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Aria, convinced that her parents are hiding something, engages Hanna in a game of cat-and-mouse that reveals not only Ella and Byron's continuing secret affair (yay!) but also the fact that Cyberwolf Caleb is living in the walls of the high school. By episode's end, Hanna's taken Caleb home with her... Which is good, because she needs a friend once Aria dumps her ass for sending Ella to Philly. (Thanks, A!)
Also making new friends are Emily -- whose stalker Paige shows up waterlogged in the middle of the night, chock full of remorse and crazy and the Well of Loneliness -- and Spencer, who decides she'll be Toby Cavanaugh's home French tutor. Kind of like an apology, but with that Spencer edge where she'll gladly see him dead or maimed, so long as he can help her figure out who killed Alison, and doesn't really take pains to hide that fact.
Note that Spencer still is not entirely sure that Toby isn't a serial killer, but of course that doesn't stop her from being pretty sweet to him, tossing off "C'est la guerre" -- like anybody but Awesome Fucking Spencer Hastings would ever say that in casual conversation -- and wearing not one but two completely different, absolutely insane outfits. (A: Sorceress-Nanny à Go-Go, B: Madeline & Le Mauvais Chapeau.)
Later, Spence and Melissa fight about Ian's creepiness as usual, but then Big Sis drops two bombs at once: Number one, she knows about the kissin' that summer, and number two, she is having a devil baby. Which makes Spencer's desire to see Ian rot in prison somewhat trickier. Then she sees that the French copy of Catcher she gave Toby -- in sympathy for his Graham Greene existence, and which Jenna made him give back -- includes a smuggled clue we'll find out about week.
There's not much more to say about Emily, because mostly what we got from her was: Swimming, swimming, oddly sexy face, swimming. So much swimming. Two entire shitty sub-Paramore songs' worth of swimming. I don't know who that's for, if it's for jocks or to titillate or what, but damn it was intensive. If you weren't familiar with what swimming looks like, you can now consider yourself fully informed. You have graduated from the Watching Emily Swim University.
But with Em, I think she is going to make Paige McCullers her new Toby Cavanaugh and defend her to the dying breath, because man was Paige a pitiful fucking sight this week. I'm always happy when we learn to love the villain, you know that, but I was kinda hoping for Paige to act like a crazy bitch for at least an episode or two.
week: No idea. Everybody's mumbling in the previews but it looks like Spencer wears crazy clothes and Aria bullshits around some more. Oh, and Jenna pulls some righteous shit, no doubt.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Byron's going somewhere secret -- and looking quite nice, to be fair -- which means it's just Aria and Mike for dinner. Mike's feeling like Sausage Heaven, about which we will not be making any jokes, but Aria whines about that, then remembers she needs her dad's pledge for the Danceroony where Emily got wasted and amazing. In his coat pocket is the museum ticket Hanna gave his wife, which is a strange place for it to be, and Byron's every bit as jumpy about it when Aria asks, as his wife was last week.
I was having trouble at this point knowing whether or not Aria was connecting the dots correctly, because everybody's so suspicious all the time that you could really just as easily assume the Montgomerys were A, but I forgot that Aria is a genius and immediately assumes that her parents drydocked in the museum parking lot while she was getting kisses from her pedagogical paramour.
Emily can't find her Chem textbook but Spencer is too busy staring out the window at Toby Cavanaugh's destroyed mailbox -- in its lifetime, it was every bit as fucking creepy as the house in front of which it stands -- and thinking about how Toby deserves a little of her mercy. But since that's a rare currency, Spencer-mercy, she's got to be very smart about where she spends it.
(Also, how come literally everybody lives within sight of Emily's bedroom window? Am I making this up? Do Emily and Spencer actually live in a duplex? I need a map: From Emily's house you can see Maya's bedroom -- which used to be Alison's bedroom? -- and also Toby's mailbox. But then also from Alison's window, you can take a picture of the Barn in Spencer's yard, and from Spencer's house you can see wherever Jason was creepin' last week, which I thought was Alison's/Maya's house also, even though that makes no sense either... All of these facts cannot be true at once, this show is way too smart for that. I messed up somewhere but I can't figure out where.)
