Pretty Little Liars - The Jenna Thing, S01E02

Watching 16 year old characters portrayed by young ladies in their 20s, particularly when I am also in my 20s, makes it a lot harder for me to remember that a lot of what's going on in their lives is really off. The responsibilities, the choices, the supposed maturity...these girls shouldn't be there yet. But maybe part of being a 16 year old today has changed that much from when I went through it 10 years ago...or maybe I was just mature enough (or lucky enough) to have avoided this kind of drama.

The Jenna Thing was actually an accident...at least on the part of the 4 girls who are still alive. Aria (Lucy Hale), Spencer (Troian Avery Bellisario), Hanna (Ashley Benson), and Emily (Shay Mitchell) had no idea that anyone was in the garage where Alison (Sasha Pieterse) threw the stink bomb. Certainly I believe none of them realized that they would cause an explosion, though that is mostly because of useful ignorance rather than anything else. I guess 15 year olds (as they must have been at the time) understand so little about the law that they wouldn't realize everyone but Ali would have likely only ended up with community service...but who does a thing like that anyway?

As for the relationship development, Spencer's future brother-in-law, Wren (Julian Morris), made a move on the young girl after sneaking her some alcohol at a restaurant. Spencer pulled back, recognizing that it was wrong. Glad she did, because, despite how cute Wren was with the british accent and everything, a man old enough to be in med school should not be going after the high school age younger sister of his fiancée. I was very glad that the sister threw him to the curb after she was the kiss, but I can't help thinking this is going to make the sisters' relationship even more strained. And I'm willing to bet that Melissa (Torrey Devitto) is going to blame her naive little sister as much as her ex.

Aria and Ezra (Ian Harding) are also having a hard time keeping their hands off each other. I'm not sure why Ezra was trying to prevent Aria from transferring out of his class - it would have been a very sensible thing for both of them to have happen. Too bad in the end her transfer was declined...though at least that would be on record for the future when they get caught...A seems keen on having that happen.

If I were Aria, I'd probably tell my mom. Ella (Holly Marie Combs) totally thought Ezra was attractive and figured Aria should be attracted as well. She obviously would have a problem with Aria dating her teacher, but not with Aria dating Ezra and she might indeed be able to make the situation less complicated. Too bad Aria's to young to recognize the benefits there.

Finally poor poor Emily... She thinks there is something wrong with her because she has bisexual tendencies...Possibly she's actually gay, though she doesn't seem to be totally uninterested in men. She's just having trouble admitting to herself that she might be attracted to women and that that is allowed. I thought one of the strongest scenes of the episode was when she tired to tell her mom about it, and her mom assumed that her stresses were centered around Ali's death rather than some other issue. Now that is an accurate picture of trust but poor communication between mother and daughter.

Again Hanna didn't particularly grab my attention, though the attempts to make her look fate in the flashback scenes are rather amusing. She looks about the same, and couldn't have had the kind of meat that she was supposed to in the past. But I guess I'll just have to willingly suspend my disbelief and imagine that she did lose a fair bit of weight.

Who is your favourite of the girls, and why?