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SEASON FIVE, BITCHES. It feels good to be back.
PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS
Hoo boy, we go all the way back to the PILOT for this previously-on. Ali was dead but now she’s alive and Mona orchestrated the whoooole thing. Cece knows who killed the body in Ali’s grave, and she might tell Holbrook. Ezra knows who A is, but stalled in his telling juuuust long enough to get shot. And hey, everyone is in New York for some reason!
THIS WEEK’S MVP
No one? Everyone is remarkably dumb this episode, at least in the main action. So, side action: Paige, for having lost Emily to Ali and now proving, in the face of crazy Mona’s crazy Army campaign, that it was entirely done out of good sense and fear for Em’s safety, and not at all out of jealousy over or fear of Ali and her machinations.
THIS WEEK’S LVP
This was a weird episode for our categories. So we are giving 5A’s first LVP to Spencer, but as an AWARD for finally not having to do anything. Like, she was basically able to sit this one out.
BIGGEST SHOCK/BEST REVEAL
Shana was one thousand percent foreshadowed, and we had TWO LITERAL CHEKHOVIAN GUNS, so her being sketch and her stealing the pistol and Aria picking up the rifle were none of them shocks. So we say instead: the three girls at the theater and their painfully hopeful conversation about a life after A—especially Hanna’s sincerity in wanting to pick up a sport, and Spencer’s wish to “just be happy.”
BIGGEST NO DUH
Aria had ONE. JOB.
…and she did great! Eventually.
She’s learning!
THE ‘CAP
We open on Ezra getting loaded into a Real New York City Ambulance™. The four core Liars are doing the everyone-clutching-each-other thing that they always do when one of their significant others is murdered. Ali’s hanging out on the fire escape by herself, and sees that A IS HOLDING ON TO THE TOP OF THE AMBULANCE AS IT DRIVES AWAY??? Sure.
The Plan (or, The Plan…?)
Hanna calls the cops to hint they should be investigating Ezra’s shooting (Imagined response: “Thank you! We thought this was just a REGULAR shooting in the dark on a rooftop that needs no explanation!”). They all breathe a sigh of relief that once Ezra recovers from his gunshot wound, they will all finally know who A is. (our tone: dripping)
Now for the “Grand” “Plan.” Spencer surprises no one by quoting Sun Tzu on the Art of War; Ali surprises Spencer by getting her reference; Hanna surprises everyone by expertly distilling Spencer’s wordy pomposity into: “We get it. We’re decoys. We don’t need a history lesson. Let’s go.” Aria & Ali depart first, with the gun; followed by Em, Hanna and Spence. It is unclear why they split up because they all go to the hospital, but whatever.
At the hospital, A—dressed head-to-face-to-glovetip in black—is lurking, dressed in a doctor’s coat. Go home, Wren: there’s more than one doctor in New York. You are not needed here. Meanwhile Fitz is being operated on in the least urgent-feeling gunshot ER scene we’ve ever watched. The Liars take this as opportunity to enact their honeypot plan. To wit: the decoy girls are meant to sit in the waiting room to draw out A, who will overhear Ali’s name being called to the ER (the honeypot) and will then leave to seek Ali out, which will then let Ali and Aria, spying from a doorway, follow.
Since A is totally lurking on the decoys, cell phone in hand, this works. “It’s happening,” she/he/it/bitch texts in a BLACK TEXT BUBBLE, “follow the leader.”
Ali leaves. A follows Ali. The decoy girls follow A. Aria…stays behind to guard/angst over Ezra.
Hastings Interlude
We dip back to Rosewood to find the Family Hastings worried about where Spencer is, and more importantly, if she really knew Alison was alive all this time and has been lying to them for years. Melissa describes the many ways in which Alison was really horrible, and spends the rest of the episode on the brink of confessing her major secret from the season finale. Her father lays down the law (heh): “Your mother can NEVER know what you told me.”
Holbrook pops by to tell them that Cece Drake has escaped, knocked out a cop, stolen a cop car, and now might be after Spencer. Damn, girl. “If there’s anything you haven’t told me…” he continues. DRAMATIC PAUSE…Nope!
Back to New York
Alison leaves the hospital to wander the New York Backlot Of Every Show Ever, with A on her tail. She leads A to a creepy abandoned playground, because obviously. “WANNA PLAY?” A says, in a growly, rough voice. It is, truly, scary.
