About:
All three of us are tagging in today! It’s necessary, because that unexpected week off has made us feel more at sea with PLL than usual. This show is hard enough to keep pins in when it keeps a regular schedule! And then they give us a mini-hiatus, followed by Caleb spending an entire scene INSISTING that Kimye existed in 2011 when clearly they didn’t go public until 2012??? WHAT IS TIME.
AWARDS
THIS WEEK’S MVP
Hanna, with a major Assist from Mona once her aggressive, sexually (and independence-ly) frustrated sleuthing trapped her into a corner surrounded by loose lab animals. That she set loose. Because she is Hanna. And she is DEALING WITH STUFF THE HANNA WAY.
THIS WEEK’S LVP
Men? Again? Always? We don’t mean to beat a dead chauvinist here, but srsly. All Rosewood men are terrible. Stop victim blaming—and BLAME blaming—and care-stalking the Liars! Walk away!
BIGGEST SHOCK/BEST SURPRISE
Mona appearing out of nowhere in the final act of an episode in which the Liars have already successfully explained her absence from the weekly payroll, just in time to save their asses from starring in PETA’s next edition of WHEN GOOD ANIMALS ARE DRUGGED WILD.
YAAAAASSSSSS QUEEN
BIGGEST NO-DUH
Em’s bleeding heart is ruining her life.
“I just adopted this lesbian and she isn’t house trained yet…it’s a whole thing”
THAT’S A DILAURENTIS, FOLKS
Ali was enjoying some well-deserved rest from A shenanigans this week, but don’t worry! Her psychotic DNA was still present in the form of Daddy Dearest, parading the street of Rosewood, foisting DiLaurentis trouble on any teen girl with a pulse.
“Someone is harassing me, a grown man! Quick, better shout at the first traumatized teen girl I see!”
PREVIOUSLY ON PRETTY LITTLE LIARS
Lesli Stone was revealed to be A-playing-Charles…in the Liars’ demonstrably wild LiarLogic™ imaginations. But her patient files were tucked right in there with Bethany’s patient files, tucked right in there with Charles’ death record/organ donation files, tucked right in that rusty unlocked filing cabinet so reasonably stored deep in the baby hospital nightmare bathtub room in the basement of a condemned Radley! Really, the fact that these most important documents of support for the Liars’ newest theory being the only documents left out of the forcible Radley document purge and shred only further PROVES they are definitely, incontestably, finally right!
Oh, also Aria got #Trapped on a terrible surprise-date with college hipster photographer Clark at the world’s neatest and most impeccably curated junkyard, where she was both photographed at close range by a man without her permission and also nearly crushed to death by falling junk shelves pushed over by A. Which was the worse nightmare? WHO CAN SAY. But at least Clark’s unwelcome photog invasion “caught” a “glimpse” of “A” and surprised Aria by indicating that A has b00bs! Further supporting, of course, the Lesli Lies theory above.
THIS WEEK
Rosewood Fashion Summit
We begin with Emily and Spencer at Emily’s, Emily wearing a pair of overalls we think she probably borrowed from Spencer until we realize they are made completely of leather, and now, we’re so confused? Are they from the Spencer, Emily or Aria collection at Aeropostale? Maybe they’re from Hanna’s punk-grunge “I’M NOT ALI!!” phase! BLURRED LINES, is what we’re saying. Still…girl looks good.
Anyway, Spencer is filling Emily in on their revelation that Lesli was in Radley with both Mona and Bethany, and is probably A/Charles. Think about it: Mona’s always been shady about their past together. And remember all that special treatment Mona got in the bunker? Only being starved for 20 days instead of 21? Getting to hand out pills instead of taking them? Let us not forget that Mona got kidnapped and stuffed into a gas mask and down a stone well while the rest of them were just praying to whatever God Pastor Ted preaches about that they would wake up each morning still in possession of their kidneys.
“Yeah, but dude,” Em retorts. “You saw that CIA-level set up, right? How could Lesli Stone make all of that happen?”
“PEOPLE SURPRISE YOU,” Spencer yells. “Like how Mona aced all her AP classes AND had perfect hair all while torturing us for a full year. Also, Andrew!” Emily is ready to point out how that is a terrible reference to make, since Andrew did nothing except creep on Aria in every aspect of her life and basically blackmail her into secretly (to her) dating him and then drop off the face of the planet as a result of his own engorged hero complex and then call them all toxic waste for having the GALL to be kidnapped and tortured for a month and come back looking for the person who hurt them. Nothing! He was innocent!
