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Suddenly, Ezra's mounting an all-school performance of The Bad Seed, so of course Spencer spends the entire episode in braids and Aria spends the entire time trying to be his secretary stage manager. Thanks to his beer date with Byron, Ezra's suddenly realizing that he's dating a child, and that that child will eventually outgrow him. Things rapidly deteriorate -- in front of the cast and crew -- as Aria loses her mind over all this static, but a quick blabbering speech about living for the moment rescues them both and they recommit to their dumb relationship once again.
After an abortive attempt to get Ashley on board with him living there, Hanna ends up in the shower with Caleb through the usual contrivances. Though nothing happens, she spends the two days treating him like crap, since she's only ever dated Sean, and Caleb is no Sean. The power imbalance between basement-owner and basement-dweller sends them both off their respective axes, but Caleb's steady charm eventually pulls Hanna back into the light, and they finally make out.
One thing Caleb can't do, however, is hack Jenna's futuristic blind-person phone, so we still don't know what "214" is all about. Spencer uses her pull with poor old Toby to get it out of her house, and then to sneak it in again. Meanwhile, Jenna tries to bond with her over Toby's new relationship with Spencer, because "sympathetic lesbian cheerleader" is so much like "blind incest torturer" that it's uncanny.
Emily and Toby mostly fix their relationship, but Spencer's still the one on top -- and seems more and more interested in him as a boy all the time. Of course, all of this is threatened in a whole new way once a strange relationship between Jenna and Ian is revealed. I'm guessing that's what 214 will still be about, and frankly I couldn't be happier: Somehow, it feels like a Jenna/Ian hookup would sorta combine all the Liars' secrets into one huge ball of nasty.
Everybody flashes back to this one frat party where they saw Ian heading upstairs with a drunk girl who was not Melissa; later, that same girl came tumbling down the stairs. Of course they assume that Ian did it, Spencer's now having nightmares about the forthcoming devil baby, it's all about Ian... So when A plants a golfing trophy from the summer of Ian and Alison's romance in Hilton Head, with what looks like blood on it, the Liars finally take evidence straight to the cops. Of course, it's rat blood (A keeps rats named after the four girls!) and the trophy is a fake, so the cops yell at them a whole lot.
But between Ian protesting to Spencer that Alison was stalking him, and Aria's sudden brainstorm that they lost track of Alison at the party, the new theory is that Alison was a serial killer that blinded people and threw them down the stairs for getting in her way. (Of course, the Kissing Rock video shows that Ian is lying and was totally into making out with Alison, but it's a delicious red herring and could still be true anyway.)
Never would have thought they 'd get that much mileage out of discussing that particular play -- no matter how obviously relevant the subject matter is, for this show -- but the themes and glancing references are kick-ass (and provide way more comedic moments than you'd expect, particularly for Hanna, Mona and even Jenna). No idea what's happening week, but it'll have to focus on Emily and Spencer, right? Which means more Toby and Jenna stuff, at the least. And hopefully more of this "Bad Seed Alison" concept, which could take things to a whole new level if it continues.
Heading into the homestretch has never been so unnerving, and the revelations are getting tighter and more complex and creepy as it goes. This week in particularly was a good showing: A very clever script, with lots of things that needed to be said finally coming out, big new twists, and strong performances, from Hale and Thompson particularly. See you week for what will most likely be the first in a line of three very intense episodes to close out the season.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!In addition to teaching a graduate-level year-long course in The Great Gatsby, Ezra Fitz is also mounting a production of The Bad Seed -- used to brilliant and unusual effect in this week's script -- so of course all the Liars, even Mona and Jenna, are totally going to try out. They discuss the basics of the play in such a way that there's no exposition but you remember the basic deal, and Hanna gets awesome immediately: "Why do I have to read the whole play? I don't wanna be the Bad Seed's mother, I want the other mother -- the one who's drunk all the time."
