Rosemary and Alexis here, hiding behind our couches. DON’T MIND US.
THIS WEEK’S MVP
In what we think is a first for this award since we started doing these recaps, this week’s MVP is… A.
In the parlance of today’s youths*, this week A was on FLEEK**.
Runner-up: ALI! With her SHOW STOPPING apology. Please be telling the truth this time, Ali D! We are rooting for you (and also for your evil twin to be Big A. Keep the MVP award in the family, ya know?)
*Alexis has confirmed with no less than three of her YA-aged tutoring students who took her TOTALLY SERIOUSLY AND DID NOT LAUGH IN HER FACE EVEN A LITTLE BIT that this is a real thing young people say.
**Alexis has also promised Catie that this one time, in relation to the monster human that is A, is THE ONLY time we will be using “fleek” in our recaps. Pinky swear.
THIS WEEK’S LVP
TALIA. But like, we don’t even want to give her the word count?
Runner-up: Hot Andrew, for managing to dial his creep factor so high that even ROSEMARY was squirming whenever he was on screen.
GIF from prettylittleliars
BIGGEST SHOCK/BEST SURPRISE
Burn ward mummy, for SURE.
Which reminded us immediately of this other great scene from the first half of the season:
Welcome back, show that used to make us turn on every single house light, physically check behind every single curtain—window AND shower—and put group SOS texts on standby!
BIGGEST NO-DUH
As Mama Barrister Hastings points out like five thousand times, Ali’s lies have finally piled too high for even Ali to be able to shovel her way out of.
THAT’S ALI, FOLKS
Locked up and beaten down, and still all Ali can think about is MONA.
Us too, Ali. Us, too.
PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS
Brand synergy and growth beyond stereotypes led a self-confident, college-bound Hanna to try to rage dance her way into joining a Cinderella-themed scholarship (beauty) pageant, because tuition costs dolla dolla bills, yo. The coach refused to take her money, but did want Emily to join up. And Em agreed, because she loves Hanna and this is Hanna’s season to not have enough money for college (no, no, just go ahead and forget Emiy’s scholarship-panic induced HGH sports cream poisoning frat party crashing season, everyone. Em’s got RareBrew bucks to pay her way with now). Spencer “forgot” to apply to any Ivies, so is scrambling for anyone—literally ANYONE—to get her a connection to Oxford. Jonny Newsie Raymond was one of those anyones, but also so was Wren, who is probably A and almost certainly murdered Melissa. Aria cheated off Hot Andrew on a math test, so now he is tutoring her in history and also creep-flirting. Hanna was the only Liar to have the guts to visit Ali in jail and tell her to her face how over Ali’s miserable lies she was. And speaking of Ali’s lies, the guy who fake kidnapped her but for real terrorized her and was also her alibi for/against Mona’s murder tried to trade the Liars for information, before Hot Andrew chased him off with a baseball bat. Oh, did we say Mona’s murder? We meant Mona’s PSYCH, BITCHES plan to fake her own death as part of Big A’s plan to frame Ali, as part of Mona’s plan to finally unmask Big A, clear the Liars of all wrongdoing, and be the hero to Rosewood that we already know her to be. Only, Mike is pretty sure A double crossed her. And without Mona…
WHOOPS.
So cool. We good? Let’s do this.
THIS WEEK
Three Liars and a Jailbird
The Liars minus Hanna skip school (duh) to go to lady prison and apologize for their small part in Ali’s inevitable incarceration/tell her Mike’s news: Mona planned to fake her death as part of a greater plot to finally unveil Big A, Mike knew all along, and now they all think Big A double-crossed Mona and that she’s really dead. Either way: oops, sorry we accused you of murder/destroyed any evidence that might have exonerated you, but also, karma is your bitch, bitch!
Please note that throughout all of this scene and most of the rest of the episode, Aria is wearing a neck-harness/skirt combo that is A) a sign of solidarity with Ali, B) a literal symbol of the prison of lies she is locked inside, or C) her weekly terrible sartorial choice. You decide.
