Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin - Chapter 9, Dead and Buried [RECAP & REVIEW]

HBO Max’s Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin – Chapter 9, Dead and Buried holds nothing back! If you want a lesson in quintessential penultimate writing here it is! I spent the entire hour screaming at my screen for a multitude of reasons. Let’s talk about it!

GIRLS WERE MEANER IN THE 90S

Dead and Buried opens with the girls confronting their moms about everything they know. Somehow, the girls know all about everyone’s A “gifts” and text messages. The whole scene is a little weird, but the moms tell their “truth” about being mean girls in high school and confirm the stories that we already know.

Kelly

Kelly’s life continues to be a living nightmare. Her parents are absolutely awful. During a fight at dinner, her father – Sheriff Beasley – tells Kelly that he wishes she had fallen and died, not Karen. So of course Kelly doesn’t take that well and feels like if everyone wants me to be Karen, then so be it. She shows up at school the next day wearing Karen’s clothes.

At this point, I believe that Kelly is Kelly. She’s just being hit from all sides with the people who are supposed to care about her telling her she isn’t enough. Even in her death, she’s squashed by Karen’s shadow and can’t deal.

NOA

After the confrontation, Noa’s mother says she wants to get clean. However, she wants to do it home alone. She’s called her sponsor and will have their support. So, she tells Noa to go stay at Shawn’s for the week. I don’t know about you, but when I was in high school there were no boys allowed to sleep in my room, let alone my floor, but whatever.

While there, Noa confronts Shawn about finding the pills. He tries to throw the inhaler the trainer gave her, and Noa tells him she threw it away. Shawn promises to stop taking the pills because Noa can’t have another addict in her life.

While Noa’s mother is detoxing, she’s working her pizza shifts. After one of them, Noa runs into her mother’s drug dealers who tries to hustle her for tips. But you know our favorite scrappy girl isn’t gonna take that garbage.

Faran

Even though Faran won’t be dancing for the rest of the year, that doesn’t stop her from focusing on her passion – as well as embracing her natural hair. Faran is doing an independent dance study with her boyfriend, Henry, and Kelly!

However, after one rehearsal when Faran wasn’t there, Kelly kisses Henry. I appreciate Henry’s honesty. He easily could’ve kept it from Faran, but instead, he told the truth. When Faran goes to confront Kelly, she realizes Kelly is not in a great place and is self-harming again. Instead of staying angry, Faran offers a lovely moment of friendship… and more.

The next scene is one of my favorites. Faran takes it upon herself to confront Kelly’s father about his behavior. In doing so, he tells on himself about the boys he hooks up with and Faran masterfully uses it to her advantage! I love the final button of her walking away, turning a corner, and taking a moment. That makes it incredibly real.

Mouse

Mouse and Ash decide in order to get her parents together they’re going to have to parent trap them! So, they get them both to the pizza parlor and have an awkward dinner where her parents grill Ash about being trans. Honestly, who hasn’t had to make an ‘I’m sorry for my parents’ phone call to the person they’re dating?

Mouse and Ash then go on a bowling outing with Steven aka Fake Daddy. During bowling, Steve gets an upsetting phone call letting him know his daughter Rachel’s body has been found in a landfill. Steve spirals outing their lie to Ash making things even more awkward.

Tabitha

Sydney, her mom, wants to do right by her daughter and make up for what happened with Angela. Tabitha shares that Imogen was also raped and that’s how she got pregnant. This sends Sydney on a “who did it” spiral, and her sights are set on Wes. Rightfully so.

While Tabitha is showing her storyboard to the creep, Sydney storms in with fire and serious dick cutting off threats. I was LIVING for this confrontation. Tabitha takes her mom outside letting her know that while Wes is a creep he’s not the rapist. She then fills in her mother about the DNA plan that Noa’s mother is helping with. So, Sydney is going to talk with Corey (Faran’s mom) about getting more help from the DA’s office. But before she goes, she gives Tabitha a piece of advice. Typically in these situations, more often than not, it’s someone you know.

Chip and Tabitha have a weird conversation about his crush on her and why he’s dating Imogen. This only solidifies my feelings from previous episodes that Chip is the one. He’s not the nice guy he pretends to be – and Tabby is starting to be on my page.

Tabitha begins to remember the night of the party when Imogen was assaulted. Chip kissed her and was upset when she turned him down. So, he left upset and alone.

Imogen

Imogen begins to have crazy dreams. The first one is about her mother. She dreams that she goes to the bathroom and sees her mother dead murdered by A. This prompts her to start rethinking Crazy Joe being A. She no longer thinks it him but does believe that A killed her mother. Because why would Davie take her own life and the other mothers are living like nothing happened? What did Davie do that was so much worse?

In order to settle these feelings, Imogen speaks to the coroner who says the only way to find out if she was murdered and he missed something was to exhume the body and perform an autopsy. I order to do so she needs permission from the sheriff. This scene is fantastic. Imogen uses Sheriff Beasly’s grief against him in order to get the form needed. However, it comes with a caveat. It must be signed by Davie’s next of kin who is Imogen’s father.

We learn a lot about Imogen’s father. He’s not a deadbeat dad, he works and lives by a quarry which is no place to raise a child. Davie even had it in her will that if something were to happen Imogen would go live with Sydney no matter what. She also learns that her mother suffered from serious depression and had tried suicide once before. However, when Imogen was born things turned around for her. She was happy. Imogen was a bright light. He too feels like Davie would never choose to take herself away from her.

CLIFFHANGERS

We have the DNA results and there is a MATCH! However, it’s not a jock just an average boy at school. This narrows it down to 66 options. So, Tabitha continues to ask people about Chip’s whereabouts at the party in the woods to confirm her suspicions.

Mouse goes to see Steve in a motel room. There she pretends to be Rachel and even wears her clothes. Ash has been looking for her and cannot find her. So, he goes to her mothers for help. Shout out to tracking your kids’ phones because they find her with a quickness. Mouse’s secret is out and Ash’s face says it all. WTF Mouse!

After her encounter with the dealer, Noa goes home to check on her mother and finds him on the couch! So, she chases him out with a baseball bat!!

Imogen gets an angry call from the Sheriff. Apparently, someone has already dug up her mother’s body and he blames it on her. The body is gone!

Faran’s father has been pulled over and arrested by the Sheriff because of a tail light being out. So Corey runs off to help him.

Then, the next moments are absolutely INSANE! Imogen wakes up from a call to her father because he’s remembered something. While Davie never liked to talk about high school he remembered the name of her high school sweetheart – Tom Beasley! Faran goes to Kelly’s house to expose the Sherif to her mom. Turns out, his wife already knew about all the boys. She blames his actions all on the fact that he’s wracked with guilt from RAPING ANGELA WATERS!!!

Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin – Chapter 9, Dead and Buried – REVIEW

I thought the Halloween episode was my favorite. Nope. Here it is. The amount of screaming, of adrenaline. The moments of realization had me on my toes every step o the way.

All I can say is bravo writing team. You absolutely killed this one. Question is, how is this all going to wrap up?