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This week Ali finally tells the Liars the whole story of her non-death…and it’s so boring Hanna disappears to eat cookies for like half the episode.
THIS WEEK’S MVP
Mousy Mona in all her creeptastic, evil genius glory.
THIS WEEK’S LVP
The writers, for making so many lazy choices to “complicate” the mystery. WE KNOW YOU ARE BETTER THAN THAT, WRITERS.
BEST SURPRISE/BIGGEST REVEAL
Ding-dong, Jessica DiLaurentis is D-E-A-D.
Probably.
Honorary “Dumbest Surprise” award to Noel Kahn, who surprised the Liars as the resolution to last week’s cliffhanger and secretly [?] drove them to NYC [??] to meet Ali at her REAL hideout. Much like Melissa’s big secret, Noel’s new role is presented to us in the most lazily tantalizing way possible. But he has SECRETS and also access to fake passports and bookoo bucks and ALSO inexplicable affection for Ali.
BIGGEST NO-DUH
The only way to make the Hastingses communicate with one another is to literally drag their asses to jail, and even then it will only be in whispers and code.
PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS
Oh, everything! Ali’s alive, Cece’s on the run, Paige tattled, Spencer’s parents think she killed Ali, Aria is delusional, Ezra thinks A is Ali’s mom, Ali’s mom saw Spencer menacing Ali with a shovel, the police are exhuming not-Ali’s body, and Ali summoned the Liars to Philly, where they were surprised by…
THIS WEEK
… Noel Kahn. Who brings the girls to a fancy apartment above a restaurant one-hundred percent truly called The Mockingbird Sings (heart), gets a phone call, and leaves right as Ali finally appears.
Housekeeping note: This week’s episode was divided between Ali’s epic That Night saga and a police procedural surrounding Cece’s return/Ali’s non-death reveal/the Liars’ disappearance back in Rosewood. We’ll dispense with the procedural first, because, well, it’s boring.
In The Criminal Justice System…
A’s actions at the Butterscotch Inn worked: the police have Cece Drake in custody, and Holbrook is questioning her about Wilden. Cece won’t talk, but she has some info to bargain with: she knows who killed the girl who is in Ali’s crypt. And that the same person who killed Mystery Girl is still trying to find Ali. And that Ali is alive, and she can prove it!
Detective Holbrook has warranted up and is searching the Liars’ houses and questioning their parents (haha, good luck finding all of them!). Unfortunately, the only parents who actually make it on screen are the Lawyers Hastings. As the police go through the Manor, it’s unclear whether they are primarily looking for the Liars—who have been missing since they got fake married for charity—or hunting for clues about yes-Ali’s not-death and not-Ali’s yes-death. Guess they might as well kill two blonde girls with one stone. The door opens, and surprise! It’s their forgotten other daughter, Melissa, who evidently rushed back home after Toby showed up at her London flat to tell her about Spencer’s relapse and stint in rehab.
At the police station, the Hastingses are kept in separate interrogation rooms and questioned (“pointedly”). The gist: Spencer! Private Investigator! Alison! Druuuuuugs.
Detective Holbrook, pulling out all the tricks he has learned from Law & Order marathons, sends everyone to the bullpen to see how the suspects react to one another. Jessica gapes as Cece is led by wearing the exact brand new sweater Ashely found in Ali’s room the day before (dun dun dun), then jumps back as Peter stumbles into her and demands to know if they still have “an understanding” w/r/t Spencer’s Crazy Days. Jessica “can’t even THINK about ANYTHING other than the FACT that my DAUGHTER IS STILL ALIVE.” We wrote that all fake-dramatic, but actually: fair. Then she gets called away by the one nice RPD officer who’s done his duty as his fellows have dropped like flies around him since season one, and Melissa appears from the behind the door of the seventeen-hundredth interrogation room and gets pretty much the same reaction from Peter that she did from Veronica. Well, Mel, that’s what you get for jetting off to London at the very first sign of your second boyfriend getting murdered in a single calendar year.
Melissa anxiously pulls her worried father down into a bench. “You think Spencer did it, don’t you? You think she killed that girl.” Peter is shell-shocked. After all they did! All that conspicuous money thrown at PIs! But Melissa knows something else…
AND THEN SHE WHISPERS THE REST OF THE SENTENCE INAUDIBLY AND SO WE WILL PROBABLY NOT FIND OUT WHAT SHE SAID FOR THREE MORE SEASONS.
Meanwhile, the Philly police are tracking down the girls via the GPS in Spencer’s car. It’s a Toyota, so naturally it’s just giving away all of their secrets. Which brings us to…
Ali, Ali, Oxen Free
In the fancy apartment Noel delivered them to, Spencer is trying everyone’s last nerve, clacking the silver balls of one of those kinetic perpetual motion toys. Noel leaves, Ali shows up, and Hanna says what we are all thinking.
There is a very tearful reunion, wherein all of the Liars conveniently forget all of the horrible things Ali has done to them over the years. After they settle down, they tell Ali that Ezra thinks her mom is A. Ali doesn’t look surprised. “Gather round and listen, little children,” she says, “for quite a tale I have to spin for you tonight…” She promises answers to all their questions. Oh right, and: if they don’t figure out who A is tonight, she’s disappearing again. This time for good.