Anyway, the first image this week was somebody taking a bat to the Creepy Cavanaugh mailbox, and from what Emily says it's not the first time. "Every time I come home Toby's out there cleaning up some new mess," she says. I guess as long as he's not putting his time at home to waste -- and getting some sun while he's at it. Spencer's feeling pensive, but Emily's not looking at her face so when she muses, "Do you still think that somebody framed him?" Emily assumes she's starting some rabid Junkyard Spencer shit with her.
There's an awkward, badly written transition as to why Spencer is feeling sympathy -- seems being told she bought the Bracelets of Doom, which she clearly did not do, made her understand what it's like to kill a girl, stalk a lesbian and then become Public Enemy #1, forced to Boo Radley yourself into madness in the creepiest house since Elm Street -- but I guess it gets the bracelets expo out of the way. Which would be more useful if they mattered, at all, which they still don't.
Anyway, Spencer gets mad sincere about it, because Honor is her blood and breath and her heart pumps Executive Realness 24/7: "I owe you an apology. Seriously. You believed that he was innocent from day one, and I jumped down your throat. I said some really heinous things about Toby." Of course, Emily has never seen this side of Spencer before and it makes her wicked uncomfortable, so instead of giving Spencer a big old hug -- this is your one chance! -- she just says to apologize to Toby instead. Which would feel almost as good to watch, honestly.
Aria and Hanna now have a scene of such total cuteness that you know it's going to be knives out by the end of the episode. The coffee cart is mobbed, because all the vending machines are on lockdown, because somebody has been doing unlicensed vending in the middle of the night, because somebody is living in the walls of the school, and that somebody is obviously Caleb but they're going to take their time figuring that one out.
Hanna gossips that the alarms went off at 3 AM last night, and Aria -- brain elsewhere, or just lagging from the weight of so much earring -- is like, "The vending machines have alarms?" Hanna, God love her, rarely gets to make the are you in reality retarded face at anybody, so she applies it with mondo strength. No, Aria, the school has alarms. You halfwit. And who would want to live at school? Aria, that's who: "Going home just got scary."
Which explains why she's making less sense than Hanna, and would you like to tell us all about it, Aria? Of course you would. "I found a ticket! In a pocket! Because my parents! Are LIARS! This must relate to myself and Ezra Fitz somehow! For that is all that is real!" Hanna's still totally en pointe, though: "Aria, you're just on a loop."
Truer fucking words, my friend.
Hanna leaves Aria still blabbering about the ticket to go talk to Caleb, and Lucy Hale nails this, like, confused "Um?" as she's walking away. Worried now that Aria will continue to poke and prod at the Museum Gambit until she uncovers Hanna's deceit, it's time to yell at Caleb -- and do some flirting while pretending to yell at Caleb -- about how he's not to talk or tweet or blog or bweet about stealing Ella Montgomery's catalytic converter or whatever it was. "Can I speak now?" he says, which only sets up the starring line of dialogue in this whole thing (apart from the Shusher's "um," which really was just masterful): "Okay, if you must, but it's really annoying." Which is TV speak for: We will kiss week at the latest.
Anyway, while Caleb is cuting out about how Hanna owes him a secret secret secret, Paige McCullers is shitting her pants again about Emily's swimming skillz. Apparently they have tied and we still don't know who is going to be "relay" "anchor" at tomorrow's "meet." I know maybe three words in that sentence, but never fear: By the end of this episode you will be a wiz of swimming vocab. All of them swimmin' words.
Coach is awesome some more -- how great is it that the team is the Sharks? -- and Emily's all characteristically like, "Listen, we will figure this thing between us out eventually, even if we have to emotionally process unto the end of days," and Paige pulls out a knife and stabs Emily Fields in her gorgeous face one million times screaming "YOU FIGURE IT OUT. I'MA WIN."
Ella -- about whom Aria is still not sure, due to her blatant lying last week about attending the museum thing, plus the ticket issue from this morning -- comes running up with the following bomb: "I was just talking to the Principal about you and Mr. Fitz!" For a moment Aria can hear the sirens, but never fear: Turns out Ezra wants to take the class to see "the Fitzgerald show" in NYC.
I admit I don't know what she's talking about, I was never one for culture, but I guess when that's the only thing you're qualified to teach you want to get as much mileage out of it as possible. Plus, what pedo teacher didn't want to schedule an off-campus trip first chance he got?
