Episodes 1.06 & 1.07: "Lions and Tigers and Bitches, Oh My!"

In this episode, we covered all things Homecoming: 1.07, “There’s No Place Like Homecoming”, and 1.08, “The Homecoming Hangover”. We discuss Ella missing lacrosse games, Melissa potentially poisoning former Homecoming Queens, and Deepa’s extensive literary analysis of two books referenced in the show. We also go on some truly unnecessary tangents, and then play a classic PLL game at the end!

Episode Transcript: Read it on Buzzsprout!

Chickpea Recipe: Creamy Cashew Kale & Chickpeas from Vegangela!

Fashion Analysis: Our best and worst outfits!

Literary Analysis

• In the scene in 1.07 where Sara Shepard cameos as a substitute English teacher, she is writing questions on the blackboard about Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
• In 1.07, Aria is reading a book Ezra gave to her, which is Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
• Deepa found an essay that somehow managed to link the two, despite having nothing to do with PLL, and also has interesting analysis of Anderon’s work: “On My Obsession With Sherwood Anderson”, by Bruce Falconer for Humanities

Things We Referenced Actually Related to PLL:

• Pretty Little Wine Moms, aka the PLL rewatch podcast hosted by Lesley Fera, Holly Marie Combs, and Nia Peeples (Veronica Hastings, Ella Montgomery, and Pam Fields, respectively) in 2020 – which is tragically no longer available on the internet! (If you have copies of the episodes, PLEASE let us know)
• Diego Boneta’s song “Siempre Tú”, which plays during the scene where Alex and Spencer are dancing in the kitchen

Things We Referenced Completely Unrelated to PLL:

• My Fake Boyfriend, starring Keiynan Lonsdale, Dylan Sprouse, and Sarah Hyland 
  • Deepa was wrong, it is available (in the U.S. at least) on Amazon Prime, not on Netflix! 
  • Here’s the trailer – if anyone watches it, let us know how it is lol
• Memes about funny series of events
  • The 9/11 → My Chemical Romance → Twilight → Fifty Shades of Gray series of events
  • Apparently the timeline does not actually work out to be causal for the Jensen Ackles’s homophobia → Jughead’s “I’m a weirdo” speech in Riverdale series of events, but it’s still hilarious
• Rent and the dinner order during “La Vie Boheme”

Find us on Twitter: @chickpeas_pod

If you enjoyed this podcast (or even if you didn't), please consider donating to help Rozan and Aboud, two young people in Gaza, escape genocide with their families. You can find multiple donation options at oldcowcreative.com!

Transcript

[A note for transcript readers: we are laughing pretty much constantly throughout the podcast, as well as engaging in a lot of cross-talk – oops – so we’ve tried to name that only when it feels especially relevant!]

Cameron: Okay, welcome back everybody. I'm Cameron.

Deepa: And I'm Deepa.

Cameron: And this is your favorite PLL rewatch podcast, Don't Forget the Chickpeas! Thank you for joining us again.

Deepa: Perhaps the only PLL rewatch podcast you listen to. We don't know.

Cameron: We do – we actually don't know anything about you.

Deepa: We don't anything about you, and we don't know much about the PLL podcast landscape, I would say. We did like zero market research.

Cameron: This is true.

Deepa: No no no, we did one market research. And we found out about the PLL wine moms podcast which sounds amazing and is no longer available on the Internet.

Cameron: If anyone like has a bootleg download of that, I would love to hear it, or has some insight…

Deepa: Do we just need to contact the actors themselves and be like, “You have this, right?” Because I feel like when it got canceled and taken off of the Internet in 2020, or whenever they recorded it, I think I saw some like quote from one of them being like, “Yeah, we don't know what happened either!” But hopefully they have it.

Cameron: Well, once we get like super famous, they'll just come on as guests.

Deepa: They’ll just be like, “Our podcast was cancelled, so can we come on yours?”

Cameron: That's what's going to happen. It'll take a little bit of time! A couple more episodes.

Deepa: We'll have to be careful about our best and worst parent designations once we get a little more famous. Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron: I mean, I don't think we're saying we hate the actors?

Deepa: No, that’s true, that’s true.

Cameron: But, like, we would not allow the person who plays Ezra on our show.

Deepa: No no no no no, never, never!

Cameron: I think anyone else, I'd be fine with.

Deepa: Anyone else, I'd be fine with.

Cameron: Right?

Deepa: Because other characters they know are bad – like it'd be weird to have the actor who plays Wilden, but sure? I don't know! He might have good perspective on how horrible Wilden is. You know what I mean?

Cameron: It would be funny!

Deepa: It would be so funny! And, like, he is a villain. And Ezra, for some fucking reason, isn't. So.

Cameron: Yeah. Only actor not allowed. [both laugh]

Deepa: [laughing] That’s so funny, oh my god.

Cameron: For all those invitation – just, like, requests that we're going to get soon, I'm sure.

Deepa: Pretty much!

Cameron: But for the business section –

Deepa: Business!

Cameron: – we watched two episodes, which I think is what we're going to do. Like that seems like a good amount for us.

Deepa: Yeah. And these two went together.

Cameron: They were continuing! They weren't – they were a continuing story, and they were unfortunately both about Homecoming. [both laugh] Which I think we did a little talk up towards last episode and were just like, “Oh, gosh! We gotta get Homecoming out of the way.”

Deepa: Gotta do it, gotta do it. So today is getting Homecoming out of the way.

Cameron: And we have episode six, “There's No Place Like Homecoming”, and episode seven, “The Homecoming Hangover”.

Deepa: Mhm, mhm. Also, for I think the first time, we are both fresh off of rewatching these episodes! We hadn't planned to record today and then decided to, and have both just watched them –

Cameron: Just watched them.

Deepa: – like, I literally just finished five minutes ago! [both laugh] So going to be an interesting, different way of thinking about these, because we haven't had a ton of time, but also remember more stuff, probably.

Cameron: Maybe! [both laughed]  So you, I think, watched it the most recently. As in you ended ten minutes ago or something.

Deepa: Mhm, mhm, and then got on zoom, yeah.

Cameron: Is there something fresh fresh fresh on your mind?

Deepa: There's some stuff I want to talk about, but I don't – I want to talk about it a little later, once we’ve talked about the actual episode, because it's – it's sort of tangential to the actual episode.

Cameron: Okay.

Deepa: Yeah. I guess – where do we want to start? Maybe let’s just start with like Sean-Lucas-Hanna, that whole situation.

Cameron: Yeah, that makes sense.

Deepa: There was a lot that happening.

Cameron: I want to say, first off, I was right: they do meet at Virgin Club.

Deepa: You were right, you were absolutely right. That's where we meet Lucas, at Virgin Club. Which – I don't really know why he's there, if he doesn't want to do the activities because – and thinks that he's going to be virgin anyway, but –

Cameron: That is confusing to me as well, because it doesn't seem like a place – yeah, he's just like, “I'm not going to be tempted, so why am I practicing this?”

Deepa: “Why am I here?” Yeah. [laughs] Maybe he was forced. Who knows?

Cameron: Maybe he was, maybe. We don't really know a lot about his parents, right?

Deepa: We don’t know anything about Lucas’s parents, despite – yeah.

Cameron: So maybe they’re like, “You gotta join Virgin Club.” [laughs]

Deepa: All we know about Lucas's parents is that at some point they take in Caleb. So we like them for that, I guess?

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: But they could be really religious, who knows? But, yeah, you're absolutely right, that is where we first meet Lucas. [sighs] Oh, Lucas. I mean, so – Lucas is like – not that – I mean. Lucas is always very hard to characterize, right?

Cameron: Mhm.

Deepa: Like I don't dislike him. I find him kind of weird. I find the way they portray him weird, but he's more compelling in the early episodes, I think, than later on. Not so much for his crush on Hanna, but as a character who was tormented by Alison, right? And then we're getting that perspective from someone who was – like, we have this sort of a parallel with Toby, right, we don't exactly know until these episodes what Alison and did to Toby and why. But there's these parallels of, like, these people are getting close to some of the Liars, and they were people who were really impacted by Alison and hated her. And obviously, that's going to lead to suspicion later. But right now, it's more informing them of what – you know what I mean? Like – Hanna’s like, “Oh, yeah, I guess she tormented everyone but some people didn't know that she had this other side to her.”

Cameron: Yeah, I think Lucas asked a question that we were pondering the first couple of episodes, like, why were you in friends with her?

Deepa: Exactly, exactly! [both laugh]

Cameron: Because it hasn't been explicitly made – I mean, it's come through. There's a lot of reasons why –

Deepa: Yeah.

Cameron: She's a very like compelling person –

Deepa: She’s very charismatic, yeah. Very compelling. But we still haven't seen a lot of scenes where she's actually boosting them up, right? Like a couple of small ones where she is, but for the most part, not so much.

Cameron: Yeah. Lucas is so funny. Like his main characteristics are “nerd in love with Hanna”.

Deepa: “Nerd in love with Hanna”, and a little too – I feel like PLL is not a show that had a lot of nerds writing for it? I mean, maybe nerds in the academic sense, but not in the geeky sense. So all of his nerd references are just, like, so basic.