Okay, yes, Spencer allows—but the reason Andrew was such a terrible suspect for them to latch onto wasn’t that he was innocent (no Rosewood man is), but instead that he didn’t have a motive. And as the demon ghost girl in the haunted basement bathtub room at Radley revealed, Lesli does! Obviously, Lesli thinks the Liars collectively killed Bethany, and now wants her very protracted revenge. LIARLOGIC™.
Hanna shows up then, ready to go sleuthing. She also announces that Mona is beyond grounded after sneaking out to go to Radley with them last week. Like, no phone, no internet, no Tippi calls, no Pepe howls, no Morse Code anagrams tapped into the hood of Jonny F*king Raymond’s Secret Machine, no nothing. A proper grounding. Which is PLL Speak for “We spent our Mona budget on Sara Harvey this week LOL sorry fools.”
Spencer is out, because valedictorian speech. Also, Emily’s gotta jet for more therapy. “Well what about Aria!” Hanna demands, ready to pounce on the Littlest Liar for not pulling her snooping weight. But Aria’s pulling plenty of weight! She’s off at Hollis this very instant sneaking A’s boobs/Clark’s negatives back into his cubby. UGH. Girls! Hanna is ready for some capital A-Action! And if Caleb refuses to give it to her and A refuses to torment anyone except Aria and Mona’s mom refuses to let her come out and play and both of YOU insist on living your LIVES, then Hanna is just going to have to go off and to catch Lesli in the act all by herself!
We are sure it will go well, and definitely not almost end in a round of rabies vaccinations for everyone.
ARIA
Speaking of things that go well until they don’t, Aria’s anti-burgling job at Hollis is half a bust. She is pulling her hand out from the cubby she has just returned Clark’s filched negatives to when he walks into the lab and catches her in the act—the act of, he thinks, stealing. “If you really didn’t want me to take those pictures of you, you should have said something!” he admonishes, after expressing joking disappointment over the fact that she did not bring him, a near stranger, a bagel breakfast.
- That is literally what she immediately and firmly requested that you do when you took the first pictures.
- That is literally what she immediately and firmly requested that you do when you took the first pictures.
- There is no 3.
People (mostly men): no one owes you anything of themselves that they don’t want to share. Their time; their image; their breakfast food. Their tales of emotional and physical torture. Aria would be absolutely right to stare daggers at Clark as he attempts once more to invade her private world she has told him she is not interested in sharing; she should be commended for instead turning his invitation to [insert whatever thing she is not interested in doing here; we didn’t care to pay close enough attention] politely down.
Later that afternoon, while Hanna and Spencer are busy breaking + entering Lesli’s Range Rover, Aria takes a head-shrunk Emily along as her safety buddy to investigate the curated junkyard for any more clues Lady A might have left behind. Emily is too preoccupied with her text convo with Sara to pay Aria/the investigation much attention, however, prompting some eyebrow raising on Aria’s part, and strain-worthy eyerolls from us.
“So…you two are close, then,” Aria muses, testing the ground for what kind of comments she can make. “Well, she lives with me, so, yeah,” Em says, glancing up from her emoji keyboard. What, like…for life? Like forever? Are you married? Aria keeps whatever her true opinions might be mum, but we are not limited by the laws of friendship/fiction! Emily is officially obsessed with Sara, but mostly only because she is obsessed with Sara’s trauma, and that is NOT COOL.We invite you to stop at any mome—
Emily stops. She’s just received the weirdest text, and not from Sara. From Ezra, letting her know an old friend just showed up at the Brew, straight from the other side of the world. “I’ve gotta go!” she says, looking up and making eye contact with Aria for the first time this whole outing.
“Well that’s just perfect,” Clark says, because YEAH, CLARK JUST SHOWED UP WHERE ARIA WAS…AGAIN…NBD. “I can drive Aria home!” Cool cool cool, Em nods, not registering the grimace on Aria’s face. Ttyl!
