REVIEW: Pretty Little Liars' Fifth Episode - 'Reality Bites Me'...

REVIEW: Pretty Little Liars' Fifth Episode - 'Reality Bites Me'...

After last week's brilliant Can You Hear Me Now, our fingers were crossed that Reality Bites Me wouldn't be another To Kill A Mocking Girl. So you can only imagine our joy when it turned out to be the best (yes, even better than CYHMN) PLL ep yet.

There was so much to love about this ep, it's ridiculous. The last time we were this happy about a single episode of a show, was after we watched TVD's tomb ep. God, where to start?

Reality Bites Me takes up the-morning-after-the-night-before, with Emily, Aria and Hanna having stayed  over at Spencer's house after the discovery of the lipstick-enscribed mirror. The four discuss A's letter to Ella (with yet another brilliant line - and one of our favourites from this ep - being delivered by Hanna on discovering that HOMEWRECKER is called Meredith - 'If you're gonna to cheat you might as well do it with someone who deep conditions her hair occasionally')  and - to Aria's dismay - reveal that they think the two won't stay together. After reassuring her that they'd be there for her in this instance (which we loved - the steady re-building of the girls' relationship is one of the things we love most about this show), Hanna receives a text from Jenna A (and it is revealed that the four - cleverly, in our opinion - unblocked A's texts) with a video recorded from - SHOCK, HORROR - inside Spencer's closet as the four discovered the LIPSTICK MIRROR. The girls rush upstairs to find a jungle-red lipstick inside the closet and the scene gives way to the brilliant opening credits.

Despite this great opening scene, though, our favourite storyline of Reality Bites Me still has to be the portrayal of Spencer's relationship with her father. There were just so many aspects to this that we loved - Spencer's persistent defending of her father despite his shady-as-hell behaviour, the introduction of new love interest, Alex (because we all know just how annoying Wren was becoming), Spencer reading her father right near the end of the ep - well written, even better acting; we just loved it all.

It starts with Spencer returning home to find that her father has bought her favourite (well, when she was seven) buttercreams as a reward for her award winning essay. After congratulating her (and delivering another of our favourite lines of RBM - I'm seeing a cagematch between Harvard and Yale'), he invites her to play doubles with him, a client and the client's daughter the next day - which she is more than than happy to do. What we did notice, though - and we're sure you did too - was her father's rejection of her offer to 'volley' with her - because he was just too damn busy (well, he didn't put it quite like that, but it was in essence what he said).

The events that unfolded as a consequence were both thrilling and ramification-having ( :D ); with Spencer's new love interest, Alex  - a caddy at the country club - being introduced very nicely and her father asking her to throw the doubles match. We KNEW there was going to be HELL later, but we just didn't know that our girl would stand up to her father (finally) the way she did. But did he deserve it? Uh, yes! After having someone fired just so he wouldn't look bad in front of a potential client ( because Alex can pick up balls anywhere, right? KMT.), we were BEGGING Spencer to say something. And, boy, did she. Revealing that she'd stolen the award winning essay, followed by one of the greatest OWNED moments we've seen in recent tv history ('because winning's all that matters, right?' YES, GIRL!!) was the best scene in the episode. LIFE at its' best.

Sigh...

Still, that wasn't the only great storyline Reality Bites Me contained. We really liked the further development of the relationtship between Aria and Ezra Fitz. After essentially inviting her to a reading of his writing, Aria was having a great time forgetting her newly-disfuctional family (who we'll discuss shortly) with the help of Ezra and his college-bff, Arty. Only for the latter to go and spoil it all the first chance he gets, with him letting Ezra know (as soon as Aria's back is turned - metaphorically and literally speaking) just how miserably his relationship with 'jailbait' will end - with Aria getting a diploma and Ezra a pink slip and orange jumpsuit.

So, naturally, Ezra was colder than arctic frost with Aria when they got back to his place, coming up with all sorts of (very good, actually) excuses as to why they shouldn't be together (*ahem* jail *ahem*). This just made us love this show even more - the realistic obstacles the writers are taking care to include, the doubts both are having; they truly enhance the storyline.

Luckily (especially for us viewers), our girl, Aria, manages to convince him that they should be together - after he assents that being with her feels right, anyway.

Only for this all to go waste when, after accepting Aria's offer to come over to his the next day and cook 'enhanced macaroni', Ezra picks up her forgotten phone and sees a message from A saying - 'LUCKY YOU, ARIA. OTHER GIRLS HAVE TO DO THEIR HOMEWORK. YOU GET TO DO THE TEACHER'. Naturally, E is pissed as hell - remember, he could go to jail for this. He reminds Aria of that very fact, and drops in a lesser worry, as well - what if the school board were to find out? Aria attempts to tell him that she didn't tell anybody, that A isn't a friend (understatement of the century), but he doesn't believe her and kicks her out without ceremony.

Also appreciated was the reunion of Hanna and Sean - his admission that he had no intention of taking anyone else to Homecoming making us really like him all over again - and the intertwining of her attempt to discover where Jenna disappeared off to in the medical offices after meeting her in the lift (Jenna once again delivering one of our favourite lines of the ep after Hanna leans in to see if the lipstick she's applying is the same as the one the girls found in Spencer's closet- 'like the colour?'). We - and Hanna - finally found out that Jenna has been seeing a psychiatrist - after Hanna manages to get herself mistaken for a new patient, Martha, and is invited right in to his office.

Another noteworthy scene was that where Aria's mother, Ella, reveals to her husband, Byron, that she knows of his affair with HOMEWRECKER. We have loved Holly Marie Combs since the epic Charmed, and this scene reminded us just why that is. She is, without question, one of the best actors on tv right now. When she screamed at Byron about how she 'befriended this woman', when she threw a photo of them together on the floor, when she questioned how he could use Aria to keep his secret from her - for a year! - and asked how he could do that to her, we really felt her pain. This scene was on a par with that between Spencer and her father; and definitely the most emotive of the series yet.

As a whole, this episode was great. We won't bore you with what we didn't like about it, though it shouldn't surprise you that all our least favourite scenes had Emily in them. Without question, Shay Mitchell is the worst actor on PLL, and the lab scene in which she and Toby discuss their love for 'Circus Survive' (or whatever the hell it was called) bored us to tears (indeed, the way she said those very words, killed us softly). We cannot emphasise just how annoying we are finding Toby's dead pan tones, how irritating Shay's complete lack of acting ability is - especially when contrasted with the likes of Ashley and Holly. We would go into depths about Emily's storyline - or lack thereof - and everything we hated about it, but we won't. Just know that it involves Toby inviting her out to The Grill, her (accidentally) standing him up, then E turning up the next day at the same venue to apologise and bring him a CD that she burned for him (Like this isn't the 21st century. Join us, won't you?).

Drier than unbuttered toast.

But, Shay's scenes (and, indeed, her character) aside this was a fantastic episode and it really makes us anticipate tonight's offering.

P.S. What we feel we must note is the brilliant way in which the writers have taken an old, played-out storyline of essay-stealing and turned it into something exciting. We're now wondering if Spencer's dad will say anything about it, whether the truth will come out... Oh, we just canNOT wait for tonight's episode.


VERDICT: 8.62/10


IF YOU WANT TO WATCH ANY SNEAK PEEKS FROM TONIGHT'S EP, CLICK HERE and HERE ...



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