In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Aria has been up all night -- dressed like if the Hamburglar joined Bananarama -- because that picture of the somebody chasing Alison from That Night was totally taken from Alison's bedroom. So they send Spencer to speak to funny-talking/hot brother Jason DiLaurentis, who gets the photo tested but later admits he could have taken it. He was fucked up that night because that whole year he was doing drugs with Ian, whom btw he and all the other drug guys knew was boning Alison, which is gross on all levels. Spencer figures out at some point during the episode that it's actually herself in the picture -- because of that time she murdered Alison for warning her about Melissa finding out about Ian in a way that seemed like a threat -- but then they see Jason skulking around in Maya/Alison's bedroom and they all scream!
Hanna's stuff this week is amazing. Turns out that old lady is coming back to the bank early, which means Ashley is shitting herself, so A sends Hanna this awesome Mother's Day card and drawn on the front a comic balloon coming out of the mommy's mouth that says, "I NEED MONEY!" which I think just might be the greatest A message of the entire show, it's so fucking beautiful. Well done.
So the deal is that Hanna's supposed to get Ella to figure out her daughter is sleeping with Fitz, by sending her to this out-of-town museum opening that Ezra and Aria are attending as a real-life couple. After Spencer accidentally compares Hanna's A-rrangement to the annexation of Poland, she realizes you shouldn't give into bullies -- for real -- but when she tries to warn Aria off, girlfriend just bushies her eyebrows and calls Hanna a hater some more. All of which gets fixed later; the important thing is that both Aria and Ezra look hotter than the fucking sun on their date.
Thanks to secret helping by Caleb the Cyberwolf, Ella's car breaks down, and she ends up hitching a ride with Estranged Byron and then boning him in the museum parking lot! YES! The cagey way Mom acts and lies about this to Aria the day just confuses the issue for everybody, but the point is: A was defied. That should turn out well. Oh, and then further irony: Mrs. Potter drops dead minutes before her appointment, so the whole Hanna/Aria throwdown thing was even more of a useless farce than it seemed. Which is nice, because I don't like it when Hanna is sad.
Feeling bad about her memories of killing Alison in the yard that time, or at least yelling at her and being photographed in the yard that time, Spencer spends the episode running around being like twice as Spencery as usual: When Emily gets menaced and gay-bullied by her competition on the swim team, Paige McCullers who wears Selma Blair's old haircut and a shitload of cardigans, Spencer calls a PE coach tribunal that causes Emily to nearly take her head off. Oh, and then Paige tries to drown Emily and it's awesome.
Also, they follow up on the maker of those bracelets they always wear and stare at all the time, and it is Mrs. Garrett rocking some short white hair and support for Geri Jewell's sexuality. She says A bought the bracelets under Spencer's name, so it's a dead end, but then in the creepy tag we find her making tea for A, remarking on her "interesting eyes," and Renfielding around about how she told Spencer the lie she was supposed to. Oooo!
week: Running around, screaming, Spencer finally makes an ally of Toby.
Watch the episode below, then discuss it in our forums, then see the show's best moments so far.
What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Talk Without Pity, the social media site for real TV fans. See Tweets and Facebook comments in real time and add your own -- all without leaving TWoP. Join the conversation now!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!It's morning, and the Liars are movin' pretty slow. They're all at Spencer's house, even Aria, which is okay because Ian's in Philly. Aria's been awake all night, dressed insanely and running around and acting weird, because that's her thing: She started drinking black coffee and smoking cloves and wearing scarves in like the third grade. "One eye is bigger than the other," Hanna says adorably, "You look like a strung-out Power Puff Girl!"
And how come? Because Aria's seen too many episodes of like NCIS and JAG, whatever old-people shows she thinks mature young people are into, and has been enhancing the image they were sent last night, turning it this way and that, triangulating the angle from whence. The picture is of Allison in her yellow death top, being pursued through Spencer's yard -- Which is apparently door to Allison's house? Even though Emily also lives door to Allison's house? I think I am confused -- and from the angle it would seem the photo was taken from Ali's bedroom window.
So then it's randomly decided, in a get-this-story-underway fashion, that the picture was taken by Ali's brother Jason. And you know from the way they say it and the way the music goes that this is correct. Nursing memories of his weird behavior at the memorial, and still very cutely sleepy, none of the girls are really up to visiting him with the photo.
Except of course for Spencer, who is being very hardcore this week. Not just because she is Spencer, but also because -- spoiler alert -- it is she, in the photograph. She is the stalking shadow. Her reasons for not fessing about this are sort of complex, but essentially we learn in a flashback at the end that she put a death curse on Alison moments before the photo was taken, during their big interesting fight, and so she feels like maybe she caused Alison's murder, like via The Secret. So instead of telling them this, she just grabs her gun and many knives, and goes Jason-hunting.
Over at Hanna's house, Ashley's running through her agenda with her assistant, and then her whole face goes frozen and terrified: Seems old Mrs. Potter, unwitting donor of the Ashley Marin Ass-Covering Fund -- which was stolen by A and is now being handed out to Hanna one horrible deed at a time -- has moved her yearly bank visit up, about 50 weeks or so, and Ashley suddenly needs $50,000 she doesn't have. Hanna starts stressing -- for about five reasons at this point, because of the many, many ways the money has fucked up and continues to fuck up her life -- but Ashley's like one parental allele kicks in and she's like, "Little girls shouldn't worry about things like this. I will do something drastic or stupid, trust Mama."
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Aria has been up all night -- dressed like if the Hamburglar joined Bananarama -- because that picture of the somebody chasing Alison from That Night was totally taken from Alison's bedroom. So they send Spencer to speak to funny-talking/hot brother Jason DiLaurentis, who gets the photo tested but later admits he could have taken it. He was fucked up that night because that whole year he was doing drugs with Ian, whom btw he and all the other drug guys knew was boning Alison, which is gross on all levels. Spencer figures out at some point during the episode that it's actually herself in the picture -- because of that time she murdered Alison for warning her about Melissa finding out about Ian in a way that seemed like a threat -- but then they see Jason skulking around in Maya/Alison's bedroom and they all scream!
