Spencer, Emily, Aria

It starts out innocently enough: Spencer looks like a farmhand's wife, Emily looks like Emily, and Aria actually looks totally adorable -- like bedding in a CB2 catalog, but in a good way. AND THEN.

Aria et al

It would seem Aria has taken up clogging in piles of radioactive waste. It's like that old adage: When life hands you lemons, jam your feet into them.

Aria

But seriously. LOOK AT THEM. IF YOU DARE. Those things are so hideous -- cement shoes for the flashy Mafioso clan in your life -- that I can't even wrap my brain around it. Do her feet have an after-school gig giving Duck Boat tours of Rosewood?

Hanna

I couldn't tell if this was a blanket, or an incredibly impractical cape. I hope it's the latter. If I had a furry cape, it's what I'd wear to do ALL my picturesque moping.

Hanna

I do want this jacket, though. I need a cute leather coat, and it might make me truly happy.

Mona

I ALSO like this shirt on Mona. In fact, I quite like Mona. She's stress-free -- nobody is blackmailing her for reasons that are totally buried under piles of plot, AND when she's not bedecked in Woodstock castaways she often looks really cute.

Aria

A is like, "Dear Aria, I will repeat my threats as long as you keep repeating those PANTS, MY GOD, DON'T MAKE ME LOOK AT THOSE WHILE I STALK YOU." Pretty brilliant way to aggravate a menace, actually.

Aria

At least the show had the courtesy to make Aria climb a ladder IN her ladder pants. It's so meta. If you zoom in, you can see a tiny little person in ladder pants climbing Aria's ladder pants, and so on and so forth, like if you steeped an MC Escher in essential fug oils.

Aria

You know, Aria's hooves don't look comfortable, but I guess if you're going to run around climbing ladders, at least they offer some arch support. And they're not made of dead highlighters.

Spencer

I do love this outfit. Oh, Spencer. You are bad for me. You make me want things that I could never in a million years pull off, because I am not an adorable waif. I need to quit you, but I can't. Instead I am probably going to hit up Zappos. I blame you, Toxic Shopping Friend.

Fug the Show: Pretty Little Liars, episode 2-20

Why does Aria look so horrified? Could it have something to do with the fact that her feet are wearing those giant inflatable slides on airplane safety materials? YES. Plotwise: The best part of the episode is that FINALLY these girls' mothers sit down and say, "Hey, they've all been acting REALLY WEIRD and keep saying someone is out to get them," and then one of them is like, "Things got weird the second Alison came into their lives," and everyone is concerned. Thank you for noticing! The girls had recovered an old coat that Dead Alison had stashed somewhere, and they call the number on a slip of paper in the pocket (Alison was fond of leaving crinkled slips of paper in her belongings that had Critical Information on them, which is very helpful). At the end of the hour, Emily gets a call back and arranges to meet the mystery man. Spencer finds out that Alison's brother Jason is actually HER half-brother because her father is a man-whore. Hanna traps her wicked stepsister into admitting -- on camera -- that she used Hanna's phone to send the nude picture of herself to everyone. Apparently Stepsister stopped long enough to airbrush out a birthmark (that, or she put her head on another body). Nice detective work there, Hanna. Aria decides she can't use Scraggle as her Ezra beard anymore because she thinks his big secret is that he's hurting himself, and she doesn't want to blah blah blah zzz. Although he ends up karate-kicking Noel Kahn (Mona's creepy ex, Jenna's creepy current, super dreamy other than his personality) in the knee after Noel appears to be menacing Aria over something to do with Hanna's boyfriend Caleb who Jenna hates (I KNOW, I have no idea; they were at some anti-bullying school lock-in, too, which makes the menacing and the kicking extra appropriate). I suspect Scraggle is in some silly Fight Club or something. And finally, Emily and Mona team up to bust their suddenly mean principal on some dumb thing, so that Emily can get back on the swim team. Doesn't he know it's principal?