They pedeconference, those Montgomery Women, so that Aria can give her mom the third degree about the Affair of the Ticket, and Ella's like, "Sorry, I borrowed your Dad's car, didn't know you needed it. And no, I didn't make it to the show so I guess I'm a liar, sorry about that too. I just had dinner. With a friend. Peace!" and then she disappears into thin air, hands all T-Rexed up like a creeping cat burglar so you know she's lying. I guess this is when Aria figures out Ella and Byron are humpin' around, but she plays it pretty close to the vest, you know, as she does. "Subtlety" is Aria's middle name. Aria Subtlety Montgomery.
Quiet independent study time in the library, where Hanna is reading the violent crap out of a magazine to the point where Spencer has to tell her to chill. Then, just in case she wasn't acting suspicious enough, Hanna peels off to go have a secret meeting with Caleb in the History stacks. He's calling in the favor, due to "two losers" who just bailed on what they owe him, see? "What do you want me to do? Bust their kneecaps?" No, honey. If he wanted an enforcer he'd be talking to Spencer.
(Or Mona! How great would that be? "Listen, I'm really sorry about this? But I'm going to have to fuck up your face way past anything a makeover could help. Hold my purse?")
What Caleb wants, obvs, is a date: "You're the Homecoming Queen, Hanna. You've got a certain rep around here, and I need to borrow some of your cred." Basically, she'll be the shill that demonstrates Caleb is trustworthy -- because there is nothing sketchy about Hanna at all -- to which she responds, "You can't be trusted." Heh. And anyway, she's busy with the swim meet. He touches her hair and laughs about fitting "all of that" under a swim cap -- what the sadsack boys of the Game like to call "kino" -- but she just busts his chops some more and takes off. For somebody with no interest, she sure is good at making boys fall for her.
I know eventually we'll find out who A is, but honestly: Does it matter? It took three years to make people quit caring who Gossip Girl was. And so like the second Hanna's done with Caleb, A texts her all "Yeah, Quileute's staying quiet but what about me?" And Hanna looks all around at everybody on their phones in the Quad -- because kids these days with
their beeping twirking chirping gadgets -- and I guess it could be somebody, but at some point you have to give in and just say to yourself, "It's because A is magic." That totally works for me, I've already convinced myself that Alison was sent from Heaven to punish sinners on Earth and correct their ways.
Touched By a Mean Girl.
Spencer doesn't understand the point of the tie-breaker swim-off between Emily and Paige. Wouldn't it be simpler to just engage in Contests of Will and Strength and determine who is the Greatest of All Time and then the victor could kill the loser so you'd never have to worry about it again? If Spencer were in charge things would be kind of horrible, but also kind of awesome. She assures Emily she'll rock it, but Em's having a crisis of confidence, because -- demonstrably -- murder-hair Paige "wants it" more.
"Emily. You want it more. And it is okay to admit that."
Magical, magical Spencer. They should issue you a Spencer when you get your period, just to follow you around saying awesome stuff like that.
Emily is warmed by the heat of Spencer's all-consuming fire, and then their attention turns to a tear-off poster advertising a tutor job for a homeschooled student in need of French lessons. Of course, this is for Toby, because only the Cavanaughs are creepy enough for homeschool. Spencer tears off a number without a second thought, of course, and Emily gets very worried for Toby, of course.
Spencer tells Emily she can tutor whoever she wants, and yeah, maybe she's just doing it to solve a murder, but French ain't gonna teach itself and if the person who (maybe) framed Toby is also the person/s who did all the other crap, then they have a duty to share intel. Emily assures her that Spencer -- as his self-declared nemesis -- is not going to gain Toby's trust, and in response Spencer flashes her the crazy eyes -- I will beat him into submission; his trust will be the first thing he gives up -- and takes off with the whole poster so as to manipulate the French-tutoring supply curve.
But Spencer is not done, no. She needs to head over to Ian Thomas's office -- lingering nervously in the doorway, since he's like her one Kryptonite thing -- and tell him she's skipping field hockey practice for awhile so she can diversify her college application portfolio through languages. (I don't know how sports work so maybe this conversation makes sense, but I didn't know you could just do sports and not do sports and do sports the way these girls constantly do.)
