About:
Catie was off at her hippie new age doctor seminar this week, but no worries—Rosemary is officially our third recapper! Hooray!! -Alexis
THIS WEEK’S MVP
Emily!
We mean, probably “whack the thing” is not always the best course of action when approaching the only available control mechanism for a highly sophisticated box of potential death, but at least you weren’t dumb enough to get yourself locked in said death box in the first place, so. Have a trophy.
THIS WEEK’S LVP
It is just so easy to hand this award to Aria “oh did we lose cell service? well we should prolly split up then” Montgomery, but Hanna DID let NuA rile her enough to make a detailed and possibly felonious plan right out in the view of any old hackable laptop, so…sorry, Hann. You’re at the bottom of the heap this week.
Runner up trophy to Spencer, who is prepared enough apparently to have bolt cutters in her car at all times, and yet who walked into the Bozo’s Ice Cream Factory of Doom with nothing but the screen of her phone for a flashlight. (Although, considering that she just picked the other two dummies up off the side of the road, probably it is they who didn’t come prepared with heavy duty torches, and thus they who had to borrow Spencer’s pair as the Scoobied their way into trouble.)
BIGGEST SHOCK/BEST SURPRISE
Ezra trying to break up with Aria! Loathe as we are to give him any credit for any good decision regarding any teenage girl (and suspicious as Alexis is of this being yet another, even subtler attempt at gaslighting Aria into being the perfect victim–whether he knows he is doing it or not), SOMEONE taking Aria’s very truthful words at face value and pressing her to react reasonably to them is something we never thought we’d see the show do.
Now, to make it stick.
BIGGEST NO-DUH
They still won’t show us what’s in the barrel.
THAT’S ALI, FOLKS
No Ali again this week. Variously evil quintuplets should be getting a lot more screen time, in our opinion, but oh well. Can’t have everything. Here: have a bonus Ali+Mona scene instead.
PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS
Spencer had a truly terrible plan to prove Ali killed Mona in order to prove that Spencer didn’t kill Bethany Young; Emily had a truly terrible plan to plant DNA evidence at the scene of Mona’s murder to do just that; Aria had a truly terrible plan to “lie” to Ezra’s ex Jackie Molina about how Ezra ruined her life in order to get accepted to even just one school; Caleb had a truly terrible plan to steal and destroy planted murder evidence; Spencer and Caleb together had the truly terrible plan to gatecrash NuA’s storage locker of Mona murder evidence without bringing even gloves; Toby had a truly terrible plan to join the least effective police department on the Eastern Seaboard and NOT come clean to his superiors about the Liars’ last two years of hell; Ashley had a truly terrible plan to let Jason seduce her in Pastor Ted’s absence; Hanna was an angel among mortals.
THIS WEEK
Liars Summit
Speaking of angels, Hanna’s screwed. As Caleb discovered at the end of last week’s episode, the storage unit full of bloody evidence bags and also probably Mona’s body in a barrel is in Hanna’s name. “Payback for Hanna confronting Ali in jail!” Aria declares.
“Whoa whoa whoa—you saw Ali?!?!” Spencer and Emily exclaim, pissed that Hanna’d do something so “dangerous” without consulting them, but Caleb tells them to chillax: the storage unit was rented in Hanna’s name the day before Mona was murdered, so framing Hanna must have been Ali/Holbrook/NuA’s plan all along. That bloody knife he almost died trying to destroy? Probably had Hanna’s prints allllll over it.
Caleb and Spencer mentally high-five for having the forethought to get rid of it, but Hanna isn’t satisfied. “Do you think that walk-in kiln is big enough to shove a whole storage bin inside? Because for real that’s Top Priority Numero One.” Despite the textbook idiotic things literally everyone else in the room except Hanna has done since 5B began, the others immediately jump up and down in their frenzy to convince Hanna how crazy her plan sounds. “Touching anything in that room is tampering with evidence that could convict Ali!” exclaims Emily Who Tried to Plant DNA Evidence at a Murder Scene Once Like Four Seconds Ago.
“It could convict ME!” Hanna shouts back. Caleb tries to convince her that she does have an alibi for Thanksgiving because they were together, but Hanna knows (like we know) that Tanner won’t buy that for a second. Caleb tries another tactic, pointing out that they are at least one step ahead of Holbrook, who couldn’t possible know they’ve traced Mona’s laptop to the storage unit. They’ve got time for Caleb to do his deep web hacker shit, corrupt some files, and get Hanna’s name off that lease! Then they’ll tell Tanner they traced Mona’s laptop there and she’ll realize once and for all that randomly shady Holbrook is behind EVERYTHING (Liar Logic™).