In with one person who is oblivious to Aria’s needs, out with another
So there is Clark, apologizing again for taking secret pictures of her a minute after she was stalked and kidnapped. Which, speaking of, how close are “they” in finding the person who really did that? Just as a totally innocent random question from a dude who definitely isn’t spying for Charles at all. Gee, Clark. And here we thought you actually felt bad for poking the sore spots of Aria’s recent trauma!
“Close,” Aria says, defying all the wisdom in the world screaming at her to slap him in the face. “We’re getting close.” Okay, sure, but how do you know, Aria? Hm? How do you know? Not that Clark means to pry, but…”Oh hey, we’ve wandered right back to where I stole your image the other day. Let’s look for your lost tripod excuse here!”
While Clark is looking for the tripod that doesn’t exist, Aria notices a doll that wasn’t on the neatly organized junkyard shelf when she was there the other day. It’s pretty creepy, but no more or less than any of the other, normal dolls in her life. She picks it up and, for whatever reason, flips it over…to reveal a second doll torso hidden under the skirt where the first doll’s legs should be. It is an Aria doll, with Aria-pink hair and Aria-punk clothes, and a wooden knife JABBED INTO ITS EYE SOCKET, painted blood dripping down the face.
The moment she gets home, Aria calls Em to tell her about the doll. Their phone call is interrupted by a knock on the door. It’s Ezra, bearing more intrusions into Aria’s private life, this time in the form of the photography contest application she accidentally left behind, half-finished, at the Brew, which he took as an invitation to write her a *very padded* letter of recommendation, totally unsolicited.
“That’s so nice of you!” Aria coos, “No one knows me better than you do!”
And it is actually impossible to tell if she genuinely means it, or if it is the only thing she can think to say in reaction to such a gross violation of her personal life. Probably more the former, considering that later she explains to Spencer that Ezra is the person she feels safest telling everything to, because he is safe. Just safety incarnate, that ol’ stalker of mine who still keeps self-portraits of me hanging above his desk! But considering that when Ezra spies the eye-gouged Aria doll poking out of her backpack, she doesn’t tell him anything close to the truth, we are holding out hope that there was at least a sliver of the latter.
Later, when Aria stops by the Brew after the Liars’ wild night playing at being in PETA, she spies Ezra flirting with Em’s Australian-by-way-of-Haiti-by-way-of-India friend, sharing old books like they were just a pair of old school (teacher+student) pals.
Stay strong, Aria. Stay strong.
EMILY
Emily’s live-in social work project is still around, trying to figure out what to wear to Caleb’s office (apartment) on her first day of her fake job. While Emily stares nervously, Sara strips off her shirt and asks for help applying ointment to her tattoo, which is still red and also still terrible. It’s all flirty and uncomfortable, like a scene from a very sad and dramatic Adult Film. Emily finally grabs some flannel and thrusts it into Sara’s hands: “Here. You should wear this lesbian shirt and we can be lesbians together. Bye!”
At the Brew, a pretty Australian girl comes in looking for Emily, and guys, if this keeps happening we’re going to have to establish ANOTHER foundation to help fight Rosewood Induced Generic White Girl Face Blindness. Because it took about eight minutes of expository context for us to realize that we hadn’t actually met this girl before, she was just another in a long line of generic-faced Brew-dwellers with an eye for Fields. This time, her name is Nicole, she worked with Emily in Haiti that one time, and since Emily capriciously just up and changed her email and cell number, she had no choice but to fly halfway across the world to figure out wtf is up. “Uh, this is awkward…” says Ezra, but you KNOW he’s kinda excited to tell the whole story of the girls’ kidnapping and that he’ll probably make his role in their rescue sound juuuuuust the right amount of humble and dramatic. Barf.
When Emily shows up (after being lured away from being Aria’s Safety Buddy at the curated junkyard), Nicole tells her that she came all this way because she wants Emily to come help her build some more houses in Thailand, and while this request obviously could have been communicated over the phone had Emily not been forced through torture and kidnapping to change her number, you just know that Nicole would have come up with some excuse to hoof it all the way to RareBrew Candy Shoppe and Kave Emporio just on the off chance she’d score a cup of Emily’s famous SwimFan Dark Roast.
“Come fulfill your lesbian destiny and use power tools with me!” Nicole says. Em’s like, “Well, I got mad therapy right now tho, and also this self-assigned problem of Fixing Sara Harvey.” Nicole reminds her that Emily was a mess when she showed up in Haiti, but that all that hammering seemed to make her feel better… So Emily’s in. And she’s bringing a “friend.”
