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First off, I’d like to thank Advocate intern Josh Hinke for standing in for me on Pretty Little Liars duty last week to chronicle Paige’s return to Rosewood when she thanked Emily for being such a terrific role model, inspiration and basically hot first crush. You may also recall that the episode ended with a heck of a cliffhanger for Em when the cops showing up at Em’s house asking to talk to her about her stoner / reform school girlfriend Maya St. Germain, who disappeared after Emily called her out for smoking weed at a swim team party. Maya had said she’d run away before getting tossed back into the kiddie slammer and Em hadn’t heard from her since. Without further ado -- on to this week’s episode, which is a pretty rough one for Rosewood’s most adorable lady-killer Emily Fields.
Ep. 2:22 – “Father Knows Best”
The episode kicks off with Em (Shay Mitchell) returning home from her second home at the Rosewood pokey. She tells her temporary roomie Hanna (Ashley Benson) that the police informed her that Maya has supposedly taken off with little more than a “see ya” sort of note to her parents.
Em lets on that Maya hasn’t returned any of her texts since the fight and then shuts Hanna down saying she’s tired and wants to go to bed.
Always the encouraging friend, Hanna says, “She’ll call Em.”
Later, Em’s having coffee with her army dad who’s in town for Rosewood High’s annual Father / Daughter dance.
Em and her dad catch up for a few minutes discussing charity runs and swim meets until the subject of Maya comes up. Concerned, Mr. Fields asks what’s going on.
“Maya’s gone,” Em says. “I caught her doing something that could get her in a lot of trouble. Instead of listening I jumped down her throat.” And here’s where Emily should not beat herself up. Clearly Maya does not learn if she spent the better part of the year in juvie homo rehab and then went straight back to the good shit.
“She said she was going to crash with some friends in San Francisco, so I guess that’s where she is,” Em adds, as if a teenage girl hitching her way to SF from Pennsylvania is no big thing in this day and age. It’s not as though Maya could thumb her way to the bay area ala a modern day Sissy Hankshaw in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.
“It sounds to me like Maya wants to stay disconnected,” Em’s dad offers before suggesting Maya likely took a bus. Father and daughter bond over her dad’s admission that he was a hellion who ran away when he was a kid.
They resolve to try to find Maya.
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Down at the Rosewood bus station – is there nothing that doesn’t exist in this sleepy little town? – Em attempts to talk to a ticket agent who was on duty when Maya disappeared. But the ticket agent shuts her down until Em’s dad flashes his army hat and talks military lingo, suddenly opening up the agent to chatting.
Lo and behold the agent says he’s seen Maya and remembers that she bought a ticket to “San Fran.” The agent also lets on that he never saw Maya get on the bus, but that she was standing outside talking to someone in a car. Cue the Law and Order: SVU gong. How far is NYC from Rosewood? Let’s get Olivia Benson on the case.
Back at home Emily just misses a phone call from Maya, who doesn’t leave a message.
Next up it’s the father and daughter dance and Em’s regretting that she wasted her dad’s leave time on wanting to look for Maya. I get that this is first real love and all and blah, blah, blah, and I sincerely hope that Maya is okay, but Emily, you can do better!
“Now I’m starting to realize that maybe she doesn’t want to be found,” Em says.
As if Em weren’t having a difficult enough time with the first girl she ever said “I love you” to on the run, Em’s dad drops the bomb that he’s being deployed to Afghanistan for another six months.
Following loads of ‘A’ mystery and the standard Pretty Little Liars girls in peril plot the episode ends with a POV shot of someone – presumably A - buying the Rosewood Observer, which features a massive above-the-fold photo of Maya with the caption below that reads “Missing 35-Year-Old Woman,” I mean, “Missing Girl.” Where is Olivia Benson already???
So here are a few theories to explain Maya’s disappearance.
1) Perhaps Bianca Lawson has slipped into a “spa” to have a little work done so she can continue playing Em’s teenaged girlfriend.
2) Maybe she’s in the ‘A’ Witness Protection Program somewhere in the Castro with Annabeth Gish’s Dr. Sullivan. Now that’s a fun thought.
3) Maya is ‘A’ and she’s reading the paper about herself. Yeah, that’s a stretch even for me.
Here’s to finding Maya, and finding out who the f*ck 'A' is, in just three weeks so we can all get on with our lives.
Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for the Advocate Channel. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.
Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for the Advocate Channel. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.