Even the other girls are impressed by how hilarious that one was, and we do some quick reminders of where everybody's at: Hanna's boarding a Cyberwolf in her basement, Mona is a selfish bitch, Aria gave her boyfriend/their teacher a necktie he is currently wearing, Spencer finds this amusing because older dudes are kind of her thing, and everybody wants to be involved in this play but most especially Aria, because she is a stalker of Ezra. Oh, and Spencer is now Toby's only friend even though Emily is the one that domesticated him in the first place, because Emily has a new crazy person to deal with but also because Spencer and Toby are obvs going to smooch sometime soon.
So then creepy Jenna shows up and her deal is that she would like to compose some creepy flute music for the play, because she loves The Bad Seed, because she is the creepiest person that ever lived: "It's one of my favorites, the theme is so inspiring. I'm fascinated by the Nature Of Evil!"
Who says that? Creepsters. (And but thanks for the only truly heavy-handed thing in this episode, the way everybody keeps having these meaningful conversations about the Nature Of Evil like that's something actual people would actually converse about.)
All the girls have chills and wigginses for the rest of the day, and the creepiness of Jenna follows them home to the point where Spencer -- wearing both in dreams and reality the skinniest of Bad-Seed pigtails -- dreams that Ian and Melissa's devil baby has been born and is crawling around downstairs in her house, picking up knives and cooking all scary like her dad, and going Mama! at the worst possible times. (In the play, Rhoda's biological mother was a serial killer.)
Finally Spencer wakes up, and Ian's down there taping boxes closed and opening other boxes and stuff, memorabilia -- golf trophies covered in rat blood, the usual stuff -- and when he asks for her help it's in a threateningly unthreatening way: "It's a tape gun, Spence. You won't get hurt."
We revisit the whole conversation they always have about how she constantly avoids him because he is totally sketchy, and that as usual Melissa has informed him of Spencer's every thought and move, like how at the swim meet where Paige kissed Emily she told Melissa that he was an evil murderer and such. Ian's decided to nip that one in the bud, 18 episodes late, by referring to Alison as "a psycho stalker who wouldn't take no for an answer" who probably goaded any number of people into murdering her. "Listen, our relationship could be summed up in two words: Get lost."
On the one hand, Alison was a disgusting bitch who was constantly going after people after they'd surrendered. On the other hand, Spencer loves knowing who killed her so much that she will go ahead and assume that you killed her regardless, and fight you to the death without really pausing to review the evidence, because without certainty Spencer is nothing. "Too bad she's not here to defend herself," Spencer says, which doesn't make total sense but is only there to set up Ian's rejoinder: "Trust me, she never played that position. Your friend Alison was always on offense." Ssssssports!
Ian and Spencer have very little in common besides sports, extended metaphors, Melissa, the baby, shirtless pothead Jason, living in the same house, lusting after the same barn, hating the shit out of Alison DiLaurentis but still kind of making out with her all the time, staring threateningly way past an acceptable amount of staring, crossing molesty generational lines at every opportunity, and hanging around in the Hastings kitchen trying to scare everybody to death at all hours. Oh, and that time they dated.
Things Ashley Marin is missing from her kitchen this morning, thanks to Hanna's guestling: Milk, sugar, an entire butter dish's worth of butter, the end. Why? Because, Hanna explains, with no Sean around to frustrate her sexually anymore she's taken to making macaroni and cheese and brownies for her friend Caleb. Ashley hates on him for no reason some more -- I mean, it takes one to know one and she's not wrong that he's sketchy, exactly -- and Hanna decides right then is the appropriate time to ask for Caleb as a pet.
Ashley assures her dumb daughter that the foster care system works sometimes, and we don't need to bring home all the strays, and she calls him the Cat In The Hat, which is most excellent, and then reminds her dumb daughter that the fake nephew of Old Mrs. Potter is still catfishing around them looking for money and his misplaced lips, and they need as much privacy as possible, and says nice things:
"I applaud your compassion but I worry about your judgment," she says, which her dumb daughter interprets as a maybe, and she grins. "Now I'm worried about your hearing," she says, and they say goodbye in the way of that Ashley/Hanna actor-chemistry thing they always do, where you could honestly believe that they're mother and daughter, this well-rehearsed team of a family. It's impressive every time.