Ali is less than impressed with the fact that the moral of their story is, “Mona was just gonna let me rot in this prison.” Nor is she convinced of the likelihood that any of the girls will be able to make good on their promise to get her out of there/catch A. Like, have you guys MET A? NO. BECAUSE NO ONE HAS. BECAUSE A IS MORE COSMIC EVENT THAN HUMAN AND HAS YET TO TAKE ACTUAL CORPOREAL FORM. But since Ali is currently bound by the stone and mortar of the law, it’s not like she can do much but let the Liars do their (Liar Logic™) thing.
The one thing she can do, however, is tell her lawyers about Magic Mike XXL. “The words feel like actual snakes falling from my mouth, but that wily fox Mona putting all her trust in the twerp means that his might literally be the only testimony that might get me out of 40-life,” she tells Aria once the other girls have gone. Naturally, this does not sit well with Aria. For one, Mike could get in big trouble for keeping Mona’s secrets from the police (double duh). For two, A WILL KILL HIM.
Anyway, Aria is planning to head out that very afternoon to find Ali’s good buddy Cyrus and get HIM to tell her who A is, so could Ali maybe wait until she at least does that??? The hysterically exasperated scoff with which Ali responds to the revelation that the Liars are STILL convinced they can somehow take down A is just stellar. She tells Aria that she truly doesn’t want to hurt Mike, but it might be her only choice. And the pain in her eyes as she says this? BELIEVABLE. Nice acting, Sasha!
Since their summit with Ali obviously fit in before the first period bell, Aria joins Emily, Spencer and the three head to school to meet up with Hanna/confront her for flaking on their group prison visit. “We get A threats as a group; we whirl around in terror/shock/terrified shock as a group; we visit ex-ghost best friends in lady prison as a GROUP, Hanna. C’MON!”
Hanna admits freely that after calling Ali a liar and a murderer to her face—”like exfoliating a gaping wound with rock salt!” she poetically elaborates—she totally chickened out, but no one has much time to appreciate either her rapier analogy OR her killer outfit, because Aria is vibrating so hard with fear for her brother’s safety that all attention can’t help but swing back to her. And our girl’s got a point: they have to find A before Ali’s trial, because if Mike DOES become Ali’s get out of jail free card, he’ll also become A’s biggest target. Which is sound reasoning and not even slightly Liar Logic™. Good thing A is never ever more than a single step ahead of these girls!
London Calling, or, even WREN is preferable to F*cking Jonny Raymond
After school, Big A kicks their new plan to scatter the ever-encroaching Liars to the wind into high gear. First to go: Spencer, who, when she gets home from school, is confronted by Veronica about visiting Alison in prison, which she and Spencer’s dad just spent like a thousand billable hours working pro bono to keep Spencer out of. So, not only is Spencer not allowed to ever return, she is being shipped off THAT VERY NIGHT to LONDON. Mama Hastings, you see, has called Wren and got Spencer an interview at Oxford. “WREN??” Spencer squawks. “The dude you HATE??” Yes, that dude. But (correctly) Mama Hastings hates F*cking Jonny Raymond even more, and wasn’t about to leave Spencer’s Oxford prospects to his sketchy contact alone.
Spencer calls a mini-summit to let the other Liars know she’s off to London, England, United Kingdom (she’s no Toby, after all). Emily and Aria hem about how they will figure out some way to get Spencer out of the trip, which is obvs mostly a frightened retaliation against their AM prison visit, but it is Hanna who has the real solution: TELL VERONICA THE TRUTH.
In case you haven’t been watching the show for the last five years, Spencer does not take Hanna’s advice. Secrets are kept, planes are boarded, and before you can say bangers’n’mash, Spencer is in a cape, knocking on the door Wren and Melissa’s flat. Neither of whom answer, of course, because Wren is A and Melissa is dead. The English chap/NPH doppelganger who answers the door claims they are just out visiting the country, but we know the truth. WE KNOW THE TRUTH.
English NPH, it turns out, is Wren and Melissa’s flatmate. He is also obsessed with saying every English term that differs from its American counterpart, just enumerating them in one long list, like he’s some sort of preschool teacher or something. Which he is. GREAT. He is also very invested in filling F*cking Jonny Raymond’s insufferable moccasins, just immediately telling Spencer everything she needs to do to live her Best Life. “Step one,” he says, after she asks him to unlock her international data so she can let her friends know A didn’t crash her plane into the Atlantic, “is maybe get off your phone and look at the beauty around you!”