Hanna's stuff this week is amazing. Turns out that old lady is coming back to the bank early, which means Ashley is shitting herself, so A sends Hanna this awesome Mother's Day card and drawn on the front a comic balloon coming out of the mommy's mouth that says, "I NEED MONEY!" which I think just might be the greatest A message of the entire show, it's so fucking beautiful. Well done.
So the deal is that Hanna's supposed to get Ella to figure out her daughter is sleeping with Fitz, by sending her to this out-of-town museum opening that Ezra and Aria are attending as a real-life couple. After Spencer accidentally compares Hanna's A-rrangement to the annexation of Poland, she realizes you shouldn't give into bullies -- for real -- but when she tries to warn Aria off, girlfriend just bushies her eyebrows and calls Hanna a hater some more. All of which gets fixed later; the important thing is that both Aria and Ezra look hotter than the fucking sun on their date.
Thanks to secret helping by Caleb the Cyberwolf, Ella's car breaks down, and she ends up hitching a ride with Estranged Byron and then boning him in the museum parking lot! YES! The cagey way Mom acts and lies about this to Aria the day just confuses the issue for everybody, but the point is: A was defied. That should turn out well. Oh, and then further irony: Mrs. Potter drops dead minutes before her appointment, so the whole Hanna/Aria throwdown thing was even more of a useless farce than it seemed. Which is nice, because I don't like it when Hanna is sad.
Feeling bad about her memories of killing Alison in the yard that time, or at least yelling at her and being photographed in the yard that time, Spencer spends the episode running around being like twice as Spencery as usual: When Emily gets menaced and gay-bullied by her competition on the swim team, Paige McCullers who wears Selma Blair's old haircut and a shitload of cardigans, Spencer calls a PE coach tribunal that causes Emily to nearly take her head off. Oh, and then Paige tries to drown Emily and it's awesome.
Also, they follow up on the maker of those bracelets they always wear and stare at all the time, and it is Mrs. Garrett rocking some short white hair and support for Geri Jewell's sexuality. She says A bought the bracelets under Spencer's name, so it's a dead end, but then in the creepy tag we find her making tea for A, remarking on her "interesting eyes," and Renfielding around about how she told Spencer the lie she was supposed to. Oooo!
week: Running around, screaming, Spencer finally makes an ally of Toby.
Watch the episode below, then discuss it in our forums, then see the show's best moments so far.
What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Talk Without Pity, the social media site for real TV fans. See Tweets and Facebook comments in real time and add your own -- all without leaving TWoP. Join the conversation now!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Jason's running around the track shirtless, so right away you know he's going to behave himself. I love, love the way he talks. It's so weird and special. It reminds me of the first time I saw Adam Brody and I was like, "That's not how you act on TV! I've seen TV before." He sketchily says he's "Taking care of family business," and when Spencer -- dressed like a cross between Annie Hall and Carmen Sandiego, of course -- shows him the photo he's like, "After Ali disappeared we got bizarre things in the mail, too. Sympathy cards from strangers ,and letters with conspiracy theories about what happened to her... Sometimes it was photos..."
How great if he'd been like, "This one persistent dude keeps making me take my shirt off all the time and act weird at funerals. Do you know anybody named A?"
So but okay this is in actuality an actual image of Alison, in Spencer's actual yard, wearing her actual disappearing outfit, with a person chasing her, from the vector of Ali's actual bedroom. Not one of those whatevers he's talking about. Jason agrees to take it to their family's PI, and then just as Spencer's ready to run he's like, "Spencer. Ali's memorial was the hardest thing I've ever done. I was a jerk." Spencer says it was sort of more intense than that, but acknowledges his apology. She is stern, but just.
Emily's back on the swim team, and breaking records left and right. This makes Coach very happy, but current team captain Paige McCullers not so happy. Paige McCullers is a very pretty girl whose severely fucked-up looking Annie Wilkes/Selma Blair geometric haircut not only gives her, somehow, linebacker shoulders, but is also a flashing neon sign for CRAZY BITCH. Like, even Spencer finds her a little intense.
Hanna keeps calling Ashley to cry about the money, and whatever, but then Spencer and Aria appear, having made themselves a super dumb plan. Spencer's dad has tickets to this art opening in Philly that he's not using, so she's giving them to Aria for an out-of-town Real Couple Date with Ezra, as well as a sleepover alibi. Spencer is a good friend. Or else she just knows Aria's going to be the one to crack if she can't figure out a way to make her sick fake relationship feel like the movies. One of the two.
Paige gets all the swim girls together with giftbags and delivers this speech about morale and team spirit -- interrupting herself to bitch at Emily for looking in the bag, awesomely -- and finally Coach tells her to cut it short: " All righty all righty Paige, I'm sure everybody appreciates your gifts, but I want you swimmin', not shoppin'." That's how she talks, all the time. Coach is fucking great, as a character and performance, by the way. She reminds me of a lot of Betty Buckley in Carrie: Just so sweet, and so obviously brilliant, so willing to toe the line of professionalism in order to save your soul, so willing to punch a bully in her stupid face. She was one of my role models growing up, and I'm always so happy to echoes of that character in places. Anyway, Emily tries to apologize to Paige for her excellence, but she just Nurse Ratchets her shit on up outta there without even looking.
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Aria has been up all night -- dressed like if the Hamburglar joined Bananarama -- because that picture of the somebody chasing Alison from That Night was totally taken from Alison's bedroom. So they send Spencer to speak to funny-talking/hot brother Jason DiLaurentis, who gets the photo tested but later admits he could have taken it. He was fucked up that night because that whole year he was doing drugs with Ian, whom btw he and all the other drug guys knew was boning Alison, which is gross on all levels. Spencer figures out at some point during the episode that it's actually herself in the picture -- because of that time she murdered Alison for warning her about Melissa finding out about Ian in a way that seemed like a threat -- but then they see Jason skulking around in Maya/Alison's bedroom and they all scream!
Hanna's stuff this week is amazing. Turns out that old lady is coming back to the bank early, which means Ashley is shitting herself, so A sends Hanna this awesome Mother's Day card and drawn on the front a comic balloon coming out of the mommy's mouth that says, "I NEED MONEY!" which I think just might be the greatest A message of the entire show, it's so fucking beautiful. Well done.