Part I: THE BARGAINING TOOL
Ali stole the NAT Club videos from Ian while they were on a romantic vacay in Hilton Head together. They were, Ali says, “what I needed to shut A down. Everyone I suspected—even you four—was compromised on those videos.”
Of note: we see Melissa track them down in Hilton Head (which we knew) and warn Ian to end things with Ali before someone gets hurt (which is new). Ian promises Melissa that he loves only her, and definitely doesn’t care about this fourteen year old that he’s transported across several state lines along with a cache of child pornography. Ian is garbage!
Part II: THE SET UP
That Night, Jessica is on a very anxious and mysterious phone call when she sees Ali trying to leave the house in That Top. She forbids her from going out. Ali reassures her that Spencer isn’t the one tormenting her. But Mrs. DiLaurentis is not convinced.
Back on the phone, Mrs. D is very, very worried. Ali steals a bunch of heavy Sleep Aids from her mother’s purse and leaves.
Pilot footage of the girls’ barn party replays, only this time when Ali hands Aria a drink, we see her lace it with crushed sleeping pills beforehand. Drink up! I’m poisoning you!
After the Liars fall into a deep and enchanted sleep, Ali dusts off her hands and sets to dispensing with her “A” suspects, one by one.
Part III: THE SUSPECTS
1. Jenna. This actually happens pre-That Night. Ali visits Blind Jenna to play her the video of her sexually assaulting baby Toby, and vows to ruin her. Jenna looks upset. As soon as Ali leaves she gets another A text that Jenna couldn’t—and wouldn’t—have sent. Bitch is blind, but I’m not. Tonight is the night I kill you. So it’s not Jenna. Whoops! Verdict: Not A.
2. The four Liars. Ali drugs them, thinking that if she gets any A texts while they’re unconscious, that will clear them. While they are unconscious she gets NO A texts. So clearly… Verdict: Not A. (If you think this does not follow logically: you are correct)
3. Toby. Does not actually physically appear in this episode. But, as we know from many season back, he found Ali that night to thank her for the favor she did for him, freeing him from Jenna, and even Ali believed him. Verdict: Not A.
4. Ezra. Backstory: they met at a college bar near Hollis, where Ali posed as Cece’s 21 year-old UPenn roomie. The very first thing she said to him was a lie; the second, “Sometimes lies are more interesting than the truth,” and yet he STILL believed her age. And found her an endearing fabulist. That Night: He confronts her about her actual age (reminder: 14), telling her he’s mad but still inexplicably likes her as a person. Oh, you would, Ezra the Worst. She’s like, “You’re an alright guy” (NO), and reminds him to spell her name correctly when he finally writes his book. Verdict: Not A? Maybe? Maybe.
5. Ian. Ali meets him at the kissing rock, where they film the video A later projects onto a mausoleum to torture the Liars in season 1. Ali calls Melissa names and threatens Ian with jail. He’s like, “We haven’t had sex, so,” and she’s like “Uh, I copied your hard drive. NAT ring a bell?” and he’s like “Whatever you do, never tell anyone about that, or it will destroy every person you know, including your family.” She asks him to leave her alone and decides he was so freaked out, he couldn’t be A. Verdict: Not A.
5A. Melissa. Ali conveniently forgets that Melissa is an autonomous person and lumps her Not A-ness in with Ian’s. Have fun with that when she’s burning a house down around her own sister trying to flush YOU out, Ali. Verdict: Not in the running for A.
6. Byron Montgomery. Ali was threatening to blackmail him about Meredith, remember? He “doesn’t think she’s that horrible a person.” Old footage of Ali spits back that he “doesn’t know her that well.” We think the tone is supposed to play differently now that we have the context of Ali’s complex internal life, but…nope. Still a bitch. Verdict: Not A.
7. Surprise! Spencer, as a separate entity. Present time-Spencer has been on edge all night, waiting for Ali to get to this part of the story, to tell everyone how Spence smashed her head in with a shovel, and Ali has just been stringing her along all “I really am happy to see you, Spencer,” and “Don’t start celebrating personal victories yet, Hastings.” And indeed, in Ali’s story, Spencer does wield the shovel… and then trips and falls, spilling her bottle of Study Aid. “Are you SPEEDING?” Ali demands in a strangled whisper, providing D.A.R.E. programs across the country with a solid gold B-roll.
Spencer starts crying and gets down on her knees to beg Ali not to tell her secret. Ali kindly tells Spencer not to take any more pills, definitely don’t mix them with alcohol, and go sleep it off. Spencer goes back to sleep, with Ali just staring unblinkingly right at her. Verdict: Not A, and also not Ali’s attacker.
Present time-Spencer weeps with relief at this, but we’re not sure the story’s over. After all (per the pilot), Spencer is awake and wandering around outside when the other Liars wake up to discover that Ali is missing.
