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Hanna
Hanna’s so upset that she can’t even eat her feelings. She meets with Ashley in jail and says her father is staying with her. She’s acting like everything will be back to normal soon and Ashley ain’t having it. They both tear up and try to hold hands, but a guard knocks on the two-way mirror and I yell “No touching!” at the TV.
This is like 80% sad about her mom and 20% realizing she might have to go live with her terrible father.
I’m not sure Hanna’s dad actually IS staying there, because we never see him and Spencer walks in on Hanna forging her mom’s signature on checks to pay the bills. Spencer tells Hanna that it would be better if Ashley HAD killed Wilden, because she could claim it was in self-defense and get a sweet 20-year voluntary manslaughter charge, as opposed to first-degree murder. This makes Hanna realize that her mom isn’t coming back anytime soon. At school, Fitz asks how Hanna’s doing and tells her to forget about the essay that’s due. She thanks him for being the nicest statutory rapist in all of Rosewood. I love the look on Fitz’s face whenever he interacts with Hanna. It’s like he can’t believe she hasn’t accidentally asphyxiated herself with a dry cleaning bag yet.
Ashley’s eye makeup is perfect even in jail.
When Hanna goes back to the jail she begs Ashley to plead guilty, because no one else believes that Ashley’s being set up. Ashley’s like “Look, I may steal money from old ladies and hide it in lasagna boxes, and I may sleep with detectives to keep my daughter from being charged with shoplifting, but I will not plead guilty to a murder I didn’t commit.”
Emily
Emily’s mom wants Emily to go to a clinic to get prolotherapy. Emily’s worried about the expense because of all the money problems the Fields have never had before this season. Plus, she sees her mom lock Wilden’s apartment key up for safekeeping at the station and decides a better use of her time would be to steal the key and break into Wilden’s place. A better, better use of her time would probably be to note the address on the key and then get Caleb to pick the lock so her mom wouldn’t get suspended later in the episode for losing evidence.
At Wilden’s, Em, Spencer and Aria find an unopened box of rotting steaks sent from A with a note that says “Can’t wait to see you at our little barbecue.” Wouldn’t the police have opened that? More importantly, four seasons in, they finally wear some damn gloves while they snoop. At home, Pam scolds Emily for not going to her clinic appointment and tells her that she did indeed get suspended. Emily gets an email from A that says “You crashed Wilden’s, now I’ll make it all come crashing down.” Do they forget A is watching everything they do or do they just not care anymore? Emily tries to sneak the key… into her mom’s purse or something? We don’t find out, because she listens to Pam on the phone fretting about her suspension and money and then a freaking car plows through the living room right where Pam’s standing. She’s fine, but the living room isn’t and you just know CPS is going to have Thoughts about this.
Spencer
Spencer doesn’t really have much going on this episode. Things are still tense with Emily, who manages to turn Spencer’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Marins’ dish placement into a passive-aggressive comment about Spencer keeping Toby’s secret.
Toby and Caleb
Have these two ever even had a conversation before? They’re sleuthing in Toby’s typical teenage construction worker apartment, operating under the assumption that Red Coat both caused the fire and killed Wilden. Guys, there are like, three different factions at play. They’ve got a bulletin board of clues and Toby sticks a post-it on the board that says “Where is A?” Does he need to put that on there lest they forget their objective? This concerns me. They find that the plane is at a nearby airfield, using some using the tail number that Spencer, of course, memorized. The employee at the airfield is a hot, blond twenty-something guy named Nigel Wright, so he is obviously bad news. Nigel tells them that the plane is registered to John Smith, and the last time the plane landed at the airfield was the night of the fire, but the flight plan is private. He also says it was foggy that night, so it would have been really hard to land.
Back at Toby’s, Toby says Caleb can crash there if he wants. I only mention this because where the hell is Caleb even living now? In someone’s walls? Toby’s fiddling with the lighter he found the night of the fire. It’s got a compass on it and the N and W are bigger than the other letters. Shaggy and Scooby deduce that the N and W stand for Nigel Wright and think that means he was the pilot, because how else would he know that night was foggy? They go to confront him and he claims that CeCe Drake paid him to fake a flight plan and lie if anyone came asking questions. Then he runs away and hilariously pulls down a giant metal bookcase to keep the guys from following him. Good thing Caleb pickpocketed his phone!
Guys, you can’t both be bad cop.
Spencer, Toby and Caleb see that Nigel made a bunch of calls to a New York number, including some after the first visit from the guys. They wonder why CeCe would want to hurt the Liars. Spencer thinks maybe CeCe and Wilden set the fire, then CeCe killed Wilden and was doing all this to cover her tracks. When she tells the guys that CeCe visited Mona at Radley, Toby pulls her aside to tell her that the doctor he went to visit warned him to keep his mom away from ‘that blonde girl.’ I feel like CeCe lacks the motivation to screw with some random kid’s mother.
Aria
Aria, as always, is off on her own. She suspects Mike trashed Connor’s car. Mike’s like “Uh, I play lacrosse. That stick is tiny, it would take a bat or something to do that much damage.” Does Mike think you need a license to buy a baseball bat? Vice Principal Hackett stops Aria on the way to one of her six daily English classes to ask if Mike’s still taking his medication, because Connor also thinks Mike’s the one who trashed his car. At home, Byron asks where Mike is and says that Connor’s dad is pressing charges and is pushing for Mike to get expelled. Aria explains the situation and Byron is actually not a complete jackass about it. Growth! She also says that Connor assumed that she’d sleep with anyone since she slept with an older guy. Is that just teenage boy logic? She slept with a hot guy in his 20s, so obviously she’s going to want to rebound with a 16-year old who probably doesn’t even have a feelings journal.
Later, she’s waiting outside Hackett’s office while Mike and Byron meet with Connor and his dad, and Ezra, who can probably sense when Aria is having Emotions, approaches. He insists that Mike couldn’t have done it and asks Aria really intensely if she knows who did it. Aria now thinks A did it, but are we supposed to think Fitz did it? It’s more likely that he went home and wrote an angry poem about how someone besmirched the honor of his future child bride.
Fitz sees Hackett later and points out that Mike’s parents are going to be pretty pissed that Hackett asked Mike’s sister if he was off his meds. I’d think they’d be angrier that he did it in a public place. Hackett counters that maybe Fitz is a LITTLE too invested in the Montgomery family, but he listens to Fitz’s HIPAA threats anyway because Mike comes home and tells Aria that they got Sausage Guy, which is apparently a celebration food. Does the show remember that Aria is a vegetarian? He tells Aria that Fitz saved the day. Aria goes to Ezra’s to slip a thank you note under his door, which is not a euphemism. He comes around the corner and tells her he’d do anything for her and they look at each other in a way that makes it obvious that they’ll be back together in, like, two episodes. Ugh.
Nigel Wright
Nigel prepares a cup of Lady Grey tea and calls the unseen guest “babe.” He says he’s sorry he screwed up and that Caleb is the one who took his phone. He puts the tea down on a table without using a coaster, so my mother would hate him. On the table is a pair of sunglasses, so I guess Jenna’s roped in another sucker.
Hey, look, Nigel was also Jenna’s date to Wilden’s funeral.
Credits
In the tag, A buys a roll of duct tape, a book on home repair for dummies and a $50 hardware store gift card addressed to Emily Fields. Sometimes A is the wind beneath my wings, you guys.
What’d you think of this episode? Did A trash Connor’s car? Did you think the stunt of ramming a car into Emily’s living room lacked A’s usual finesse?
About the Contributor:
This post was written by Caroline.