So the deal is that Hanna's supposed to get Ella to figure out her daughter is sleeping with Fitz, by sending her to this out-of-town museum opening that Ezra and Aria are attending as a real-life couple. After Spencer accidentally compares Hanna's A-rrangement to the annexation of Poland, she realizes you shouldn't give into bullies -- for real -- but when she tries to warn Aria off, girlfriend just bushies her eyebrows and calls Hanna a hater some more. All of which gets fixed later; the important thing is that both Aria and Ezra look hotter than the fucking sun on their date.
Thanks to secret helping by Caleb the Cyberwolf, Ella's car breaks down, and she ends up hitching a ride with Estranged Byron and then boning him in the museum parking lot! YES! The cagey way Mom acts and lies about this to Aria the day just confuses the issue for everybody, but the point is: A was defied. That should turn out well. Oh, and then further irony: Mrs. Potter drops dead minutes before her appointment, so the whole Hanna/Aria throwdown thing was even more of a useless farce than it seemed. Which is nice, because I don't like it when Hanna is sad.
Feeling bad about her memories of killing Alison in the yard that time, or at least yelling at her and being photographed in the yard that time, Spencer spends the episode running around being like twice as Spencery as usual: When Emily gets menaced and gay-bullied by her competition on the swim team, Paige McCullers who wears Selma Blair's old haircut and a shitload of cardigans, Spencer calls a PE coach tribunal that causes Emily to nearly take her head off. Oh, and then Paige tries to drown Emily and it's awesome.
Also, they follow up on the maker of those bracelets they always wear and stare at all the time, and it is Mrs. Garrett rocking some short white hair and support for Geri Jewell's sexuality. She says A bought the bracelets under Spencer's name, so it's a dead end, but then in the creepy tag we find her making tea for A, remarking on her "interesting eyes," and Renfielding around about how she told Spencer the lie she was supposed to. Oooo!
week: Running around, screaming, Spencer finally makes an ally of Toby.
Watch the episode below, then discuss it in our forums, then see the show's best moments so far.
What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Talk Without Pity, the social media site for real TV fans. See Tweets and Facebook comments in real time and add your own -- all without leaving TWoP. Join the conversation now!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Get ready to get creeped out! (Or weirdly and suddenly invested in this creepy relationship! Or both, like me!) Aria comes into Fitz's classroom -- there's one hesher in the back row taking a makeup test, but does she care? -- and unzips her sweater to flash her underage... Necktie? It's oddly sexual and sets up a whole necktie sex thing between them through the rest of the day, and it's weird, but anyway she slips him the museum ticket and he's excited about it, because he's been teaching The Great Gatsby for the last six years and needs something new to talk about.
Ashley's not even picking up the phone at this point, which is too bad for her because Hanna's having one of her days where everything she says is fucking amazing. Coach tells her she was missed in PE and Hanna grins brightly, "I missed you too!" She tries to give her detention for skipping a bunch of times -- you'd think non-Hefty Hanna would have stopped doing that? -- and this is Hanna's response: "Excuse me, but my ankle is still throbbing. I don't know if you heard, but I got hit by a car!"
I don't know if you heard, that's just so great. So Coach is like, "Yeah, kid. I heard. But then I also saw you do a six-hour dance marathon with Mad Lucas, so I'm guessing you're all better." Hanna tries to say that this was a case of adrenaline like when a mom lifts a tree or Hummer for her babies, and Coach is like, "So is that how they got the car off you? Call your Supermommy and tell her you're coming home late this week." Coach does not have time for your shit. For none of it does she have the time.
Cyberwolf appears and flirts with Hanna, maybe, but who knows with this show. Everything is code for everything else but I think maybe he's going to end up tempting her into... Something. Search engine optimization, or to hack the planet, or something. Second he's gone, the very greatest A thing of all time.
It's a Mother's Day card with some cheesy tampon art on the front of a mother and daughter, moseying through a field of flowers with purple mountain's majesty behind them, and A has drawn a cartoon voice bubble coming out of the lady that says I NEED MONEY!
I don't know, it's a fucking masterpiece. I literally can't stop laughing when I think about it. So inside the card is a third ticket to the opening and a task: "Show Aria's mom what her kid's been hiding." I was confused the first time around, because I thought it said "Tell" and not "Show," and so I thought Hanna was going rogue by doing it the way she does, but no: She does exactly what A told her to do.
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Aria has been up all night -- dressed like if the Hamburglar joined Bananarama -- because that picture of the somebody chasing Alison from That Night was totally taken from Alison's bedroom. So they send Spencer to speak to funny-talking/hot brother Jason DiLaurentis, who gets the photo tested but later admits he could have taken it. He was fucked up that night because that whole year he was doing drugs with Ian, whom btw he and all the other drug guys knew was boning Alison, which is gross on all levels. Spencer figures out at some point during the episode that it's actually herself in the picture -- because of that time she murdered Alison for warning her about Melissa finding out about Ian in a way that seemed like a threat -- but then they see Jason skulking around in Maya/Alison's bedroom and they all scream!
Hanna's stuff this week is amazing. Turns out that old lady is coming back to the bank early, which means Ashley is shitting herself, so A sends Hanna this awesome Mother's Day card and drawn on the front a comic balloon coming out of the mommy's mouth that says, "I NEED MONEY!" which I think just might be the greatest A message of the entire show, it's so fucking beautiful. Well done.
So the deal is that Hanna's supposed to get Ella to figure out her daughter is sleeping with Fitz, by sending her to this out-of-town museum opening that Ezra and Aria are attending as a real-life couple. After Spencer accidentally compares Hanna's A-rrangement to the annexation of Poland, she realizes you shouldn't give into bullies -- for real -- but when she tries to warn Aria off, girlfriend just bushies her eyebrows and calls Hanna a hater some more. All of which gets fixed later; the important thing is that both Aria and Ezra look hotter than the fucking sun on their date.