We hate him.
Spencer pulls it together long enough to attend her interview at Oxford, where she pretends it’s season one again and turns up the classic Hastings charm. The professor she meets with is old and Very English and use the literal words “the colonies” to refer to the US. She butters him UP. He loves her and all her academic achievements and especially her enthusiasm at his terrible philosophy knock-knock jokes. Then he hesitates in all that love, because he has noticed that her bag is LEAKING MUSCLE BLOOD all over his million year old professor chairs.
Out of her SKULL at the fact that A managed to sneak a vial of blood into her bag and remotely detonate it to burst at the most perfectly worst moment, Spencer decides to rack up some international charges and calls Aria to have a complete meltdown on the streets of “London” (which may LOOK like it could be Rosewood/Philly/any town they have ever visited in Pennsylvania, but is just plastered in UK flags and full of bright red double decker buses, so is definitely London, OKAY??). Their conclusion? A must have snuck that vial of blood into Spencer’s bag back in “the colonies” hoping some overzealous TSA official would find it when she went through security and she’d get carted straight off to Ali’s neighboring cell. And now Spencer is scared that if she DOES come home, the TSA will uncover Big A’s B-plan: a pinkie toe in her carry-on.
Spencer races back to Wren and Melissa’s flat and stars just tearing through every seam of every last skirt, scarf and sock in her luggage when English NPH comes home and tells her to calm the eff down by literally infantilizing her (“when one of my KIDS has a panic attack…”) and comparing her VERY REAL PROBLEMS to stolen crayons then PUTTING HIS HANDS ON HER HANDS WITHOUT HER PERMISSION.
He is almost a bigger tool than F*cking Jonny Raymond, but his uninvited touch meditation works and she calms down long enough to recognize that at the very least, he is Wren’s flatmate and thus doesn’t have great prospects wrt living much longer. Fingers crossed.
Dirty Boring Dancing
Emily is working her twelfth daily shift at RareBrew after school when she is accosted approached by Claire Handelman, the Pretty Pretty Princess Pageant coordinator. There was no parent signature on Em’s application, it turns out (triple duh—there are no parents) and Ms. Handelman had nothing better to do with her day than track a single contestant down in person at her place of work to shake one out of her. Unfortunately, Pam is out of town on a girl’s weekend with her BFF Talia/visiting Em’s dad at his base, so the pageant people will have to wait until Em can fax the form to Texas to get the signature.
That should be the end of things, but nope! Turns out there’s more to this pageant than evening gowns and sexy dancing competitions—so much more that there is a leatherbound compendium of the WEEK’S activities to hand over to Em. There’s breakfasts, brunches, lunches, fairy godmothers (for real). Emily didn’t realize she’d signed up for such a time commitment but it’s okay because time does not exist in Rosewood. Ms. Handelman is completely affronted that Emily would make such a comment out loud—”if you even KNEW how many girls would KILL to be in your shoes” (um, Emily knows)—but Emily thinks of Hanna’s rage dance and apologizes. It’s only seven…dozen…shifts she’ll have to get covered. She’s sure she can get Talia’s kitchen assistant to do it for her
Only, nope! Talia’s kitchen assistant can’t cover for Emily because Talia’s kitchen assistant is covering for Talia because Talia QUIT. Also, she talked to her smugass husband about her True Self! And now they are separated! And she is staying at a hotel! And sob sob sob poor me sob. Emily thinks she has to shoulder some guilt for this (FALSE, although the phrasing of her question, “Did I force you to have a conversation you weren’t ready for?” at least acknowledges her recognition of Talia being the problem, not Em) and so offers Talia the Fields’ guest bedroom as a temporary landing pad while Talia looks for a new apartment. UGH.
