Episode 5 - The Patchwork Girl - Screenshots of Hotchkiss News Clippings
Heyy, Crimson Eagles - Team EndgAme here! We took screenshots of the news clippings found in Ray’s “lair” and wanted to point out a few things we found to be noteworthy:
Not relevant to the story line, but LOLLL at “Marlene King” having the bylines on both articles. Also, goddamnit, Marlene, you couldn’t even write a full article for Taylor (a lot of the text repeats), you had one job!
Part of Nolan’s article says, “Taylor’s friends say she showed no signs of mental illness, and her apparent suicide came as a shock to everyone who knew her.” Now, this makes sense, at least in part, because -- non-spoiler alert -- we all know Taylor didn’t really commit suicide. However, this directly contradicts what Claire went out of her way to tell Ali in Episode 2:
“When my daughter was younger, she was so put together. Everything came easy for her: sports, grades, love. And then something changed when she started teaching. She became paranoid and sometimes delusional... and I tried to get her help, but she didn’t trust me. She didn’t trust anyone, not even Nolan.” Ali asks if Taylor and Nolan were close. “They learned very early that 2 against 1 were great odds, and they stuck like glue any time either one of them got in trouble. One would never turn on the other. This revelation is rewarded by a sympathetic hand squeeze and an, “Is there anything I can do to help?” from Ali.
We feel this further supports a theory we posted yesterday in which we believe that Claire might have Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy (MSBP), which is a mental health condition that causes a person to either inflict or exaggerate illness (or death) on to a loved one so that they receive admiration, sympathy, and attention from others. We delve deeper into this in the linked post, if you want to check it out. It’s noteworthy to point out that people with MSBP often go to great lengths to convince others, including the person they’re “using” for sympathy, that the circumstances around the tragedy are legitimate. Could Claire have been leveraging knowledge afforded to her by "watching” Taylor on Beacon Guard to induce paranoia and anxiety in her daughter, therefore making her attempts to get Taylor help appear caring rather than sinister?
Her comments about how close Taylor and Nolan were, and how they played “2 against 1 odds” against her could further support why she was watching Nolan so closely before he died. We now have confirmation (as we predicted!) that Claire has suspected that Taylor is alive. If she had reason to believe that Nolan knew this, and that they were both keeping it secret from her, Claire suddenly has a deeply-invested motive to keep tabs on both of them -- if not silence them.
If the MSBP theory feels a little too dark (although we were promised a “darker” series, and know that PLL has a penchant for exploring complex and socially relevant mental health story lines), there’s still a motive as old as time itself at play: greed. In the article about Nolan’s death, they refer to him as “the heir to the Hotchkiss family”, and then go on to characterize Claire as “the only remaining Hotchkiss.”
What do you think, fandom? Could we be on to something? Do you think we’re way off? Let us know!
- Team EndgAme