Cameron: He’s playing Wii??

Deepa: He’s playing Wii in his room alone! And he's just like, “Han Solo and the Millenium Falcon,” and I’m like – you don’t need to be geeky to know that –

Cameron: That's something that I can come up with.

Deepa: – exactly, exactly! And you hate geeky things! You hate the space, you hate sci-fi.

Cameron: Oh god, I know, I know. [both laugh]

Deepa: I know you last time we talked about your hatred of fantasy, this time we’re talking about your hatred of sci-fi.

Cameron: I'm just a hater!

Deepa: You are just a hater, you are just a hater. But you could come up with that. So Lucas, I don't know what you're doing. Your geekery – like I'm going to gatekeep geekery from Lucas.

Cameron: Oh my god. [both laugh]

Deepa: Usually I don't like that, but I think Lucas might deserve it. Because it’s his entire identity!

Cameron: Wow.

Deepa: I mean, I do love the number of people on this show whose entire identities are to be in love with someone.

Cameron: Yes!

Deepa: Alison, Lucas…Mona?

Cameron: Mm? It's a theory.

Deepa: A well-founded theory. I cannot stop thinking about how you pointed out that she sent Hanna the photos [of Emily and Maya kissing], every time it came up in this episode too.

Cameron: Because it's so funny!

Deepa: So funny. So funny.

Cameron: Like, what are you doing, Mona? What’s going on there?

Deepa: Anyway. Back to Lucas.

Cameron: Yeah, I don't know if I have more Lucas thoughts right now.

Deepa: We can talk about the Sean and the Homecoming situation.

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: My main thought is that Sean is really boring. [laughs]

Cameron: So boring!

Deepa: I don't even have objections to him, exactly. I just think he's boring. And when Aria said to him, like, “You guys are so in love that it's boring,” I was like, yeah.

Cameron: It’s really boring.

Deepa: At this point in the show it's more boring than you and Ezra! Which is saying a lot. So. [sighs] Sean. Sean, the pastor’s kid.

Cameron: He does – and maybe this just because Terminator, the franchise, is a very formative television show for me? Or not television show, movie franchise. [both laugh]

Deepa: We did try the television show. We did not really enjoy it.

Cameron: Yeah, not great. But he sends flowers in a box that you could hide a gun in!

Deepa: [gasps] Oooh!

Cameron: Right?

Deepa: Interesting! You know, we never had a Sean is A theory…probably because he doesn't last very long.

Cameron: And he’s just so boring. But, like, what the fuck kind of way to send flowers is that?

Deepa: [laughing] Yeah, it’s really weird!

Cameron: Like, a long – that's – that's not –

Deepa: It was such a long box! You just send flowers in a vase, not in a box, right?

Cameron: Yeah!

Deepa: You're a flowers person – you're a cut flowers person. Tell me how you send flower.

Cameron: Well, I like to hand-deliver them, to be cute. But if you're sending them, just send them in a vase. They don't come in a fucking box!

Deepa: In a box. It's weird. Yeah. They're going to die in there, if you leave them in too long. Like what if someone doesn't open the box for a while? Dead flowers.

Cameron: And then there's just a gun, and what do you do with that?

Deepa: [laughing] Underneath the flowers is a gun! A Chekov’s gun? I don’t know. [both laugh] Chekhov’s flowers?

Cameron: [laughing] Chekhov’s flowers!

Deepa: Oh Sean, oh Sean. I do find him sending flowers to Aria hilarious. And especially her face when she reads the card. It's like – what, was she expecting flowers from Ezra after their last really fraught conversation? To be delivered to her home, where her parents could see them?

Cameron: Yes, she was.

Deepa: She was!

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: She was. But. Yeah.

Cameron: I just feel so bad for her.

Deepa: For Aria?

Cameron: Yeah, I just like – [sighs]

Deepa: I was thinking this episode, how – we've talked about this before, but of the Liars, at this point in this show – I mean Sasha Pieterse is a great actor, but she's not really around that much. So of the Liars that we see regularly – Shay and Ashley are, like, so cute –

Cameron: They’re so cute!

Deepa: – but not that good at acting yet. And it's kind of a shame to me that Lucy Hale is a little wasted on some of these storylines, because in the storyline of her parents, she's super, super, compelling. Super sympathetic, not just in what is going on with her, but to watch her on screen. Like when she starts crying, when Byron is talking to her about moving out, I was – I was like, Lucy Hale, you are killing this!

Cameron: No, I was like, oh, damn! [both laugh]

Deepa: And for some reason they stick her in all this other shit. And I think they continue to do that in her career, like, I don't know if she cares. Maybe she likes the other shit better. But she could be doing more interesting stuff.

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: No. Yeah. Yeah. I felt a lot for Aria in these episodes. Because she is, like, very much trying to keep things together for her family. She is being put into this awful position by her parents. Like. I don't - so the first episode we didn't have any parents. And then there were like so many parents in the second episode. I didn't really have a best parent.

Cameron: I didn't either!

Deepa: Right?

Cameron: I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I had problems with every one of them.

Deepa: I had problems with every one of them, and, like, probably I should give worst to Pam or Byron, and there was an element of – you expect that from Pam and Byron. And I was really pissed at Ella for not going to Mike’s lacrosse game.

Cameron: Ella didn’t go to the lacrosse game! What the hell, Ella? Because she – she cared about –

Deepa: Appearances?

Cameron: – what other people thought?

Deepa: Yeah, because of fucking appearances!

Cameron: I fucking hated that. I was like, goddamnit, Ella.

Deepa: No, I gave her worst parent, because I was just like – you, you of all people should know. Byron, for all his faults, is trying to show up for the kids. And it's different, right? Because he's the one who fucked up. So of course he has the – we talk about this a lot when Ella moves out, like, he gets to keep this – it's not a moral high ground, exactly, but this, like, “I'm going to stay for our family,” when it shouldn't be your choice. But, that said, he goes Mike’s lacrosse game, and would have gone, if Ella – like, you know, would have sat apart from Ella.

Cameron: Yeah. Yeah, that was fucking bullshit.

Deepa: Yeah. Yeah. Every other thing that he did – like his whole fight with Ella at the school, and the fact that Ella moves out at all – all bullshit, because, yeah, she is basically forced out. But I was very mad at her for that.

Cameron: Yeah. It fucking sucked.

Deepa: It fucking sucked. Aria so caught in the middle, you know, even more than Mike, and is also trying to help Mike –

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: – in ways that the parents aren't really able to, because, Mike –

Cameron: Mike gets in a fight!

Deepa: Mike gets in a fight! It’s just, like, the beginning of sad Mike for a long time. Mike’s depression. So.

Cameron: Yeah. Mike fights.

Deepa: Mike fights. Eventual Mike stealing.

Cameron: And he says, “Go to hell!” [both laugh]

Deepa: I love Mike!

Cameron: I know!

Deepa: You know what I was thinking about? You could very easily think that our take on PLL is misandry, because of how much we hate the dads and, like, a lot of dudes. But we also love a lot of the dude characters! [laughing] We love Mike. We love Jason.

Cameron: We do love Jason.

Deepa: We love Caleb.

Cameron: Yeah!

Deepa: I was thinking this episode about how, if Alex had stuck around, I think he would have given Caleb a run for his money on best boyfriend, because I love Alex.

Cameron: He's fucking cute.

Deepa: He's adorable. He's, like, so nice to Spencer, even when she has a little tantrum about the whole –

Cameron Oh my god! Yeah – [crosstalk]

Deepa: The whole, like, closet – [both laugh] It's so funny, and it's so random because it just doesn't have any impact. Like she walks away for a few minutes, and then they're dancing salsa. So. [laughs] Anyway. Alex is great. I wish he had stuck around for longer.

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: And yeah, he could have – he could have been in the running for best boyfriend, I don't know.

Cameron: Yeah, we don't hate men. [both laugh]

Deepa: [laughing loudly] We don’t hate men! We just hate abusers! Which is, like, what all of the men that we hate do! [both laugh]

Cameron: I know it's a complicated take!

Deepa: Ughhhhhh. And I guess some of the dads you could say are, you know, not necessarily abusers, but still shitty – not only in themselves as people, but shitty in their position as authority figures to their children, right?

Cameron: Absolutely, just, like – weird ways. The games they’re playing…

Deepa: Yup. Yup. Byron asking – even at this point in the show, right, Byron asking Aria to keep a secret about who he was cheating with – is a completely inappropriate way for a parent to interact with the child, right? [both laugh] And later, like, Peter does similar things, which is fucked up.

Cameron: Oh my god, Peter.

Deepa: Peter. We didn’t get any Peter this episode.

Cameron: We just got Melissa talking about him.

Deepa: [laughing] That’s true! Melissa loves him so much.

Cameron: “My father!”

Deepa: “My father!” Oh my god, Melissa. You talked about this last time, I think, Melissa being at Homecoming, because she – she did actually present the crown, which I think we didn't remember? Maybe?

Cameron: But was it because she poisoned the person who was supposed to do that?

Deepa: [laughs] “She’s been vomiting since Thursday!” [both laugh]

Cameron: Did she have something to do with that? I don’t know.