Later, Emily is flashdance practicing at the high school dance studio when Talia stalks shows up to return some key. Because she hasn’t actually listened to a single thing Emily has ever told her, Talia is completely baffled as to what she is doing dancing so fast and hard through her every free hour. “It’s for a friend, I need to win a pageant to get her the scholarship money,” Emily explains. “Money is no reason to work so hard at something like this!” Talia exclaims. Which A) is completely wrong? it’s one universally agreed upon great reason? that actual rock songs have been written about? and also B) is only the second half of the real reason that JUST CAME OUT OF EMILY’S MOUTH.
No one ever listens to the Liars. Goddammit.
Still, Emily is Emily and rather than seeing Talia’s sad sack attitude as a drain on her time and energy, instead turns her into a happiness project. She drags Talia to the center of the room and spends way too much time teaching her to flashdance. But Talia sucks, at dancing and at life, and when she falls on her butt her laughter almost immediately turns into hysteric sobs and Emily pulls her up to slow dance anddddddal;sa;dlfjjjf jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj.
Oops, oh, sorry, that was Rosemary’s head hitting the keyboard when she fell asleep. We literally cannot think of another romantic pairing we’ve seen that is this thuddingly dull to watch. Emily Fields has chemistry with, like, wood floors. But not Talia! Nope, Talia is a black hole of energy. AND YET SHE PERSISTS.
They’re interrupted when Claire Handelman shows up (HOW DID SHE TRACK THEM DOWN) and tells Emily that the pageant people KNOW ABOUT HER and she might maybe think about dropping out and at first we—and Emily and Talia, too—are like “Bitch no you di’n’t” and snapping in a Z formation and cracking our knuckles and taking off our acrylics because we are certain she is about to tell Emily she can’t be in the pageant because she is gay, but then TWIST! Turns out, what she means is that Emily is unwelcome in the pageant because of her close ties with one maybe-murderer with a looming front page headline trial named Alison DiLaurentis.
Oh. Well. That kind of makes sense. It’s dickish, but it is a beauty pageant staffed with fairy godmothers. So. Yeah.
Em is too stunned to argue, but Talia is all revved up with misplaced, idiotic confidence and so charges after Claire Handelman to BLACKMAIL HER into sending Emily a check directly, in exchange for no one being told that pageant officials were pressuring a contestant to drop out because of a trial because innocent until proven guilty.
Emily’s face as Talia makes this terrible, terrible chess move against someone who isn’t really even an opponent yet and didn’t actually require Emily to drop out of anything looks impressed, but we are hoping that is just the Emily Fields expression of “I’m about to puke.”
Aria Montgomery and the Horrible, Rotten, No Good, Very Bad Day (and then Andrew Shows Up)
On their way up to Spencer’s pre-London mini-Summit, Aria stops at Barrister Mama Hastings’ kitchen island work desk to ask some legal advice. “Honey, I will literally tell everyone who asks and most people who don’t what you tell me, if I am not actually hired on as your counsel,” Veronica says apologetically. Aria is crestfallen, but then digs around her bag, eventually coming up with a crumpled dollar bill that she slides across the marble countertop.
Veronica’s heart is pre-softened by the fact that she is sending her youngest daughter off to the very burgh where her eldest was probably murdered, so she agrees to this heavily discounted rate. And so Aria launches into a very vague explanation of what’s up with Mike, without actually saying Mike’s name. And Barrister Mama Hastings tells her that if this unnamed person is impeding a criminal case, he’ll definitely face some criminal charges, and if he kept secrets that led to murder? SERIOUS TROUBLE.
Dollar well spent, Montgomery.
When Aria gets home from Spencer’s, Hot Andrew jumps out of her bushes in the first of many actions tonight that are quickly losing him the first part of his nickname. They had a study date that Aria obviously forgot about, so Andrew just waited in the dark for HOURS for her to come home. Not Hot, Andrew, not Hot. Also not to be deterred, because even though she tells him they should probably chillax on the study sessions because she’s got a billion other things on her mind right now, he asks her to see All The President’s Men with him the next night. He’s a terrible stalker. Doesn’t he know that Aria never watches any movie in color??
GIF from prettylittleliars
::side eyes::
Because he is being so obviously shady, Aria asks him if it’s a date and he’s like “I don’t know…do you want it to be?” And she reminds him that despite Ezra’s absence these last two episodes (AND ALSO THAT HE IS A GROWN ASS MAN), Aria is still, in fact, in a relaishe with him. “Cool cool cool, just kill Ezra then,” Andrew says. “What?” Aria asks. “I said, we’ll go as study buddies!” he grins. PLANS MADE.
