One of the strengths of Max’s Pretty Little Liars is how diverse its cast is. This week, that expansive cast of characters is also its downfall as the show is stretched thin with each of our liars’ individual subplots.
Miss a review? Episodes 2.01 – 2.02 / 2.03
S02E04 “Chapter Fourteen: When A Stranger Calls Back”: Still shaken after her encounter with Bloody Rose, Mouse searches for the real Rose Waters while Imogen monitors Dr. Sullivan, Tabby works on a new project, Noa takes a break, and Faran faces an ultimate test.
It’s inevitable that Summer School will have episodes like “Chapter Fourteen: When A Stranger Calls Back”: the show is actively trying to advance both its season-long plot about Bloody Rose Waters while still giving each girl her own storyline and romantic love interest. When there’s five leads (six, if you count Mallory Bechtel‘s Kelly), though, that’s a *ton* of characters to keep track of, which makes it hard for anyone to get enough screen time to do anything.
Case in point: “When A Stranger Calls Back”, in which every single romantic plot line gets some love, but collectively it feels like a random collection of unrelated scenes. We’re still only halfway through the second season, but it’s hard not to feel frustrated when a) the girls are kept apart and b) it feels like nothing much happens.
Let’s round up the various subplots:
Imogen (Bailee Madison) spends the episode looking after Dr. Sullivan (Annabeth Gish) who was “pushed down the stairs” and has a broken leg. Note the air quotes because no one treats Sullivan’s sudden injury with any suspicion, despite the fact that the Liars spend all of their time talking about the mysterious female killer targeting the group.
Imogen’s other story beat is that she’s asked to babysit her daughter. Naturally she gets spooked when the Winters notify her remotely about an open window, so she recruits Johnny (Antonio Cipriano) to stay with her overnight.
Never mind that it makes no sense for her to call a stranger instead of, say, Tabby (Chandler Kinney). Or the fact that Imogen’s distress, which results in her literally brandishing a giant kitchen knife while carrying a baby, is brushed aside for jokey romantic banter. Anything that maneuvers the characters into a position to kiss in the morning, right?
Sorry, but no. This subplot is messy and poorly handled, despite Madison’s (continued) excellent depiction of fear and PTSD.
Tabby, meanwhile, gets an invitation to resubmit her horror short to PIFT but she needs a new film, which means an all-hands on deck 48 hour film shoot at the Orpheum. While the logistics of shutting down Millwood’s sole movie theater without her boss’ consent goes curiously unaddressed, I will give PLL credit where it’s due: the montage of filming “The Projectionist” is fun to watch.
What works even better are the flashbacks to Chip (Carson Rowland) and the impact he once had on Tabby’s creative output. Obviously her memories become opportunities to move forward with Christian (Noah Alexander Gerry), who unconditionally supports and encourages her, but Tabby facing up to the ghost of Chip was a nice moment.
Meanwhile Noa (Maia Reficco) is falling back into bad habits thanks to Jennifer (Ava Capri), who spins a sob story about a financially unsupportive, but extremely wealthy father. Too much of this is predictable and feels out of character for Noa, who just last episode came down on Jen for stealing from their pizza job.
Honestly, this feels like an excuse to get the girls into the pool and nearly make out. It also simultaneously makes Noa’s boyfriend Shawn (Alex Aiono) look like a putz for forking over $2K to bail Jen out when she’s caught for stealing her dad’s Rolex. Blaaaaah.
Meanwhile, Faran (Zaria), who is physically the strongest girl of the bunch, keeps making claims about confronting Bloody Rose head on. Naturally, this means that her Final Girl “test” involves a feat of strength. And while I critiqued Roxanne Benjamin‘s direction last week, the framing and editing of Faran struggling under the weight of a girder for two hours (!) is well staged; it feels dangerous even before Bloody Rose shows up for a knife fight.
One observation about this: the bloody finale is the episode’s sole action sequence, which mimics the same narrative structure as last week’s episode. This suggests PLL is falling into a pattern of ~45 minutes of talk/relationship stuff and then a big climactic action sequence to cap things off.
It’s not terrible, but this format will become predictable if it continues. Let’s shake it up!
Finally, Mouse (Malia Pyles) deliberately puts herself into danger, in part because she feels guilty about possibly “creating” the legend of Bloody Rose on the damn Spooky Spaghetti forums. At least the horror site proves useful in providing Mouse and her boyfriend Ash (Jordan Gonzalez) plenty of locations to seek out the mother in real life.
This segueways into the other half of the climax, as the girls – minus Faran – descend on an unhoused camp to confront Rose. This is badly handled by writer Danielle Iman who has a group of (mostly) privileged girls gang up on a visibly distressed woman, chase her to a bridge, and then watch as she throws herself over.
Presumably this means the real Rose Waters is dead…and yet none of the girls call the police or look even remotely upset. Instead they stroll back to her meagre belongings, rifle through them, and select the relevant documents to further the series’ season-long mystery. Plot-wise, it makes sense to use this to connect Rose to Dr. Sullivan, but from a humanity perspective, this makes our heroines look like monsters.
Here’s hoping that this incident is addressed in a more substantial fashion next week because, if not, oof.
Other Observations:
- It’s never productive to critique horror movie characters for making stupid decisions, but the girls are acting very oddly. Compare their behaviour here to how scared they were during A’s heyday and this is in spite of the fact that Mouse was nearly BBQ’d last week! It’s frustrating to see how cavalier they are about danger and how easy it is for everyone to brush off Mouse’s near death experience, including Mouse herself!
- While I appreciated Ash’s uncomfortable side eye with Mouse suggests they split up, I don’t buy for one second that he would let her go off alone after what just happened. Aside from her misplaced guilt about Bloody Rose, Mouse simply doesn’t act realistically in this episode.
- It’s a little frustrating that a) Faran doesn’t ignore the request to come to the South Side construction site alone (she doesn’t even text the others as a head’s up!) and b) the girls aren’t more concerned when they can’t reach her.
- How are we feeling about Henry (Ben Cook)’s apology? It’s all pool make-outs for a hot second until Kelly reveals he’s been tattling about their relationships woes to the church, so he’s undoubtedly back in the dog house next week.
- Kelly’s attempt to rebel with sexually active boyfriend Greg (Elias Kacavas) comes crashing down when her hypocritical mother, who is schlupping Pastor Malachi on the down low, punishes Kelly Carrie-style. I…just don’t care about this storyline.
- It’s always nice to see Carly Pope, but that brief cameo as Imogen’s mother in the hospital was not it. If anything Imogen’s mommy issues projection just beg for therapy, which one would expect Dr. Sullivan to pick up on!
- Sidebar: really, really, no one is suspicious of Dr. Sullivan and her super convenient injury?! Also: why is she still in the hospital a day after the fall? The US medical system would have patched her up and sent her packing within the hour!
- Finally, considering the number of references that are made to Spooky Spaghetti in an average episode, it’s starting to resemble a drinking game rule, no?
Pretty Little Liars: Summer School airs Thursdays on Max