Thanks to secret helping by Caleb the Cyberwolf, Ella's car breaks down, and she ends up hitching a ride with Estranged Byron and then boning him in the museum parking lot! YES! The cagey way Mom acts and lies about this to Aria the day just confuses the issue for everybody, but the point is: A was defied. That should turn out well. Oh, and then further irony: Mrs. Potter drops dead minutes before her appointment, so the whole Hanna/Aria throwdown thing was even more of a useless farce than it seemed. Which is nice, because I don't like it when Hanna is sad.
Feeling bad about her memories of killing Alison in the yard that time, or at least yelling at her and being photographed in the yard that time, Spencer spends the episode running around being like twice as Spencery as usual: When Emily gets menaced and gay-bullied by her competition on the swim team, Paige McCullers who wears Selma Blair's old haircut and a shitload of cardigans, Spencer calls a PE coach tribunal that causes Emily to nearly take her head off. Oh, and then Paige tries to drown Emily and it's awesome.
Also, they follow up on the maker of those bracelets they always wear and stare at all the time, and it is Mrs. Garrett rocking some short white hair and support for Geri Jewell's sexuality. She says A bought the bracelets under Spencer's name, so it's a dead end, but then in the creepy tag we find her making tea for A, remarking on her "interesting eyes," and Renfielding around about how she told Spencer the lie she was supposed to. Oooo!
week: Running around, screaming, Spencer finally makes an ally of Toby.
Watch the episode below, then discuss it in our forums, then see the show's best moments so far.
What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Talk Without Pity, the social media site for real TV fans. See Tweets and Facebook comments in real time and add your own -- all without leaving TWoP. Join the conversation now!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Fairly touching scene where Hanna comes downstairs to find her mommy sitting in a very cool-lit kitchen, looking quite small and sad. The brittle reality of Ashley Marin goes both ways, and it's really sad to see her looking so jacked up about everything. She tells Hanna this story while making pancakes -- carbs, it must be real bad -- about how when she was in the hospital they wanted to shave part of Hanna's head and Ashley wouldn't let them, and then breaks down pretty much altogether: "I want you to know that no matter what happens you will always... Be my baby girl, and I will always figure out a way to take care of you. You want some bacon? I'll make some bacon."
Oh, it's rough! Maybe it's the ponytail or the cable cardigan but she's never seemed more like a strong mom/good woman. Hanna just goes real soft and then hard and you're like, if A told her to cut off one of Aria's toes today probably she would do that, and frankly I wouldn't even really blame her after that, so ruining Ella Montgomery's already-ruined life seems tiny in comparison.
Hey Paige? Don't touch Emily's bra. The reason homophobe = homosexual is such a cliché is because it is true: Other people are just the parts of yourself you said no to. So Paige gets up in Emily's grill and tells her she'll never be team captain -- which you don't know Emily at all if you think that's something that would ever interest her -- and finally Paige is all, "Being so into the breast stroke could really end up hurting you. We all know what team you really play for."
Ugly, ugly. Ugly haircut, ugly boxy business suit-looking outfit, ugly wordplay. But it gets better, and I mean if we never see Maya again at least she taught Emily to step outside the box before committing to an emotion, because check out this awesome Spencer-spiced greatness right here: "You know what, Paige? You need to suck it up. If you want to beat me, work harder."
So Hanna drops off Ella's ticket -- under the pretense that it's a gift from the Rosewood PTA for her help with the dance, like, "Hey Lonely! Take in some art!" -- and then immediately spots Aria and Ezra being... Adorable. Yeah, I know! But she spots him in the hallway and gives a funny grin and runs her hand down an imaginary necktie and he grins so fucking goofy and shruggy and blushy and it's just... Maybe it's just for this week. But I said the same thing last week -- how it's okay to not totally hate Aria sometimes -- so who knows what's going on with me.
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Aria has been up all night -- dressed like if the Hamburglar joined Bananarama -- because that picture of the somebody chasing Alison from That Night was totally taken from Alison's bedroom. So they send Spencer to speak to funny-talking/hot brother Jason DiLaurentis, who gets the photo tested but later admits he could have taken it. He was fucked up that night because that whole year he was doing drugs with Ian, whom btw he and all the other drug guys knew was boning Alison, which is gross on all levels. Spencer figures out at some point during the episode that it's actually herself in the picture -- because of that time she murdered Alison for warning her about Melissa finding out about Ian in a way that seemed like a threat -- but then they see Jason skulking around in Maya/Alison's bedroom and they all scream!
Hanna's stuff this week is amazing. Turns out that old lady is coming back to the bank early, which means Ashley is shitting herself, so A sends Hanna this awesome Mother's Day card and drawn on the front a comic balloon coming out of the mommy's mouth that says, "I NEED MONEY!" which I think just might be the greatest A message of the entire show, it's so fucking beautiful. Well done.
So the deal is that Hanna's supposed to get Ella to figure out her daughter is sleeping with Fitz, by sending her to this out-of-town museum opening that Ezra and Aria are attending as a real-life couple. After Spencer accidentally compares Hanna's A-rrangement to the annexation of Poland, she realizes you shouldn't give into bullies -- for real -- but when she tries to warn Aria off, girlfriend just bushies her eyebrows and calls Hanna a hater some more. All of which gets fixed later; the important thing is that both Aria and Ezra look hotter than the fucking sun on their date.
Thanks to secret helping by Caleb the Cyberwolf, Ella's car breaks down, and she ends up hitching a ride with Estranged Byron and then boning him in the museum parking lot! YES! The cagey way Mom acts and lies about this to Aria the day just confuses the issue for everybody, but the point is: A was defied. That should turn out well. Oh, and then further irony: Mrs. Potter drops dead minutes before her appointment, so the whole Hanna/Aria throwdown thing was even more of a useless farce than it seemed. Which is nice, because I don't like it when Hanna is sad.
Feeling bad about her memories of killing Alison in the yard that time, or at least yelling at her and being photographed in the yard that time, Spencer spends the episode running around being like twice as Spencery as usual: When Emily gets menaced and gay-bullied by her competition on the swim team, Paige McCullers who wears Selma Blair's old haircut and a shitload of cardigans, Spencer calls a PE coach tribunal that causes Emily to nearly take her head off. Oh, and then Paige tries to drown Emily and it's awesome.