Deepa: No, is she – she didn't wear the Black Swan dress or whatever, right? So we're not to that level of why Melissa's at high school dances?

Cameron: [laughing] Right.

Deepa: She was just there to make Spencer look bad to her date that that Melissa doesn't even like, because he's too poor.

Cameron: He's too poor. Yeah, no, it's like – [both laugh]

Deepa: Melissa, you're so weird. You’re so weird. If I had chaperoned my sister’s dance, I would just be, like – I don't know. I don’t know. I would just be trying to stay out of her way, right?

Cameron: Honestly!

Deepa: Like, trying to keep away from kids who want me to buy them alcohol or something. [both laugh] What else do you do when your friend – like, your classmate’s twenty-three year old sister is chaperoning? You try to get some booze, right?

Cameron: That would be the main reason people to talk to you.

Deepa: For people to talk to you, yeah. Anyway, my sister did not ask me to chaperone any dances.

Cameron: What? That wouldn't even make sense.

Deepa: I was at college, anyway, so I wasn't even there.

Cameron: So we should talk about the dance, I guess?

Deepa: I think we should talk about the dance. Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron: Everyone's hair looked fucking awful.

Deepa: It was awful! It was awful. Okay. I limited my outfit analysis to the dance, I just decided –

Cameron: Same.

Deepa: Okay, great. What do we think?

Cameron: I gave best to Emily.

Deepa: Emily's, clearly the best – it was just such a bad running for worse.

Cameron: It was just like a cute color, kind of a fun little thing up top –

Deepa: Mhm, yup.

Cameron: – her hair looked nice.

Deepa: Her hair looked good, yup. And it wasn't just her normal hair either, it looked like it was styled and looked nice.

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: And – I didn't love the little, like, scrappy thing at the bottom, but it didn't make that big of a difference.

Cameron: No.

Deepa: It showed off how beautiful Shay is. [both laugh]

Cameron: It did that well!

Deepa: Her strappy heels were cute…like, I think she deserves best outfit not just because all the others are terrible. It was a good outfit.

Cameron: It was a very good outfit.

Deepa: In and of itself.

Cameron: But not a hard choice.

Deepa: Not a hard choice. Who did you give worst to?

Cameron: This was a hard choice!

Deepa: Right??

Cameron: It was between – excuse me – Spencer and Hanna –

Deepa: Yeah, because Aria’s was just, like, very Aria.

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: So it didn't, like, offend me.

Cameron: No, because theirs were just so bad.

Deepa: So bad. Hanna’s hair was also so bad…I feel like we talk about this every time, because we – I'm always surprised at how bad Hanna's hair is.

Cameron: There's so many chunks different places!

Deepa: Yeah…and we have to see it multiple times, because she goes for the re-shoots!

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: Which one did you give it to?

Cameron: I gave it to Hanna.

Deepa: Okay, I gave it to Spencer. I hate that dress.

Cameron: Fair. It’s so bad.

Deepa: I think we talk about this every time we watch it. Also, I couldn't – I didn't remember, because she describes it to Alex in a way that makes it sound compelling beforehand. She's like, “It's a strappy” – no, “It's a strapless silver dress.” I'm like, that sounds great.

Cameron: Technically, it is.

Deepa: Technically! But it's like a weird – okay. Number one, you know I don't like the sculpted boobs thing on dresses.

Cameron: I know you don’t, yeah.

Deepa: I would prefer it just to be like a straight up tube top. But even beyond that, it's like – I think she even said it was sparkly, and it's not sparkly. It's this weird, like, metallic-y…you know?

Cameron: It's a bad. It's very bad.

Deepa: It's a bad. But her hair was okay, I thought. I thought her hair was really nice.

Cameron: Spencer’s hair was fine.

Deepa: Yeah, so, I did still give it to Spencer. But Hanna's is a little more all around upsetting.

Cameron: I think the hair played a huge part in my vote, and also just the fact that she does get voted queen, wearing that dress – like, makes me vote it higher.

Deepa: Yeah yeah yeah, no, that's a good point. Yes.

Cameron: But the dress itself –

Deepa: You are swaying me.

Cameron: No, I'm not trying to convince you!

Deepa: No, no, I know! I’m just being convinced anyway. [laughs] I know you’re not trying.

Cameron: Oh, man. Yeah.

Deepa: The dress itself – it's also just, like, Spencer does that, sometimes. Spencer fucks up formal dressing.

Cameron: Yes!

Deepa: I like a lot of her everyday fashion, but she is not good at costumes, or like, formal dresses. So it's not as surprising! Whereas Hannah's whole thing is fashion. So…it should be better, Hanna. It should be better.

Cameron: Why does Spencer struggle so much in that arena?

Deepa: I don't know. I don’t know! Is it like a rebellion from her parents? Like, “This is what they would want me to wear, so I'm not going to do it. I'm gonna wear something weird.”

Cameron: “I'm gonna look bad.” [both laugh]

Deepa: Yeah, “Rich and bad, instead of rich and what they want.”

Cameron: Because I was thinking about what Melissa said to Alex, that, like Spencer is using him to rebel against their father. And I was like, Spencer does not do that at this moment in time. She's about trying to please them. They just don't – they just compare her to all these, like, you know –

Deepa: Definitely. Definitely. She just…she liked that Alex sympathized with her about her effort to try to get in with her dad, right? Like that's what connected them, right?

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: Because he was, like, seeing what she was trying to do, and that made her upset because her dad wasn't responding in the way that she wanted him to. She's clearly not trying to rebel, she just –

Cameron: No!

Deepa: – connected with him because he was sympathetic over that! [both laugh] And he’s adorable!

Cameron: He's so cute! I just – ugh. I’m sad he has to leave, because I'm really enjoying – like she's so smiley, like when he comes to flirt with her, at the –

Deepa: It’s so cute! It’s so cute!

Cameron: – pre-dance? Yeah.

Deepa: The pre-dance! He’s just, like – yeah. He's adorable. He tucks, like, money in her back pocket, in her jeans back pocket, and it's sexy and cute.

Cameron: Yeah!

Deepa: Yeah, he’s great. He's great, and they – A, like, dunks him so easily. Like there’s not even – Spencer doesn't even get to put up a fight!

Cameron: No.

Deepa: Like they just get him out of the way because he has to go to Rock of Ages. [both laugh] I assume that's why he left the show? I don't know. But we always talk about that. Because he got too famous?

Cameron: Yeah, I think so. Right?

Deepa: So. Yeah. Did you remember that –

Cameron: [at the same time] I like that it’s –

Deepa and Cameron: – his song –

Cameron: Oh, okay, great, we're gonna say it at the same time! [both laugh] Jinx!

Deepa: It's very cute. I like the song. He's a good singer.

Cameron: I was like, “Oh!”

Deepa: What's his name?

Cameron: Diego…Boneta?

Deepa: That sounds – that sounds right. Yes. Yes. I don’t know that he is that famous after Rock of Ages, though. I don’t know if I’ve seen him in much. We’ll have to look him up.

Cameron: He could come on the show. That could be fun.

Deepa: [excited] He could come on the show! We love you!

Cameron: We would, yeah, liked to have seen where your character would have gone. [both laugh]

Deepa: Tell us your impression of where Alex would have gone with this. [laughs] Would he have been A? His name does start with A. Potentially?

Cameron: It's a question, yeah!

Deepa: Would he have met Alex Drake and been weirded out by her.

Cameron: Probably! Maybe – yeah, we don't know.

Deepa: Yeah, the love interests right now are just so – yeah, it’s sad, because two of them are really good, and they're not going to stick around. So.

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: Oh my god. I started tearing up in the scene where Emily finally comes to Maya and says that she is ready to try something. I was just like –

Cameron: [sympathetically] Mmm.

Deepa: – aaaah! Because these episodes are stressful for that!

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: Very stressful. But I actually think they handle it in a really interesting way, just as far as – Maya is not – I don't think that Maya – I don't think that they've portrayed Maya as jealous of Toby. Right? It’s, like, more about what Emily is willing to present to the world, right?

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: Like, dancing with Toby is…you dancing with this guy that you don't like in that way, and also, that everyone at the school doesn't like, is somehow better than being a lesbian?

Cameron: Yeahhhh.

Deepa: Right? There’s this weird element of that, of, like, you made a big stir showing up with Toby Cavanaugh. And that’s still more okay, right? Pam is, like, freaked out by it, but not that freaked out, you know? So I think it's a very interesting take on – like we never are given the impression that Emily is trying to date someone else over Maya, she's just not sure what to do. Also connecting with Toby, appreciating him as a person, you know.

Cameron: And he asked her the day before? And it was just like…okay, Toby.

Deepa: Okay, Toby. [both laugh] Yeah, I don’t really know what he’s doing. I think they had a good time until everything bad went down.

Cameron: So I guess we should dive into Toby….because last episode, we were talking about, like, what is he trying to tell Emily right when they're in the science room? And it's very, like – the tensions! Like what is happening. It ends up in Emily going to hospital.

Deepa: Yup.

Cameron: And he's trying to tell her that Jenna was abusing him, right?

