One trend that I like about this half of the second season of PRETTY LITTLE LIARS is the way that the audience is getting some answers. It felt like everything about the first season and the beginning of year two was about creating more mysteries and piling secrets on top of secrets. But now the secrets are starting to come out, and when some new twist is introduced, it’s not necessarily intended to last until next season. We see that with the hoopla surrounding Lucas.
This week picked up where last episode left off, with Hanna (Ashley Benson) recovering from her little swim after knocking her puppy-dog pal Lucas (Brendan Robinson) into the water. Lucas was feared dead, but viewers know that making Hanna guilty of an actual murder when she’s already suspected in Allison’s demise would undercut the premise of the show (plus, we saw him fish his sneaker out of the drink in the coda to last episode). Hanna quarreled with Caleb (Tyler Blackburn) again, and so Hanna was left at her house, fearing that an angry Lucas was coming for her, while another one of those Rosewood thunderstorms – the kind with lots of wind and thunder and lightning but no rain to muss up hair and makeup – rolled in.
Hanna was alone because Aria (Lucy Hale) set up a date with Holden (Eric McCandless) in hopes of “running into” Ezra (Ian Harding); Emily (Shay Mitchell) went on a date with Maya (Bianca Lawson) – who has been receiving mysterious phone calls of her own; and Spencer (Troian Bellisario) went to Philadelphia to track down clues. Spencer got hold of the visitor log from Jenna’s school for the blind, and proved that Allison lied about visiting Jenna before she disappeared.
Of course Lucas turned out to not be A’s flunky – he’s actually a degenerate gambler who lost not only all of his own money, but all of the cash Caleb gave him to hold. Lucas was MIA because he was off selling his valuable comic books to pay back Caleb. Awwww… He’s not a killer; he’s a Responsible Young Man.
Maya turned out to not be the person Emily thought she was: Maya finally confessed that she hooked up with someone else at sobriety camp. Maya was worried that Emily would hate her for keeping secrets, but Emily was completely understanding and supportive and totally played it off. However, Emily didn’t volunteer the info that she also…er, got involved with someone while Maya was away – nor did she forget all about Paige? Interesting. Is Emily afraid of Maya’s reaction, or is she simply so conditioned to keep secrets now that everything automatically goes in the vault?
I was very impressed with how dogged Spencer was with her investigation. She certainly is the bravest of the Liars, and the most determined. But she’s not all business. Emily not only uncovered key evidence about Jenna, she took time to counsel a distraught Mona (Janel Parrish).
No lines of dialogue stood out to me tonight, but I did catch a nice meta reference in the title. “Let the water hold me down” is a line from a Talking Heads song, “Once in a Lifetime.” One of the common interpretations of David Byrne’s existential lyrics (The refrain includes: “Letting the days go by/ Let the hold me down”) is that the song refers to letting go of the dreamy ideals of one’s youth and embracing the harsh realities of adult life. So does the title refer to Hanna giving up her childhood memories of sweet Lucas and facing the idea that he’s in league with A? Or do the lyrics more clearly refer to Aria and her current status quo with Holden, whom she’s known since his paste-eating days in preschool? Or is the title just a reference to the possibility that Lucas drowned – i.e., the water “held” him down? Hmmm, perhaps the simplest answer is best?
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