Also, they follow up on the maker of those bracelets they always wear and stare at all the time, and it is Mrs. Garrett rocking some short white hair and support for Geri Jewell's sexuality. She says A bought the bracelets under Spencer's name, so it's a dead end, but then in the creepy tag we find her making tea for A, remarking on her "interesting eyes," and Renfielding around about how she told Spencer the lie she was supposed to. Oooo!
week: Running around, screaming, Spencer finally makes an ally of Toby.
Watch the episode below, then discuss it in our forums, then see the show's best moments so far.
What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Talk Without Pity, the social media site for real TV fans. See Tweets and Facebook comments in real time and add your own -- all without leaving TWoP. Join the conversation now!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Aria would like to know why Hanna's so upset -- is it because Sean dumped her? -- but she's got 99 problems and Sean is not one of them. There's an awkward segue related to relationship issues and Hanna's like, "If you guys are having a tough time, statutorially speaking, maybe you should chill out? Or don't go to Philly, where my sabotage will ruin your whole life."
Aria, of course, to her this is like getting stabbed a little bit in the abdomen, so she makes some very awesome rage faces and pulls yet another "Hanna's jealous" hater card out of the deck and spits in Hanna's eye and pulls her hair and runs away to write a poem about it, eyebrows looking deranged as she goes.
At lunch, Spencer is feeling chatty. She asks after Hanna and Aria's like, "Who gives a shit?" Okay, so she turns to Emily about swimming and she doesn't even look at her, and so finally Spencer's like, "Mama's bored, bitches! Talk about something! Aria, let's talk about your pretend date! Let's get jazzed like when you tried to slip me tongue for the tickets! You were parading around like a circus poodle with a parasol and now this? Come on! What will you wear?" Spencer suggests the red dress, and man is she correct about that, as we'll see. It's so sexy, and so sophisticated that you could almost forget you are a pedophile and think you're having an actual mature relationship.
Spencer's like, "Emily, why the stinkeye lasers?" Oh, because Paige McCullers is giving me shit. Spencer's like, Ugh, we played field hockey together. We named a penalty after her." Heh. And so what happened? Some snarky comment about me being gay. "I will destroy her," Spencer vows, just like that: Like RoboCop's underlying secret programming just kicked in. Target fucking acquired.
But also, that's Spencer's deal today: She has to save everybody, twice as hard as usual, because she is the one in the photograph. So Em tells them not to worry about Paige, it's done, she has to be team player girl, and they go through her swag-bag, about which Emily could not care less because it's tainted with Paige's evil lust. Inside, though, there's one of those bracelets we're always gasping about: "Maybe the store owner could tell us who bought the fake Alison bracelet, or even the Jenna one, and we would know who A is!"
Yeah, probably. Probably it will be that simple.
Ella's lecture on the annexation of Poland is the intersection of many vectors: It's about A, it's about Alison, it's about Paige, all at once. Appeasement would never have worked, because as Spencer puts it -- and you think she's talking in general, or because she is 100% made of war; or because she's constantly trying to find and murder A and solve the problem; or because she is consumed with Paige's destruction or maybe already went to Coach. But the reason is that it's all these things, plus the secret conversation she had with Ali that night, which means this is also one of those "We should totally just stab Caesar!" deals -- "You can't ever give in to a bully, because if you give them everything they ask for, it'll still never be enough. Your only choice is to stand up to them, even if it costs you something."
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Aria has been up all night -- dressed like if the Hamburglar joined Bananarama -- because that picture of the somebody chasing Alison from That Night was totally taken from Alison's bedroom. So they send Spencer to speak to funny-talking/hot brother Jason DiLaurentis, who gets the photo tested but later admits he could have taken it. He was fucked up that night because that whole year he was doing drugs with Ian, whom btw he and all the other drug guys knew was boning Alison, which is gross on all levels. Spencer figures out at some point during the episode that it's actually herself in the picture -- because of that time she murdered Alison for warning her about Melissa finding out about Ian in a way that seemed like a threat -- but then they see Jason skulking around in Maya/Alison's bedroom and they all scream!
Hanna's stuff this week is amazing. Turns out that old lady is coming back to the bank early, which means Ashley is shitting herself, so A sends Hanna this awesome Mother's Day card and drawn on the front a comic balloon coming out of the mommy's mouth that says, "I NEED MONEY!" which I think just might be the greatest A message of the entire show, it's so fucking beautiful. Well done.
So the deal is that Hanna's supposed to get Ella to figure out her daughter is sleeping with Fitz, by sending her to this out-of-town museum opening that Ezra and Aria are attending as a real-life couple. After Spencer accidentally compares Hanna's A-rrangement to the annexation of Poland, she realizes you shouldn't give into bullies -- for real -- but when she tries to warn Aria off, girlfriend just bushies her eyebrows and calls Hanna a hater some more. All of which gets fixed later; the important thing is that both Aria and Ezra look hotter than the fucking sun on their date.
Thanks to secret helping by Caleb the Cyberwolf, Ella's car breaks down, and she ends up hitching a ride with Estranged Byron and then boning him in the museum parking lot! YES! The cagey way Mom acts and lies about this to Aria the day just confuses the issue for everybody, but the point is: A was defied. That should turn out well. Oh, and then further irony: Mrs. Potter drops dead minutes before her appointment, so the whole Hanna/Aria throwdown thing was even more of a useless farce than it seemed. Which is nice, because I don't like it when Hanna is sad.
Feeling bad about her memories of killing Alison in the yard that time, or at least yelling at her and being photographed in the yard that time, Spencer spends the episode running around being like twice as Spencery as usual: When Emily gets menaced and gay-bullied by her competition on the swim team, Paige McCullers who wears Selma Blair's old haircut and a shitload of cardigans, Spencer calls a PE coach tribunal that causes Emily to nearly take her head off. Oh, and then Paige tries to drown Emily and it's awesome.