Deepa: Yes. I think so? And that that's why – because she does ask him, “Why are you so” – she asks him, “Why don't you hate me because of what Alison did?” Right? And I think where he's going with that is – like the reason he has this tattoo is that he feels free of Jenna, and in some way he feels like vaguely grateful to Alison for getting him out of there, right? Like that's the purpose of the tattoo.

Cameron: Mhm.

Deepa: So I think that's what he's trying to tell at that point. I hadn’t remembered that before, but the tattoo sort of brought that back in my mind. Yeah. So. Yeah, and it's just, it’s – the way he goes about it, like – I I do wonder why he goes about it when he can see how freaked out Emily is. Right? Like I guess he's also like caught up in the moment of like wanting to confess this thing, and it's really hard for him.

Cameron: Yeahhh.

Deepa: But it – you feel for both of them, I think in that moment.

Cameron: It's – it’s such a situation where I'm like, oh my gosh, it is like elevated up here, and I think you're both really freaked out.

Deepa: I think you’re both really freaked out. And you started off okay! Because, like, you started off with a sort of tense conversation, but like talking about Maya went okay, right?

Cameron: Yeah!

Deepa: And then suddenly there’s this shift in energy, because – because, I think, partially because Emily's phone blowing up also. So.

Cameron: Yeah, I guess I was thinking about – so at this point in time, we believe, or the audience believes, that Toby has been abusing Jenna, right?

Deepa: Yes, Toby has been abusing Jenna, and probably killed Alison, I guess?

Cameron: And killed Alison. And I – is it like a “twist”? That Jenna’s the abuser? Because she’s disabled, and a woman?

Deepa: I was thinking about this a little bit in the context of – last week you were talking about Toby and masculinity, right, and, like, there's this element of him now being the aggressor, right?

Cameron: Mhm.

Deepa: Both with Jenna and with Emily and with Alison, right? I do think it's supposed to be a “twist”. I think it's supposed to be a twist that, like, women can be abusive and men can be abused.

Cameron: [groans] Oh, god.

Deepa: But it's also – like, it's so weird because if you look statistically – it puts Jenna again in that evil, disabled person role, whereas disabled people suffer, like, the worst kind of abuse of most populations?

Cameron: Yeah!

Deepa: So it's this is weird –

Cameron: I think especially women, especially disabled women. Yeah.

Deepa: Mhm.

Cameron: Especially sexual assault.

Deepa: Yeah, especially sexual assault. And, like – one thing I can never remember until we get to it is like how exactly they're characterizing this as abusive? I don't think they go so far as to say she was sexually assaulted, right?

Cameron: Oh, okay.

Deepa: Like they talk about it as, like, “coercive” but not – 

Cameron: “Coercive”.

Deepa: I mean, okay, PLL is also very weird about how to talk about rape and how to talk about sexual anyway.

Cameron: Yes.

Deepa: It's maybe not a good – maybe not a good thing to get into semantics about, but I do think they characterize it as something less than rape, right?

Cameron: Okay. But it's like – she is the aggressor.

Deepa: She’s still aggressor, yeah, as far as I can remember. I guess at that point she wasn't disabled – but still, like, the whole narrative of her as a disabled person threat. And right now we are – the fact that right now we are thinking of her as the victim means that it's like – extra – like, the Liars are going to feel like fooled, right? And, like, be extra –

Cameron: Oh my god!

Deepa: – you know what I mean? Be extra…weird about Jenna again, and ableist.

Cameron: When, like – [laughs] Fuck!

Deepa: Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron: Yeah. Cool.

Deepa: Because Emily is, like, both scared and sympathetic in that scene where Jenna comes to see her, and it's weird because you're like trying to comfort this person that you think was sexually assaulted by her step-brother… but you're also like, “I'm not going to eat the cookies.”

Cameron: “I'm not going to eat the cookies!” What do you think she put in the cookies? Do they think they're murder cookies?

Deepa: Also, I think it's hilarious – this is such a tangent – it’s so hilarious when she asks Pam for milk, because she's like, “You have milk, don't you?” And I'm like, the Fields household is like the most milk house – iff I were expecting any household to have milk, it would be the Fields. [both laugh] So Pam’s just like, “Yeah. We have milk.” [keep laughing]

Cameron: Oh, my god.

Deepa: I think we should note for the record for our listeners that neither of us like milk, so.

Cameron: Not milk fans. [both still laughing]

Deepa: It's just something so funny about that in Pam's reaction. Anyway, sorry, injecting some levity into that conversation which was otherwise so…bleh.

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: Murder cookies.

Cameron: [sighs]

Deepa: Like, you can't stop seeing Jenna as this, like, sinister figure, even when you are seeing her as a survivor. Right? It's so weird. It’s so weird.

Cameron: Yeah. I feel like Spencer was – this is kind of – I guess a change, if you had something else on that –

Deepa: I was looking at my notes, but I don't think I have any more particularly on that.

Cameron: Okay. I feel like Spencer was like in charge these episodes –

Deepa: Mm! Okay, yes, she’s very, like…

Cameron: – in a way that like I don't think we necessarily seen before? She was like, “We need to do this, Toby’s the murderer. Hanna, you need to go do that tonight.”

Deepa: “You need to –” Yup, Yup.

Cameron: And it was very like, Okay.

Deepa: Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting. I mean, I think it’s like – that's what I expect to see from Spencer, but you're right that I don't think we 've seen it before. You’re right, I hadn't really picked up on that.

Cameron: Like I know she's the one who mainly sends like the SOS messages, but, yeah, we – it’d been kind of a – co-generated motivation.

Deepa: Mhm. Mhm. Well, it was this combination of her being on the Homecoming Committee, right? So, bossing them around about Homecoming, and then that shifting… [both laugh] Whereas Hanna was bossing people around, but only about voting for her.

Cameron: [laughing] Yes.

Deepa: I love when she stops Maya, and Maya’s like, “This is why you're talking to me, right? You want my vote.”

Cameron: Awww, I love Hanna at that moment. I know it's like clunky, and like kind of fucked up.

Deepa: No, I know! I love Hanna's ally – we talked about it last time, but Hanna’s ally-to-bi pipeline is so good. It’s so accurate! [both laugh] Clumsily trying to get your friend together with the girl she likes…

Cameron: Right? Like, ohhhhh. [both laugh]

Deepa: Oh Hanna! Oh Hanna. Just another silly Homecoming note was, who was that band? Like. I guess they weren’t that – the show wasn’t that famous yet because they don’t have like anyone we’ve heard of.

Cameron: They do not have, um….

Deepa: Adam Lambert?

Cameron: Yes, thank you! [both laugh]

Deepa: They will not have Adam Lambert for a couple of seasons, but we will be counting the days!

Cameron: We are so excited.

Deepa: Listeners, a preview: I think I can say for both of us that our absolute favorite episode of the show is “This Is A Dark Ride”, the ghost train episode –

Cameron: Ghost train!

Deepa: – for so many reasons! So…we'll be waiting. We’ll be waiting.

Cameron: Yeah. And we'll probably give that its own episode.

Deepa: Absolutely! Yeah. We watch it every year at Halloween. It’s our Halloween episode.

Cameron: Traditions!

Deepa: Well, that we started like a few years ago, but still! We've made people who aren't into PLL watch it on Halloween, so.

Cameron: That’s true! That is true. [both laugh]

Deepa: Okay, maybe I can segue into my sort of tangential thing, which is that I wanted to do some more, like, literary analysis.

Cameron: Please hit us with it. I can't wait.

Deepa: Okay. First of all, we get our Sara Shepard cameo – 

Cameron: We do!

Deepa: – as a substitute teacher for Ezra. Sara Shepard, for folks who don't know, is the person who wrote the PLL novels, and that is literally all I know about her, because we never read the PLL novels, so. [laughs] She is writing on the board about Madame Bovary. Have you ever read Madame Bovary?

Cameron: No.

Deepa: I have…for some reason I bought it in – I was in high school, and I bought it at like an airport bookstore, which is not the kind of book you usually buy there? And read it on a plane. Which may have impacted some of my impressions of it, because it was long plane ride. But I just – I hated it. [laughs] I found it incredibly, incredibly bleak and, like, depressing. It's basically about Emma Bovary, this woman who gets married – it’s set in France in the nineteenth century, and she gets married pretty young to this rich guy. And then she is incredibly, like, alienated from him, very quickly, and goes into this life of having affairs and also like spending a lot of money, and, like, eventually dies tragically. And what Sara Shepard's character was writing on the board was, “Madame Bovary: Is Emma Bovary responsible for her own downfall? Or is she a victim of her own surroundings?” And I was just like – I don’t know. I don't know who this is supposed to represent, at this point?

Cameron: Hmmmm.

Deepa: And, like, Emma Bovary – from my – I have never read any analysis of Madame Bovary, and I never had to do it in high school or anything. I just read it on my own. My impression of it is that it's about, like, the disaffection of rich women who don't have anything else to do with their lives other than to be wives and in society, and their transgression through infidelity. And also this compulsion of buying things in order to bring – infidelity and, like, spending, to bring some meaning into their lives! [laughs]

Cameron: Okay.

Deepa: Just – what – I feel there's something we're trying to connect this to, and I don't know what it is. Or are they just, like, reading this book? Usually their books are relevant to something…

Cameron: Huh.

