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This week was all about sketch alliances, hidden spaces, and some of the show’s best montages to date. Also, suddenly Ali has her own scenes and now there are FIVE liars to keep track of. Saddle up!
THIS WEEK’S MVP
Spencer, for being the first Liar to spot one of the what must be approximately one million spy cams that have been watching their every move for the past two years.
THIS WEEK’S LVP
Mrs. Hastings, for apparently being In Town but somehow not noticing that her daughter had not slept for like a zillion days and not being at all alarmed when Hanna called to say she couldn’t get a hold of Spencer.
BIGGEST SHOCK/BEST REVEAL
You’re kidding, right? Chickpea Murder Hole. CHICKPEA MURDER HOLE.
BIGGEST NO-DUH
Fugitives generate a lot of paperwork. New Detective was referring to CeCe and her run from Wilden Murder charges, of course, but Wren’s escape to London generated a fair share of paperwork, too (enough, at least, for Toby to have stumbled across that one time)…
PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS
New Detective creeped on Hanna at the outdoor mystery book stand. Spencer ruined Emily’s chances to be messed around with by Ali again. Emily’s dad almost died. Mike and Mona made out. Spencer took some Study Aid and discovered the existence of Board Shorts Ale. Hanna got tooth operated by crAzy.
THIS WEEK
Four Liars enter…
Nighttime. In a neon-lit phone booth, a panicked-looking Ali pleads with someone on the phone. Cut to Shana, on the other end of the line at the Brew. “Just tell me you can get it,” Ali is asking her desperately as the Liars walk in. Hanna says that Shana has so many faces to trust she’s run out of fingers to keep count.
Post-credits, the Liars play audience catch up: Emily’s dad? Probably fine. A? Probably a dude. Might Ezra know anything about how Emily was terrorized at school, seeing as he set up the spring play thing? “EZRA? WHO IS EZRA I HAVEN’T SEEN HIM IN PRACTICALLY FOREVER,” Aria dissembles. Hanna reminds everyone that she had some creepy dental work done recently, and goads the gang to agree (reluctantly, in some cases) that to stay safe they should wait for Ali to contact them.
SPENCER
Spencer ignores this agreement like a millisecond after making it. As Hanna notices, she is tweakin’. Her foot is tappin’ and her eyes are starin’ and her hands, they are a-shakin’. Even for Spencer Hastings she is acting a little intense, and Hanna tells her to lay off the espresso. But Spencer’s cup is full of herbal tea, sucker!
Her blood, however, is full of DRUGS. And it is drugs that give us the first of this episode’s truly marvelous montages, in which a hopped-up Spence searches and prints and paces and sleuths.
Finally, she opens the curtains, and surprise! It’s daylight.
To school! Andrew’s stash is cashed, so Spencer swoops down on another overachieving pill-popper. And Brenda’s got her own pill game going. “Don’t haggle, Spencer, it’s tacky,” she says primly, pocketing Spencer’s $50 before handing over five precious tablets.
Immediately afterward, Ezra accosts Spencer in the hallway to critique her latest essay, and asks to meet with her after school. Luckily, Spencer has learned from her friends’ mistakes and explains she’d rather take the bad grade than risk getting haunted or stabbed or thrown off a train or saw-milled in half, thankyouverymuch. As she tries to leave, he blocks her path and menacingly reminds her of the consequences of sloppy work.
Back home, Spencer continues her manic Googling. Ezra Fitz + Ravenswood is a bust, but Ezra FitzGERALD yields a (poorly thought out, dude) Craigslist ad for an open studio. Spence finally breaks through her drug bubble and phones a friend. Aria, to be exact. “Maybe don’t go to Murder Cabin with your boyfriend?” she says. No, just kidding. She gets voicemail and leaves a vague but also wrenching message: “Something’s been going on and… I really have to tell somebody about it. I really have to tell you about it. But if I’m right, then that would just break your heart. And if I’m wrong, then you’re going to hate me forever. And that would really really break my heart.” We are left wondering if she sends it or deletes it.
At Ezra’s Rosewood apartment building, Spencer rings all of the buzzers until someone lets her in, but Hanna catches up with her before she is through the door.
Spencer’s investigations spill out: boysenberry pie, Board Shorts Ale, Craigslist! Hanna points out that A probably has a million secret lairs scattered throughout the greater Rosewood area (TRUTH), and thus is unlikely to keep all evidence in his apartment. At that moment, Spencer notices a tiny camera watching them from inside a heating vent, and mutters at Hanna to be cool. She backs out of the apartment, chatting loudly about how she has been NOT sleeping well at ALL and what was I THINKING… and in his car Ezra watches the entire scene, on live streaming video, literally muttering “That’s right, Spencer, back away,” out loud, to himself.