Also, they follow up on the maker of those bracelets they always wear and stare at all the time, and it is Mrs. Garrett rocking some short white hair and support for Geri Jewell's sexuality. She says A bought the bracelets under Spencer's name, so it's a dead end, but then in the creepy tag we find her making tea for A, remarking on her "interesting eyes," and Renfielding around about how she told Spencer the lie she was supposed to. Oooo!
week: Running around, screaming, Spencer finally makes an ally of Toby.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Ella loves it, the bell rings, Hanna has been electrified and radicalized by Spencer's all-encompassing map of the universe and chases Ella down, but Coach snags her and drags her to detention... Where Cyberwolf is already licking his chops. There is a hilariously deadpan product-placement conversation about the upcoming movie about Justin Bieber's life such as it is, so tone-deaf and ridiculous and out of character that you just full-on have to admire it. It's like when your boyfriend "does the dishes" by breaking them into one million pieces so you'll never ask him to do it again.
"Oh, you want us to talk about Bieber this week? You know that our show is about alienation and the inappropriate sex roles into which teenagers have been forced by the neuroses of their Baby Boomer parents, right? And that there is no Justin Bieber in our universe, because he represents the defanged and feminized virgin ideal that would invalidate our whole show... But still, yeah? Because sure! We can talk the fuck about Bieber. The only thing more perverse than our obsessive documentation of modern perversity is the commodification of his Cullenesque male vagina anyway."
"First of all, it's not just a movie, it's his real story. You know what? Just don't talk about the Beebs okay? You don't know the Beebs, you don't understand the Beebs. Or his hair."
Hanna Marin, ladies and gents. She complains about Ella going to Philly and lives being ruined and whatnot, and Cyberwolf is like, "Um, is Mrs. Montgomery running a terrorist cell?" (I wish!) Hanna remembers herself and goes, "Just turn around, Sketchy," in the funniest way, and then suddenly he's excused, because he has emailed the school posing as his social worker, and he runs off to be sketchy someplace else.
Aria is uncomfortably hot right now, knocking on Fitz's door, but then he drives up in a limo, grinning hugely, and they are total dorks and it's sort of bemusing.
Lolita could never be written now, of course, but I've always preferred a reading that sidesteps the second-wave specter of "coercion" -- an admittedly hard interpretation for most to swallow, but supported by the fact that the book's funniest and darkest passages are Humbert's Keystone Kops farcically failed attempts at rape -- by looking at it as the story of two people who get exactly what they want, and why it destroys them.
Dolores is too young to be making these decisions, but in another way so is Humbert, which makes it not a story about pedophiles but a story about us, because that's the dilemma: Everybody's got trapdoors and surprise parties inside, and you want to watch for that; but also, if you wait until you are perfect and he is perfect you will never ever fall in love, because nobody is ever fully grown. Which is a good thing, because if you were perfect you wouldn't need love, because nobody would have anything you needed.
And if you didn't fall in love with the inconvenience that truth entails, you would never grow or change, because that's all love is for. Shows up unannounced, rips you into tiny pieces, puts you back together slightly better than you were before.
Coach summons Paige and Emily down to have a little meeting about Homophobia And Bullying In Our Time. Paige assumes Emily blew a whistle -- and furthermore that she is doing this as some Machiavellian move to unseat her, which would be wild! -- and Emily, I presume she blames A, because shit always happens. (As it turns out it was Spencer, which took me by surprise but makes total sense in retrospect because of her whole desperate need this week to erase the Ali shame by protecting the shit out of everybody even more than she usually does.)
So Coach Walton is wonderful, and you can see the compassion coursing through her veins as Emily tries to throw her off the scent or at least say it's been dealt with. Because of all the interesting, groovy things about her storyline this week, the thing I find most fascinating is that Emily did deal with it... And nobody's giving her credit for that, because she's Sweet Emily. So they circle the wagons and Coach is calling these advocacy hearings and trying to do her job, and the whole time Emily's like, "Thanks for making everything worse, everybody." And even after Coach lets Paige go, she keeps Emily around to get some kind of bead on whether Emily needs her help, I'm a willing ally, all that stuff, and Emily is of course freaked out by that because it's too many secrets being talks about at once, but also: Stop helping, this one time.
Because Emily said exactly the right thing, at exactly the right time, and honestly I think Paige might have given in on that front if Spencer and Coach hadn't interfered, because the challenge Emily gave her was totally respectful, respectable, competitive in the best way, both gorgeous and intriguing: Stop saying it's about this or that, quit with your power shit, and start looking at ways to get better. I am willing to inspire and be inspired by you. Somebody said that to me? I would literally turn gay for them. That's like the sexiest thing you could ever say.
But what of Ella? Hitting the road for her lonely museum visit, non-spinster dating lady proving she can have fun and do cultural things all on her lone without feeling adrift, Day 55 of My New Great Life. So of course her car won't start. So of course Byron comes to walk her through it, because they've had this temperamental car forever, and he's like, "It's just the killswitch, jiggle the key" and Ella goes from slow burn to kind of psycho screaming over the course of this conversation, and it's so awesome. I really love seeing them together, it brings out the best in both performances, and HMC is already one of the finest of our ensemble, so it's just thrilling.
Plus, you know, a house divided. Even though he's scum, he's no more scum than anybody else on this scummy show and it's still a little exciting to see the idea of the possibility of healing, whatever form it takes. You gotta root for at least Mike's life to turn out okay, you know what I mean?
Jason DiLaurentis, why are you sitting in Spencer's living room all alone? With your shirt on? What, did Ian hand over his Creeping duties while he's away? (Actually, kind of.) He tells her the PI confirmed the photo is real -- with science! -- and then admits, in his awesome way of speaking, that he may well have been the one to take that picture after all. But there's no way of knowing, because he was on permanent drugs throughout that August and remembers nothing at all.
Spencer's like, "You have a rich and detailed existence that I never once thought to inquire about, because we all just thought of you as Ali's strange brother. You're saying you exist even when I'm asleep?" He's like, "Well mostly I just was doing drugs all the time, including with Ian, your sister's ex-boyfriend and current husband. Man, that guy's a sleazeball." Spencer can't believe Ian -- coach, triathlete, Munsterfaced prep that he is -- would ever do drugs, and Jason goes, "Poster boy by day and party boy by night. Convincing though, isn't he?" Spencer's face is like, "Absolutely nothing about that motherfucker should be shocking me by now."