Spencer assures Hanna it’s the safest plan they’ve got, but the crazy glint in Hanna’s eye promises trouble.
Something Inappropriate’s a’Brewing (Catie would be so proud of this pun)
At New Brew the next morning, Emily is visibly wilting. She couldn’t sleep. “Thinking about Mona in that barrel gave me nightmares,” she shudders. “I know, right?” Aria says. “But also and more importantly I am getting shudders from all of my own personal problems and how NuA is using them against me and and how they might for really real this time ruin things with Ezra.” It’s like Aria has never once had an experience being a tiny brunette trapped in an even tinier space filled with death with which she might empathize with Mona. Oh, Aria.
After Aria drifts away to be angsty about Ezra/Talmadge some more, Emily turns around to find Talia tying a thousand bows around the pecan pie she baked as a honeypot for Em thank you for Ezra. “Um, sorry, Talia, but Ezra is the opposite of available,” she spits, trying to save Aria’s creepy relationship when really she should be making every effort to steer Ezra down any appropriately-aged-romance path.
“Sorry if I stepped on your turf,” Talia says, physically stepping back. “Well my turf is empty of all men, so, you’re not,” Emily rejoins.
Clear eyes, gay heart, can’t lose.
Later, after Emily has endured her thorough shitshow of a day and is back at New Brew for a breather/to try yet again to get a hold of Hanna, who (for reasons we’ll see in a bit) hasn’t been picking up all day, she walks in on Talia and “her apples” alone in the kitchen. For reasons we will never see ever, Talia asks Em if she wants to take over stirring the apples so Talia can do the cleaning up Em just told her she was there to do. She patronizingly shows Emily how to hold a spoon, then picks leaves from her hair and laughs about what wacky shenanigans!! Em must have been up to to get leaves there in the first place.
As Emily stirs the apples she finally gets a text from Hanna, and it is so engrossing that Emily’s unwatched and unstirred apples spontaneously catch fire. Because that’s totally what always happens when you check a text while cooking. Don’t worry girlfriend, it happens to the best of us (and by the best of us, we mean Rosemary’s best friend from college who tried to cook bacon in the toaster once) (and also Spencer, who can’t hold an egg and read a text at the same time).
Anyway, Emily abandons the apple fire and Talia’s irritatingly chill soothing words and goes to call Spencer. “But why would Holbrook be willing to kill for Allison?” she finally alone among the Liars thinks to ask. Neither she nor we get to hear what response Spencer might have come up with though, as just then Talia returns, bearing a neatly wrapped plate of comfort food, and whether it is the mashed potatoes or Em’s exhaustion finally catching up to her, she apologizes to Talia for being such a neurotic basket case since the moment they met.
“Girl, it’s cool,” Talia says, sidling closer on the couch. “I’ve got a confession, too: I only commented on Ezra’s rear view because I was categorically UNinterested in it.”
Then she bolts. AS SHE SHOULD, being the creepy adult with the inappropriate crush that she is.
Ted Talks
At Marin Mansion, Hanna asks Ashley if she’s given Pastor Ted an answer to his proposal. Ashley says she has talked to Ted but not about Jason, and she ain’t gonna, because it would just cause him unnecessary pain. And he’ll never find out, she says, because the only people who know are Hanna and Jason, and Ashley trusts that they will keep it quiet because apparently Ashley’s hair dye has fried her brain cells/memory and she’s forgotten the omniscient cyber bully that has haunted their town/her daughter for the last three years.
Ashley meets Jason for lunch to quit her job/him. Jason is surprised—he thought it was an unexpected but good thing that happened between them, but Ashley admits her relaishe with Ted is serious and that he even proposed to her. What happened with Jason was a mistake—Ted had been gone for three months doing the good Lord’s work, and mama has NEEDS, Jason. Jason is understanding, and tells her to come clean out her desk that night.
Later, after Ashley has cleaned out her desk and Jason has super classily commented on her visible lack of an engagement ring, she and Jason have a final heart-to-heart on the only sidewalk in Rosewood. He apologizes for “crossing a line” (we get your innuendo, Jason) and is just sad that now he has to work alone with his dad, who we forgot exists because he hasn’t been present for two seasons even though his wife was murdered and his daughter who he thought was dead but is actually alive is now in jail. Ashley gives him the wise advise to stop living in the past, then goes in for a hug, at which point Jason kisses her and she’s like “OMG, DUDE GET A GRIP” then gets in her sporty-yet-luxurious Toyota™ and peaces.
