Emily
Paige and Emily are discussing Mona. Paige thinks Mona totally could’ve murdered Wilden and Emily is concerned that she’s going to try to pin it on the Liars. They change the subject to Emily’s birthday. Paige tells Emily she’s planning a quiet night for the two of them at her aunt’s lake house, but she’s really throwing Emily a surprise party. You kind of have to figure anyone who knows about A and still throws a surprise party for one of the girls at a secluded lake house wants someone to end up dead. Her gift to Emily is a meeting with a swim coach who has trained gold-metal Olympic swimmers. She says that Emily can always take a year off to train and get a scholarship and then they can go to Stanford together. If Harvard didn’t want Paris Gellar and Penn didn’t want 18th generation legacy Spencer Hastings, I’m pretty sure Stanford isn’t gonna want someone who steals things from her mother’s desk at the police station and is surprised when that comes back to bite her in the ass.
Em goes to see the coach and after he watches her recruitment video he tells her that she has some bad habits, but that she has potential. It comes out that Paige didn’t tell the coach about Emily’s torn rotator cuff, which would delay her training by at least six months. Emily arrives at the lake house and starts to confront Paige when everyone pops out and yells “Surprise!”
Yup, looks like a typical surprise party.
Later, Emily’s out on the dock and Paige comes out and joins her. Paige didn’t tell the coach about Emily’s injury because she wanted to make sure he saw her, but they can get a second opinion. Emily asks why Paige wants her to swim so badly. Paige points out that Stanford is really far away and a lot can happen. Emily says they have to face the fact that they won’t be together next year. They cry as we cut to a commercial, but I don’t think they broke up yet because everyone knows that’s what Columbus Day Weekend is for.
Back in the party, they’re cutting the cake and Emily and Aria leave to find Spencer. Aria, of course, gets dragged into self-created Aria drama, so Emily goes on alone and sees someone floating in the lake. She thinks it’s Spencer and runs into the water to rescue her but it’s Jenna. Jenna looks pretty dead, but after the commercial she’s being wheeled into an ambulance with an oxygen mask on. Paige can’t believe that Emily is the one who saved Jenna, but Emily’s more interested in figuring out who tried to kill her. Paige says it could’ve been an accident and seems…really unconcerned, and Emily points out that there was blood on the back of Jenna’s head, like someone hit her before throwing her in the water to keep her from telling the Liars what she knew.
Hanna
Veronica Hastings tells Hanna and Spencer that Mona made a full confession and asks if the girls put her up to this, because if they’re involved in any way it could really hurt Ashley’s case. Spencer does not laugh and say “Have you MET Mona?” Off screen, Hanna tells Spencer about her plan to confess to killing Wilden.
Hanna and Veronica meet with Ashley in jail. Ashley doesn’t understand why Mona confessed to a murder she didn’t commit. Veronica tells her that whatever the reason, Mona’s confession caused enough doubt to make the judge grant Ashley bail. The charges still stand until they find evidence to corroborate Mona’s story, and since the charge is killing a police officer, the bail is set to $1 million. That rule should not apply when the police officer in question was corrupt as hell and sleeping with 15-year-olds.
Hanna’s trying to get her dad to provide the 100k in bail money when Pastor Ted comes up to her to ask her how she’s doing. He also apparently left her a bunch of voicemails, which makes him better than her actual dad. Remember when Hanna got run over by a car and her father, who lived a town away, sent a potted plant instead of visiting? Pastor Ted says that Ashley is strong and can handle it, and Hanna counters that Ashley may be able to deal with the situation, but she isn’t sure she can. She also mentions that Caleb is trying to sell his car to help raise the bail money, because Caleb is the best off-screen boyfriend a girl could ask for.
Later, Veronica brings Ashley home and says she must have a guardian angel, because someone posted her bail anonymously. Everyone thinks it was Hanna’s dad. Ashley hugs Hanna and then goes to hug her second love, wine, when Veronica tells her that in addition to keeping track of her location, Ashley’s ankle bracelet will also detect alcohol. Is that standard in cases that don’t involve alcohol? Lucille Bluth would never stand for being under house arrest without booze.
Star-crossed lovers.
Hanna’s leaving a voicemail to thank her dad for the bail money when Mona calls. She can’t talk long but just wanted to make sure Ashley got out on bail.