At home, Emily finds Sara sobbing as she scrubs the floor with a cut on her face. Sara tells the story of a dark car, driving slow, that smashed into her on her bike. She’s very nervous and angry and also bleeding all over the place, but also: we’re just taking her at her word, we guess? Anyway, Savior Em is like “I HAVE A PLAN 2 FIX U VIA THAILAND” and Sara is like “Well actually no one will let me leave the country.” So Emily goes back to tell Nicole that she can’t actually go to Thailand after all, and Nicole just stares at her all mournfully and asks if maaaaaaybe the person she really needs to fix is… herself. #Deep. Anyway, sorry you came all the way to Murdertown USA just for this Nicole, but at least you can—NO STOP FLIRTING WITH EZRA. STOP. Wait, at least you might be his age. Carry on.
At the end of the day, after Hanna’s caught Emily up on all the ChArles/Lesli-related events, Em returns to her room to find Sara asleep in her bed. “Hm,” thinks Emily, “This is historically a very good place for me to hook up with girls. Better caress her neck gently looking for a microchip.” When Sara wakes up and kisses her, is anyone surprised?
HANNA
Hanna does some MVP-level snooping and figures out that Lesli is a TA at a nearby college and works in a lab, which she immediately texts to Emily. Caleb appears wearing a ginormous jacket and goes in to kiss Hanna, noticing a bump on the back of her neck. “OMG GET OFF” she basically yells and rushes out, leaving Caleb feeling butt hurt in her kitchen while Ashley gives him pity eyes.
Hanna was able to figure out that Lesli had a faculty lunch at a sushi restaurant in Philly and takes it upon herself to follow her there. She watches from afar as Lesli valets her Range Rover and goes inside. Hanna waits until the valet’s back is turned and pretends to come OUT of the restaurant. “Oh me oh my! I seem to have lost my valet ticket! Can you help a poor pretty girl?” The valet opens the cabinet full of keys and tells her to pick hers, but of course she can’t. So she describes Lesli’s car instead, pretending to look in her bra like a real freaking champ for the lost ticket. As it would happen, boobs are magic, and the valet disappears to retrieve the car for her.
While he’s gone, Spencer calls and says she’s on her way, so Hanna tells her to meet her in the alley: she’ll be the one in someone else’s Range Rover. ::high five:: Except Spencer gets all judgey at the idea of stealing someone’s car. “Don’t get all preachy with me, Puff’n’stuff,” Hanna, our shero, retorts. The valet reappears in Lesli’s car and Hanna jumps in confidently and dashes away, leaving the valet, and us, flustered by her pure Hannaness.
Meanwhile, Caleb and Sara are pretending like he didn’t just fake some paperwork and this so-called “job” is actually a real thing that exists. He’s trying to teach her the ins and outs of responsive design but she doesn’t even know who Kimye is much less the newest trends in online design. “What’s Kimye? Like Kimmy Schmidt? Because someone’s already made that joke to me, thanks.” Sara says (we mean, if you’re going to reach for references so many years in the show’s future, reach for the GOOD ones). “Oh right awkward nevermind huh huh,” he chuckles. It’s exhausting being on the outside, she sighs. “At least you have the girls to connect with,” Caleb reassures her. Sara asks him what he knows about Alison—she’s curious after Charles made her pretend to be Ali, but Emily shuts down every time she tries to talk to her about it. Caleb doesn’t have the answers though, he feels like he’s on the outside looking in too and he hates it. SORRY BOYS/SARA, you are not invited to Liar Club.
Sara, Google DID exist before you were kidnapped, though, so you don’t actually need Caleb’s help to get the skinny on Alison. Unless you already have the skinny on Alison because you are working with Charles and you are just PLAYING the role of distressed puppy with Emily and Pam and anyone else who will fall for it.
In the alley behind the restaurant, Hanna and Spencer rummage through Lesli’s car and find a copy of her lab keycard. Spencer wants to call Caleb so he can make them a copy. “Ugh don’t call Caleb,” Hanna snips. Spencer warns her not to lock him out. “I can’t lock him out because my mom keeps letting him in,” Hanna huffs. “We eat meals together so Caleb can cut my meat. He thinks I’m weak and I’m not!” As she says this, she finds a box of ten pairs of Lesli’s hipster glasses. Spencer puts them on and realizes they’re fake – there’s no prescription.