Deepa: But I don't know what it is. [pauses] Yeah, maybe that one doesn't have a connection. I just wanted to put it to you and see if you could come up with anything, because I couldn’t.

Cameron: I feel like we could make something up! But I don't know if I have something immediately.

Deepa: Yeah, you can think about it too. Yeah. Yeah, I could not come up with anything right at the top of my head, but it did – yeah, it seemed like it should be relevant to something, because most of their book references are.

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: It is a little different. It's not an American author – it's a French author. They are mostly stuck in, like, American early twentieth century, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald…they're usually stuck in that era. So it's a little different. But. Okay. Madame Bovary, maybe not a connection. Maybe we'll find one later.

Cameron: I think we'll stir – we'll, like, stir it around in the old…yeah, see if something pops out.

Deepa: Okay, cool.

Cameron: Thank you for catching up on that because I was just like pbbth. [both laugh]

Deepa: I think it’s because I had read Madame Bovary and hated it, so I picked up on it and went ugh. Let me think more about this. [both laugh] Okay, I have one other literary analysis –

Cameron: Yes, please!

Deepa: – which more apt, which is the book that Ezra gives to Aria. Which we’ve, like, never really thought about, even though that book actually does come up over and over again. It's by Sherwood Anderson. We've never talked about it, I don’t think.

Cameron: No!

Deepa: I didn't know who Sherwood Anderson was, so I looked him up. Real book, real author. Sherwood Anderson was kind of in that era of the American 1920s authors. And I found on an essay that I want to read, like, some sections…

Cameron: Yes!! [both laugh]

Deepa: I want to start doing this more!

Cameron: Let’s get nerdy!

Deepa: Yes, exactly! So – okay. So the book that Ezra has given to Aria is called Winesburg, Ohio, which is apparently a set of short stories set in this fictional town, and they are connected, but it's, you know, not necessarily plot-connected. So I was reading this essay by Bruce Falconer, who I am not familiar with, but it was an interesting essay. He's obsessed with Winesburg and has been since he was an adolescent. So – Winesburg, Ohio was published in 1919. “The book brings to vivid life, an American small town, home to a cast of romantics and eccentrics, marooned in a pastoral paradise at the dawn of the twentieth century. I first encountered it in my English class during the spring semester of my senior year of high school.” And apparently it is commonly taught in high school, even though I have never heard of it. So there's a lot – in this essay, at least, there's a lot about both the author and this person writing the essay, like, relating this to their adolescence –

Cameron: Hmmm.

Deepa: – which I thought was interesting. So – basically this – Bruce Falconer, when he was first reading this, really romanticized it as this, like – especially as a kid growing up in a city – romanticized this pastoral, like, outside – like people – like he has a section about how people would walk across the town just to meet up with their friends, and not, you know – this different kind of atmosphere. But he says, “I see now that what Anderson meant to evoke in Winesburg was not nostalgia but alienation.”

Cameron: Oh!

Deepa: “He describes the inhabitants of Winesburg as ‘grotesques’—people who have fallen through the cracks of life, succumbed to weakness and doubt, and worst of all, closed themselves off from each other. They are isolated outcasts, repressed, stifled, stunted. Most of the book takes place at night, as if Winesburg’s inhabitants are scavengers, sneaking through the darkness in search of understanding—something none of them ever finds.” And then, he just goes on to talk about, like – “Winesburg is not a place of promise and hope; it’s desolate and brutal, as isolated emotionally as it is geographically”. And just lots of stuff about, like…isolation, and adolescents feeling very disconnected from themselves, from their community.

Cameron: Hmmm.

Deepa: I don't know, that, I felt like, had some more connections, maybe? And it's especially funny because what Ezra writes in the book is, “If you ever need to escape from Rosewood”…read this book of this town that is an “escape” from Rosewood, but sounds a lot like it.

Cameron: Sounds a lot like it.

Deepa: [laughs] Yeah. The other funny thing about this essay is, I could – I don't – like literally this essay was one of the first things I clicked on when I googled Winesburg, Ohio – this essay, for some reason, also talks about the author of Madame Bovary! Even though they're completely unconnected.

Cameron: Oh!

Deepa: Let me find the paragraph on that. I think – so a lot of the essay is about Bruce Falconer trying to understand Anderson is a person, Sherwood Anderson, and, like, coming up with a different narrative than he had originally thought for him. Where is…okay! “Over time, our view of Anderson has inevitably narrowed. Any life, including his, can be reduced too easily to its component parts. Consider Julian Barnes’s novel Flaubert’s –” Flaubert is the author of Madame Bovary – “Flaubert’s Parrot, which offers parallel characterizations of the great French writer Gustave Flaubert. In the first, Flaubert is the celebrated author of Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education, blessed by fortuitous circumstance and easy success...” blah blah blah blah blah, he is great. “In the second, Flaubert nearly dies in infancy, suffers from epilepsy, is kicked out of school, crippled by grief at the deaths of friends and family, finds himself incapable of love…” blah blah blah blah blah, dies alone. So. [laughing] And that’s, like, the references to Flaubert in this. So that was also weird.

Cameron: Huh! So – what does Ezra – like, giving Aria this book, like…what?

Deepa: I think about deception, and different ways – there's just a lot in here about people living different lives than you think, and that – I mean, that makes me think of Alison a lot, which is very much due to how Heather Hogan writes about her. And I think, like – I will definitely want to quote from some of Heather Hogan's reviews later. But Heather Hogan has this whole thing that Alison is like a teller of stories that sound better than real life, right? So you want to believe them, including stories about herself. And that she presents different versions of herself to everyone, and the way you can see her love for Emily is that she presents the best version of herself to Emily. And, like, Emily is viewing her as the person she actually wants to be, and that's why she loves her. But this kind of thing makes me think of it, too, of just these completely parallel ways you can interpret people in their lives and places right that have this veneer of, you know, nostalgia and like coziness and community, and they’re actually like fucked up underneath because...secrets.

Cameron: Secrets.

Deepa: Okay, that was my literary analysis.

Cameron: thank you for doing that. no, that's super interesting.

Deepa: I’ll send you this essay and obviously put it in the show notes.

Cameron: Put the show notes. Yes. 

Deepa: I think it's also interesting when we're like, if I if we keep talking about this because this is definitely an era of writing that neither of us care about.

Cameron: Honestly!

Deepa: Like we would have had to read them at some point in high school. But I do not care about any of this really.

Cameron: No, we just care about how it relates to the show.

Deepa: Exactly, exactly, and I think it – hopefully it goes without saying, I am assuming Sherwood Anderson is white. But there's this incredible like whiteness, right, of like most of the literature that they reference. And yeah, just that element of what it means for like their small-town suburban setting, too. When does Ezra have time to give Aria books – like they haven't even – there isn't that much time. How much time are they actually spending in his apartment, hanging out or watching old movies?

Cameron: It could be any amount of time – we don't understand. Like, they’re – okay. The last episode that we watched, episode seven, didn't make any sense to me like people were in school when other people weren't? The whole time, Spencer was just dancing at the country club –

Deepa: Yes, it was – and she said it was a Monday, so I think that's why she left school, but she just went to the country club. I don't know.

Cameron: And like Hanna didn't go to school, so like Sean bought – but it just nothing made sense. Why?

Deepa: That’s true. Why did Hanna go to school when it was closed? But then not when it was?

Cameron: Right, she just went in on the weekend but like didn't go the next day.

Deepa: Well, Emily, you would think, wouldn't go to school, but she did go to school.

Cameron: But she did go to school even though she had a head wound.

Deepa: Wait, where was Hanna? We just watched this episode. She just wasn't there?

Cameron: She didn't want to go.

Deepa: Well, Byron talks about Aria skipping school, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that. Like – as his example of how the kids are like spinning out of control. And I'm like, Aria is spinning out of control, but not in that way, like –

Cameron: No, she's going to school too much, I would say.

Deepa: Oh no! She is spending too much time at school.

Cameron: Yeah. She needs to skip a little school.

Deepa: She needs to skip a little school. Fucking Ezra and Aria.

Cameron: Jesus Christ, I –

Deepa: I mean, this is, gonna be every episode. So, I don't even know if we need to talk about it.

Cameron: We don't even need to talk about. We could move on.

Deepa: No, there's nothing new in this episode.

Cameron: We can just like go “womp womp.” [both laugh] No, there is nothing new in these.

Deepa: Yeah. I mean, okay, no, no, I do have something new. Sorry. Sorry. Tracking Ezra, as we now know his agenda, right…is he actually mad at Aria for like for, like potentially telling people? Because he could be actually scared that he's getting – you know that if someone knows about this, I don't know how much he knows about A at this point, right? Until Aria tells him. So, is he actually mad at Aria? Or is this all just like – is everything he does at this point calculated to get Aria closer to him? Or is he like floundering a little, too?

Cameron: I want to say it's all calculated.

Deepa: I think I do too.

Cameron: I don't want to give him more like feelings, or like –

Deepa: I don't think it’s giving him more feelings, necessarily. It's more just like how bad or good is he at this. I don't see it as more sympathetic –

Cameron: Oh, okay, okay.