Ian understandably presumes this is yet another way for her to screw him -- "Gonna tell your parents you can't stand to be on the same field with me?" -- and kind of forces her into the office so he can close the door and be megacreepy some more, but since this actually has nothing to do with field hockey she finds it difficult to explain. I mean, in the larger sense she's trying to figure out what Ian had to do with Alison's death, but since she considers everybody a suspect, it's not as relevant as he might think.
She's in a standstill with her brother-in-law/coach, so of course Melissa appears out of nowhere full of kisses and "what are you doing now" faces; Spencer bounces immediately but Ian whines that she's quitting the team, which Melissa doesn't buy. No, silly, Spencer's just checking out for a sec so she can tutor a person. What person? Not that it matters, but Toby Cavanaugh. You know? Blue eyes, Joaquin face, sisterfucking -door neighbor of everyone on this entire show? Killed that girl that time?
Of course, Melissa has reasons both obvious and possibly nefarious for buying the Rosewood scapegoating of Toby, so she goes off about what a dumb plan that is. "Don't tell me you're falling for that silent martyr crap," Ian spits, like she's some kind of Emily. "Toby Cavanaugh hasn't cornered the market on lying," Spence spits right back. "I better go."
What do you think Melissa and Ian talk about all the time? Your sister said fifteen pointedly weird, aggressive things to me today. "That's nothin', she plagiarized six of my school papers and watched you cook creepily for an hour and a half from the dumbwaiter. Then she triangulated the location of the Lindbergh baby and made two sophomores cry." Do you think she's on Adderall? "I think she invented Adderall. I think she produces it inside her body, like chlorophyll or adenosine triphosphate."
Like: Without even pausing -- between the Emily pep talk, Round XII with the Hastings-Thomases, and this new thing -- Spencer shows up at Toby's house. I guess now is a good time to describe her outfit, which is like: A cape that is also a shirt, over which she is wearing an actual cape with those little arm-slits down by your hips, and the whole thing is monochrome, and belted, and possibly made of velvet, and she's got this giant tight bun on top of her head that gradually falls apart until by the end of the day she looks deranged. It's a glorious mix of discothèque chic -- like something the X-Men would wear in the 1970s, as part of the Hellfire Club -- and Prince Edward Island schoolmarm. A sartorial triumph, even in Spencerian terms.
So guess what, Toby's totally freaky at the door and won't let her in, probably thinks she has a gun, because it's a freak-off, and she's like, "You have been notified of my arrival." Yeah, but why you specifically? A) Because she knows French because she is Spencer, and B) Because she volunteered. But don't go getting any bright ideas about her being nice about it. Just brisk and to the point: "Look. I have all your assignments together. I have created a schedule for the rest of the semester. We will meet for three times a week. You will succeed."
But no, Jenna's inside, bumping into things with her blind ass, so Toby comes out onto the porch looking scared, because no visitors is the rule, because Cavanaugh = Creepy. And he can't go anywhere else due to his ankle jewelry, so... Spencer just about stomps. "Well? Will Jenna mind if we sit out here on the porch?"
I'm sure she will. I sort of want a giant showdown between Jenna and Spencer because, as I see it, they are like soul sisters. Jenna is the dark half of Spencer because they are the only people who are ever on top of anything, just like Mona is the dark half of Hanna because obviously. (Aria's dark half: Everybody. Emily's dark half: Nobody. Aww.)
Of course Aria's still on the museum thing, which would be annoying enough if Hanna weren't implicated, so the hits keep on coming: "Don't look a giftcard in the mouth. The universe gave you a pass." Aria's universe is not like that, though: Old ladies don't just drop dead when she prays. Also, she is an existentialist. Hanna's like, "Maybe the universe got help from somebody. Somebody really, really sweet, who really loves you, who is super pretty with long pretty hair, that once got hit by a car."
Aria cannot care about that, because somehow this all might have to do with Fitz, so she Spidey-senses her dad having a secret conversation directly outside her bedroom door that goes, "I can pick you up! I can find you in the dark, I've done it before." Smooth. Byron Subtlety Montgomery. It's a family name. Aria jumps on him out of the sky and she's like, "Aren't you going to your department dinner? See above re: Sausage Heaven?" No, he's going on a date. With unnamed persons. Who are his wife.