The back of the SUV contains large boxes. “What are they?” Hanna asks. Maybe Hanna needs those fake glasses after all because it says right there on the box that they are LARGE ANIMAL CAGES. Four of them. “They’re big enough for…FOR US,” Spencer says dramatically.
Caleb’s at the Brew waiting for his lunch order, and as he picks up a book called “When Love Turns Toxic” (good one, Ezra), Ashley comes in. He fumbles to put the book back, embarrassed. “You don’t need a book,” Ashley says gently. “We may never know what happened to her. Maybe she’ll tell us, maybe she won’t.” He swears he isn’t trying to smother Hanna. “I know,” Ashley says, “and I think Hanna knows on some level – she just likes to keep us guessing.” Which? Really? Because Hanna’s the most transparent person on this show. And also? Let’s not blame Hanna. This whole convo is weird. But Ashley feels like she saw a glimpse of the old Hanna just last night, when she left the freezer door open and defrosted $80 worth of groceries. When we think she couldn’t get further from a point, Ashley finally comes around: Hanna was happy when Ashley yelled at her about defrosting the groceries. So, don’t necessarily yell at her, Caleb, but don’t treat her like she’s weak. Treat her like the independent woman she wants to be.
Later that night, Hanna is in her room getting ready to go to Lesli’s lab when Caleb appears and scares her. Hey bro, don’t sneak up on recently kidnapped girls. He reminds her that Ashley’s not a regular mom, she’s a cool mom, and she made him a key to the house so he could come in anytime. Hanna gets sassy at this, and Caleb yells at her to knock it off. Then he grabs her and kisses her and it’s kinda hot. Like the first season they were together hot. Remember when that shower scene happened? That was a truly great Haleb moment. Also sex is probably about to happen.
Gross, sorry guys.
SPENCER
Dean shows up at Spencer’s with a book from his sponsor/lame excuse to see her, but she’s gotta jet to Philly so…and she does that thing where she basically holds open the door for him but he doesn’t leave. Actually, he brought her brownies so we take back every bad thing we’ve ever said about him. Spencer’s phone buzzes with a text from her mom, bugging her about making a speech at commencement. The principal wants her to stand up in front of the school and be the poster girl for trauma. They’re handing her the valedictorian spot even though she’s been to class twice in the last six years, but she’s not ready to talk about it like it’s over when it’s not. “Just say no,” Drug-Free Dean tells her, which, LOL. “Considering everything, just graduating is impressive.” She gets a text from Hanna telling her to get her ass to Philly, so she tells Dean she’ll see him at the NA meeting later and bolts.
After going through Lesli’s car with Hanna, Spencer goes directly to Caleb’s to get a copy of Lesli’s lab keycard. But Caleb’s out at lunch so she’s stuck with his fake receptionist/design assistant Sara Harvey until he gets back. She lies about what the card is for, pretending she’s lost her gym card again. The silence is v. awkward, guys. When her mom sends her a text bugging her about the graduation speech (lay off, Veronica!), Spencer asks Sara if anyone ever asked her to talk about the kidnapping. “My mom does, probably because some reporters offered money,” Sara says. Spencer explains her valedictorian speech woes. “None of it matters anyway,” she says. “It’s all wasted energy.” But Sara thinks if she could explain how it felt to be down there and how it felt to be up here, she’d want everyone to hear it.
Her car snooping in Philly meant that Spencer missed her NA meeting. She gets home that night and finds DeanDane waiting outside her house in a huff. Spencer’s like “You mad, bro?” In his life, when someone doesn’t answer the phone they’re probably lying in a gutter—which, LOL guy she ate a couple of pot brownies, drugs ARE NOT HER BIGGEST PROBLEM. She invites him in for coffee, but he can’t see her anymore. Every time he’s near her, he wants to grab her and kiss her and he does not even care about her cop boyfriend. He goes in for a kiss and she’s like “Wait—what’s your name again? Damon? Donald?” So he gets in his car and leaves.