Before she can be subjected to any more of Hot Andrew’s alpha stalker moves, however, Aria has a date with a stalker of a different stripe: Hank Mahoney, AKA Cyrus, AKA Ali’s (fake) kidnapper. She tracked him down to an autoshop outside of town, who told her over the phone that he had an accident and is in the hospital, AKA has nowhere to run from their interrogation. And since Emily is flashdancing and Spencer is Gryffindoring, she enlists Hanna to accompany her.
Unfortunately, what Aria interpreted over the phone as a mugging gone wrong was actually CYRUS BEING SET ON FIRE. He was burned so badly he is wound up head to toe in gauze in the burn unit, which requires full scrubs, gloves and hairnets on all visitors. Aria is on a Save Mike mission, though, so slaps some scrubs on and barrels in, stalking right past all the other patients (this will come back to haunt poor Cyrus later, we’ll tell you now).
“WHO PAID YOU TO SET UP ALI” she demands, as Hanna stares in horror at the poor man’s raw, bloody face. The nurse gives them just enough time for Cyrus to scrawl out a word on the back of a handy gauze packet on his side table before she returns and shoos the girls right back out. “We just need like TWO MORE MINUTES,” Hanna shouts at the no-nonsense nurse as Aria tries to puzzle out what the word he scrawled, “carjack,” might mean. “Why didn’t you juggle panda heads or something to distract her!” Hanna shouts, this time at Aria, as Aria pulls her away from the nurse and into the elevator.
“We don’t have time for your delightful Hanna Marin ravings!” Aria shouts back. She hands over the gauze packet. “What do you think carjack means? Did A carjack Cyrus? Was A trying to shut him up???” At which Hanna rolls her eyes, because obviously the C is a V so obviously the word is Varjack so OBVIOUSLY Cyrus was referring to the character from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which is that story that according Aria’s very own boyfriend Ezra, Ali always put herself in the middle of, despite a complete lack of understanding about who Holly Golightly was as a person.
“But it’s spelled wrong,” Aria deadpans. UM THAT IS AWESOME, according to Hanna the sleuthing genius, because that means Cyrus never saw it written down. WHICH MEANS…
THEY SPOKE. This is clever, but also verges into Liar Logic™ territory. We mean, we’d seen RAVEN5WOOD splashed across our screens dozens of times before recognizing the 5 replacing the S in the middle of it. Cyrus could just care that little about Big A/Varjak’s shenanigans (/slash is A TON OF PAIN) that he couldn’t be bothered to spell it the right way. But probably Hanna and Aria do have the right of it. Mystery heightened!
Flush from her success at the burn unit, Aria returns home to hug the brother she’s been racing all around Pennsylvania to protect. He’s nowhere to be found, but rather than panic, she thinks logically through the possibilities of where he could be, lands on “lacrosse practice,” and goes hunting for his schedule. Which, naturally, he has pinned to a dartboard in his room. It is at the same height as the knothole he stored Mona’s blood in last week; i.e., low enough for him to reach from the ground, but high enough Aria needs to put on an oxygen tank just to reach it. Because she didn’t see Noel Kahn* loosen the bolts on Mike’s weight set last week, she climbs up onto his bench press bench to reach the schedule, and juuuuuuuust as she’s about to grab it, the whole things bursts into a hundred pieces, and she falls and cracks her skull against the floor.
Luckily, Hot Andrew had let himself into her front door already, and so is right on hand to rush to her first aid. He finds the nuts and bolts that should have been holding the bench together lying on the floor next to her, and notes how they aren’t a matching set. “How crazy! If it had been Mike, his skull would have been crushed! Ha! Ha!” And then he cradles her swollen ankle, totally oblivious to the silent tears sliding down her cheeks as she stares at the ruin of Mike’s weightlifting equipment and accepts that A has already set out to destroy him. Her brother saving efforts are too little, too late.