Hanna continues to try and distract, but there's no way that's happening, and once Aria hears Byron get in the car things turn into a haphazard heist and they have to follow him all over town. Hanna -- again, because this is both annoying and a danger zone -- prepares to be stubborn, but awesomely Aria goes, "Han. My dad's about to have dinner with somebody in the dark. Move it."
Spencer has brought for Toby's practice a copy of L'Attrape-cœurs, lit. The Heartcatcher, trans. Catcher in the Rye, because she knows he's already read it in English, because she saw him once reading it at the Apple Rose Grill, where les jeunes go to read the literature, when they're not smoking cigarettes or writing poems or boning teachers.
It's an incredibly sweet gesture, but you have sort of an irresistible v. immovable thing going on here where Spencer is terrifying to everybody and Toby is terrified of everybody, so he looks that giftcard in the mouth straight away. "What are you doing here?" French lessons, silly billy! "No: What do you actually want?" Spencer tries a game version of "Can't a sister just teach French to the guy she's irrationally persecuted for the last fifteen weeks?" but he's not buying.
Okay, fine. You're right, I have a secret thing and I never do anything without planning it five steps ahead, so here's the deal: You are maybe being framed for murder. Although I still think you did it, possibly, which is why I'm acting so guarded and weird. But as a person who is also the subject of a wide-arching conspiracy, I feel we have things in common. Toby's like, "And how does that feel?" Good question. "Not good. Scary."
To keep the heat off him, Toby asks why on earth she would be under such intense scrutiny, and says something that I think will begin to matter more even than it sounds, because it sounds like such a clue, and he says it so sweetly and sadly: "Maybe you know something you're not supposed to know." She's like, "Every time I figure something out, the rug goes out and I'm on my ass." And they actually smile! "C'est dommage!" he says, and she nods: "C'est la guerre."
The most Spencer sentence ever spoken, in any language at all.
Ice broken, she apologizes finally for hounding him to the ends of the earth, and -- once that's checked off her list -- goes back to interrogation. "The sweater with Alison's blood: You said that you gave it to her that night. And then she got into a car." Yeah, with Ian although he didn't recognize him... And then Jenna goes bumping into more shit and he whispers, like a little boy, "I'm not supposed to talk about this."
I always thought I cared about Toby because Emily needs us so desperately, but seeing him in a scene with somebody else, it occurs to me that you should probably just care about Toby period. Poor freakin' kid. Spencer starts in on how the sweater could possibly have gotten into his house after it was bloodied, and he gets very shivery and runs back into the house, thanking her over his shoulder for the book, before Jenna bumps into a gun or a bomb or something and we all die.
Back at Emily's, they have this awesome conversation where everything Emily says is a homework question, and Spencer's replies are mixed in with the conversation she actually wants to talk about, and the whole thing is just effortless and funny and comfortable and sweet and real. I don't know that it would be as cool on paper, so we won't go into it, but as a writer I'm pretty impressed at the way they play this out. So Emily's asking questions about genetic modification and artificial selection, and the whole time Spencer's juggling her answers with also talking about how Toby is different than she'd always assumed, and actually kind of sweet and smart, in his quiet damaged way.
"I keep trying to find a connection. To Alison and Toby. Me and Toby." And the hilarious kicker: "We're pretty sure he didn't do it, right? And yet somebody found a way to make him look extremely guilty." Emily tries to explain how teaching him French isn't going to solve the problem, but of course Spence doesn't buy that, because she knows no conversation is ever about what it's about.
"If he didn't tell you the first time, he probably can't. Are you sure he even wants you to come back?" Spence thinks about it for a second, but she already knows he does. It's not that she's not compassionate or empathetic -- Spencer sees the brightest sharpest things in everybody, it's why she was the only possible match for Alison -- it's just that there's no use talking about it. You don't talk about tools, you use them. Toby's lonely. She can help him with that, do her penance, and still use it.
Yep, Byron's headed into the school. Hanna assumes he's going to see Ella, and Aria says that's ridiculous, but Hanna makes a gesture that manages to take in not only both the girls and both parents, but also somehow the entire narrative universe: "People lie. I mean, Hello?"