Suddenly, the decoy Liars appear from nowhere to back Ali up, as Ali pepper sprays A right in the hood-face. THE PLAN! Victory!
Thinking they’ve won, the girls gleefully explain how they pulled it off. Girls! The one rule of winning is NEVER MONOLOGUE. MONOLOGUING EQUALS DEATH. And sure enough, a full on ARMY of As appears and cuts the victory monologue off like all three hydra heads in one.
“Are you sure that’s A?” the first new A hisses. “Maybe I’m A!” says another. “Or maybe it’s one of them…” “I’m A!” “I’m A!” WE’RE ALL SPARTACUS.
The As are wearing distorted masks and it is all pretty terrifying. Or at least, it would have been terrifying if we did not get immediately frustrated with the girls’ immense stupidity. Because as soon as the As dissipate, they’re like, “At least we got A away from Ezra!” Really? The A you thought you followed turned out to NOT be A and multiplied and that somehow makes you think…A was ONE of them? Darlings. You are lovely people and usually pretty smart, but please sample a moment of skepticism, and suppose that maybe this person/army who has been successfully tormenting you for years now has perhaps not actually left alone the single human alive who can identify her/him/it/bitch.
#MonasArmy
Back in Rosewood, Mona sees on the news that the cops now know Ali is alive after all. “This changes everything…” she says, to… Lucas!
We see that Mona has called unto her an “army” of kids who Ali spent her middle school years tormenting. Paige is there! Mona wants to build an alliance with those downtrodden, a pre-emptive strike so Ali can’t go back to her old ways. Girl, we know you are literally crazy, but come on. Ali’s been gone two years. Someone buried her alive. You’re the Queen Bee now! Your reasoning here is LITERALLY CRAZY.
Paige knows what’s up, because she is amazing. “You weren’t those people,” she argues with Mona when Mona forces high school seniors on the cusp of graduating to recall their middle school torments. “That’s just what she called you, not who you are.”
Paige gets up to leave, but at the door…
Melissa and Mona?? And just like that, Paige stays. Yeah, we want to see what happens here too.
Back to Back to New York, or, The Fitzgerald Theater of Horror (-filled flashbacks)
While Aria hangs out at the hospital, Ali leads the others to a super secret hideout. It’s dark when they walk in, but Ali turns on some lights to reveal that they are literally on stage. A huge stage in a huge theater. A huge stage in a huge theater that Ezra’s family actually OWNS. And when, in an icky Ezra/Alison flashback, Ali finds out that he’s “a rich boy pretending to be a poor boy,” middle-school her is endeared. High-school-runaway her, however, apparently gets that being a good liar is not an asset. What, is that GROWTH we see there?
While Alison is experiencing this tender memory and Hanna is trying to accidentally shoot everyone, Spencer’s stomach is growling, because she hasn’t eaten since the bridal show. This show takes place in molasses time.
As they raid the concession stand for snacks, the girls banter a bit, emphasizing the distance that’s sprung up between the four of them and Ali in the time she’s been gone. They have friendships, memories, experiences together, and this has shifted the power dynamic. Ali looks uncomfortable, and she cattily pulls out her cell phone and flounces off to call her friends who have helped her and risked a lot, to let them know what’s going on. Now it’s the others’ turn to look vaguely hurt. Like THEY haven’t been stalked, harassed, kidnaped, and nearly murdered a few dozen times, for Alison? Bless Hanna, the Liar least enamored by Alison’s mystique, who follows Ali to eavesdrop. But she can’t hear anything.
Ezra Under the Knife
Shana shows up at the hospital, supposedly at Ali’s request. Aria is, rightfully, suspicious. She doesn’t buy Shana’s offer to get her snacks, or wake her if she falls asleep and things happen. Aria is, we repeat, suspicious.
And then like two seconds later, she nods right off like the most trusting little kitten. And Shana immediately leaps up all suspicious-like. Oh, gee: Is Shana a creeper? Doing some creeping? WE’RE SO SURPRISED. Equally (not)surprising: Aria falling asleep on her ONE JOB.
Aria wakes some time later and realizes Ezra must be out of surgery. She finds Shana loooooming over a still unconscious Fitz…
But sadly, he doesn’t die. And Shana leaves. And New York’s super zen doctors fix Ezra right up. And he whispers something in Aria’s ear. And…she knows all! She races to…
The Theater. Again.
