Pretty Little Liars - S6E1 - Game On, Charles
When we last saw the liars, they were trapped inside Charles’ dollhouse with Mona, who he’d been holding hostage for months.
The premiere pics up with the girls figuring out they are not just trapped, but trapped in the middle of nowhere. Spencer got the closest to Charles and even though he was wearing a mask, she can’t shake the feeling he’s someone she’s known for a long time. Trapped by the electric fence, and with Charles refusing to let them inside, the girls sleep outside in the rain.
He makes them sleep out there for two days. They get so desperate they ponder drinking their own pee. Finally, one morning the doors open and a voice over the loudspeaker instructs them to enter the building again. They decide to do it, but to always stick together.
That lasts about five seconds because A appears in a gas mask and releases a smoke bomb. He snatches Mona while the other girls pass out. They awaken on tables in a morgue - they’re naked, but covered with sheets. Emily is relieved they still have all of their organs. Spencer suspects they were photographed that way so their parents think they’re dead. Then, Mona enters in her candy striper uniform and she’s back to being Ali. She gives the girls juice and aspirin and informs them they’ve only been out a few hours. When the voice tells them to head to their rooms. Mona refuses several times.
They wander into the hallway and Mona eventually gives in saying “it steals you in the night and puts you in the hole if you disobey.” The girls reluctantly go to their rooms, and when the doors shut, they all scream and beg.
But hold up: There was a blond girl, dressed like Ali, who saw them run outside. She remained in her room which is covered in tick marks indicating she’s been there a long time. Who dat?
Three Weeks Later
Alison’s guilty verdict has been overturned and she’s now at home with her father. She holds a press conference on her front lawn and begs Andrew - who the police now believe took the girls and attacked Mona - not to hurt her friends. She makes a point to tell the press she’s going to be home with no police.
It’s a setup. The cops are already in the house and they wait for Andrew to call, and he does. Instead of talking, he plays eerie music as Alison says she’ll meet with him since she’s the one he really wants. He hangs up without speaking, but they’ve traced the call: he’s in the house! Alison is locked in a room while the police search the house. All they find is a dummy in a rocking chair wearing a pig mask. He calls again and just oinks.
When they go to get Alison, she’s gone. Toby notes the song played was one his mother used to play on the piano. It’s a song about an apple tree so they figure it was a message from Andrew telling Alison to meet him at the apple farm, and that’s why she dipped out.
Meanwhile, Alison runs through the woods and meets Caleb and Ezra in a car. They set the whole thing up to get Alison away from the cops so Andrew will really contact her. Toby is in on it and texts them that the cops are all headed for the apple farm. They’re in the clear, for now. Caleb gives Alison a pair of shoes with a tracking device in the heel. Wherever Andrew takes her, they’ll be a few seconds behind.
At the Dollhouse
The girls are slipped food through an opening in their doors, and they assume it’s Mona, but it’s not. It’s the mystery blond in Alison’s clothes. She covers her ears against their pleas and runs off.
The girls exits their rooms as the voice over the loudspeaker tells them to go to Alison’s room. Something has happened they won’t talk about. I suspect they all might be traumatized by Aria’s haircut with red streaks. Seriously, what’s up with that season one look?
In Alison’s room, they find boxes of her stuff from home, and a newspaper clipping about her conviction being overturned. They deduce Alison will be joining them for real and wonder what that means for Mona, who no one has seen. I’m not sure why they “figured it out” since the voice on the loudspeaker said to go to Alison’s room to prepare for the arrival, but okay.
Mona is being kept at the bottom of a well, Silence of the Lambs-style. Charles (in a dark hoodie) appears and shines a flashlight in her face. She begs to be let out and promises she’ll be a good Ali. He ignores her cries and leaves.
How many Alisons does this guy need? Now he’s just being greedy.
Keystone Cops
While the cops watch the news footage from Ali’s press conference, they notice a man who could be Andrew in the background. Tanner calls in the partial plate they’re able to get because computers work differently on TV. Also, they know no one’s at the apple farm, and Tanner side-eyes the hell out of Toby because she knows he’s involved. Oh, also of note: The news crawl reveals Radley has been shut down and sold. They get a hit on the partial plate and learn the car was stolen, but last spotted by the state park.
Into the Woods
Ali gets into a car left for her by A and follows the GPS instructions. The guys follow.
At the dollhouse, the girls find a lot of their personal belongings in their “rooms.” They realize Charles has been planning to bring them there all along. Hanna breaks down over an article she finds which states her mother became physically ill after she was abducted and had to be taken to the hospital.
Spencer is fed up, and whispers they’re getting out of the dollhouse that night. She uses an Etch-a-Sketch to tell the liars “Charles is a DiLaurentis.”
Ali’s car runs out of gas just as she arrives at her destination. Charles has thought of everything! She has no cell service and uses road assistance in the car - but that’s Charles too and he tells her she’ll find what she needs in the trunk of the car. By the time Caleb and Ezra find the car, Alison is gone. But they note she was told to change her clothes - into the clothes she wore the night she “died” - and she left the shoes pointed in the direction she went. They follow her into the woods.
Game on, Charles
When the generator does its nightly shut down, the girls race to a room Spencer believes has a secret passage to Charles’ vault. She’s right, but he knows they’re out of their rooms. As sirens blare, the girls find the hidden passage and use it to enter the room where Spencer looked at those home movies. While he watches from his surveillance room, the girls begin to burn Charles’ film and stuffed animals. At the same time, Alison has wandered onto the property. Looks like Charles has a decision to make: scoop up Alison or stop the girls from destroying his childhood memories.
Ali nearly shits herself when she hears a noise in the woods, but it’s just Caleb and Ezra. They decide it’s been a wild goose chase and they leave, missing smoke coming from a grate in the ground.
The fire starts to spread in the room and the girls briefly wonder if Charles is even watching. So as not to burn to death in the room, the girl pulls down a heavy curtain to use it on the flames, and it reveals Charles (in a hoodie with a mask covering his face) watching them through a window.
They toss more of his personal items into the fire and he’s had enough. He pulls a fire alarm which triggers the sprinklers and the girls run in search of Mona. In the woods, Alison hears the alarm and they go back to grate and this time see the smoke. Ezra spots more smoke coming from a structure hidden by vines.
Inside, the girls find Mona in the well and help her out. They make it to the door where Ezra, Caleb, and Ali are working to open it from the other side. They finally do, and everyone is reunited just as the cops arrive. Toby tells Spencer they know A is Andrew, and for some reason she doesn’t tell him he’s really Charles DiLaurentis.
The cops find the other girl inside, trapped in a room, also dressed like Alison. She says her name is Sarah Harvey and she’s been missing since Ali’s disappearance. Emily asks Alison who Charles DiLaurentis is, but she doesn’t answer.
She probably don’t know either! This damn show.
Overall Thoughts:
- What happened in those three weeks that the girls don’t want to talk about?
- Aria mentioned she was forced to sign a welcome card for Alison, but the other girls change the subject and don’t reveal whether they were made to do the same. We see they were, though, when Alison finds the signed card in the trunk of the car.
- Is Charles really Andrew? I hope not because that is too damn simple and obvious. I’m hoping it’s Jason’s twin.
- Why do the cops suspect Andrew? Did I miss something? (NOTE: Duh. They said he went missing at the same time the girls were taken so that’s why he’s a suspect. I guess they got a warrant to go through his stuff and found that journal Tanner was thumbing through where he wrote all that misogynistic stuff.)
