TV Recap: A Pretty Little Liars Christmas

[[Warning: this article contains spoiler content regarding the most recent episode of “Pretty Little Liars”]]

 

 

The first ever “Pretty Little Liars Christmas” special, called A Pretty Little Liars Christmas, aired Tuesday night. The episode was filled with inter-textual references and had several significant revelations for the rest of the season that does not start again until Jan. 6.

The episode opens with the liars walking through the Christmas decorated streets of Rosewood. The liars discuss a Christmas ball that Allison is hosting. By the way, how does she have enough money to throw her own ball? A lawyer stumbles upon the liars and indicates that the now deceased Mona asked for a letter to be delivered 30 days after her death. The girls read the letter as a Mona voiceover starts playing, and the letter lays out secret hiding places Allison has in her home. The letter was signed M because A was getting old.

Allison wakes up and sees her dead mother at her bedroom door, as part of an allusion to the ghosts in AChristmas Carol. Allison walks downstairs and enters into a flashback with a younger Allison on Christmas morning. Then a pale-faced ghost Mona also shows up and indicates things will not be pretty. The young Allison finds her two dress gifts hidden in the piano. Her mother comes in and explains to younger Allison that she has to tell her father that there was only one dress, as the other one was for Bethany whose father Allison’s mother is having an affair with. This complex lie was apparently a prelude to Allison becoming a notorious liar.

After scenes of a Rear Window allusion with Tobey’s broken leg and caroling at a nursing home called “Shady Days,” the Ali-thrown ball begins. Allison enters the ball with presumably her army mentioned in previous episodes. Of course the members of this Ali army are masked, which this show has an obsession with. Someone in a mysterious white hood shows up at the ball, which is interesting considering who wore the red hood in season 4. Aria finds Allison kissing someone in a Santa Claus outfit.

Later, Detective Holbrook, wearing a similar costume, which is an interesting coincidence, approaches Aria and makes several cryptic statements. Allison meets up with the mysterious white hood figure, which turns out to be former red hood CeCe Drake.

Hanna and Spencer were able to sneak into Allison’s house while the other liars stayed at the ball with Allison. In Ali’s creepy dark home, Hanna stumbles upon a passport with the name Holly Varjek on it. Spencer realizes this means Allison wants get out of Rosewood. Always smart, Spencer knows this is related to a Breakfast at Tiffany’s character, and she is quickly able to figure out Ali was communicating with someone through the classifieds she found.

It is discovered that Ali might have been able to get CeCe out of the country because Holbrook assisted. Then Holbrook starts following presumably Ali and the hooded CeCe, but Ezra starts a conversation with him as a distraction that allows Aria and Emily to follow. Suddenly Aria and Emily enter a dark narrow hallway as they follow who are presumably Allison and CeCe. A semi-quick chase scene starts until Aria and Emily and Santa Claus dressed Lucas and Paige corner the presumed Ali and CeCe. It is revealed that these are just two random characters that were dressed up like Ali and CeCe as a diversion.

Again at creepy Ali’s, Toby spots a knife-wielding hooded possibly Ali figure in the downstairs window. Upstairs, Hanna finds a letter that proves that Allison invited Bethany over around Labor Day when she was murdered. This is a clue that could get Spencer cleared of Bethany’s murder. Then Hanna is met by the hooded knife wielder, and screams. Spencer finally runs upstairs and finds a shocked and somehow not murdered Hanna.

Later that night, Allison is back at home and is awakened by the now singing ghost Mona while A Christmas Carol plays on television. Then a creepy sequence starts as Allison enters a vision of a dark church with a coffin visible. She opens the coffin to find herself laying in it. Then her veiled mother shows up, and she says “They’ll be coming for you soon,” after Allison approaches her. Allison’s mother stares at her, and Allison starts screaming and pounding on the doors of the church and wakes up to the ghost Mona saying, “Wake up bitch, it’s Christmas.”

Back at Spencer’s house, a blizzard caused all the parents to get snowed in somehow, leaving only the liars and their boyfriends and one girlfriend to spend Christmas together. They all sit down for a nice Christmas dinner as poor Ali peers through the window. Even the Christmas episode cannot have closure, as everyone steps outside to a tall-lighted Christmas tree. Somehow no one even noticed the tree was being decorated, and the lights next to it say “Merry Christmas Bitches –A.” Then the liars just stare in stunned silence, like they seem to do at the end of every episode.

 

 

 

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