Hanna lets Caleb out of the basement and asks what I was wondering last week, which is to how much of their constant conversations about stealing money from the old woman he's actually privy, and he says not much, but then calls them "the girl with poor judgment" and "the Cat in the Hat." He thinks about getting out of her hair and she assures him it's fine. Which it is at this point, because they're in neutral-power territory, which is a state that can't last but has been nice so far.
But if I had a Caleb in my basement I wouldn't want him to leave either, he's just great. Always with the foster-kid insights and godlike techno-prowess and social-worker sunny disposition. I'd rather replace the milk than grandma's china, as the saying goes, which is why you should always check references when inviting an urchin to come stay with you.
Aria does some Lucille Ball physical comedy outside Ezra's, and it's adorable, and they discuss how Byron wants to take him on a date for beer -- which of course Aria thinks is a great idea, because in her head they are already both 35 and married -- and Aria lies by omission about whether or not her "homies" (Ezra keeps saying this word) know about how they are doing it, illegal-style, and then she adorably twinkles and winkles him into making her the stage manager of the play he's suddenly putting on, so that they can be near to each other always and make it plainly obvious they are doing it so that Ezra can go to jail and be murdered for molesting by a drug offender wielding a bicycle chain or a tube sock with bar of soap inside.
Hanna needs her mascara! But Caleb is showering! With his naked body! What's a girl to do? Well, prove that it's not a huge deal by going in there and grabbing it, of course... But what's Ashley doing home, she just left twenty minutes ago! Now what? Well, now what is Hanna jumps in the shower, fully dressed, with Caleb's naked body and her hand over his mouth. And then his ass, and then his dick, and a tattoo apparently somewhere we can't see it, and then he asks her if she wants to join him in the shower, clothes-free, and then heart-stopping cliffhanger.
But the whole thing with Sean was that she wasn't interested in holding onto her virginity at all, which made him annoying but also makes her v-card an actual future storyline, which means today is not the day. Although I would applaud it, if she did, because the thing about buying into the whole virginity thing is that sometimes -- when you don't go down the path of nonreciprocal blowjobs, which helps nobody and is a lie anyway -- you end up in sex Viet Nam with no exit strategy and you're like, "It was just too much pressure and now I'm thirty because no moment could ever be special enough." The only person who knows when you're ready is you, but the intense cultural focus on female virginity makes even that suspect. But hey, maybe Caleb will eventually be it.
Spencer and Emily have one of their worst scenes ever at this point. Spencer sounds like she's reading from cue cards the whole time, and Emily looks like she's having a concussion. Paige calls -- "What brought you closer, her trying to drown you?" -- and Emily pretends that it's because she has a cousin in the military and needs support before turning the subject back to the mysterious Braille message 214 and what it could possibly mean. I don't ever want to know what it means! Blind Jenna getting her lacy-undie freak on with [Ian/Jason/Byron/Whoever] is too much pressure.
Finally Emily works up the courage to ask if she can possibly be Toby's friend like she was up to this point, and of course Spencer doesn't see the issues Emily's having until she explains how Toby still thinks she turned him in at the church originally (which honestly, I couldn't remember what she did there but just assumed she was loyal) and now that he's free maybe she can trouble Spencer for a little bit of Toby's time. Spencer doesn't think that way, so it's kind of bullshit all around, and then they see the heretofore unlinked Ian and Jenna having an intimate and pleasant conversation, and he gives her a bag of something. So Spencer's nose goes into the air and she starts sniffing around because the new most important thing in the universe is What Did Ian Give Jenna?
"So the play raises an interesting question: Are people born evil, or do they learn it? I brought some additional material to give you guys some background on the period."