8-infinity left unquestioned: Cece; Garrett; Wilden; Jason; Paige; Lucas; Noel; Peter. Not an exhaustive list, but covering at least those that Ali should have known to worry about enough to test.
Part IV: THE DENOUEMENT
With Spencer finally conked out, Ali waits in the barn for another A text. When nothing comes, she assumes she’s won (dummy) and heads home, leaving her drugged friends asleep and surrounded by open containers in an unlocked barn in the middle of Murderton, PA. Somehow it is still the middle of the night.
As she approaches her house, she sees Mrs. D doing the creep at her through her front window. She stares straight back. Mrs. D looks terrified, and then: a sickly THUNK. A rock with Ali’s blood on it drops to the ground, right next to Ali’s most sensible walk-around shoes.
Anyway, Mrs. D buries Ali alive. Ali tries to yell and scream, but no words come out, and the dirt just keeps piling on, shovelful by shovelful.
The Liars are very moved by this story. We…are having a tough time letting go of how shitty Ali was. At least she admits she deserved a lot of the treatment she got, and we’re not such monsters as to say anyone deserves to be bashed in the skull and buried (alive or dead) by their own mother.
Grunwald did pull her (weirdly emphasized in Em’s question) to safety, and Ali did run because she was still a little disoriented and a lot scared. When we return to her story, we see her getting picked up from the road by Mousy Mona, who takes her to the Lost Woods Resort, tends to her wounds, and plants the seed in her imagination that Ali should probably play dead-for-real. She then rocks Ali to sleep and KISSES HER FOREHEAD, before moving to her Ali Hate Shrine lair next door, where she rocks an Ali doll to sleep while humming so, so creepily. Mona is amazing.
The next morning, Mona decks Ali out as Vivian Darkbloom, complete with dark wig, wardrobe of too-big sweater dresses, and—somehow—a car. In return, Ali gives her tips on not being a loser anymore, i.e., “Never go to school without your face on.” Thanks, Grandma? Then Ali drives away, straight into the woods.
Whoever finds her…
Back in the present, Ali tells the girls (mostly Aria) that apparently Ezra found Shana in Georgia and knew she was in contact with Ali (again—so much for trashing that cell phone and taking off into the night if you just WENT HOME and REMAINED IN CONTACT WITH ALI, Shana). He’s hoping if he saves Ali, he’ll win Aria back. “Do you even WANT to be saved?” Aria interrupts Ali to demand. WRONG Q ARIA. “Should I even CONSIDER returning to that predator?” is the right one, and “ANSWER: NO” is the only reply.
Anyway, Ali can’t go back to Rosewood until she finds out why, exactly, her mom decided to bury her alive. It’s been totes simple to stay fake dead, she says—what with Shana funnelling cash to her every few weeks, leaving her able to pop up occasionally to help the Liars. She visited Hanna in the hospital, pulled Hanna out of the lodge fire (weirdly zero mention of everything she did for Em, the first and only Liar she contacted for real), and—oh yeah—pushed Ian down the bell tower. She did not, however, ever see who was attacking or helping or anything-ing the girls. Usless, Ali.
In Philly, the police have found Spencer’s car, but there’s no sign of the girls. This is because the girls are apparently… in New York? Fancy Apartment is in New York, according to the greenscreen skyline at the end. Anyway, in the Fancy Coffeeshop down below, someone in a black hoodie and mask smashes through the glass. No one can call 911, because Noel has everyone’s phone, so they decide the next logical move is to run onto the roof, from which there is no exit.
As A climbs up, brandishing a gun, a door slams open, and it’s Ezra to the rescue. (Barf.) “I know who you are!” he yells at A, instead of actually TELLING US WHO A IS. He wrestles the gun from A, but it goes off in the scuffle. When the gun falls on the floor, Hanna grabs it and points it at A, demanding the mask come off. A feints toward the mask…and then leaps over the railing, barely making it onto the next building a story below, letting out a very feminine grunt in the process. So: A is a girl, and can parkour.
Aria goes to find Ezra, who is standing and staring at the “beautiful” skyline. He turns around to reveal a gunshot wound in his stomach. YESSSSS. Uh, we mean, oh no! No wait, we definitely mean YESSSSSS. Aria, of course, screams a lot. “Don’t say anything! Don’t you dare close your eyes!” Yes, and definitely don’t tell us who A is! Wouldn’t want you to waste your maybe-dying breaths on imparting vital information or anything!
…gets to keep her.
Back in Rosewood, someone drags Mrs. D’s body bump, bump, bump along the ground and dumps it into a hole. Shovel by shovel, the grave fills.
GIF from dailypll
And that’s it for season 4, liars!
Check back here for a full season rundown on Friday, but in the meantime, please air your grievances / suggest your theories / propose season winners & losers in the comments here. There are like one billion unanswered questions now that #AliHasToldAll, not least of which (according to ABC Family) is: #IsEzraAlive??
Listen up, PLL: like 6 months ago you ended the half-season saying #EzraIsA so—WE DON’T TRUST YOU ANYMORE.
Until Friday, darlings.
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.