Finally Hanna suggests the obvious, which is to call Ella and see if she acts totally sketchy... Check. And inside they are all over each other, and it's great because they're giggly-naughty, but also have the rich history of being married so a lot of it's in shorthand. Hanna and Ella arrive somewhere between the neck-biting and Ella going, "This is actually super gross because we are lying to our family." Byron's all about telling the kids immediately -- all he ever wanted was to pretend he never fucked around -- but Ella's not so sure. Aria stares and stares! "My parents are having an affair with each other!"
The Montgomerys take off and Hanna... Wanders over to an AC duct, where something is sticking out. Presumably, she thinks it is a wallet. But up in that little cranny, there's so much more: Cell phones, wads o' cash... Clearly, what with people's shit appearing and disappearing willy-nilly, they have located A's hideout. Because A is a capuchin monkey that lives in an AC duct the size of a microwave oven.
Caleb, obviously, watches from some other tiny hidey-hole as Hanna sure enough grabs that wad of cash and prepares to take off. "A owes me! Hospital bills! Pain and suffering! Tire marks on my cleavage!" Aria's appalled, but not I think because you shouldn't steal -- just because A will fuck you -- and then the lights go out, and a scary young fellow in a hoodie appears, and chases them through the school with that fantastic PLL cheapness of sudden slo-mo that makes you feel like things are actually happening instead of just pretending to happen, like the hilarious car accident all over again, and then Hanna pulls something out of her purse and sprays it in Caleb's eye.
"It was just hair spray! It was Light Hold!" she yells at him after the break, because they are all just chilling out in the hallway of school in the middle of the night. And so why was he in there? Because he's "crashing," of course, because he doesn't have a family, because he wasn't kidding about his social worker and his foster parents are for the birds, and so this is what he does: Sleep on the Principal's couch. Vend in secret. The girls try to point out that this is dumb on many levels, and already he's close to getting caught, but he just tells them to vamoose so he can go back to bed.
Meanwhile, Emily wakes up in the pouring rain to a mysterious text that sends her running downstairs... And it's Paige, looking like three miles of rough road, crying in the rain and saying: "You have every reason to hate me. I don't even know why I'm here..." It's real sad and really urgent in some way. Emily swears she doesn't hate Paige, but turns out Paige hates herself. Emily can't handle that -- it's like the key to Emily -- and before she can wrap Paige in towels and hugs and forgiveness and make her some tea, Paige is off on her bike, into the hurricane gales: "I'm sorry, Emily. I just wanted you to know that."
Don't get me wrong, that was awesome and really unexpected, but never let it be said I don't appreciate a crazy bitch from time to time. It all just seems a little sudden, watching Paige McCullers totally unspool. Of course, we don't know where this story is headed, so maybe it's just a case of misplaced assumptions. Either way, the actress is so great, and Emily's gift of compassion is always so... inspiring is the word, and I honestly mean that... that I'm sure it'll all work out.
Anyway, at some point last night after abruptly woobifying herself, ol' Paige bit it -- had herself a little tarmac sandwich, watered the old face plant, took a short flight on the hydroplane to Bruiseville -- and so there will be no swim-off. Relay anchor, let's do this.
But first -- and we're coming up on easily ten minutes of swimming footage that aren't making it into the recap, so this is basically the end of the episode -- let's check in with everybody.
Hanna spends some time with Caleb, pointing out the rich girls, because she feels bad that he is the people under the stairs, and because he's willing to trade one answer for one mark. Caleb Quileute, meet Bridget Wu: "Bring her a bottle of something strong and she's your new best friend."
Q: "Where are you from?" (FORKS! FORKS WASHINGTON!)
A: Ding-ding-ding! "A lot of places. Seattle..."
up, Lindsay Hoover: "Don't let the Jesus sandals fool you, she's got cash. Her grandfather invented the stapler." Even Caleb is impressed by that. "Wanna get tight with her, grow a hipster 'stache and start talking about the Man."
Q: "Why don't you report your foster parents?"
A: "To who? My social worker? I've had four in the last six months. They can't remember my name. The last one called me Calvin.
Q: "When's the last time you saw your real parents?"A: GAME OVER.