EZRA. STOP TEACHING. My God. First of all, that's not an interesting question, it's a stupid question. This is not the Dark Ages, we know where babies come from now, and we understand that whole nature/nurture thing a lot better than they did when you were in philosophy school. And anyway "evil" is an outmoded concept because that kind of silly reductive absolutism leads you into questions that don't have answers: If you even do say Yes, there is a person who is evil, then it doesn't really matter if they were born that way. But second of all, your follow-up is period details? Like in order to answer the stupid question we need to know the deets? Like the play takes place back in that olden time when sometimes people were born evil? Back when people were less nuanced?
Mona crawls right up Hanna's sweater about her feelings towards Caleb, and Hanna confirms that she is feeling very much out of her depth after this morning's shower time, and so begins the great campaign of her being super weird to him.
Speaking of weird, how about Aria trying to be Ezra's girlfriend, Ezra's stage manager, an innocent schoolgirl and specifically not Ezra's girlfriend? Imagine how well that's going to go, and then double it. The whole time Mona's being a dick to Aria and trying to send her to the "vendy" (ugh) for snacks, and just when you think Aria's going to have a big disclosure meltdown ("And I'm pregnant with his child!") Ian wanders into the practice room for no reason whatsoever and then turns around and walks out again.
(All the girls simultaneously have a flashback we've never heard about before -- this episode is kind of shitty in some ways, now that you mention it -- where Hanna in particular was crushing on Ian. In this flashback, Alison gave them fake IDs and snuck them into a party at Ian's frat house, where he took a very drunk girl upstairs looking trés rapey, and then all the girls split up so that Alison could get nefarious while the other four stood around looking gawky and dorky and totally sticking out hardcore. Which part is actually pretty fun. The whole flashback is awesome, like when Hanna says she's old enough to kiss Ian because she's 26 and Spencer's like, "Take a math class, you're 21.")
So they get on Spencer about how she should have told Melissa long ago that Ian was jeepin', and she's like, "I crashed your boyfriend's frat party with a fake ID, yeah. That would have turned out well for me." They point out that know she is knocked up with his Bad Seed devil-baby, and Ezra interrupts to ask Hanna why she thinks the childlike janitor-Toby believed the accuser in the play, and because Hanna never knows what's going on but especially right now, Aria jumps in and explains that and compares it to quote "when we were reading Shakespeare and Ezra talked about the fools and how they can get away with saying things..."
At which point she realizes she just totally called him Ezra, and the whole room just heard it, and everybody feels super weird because for half of them, poor Aria, but for the PLLs and maybe some other insightful people (maybe A is IN THE ROOM!) it's a whole other problem. Any other episode I would question Aria here, like maybe this is the Freudian slip where everybody knows that she wins because she's with Ezra, but I think it's really just so everybody can stare around all mysterious like always.
Emily takes the French book over to Toby's and he wonders why Spencer didn't bring it and, in her sweet Emily way, she explains that she would not have taken No for an answer because she wanted to clear the air about the... Oh that's right, I remember: Jenna turned him in, so he'd be stuck forevermore in her house of horrors and the porch of perversion. (Which makes her excitement about getting his anklet removed, after he turned her down forevermore and she slapped him, sad and possibly double-weird. Or sloppy writing.) Toby apologizes back for being cagey about it the first time, and she asks him to have a celebration date, just as friends, for breakfast tomorrow.
Byron comes to pick up blushing Ezra up for their date, and he is being intense about it: "My daughter thinks that you are pretty hot stuff, and you know what? After reading your stories that Aria gave me, I have to agree... Very bold of you, exposing yourself to your students." Ezra giggles like a schoolgirl, and that's that, they go on their date: Schoolgirls are like the number one thing they have in common besides tweed jackets, elbow pads, Pavlovian salivation at the word "tenure," that gross academic smarmy superiority, and the whole frustrated-writer thing. Oh, and Ella.
So they have their beer and somehow Byron convinces Ezra that his relationship with Aria is a lie because she's looking at colleges in California and eventually she'll leave, they always leave, because we keep getting older but the schoolgirls are always the same age. So now Ezra's thinking he better dump Aria before she dumps him, or gets him fired and thrown in jail for a shanking or worse, or something. Mostly he just stares at Byron like, "I would totally thank you in my Oscar speech, Tiger."
