25 of TV’s messiest meltdowns

Spencer Gets Admitted to the Sanitarium — Pretty Little Liars

Those poor little liars have really been put through the ringer. Forget all the regular, run-of-the-mill teenage and high school problems, these young ladies have to deal with attempted murder on the daily. For the most part, they all handle it pretty well, even though they’ve been known to make a bad decision or two.

Spencer Hastings has always been able to hold it together fairly well, but everybody has their breaking point. I guess finding out your boyfriend is among the squad trying to torture and kill you is just too much for some people, including Spencer. Ever since she realized Toby was part of the A-squad, she started losing her grip on her own mental balance.

Or maybe she didn’t. It wouldn’t be Pretty Little Liars if audiences really knew was going on all the time. Spencer’s reaction to Toby’s “death” was probably authentic enough, but her decision to fake amnesia to take a break from all her daily stresses is just downright genius.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fantasized about a little mini-illness in which I could just lay in the hospital bed, eat Jell-O, and watch Bravo for a little while. Spencer has the right idea, but not the kind of follow through needed to pull one over on the nurses at Radley. She was discovered, of course, but those few days probably gave her just the rest she needed.