The color’s back this week, y’all, but that doesn’t mean that everything’s settled down in Rosewood.
THIS WEEK’S MVP
Aria. She didn’t let her new knowledge of Spencer’s new-old drug problem keep her from being at least OPEN to the possibility of Ezra being dangerous, and she even bucked up and went to investigate on her own.
THIS WEEK’S LVP
ARIA. We had to save up on awarding Aria this honor all these weeks because we knew, WE KNEW this day was coming. And it came. And she used it to trap herself ON A SKI LIFT with a POSSIBLE MURDERER and then drop ALL THE EVIDENCE DOWN THE SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN.
BIGGEST SHOCK/BEST REVEAL
Aria reading Ezra’s “true crime” story out loud, hearing even a tiny bit of his horrible actual relationship with Ali recounted in his horrible actual words.
BIGGEST NO-DUH
That Aria would expect Ezra’s password on Ezra’s friend’s cabin to be EZRA. If we didn’t know Ezra and his mad/creeper security skillz better, we’d have been right there with her.
PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS
Spence got herself drugged up. Toby cried over his mom. Ezra “forgot” the chickpeas then descended into his Super Villain Lair. The girls know, Ezra knows they know, EVERYONE KNOWS…BUT ARIA.
THIS WEEK
Just another normal day at Rosewood High
Spencer’s drug-crazed eye fills the frame as she wakes conked out over Ali’s journal on Ezra’s desk. The camera is all off-kilter, a creepy clock is creepy-ticking, and Spencer is dazed as Ezra walks in to ask wtf is going on. It’s about time to address The Issue, he says, isn’t it? The path she’s been going down is very dangerous. Spencer is saved by the bell—she runs out and oh geez SHE IS IN HER ROBE. Rosewood High has literally the worst security.
Later, in the bathroom, Emily gently asks Spencer if she “had an…accident.” That’s because Spencer looks like this:
Spencer, who had to dress for school out of her gym locker, did not have an accident. “Are you GONNA?” Hanna demands much less gently, getting the shudders just by being in the proximity of Spencer’s shower shoes. Emily, who’s glam outfit makes Spencer look even gankier, asks why Spence called her at 4 AM. This is also news to Spencer, but she doesn’t have time to worry about her crumbling hold on reality: they NEED TO TELL ARIA NOW. The other girls still want to wait, but agree that Ezra makes their skin crawl. FIIIIINALLY.
Meanwhile, making our skin crawl, Ezra stops Aria in the hall to cross some gross teacher/student boundaries by offering to write her a late pass for history so they can have a private relationship chat. Then he slickly tiptoes up to Spencer’s addiction to amphetamines, and how he’s so worried. Aria thinks he’s crazy. And she’s wearing a silver spangled lab coat over a turtleneck dress covered in cartoon bones so she knows from crazy.
Ezra doesn’t want Aria caught by the shrapnel when the ticking time-bomb that is Spencer explodes. Oh, but he’s not trying to be the bad guy! Not Ezra! He shows Aria Spencer’s permanent record as proof that this is a continued problem, and Aria overlooks yet another boundary-crossing and keeps right on trusting.
Toby and his motorcycle are outside school waiting for Spencer, who is now wearing Hanna’s AMAZING ice cream treat pajamas. This episode is a “fashion” gift. Toby is worried she’s still mad at him for taking the Declodyne money, but she says she was never. Maybe a bit disappointed…but Toby thinks his mom wouldn’t have been disappointed, especially if he shared it with the people he loves. Anyway, Toby is perfect and has brought a picnic for the two of them, and asks if Spence wants to ride on his cool bike, but she declines because she doesn’t know anything about popes (context). Aw. We are glad Spencer has a Toby right now.
At lunch, Hanna ogles then steals Em’s string cheese. “I just get extra hungry when I’m nervous, all right??” Also sad, Emily says. Hanna just has a lot of feelings and cheese helps with those feelings, okay, Emily? Don’t judge. But Hanna’s not the only one freaking out—avoiding Aria has reached such extremes that Emily was forced to conjugate some Spanish verbs while sitting in a toilet. All for naught, though, because now they are just sitting at their regular lunch table and up walks Aria herself, muttering about cell phone reception and Spencer’s drug problem.
ALL of the Liars are in metallics this week…the better to set off Spencer’s crazy eyes/ensembles, of course.
Emily and Hanna say it’s just normal Hastings Stress, but Aria whips out the permanent record folder to prove: she’s STRUNG OUT. And this isn’t the first time: two years ago (!!!), her parents had to ask the school for help with the same issue.
