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Title: Pretty Little Liars S4.E08 “The Guilty Girl’s Handbook”
Released: 2013

Emily

Emily and her mom are staying at a motel. The police think whoever drove into their house was drunk and/or on all the drugs. Pam’s not sure how someone that strung out could get away without anyone seeing them. Emily looks really, really guilty throughout this whole conversation. Later, she meets with Fitz for some college guidance. He says that colleges love students who do volunteer work and tells her to get a letter of recommendation from the supervisor she worked with in Haiti. It’s also occurred to him that there might be someone else besides Mona trying to hurt the Liars, seeing as someone drove a car into Emily’s house. You’d think he might have realized this when someone drugged and locked his girlfriend in a crate with a corpse on the Halloween train, but whatever. Emily insists that it was just an accident and Fitz doesn’t look like he believes her.

Emily’s supervisor, Zoe, is played by Rumer Willis, and she’s totally willing to meet with Emily that same day. She comments that Rosewood is a picture perfect little town and Emily does not go “Except for all the pedophilia and murder!” Zoe seems pretty flirty with Emily, which makes sense because every girl in Rosewood except the Liars is either trying to blackmail the Liars or date Emily. Zoe mentions that she’s going to be leading a volunteer group in Nicaragua for the summer and Emily is all about that. Building houses in Nicaragua in July is absolutely better than being in Rosewood.

Pam comes up while they’re talking and says the insurance adjustor thinks they won’t be able to move back into the house for months. They should just stay at Hanna’s; God knows they have the room. She asks Emily to drop something (I think it’s a picture of the totaled living room) off at the police station because she doesn’t want to see the people there. If Emily drops the key off too, we don’t see it. Back in the motel, she tells her mother about the trip to Nicaragua and Pam bursts into tears because she’s kind of having a week. Don’t worry, Pam! When Emily goes to Nicaragua the odds of someone driving a car through your house will significantly diminish!

Hanna

Mrs. Hastings tells Hanna, Spencer and Aria that Ashley was denied bail and will be moved to the state prison in Muncie. Hanna says that Veronica promised she’d get Ashley out. Did she really do that? Is she new? That’s a really dumb thing to promise. Hanna tells the girls to go to school; she’s going to stay home. She has a tearful call with Ashley, who promises that everything will be okay. When she gets off the phone, she goes into the kitchen where Mona is waiting. Hanna’s decided she’s going to confess to killing Wilden and she needs Mona’s help to sell the lie, because while all the girls lie, Mona lives in a lie. Don’t all the girls live in several lies? Hanna’s going to claim she shot Wilden in self-defense, that he was threatening her and her mother because Hanna was telling people that Wilden got Ali pregnant and may have been the one who killed her.

While this is going on, Caleb meets with Ashley in prison. Ashley knows that her daughter would do anything for her and is also a fan of really dumb, impulsive plans, so she asks Caleb to watch over Hanna. Caleb shows up while Mona’s giving Hanna lying lessons, but Hanna tells him to leave. She perfects her lie. Since it’s Hanna, the outfit and hairstyle she’s imagining on herself when she shoots Wilden change.

Hannah’s on her way to go the police station when Caleb pops up from…under the stairs or something, and points out that her idea is crazy and that she can’t confess to murder because she feels guilty that someone else did something. It comes out that he did think Ashley shot Wilden, but after meeting with her in jail he knows that she didn’t kill anyone.

Spencer

Caleb and Spencer talk about the phone number Nigel was calling. It was assigned to three people at three different addresses, so Toby’s gone to New York to knock on some doors. Does Toby think the number’s actually going to be linked to anyone useful? Spencer cuts school to go check on Hanna and finds her mom’s new intern, Beckett, hauling boxes of evidence around her house, because the DA sent the stuff to Veronica’s house instead of her office to mess with her. The guy is flirty and I consult this handy flowchart I made to see if he’s going to end up hitting on Spencer:

Spencer offers to help with the boxes, so she can snoop. She finds a file about Wilden and Radley. Later, she visits Radley to confront Eddie Lamb with a cookie tin full of evidence. Wilden interviewed Eddie the night Toby’s mom died. Eddie said that Mrs. Cavanaugh wasn’t in her bed and he found the door to the roof unlocked. When he went up to the roof, he saw the body on the ground. Spencer points out that the official report said that Mrs. Cavanaugh jumped out a window. Why would Wilden lie about that? Did someone pay him off? Eddie asks if Spencer ever wondered how Wilden moved up through the ranks so quickly. He tells her to move on, but it’s Spencer, so.

Mrs. Hastings and Beckett are working at the house when Spencer comes in. Before he leaves, Beckett tells her that she should put the file she stole back before her mother notices. Instead, Spencer drops the file in front of her mother. Veronica’s not even surprised; she just says she should have warned Beckett about Spencer. She says that the file isn’t relevant and that nobody thought Toby should have a solo plot anyway (Maybe she doesn’t say that). Spence says that the file proves Wilden is crooked. They argue until Veronica gets a phone call.

Aria

Over in the Aria show, she’s wearing this outfit with comic book print and puffed sleeves that I just can’t even deal with.

Anne Shirley would take one look at this and tell Aria that she’s gone too far.

Byron’s out of town for the night because that one day of good parenting really tuckered him out. Mike tells Aria to cover for him in case Byron calls, because he’ll be out late trying to make amends with his Laxbros, who have been treating him differently since the incident with Connor’s car. Aria finds out he’s taking a martial arts class to learn self-defense (Like sister, like brother). She goes to talk Jake about it. He didn’t immediately cotton on to the fact that they were siblings, probably because Mike doesn’t dress like a futuristic space clown. Mike told Jake that it was really hard to focus on the game when your own teammates were playing against you. Jake mentions that if Aria’s scared, he’ll be there, without any complications. Complications are Aria’s favorite thing besides feathers, Jake.

At night, Aria’s home alone and she hears some tires squealing nearby. She calls Mike but one of his friends answers and hangs up on her. The tires squeal again and Aria calls Jake. Don’t worry, Aria, it’s probably just Ezra checking up on/stalking you and he’s letting Malcolm drive. Jake comes over and they’re about to track down Mike when he calls and says he’s fine and he’ll probably stay at a friend’s house. Jake points out that he didn’t tell Mike he’d talked to Aria, so Mike has no idea why she’s freaking out. Jake offers to stay for a while and they put in the world’s clunkiest plug for Insidious 2. Aria claims that she’s seen the first one twice. Please. Even if Aria did watch movies made after 1950 repeatedly, none of the Liars are watching horror movies these days. They make a non-date to go see Insidious 2.

Mona

Mona spends the episode being a total BAMF. She uses everything she’s learned as the Queen of Lies to help Hanna get her story straight. By the end of it, I’m pretty sure Mona could talk a person into murdering someone. Or at least convince someone that they’d murdered someone. At the end of the episode, she saunters right into the police station with some killer heels and awesome hair and confesses to murdering Wilden. Veronica finds out over the phone, and Spencer probably texts the other Liars. They all show up at the police station just as Mona’s about to be questioned. Mona sits down and gives them this little smirk:

“I got this, bitches.”

Given Mona’s advanced state of hyperreality, I’m sure she’ll be able to spin a lie that’ll have her out in no time, but A doesn’t seem to react well when people mess with his/her plans.


What’d you guys think? Does Mona have another goal besides trying to earn a BFF necklace? Did Emily manage to return the key to the police station? Are you going to see Insidious 2 after that seamless plug?


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This post was written by Caroline.

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This post was written by a guest writer or former contributor for Forever Young Adult.