LOL Toby’s a Cop: Six Second Edition
Cop Toby is going over Ali/Mona files at the very public police station when Spencer shows up to have a very private chat about Hanna, who Spence is pretty sure is going to do something stupid. Before Toby can go into very explicit detail as to why both Spencer’s presence at the station and her looming request for his help are inappropriate, though, Tanner appears throwing shade just every which way, demanding to know why Spencer and her terrific jumpsuit aren’t in school. FINALLY, SOMEONE ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS.
After Spencer leaves, Tanner asks why Toby’s looking at Ali’s files. “Just brushing up before the trial!” he promises. “But also maybe do you think that someone in the RPD, like maybe someone with a significant amount of power, like maybe someone with the specific initials G.H. and a father who is by the way not at all sick after all, is putting his tongue down teen girls’ throats and tampering with their polygraph results? You know…just maybe?”
Tanner: “You have been a cop for all of six seconds and you have the nerve to question the morals of your adult male superior as regards a bunch of teenage girls? YOUR BADGE, SIR.”
Actually she just scoffs patronizingly at Toby’s own teen girlfriend and tells Toby to rein her—and his own suspicions—in. Oh, Tanner. We were hoping that you at least might consider the possibility that most of your problems could be solved if you just took two seconds to respect a teenage girl. Alas.
Ezria’s Regret
Recalling how much easier life with any A around is when you just come clean with your minor omissions of truth, Aria calls Ezra over to her family home to kiss his adult face and also tell him the truth about Talmadge/the “fake” letter. Before she can get to the second half of her confession, however, Ezra does what he does best and steamrolls right over her. “That’s great! Jackie must not review all the application letters after all! But hey, I g2g exert authority over your teenage best friend at New Brew right now, tho, so let’s talk later!”
His dumb face almost makes her back down from insisting on telling the truth, but then she remembers being stuffed in a box with Garrett Reynolds and maybe HOPEFULLY also how Ezra stalked and manipulated and gaslighted her, and hands over the letter she sent for him to read with his own eyes. She is almost trembling, anticipating his poor reaction, but after he finishes reading Ezra just smiles and pats Aria’s head and tells her what a clever poppet she is and how Jackie must have lapped that nonsense right up. And hey, no real harm done! And then he does jet, letter in hand.
At a mini-Liars Summit later that afternoon, Emily shares Aria’s bafflement over Ezra’s super chill reaction. “I can’t believe you told Ezra and lived to talk about it!” she exclaims. “Like, literally. How did he let you live? He is a crazy man who stalked us for months and one time physically knocked Spencer out cold with a garden tool, and now he has read his exact psychological crimes against you laid out in SAT-level persuasive prose. You should just not be alive.“
They are half-right in their bafflement: presently the camera cuts to a shot of Ezra reading the letter alone in his New Brew office, looking like the real life equivalent of the single tear emoji. The actual lyrics of song playing as he reads? Bones shake/it’s lonely/it’s late/footsteps echo/glimmers of hate…
Remember that time a Police song swelled high as Aria threw Ezra down for gunshot-wound forgiveness sex? Ah, show. Your music does more justice to your worst storylines than anything else.
Later, after her harrowing ice cream factory experience, Aria changes into softpants (we feel you, girlfriend) and eats takeout with Ezra, who gives her a “spontaneous” gift that you know he had made like the day before they met and has just been waiting for the perfect chance to hand over: a monogrammed, leather bound journal. He doesn’t want her to miss out on college the way she missed out on high school because of him. This hilarious exchange follows:
Ezra: “That letter rang true for a reason.”
Aria: “Uh, yeah, because I’m a good writer.”
Ezra: “……..”
(HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)
Aria swears she doesn’t regret their being together but Ezra has realized that his girlfriend is just a child (Mmmhmm) and she needs life experiences (Mmmhmmm) and he might be holding her back (Mmmhmmmmmm). He thinks she’ll grow to resent him (MMMM HMMM) but if she takes this time for herself, there will be no regrets. He makes her promise to at least think about it.
Later, Aria pulls out her ROSEWOOD HIGH BEST YEARS OF YOUR LIFE junior yearbook and starts skimming through her classmates’ pictures. “Dead. Dead. Almost died. In a coma. Probably dead. Super dead. I think I have literally never seen anyone else on this page ever in my life. Oh, and Aria Montgomery: Not Pictured (missed too many photography club meetings).” That’s the long and short of it, kiddo.