Things take a turn for the not-so-cute when things get metaphorical between Ella and Byron: Maybe the car is forever dead, after all, because quote "You can only repair things so many times before they break for good." Bodyslam! Then all of a sudden she notices that he's buying new shirts and working out and that he must be going to a date with a person -- rather than alone, like her -- and that makes her feel bad, but in an awesome way. He goes, "Ella..." and she says in this hilarious who-me way, "Wut?" He reminds her that she's the one that left, which you are not allowed to ever say as the cheater, so she calls a cab. (Still to Philly? Or just a nice hot bath? I'd say the latter, but you know this show likes to squeeze the Liars' balls more than anything.) He offers to drive her to Philly and she's like, "I wouldn't want you to miss your date with a real live person" and he's like, "Leave now and we can both make our respective dates -- with actual people or our lonely misery, depending.
"I can't believe Ian spent that whole summer at Alison's house. Watching Alison. I'm officially creeped out." Spencer is forcing Emily to eat pizza even though it's four-thirty, because get this: "This appointment is at five and it's far away, and I don't know how long we're gonna be there: We both know what happens to me when my blood sugar drops." Spencer is such a real person I feel like I know her, or am her; it's unnerving. So the appointment on the books is the bead-store lady who makes the bracelets out of her no-doubt creepy old-lady house.
Spencer changes the subject to Paige McCullers (whose name itself brings up about a million things we can talk about one of these days) and whether she got kicked off the team, because as it happens Spencer tried to do just that to her by ringing the homophobia bell in sweet Coach Walton's ear. Emily's like, "Dude! You did that? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Because that girl has been bullying people since JV and she needs to be put in her place." Emily's like, "That was the awesomest thing I ever did! You ruined it!" Spencer can't figure out what the problem is, of course, because destruction is her path of righteousness, and Emily's all, "Okay. I am not freaked out that my coach knows I'm gay, because I seriously doubt that's a prob if you know what I mean. But I do take issue with the idea -- having discovered my own backbone lately -- that you need to cover for me."
This is where Spencer totally fucks up. "I know you're not totally helpless, but you're my friend, and I didn't want her to get away with it. And for all your protestations about standing up for yourself I have but one eloquent reply: Alison DiLaurentis." Emily's like, fuck you and your bead store, I am out of here. "Thank you for making sure my feelings didn't get hurt."
This episode was sort of billed as "the one where they all turn on each other finally," and I don't know what you thought that would look like, but between this and Hanna's well-meaning warning to Aria, I could not have dreamed it would play out like this. It's so awesome, and way sweeter than you could have expected because all the fighting results directly from how they love each other so much!
"Stop being a good, supportive friend! It's wrecking my many lies I keep telling myself! To be known utterly -- it is such sweet nausea! You're smothering me! With your love!"
Aria and Ezra. Holding hands after he balks for a moment. Stepping out of the museum for some air after learning the artist is not actually going to be showing up. Heading back inside, kissing hard, looking hot, being super cute but also not that interesting.
Ha! Hanna shows up at Ashley's work and they sort of flip out at each other without really talking much, and then randomly Ashley's assistant comes in to say that Mrs. Potter just dropped dead! Never thought they'd do it that way. It's brilliant. The least likely convenience, just: Snip. Problem solved, let's keep this thing moving. That's how we roll on Pretty Little Liars. Hanna throws herself on her mother and just comes completely unspooled at this news -- because it's not just Ashley's safety but also her beholdenness to A that hangs on this -- and they have a sweet moment where Ashley nearly breaks down and is just like, "I know, baby."
Ella and Byron have been reminiscing all the way to the museum, about the killswitch and the weird smell and the fact that like their junky marriage, they can dropkick the junky car now too, and they finally pull up and thank God Aria and Ezra are douching it up inside, for not just the obvious reason but also the total makeout session this just turned into. Sometimes your only option is to burn it all down and take your cues from Phil Collins: I'm not leaving unless you come with me. Walk away from the wreckage holding hands and figure out something new. Those two crazy kids!
Mrs. Edna Garrett is looking pretty great for a thousand-year-old lady, and clearly enjoying her role as the batty old bead lady. She digs through shit at length and talks Spencer's ear off and finally produces the receipt for the bracelets, and guess who bought them? Somebody named... Spencer Hastings. Wily, wily A. Spencer's face is like, "I scarfed down a pizza in the middle of the afternoon for this shit?" On the other hand, if her blood sugar dropped right now she'd probably just take Mrs. G out altogether for disappointing her. Boom!
Tomorrow. Hanna's been avoiding Aria because of Aria trying to kill her with eyebrow lasers yesterday, but finally she appears to make penance for what she assumes was the destruction of Aria's life and family... But Aria's like, "I'm so glad we're still friends! And PS, last night was super awesome." So they make up, but only in practice, because they're actually having two separate conversations and only Hanna knows that. So once again Hanna doesn't even have to tell anybody about her A-rrangement, which I'm thinking is over? But who knows what will happen there, honestly; I'd be fine either way.
A pretty lady song plays us through to the scene, which is slow-motion Emily doing laps, alone, because her life is just Chariots Of Fire all the time now, and it's so calm and peaceful that you know when she gets to the end of her lane, Paige is gonna hold Emily's head underwater until she is like dead. Emily's still being awesome, though: She immediately recovers and goes, "What the hell!" Dude, if Emily's going to be this cool every time somebody comes after her, I hope they all do. She can be the new Hanna, and just have cars and psychos constantly coming at her from every direction.
So Paige obliges, and tells her what the hell: Emily's replaced her as "relay anchor" and clearly this is the work of a lesbian conspiracy that can only be overcome through watery murder. Emily's like, "Well don't fucking drown me about it, Psycho! Go bitch at Coach!" Paige is like, "I've got enough crazy for everybody, honey. Don't you worry."
I want them to make out? But I also don't want to reward the haircut.
Hanna calls Caleb "one of those things that sticks to the side of boats that can only be removed with a hacksaw or something," and tells him to "peel [his] sweaty body off of [her] locker," and they crackle and whatever, and he hands her whatever part of Ella Montgomery's car he stole, telling her to put it on a charm bracelet or something, and this is his exit line: "By the way? They're barnacles." It's pretty freakin' awesome. Why did he do this for her? Don't know. Don't really care, honestly, because if you're going to try and fill Noel Kahn's shoes, your only hope is showing up equipped with magic powers.
