Saturday, June 27, 2015

Pretty Little Liars Recap - "Game On, Charles " (S06E01)

This episode was insane.

It begins by showing an unknown blonde girl drawing with chalk on the wall of what looks like a dungeon in the doll house wearing the infamous yellow tank top. She hears the Liars making their escape and we find them outside. A/Charles leaves them outside for days without food or water and even in the pouring rain. The girls are doing everything they can to stay positive and support one another, but it's clear they are afraid.

The girls are finally invited back inside. In the hallway they are all knocked out. Aria and the other girls awake on tables in what looks like a morgue. They are all naked and covered only by a sheet. They fear that Charles is making them appear dead to send a message to their families so they stop looking for them. Mona comes in dressed as a candy striper and acting like Ali again. She gives each of the girls something to take for their headaches. She shares that she is scared Charles will throw her in the hole for trying to escape. A message plays asking them to return to their rooms and Mona refuses. A bell dings 3 times and she folds saying they have to go "or else." They stand outside of their rooms and enter one by one- each one screaming when they enter. They don't come out for 3 weeks and when they do they are visibly shaken. Aria even has the pink stripes in her hair like she had when Ali went missing. They wonder where Mona is.  We find out she is in the hole and terrified.

Ali holds a press conference and we find out that all charges against her for Mona's murder have been dropped and Andrew is the prime suspect but he has vanished. Ali begs for Andrew to come forward and for her friends to be freed.When she returns to the house, we find out she is working with the police in hopes of drawing Andrew out of hiding.She gets a call from an unknown number and it's playing a song. They track the call and find out the caller is in the house so the police go to find them. They return and Ali is gone, and there is a broken wine bottle. We find out that Caleb and Ezra called, and she is working with them and Toby to find the girls. Toby distracts the police by leading them too the Campbell Apple Farm.

Ali is contacted by A so the guys let her go into the woods after Caleb gives her a pair of boots with a tracker in them. Ali is lead to a car, she gets in it and the GPS tells her where to go. The guys follow and aren't far behind. She is told to pull over on the side of the road and to check the trunk. She finds a card telling her to change clothes or the girls will die. When Caleb and Ezra arrive, they find the car and Ali's clothes along with her boots pointing them in the right direction. Ali wanders through the woods in the infamous yellow top.

The girls are finally out of their rooms and are clearly very shaken but they band together. They are taken to Ali's room and they realize that Ali A is probably bringing the real Alison. They are putting away things in Ali's room and see news articles in the box and wonder if they are even real. Hanna finds out her mom was hospitalized because she was so worried about Hanna. Aria is putting clothes away and at the back of the closet she sees a message from Mona carved into the wall saying A is going to kill her. Aria gets Spencer to help her and shows her the message. They start plotting to get out.

The night when the generator switches off the girls all run to Charles' secret room and Spencer shows them the video. The girls look around and end up setting the room on fire. Charles is watching and sees Ali in the woods and the fire in the room. He panics. They pull the curtains down and see A/Charles standing behind a plexi-glass wall watching (he's of course in a mask still). They run and find Mona in the hole and work together to get her out.

The boys find Ali in the woods and get ready to leave until Ali hears something. She turns around and they see smoke coming from the ground which leads them to the door. They call the police and break into the dollhouse as the girls are running out. Everyone embraces and it is a tearjerker. Haleb, Ezria, Spoby, and Emison are so sweet. The police explore the dollhouse and find the girl we see at the beginning of the episode and find out she is Sarah Harvey, the girl who went missing around the same time Ali did and Emily met with her friends. She had been there this entire time.

Monday, June 1, 2015

"Pitch Perfect 2" Movie Review

This movie was hilarious. I was laughing so hard (and so was my husband surprisingly).

We catch up with the Bellas in their senior year of college when they are performing for President Obama on his birthday. The set they put on is very theatrical and overdone, and Fat Amy accidentally flashes her vagina to the entire crowd. This causes the Bellas to be kicked out of Collegiate Acapella and they will have to give up their championship tour (FYI they've won the Nation Championships 3 years in a row) and they will not be allowed to defend their title. In an attempt to get them re-instated (if they aren't re-instated then the Barden Bellas will cease to exist for future generations) Beca makes a deal: if they win the World Championships then they get re-instated. Gail and John think it's hilarious and they are doomed to fail because "everyone hates America."

We meet a new freshman, Emily Junk, whose mother was a Bella back in the 80s. She is ecstatic to try out and she's so cute. Hailee Steinfeld did a great job. We find out that Chloe has intentionally failed Russian Literature 3 times so she can remain a Bella and as the girls try to figure out their next move, Beca gets a phone call offering her an internship at a record label. She accepts but declines to tell the Bellas. Jesse takes her to her first day of work and while she's gone, Emily shows up at the Bella house. She asks to join the Bellas' and after an awkward audition where she sings a song she is writing, they ultimately decide to let her join. They head over to the Treblemakers home for an acapella only party where Emily runs into Benji (again) and he is hilariously awkward (again). Beca sneaks in and joins the party where she meets Emily.

The girls work on their choreography and decide to check out the German group who got to take over their victory tour Das Sound Machine or DSM. They watch their performance and are blown away even though none of them want to admit it. The Germans see them there and talk to them after the show- thanking them for screwing up so they could have all of this practice before Worlds. The girls try to trash talk back, but Beca is hilariously pathetic at it with this woman.

They end up against DSM, the Treblemakers, the Tone Hangers (whom Bumper is now a member of), and the Green Bay Packers- yes the Green Bay Packers (a few of the football players sing Bootylicious and it is freaking hilarious) in an updated version of a riff-off where there is $42,000 giftcard for Dave & Busters on the line. The Bellas lose to DSM and are very very angry.

Beca continues at work where she impresses her boss by doing a mash-up while Snoop Dogg is in the recording booth singing one song, and she sings outside. He offers to listen to her demo. She asks him about them later and finds out he isn't a fan of mash-ups, he wants to know what she has to say. She's devastated and takes it like she failed.

Amy and Bumper have a date although Amy was unaware of what he was planning. He asks her to be his girlfriend and she freaks out and refuses and goes back home where she finds an upset Beca.

Chloe freaks out about them not being in synch so she says they're all going on a retreat. They go to a bootcamp where Aubrey is in charge and she attempts to whip the Bella's back into shape. It's hilarious. The girls finally come out with what is bothering them and they bond in typical Bella fashion. Beca takes Emily to the recording studio and produces a demo of her song "Flashlight" and her boss is very impressed with both of them.

The girls graduate and head to Copenhagen for the competition and everything about it is awesome. Everything everything is awesome. Their final song- was perfect. Even DSM's final song was great, but really the ending was flawless.

I loved this movie so much! I give it 5 stars.