By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell
It’s Summer 17 and Gat (Shubham Maheshwari) and Cadence (Emily Alyn Lind) are in bed together, and Cadence wants Gat to tell her a story. Gat reminds Cadence that she’s the writer, but Cadence insists, and Gat tells her the story of them in fairytale form. Once upon a time, Gat says, in the magical land where it was always summer, a boy who thought he was a brave knight arrived, but much to his surprise, in the kingdom, he learned he was a mouse, and he felt very small. We learn a little more about why Gat spends his summers with Ed (Rahul Kohli). Younger Gat (Leandro Vigueras) is hiding, and Ed and Carrie (Mamie Gummer) are explaining to Harris (David Morse) that Gat stowed away on the boat. Younger Cadence (Raewynn Martel) goes to talk to him and asks if she’s real, and Gat responds that he thinks so, and the rest is history. The mouse didn’t belong in the kingdom, but he wanted to follow the princess everywhere, and the way Gat remembers it, when a princess found the mouse, she brought him friends.
Speaking of that, we see Younger Mirren (Nikita Goold) and Johnny (Quinn LeBlanc) and learn a little about a tradition that Tipper started: the annual Sinclair lemon hunt. The goal is simple: there are 200 lemons and one lime hidden on the island. The person who finds them, so long as they don’t do anything dangerous, wins a gift certificate, and the lime wins a secret surprise. Harris tells the little liars that there are no failures allowed at Beechwood.
In Summer 16, Cadence and Gat grow closer, but Gat recalls that the mouse loved the princess deeply, but the princess’s family didn’t think he was good enough for her. Still, the mouse could stand anything if it meant being with the princess, so he stayed on the magic island. When Cadence and Gat talk a bit more about what happened in summer 16, Cadence wonders if Harris scared Gat away after he found out they were together. No, Gat was ready to fight for Cadence, but Harris never mentioned it to Gat. He didn’t mention it so much that Gat thought maybe he didn’t actually care. But before Gat can further elaborate, the conversation is interrupted by Penny (Caitlin FitzGerald) calling Cadence. Cadence says that Penny would be livid if she saw what a mess Cuddledown is, so she goes to meet her mother.
When Cadence and Penny talk, Penny is upset because her friend Alice was on a boat and saw Cadence jump off a cliff. She doesn’t want Cadence staying at Cuddledon anymore and says she’s grounded. Cadence says she doesn’t like being held prisoner, but Penny points out that most prisons don’t have crab cakes and tennis instructors. Penny adds she’s not a prison warden for not allowing her only child to indulge in a death wish. Cadence explains she jumped to try and trigger her memories. This frustrates Penny, and she shoots down the theories Cadence comes up with about how she got hurt. According to Penny, Harris didn’t push her for being with Gat, no one attacked her, and Penny has already told her.
When Cadence was still in the hospital, every day Cadence would ask what happened, and Penny would tell her. But, Penny says, every time she told Cadence she would have an episode and she’d get sick, then sleep, then wake up and ask again. Penny says Cadence can’t ask her to intentionally hurt her and reminds her that the doctor says she has to remember on her own. Plus, Penny says she’s not the enemy; her broken brain is the enemy she’s been raging against. Cadence doesn’t believe her, and Penny just tells her to go to her room.
She doesn’t; instead, she takes the keys to the boat. Cadence is headed into town to do some research because wifi can’t gaslight her. Gat reminds her that screens trigger episodes, but Cadence doesn’t care. She says if she has an episode, she has an episode and just asks Gat if he’s coming.
In Summer 16, the annual lemon hunt is still happening, even though Tipper is gone. Cadence is excited because she’s competitive and happy about the progress her relationship with Gat has made. Gat gives her a letter about their night together, but the giddiness is short-lived when Mirren (Esther McGregor) comes to the beach to tell Gat that Harris wants to see him. Cadence asks if she knows what about, but Mirren is still giving Cadence the silent treatment over telling her mother about Bess (Candice King) and Salty Dan.
When Gat goes to the office, Harris is holding a very old gun. Gat is taken aback and says he doesn’t really like guns, and Harris agrees and shares an anecdote of getting an elected official who took NRA money banned from poker night. The gun he’s holding, Harris explains, is history because Philip Schyler gave it to Alexander Hamilton. The conversation turns to Gat’s future, and Gat tells Harris he wants to be a journalist who covers foreign affairs. Gat says that’d be a noble pursuit, but it’s grueling and sometimes dangerous work. Harris commends him on his ambition and then surprises him with a visitor: his mother, Maya (Karen David).