Speaking of Spencer, that girl looks bad, and won’t eat the delicious sandwich perfect-boyfriend Toby has brought her. He offers dinner later, and a massage if Spence is “good and finishes all her lasagna.” Wait, we like lasagna—where do we sign up? They hug, and Toby sniffs her hair. He’s almost forgotten her smell.
Liar intervention-ception (inception-vention?)
At House of Hastings, Spence is ready for ARIA’s intervention, but the rest are focused on the Adderall at hand, and they bring out the file.
When Aria says that Ezra provided the intel, Spencer’s eyes almost bug out of her head. She’s been doing so much investigating, so many pills, so little sleeping, just to prove that Ezra is being horrible, and here he is delivering the evidence right into her hands! But the trouble is? The others DON’T BELIEVE HER. It’s a total A move! Spencer yells, and it IS perfect and no matter what she does she won’t be able to get out of it. She’s falling apart, and it is horrible and beautiful to watch. Troian is on fire.
Aria continues to defend Ezra, and Spencer shrieks: “This is the kind of deer in the headlights behavior that almost got you shot in the back of a nightclub!” Oh, Spencer. That was your crazy DREAM, honey. But Spencer knows she’s not crazy. She grabs her purse, and out falls Wren’s prescription pad. The others don’t believe her when she says she’s never seen it before. God, they care about her so much. They care SO MUCH and it is definitely going to get Aria killed.
Schemers who scheme
“I bet you were a very cute baby,” says a strange boy to Mona no wait IT’S MIKE WITH A MAN’S HAIRCUT and he wants Mona to say she loves him. Shh, Mike, you’re twelve. They’re sitting in the Grill, and Mike is asking which entrée they should split because they are so in love, but then Ezra walks in and gives Mona this LOOK. She goes over to tell him that she can’t help him anymore, it’s gotten too complicated. He counters that it’s ALWAYS been complicated, which is why she can’t back down now. He needs her help.
At Hanna’s, she and Emily are carbo-loading and talking about Spencer and Aria’s mutual drug problems (Aria’s drug of choice is Creepy Teachers). Spencer comes over to give them the last of her uppers. She knows they still don’t fully believe the EzrA thing, so like a good baby lawyer she pulls out the diary to build her case. The color-coded tabs show how methodical and organized and totally not insane she is!
She repeats what she already explained in reality at the end of “Shadow Play”: A excised clues from the diary by changing important words. Ambrose Pavilion is a real place (where Ali used to meet Board Shorts), whereas Ambrose Pierson is pure invention. New scheme! A knows that Ali never got the money she needed (RIP Shana), so they will use it to lure him to Ambrose Pavilion on the pretext that Ali is meeting them.
At Spencer’s, VERONICA IS HOME. Amazing. She asks if Spencer can come to dinner, but Spence says she has plans with Toby. Actually, the Ambrose Pavilion game is on, so Spence calls Toby to call off THEIR plans on account of Veronica’s country club dinner and it is a GREAT LIE TRIANGLE.
Ezra pulls an Ali/MonA and threatens to tell the Hastingses about Spencer’s drug problem if Aria doesn’t do it first. He reminds Aria of Spencer’s time at Radley, but she counters with how that time, Spence thought she saw Toby DEAD in the WOODS. Exactly! says EzraMonster: a helmet and a tattoo were enough to unravel her. “You’re right, you’re right,” demurs Aria, “that’s totally—”
WAIT A PIXIE MINUTE. How do YOU know about the TATTOO??
There you go, Aria, there are the pieces falling into place.
WAIT—it’s the Ambrose REPTILE Pavilion??
The game is afoot! At the Brew, Emily refills Ezra’s cup then conveniently breaks some mugs nearby. As she cleans, she takes a call and loud-whispers things about ALISON and MONEY and AMBROSE PAVILION, right where Ezra can hear. Cut to Spence and Han across the street with binoculars, spying and feeding Em lines. Way to scheme, schemers!
Buuuuuuut once back at home, Spencer looks grim. She nearly faints, then calls her doctor’s office again, posing as Veronica, to request a RX refill. Of course what happens later is that the doc’s office calls back once Spencer’s gone, and Absentee Mother of the Year is quite surprised to hear from them. HOORAH.
At the zoo, and Hanna is hilariously grossed out by all of the scaly things in the Ambrose REPTILE Pavilion as she and Emily wait for Spencer to get into position. “Leave it to Ali to think making out in a room full of snakes is sexy.” The silhouette of a tall girl comes through the far door. Assuming it’s Spencer, Em plants the beans then scurries off to spy and wait for EzrA. Unfortunately, actual-Spencer barges through the near door a few minutes later, and uh-oh. If this is you…who was THAT? The Liars rush after the other girl, but the lights start flashing and all of the informational reptile facts start playing at once. It’s Hanna’s worst nightmare. As the hashtag on the screen helpfully informs us:
The Liars eventually get un-trapped, but not before finding a blond wig dumped in a trash can.
