S01:E08 - Who The F*** is Tom Sawyer?

That’s immortali-TEA, my darlings

Caught up in their success of securing the highly sought after tickets for the UK leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, your hosts begin this episode in a fluster as they struggle with its’ title. The eighth episode of season one is officially known as ‘Please Do Talk About Me When I’m Gone’ - but if you ask Yasemin, it’s please don’t talk about me when I’m gone and in Lacey’s case - she’s abandoned the English language all together, switching up her b’s and d’s like a primary school child learning to write. “Adoot,” she giggles at her notes before your hosts get themselves together enough to do their jobs and recap the show.

“To me, this is Pretty Little Liars – this is the episode I know, back to front, all of it,” declares Lacey but as the podcast goes on, her knowledge is put to the test. She even tries to add another rule to the drinking game: drink at every mention of p*dos? “We’d be druuunk,” laughs Yasemin, axing that rule as she’s finally ditched the soda and gone “super basic white girl” with her Black Cherry White Claw.

The episode opens with a giant box carrying a statue commissioned by Ella’s “friend” from the gallery, prompting Emily to ask after her well-being like the polite girl Pam raised her to be. It’s revealed Ella has moved above the gallery, but Aria insists that it’s just “for now”. While Aria thinks the statue is a good representation of Ali, Yasemin believes something more devilish suits her aura.

In a rare moment of reminiscing, Spencer says the quote that inspired this podcast’s name: “That’s immortality, my darlings.” Of course, it originated with Alison whom we see in a flashback set at the lake, originally thought to be a beach by Lacey. As she and Yasemin ponder over America’s obsession with lake vacations, Lacey adds: “We all know one lake,” in reference to her favourite novel/film, After.

This flashback returns time and time again throughout the episode and in each instance shines an individual light on the liars. In Spencer’s lake-centric flashback, Jenna finally takes off her shades. “We get to see Jenna’s pretty blue eyes,” says Yasemin as Lacey laughs, adding: “They’re green.” Green or blue, the big takeaway here is that Jenna can see. But there’s hints of tension between Alison and Spencer as the former makes a cheap joke at Toby’s expense.

Hanna’s flashback makes her reflect on herself as she now chooses to be kind to those she once sat back and let Alison bully. This works in her favour when Lucas, known as Hermie by both Yasemin and Alison, offers to help her sell some designer bags now that Ashley has finally curtailed her expensive lifestyle. She’ll need all the cash she can get as it turns out your hosts aren’t the only ones to snag VIP tickets this episode. Thanks to Noel Kahn, Sean and Hanna are going to see the highly sought after Band of Horses. “They f*cking copied us here,” says Yasemin.

His invite is stringent on Aria’s attendance, however, who is the only one moping about the lack of Ezra this episode. “It’s been so blissful,” says Yasemin. In her lake flashback, Aria recalls Alison saying that Noel was perfect for her and decides it might be worth trying an unseasoned man. Emily’s flashback also centres around her love life. While past-Emily had to make do with queerbaiting Alison, present day Emily gets to enjoy a date with the fabulous Maya St Germain. Additionally, things continue to heat up between Ashley and Byron as they bond over being single. Byron is quick to point out, however, that he and Ella are only separated for now.

But the drama of this episode stems from Jason DiLaurentis, Alison’s older brother. None of the liars can remember much about him and it’s no surprise as your hosts note his actor is later changed, thus declaring this imposter “Not Jason” from here on out. Yasemin questions his age, saying that he looks more like a 35-year-old accountant than someone Melissa’s age as he’s supposed to be. She adds: “He just looks so old, why’s he in a suit?”

Throughout his appearance he steamrolls the liars’ work on the memorial, giving Jenna Marshall a spot to speak, terrorises Spencer with a lie Alison told him about her and manages to rile up Detective Wilden enough for him to reveal something vital about Alison’s case in front of a couple of teenagers. However, the biggest bomb of the episode comes at the end, after the memorial that nobody of note bothered to attend, when Jason gives the liars a gift.

Looking clean and relatively untouched, the bracelet he gives them is the real deal found on her body the night she died. But if this is Alison’s bracelet – what about the one in Spencer’s drawer? “It was a bit sus where they found it, but obviously you’re not going to think about that at the time,” Yasemin says. As the girls wonder about who might have planted it for them to see, the episode ends with a mysterious person smashing the memorial they worked so hard on.

Quotes

“I know it’s a memorial so maybe you don’t want it to be depressingly sad, but I just like the idea of the memorial’s opening and it’s like Shelly on the cello to I live for the applause, applause, applause!” – Lacey

“[Spencer’s] like don’t you ever get tired of shooting at the low hanging fruit, and I was like, again, who the f*k talks like this? I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever said those words in my life. Would you not just say: Ali, why are you being such a b*tch?” – Yasemin

“[My yearbook] was Harry Potter themed and we were photoshopped into the great hall, and all of our heads were photoshopped onto Professor McGonagal, and I wish I could find it because it was so bad.” - Lacey

“Not that I have a chequebook, but what skills do you need for writing a cheque? Isn’t it just the name, the amount date, that’s it man.” – Yasemin.

“Then [Ashley] goes, you’ll do the same for me, neighbour. In what f*cking world are these two neighbours? Ashley Marin in her colonial style McMansion and the Montgomery’s in this weird folklore shack.

“Did they only just look at these phone records now? What were they doing the whole year? Just like sitting on their fingers?” – Yasemin.

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