<33333 but also D: D: D:
HANNA
Hanna spends most of this episode using her newfound sleuthing prowess to worry about Spencer. In a rare moment away from these concerns, New Detective helps Hanna load her car with boxes of her things (shoes) recently released from evidence lockdown.
Hanna and ND basically start a mystery book club, but ND admits he has been too busy with “the Cece Drake case” to read much these days. There are so many details to go through!, he says, about habits and personality traits and method of snake-slaying-by-mannequin-leg.
At school, Hanna worries to Aria that Spencer is acting even Spencer-ier than usual. “She’s investigating,” Hanna declares. “Sounds like YOU are,” Aria counters. “I’m just studying details,” Hanna explains, “Like Gabe taught me.” And a diary is just a journal where you write stuff. Aria calls Hanna out for being on a first-nickname basis with New Detective, asking, “What, is he into fashion or something?” We’re getting a little sick of Hanna’s friends belittling her interests and activities, but…fair.
After school, Emily and Hanna go to check on Spencer. Spence claims to be at the library, but Hanna can hear the Hastings Manor grandfather clock bonging away on the other end of the line, so she and Em stay put until they are distracted by Shana.
Later, Hanna calls Mrs. Hastings, who (unsurprisingly) is unaware that her younger daughter has been popping uppers like candy for days. Spencer is MIA, so Hanna fakes a nail polish emergency to get into Spence’s room, where she snoops through the files on Spencer’s computer. And it’s page after page after page drawing lines from Ezra Fitz to A.
EMILY
Em has changed her tune re: investigating on behalf of Ali’s safety. This week she is solidly for it, especially after/in spite of her lock-in at Haunted School last week. And if Shana can help? They should try to get over how much they distrust her. Emily waits for Shana outside school the next morning to pump her for information. Was it Ali on the phone? Is she okay? Maybe we could join forces?
While Han and Em are staking out Spencer’s, they see Shana leaving the DiLaurentis house. Em’s interest is piqued: What is Shana doing there? Does Mrs. DiLaurentis know someone else’s bones are in Not-Dead-Ali’s crypt? Em wants to leave. Yes, to follow Shana, but also because she doesn’t feel right spying on Spencer and doesn’t want the Liars setting a precedent for not trusting each other. Hanna doesn’t give a crap about Shana. She just cares about Em, and if Shana’s shade has anything to do with Ali, Hanna doesn’t want Em to have anything to do with it, so she abandons the Spencer Hunt and drives them away.
Later, Shana shows up at Emily’s with a hidden paparazzi escort. Inside, Em needs answers, and Shana lays them out for her: She didn’t date Paige to get closer to Em, she just saw a button and pushed until she learned what she needed to learn: Emily is loyal and lovely and great, just like Ali said. Wren posted an ad, hired her to pack and ship boxes in a hurry, and asked her to poke around Rosewood High. (FOR WHAT??) Shana was at the DiLaurentis house to get something, but couldn’t get past Jessica. And that’s where Em comes in: there’s a poster in Alison’s room, “some French thing, with twins…” (TWINS!)
Cut to the DiLaurentis house, where Em is spinning lies about a missing diamond stud to get in Ali’s room and grab what Ali stashed behind the French Twins poster: $5000 in cold hard cash, and a note with two email addresses and a phone number.
(screencap via abcfamily.go.com)
Shana calls Em from swim practice (cold, Shana, cold). She needs Ali’s stash now; Em can’t leave work. And she won’t leave it somewhere unattended, it’s a LOT of money. “You weren’t supposed to look!” Shana admonishes. Girl, please. Don’t make someone do your dirty work and then get mad at them for having eyes. Anyway, Em has clearly studied at the Marin school of Money Management, so she stashes the cash in a bag of coffee beans. Back at Rosewood High, Shana gets in her car, looks in the rearview, and screams…
ARIA(/EZRA)
Because he is so thoughtful and not at all an emotionally abusive authority figure, Ezra starts off this week man-scolding the hell out of Aria for not making enough time for them to be alone at Murder Cabin. For which she is sorry (hate) and promises to make all of her time his, from this weekend on (double hate).
In the hall Aria meets up with Hanna, and she wants to care about whatever Hanna is saying about Tweaky Spencer, she really does, but somebody (Jesse) who wanted Aria to talk all about Aria last week has entered the scene. “Cool, Hanna, cool, but hey, my, erm, dad, yeah, him, he needs me to visit him in…Syracuse?…this weekend for a college tour, so I won’t be here. Does that…? Yeah…that tracks.”