Deepa: – because he's still doing really fucked up things. I'm more like, does he know what he's doing, or is he like making this up as he goes along, you know?

Cameron: It – I don't understand how you could not be having this planned out. Like –

Deepa: Yeah, it's true.

Cameron: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

Deepa: Okay, that makes sense. And probably he's trying to put himself in places – like, maybe he set up the carnival thing. Who knows?

Cameron: I’m sure he did! He wasn’t doing the toss – the what is it? Beanbag toss! –

Deepa: Beanbag toss!

Cameron: – until he saw her name on there.

Deepa: “My haircut wasn’t for Ms. Welch.”  It wasn’t even a good haircut.

Cameron: It looked the same, honestly.

Deepa: Okay, that's all I had about Ezra. We don't have to do more, but, like, is Ezra competent as his horrible self or not is my question. 

Cameron: And I guess we're saying, maybe?

Deepa: Yeah, I mean, he's evil and competently doing evil things.

Cameron: He’s doing things. Yeah.

Deepa: Oh, man, okay. I feel like I've talked a lot. So if you have more topics, you should –

Cameron: No, I really appreciated the literary – I feel like that's not an avenue I've ever dived down, or like we have together, either.

Deepa: No, true. Other than sort of the obvious things that they make really obvious, like the To Kill a Mockingbird stuff, but not like gone down these other – yeah.

Cameron: So thank you for bringing that. I like it. You know, so we think Toby's dead, I guess?

Deepa: Right! We're supposed to think that Toby's dead and it looks pretty bad.

Cameron: Specifically in a motorcycle accident. Right?

Deepa: Yeah. And it's gone.

Cameron: Emily's upset because, you know they were friends. And Spencer says, like, “I'm not going to cry about this.” And I just like couldn't help but thinking about in whenever time from now, when she specifically goes to a mental hospital because of this exact same situation.

Deepa: Because she thinks that Toby’s dead. Oh my god, I know.

Cameron: I was like, Jesus Christ!

Deepa: I didn't think that far ahead. I just had the thought of like, oh, you're going to date. You're going to be weirded out by this soon, but not of that. Like. Wow! She has a complete breakdown because she thinks she sees Toby’s dead body in the woods.

Cameron: In the woods!

Deepa: And she gets institutionalized for it.

Cameron: Yeah. Yeah.

Deepa: Oh, Spencer, oh Spencer. Oh Toby. Oh, Spencer's psychiatric institutionalization in general.

Cameron: Yeah, just bad times.

Deepa: Just bad times. I wonder – okay, I don't know if – sorry, that is incorrect. I was gonna say, I don't know how much this comes up in the books, but I actually think this is a key plot point in the books is, like, whatever their version of Radley is, is there from the beginning, right? Because in the books, I think the storyline is – okay, let's see if we can remember this from like whatever we Wikipedia-ed it. The storyline of the books is Alison has a secret twin named Courtney, right? Do you not remember any of this?

Cameron: I don't remember anything, so I'm just giving you the thumbs up for listeners that can't see.

Deepa: My memory is that Alison has a twin named Courtney, who has been institutionalized since they were very young. I don't remember what she's supposed to have been, you know, institutionalized for, but at some point, she switches with Alison and gets Alison institutionalized so she can go free and pretend to be her. Okay.

Cameron: Okay, yeah.

Deepa: So it's Courtney. And so, I think what happens at the beginning of the series is that the real Alison escapes and tries to kill Courtney, and that's who goes missing. So the one that they've known as Alison is actually Courtney. I don't know. I could be completely wrong about this. It could be the other way around that Courtney escapes and tries to kill Alison or something like that. But, anyway, the reason I brought this up is just because it's interesting that we don't have this like psychiatry/sanism narrative yet in the show. But that's like, actually very central to the books, and is going to be very central to the show, right? We don't get it for a while. We don't really get it until Mona gets institutionalized. We get therapy, right? So we get like the more “benign” versions of psychiatry. We have them right now. We don't get institutionalization till Mona. So –

Cameron: Yeah, and then it just ramps up.

Deepa: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because the main thing in the whole show is trauma and psychiatry.

Cameron: Mhm.

Deepa: The trauma of psychiatry.

Cameron: Yep.

Deepa: Oof, yeah. Spencer and Toby. Yeah, good point, good point.

Cameron: I was just like, “Oh!”

Deepa: Yeah. And I don't even remember when Toby shows up again. Right now, I mean. It's like presumed dead for a while, I think, and he's like off wandering around? I don't know.

Cameron:  Yeah, what's he doing?

Deepa: I don't know. I don't know.

Cameron: I've told you probably that one time the actor who played Toby hit on my sister.

Deepa: You told me that! You texted me like the moment it happened, and we've talked about it. [both laugh]

Cameron: So maybe he's just like bopping around LA.

Deepa: He's just being Keegan Allen. [both laughing] That's so funny. He escaped to go hit on your sister!

Cameron: Yeah!

Deepa: Wow. Wow. I vividly remember you texting me about this because my first question obviously, was, “Was it Tyler Blackburn?” I think that was your first question as well.

Cameron: Yeah, because they were like, “Some Pretty Little Liar man actor hit on me.” And I was like, “Who?!”

Deepa: “Tell us who!” It could be worse, but it could be better, too. Sorry Keegan Allen.

Cameron: If it was Caleb, that would be very exciting.

Deepa: Very exciting. [both laugh] Yeah, I don't know where Toby is. Toby does – he does like disappear at various points, though, he like kind of goes off the grid for various points. So, I guess this is the beginning of that. Also like whenever he comes back, I don't think he goes back to school. I think he like gets his GED and leaves.

Cameron: That makes sense.

Deepa: Right? I don't think we see him in school anymore.

Cameron:  So, he's like older sort of than them?

Deepa: He’s older, but I don't think he's tons older. I think he like was in school because he missed that year. Another thing I’m unclear on: he was at reform school or juvie?

Cameron: I thought he was at juvie.

Deepa: I also thought he was at juvie, because when we see him there, he has a durag.

Cameron: I was gonna say, I don't know if they let you wear a durag in reform school. [both laugh]

Deepa: Probably not. Oh god, I'm dreading that.

Cameron: Oh, it's so bad.

Deepa: So bad, so bad. Anyway. Yeah, yeah. I was, gonna say, when would he have gotten a tattoo in reform school? But I think he gets the tattoo after. I think when he tells them about tattoo, he's like, “That's the first thing I did,” or something, you know.

Cameron: “Free at last”. Is that what it says?

Deepa: Free at last. Yeah, “901 free at last.” Honestly, if I had seen that tattoo, I would have just been like, “Oh, it's an area code.”

Cameron: I was like, “it's almost 9/11.” But that's terrible. [both laugh]

Deepa: [laughing] Wow! We went there.

Cameron: Toby’s a terrorist.

Deepa: Oh my god!

Cameron: Aaaah!

Deepa: I didn't know there was a way to connect 9/11 to PLL, but, maybe? [laughing] It's got easy connections to Twilight, right?

Cameron: Mhm, mhm. [laughs] Oh, gosh!

Deepa: Oh man. Yeah.

Cameron: What's that one band?

Deepa: My Chemical Romance?

Cameron: Yes, thank you.

Deepa: That is exactly what I was thinking of – the whole thing of “Gerard Way gets traumatized by 9/11, so he forms a band. And then Stephanie Meyer loves the band. And then she writes about vampires, and –”

Cameron: Yeah. Really a cultural – [laughs]

Deepa: Two of the like weirdest pipelines – this is completely tangential – so the two weirdest pipelines that I love are that one, and of course the one that goes from Supernatural to Riverdale.

Cameron: Oh my god! Yes!

Deepa: The one where Jensen Ackles freaks out at a fan convention and that leads to Jughead’s “I'm weird” speech – “I’m a weirdo” speech!

Cameron: That speech is amazing. “I’m a weirdo –”

Deepa: Oh my god! I watched something with Dylan Sprouse in it this weekend.

Cameron: What? 

Deepa: No, no, sorry I didn't actually watch something. I watched a trailer of something that had Dylan Sprouse in it.

Cameron: Yeah, that makes sense.

Deepa: It's a movie. There's a Netflix movie about this guy, this guy is like in a toxic relationship with his boyfriend, gets dumped and wants to make him jealous. So his friends, who are a straight couple, one of whom is, Dylan Sprouse, decide to make up a fake boyfriend for him. They Photoshop a lot of things and put it on social media, blah blah blah. And it gets complicated because the guy meets someone new that he likes. Anyway. But, like, the trailer takes a weird turn where, like, I thought it was just going to be like, “Oh, he's got this fake boyfriend. He's got to figure out how to like get rid of the fake boyfriend to meet the new person that he likes.” But no? Dylan Sprouse gets like too invested and like wants to keep the fake boyfriend going because he's been helping take like pictures on green screens, and then photoshopping a face on them?

Cameron: What?

Deepa: And like it seems to turn into this really weird thing where like Dylan Sprouse is like the main character. It's very weird, very weird. I don't want to watch it.

Cameron: Yeahhhhhh. It's interesting that that would be the main point of tension.