With the boys out of the way, Spencer, Hanna, and Aria break into Lesli’s lab under the cloak of night and feminism. They’re looking for receipts for underground bunkers, copious amounts of ugly prom dresses, popcorn machines, literally anything that would link Lesli back to the dollhouse. As they dig for receipts, Aria tells him that Ezra came over and she almost told him everything. “Why do you feel like you owe him?” Spencer asks “He makes me feel safe,” Aria says of the man who stalked her and her friends and didn’t help when he knew she was being tormented by a sociopathic cyber bully and oh yeah knowingly seduced a teenager. This delightful moment is interrupted when Hanna walks by a piece of machinery that starts beeping rapidly.
Spencer grabs Hanna’s head and moves it back and forth in front of the machine, making it beep. Then she moves the wand behind her own head, and it beeps more. Then she mutters three of the best words in PLL history: “Bitch chipped us!”
“SHE FREAKING CHIPPED US?!” Aria exclaims. That’s why they were drugged in the bunker, Spencer says. Feeling confident that they are on the right track, they search for something – anything – to take to the police. Hanna wanders into a room full of caged lab animals, which gives her flashbacks of being trapped in the dollhouse. TBH, the fact that Lesli likes to experiment on lab animals is not working in her favor r/n. “She doesn’t get to keep people in cages anymore,” Hanna says as she starts freeing the animals. ALSO THERE IS A RACCOON. We’re like “Omg cute!” but then Spencer reminds Hanna and Aria/us that it probably has Anthrax, so they have to get all the animals back in cages. Hanna offers up a bag Cheetos from her purse that they feed to the raccoon.
A rat jumps on Aria’s shoulder just as the lights go out. A lamp clicks on AND CUE MONA. “Have you guys lost your minds?” Mona is like a fucking Disney princess getting raccoons and rats to go back into their cages as she explains that she turned the lights out so a security guard wouldn’t see them. “Us?!” Aria yells, “Bitch, plz, you are on #TeamLesli.” Which causes Mona to roll her eyes harder than eyes should be rolled. Lesli’s not pretending to be Charles, she’s pretending to be stable, Mona explains. All Lesli knew about Charles was that he snuck out the same night as Bethany. “Um no,” Hanna argues, “Charles was dead by that point, he donated his organs SHOW HER SPENCER.” Spencer produces the paperwork from Radley and hands it to Mona.
Mona says the paperwork is a sham—look at the meds Charles was on, no one would take that liver! Charles is alive, and he’s planning something big. He wanted to distract them while he regrouped and Lesli’s just easy pickings. “But we got a photo of A in the junkyard! A’s a girl!” Spencer points. “If you got a photo of A, it’s because A wanted to be caught,” Mona counterpoints.
They’re interrupted by a security guard, then, and after they all go their separate ways, Spencer goes to NA alone, for what we assume is a second meeting of the day? Late at night? Like, how many midnight NA meetings take place in Rosewood? What is time? Anyway, DeanDane’s chair is noticeably empty. Probably because he has already been to several NA meetings that evening.
DADDY D
Mr. DiLaurentis is out minding his own business when he notices that someone has put a Happy Birthday card under the wipers on his car. When he reads what’s inside, he does an honest-to-blog dramatic chipmunk and starts freaking out. Poor Emily, on her bike on her way to therapy, is in the line of fire. “YOU THERE. WHO DID THIS? WHO HAS BEEN NEAR MY HOUSE, TEENAGE GIRL WHO HAPPENS TO BE RIDING HER BIKE BY ON THE STREET?” She has no answers, as she is just riding her bike by, on the street.
Later, we see Mr. D in his car, yelling on the phone about medical records and incompetence. After he hangs up, he marks “Andrew Grant, MD” off a long list of doctors’ names.
Finally, at Charles’ grave, Daddy D be diggin’. It would appear that after an unsuccessful search to find an MD that can assure him Charles is, in fact, Actually Dead (Did anyone call Wren Kingston?), Kenneth is taking matters into his own hands and digging up Charles’ grave to find the body himself, which is a dark juxtaposition of Jessica burying her own daughter a few seasons ago. Dirt scatters across the birthday card that was left on his car in the first act. “Dear Daddy, I’m coming home for my birthday. You should plan a party to die for. Just you. Love Charles.”
NEXT WEEK
He’s alive and coming for them. Especially Toby.
Kisses,
A (lexis, Catie & Rosemary)