Aria bounces and finally tits up to go talk to Jesse in a professional counseling capacity. She admits she isn’t angry at her brother (or Mona) but at herself. And why is that?
“Start with the boyfriend,” Jesse suggests. YES LET’S. But then the first (legitimate) question he asks is, why would her friends disapprove? and Aria leaps to her feet “OH WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TIME…MIKE…SPORTING REHEARSAL…G2G BYYYYYYE.”
Ezra spies her fleeing Cool Counselor Jesse’s office. Later the two “adults” have a run-in in the file room (where Ezra is swiping Spencer’s drug history, natch), and Ezra asks how much students actually talk. Oh man, says Jesse, SO MUCH. SO DAMN MUCH. “Do they now?” Ezra murmurs, “do they indeed?”
Farewell, sweet Jesse, we hardly knew ye.
At Murder Cabin, Aria’s feels torn up with guilt at lying to her friends and asks to go home. To which Ezra responds by LITERALLY BLOCKING HER EXIT and gaslighting her about how feeling distant from her friends is actually GOOD because it makes the two of THEM closer. If they are meant to last, he declares, she needs to start considering him the person she’s closest to. And then like the master manipulator he is, he backs off and apologizes juuuust in time for Aria to have to be the bad guy for disagreeing with him. Which, of course she doesn’t. She hugs him, and agrees to stay. Ezra has a long history of squicky, pedophilic manipulation, but this is textbook emotional abuse and it is, truly, deeply frightening.
What happens next is the best thing in the history of PLL, and one time a basement full of doll parts came alive and chanted to the Liars about dying.
Ezra is making chickpea tagine, but without the tagine, and without (he looks in the cupboard to verify) the chickpeas. D’oh! Saint Aria volunteers to drive the TWO HOURS r/t to the grocery story to get them. After she leaves, Ezra returns to the cupboard, and BAM can of chickpeas and THE MOST AMAZING MUSIC EVER. Which cranks up to the maxx as Ezra brings the chickpeas down to his trap-doored MURDER HOLE.
The Ravenswood lair has officially moved. Ali’s blown-up portraits are stuffed every old place. Ezra’s inbox is full of creeper pics of the girls from that afternoon. Also, Em was NOT being discreet with Ali’s $5k, putting it in her purse on Rosewood’s most public street, right in clear view of everyone and their spy camera.
Speaking of spy cameras, Ezra also has them all over the cabin, and uses them later that night to spy on Aria while she is in bed, alone, and he is in All BlAck watching Spencer and Hanna almost break into his apartment. While he is gone Aria wakes up to an empty bed. She pads to the front door, looks outside. Ezra? Ezra?? Hand on the shoulder! She yelps. Ezra appears like a wraith. “Sorry,” he cackles. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
…three Liars leave
At the Brew, everyone but Aria gathers around Spence’s evidence. Hanna and Em can’t believe Ezra is A: he’s been so nice to them! And ESPECIALLY nice to their teenage best friend! Like in a sex way!
Emily pulls out the bag of coffee-money, explaining that Shana never showed up to collect it. She reminds everyone that if Shana can’t deliver the cash to Ali, Ali is vulnerable. Is A using Shana to get to Ali, Spencer wonders, to finish what he started?
Back at the phone booth, Ali dials a number with nails as black as the night around her. In Shana’s car, the phone rings and rings, bringing Shana groggily to life. Ali sounds increasingly panicked. Shana doesn’t know where she is, and she doesn’t have the money. She flips on the headlights, then gasps…
“What am I supposed to do?” Ali sobs, but Shana is so done. She drops her dismantled phone out the window and follows the sign’s advice to start putting miles between her and Rosewood. Ali pulls out her wallet to stare at her last remaining dollars and a picture of her and the Liars. She’s crying as she heads for a bus and gets on—so, so alone.
WHAT’S UP WITH A
A black-and-white movie plays as A(?) unloads a package of prescription pads belonging to Rosewood’s only medical professional, “Dr.” Wren Kingston. Alarmingly, A’s lair looks nothing like Chickpea Murder Hole, although there are many pictures of Aria sleeping tacked to the wall. How many lairs ARE there? Is Ezra A or not????
NEXT WEEK
Rosewood takes on a sepia sheen and we get the hardboiled noir episode we didn’t even know we so desperately wanted.
SEE YOU THEN, DOLLS.
KISSES,
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.