Later, Pastor Ted shows up with a pie. He makes it pretty clear that he still wants to date Ashley, even after she tells him that she had a history with Wilden and met him the night he was murdered and could have done it. Pastor Ted is a judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged type of guy and hugs her and tells her everyone has their limits. Before he leaves he asks her not to run because he’s got a lot riding on her, so now Ashley knows who actually paid the bail. She tells Hanna and Hanna says he must really like her. Pastor Ted came across really well in this episode, so he’s either the only other good adult male in Rosewood besides Emily’s dad or he’s about to strangle a bunch of puppies.
Aria
Aria was so upset about…someone driving outside her house that Jake stayed over on her couch. And now he’s thoughtfully changing right in front of a big window.
Way to creep like a far less subtle version of A, Aria.
The two of them grab a coffee at the Brew. Ezra’s there with Alex Mack and he’s too busy trying to burn Jake with his laser vision to pay attention to Alex Mack until she says that the grad school where she got funding is in Seattle. Later they fight about Malcolm. Ezra doesn’t want to displace him from Rosewood, where he’s been for what, all of two months? He wants custody. At no point does he maybe think he could move to Seattle and get a teaching job there. He meets with Veronica (for the first time ever?) and she tells him he’ll have to establish paternity to get parental rights. This could go one of two ways: a hilarious custody battle where Alex Mack points out that he had a relationship with a 16-year old or a paternity test where it’s revealed that Fitz isn’t the father. I’m guessing it’ll be the latter so they can move on to a love triangle where Aria has to choose between her boyclone Ezra, or uncomplicated ab-machine Jake.
Aria pretty much spends the whole episode being really passive-aggressive after Jake shows up at Emily’s party with a blonde. There’s a lot of “Are you jealous?” “Why would I be jealous?”
Jake’s also outside for some reason (Secret brother of Garrett retribution?) when Emily finds Jenna and helps haul her out of the water. Later he’s back on Aria’s couch and he said he knew her life was complicated, but he didn’t understand how complicated. Ha, Jake, she’s just on the periphery of all the complicated nonsense on this show. She says she doesn’t know why, but she feels safe with him. I’m no psychiatrist, but I’m guessing it’s because he’s jacked. They agree to date.
Spencer
Another episode where Spencer doesn’t have a whole lot to do. At school, she and Aria overhear Shana and Jenna talking in the courtyard. Jenna thinks that the cops know she’s hiding something and that she should have told them about Alison because it’s too dangerous not to say anything. Shana promises to stick by Jenna.
As they’re setting up for Emily’s party, Aria and Spencer wonder if Jenna was saying that she knew Ali was alive. Spencer says Jenna’s extra vulnerable now that her surgery is reversing itself and her eyesight is failing. Jenna should’ve tried to get into one of those clinical studies with the stem cell contacts. They’re specifically for people with macular burns and you just know Jenna’s the kind of person who would love rubbing stem cells in her eyes. Spencer also mentions that Toby chased the phone number Nigel Wright was calling to an apartment in New York rented by a girl. The landlord wouldn’t give Toby the name, but he did give him a P.O. Box address in Philly.
Spencer and Aria try to separate Jenna and Shana so they can confront Jenna. A key part of this plan depends on Aria keeping track of them rather than getting wrapped up in her own drama, so clearly it doesn’t work.
Spencer shows up at the hospital where Jenna is and finds Shana. She asks Shana who hurt Jenna and says that any of them could be next. Did Ali do this? Shana spits out that Ali is dead, and the one Jenna is afraid of is CeCe Drake.
Mona
Mona’s story for the cops is that she killed Wilden in self-defense. He was obsessed with pinning Alison’s murder on her friends, and she tried to blackmail him, but it didn’t work. Once he found out she knew he’d killed Garrett, he became enraged. She couldn’t let her best friend’s mother go down for a murder she didn’t commit, so she confessed.
At the end of the episode she’s back at Radley. It looks like she went there of her own volition. She seems pretty pleased to be back in her old room.
At the very end of the episode, Red Coat sneaks under the DiLaurentis’ porch. I’m assuming there’s a way to get into the house from there, because whoever Red Coat is, she doesn’t seem like the type who enjoys camping.
Credits
In the A-Tag, A prepares an envelope for Toby with some sheet music titled “Any Time.”
Next week: Wren’s back! So if any of the Liars are gonna get injured, they better do it then. Wren would never call CPS.
What do you think Mona’s plan is? Do you think CeCe Drake actually has anything to do with any of this? Is Emily is about two minutes from snapping like season-3 Spencer?
About the Contributor:
This post was written by Caroline.