Aria runs into Ella in the hallway, because Ella wants to go shopping, because she needs to up her sexy. Either way, Byron or competing with Byron, it's time to start thinking about the womanly arts. They discuss their respective nights last night -- "Chick flick/popcorn/Cosmo quiz/lights out," Aria says, because she'll be damned if she knows what normal kids do and figures that sad state of things is probably correct -- and Ella's like, "Oh, I went to this opening at the Philadelphia Art Museum even though it was a school night."
She's babbling and acting totally cagey because she feels weird about boning her husband, and of course Aria thinks she's being weird because she knows something about Ezra because the whole universe is about Ezra at all times, but Ella never drops the hammer because she doesn't actually know anything, and the scene is totally stressful.
But just when Aria's finally convinced Ella's not fucking with her or playing mom tricks, that's when it happens: "It was great, it was really exciting to meet the artist! It was really exciting!" The artist that never showed up. So what started out as two or three secrets blossoms into total weirdness and Aria is like, "Okay, liar, let's go shopping?"
This was the Ali fight that Spencer had outside the barn That Night: Spencer was like, "Why are you making me tell Melissa that I kissed her boyfriend?" And Ali specifically said, "I'm not making you do anything, Spencer. I'm telling you by tomorrow morning, Melissa will know everything and there's nothing you can do about it except let her hear it from you first."
(It's my theory and I know this isn't entirely accurate -- Hilton Head, for example -- but if I were writing this show I would make sure that everything Alison ever said was completely true. Literally true. Like the above, to Spencer it seems like Ali is playing a sick game with her and being like, "Nothin' I can do. My evil is unstoppable." But considering how Ali was all mixed up with Ian as well, it's possible somehow that she is telling the truth -- kind of like Hanna saying she had a bad feeling about Philly -- and that it's about saving Spencer from shame rather than forcing her to embarrass herself. Doesn't that seem likely?
I'm still really hot on the idea of Ali as this like Angel of Disclosure, finding the secrets and lies and then cauterizing them with her white-hot bitchiness. Like how with Tarot cards they go, "Death doesn't actually mean death, so that's the good news. On the other hand, being forced to change the way you see and live your life actually feels way worse than dying, so..." Or like how Rorschach isn't wrong, he's just fucking crazy. Or say, for example, Jenna needs to stop fucking her brother, because it's gross, so Ali decides to make them stop fucking... By blowing them up, literally, with a bomb. Lesson learned, secret erased. I mean yeah, now one of them's blind and the other one's lo-jacked for murder, but at least they're not fucking, right?)
So Spencer yelled at her about how she's not the only one who's sick of Ali's shit -- just the only one who would ever fight back directly, which is why Alison loves her -- and then it's time for some Real Talk:
"I made you, Spencer. I made all of you. Before me, you were just some goody-goody in plaid who did whatever mommy and daddy told her to..." Spencer's like what, like we're your puppets? If the lie fits: "Don't you see that? You don't exist without me." But then -- hearkening back to the future, we should totally stab Caesar -- Spencer hisses, "Tell me this: What is a leader, without any followers? Because it seems to me the question isn't whether we will exist without you, but whether you will exist without us. And as far as I'm concerned you are dead to me already."
I know we always say Spencer is so scary and so hardcore, and usually this is affectionate hyperbole because clearly Spencer is one of the finest characters in all of television, but that last line... Chills. I don't know how such a pretty girl could look so thoroughly demonic, but it's incredibly scary this face she makes, like, "What, and then you killed her. Right? You walked out into the yard and killed her ass and ... forgot to tell us, right?"
And when Spence comes clean to the girls, you know that's what they're all waiting for, and it never comes, so they're like, "And this was a huge secret because?" Because I wished death on my best friend and then she died, obviously. You don't see the connection? They all crowd around her with love and Aria's all, "Besides, Ali said stuff to us all day long that was much worse than just casual death threats, right?" But Spencer can't even feel the healing Liar love, because guess who's across the street (In Maya/Alison's bedroom? Still so confused about that) staring at us in the dark? Still wearing a shirt?
"Beading is hard on the eyes, you know?" The black-gloved person Mrs. Garrett's bringing a nice cup of tea gets hissed at by an off-camera cat. "Oh, don't be startled, that's just my pet! Where was I? Oh yeah, the eyes. You have interesting eyes, dear. The eyes are the window to the soul. Not to worry, dear. I did exactly what you told me to do..."
So I mean clearly we're meant to think that she's talking to Jenna, Jenna of the mysterious bracelet, and the creepy tag is only sometimes A, so who knows who she's talking to or why they made Mrs. G say the "Spencer Hastings" thing -- or even if it's that to which she's referring -- so basically, all you have is Charlotte Rae having the time of her life playing a bead store maniac to the hilt, and it's so great that it doesn't matter what it means or if we'll ever come back to it. Edna Garrett with googly-eyes is worth the price of admission no doubt.
week: Paige abducts and cuffs Emily for a hateful/loving lady-date that ends in tears for everybody; A sends pictures of their date to Maya, who returns to town on a motorcycle vowing revenge, but now that she's an ordained minister, they distract her with officiating at Ella and Byron's remarriage ceremony. Aria and Ezra reenact the car-crash scene from Great Gatsby after finally admitting their mutual sexual obsession with car accidents.
Spencer contacts her arms dealer in South America, deciding to take the fight to the capitalist pigs who hold us all in abject slavery. She is aided only by the mysterious Toby and the triumphantly returning Noel Kahn, who makes out with Jason DiLaurentis for a good ten minutes right in the middle of the episode for no real reason at all except this show is constantly getting more and more awesome and they're running out of ways to top themselves.
Needless to say, getting run over by Aria puts Hanna back in the hospital just in time for Round Three with Lucas, who has taken to wearing a hairshirt and writing emo songs about her, much to Cyberwolf's chagrin. He returns the volley by reprogramming all the hospital equipment to beep helpful messages at her, aiding in a swift recovery. Oh, and it turns out Jenna is actually Alison in a wig and giant sunglasses, and nobody noticed.