Meanwhile: No Caleb, Hanna is too busy rehearsing her blocking -- out loud, reading it out loud to herself from a sitting position -- to discuss sandwiches or even look you in the eye or let you make a sandwich in her presence or even risk a single dimple or sparkling eyes throwing off her concentration. Caleb goes, "So how was the rest of your day? Mine got off to a really strange start, I was taking a shower..." Which is the totally awesome way to get over this hump, but Hanna's not feeling it yet: "I have to practice being drunk!" she screams, and goes running into walls and shit trying to get out of there, and it's awesome.
Spencer grabs Toby by the face and she's all, "WHAT WAS IN THE BAG THAT IAN GAVE JENNA AT SCHOOL AND WHY DO THEY KNOW EACH OTHER?" Um, number one what are you talking about and number two, he's a coach. Well, Spencer was born on a day but it wasn't today, so before demanding that Toby risk his life by stealing Jenna's phone she spits, "What team does she play on?" Heh.
Jenna, running down the lacrosse field with her cane in the other hand. Jenna, dribbling up for a dunk shot, faking left, boom goes the dynamite. Jenna, hand snapping out to pluck a Frisbee from the air. Jenna, catching air on a triple-ollie that would make Shaun White gape. Jenna, clipped into her pedals, racing past Lance Armstrong. Jenna, skiing down the mountainside with a semi-automatic strapped to her back. All of these are easier to imagine than they should be. But what's she doing right now?
Oh, sitting on her porch with her steamy tea and her fuckin' flute, looking ten times of crazy and waiting for Emily to show up for the date Toby forgot they had, so she can bond with her over it -- "Sucks, doesn't it? Feeling like you're second choice?" -- and then, once Emily fails to respond, playing her out of the Radley yard with some mournful fucking flute music that sounds like a funeral for a skeleton's wife.
She's so great, dude. How does she do it? I would be her friend instantly. Her and Spencer both, I would just walk up and stick out my hand and say my name clearly with a how do you do. But honestly, Emily.
"Um see, we don't really have that much in common. Spencer's my friend? And I'm gay, so I wouldn't even really trying to fuck him, much less if he were my brother -- which, btw, he is totally your brother -- so no. I mean, yes, technically we are both being tossed over for Spencer and neither of us should be interested in him in that way, but we both know better. Also, you are the skeeviest motherfucker in town now that Ali is dead, whereas I am the only wholesome person on this show. Also, one of the formative moments in my life is that time I didn't get blown up, leaving me fully sighted and not crazy in the slightest."
Discretion is the better part of valor for sure, but sometimes, Emily, you gotta speak up. Crazy girl drowns you, stalks you, jumps out of the backseat and kisses you? Say something! Get this party started! Get called an affirmative-action dyke in front of the lunchroom and entire faculty? Have some more whiskey! Say something! Crazy blind girl tryna make you join her My Brother Toby Fan Club? Girl! Say something!
Spencer tries to feed Toby some toast, but he's so twitchy about stealing Jenna's stuff that he can't even think about breakfast, or the breakfast date he was already supposed to have on top of the breakfast date they're now having that he's too distracted for. And considering Toby only goes up to about a three, energetically speaking, that's a lot of stress. I think I even saw him move, but it could have been a trick of the light. They bond for a second over psycho sisters (Melissa "once threatened to break my thumbs for using her hairbrush") and then, Bonding Time Complete, Spencer moves on to the interrogating of Toby immediately.
Question 1: Why did Alison think Toby was a peeper, leading her to blow up his sister-with-benefits?
Toby swears that he was never a peeper, that Ali in fact made this up quote "because she thought she had something on me... she didn't understand what was really going on, and she used it against me anyway," which I'm presuming means she knew that he was being sexually abused by his sister and assumed it was the other way around, because of how usually it is, but also: How does that answer the question?