Spencer is worried about Hanna, guys
Just as Emily is exclaiming to Aria over the shock that Ezra let her send that letter to Jackie and live to tell about it, Spencer screeches up in her fashionably utilitarian Toyota Highlander™ brandishing Mona’s moving laptop’s GPS signal.
She explains that Hanna wasn’t in school that day (literally how would any of the rest of you know that?) and that Hanna is a proven idiot who hasn’t at all been the most successful investigator these past two seasons, so she must be doing something stupid and reckless that Spencer WOULD NEVER DO like attempting to move Mona’s laptop on her own. The girls hop into the Toyota Highlander’s™ roomy, comfortable interior and book it.
The GPS leads them to a creepy, graffiti covered factory, because these idiots STILL think GPS systems aren’t more likely to lead them to death than not. They also still think it’s Hanna and Caleb who have the laptop, and don’t understand why Haleb would lead them all the way out to this super dangerous place in the middle of nowhere that doesn’t have cell service or electricity or people nearby. WHAT ARE THOSE CRAZY KIDS UP TO?!
Aria: “Where’s the laptop?”
Spencer: “No idea, lost cell service.”
Aria: “Well good, because I was worried something like the possibility of safety or calling for rescue if needed might get in the way of my plan for us to split up and search this gigantic abandoned warehouse full of huge rusty machines each on our own.”
Spencer: “Yeah, no, we’re good.”
Aria: “K. See ya never I guess.”
Spencer: “Yeah, RIP.”
Emily: *crickets*
::cue Rosemary beating her head against the wall::
Creeping through the dark, Spencer hears Caleb and Hanna’s voices echoing around the place. Emily approaches a MOVING CURTAIN and pulls it back: a cat screeches, a rat falls, and freeze dried almonds (?) appear. Spencer follows the voices to a back room where she finds a laptop playing a looped video featuring Hanna and Caleb in Hanna’s kitchen as she explains her plan to him, because someone was filming them without their knowledge! FINALLY one of these goons realize it wasn’t Haleb that led them to this creepy dark place filled with potential weapons and death traps.
Speaking of death traps, Spencer learned a little something from her walk-in kiln misadventure with Caleb like two days ago and grabs a gigantic CLUE-sized wrench to wedge in between the door and the doorframe so she can go and just stare at the incriminating Haleb vine for like ten hours, until Aria joins her and they both stare at it for another ten hours, giving NuA more than ample time to yank the wrench through the crack in the door and very thoroughly lock team Sparia inside.
Outside, NuA turns on the LIQUID NITROGEN?! What the EFF are they in?! It’s the opposite of the kiln! THE OPPOSITE OF THE KILN!!!
Emily finds them pressed against the glass screaming at her, and she attempts to turn the Opposite Kiln off by banging it with the huge wrench until there’s an explosion, sparks fly. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t work. After she regains consciousness and sees literal icicles forming in Aria’s hair (cue next week’s jewelry of choice), she takes the wrench to a steam-spewing wheel on the other side of the door. Destroying that (somehow) opens the door.
Rosemary’s husband: “Why is it that every time there’s a weird walk-in thing that either burns you to death or freezes you to death, these idiots walk right into it? Maybe they should stop getting locked into rooms that can kill you.”
Good day of investigation, girls. At least you have that laptop (maybe Mona’s? If so, NuA already hacked it and is just leaving it behind for them out of spite.).
Hanna and Caleb, partners in crime and LOVE
Caleb shows up at Hanna’s. He successfully corrupted the files so Hanna’s name is no longer on the lease and asks her if she plans on telling the others. Not yet, Hanna says; Ali and Holbrook could have planted her DNA anywhere in that storage unit, so Hanna is gonna get rid of it using all the science knowledge she used to ace the SAT and get into a bunch of colleges. She exhaustively lists all the tools she’s packing up on the kitchen counter, right next to her open laptop: power tools, bottles of bleach, gloves. Ya know, SCIENCE STUFF.
Caleb is…unconvinced. But Hanna isn’t backing down—this is just like when Caleb found that knife. He had to do something about that; she has to do something about this. She has a jeweler’s drill; she rented a van and a dolly; she knows not to drive on dirt roads when she dumps the body barrel in the woods. SHE’S GOT THIS.
Recognizing the immovable force that is his girlfriend’s will, Caleb agrees to be her dumb (though camera hacking—you forgot that one, Hann) muscle.