It’s time for a party, and Cadence isn’t alone in getting the silent treatment. Penny tells Bess she sort of hoped the lemon hunt would die with their mother, but Bess is still angry. Bess doesn’t want to talk after Penny threatened to expose her, but Penny points out that Bess exposed herself in the boathouse. Plus, Penny says it was friendly fire, but Bess says it’s only friendly now because she’s their father’s favorite again. Between Carrie and nearly “letting” the male heirs drown and Brody’s illegal activities, Bess assumes that Penny has the title as the least problematic sister. However, Penny says their father’s approval was short-lived because she got an earful last night for failing to protect the first Sinclair grandchild from Gat.
Speaking of Gat, he’s showing his mother around Beechwood. In all the years Ed took Gat to spend the summers with the Sinclairs, it seems Maya never visited. She’s surprised by the extravagance, even though Gat tries to convince her that things are so over the top due to the lemon hunt. On the upside, for Gat, Maya seems to like Cadence and greets her with a hug. Gat talks about her a lot and has shown his mother a lot of pictures of Cadence over the years.
In Summer 17, Cadence is at the library with Gat, preparing to do some research. Gat still isn’t sure it’s a good idea, but since Cadence reminds him that he’s said he doesn’t know how she ended up in the water, nothing she finds should make her think less of him. Reluctantly, he tells her to do what she must, and she googles herself. But, as she tries to read, she gets flashes of the water and a helicopter before a migraine comes on and she nearly faints in Gat’s arms. She kisses him, and he points out that people are staring. Ultimately, he suggests that they save the research for later. In the meantime, Gat buys her an ice cream cone, and they talk about what could be wrong with Cadence, and Gat says she just needs time.
Back in Summer 16, the lemon hunt rules were different. There are 200 lemons and one lime up for grabs, but this year, instead of fudge or a gift certificate as a prize, Harris announces he’s upping the stakes. This year, Harris says the person who finds the most lemons wins the Boston house. Plus, none of the old safety rules apply. Previously, Tipper declared that there’d be no lemons on rooftops or near water to prevent the kids from getting hurt, but this year, anything goes. The person who finds the lime, Harris says, will inherit Beechwood when he dies. Maya is trying to hide her shock at this, and Gat tries to tell her it’s like an Easter Egg hunt, but Maya doesn’t detect the wholesome factor.
When lunch is being served, Penny pulls Cadence aside and tells her that they may be at a disadvantage due to numbers, but they need to win. Cadence says they don’t need either house because they have Windemere, but Penny says Harris has two brothers. Penny explains that Harris never lets them come to Beechwood for the summer, and she predicts that however close the liars are now, Mirren and Johnny won’t be extending invites in a few years either.
Johnny and Carrie talk, and we learn that in summers past, Maya always turned down their invitations to come to Clairmont and she abruptly announced she’d be swinging by today. Carrie says it’s awkward having her here, Johnny says he figures seeing your ex’s sister-in-law would be. At any rate, Carrie says winning the lemon hunt could be the lifesaver they need, so Johnny needs to try as hard as he can to win.
Mirren is talking to Ebon, and they’re in agreement that what Harris is doing is psychological warfare. But, Ebon (Dempsey Bryk) says it’d be cool to go to sleep owning the entire island. Mirren explains that she never wins the lemon hunt because she always gets out strategized, and, she thinks losing would just give Bess something else to hold against her. Ebon acknowledges that what Mirren’s mother did to her paintings was awful, but everyone’s screwed up in some way. He tells her that hurt people hurt people and if someone doesn’t break the cycle the pain will go on forever. He knows from personal experience in his family. Ebon gives Mirren the option of working things out with Bess or she can hang out with him while her family fights it out.
Mirren says that ditching the lemon hunt would be the ultimate act of rebellion. She never wanted to rebel before, she wanted to be perfect, but lately Mirren says people only notice her when she’s screwing up. Ebon says he could kill the peope who made her feel that way. They kiss, only to be interupted by Harris shooting the gun into the air to get everyone’s attention. With that Mirren decides to stay and promises to see Ebon tomorrow.
The lemon hunt begins and all the Sinclairs are searching desperately for the lemons. So much so that Penny hurts her ankle looking for lemons on the beach. Johnny however outsources the search. He goes to the littles and makes the case to William
(Brady Droulis), Bonnie (Emerson MacNeil) and Liberty (Manaia Wall) that they really have no use for a boring house. He offers Will the nerf gun Carrie won’t let him have because it perpetuates American violence worship. He agrees and the twins name their respective prices. Liberty takes up Johnny on his offer to replace the makeup Bess confiscated and Bonnie wants a sacrificial alter knife her her spells.