Spencer returns home to find Toby, and he’s sad and mad. He’s smad. He gives her a jewelry box, and leaves, smadly. Absentee Mother appears like a dark ghost at the stairs, and is the actual worst by confronting Spencer about her new-old drug problem not with compassion or love but with annoyance at having to again “deal” with all Spencer’s acting out again. UGGGHH stay out of town, Mama H. You’re doing no one any favors breathing Rosewood air.
In a cabin in the woods…
Suspicious Aria heads up to MURDER CABIN to check things out, earning her (temporary) MVP status. Ezra has installed a whoppingly ugly security system since the Liars last broke in, one that requires a password but luckily allows infinite attempts to guess said password. She has to cycle through all sorts of eye-rollingly literary possibilities (SONNET! WORDSWORTH!) before landing on “B26,” aka the jukebox number of the song that was playing when they met. This, surprisingly, works, and she walks in.
(Sidenote: Alexis has been convinced since rewatching the first two seasons after the Ezra reveal that B26 is ALI’s song, which he had put on in the bar the day he happened to meet Aria. No way that poem he had published could have been written, accepted, and printed by the time Aria comes across it a few eps later in Season 1. Anyway.)
Aria quickly finds the trapdoor, but sadly Chickpea Murder Lair has been emptied of all giant portraits of Ali. In fact, there are no clues anywheeerrrreee in the cabin…Oh wait, is that a CARNIVORE’S DELIGHT grilling book, sitting super obviously on the table of Known Vegetarian Ezra Fitz? Well, kind of. It’s been hollowed out and filled with a manuscript about all about what a horrible liar/good kisser Alison was.
Aria’s reading is interrupted by EZRA. Aria grabs the manuscript and skedaddles out a window, but unfortunately forgets her keys, which Ezra finds.
Yo, it got dark FAST outside. Show, you need to take some classes on how the sun moves in the real world. Since she can’t get into her car, Aria takes to the woods. Ezra calls after her that he knows she’s there, and why is she hiding from him? She hides around a tree and clamps her hands over her mouth, even silencing her ringer as Ezra tries to smoke her out by dialing her phone. She sees a sign for a nearby ski lift (where ARE they??) and bravely hoists her MVP trophy in the air before throwing it very, very deeply into an abyss from which it can never be retrieved.
Hey, Aria? Maybe don’t escape a potential killer by trapping yourself in a contraption that literally sends you flying through the air with nothing to keep you safe but a very sabotageable lap bar.
Ezra obviously finds her immediately and gets in her lift chair just as it takes off. Smart move Aria. At least you aren’t yanking the looseleaf manuscript out of your bag to wave around over the empty slopes OH WAIT. She is going to READ IT, dammit, because she wants to see “what was worth destroying everything we had for!!” Lucy Hale is really Acting a lot in this scene, yelling and yelling at Ezra that he betrayed her, that nothing they had was real, that he thought he got Alison pregnant and wanted her dead…
Let me explain, says established liar/manipulator Ezra Fitz, and he spins this tale: He met Alison while he was still in college; she lied about her age; they dated. When she disappeared, he decided to write a tell-all true crime novel about her case.
Ezra: “When I saw you in the bar, I took advantage of the opportunity because I wanted to be a good reporter. I wanted to be the guy that can do anything to get the story. But I promise you, I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with you.”
GIFs from plldailly
So, although the entire basis of his relationship with Aria is a lie (i.e., HE KNEW SHE WAS 16 WHEN THEY MET), he never lied about his feelings, and that should make it all okay. Right?
Nope. And then Aria accidentally drops the manuscript and watches it flutter into a zillion pieces all over the mountain below. But it’s okay, at least she found this cool LVP plaque.
Back at the Montgomery house, Mona shows up late to her movie date with Mike. She’s so late she missed the whole movie, but he’s not mad. He’s in glove. A minute later, Aria walks in, dazed. Mona, evincing genuine concern, asks if she’s okay, but Aria just trudges by, silent.
In the dark, on the mountain, a black-gloved hand quietly gathers Ezra’s manuscript pages…
NEXT WEEK
At this point we wouldn’t be surprised if the whole next season takes place in Radley.
INSTITUTIONALIZE US PLEASE,
A(lexis and Catie)
About the Contributor:
Alexis Gunderson is a TV critic and audiobibliophile. A Wyoming expat, she now lives in Maryland, where she runs the DC chapter of the FYA Book Club. She can be found talking about Teen TV on Twitter, and her longform criticism can be found on Authory.
