Another busy episode of Pretty Little Liars spreads itself too thin in an effort to build anticipation for the S02 finale.
Miss a Review? Episodes 2.01 – 2.02 / 2.03 / 2.04 / 2.05 / 2.06
“Chapter Seventeen: The Bogeyman”: Following an attack at Hell House, Tabby leads the charge in uncovering Bloody Rose’s identity.
Regular readers will recall that “Chapter Fourteen: When A Stranger Calls Back” suffered because Pretty Little Liars tried to service all of its characters and, in the process, wound up giving them nothing. Alas Jenina Kibuka falls into the same trap here: the narrative is stretched thin trying to juggle all of the season’s various plot lines in the lead-up to the finale.
It’s a shame because there’s decent stuff here, if only there was time for it to breathe.
Take, for example:
- Tabby (Chandler Kinney)’s outrage when she discovers she’s being erased from her own story in a whitewashed Hollywood adaptation of the Millwoods Massacre? Interesting!
- Dr. Sullivan (Annabeth Gish) offering a backstory in which Rose Waters (Susan Barnes Walker) confided in her about her imprisoned son Archie, but the doctor didn’t act fast enough and her son Sebastian may have died as revenge? Unexpected!
- Kelly (Mallory Bechtel) discovering that her friend Sandy (Lila Crawford) is actually missing and that her mother Martha (Jennifer Ferrin) may know more than she’s letting on? Promising!
But these are all just tidbits. None of these developments are allowed to germinate because the plot demands that PLL barrel ahead without an opportunity for characters – or the audience – to pause or reflect.
This isn’t a new issue for the show. In fact, it has been a persistent challenge across both of these two revamped seasons, but the relentless need to shoehorn in every.single.character and every.single.plotline here smacks of “oh crap, the finale is next week!” desperation.
The problem is that very little of it lands when the show refuses to give anything longer than a beat or two. Case in point: Faran (Zaria) battling Coach Rhodes (Charlie McElveen) over Stringbean’s dismissal at the pool. Sure it offers Zaria another chance to give us a “fuck yeah” moment as she battles against the patriarchy…but it’s a nothing development that steals away precious run time that could have, I dunno, offered an actual fight scene between Kelly and Bloody Rose at the pool.
The other main issue with “The Bogeyman” is its repeated insistence on cutting away from scenes rather than seeing them through. Kelly’s attack is hinted at, then her body is discovered. That’s a (failed) attempt by director Rob Seidenglanz to create suspense about whether the religious girl is alive or dead. But what about Tabby and Imogen (Bailee Madison) starting to tell Christian (Noah Alexander Gerry) and Johnny (Antonio Cipriano) about the killer hunting them, then simply updating the other girls after school?
Or Jennifer (Ava Capri) telling Noa (Maia Reficco) about Shawn (Alex Aiono) becoming a complete villainous creep out of nowhere and punching a hole in the wall?
Do we need these scenes to fill in the gaps? Arguably not, but too often PLL favours characters telling each other about something as opposed to, you know, actually showing it. This may be a byproduct of having too many characters with too many love interests and therefore too many subplots, but the creative team has yet to crack the best way to structure these episodes in order to balance all of the series’ disparate elements.
Again, too much of this feels like set-up for the finale. As a standalone episode, however, this is all set-up with very little satisfying pay-off. In the grand scheme of things, “The Bogeyman” feels like a springboard to a big finale, but that doesn’t work as its own episode.
Other Observations:
- It’s hard to believe that Mouse (Malia Pyles) sees posts on the SpookySpaghetti message boards threatening to kill Lola (Loretta Ables Sayre), but never even checks on her grandmother. It’s out of character for the series’ most empathetic Liar.
- Speaking of out of character, I don’t believe for a second that Faran would ignore her cell while she and her friends are being targeted by a serial killer. She literally offered to be Tabby’s bodyguard earlier in the episode! It’s fine that the show is exploring a new relationship between her and Greg (Elias Kacavas), but this element rang false.
- Speaking of out of character x2: the Noa/Shawn/Jen stuff continues to be the show’s weakest link. And poorly edited to boot! It legitimately seems as though Jen is lying to Noa because a) Shawn’s never been portrayed as violent (hot-headed, sure, but not violent) until this episode; and b) he seems surprised that Noa is destroying his car with a bat out of the blue. Throw in the fact that in nearly every episodes since she was introduced, the show repeatedly reinforces that Jen liiiiiies and this all felt poorly handled.
- Former Orpheum manager Wes (Derek Klena) returns briefly to announce he’s moving to LA, then later we see his empty apartment. Last week I was sure his body would pop up in the last reel, but the show seems to have put a pin in the character.
- Sidebar: I love the idea of a Horror Noire marathon, but Christian’s suggestion of programming films with Black directors with Black casts and Black Final Girls is…quite small. Unless he didn’t mean that all three criteria had to be met for each title?
- The joke that Ari Aster will direct Sydney Sweeney and Emma Roberts in an adaptation of the Massacre is good in theory, but ultimately doesn’t work. It needs to be either Aster and A24 (ie: an elevated re-telling of a basic slasher) OR whitewashed Sweeney and Roberts (ie: white actresses who are too old to play teenagers). Both simply doesn’t work, which made this joke fall flat.
- So is Kelly actually dead? As much as I like Bechtel, S02 has proven that the show has no idea how to use this character. If she has in fact drowned, at this point it’s just one less character to keep track of.
- Finally, Dr. Sullivan’s disappearance at the graveyard suggests that she could easily be the one attacking Kelly and Faran at the pool. The fact that the episode opens with a list of all of the potential suspects, including the real Rose Waters, Kelly’s mom, Christian (for his mask building skills), or even Chip’s mother suggests that PLL really hasn’t given the Liars – and, by proxy, the audience – enough information to make an informed guess. Who’s your #1 suspect?
Pretty Little Liars: Summer School airs Thursdays on Max