Our bandits break the lock and sneak in, only to find the unit/bin completely empty of everything except the barrel. Always #OneStepBehind as ABCFamily pathetically prompts us. All the evidence that could possibly be damning to them is gone, but the barrel looms ominously in the corner, probably because “Holbrook” couldn’t lift it himself. Either way, Hanna’s got a dolly and they’re getting it out of there! As they head out to retrieve said dolly, however, they are caught glove-handed by Cop Toby and Detective Tanner, who have just arrived on the scene thanks to a very friendly anonymous tip.
Tanner obvs demands to know what they’re doing there, so Caleb weaves a tale about how he’s checking out the size of the units so he can store all his Raven5wood ghost belongings. Hanna weaves a tale about having to pee.
Somehow, both explanations work, and Tanner and Toby leave Haleb to skedaddle into some new flavor of trouble.
Out of danger (for now), Hanna rages over to the Hastings Manor to rip into Spencer for telling Toby about the storage unit. Spencer swears she didn’t! She recounts to Hanna how Holbrook/NuA used Hanna’s own open laptop to make a vine about her and Caleb talking about their plan—Holbrook (not Holbrook) did this! “Then why didn’t Toby warn us, huh? Why??” Hanna demands. He knew one of them was being set up! Since when did his job become more important than his friends? (Ohhh burn!) But Spencer, tears of frustration filling her eyes, knows she is right, even if Hanna doesn’t believe her. “We told you not to go! You screwed over yourself…and you screwed over Caleb, too.”
Hanna leaves Spencer’s and heads straight to Ezra’s Caleb’s to tell him about the secret video from her kitchen. Caleb thinks Holbrook set them up, but Hanna doesn’t care about any of that. Now she’s touched the barrel, her DNA is in that room, and she won’t bring Caleb down any further. She’ll tell the cops that she forced him to go with her. She’s dangerous to be around and wants Caleb to keep his distance, but we all know Caleb loves Hanna too much for that nonsense. If she’s going down, he’ll go right down with her.
Epic ballad plays! #HalebForever flashes in the corner! Hugs! Tears!
SMDH…Toby’s a Cop
After Tanner lets Haleb go, she and Toby round the corner of the Bin of Sin’s hall, only to find the security cameras have been deactivated. Slopy work, hacker muscle! In the storage unit, we think that maybe – just maybe – we’ll find out what’s in the freaking barrel (“What if it’s just baked beans?” – Rosemary’s husband), but the smell that hits them the moment they crack the lid prompts her to send Toby to call for a Hazmat team. After he leaves, she lifts the lid high enough to get a good look inside, but the face she makes in response is impossible to read. She drops the lid, then spies several droplets of blood on the floor nearby, a faux pas that A would never be so careless to commit (on accident, at least).
Back at the station, Tanner lays out the facts: They know someone helped Allison. Okay—fact. She reminds Toby of his “oath” as a “police officer” and the “blood” in the “storage unit” (sorry got carried away with alleged facts there) and how withholding information of any sort is not an option, and that if that blood is Mona’s, Toby’s friends are the first people Tanner will be bringing in for questioning. So if there’s anything she needs to know, he better tell her now. Toby looks torn.
On the one hand: Toby! Don’t bury yourself! You don’t know what A has hiding in the wings/police database to corrupt anything you say! On the other hand: Toby! Don’t waste this opportunity to lay out A’s entire history of torture and terrorism and get real help from the inside!
As we are not allowed to know what’s in the barrel, neither are we allowed to know how Toby answers. The next we hear from him, he is sitting forlornly on the steps of the precinct, calling Spencer. She accosts him with questions about his run-in with Hanna at the storage unit. Why was he there? Why didn’t he call her and give her a heads up that he was headed there? What was in the barrel? But Toby’s lips are sealed by the law (so we guess that is a partial answer as to which side of things Toby will be taking from now on). He won’t talk about it, so Spencer asks him to come over when he gets off work, but he says he’ll be working late and can’t. He hangs up on her as Spencer cries/continues to act circles around the other girls. Toby, not working late at all, gets into his truck and drives off into the night.
A Tag
Discordant ice cream truck music plays, making us all think back to our childhoods and shudder. Mona’s bloody evidence bags are lined up neatly on a new set of shelves, evidently at the clown ice cream factory, as when the locker door closes, A’s blacklight flashlight reveals it to be the very same door Emily, Spencer, and Aria put their paw prints all over just before splitting up like dummies.
Nicely done, A. Nicely done.
NEXT WEEK
Holbrook’s back, so we can finally tell him how disappointed we are that he failed to live up to our expectations of “Normal Adult Male.” Also maybe we’ll find out what’s in that damn barrel.