Melissa brings Spencer a giant button for the meet, all giggly about how she's gotta be "super rah-rah" as the coach's wife, and of course Spencer makes that sour face and she's like, "It's a swim meet, it's not even his sport. Jackass." Melissa rises to the occasion and asks why Spencer continues with the anti-Ian stuff, and she's like, "Ask him. He molests." Melissa says, "He is bringing us hot dogs. What kind of a person are you?"
It degenerates from there, and Spencer's like, "He just randomly shows up and marries you after disappearing?" No, Melissa proposed, and was also behind their elopement. She bares her teeth in a very Melissa way: "You have a problem with my marriage, you take it up with me." Except for how specifically Ian is the problem she has with your marriage. "He's not been entirely honest with you, and I'm worried about you." Classic sister warfare, that one.
"Ask him about Alison, about what happened the summer that she was killed." Of course Melissa goes into full-on Elm Street denial immediately -- "Did Toby Cavanaugh put that idea in your head?" -- and then luckily (sort of) Ian shows up with the hot dogs and they get all schmoopy and he's like, "Oh, did I miss yet another fight?" No, huh-uh, we were just talking about Alison. My friend you were fucking all over the southern region of the United States? And then killed?
Melissa sends Ian away and gets up in Spencer's grill: "Look. I've already lost one relationship because of you. You will not ruin my marriage too." Yay! Exactly where I've wanted this to go since the surprise marriage. I love it so much. The only thing Spencer's got going is her 100% credibility. I mean, she's as morally compromised as anybody else on this show, but if Spencer says something you know it's more true than the truth. Take that out from under her, and she's just... Paige McCullers.
Aria explains to Hanna that Emily goes last, because the anchor is always the fastest and can make up for everybody else, and then on Hanna's other side Caleb asks which one was Bridget, again, and there's a hilarious cut to Bridget drinking out of a straw coming out of her purse that is just so cute it's unbelievable, and he takes off. The other girls are like, "Why are we at a swim meet with Caleb?" Because why not, shut up. "Hanna, I like stray dogs too," says Spencer -- from yesterday when she decided this -- "But sometimes they bite." "Well," Hanna says, "He's had his shots. Go Emily!" They point out that Emily is still not swimming, but that was hardly her point.
Paige shows up in time to cheer for Emily as she wins the race, and there's a neat shot of her standing on her tip-toes to make sure Emily sees her in the stands. Spencer takes off to get away from Ian immediately after, and somewhere in the middle of all this A sends Aria a text that Hanna had something to do with the museum scare.
Outside, Hanna finds Caleb going through his shit, which has ended up in the dumpster, and she invites him to come stay at her house. He demurs at first -- assuming that Ashley Marin is the kind of parent who would notice an entire person living in her house, express any interest, or call the authorities about it -- but Hanna pretty much convinces him to come live in her basement. I think that sounds neat! He has all those powers over technology and the phases of the moon and all. And the shiny hair.
Aria comes running up all grossed out like, "This sick freak A is trying to pit us against each other!" Hanna, to her credit, immediately goes, "Yeah, about that." But Aria is being too awesome to stop: "It's relentless! Every time we shut a door, A kicks open a window!" Finally Hanna just blurts it, I gave your mom the museum ticket, and then tries to explain, which: That is fucked up and you would want to hear the whole explanation, except this is Aria we're talking about so she just turns into a tornado of derision and runs off.
"There's nothing A could threaten me with that would make me do that to you! You're supposed to be my best friend! Stop talking and explaining what happened! There's nothing you could say that would change the way I feel right now! Not even the truth, that you are so desperately trying to explain! My kind of loyalty means I cut you off without even bothering to listen to your justification! I gotta go journal about this betrayal!"
(Which is actually what she does, I'm not making a joke. Furiously journaling, thinking, biting her pen, ignoring a call from Hanna, more journaling. It's so rampantly teenaged that my growing affection for Aria actually got a bit of a bump from it.)
Paige is dangling her feet in the water when Emily comes up, toweling off and looking a million. She's like, "What up, crazy? You doing okay? I called like a hundred times to process emotionally with you, as we ladies often do."
Paige, who is clearly having some kind of psychotic break and does not need the stress, is like, "I did not know what to say during that conversation. Sorry I drowned you that time? Sorry about my haircut? I've got a lot going on."
