Pretty Little Liars Review: “Mona-Mania!”

Well, it seems the A Team is a little less bonded than I thought. If Lucas was the one who blew up the shack in the hopes of scaring Mona to stop her, then their group either seems to have fallen apart or I have been way off base in the population thereof. When he was talking to Hanna, the poor guy looked scared to death of Mona. Mona sure as hell isn’t cured, either.

I could have sworn that Lucas basically admitted to Hanna being a part of the A Team, but she kind of accepted it, felt for him and got angry at Mona. Understandable, but shouldn’t she have been a bit more shocked to learn how intricate the entire operation being used against them as A was, or did they already accept Lucas was one of them and forgive him? The real kicker is Toby is out there pulling strings to ruin the lives of the liars, Spencer in particular. Mona is working with him and he’s sleeping with Spencer. It’s just disgusting.

Did you have any idea Mona was as intelligent as we learned during “Mona-Mania!”? Granted, she was certainly cunning and pulled off the near impossible by slipping in and out of a mental institution without detection, but academically? That surprised me. Not to mention she has some giant kahunas to swing into the Academic Decathlon group and run for Team Captain to boot.

Were the other students living in a cave or something? Why would they have been so easily swayed by her campaigning to actually vote for her. Sure, Spencer can be a bit intimidating, but what intelligent group would seriously consider the mental patient for their team captain? They must not win many decathlons. Something I couldn’t help noticing was how hot Andrew is. When the jig is up for Spencer and Toby (and how long do we have to wait for that reveal?), I hope she falls into his arms. Don’t even tell me that’s too early to dream about.

Byron is really creeping me out. Anyone else think Aria should grab Mike and run like hell to Ella’s place? They should not be living under the roof with Byron until they know for sure he’s not involved with Ali’s murder. That stuff with the Halloween candy and the snow boots when they were all looking for the journal pages sure seemed like an underhanded admission of guilt of some nature to me. And why is he dating Meredith again? Even she’s skeeved out by him, questioning why he was in Aria’s room.

But what an awesome turn of events that Meredith was actually cool when Aria confronted her about the conversation. She even learned about the night Ali was killed without Meredith ever falling out of sorts with her. For the first time since she was introduced, I liked her. I thought she might be duped by Byron just like Ella was. I’m not quite sure what anyone saw in him, but he did produce a beautiful daughter, so he must give off some great pheromones.

Then again, Byron could have used Meredith to position Aria exactly where he wants her to be. For what purpose I don’t know, but I’m not quite willing to believe everything in that house isn’t happening according to some evil plan. Even seeing Mona in her hoodie getting ready to infiltrate his office, I’m still not ruling him out as a top A level candidate.

Finally, I loved the opening scene with Emily and her father. The way they have written their relationship is quite lovely and seeing it helps to understand why she is so strong. Surprisingly, Paige was not feeling so strong and was afraid to show her softer side to Emily. That was really sweet, and a complete turnaround from what I felt for her when she was introduced last year. The growth of all the characters has been so fun to watch, even when they seem to regress. From tough chick to frightened girl, Paige makes the perfect girlfriend for Emily.

What did you think about tonight’s developments? Was the story of Mona leaping into the Academic Decathlon and steamrolling her way to team captain realistic or just a bit too much even for the regular scheming done on Pretty Little Liars? Feel free to share your thoughts!