Spencer, Hanna, Emily, and Alison are back on the stage, dozing off into the set’s comfy leather chairs and couches. The scenes in the theater all have this slowed-down quality, as if time is progressing at half pace, or they are all sleepwalking, going through the motions. It’s… strange. After making sure Alison is asleep, the other three wonder what life would be like without A. Hanna contemplates taking up a hobby. Spencer…
After the others doze back off, someone sneaks in and wakes up Ali. It’s CeCe Drake, who apparently followed the homing signal her doppelgänger was emitting. “We don’t just look alike. We think alike too. All of your memories have been implanted in my head. We are mirror clones. We share consciousness. Blerp.”
She, Ali and Noel meet up at a diner, where CeCe asks Ali for a favor this time. Ali gives her the money, plane tickets and identification documents Noel had cooked up for her own escApe. The girls clutch hands fondly in farewell, Noel smirks at them to kiss—hey sleazeball, we did not miss you at all!—and they send CeCe off into the night. Ali returns to the theater, where she pulls a suspicious Emily aside and tells her the truth about CeCe (killed Wilden, helped Ali, had to run away). Ali: stop dividing the Liars like they can’t stand as one against literally any force! This time, though, we think she’s not playing a game, but instead underestimating the bond the four have woven between themselves in her absence.
Rosewood Police Department of Googling Creepy Stalkers
The NYPD calls Holbrook, who is sitting in the RPD looking like quite an Important Dude, With A Lot Going On. Why does YOUR NYC shooting involve IMPORTANT Rosewood US?, he asks. They tell him, and he promises to “look into” this Ezra Fitz character.
Unfortunately a giant sticker that says “PEDOPHILE” is not stamped over Ezra’s face in the police database. Instead, Holbrook learns that Fitz is a FITZGERALD, and then digs up the phone number to the Fitzgerald theater in Times Square. On a whim, that very moment, he calls it. Alison picks up, thinking it’s Aria, but Holbrook recognizes her voice! “Alison?” he asks, incredulous. We’re incredulous, too, at his vocal recognition skills. She hangs up, frightened, but on the other end of the line he’s already calling the NYPD back.
We Have Yet To EscApe From New York
The girls are frantic to get Ali out of the theater before the police and/or A and/or the Army of As shows up to do her in for good. But she can’t leave! She doesn’t have money or a passport! Cue guilty shared look with Em, who now has one more secret she doesn’t want to be keeping. But they are kept from having to elaborate to the others when BAM! A IS AT THE DOOR.
AND A IS SHANA. Wielding the gun she stole from sleeping Aria’s jacket. (ONE. JOB., Aria.)
Evidently, Shana fell in love with Jenna, and what she is doing now is “justice”: five lives for an eye, as the old saying goes. But if Shana was able to send Ezra to find Ali in New York…why didn’t she just GO to New York first? Or was the deal that Ezra INVESTERGATED something in Georgia and surreptitiously found out that Shana was the bad one and overheard SHE was on HER way to New York and raced to beat her? But then WHY TELL ARIA Shana told him where to find them? Or did we dream that he did that?
We’re so confused.
Anyway, Aria teleports straight from Ezra’s bedside to stage left just in time to see Shana debating whether or not to pull the trigger. Since Aria apparated just behind Shana’s line of sight, she has plenty of opportunity to pick up the really real shotgun Hanna found earlier, shout for Shana’s attention, and…
…knock her straight off the stage, where she cracks her skull.
And dies.
Aaaaand now two Liars are accidental murderers.
Spencer comforts a shellshocked Aria, telling her she did what she had to do. Aria mutters, dazed, “it’s really over.” They all nod in agreement, tentative looks of relief spreading across their faces. Okay: Aria can be forgiven for that because she is in shock. But you others? LITERALLY TEN MINUTES AGO YOU WERE SURROUNDED BY AN ENTIRE CHORUS OF PEOPLE DRESSED AS A. “It’s really over, ” SUUUURE.
Finally, it is Spencer’s turn to do something: she calls 911, and quietly tells them, “there’s been an accident.”
What’s Up With A?
Ding dong, one A is dead.
And CeCe’s going to Paris, as Fake-Ali-As-Fake-Vivian-Darkbloom. She tips her oversized sunglasses in a nod to Aria’s favorite film as Edith Piaf brilliantly soundtracks her actual escApe. From New York.
Until next week, friends! In the meantime, come hang out with us on tumblr.
– 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.