"Okay, so like what was on your mind when you showed up at freakin' Pam Fields' front door in the middle of the rainy stormy night, looking like a Melissa Etheridge song sprung to life? Because let me tell you, you are playing with fire there. My suitors of the fairer sex are normally sent around to the back door, if you know what I mean. Or to prison camp."
"Mostly I was thinking, 'I wish this bicycle were a jet plane, headed for the side of a volcano, so I would die.' I must admit I was not all that surprised when I drove into a wall."
"Shit just got real. Hold on a second while I decode your weird messages. You have to understand that my peer group is a slutty ghost, an autistic war criminal, an Icelandic existentialist and a functioning alcoholic. We don't generally wear our crazy on the outside."
"Well, I just kind of hate swimming now? So since swimming is all that I am, it has left me sort of bereft and crazy on the inside. How did you get back into swimming?"
"I came out of the closet and realized that grownups and most rules are actually kind of dumb, and therefore I can do basically whatever I want. Which nobody ever tells you, because if teenage girls ever found that out we would start a fucking riot."
"Okay, I can't handle the anarchy right now because I am losing my shit. Let's just start with swimming."
"That's cool. We can swim for the pure joy of it, like otters in the springtime: No timers, no limits, no drowning each other."
"Can we can do this for approximately twenty weird minutes in the middle of this episode?"
"You will get your happy back, and I will make a succession of oddly sensual faces. The music will be some horrible Sarah Bareilles crap about finding your womanpower."
"That sounds relaxing, thanks."
"Well, I've been looking for a new crazy person ever since Spencer stole mine."
MEANWHILE
Jenna's blindness tea is still steaming on the porch to her gigantic blindness glasses when Spencer arrives, only to be brutally rebuffed by Toby, who shoves L'Attrape-cœurs into her hands and pushes her out the door. Shortest friendship ever.
MEANWHILE
Caleb is wondering if he can use the towels in the bathroom -- "I can shake off and air dry," he says adorably, with a wolfish grin -- but Hanna is too busy weeping uncontrollably because of her Aria situation to care. He offers to scamper but she assures him it's not him that's the problem: The thing she yelled at him about yesterday morning, Aria found out anyway. He heads upstairs for his shower, thinks better of it, and then just sits quietly down beside her on the stairs, and it is: Excellent.
MEANWHILE
Today Spencer's been wearing a costume not unlike if at Halloween they started selling "Sexy Eloise," complete with a bright-blue beret befitting a French tutor, if she were a French tutor in space. Melissa stops her in the kitchen, all sweet smiles and patience, and apologizes for jumping up her ass all day. Husband Ian finally told her about the time he molested her sister, and she's gotten past that in record time because she is a Hastings, and now she wants to talk about how they're having a baby!
Spencer's like, "Fine, but he is a killer! A kisser of girls and a killer of them also! Stop trying to fight with me!" Melissa, of course, is on a heavy dose of benzos and has no interest in fighting, but Spence can't even hear that. All she can hear is the music from The Omen, because now she and Ian really are family, and it's going to get that much worse. Melissa finally gives up, like she does every week around this time, and tells Spencer to go fuck herself.
MEANWHILE
"A" mysterious person lays out various weapons from the game Clue while listening to a French lesson on the hi-fi; little does she know that Spencer's just noticed a clue of her own, a bit of paper complete with Braille writing on it, smuggled out between the pages of L'Attrape-cœurs: "You might be right, I found this mysterious thing in my sister Jenna's room."
WEEK
More Things With Jenna, including the Thing From Jenna's Room. Spencer hires a priest to exorcise Melissa's baby; Melissa assumes it's because she's getting too much attention. Aria somehow decides that Ella and Byron's relationship is a tricky way of breaking her up with Fitz, and goes ballistic. Emily ends up locked up in a person-sized suitcase, fighting for air, because Paige McCullers is going on a little trip. Hanna stands outside Aria's bedroom window with a ghetto blaster, tears pouring down her face, but Aria just throws meat at her from Sausage Heaven until she goes away. Finding himself all wet and without a towel in the Rosewood High locker room, Noel Kahn must both shake off and air dry, in slow motion, to the tune of Garbage's 1996 Billboard chart-topper "#1 Crush."
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