melissa feud continues as Spencer tries to put the story straight for Alex after Melissa’s sneaky encounter with him at homecoming. After begging for what seems like an eternity, he agrees to a do-over date, but only if he is in control of E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G aka, Spencer's worst nightmare.  

This episode also sees Aria take her own relationship to the next level. Tired of Ezra being the only criminal, she follows in A’s footsteps and tries her hand at stalking. She starts small with a simple voice note - totally normal