And since all hope is lost there, Aria just leans in. To disaster, we mean. To disaster. It’s Hot Andrew who does the physical leaning in, moving close and offering—literally—a shoulder for her to cry on, then straight up kissing her. Because kissing a crying injured girl who is having problems in life and romance is always a super good idea**.
*probably
**not
The Original Liar, No Longer
Prison has been rough on Ali’s ego. Not only does she have to do everything according to someone else’s plan, but she’s not even safe from A’s terrorizing while trapped there. We already knew this from the menacing note A managed to tuck into a fresh jumpsuit a couple weeks back, but this week A ups the game by rolling a tin can into Ali’s cell, stuffed with a miniature Ali-in-orange doll and a note offering to put Ali in a barrel, herself, if she keeps making A’s life hard.
Later, while sitting at a folding table, staring at laundry tumbling in the prison’s machines, Ali dazedly writes MONA in huge letters on the bafflingly dusty tabletop. A guard retrieves her, then, to attend to a new visitor—one Barrister Mama Hastings, who is there to get straight from the horse’s mouth the truth about why Spencer and the other girls were visiting Ali after all this time.
They knew the truth now, Ali says—she’s innocent. She wants to defend herself and her lawyers wont let her because everyone knows she’s a liar. “Well if the lying shoe fits,” Mama H replies. “Because you are a liar. Get it, you lying, treacherous little beeyotch*?” “NOT THIS TIME!” Ali swears, but it’s no good. She knows thing look bad for her, but she has to try something. Mama H seems sympathetic, and tells her she’ll need a really good coach if she has any hope of surviving the stand if her lawyers do let her up there, so Ali asks for her help. And with that crazy last ditch gambit, Mama H HAS to know she is finally telling the truth.
After Veronica leaves, Ali returns to laundry duty to find that someone has finished her “MONA” finger letters with “…told everything.”
*Rosemary’s words, but we all know Mrs. H was thinking them.
Hanna Takes the High Road
After skipping out on the Ali Summit, Hanna spends most of this episode making herself scarce. She’s willing to help Aria at the hospital or whatever, but that is IT. Spencer’s in London, NOT taking her advice to come clean to Veronica, and Emily’s busy dancing her way to Hanna’s tuition money.
Feeling like she’s on the wrong side of everything, Hanna can’t even muster up any excitement when Ashley appears (a second parent! in one episode! No wonder Spencer got shot across an ocean. Rosewood can’t handle so many parents In Town at one time) and shows off the engagement ring she is finally wearing. “Sure, great,” Hanna drones. “Real cool of Ted to make you wait so long while he decided what to do with the rest of YOUR life.” Normally we are here for Hanna’s spot on attitude, but Ashley is right to call her out on this particular outburst. Ted was RIGHT to take time to really consider everything that had happened, just like Ashley was RIGHT to come clean to him in the first place. They both needed time to really make sure they can be there for each other, forever.
“So you don’t feel like you shouldn’t have come clean? And you don’t resent him needing an apology?” Hanna asks. “GO TALK TO ALI,” Ashley says. Well, not really. But that was really what Hanna was asking, so that is really what she hears when Ashley responds, “no, it was the right thing to do.”
So Hanna finally sucks up her courage and goes to see Ali. She brings magazines, but they are of course taken away before she gets into the interview room. Hanna starts out trying to apologize for what she said to Ali the last time she came, but Ali stops her. Stops her with an INCREDIBLE PERFORMANCE/apology of her own. “I honestly thought I was helping you guys,” she starts, “telling you what to think and say and wear, but now that I am here, and every move I make and thing I eat and time I shower is outlined for me by a higher power who doesn’t care one iota about what I want or think, well…”
Ali takes a breath, breaks Hanna’s gaze, then asks, haltingly, if Hanna thinks that maybe they could just start over. “I don’t know,” Hanna starts, and you can see Ali deflate as she anticipates the door Hanna is about to shut, but then Hanna continues, “we can try.” If Ali is honest. About everything.
Including Varjak.
A-tag
A has money (twenty dollar bills). And Prison Bibles. And money (twenty dollar bills with the face of ANDREW Jackson on them) in Prison Bibles. WHY NOT.
NEXT WEEK
Hanna’s going orange jumpsuit couture, y’all.
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.