Gat and Maya talk and walk as opposed to actually trying to find lemons. Maya wonders if they should participate, but Gat explains that the Sinclairs are a competitive bunch so he sit out most years. Except the first year, when Gat found the lime, but Johnny cried so Harris made them split the fudge on account of “suspected cheating.” Maya doesn’t like that, but Gat says it wasn’t a big deal. With that anecdote out there, Maya thinks they need to acknowledge that the Sinclairs are crazy. But Gat tells her they’re not all crazy and it’s not always like this.
Still, back when Ed started taking Gat for the summers Maya admits she really needed it. She was devastated when Gat’s father died and thought it’d be good for Gat to spend some time away from her. Plus he always looked genuinely happy in the pictures. Now, however she’s noticing some things about Beechwood and the effect being there has on Gat. Maya observes that the Beechwood version of her son dresses differently, talks different, and won’t even wear the earring he loves but she hates. Gat is codeswitching, Maya says, because he doesn’t belong with the Sinclairs and their Get Out brand of craziness. Gat says he knows that but he doesn’t care because he wants to be with Cadence.
In the garden the Sinclair sisters have another fight. Penny slaps Bess’s hand away to get a lemon in a pond. Bess reminds her that their mother had a no hitting rule, but Carrie points out that their mother’s rules died with her and Harris is choosing violence. Bess says Penny should still have decorium and Penny throws Salty Dan in her face and tells Carrie that Mirren saw Bess having sex with him. When Carrie’s amused, Bess says she spent the early 2000s trading sexual favors for coke. Penny says she did it the honorable way and just tricked doctors. Carrie is sick of her sisters mocking her addiction issues and says it wasn’t her fault and Ed helped her see that. She adds that neither or her sisters know how to be happy. According to Carrie, Bess splits her time between trying to be Tipper and trying to be Rosemary and Penny just can’t stand herself. Penny lamments that there was a time when the lemon hunt was fun. She falls backward into the water and Bess steals her lemons. Carrie is laughing at first but that devovles into her sobbing. Gat walks by and takes in the chaos for a moment until the moms shoo him away.
This leads to a stroll by Harris’s office where he sees Harris locking the lime into his desk drawer, which means he had no intention of giving up Beechwood. Down the hill, Mirren climbs a tree to get a lemon but she drops it and Johnny takes it. She jumps on Johnny’s back and tackles him to the ground trying to get the lemon back. They both lose it in the struggle to Cadence and Mirren tackles Cadence and tells her she’s sick of everything being so easy for her. Cadence tells her that they can’t all be try-hards and Johnny says he needs this. Mirren says Johnny would just turn the Boston house into a stoner cave and Johnny says Mirren’s only trying to win so she’ll have a place to live when her artist dreams don’t pan out. The cousins are screaming at each other when Gat comes on the scene and tells them they’re acting exactly like their mothers.
He shows them the lime he got from Harris’s office and they’re in awe because Gat just won Beechwood. But, Gat points out that he can’t win and they know that. He throws the lime on the ground and Mirren, Cadence, and Johnny hesitate to reach for it. Gat pointing out that they were acting like Bess, Penny, and Carrie seems to have struck a nerve. He reminds them that they’ve all been best friends for years and now they’re using eachother’s deepest insecurities to hurt eachother because Harris is on a power trip. Then he tells the liars that the game was rigged the whole time anyway. While he’s at it, Gat points out that it’s screwed up that Harris doesn’t care that he’s making them all miserable as long as he’s miserable under his power. Gat adds that they’re all acting exactly the way Harris hoped they would, which gets the cousins to apologize for the low blows.
Cadence apologizes for not being there for Mirren and Mirren apologizes for the things she said to Cadence. Johnny apologizes for how mean he’s been to everyone, Gat included and gives him a hug and kiss on the cheek. They share a group hug and Harris shoots his gun off to show that the hunt is over.
In the kitchen, Carrie and Maya talk at first about the healing powers of ice cream and then abotu Ed. Carrie wonders if Ed is eating real food in her absence and Maya shares that most of his meals come from a hotel vending machine. Carrie promises that she never meant to hurt Ed, but Maya points out that she still did. Maya feels bad for being harsh, but she explains that her husband is too dead to stand up for his little brother so now the task falls to her.
Carrie says she had to choose between being a good mother and a good partner and explains that Ed is better off without the Sinclair family. Then Carrie admits if she had it all to do again, sometimes she wonders if she’d having kids knowing how hard it is and overwhelming parental love is. She thinks it’s a horrible thought, but Maya admits she fell apart when her husband Jay died. It was painful to be around Gat, Maya says, because he looked so much like his father. Some days she felt like the love for Gat and the grief for Jay would kill her, but motherhood is filled with hurt. It’s like having your heart outside your body. The conversation is cut short by Will telling her it’s her turn to have her lemons counted.