Deepa: Right? Like first of all, it didn't go where I was thinking where I was like, usually fake boyfriend means you fall in love with the fake boyfriend. But the fake boyfriend actually doesn't exist.

Cameron: Okay. There is no fake boyfriend?

Deepa: It’s Dylan Sprouse and a green – I am not lying about the like green screen suit, like he's multiple times in the trailer in a green screen suit, and then they like paste a fake face over him. He's like cuddling with the guy. And I don't think he falls in love with the guy either. I think he's just on an ego trip.

Cameron: Wow. Curious.

Deepa: I'm sorry we got here somehow, but this is more just like things I had to tell you that like I could have told you through texts or phone call. But I didn't. I did it on our podcast instead. [both laugh]

Cameron: Yeah, why not?

Deepa: I’m sorry listeners. Maybe some of our listeners should watch this movie and tell us how it is.

Cameron: Do you want to subject them to it?

Deepa: They can choose on their own.

Cameron: What’s it called?

Deepa: So the fake – I something about Fake Ex, I don't know. It's on Netflix.

Cameron: Okay.

Deepa: It’s on Netflix! It has Dylan Sprouse! Okay. I should just google it. Oh god. It's Cole Sprouse who is in Riverdale right? He's Jughead, or is it Dylan?

Cameron: I don't know.

Deepa: How do you not know?

Cameron: I’ve never watched Riverdale. That's a lie. But –

Deepa: You’ve watched Riverdale!

Cameron: I’ve watched SOME Riverdale.

Deepa: Yeah, but you’ve watched more than me! You’ve watched more than zero!

Cameron: I have watching more than zero Riverdale. This is true.

Deepa: It's called My Fake Boyfriend. Apparently it came out last year. It has – I'm not gonna remember his name, but the main character is the guy who oh, I guess you might not know who this is. He is in The Flash, but he is also in Love, Simon. He's the love interest in Love, Simon. What is his name? I like him. He's great. Keynan Lonsdale. He's the main character. Anyway! Back to Pretty Little Liars.

Cameron: [laughs]

Deepa:  Oh, man. While we're on tangential stuff –

Cameron: Yes, tangential.

Deepa: Related, though, related. So, the Samantha Ronson reference? I fucking died.

Cameron: It's so fucking funny.

Deepa: There is an aged – like a dated cultural reference, but one that I appreciate them making still. That was great. “What am I, Samantha Ronson now?” Aria is who said it, I think right? When Hanna suggested – or someone suggested Aria and Emily go together.

Cameron: I think so.

Deepa: Yeah, you are not. No, Aria, you are not Samantha Ronson.

Cameron: No, I would say no.

Deepa: Okay. Sorry. I had to get that out there.

Cameron: No. I was just, I was trying to think about Aria Is A, but I didn't come up with anything.

Deepa: I came up with one thing.

Cameron: You did?

Deepa: Which is just that she's not at the scene at the end when they get another A message finally, right? Like they haven't gotten an A message since Toby disappeared, and Spencer's like, “We will never get another message again.” You say that far too many times. But it's the last scene where they're comforting Emily, and Aria is not there, presumably because of Ella moving out.

Cameron: Maybe? Okay, and she fucking throws the things in the river.

Deepa: She fucking throws the things in the river. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Those are the two instances I think, those are that could build a case. That river is really pretty, and we never see it again.

Cameron: No, it was gorgeous. It was like, little papers floating down. Mona has to go fish them out.

Deepa: Yeah, we get lake later, we get lake house, but we never like see the lake in a pretty – like it's always at night I feel like.

Cameron: it's always like ominous.

Deepa: It's always ominous and dark. Yeah, this this river was pretty. So, Mona, I feel like I was thinking about something – oh, yeah, Mona, at Homecoming, right, like, she – what does she actually even do anything at Homecoming?

Cameron: She writes on the tarot card.

Deepa: That's it. Yes, that is great.

Cameron: But I think the tarot reading that Spencer is given –

Deepa: Yes, please evaluate.

Cameron: – is about Ezra, obviously.

Deepa: Ohhhhh, good point!

Cameron: Yeah, like, there's a fucking man in the relationship with bad intentions, like, fucking up shit.

Deepa: You're so right, and you know what, they – well, they cut between Aria dancing with Sean. But maybe they also cut between Ezra watching them because they were cutting multiple places. Right?

Cameron: That was the worst part of this, was him watching Aria dance with Sean. Yeah, at the Homecoming. Blehhh.

Deepa: Yeah, it was horrible. But I'm just wondering if that was included there in the – because they don't only cut to Toby when they – when the tarot reader is saying that. I don't know. I'll have to go back and watch it, to see exactly – to articulate what I'm trying to say. But I think you're right, and the show might know it a little more than we think they do.

Cameron: Hmm, interesting.

Deepa: I mean – here's the fucking thing. They know it, right?

Cameron: They do know it. They know it.

Deepa: They know it, and they think it's sexy.

Cameron: AAAAAH!

Deepa: That’s the problem, right?

Cameron: Yes!

Deepa: They are – they are creating a narrative of, like, eroticism around this “transgression”, which is abuse. It's not a transgression. You know what I mean?

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: So they know exactly what the problem is. They just want us to be into it.

Cameron: Yeah. And I think a lot of people were.

Deepa: Yes. I think Ezria might be one of the more popular pairings – like, okay, it's definitely one of the more popular parings. I don't know if it's the most, because there's also Emily and Alison. But. It's definitely more popular than – Caleb and Hanna is like the least popular. I don't understand.

Cameron: WHAT?

Deepa: I'm pretty sure! This is all just me like – I don't know. I've, like, been on Tumblr a tiny bit in my life. So I don’t know where I'm getting this from, except, like, YouTube vids, I don't know. I am pretty sure that Ezria and Spoby are more popular than Haleb.

Cameron: That doesn't make any sense to me, but that's fine.

Deepa: It doesn’t make any fucking sense. It doesn't make any fucking sense. There's only like one moment in the entire show where we're like, “Hanna and Caleb are fucking up things.” It's at the later seasons, right? With Spencer.

Cameron: Oh, when they're doing their like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Deepa: Other than that, they're perfect. They fight and stuff, but they're still perfect.

Cameron: I love them so much.

Deepa: They’re the best. Where’s Caleb? Where’s Caleb?

Cameron: UGH. It's gonna happen soon…I think?

Deepa: I know, I know, I know. Anyway. Sorry. I think you're right, that the show knows exactly, but the show is, is trying to say Ezra’s this, and we're supposed to like it –

Cameron: Be into it.

Deepa: Because it's like simultaneously this, like his position makes him like this sinister figure, but his, like, personality is supposed to make him safe. You know? It's just like weird, right?

Cameron: Oh, that's what we're supposed to buy?

Deepa: I think we're supposed to buy, like, "nice guy in a sex-ily awful position". Right? Like? You know what I mean? [both laugh] It's it, is like there's something like we complain about them being boring. But there's something there about that, right? Like he's boring only other than this thing, right? And that's what we're supposed to be into, is that he's boring and “safe”, and all those other things. But like with this other side, you know what I mean?

Cameron: And, like, that makes it okay as well, right?

Deepa: Exactly, exactly, because he's a good guy with this like twist of circumstance that is also what makes him compelling?

Cameron: Aaaaah!

Deepa: But also he's fucking not, because he's planned all of this.

Cameron: Planned all of this! Ugh.

Deepa: Okay, we went there again. But we have to. It is such a big part of the show.

Cameron: It is.

Deepa: It’s such a big part of the show. [groans]

Cameron: Yeah, I don't have any more thoughts on that, I don't think.

Deepa: Good, good. We don't need more thoughts on that. Do we have thoughts on other things?

Cameron: I guess we get the first moment of a parent taking away a cell phone and isolating them to try to like “help them”.

Deepa: Jesus! Yup, yup. I mean, it's a mild version, because she's just like sitting in the same room.

Cameron: Yes, but I'm just like, that is going to be such a theme of isolation that just –

Deepa: Such a theme, and that's the only thing we ever like criticize therapist Anne for, is that she like – when, at some point, encourages their isolation from each other, which is the last thing they need!

Cameron: Doesn’t make any sense.

Deepa: Especially the ones who don't have friends!

Cameron: And there are many of those!

Deepa: Yeah, yeah. In a lot of episodes Pam would have gotten worse parent for that, but not this one.

Cameron: But not this one. Because you gotta go to your kid’s lacrosse game, sorry!

Deepa: You gotta go to your kid’s lacrosse game! Like that's the thing, like, Pam is attentive.

Cameron: Yeah, she’s around.

Deepa: I do think we get our first mention of the fact that that Emily’s dad is in the military? I don't know if we've talked about that before.

Cameron: Yes, Emily said, “Mr. and Mrs. Military, and their perfect daughter.”

Deepa:  Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I don't remember when we actually get Wayne for the first time, but I think it's after something bad happens to Emily, and he comes back for that. So, Oh! Back to sort of like thinking about what Mona's doing throughout this whole thing. Mona painting the sign at the end!

Cameron: I love that. That's my favorite.

