‘PLL’ ReWatch: Is Ian actually ‘Someone to Watch Over’ Spencer?

With only 10 episodes left — and five months before they premiere — Screener takes a look back through the twisty mysteries and tangled lives of everyone’s favorite “Pretty Little Liars.” So join us daily as we revisit Rosewood of old. The entire series is streaming on Netflix — re-watch with us!

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Up next: Season 1, episode 20, “Someone to Watch Over Me,” aired March 7, 2011.

What we thought then…

A search warrant is served at the Hastings house on Spencer’s (Troian Bellisario) room, in which the police find her name bracelet that has fibers from Toby’s sweater on it.

Ian (Ryan Merriman) continues to be vaguely menacing, so viewers are supposed to believe he’s framing Spencer for Alison’s (Sasha Pieterse) murder, especially since Spencer thinks Ian was driving the car Alison got into that fateful night.

What we know now…

Ian becomes a lot less menacing if you think he knows what Melissa (Torrey DeVitto) did to protect her sister and he’s trying to help.

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If Ian thinks Spencer actually killed Alison and Melissa buried the body to protect Spencer and now he’s trying to protect them both, things like this take on quite the double meaning:

“Time’s running out for you, Spencer. You should take the help that’s offered, wherever it comes from. Because when they arrest you, it’ll be too late.”

In fact, you could take it a step further and say that if Ian knows all of this and thinks Spencer is trying to frame him to save herself and yet he still wants to help her? He’s actually kind of a good guy. We’re not saying that’s the case, necessarily — because we never actually find out what Ian did or didn’t know about the night Alison disappeared — but it’s something interesting to chew on.

Also, we know the car Alison got into was actually being driven by Ezra (Ian Harding), not Ian.

Hindsight hilarity…

Jenna (Tammin Sursok) paying Caleb (Tyler Blackburn) to spy on the Liars — it just doesn’t make a lot of sense in hindsight. Caleb claims Jenna paid him cash to “make himself available to Hanna and listen to her” and he later confesses it was to find a key, which we all know Jenna thinks will lead to wherever Alison stashed the Jenna/Toby videos.

But that seems so contrived. The storyline isn’t fleshed out enough to really mean anything, so it feels like the writers just needed some drama to keep Hanna from being too happy right away with Caleb.

That, or they came up with the idea for the awesome “A” tag and worked their way backwards.

Also, it’s not cool that Hanna slapped Jenna so hard. Jenna sort of had it coming, but also, it’s pretty awful to slap a blind girl whose blindness you are partially responsible for causing.

Creepiest dude award goes to…

We’re supposed to think it’s Byron Montgomery (Chad Lowe) in this episode, because he’s being kind of hypocritical about Aria’s (Lucy Hale) secret boyfriend — remember, this is the episode where she hilariously sends her mom a text meant for Ezra.

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Byron also snoops a little in Aria’s room, before Ella catches him and makes him stop.

The thing is, in this case — we’re with Byron. Spying on your kids isn’t super cool, but they are kids, and their parents are responsible for their safety and well-being. The parents in Rosewood are no doubt still completely freaked out about Alison disappearing for a year and her body being found underneath someone’s gazebo.

It’s why in the episode where Hanna sneaks off to go camping with Caleb, Ashley Marin (Laura Leighton) is beside herself with worry the next morning because Hanna didn’t come home.

No, teenage girls aren’t going to put themselves in their parents’ shoes in either example, but in both cases, Byron and Ashley aren’t behaving in an inappropriate way, considering all that has happened to their daughters and their daughters’ friend.

It’s actually nice in a teen drama to see parents acting parental for a change.

Best ‘A’ message …

Obviously, this message for Hanna is outstanding. We don’t think Mona had anything to do with the Caleb-Jenna thing, but you know because of her complicated relationship with Hanna that she’s kind of reveling in Hanna’s pain.

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