When the liars arrive Cadence, Johnny, and Mirren show up with their baskets empty and say they couldn’t find any lemons. They gave all their lemons to Gat, to their mothers’ surprise and Harris’s thinly veiled frustration. When he sees the lime he says it’s probably his own fault that the liars are so clever. But, he says the rules have clearly been broken. Gat won’t get the houses or the island, but Harris offers him an interview for a scholarship that Tipper established. Noting Gat’s ambition he tells Gat the scholarship allows people like him who want to change the world the chance to travel while positively impacting refugees. He explains there’s an opening for this years recipients and offers to recommend Gat and he can go to New York in a few days to vy for the spot.
Later, Gat and Cadence talk about Harris’s offer. At first Gat says he’s not taking Harris’s offer because he doesn’t want to owe him anything. But, Cadence says it’s Tipper’s program, not Harris’s, and she loved him. Plus, since there are other candidates he’d earn it for himself. However, Gat points out that if he ges the scholarship summer 16 will be the last summer he ever spends at Beechwood. The idea makes Cadence incredibly sad, but, she said he makes her want to give not being selfish a try. Gat gives her a gift and tells her not to open her birthday present until next week and they share a kiss.
Mirren is staring at the ocean and is approached by Bess. She tells her mother she doesn’t want a lecture about how she lost the Boston house. Instead, Bess says there was a time she thought she knew everything about Tipper. Her own mother always seemed so flawless and she finds herself wondering if Tipper ever wanted to lock herself in a closet and cry. Bess admits she feels empty and wishes she could ask Tipper more about herself. In the case of the Boston house, she says Mirren made a choice and she hopes her convictions keep her and the twins warm during the winter.
Penny talks to Harris and she says she figured he’d just reinstate the no boyfriends on Beechwood rule. Instead, she notes he just summoned Gat’s mother in hopes that she’d want Gat away from the Sinclairs. When that wasn’t effective, he dangled two semesters abroad and a summer teaching refugees English. He interrupted Gat and Cadence’s love story, without having to look like the bad guy. Harris says he doesn’t force anyone to do anything, but he won’t let Cadence repeat Penny’s mistakes. Penny says the kids will miss him, but Cadence not repeating her mistakes is for the best.
On the docks Maya and Gat talk a bit about why Harris might’ve sent for her. Gat thinks it’s because he was too happy on Beechwood. Speaking of that, in Summer 17 Gat gives Cadence the Reader’s Digest version of Wuthering Heights. Long story short, a poor Brown boy falls for is taken in by a rich family, falls for the daughter, and becomes a gentlemen. However, everyone still sees him as an animal so eventually he becomes one. According to Cadence, Heathcliffe had evil in him and Gat doesn’t. She adds that he’s her Gat, but Gat says he’s done bad things and he’s doing something bad now. Cadence doesn’t want him to talk about her like she’s an error in judgement. But Gat says he loves Cadence even though they don’t make sense. Cadence says she might be right about what Harris thinks of him, but she’s the first Sinclair grandchild so whatever his problem is they’ll go back to Beechwood she can fix it.
Just then, Gat worries that Cadence doesn’t know where they are and doesn’t know what she’s talking about when she mentions boat keys. A migrain comes on and she faints on the docks. When Cadence wakes up, Gat is in her room and says she’s not making sense. He doesn’t know what she means when she asks if she got sick down by the water. Gat explains she got sick at the bookstore and they had to call her mother. But, what about the ice cream and the sunset? Gat says she’s scaring him because since the bookstore episode they’ve been in her room talking. This confuses Cadence more and she cries because she’s worried that her mother’s right about how sick she is. Gat promises to stay with her, but Cadence remembered about the scholarship and wonders why he isn’t in another country helping refugees. Gat says he never made it to the interview.
A few days later as Gat is preparing to say goodbye to his mother, Ed and Gat have a talk. Now that it’s over Gat wonders if Ed regrets being with Carrie. Ed regrets not marrying Carrie years ago, he regrets that when she was ready for more children Ed wanted to wait until they had enough money for private school tuition without Harris’s help. Ed thought he had to raise another Sinclair and says he had too much pride. Gat wonders if it’s too late for the lairs to grow up and not be like their parents and grandparents. In lieu of a yes or no, Ed tells Gat he knows it feels like he’s lived his entire life, but he’s only sixteen. The four of them, Ed says, are going to do great things and stupid things. Right now, they’re only a fraction of the people they’re going to grow into according to Ed. The heart-to-heart is interrupted when Gat hears sirens headed to Beechwood. Gat says he has to go and Ed says Maya will kill him, but hugs him goodbye. There’s an emergency on Beechwood, but no one can tell Gat who on the island is hurt.