Deepa: Amazing! She just like, what, left Homecoming to put on gloves – [laughs]

Cameron: That's one of my favorite A things. Just, like, painting the fucking sign to one less person living in Rosewood. [both laugh]

Deepa: It's so fucking funny. I love it, Mona is so dramatic – so dramatic! – and it's great. I mean, she's the best A in those ways, right? Like I think A does – she does the best A work in terms of, like, creativity.

Cameron: And just flare, you know? 

Deepa: The fortune cookies also.

Cameron: Fun!

Deepa: Amazing. Amazing!

Cameron: And this one, they didn't have worms, because didn't they have a takeout one time that was worms? That A did?

Deepa: Maybe? Yeah. But I think it's later, right?

Cameron: It's later, and I was like she didn't even have to do worms.

Deepa: She just had to write “lions and tigers and bitches, oh my!”

Cameron: “See you at Homecoming!”

Deepa: Maybe we should also have a like favorite A moment or best A text, or something like –

Cameron: I was wondering if we should play High Low.

Deepa: Oh my god, we should totally play High low!

Cameron: Even though we don't understand how to play!

Deepa: But it could be playing normally, not the Hastings’ way, which is to have lows? Okay, please, let's play High Low.

Cameron: Okay.

Deepa: Wait. What are – what are we – what are we evaluating? Because each of us has to have one, Right? So, like, it's just the moment that is the best and the worst?

Cameron: I guess? I don't know.

Deepa: You brought this up! [both laugh]

Cameron: I know. I don’t have one prepared! I was just proposing the idea.

Deepa: You are not – you are definitely not in the Hastings mentality around this. They come prepared. Or are we just playing High Low about own lives?

Cameron: About our own lives?

Deepa: Well, you have to go first.

Cameron: Oh, okay, we're playing High Low about our own lives?

Deepa: No it doesn’t have to be. it's probably less relevant to our listeners. Also, it's just going to be all health stuff.

Cameron: It’s gonna be sad.

Deepa: Let’s not do that. High Low about the episodes.

Cameron: High Low about the episodes. High: I think Emily and Maya, just really touching moments. Low: anything to do with Ezra.

Deepa: Yeah. I think to say a different high and low, I will put my high at Alex and Spencer because Spencer deserves nice things unlike – other than having a weird temper tantrum in the middle, like – they're very cute, and Spencer needs people, and she doesn't have people other than her sister. I will –  let's see what's my low? Hmm. I think my low is just ableism again, right? Like sinister Jenna stuff again. Yeah.

Cameron: Yeah, because they weren't even doing the cane noise the world this episode, but they were doing music.

Deepa: They were doing music, and they did a guide dog, which I don't think ever comes back, but they have, like sinister, aggressive guide dog.

Cameron: Sinister dog!

Deepa: Which is like, not what guide dogs do. They don't like bark in people's faces, and –

Cameron: They're not like in – yeah, they're not in your – yeah, that way.

Deepa: They're not out of control in someone else's room. No. And like, also, we just never see a guide dog again. That was the only time. Only time. So yeah, we had – we had sinister mobility aids in the sense of like dog instead of cane, right? Okay. I think we should do High Low at the beginning of the episodes, so that we have like – so that we can talk about it afterwards. [both laugh]

Cameron: Okay, so we like the idea? Great.

Deepa: I love the idea, if only because it's High Low, and I think High Low is hilarious.

Cameron: Yes, we'll play different rules than the Hastings.

Deepa: Oh my god, I almost said my low was one other note that I have, which is that, when Spencer helps out Alex – first of all, she puts the hair net on really badly, which we have talked about before.

Cameron: Yeah.

Deepa: But I noticed something even worse this time, which is that before she starts handling the fruit, which neither of them are wearing gloves for, but whatever – she does not wash her hands. She takes a Clorox wipe and wipes her hand with the Clorox wipe! [laughing]

Cameron: To touch fruit?

Deepa: To touch fruit! It doesn’t even make sense! [wailing] I’ve never heard of anyone doing that. Listeners, you should know I have a hand washing thing. I wash my hands too much. And it is one of those things, like shoes on beds, that I sometimes notice in media, right. [Cameron laughs] But this seems like a normal one!

Cameron: Yeah, like, that's Spencer's rich person's take on health, like, food safety.

Deepa: And like the whole time, you know, there's a lot about food safety every time she comes in the kitchen, and they're like, “You’re breaking all the rules!” And she was like, “I don't care! It's fine! I’ll wipe by hands with a Clorox wipe.”

Cameron: And then touch the kiwis.

Deepa: The melon balls. It was not actually my low, but I did have to talk about it.

Cameron: Thank you. This is a safe space.

Deepa: This just made me think maybe I should time the Pretty Little Liars theme song and try to shift to that while I'm washing my hands.

Cameron: Oh, that could be good for you! Something new.

Deepa: I don’t know if I can though. Listeners, at the beginning of the pandemic I did the “twenty second hand wash” thing with a song in your head, and continued to do it, even though everyone one else in the world either never did it or stopped. My current song is “Wrecking Ball”?

Cameron: Yeah, and it's been “Wrecking Ball” for years.

Deepa: It’s been “Wrecking Ball” for three years now, and I think it will be for the rest of my life. But maybe I will try to insert “Secret” by the Pierces. [both laugh]

Cameron: And listeners, full disclosure here, I am terrible at washing my hands. [both laugh] So.

Deepa: So I think Cameron was worried about the most recent time we lived together. But I, fortunately, do not notice when other people do it. It's, like, only in TV or myself. So it all worked out. You probably didn't even Clorox wipe your hands sometimes.

Cameron: Nope. Oh, gosh, well. Should we move on?

Deepa: We can definitely move on from handwashing discourse.

Cameron: A true like “both sides”.

Deepa: That's what we are.

Cameron: I know I'm wrong. [both laugh] Which is true is both sides discourse.

Deepa: That’s absolutely true. We know someone who's just actually wrong, and they still have to argue. I'm never going to try to argue with you about hand washing though.

Cameron: Okay.

Deepa: I'm just gonna make you listen to my own like conversation about it. No, you are objectively wrong. It's true.

Cameron: I know!

Deepa: Recently my dad had a cold, and he was really trying hard not to spread it to me, and I was, like, walking around the house with the mask and everything. And then he was like, “You've forgotten that codes are actually more spread by contact from surfaces rather than like airborne sources.” It was like, oh my fucking god!, I did forget! I did forget, because our brains have been COVID, forever. My brain is certainly COVID forever.

Cameron: Womp womp!

Deepa: Probably, literally, I think that might be what Long COVID is! COVID brain forever. [both laugh]

Cameron: Just COVID in the brain. Yeah.

Deepa: I mean, I do think, literally, I think there are neurological impacts that maybe never go away. Yeah. Anyway, I forgot that colds actually mean you should wash your hands. Fortunately my dad and I both wash our hands a lot.

Cameron: That's good. That's good. I – we're going to move on. I have a recipe if you do not have a recipe.

Deepa: I do not have a recipe, so please.

Cameron: So I am referencing Don't Forget The Chickpeas, of course.

Deepa: Yesssssss. The recipe book, Don’t Forget The Chickpeas.

Cameron: The recipe book.

Deepa: Which Cameron just held up.

Cameron: Yes, and it is number four in this recipe book. It’s another one I enjoy a lot, which is the Creamy Cashew Kale and Chickpeas. So good!

Deepa: Can you describe it for the…?

Cameron: It's like you just julienne a bunch of things.

Deepa: You do enjoy julienning things.

Cameron: Yeah. And you just make kind of a nice fake cheesy thing out of cashews. And does it have…? No,it doesn't have nutritional yeast in it.

Deepa: Yeah, because it’s not supposed to totally be a fake cheese thing.

Cameron: Yeah, and you're just like, have this kale have these carrots have these onions, mix it around. Add the chickpeas. It's just so delicious. Very yummy. That’s all.

Deepa: Very good, very good. I do want to ask you, since you have the book. Did I write anything funny on the page?

Cameron: Yeah. Do you want me to read it?

Deepa: Please.

Cameron: “Pairs well with 5 miso soups, 4 seaweed salad, 3 soybean burgers, 2 tofu platters, one pasta with meatless balls. Eww.”

Deepa: “It tastes the same.”

Cameron: “If you close your eyes. And 14 orders of fries! WINE AND BEER!!”

Deepa: “Wine and beer!”

Cameron: That’s what you wrote.

Deepa: Amazing. Amazing. Thank you. It tastes the same. Thank you, Rent. Thank you, Rent. Great. I yeah, thank you for showing up with the recipe, because I did not have one, but next time, maybe I will.

Cameron: Yay!

Deepa: I think that might be it. Unless you have anything else?

Cameron: No. Do you want to close us out?

Deepa: I think today we are doing – are we alternating and saying –

Cameron: We’re saying it together? Yeah, let’s say it together!

Deepa: 3, 2, 1… Don't forget the chickpeas!

Cameron: Act normal bitches!

Cameron: Perfect. I think we nailed it.

Deepa: I thought we were alternating the phrases!

Cameron: Oh, no.

Deepa: No, you're right. We should just stick to “Act normal, bitches.”

Cameron: I think that went great. I’m gonna stop recording.