"Why did she think you were a pervert?" Because she knew I wasn't is not the answer to that question. Although it's Toby, so we'll give him a pass and just cut to the exposition, since clearly he's the key to cracking this whole thing and thus is forced by the narrative to speak as cryptically as possible at all times. Anyway, iffy dialogue for awhile and we revisit how Spencer crazily and intensely thought he killed Alison, just like the rest of the town, but now she would prefer to hold his hand and think about the mysteries of the mystery and also making him into less of a freak.
Ezra starts shit with Aria, basically, and acts pissy because of finding out that she was looking into California colleges, but can't say that out loud because he'll look as petulant as he's being, so finally in the absence of the actual conversation he's like, "Maybe I'll quit working here and go work with your dad at the college, how would you like that?" Although I guess that would also allow them to keep dating, is what he might be thinking, just as people, but of course Aria sees it as this gross betrayal and also like she's crushing his mojo, and it's just the same old song with them, so then Mona comes in and interrupts with more of her bullshit.
Caleb, when he sees the stolen Jenna phone and the ten-miles-of-bullshit look still plastered to Hanna's face, says the following awesome things: "Where did you get this, the year 2020?" It's for someone who can't see. "Okay, well someone who can might need to call NASA to turn it on." You have an hour. "Stealing a blind person's phone? That's sick. What do you like to do for fun on the weekends, break old ladies' hips?" And then later on when he says he can't hack it, dumb old Hanna is actually surprised that he deduced it was Jenna Cavanaugh's phone, like, of all the many blind kids boppin' around their school, how did he know? Is he A?
More trouble between Ezra and Aria, Aria fucked something up or didn't. I mean, I hate to gloss over it because the acting is incredible as usual, but I don't know what to say. You know how they're a couple of gaywads? They do that some more. Mona is an all-purpose bitch some more. Aria allows herself to evince annoyance. Ezra looks like he's about to dump her. But it's only when he questions her stage-managing abilities that Aria kicks everybody out of the room, because... Of course that's her breaking point: Doubting the new skill she invented yesterday.
And of course let's have a big stupid girlfriend fight in the middle of a glass-walled fishbowl with Berber carpet and everybody we know watching and let's just furthermore assume that nobody knows what we're fighting about, Ezra. They are so dumb! So anyway, basically it comes down to their futures may or may not be linked -- which causes Aria to puncture her own skin -- but that it's not because of him: "The whole point of college is to broaden your world, not pack up your high school English teacher and bring him with you!" (Nice one, Fitz.) She is all aghast and wonders about whether or not he just admitted he's molesting her -- "Is that how you see yourself?" -- but he assures her they are still a pair of star-crossed idiots and that he's more worried about her outgrowing him: "But you will, when the time comes."
Ah, the old You'll Outgrow Me thing. You know who never, ever has to deal with that? People who have actual, honest-to-God relationships with the appropriate people. If you find yourself worrying about that sort of thing, break up with the person immediately because you have been doing a number on yourself and never should have gone there. Either you're being weak or they are, but either way it's no bueno.
BUENO:
Spencer: "Your character is suspicious."
Hanna: "It doesn't say that in the script."
Spencer: "That's because it's underneath the words."
Hanna: "That's the reason why she's drinking?"
Spencer: "No, she's drinking because her kid drowned."
NO BUENO:
Somebody, who even cares who, as though this is a transition from any part of any conversation, ever, to any other part of any other conversation: "...Maybe there are no accidents! We never questioned what happened at that party..."
...Aaaand right into the flashback again. That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard. I love this show, you know, but when they get lazy, man, you can see the whole ass. Back in the flashback, the drunk girl Ian was planning on raping went flying down the pool table just as one of the Liars was trying to talk Emily into flirting with one of the cutest dudes we've ever seen on this show. Drunk ho: Bottom of the stairs. Ian: Top of the stairs, doing his usual thing of staring like a fucking lunatic.
Back in real life they're all, "Why didn't you mention the part where Ian was at the top of the stairs, during this party that none of us ever thought to mention where that girl broke her neck?" Well, why does it matter at all? Because it establishes precedent for Ian killing girls, like Alison and this drunk girl, and possible future girls, like all of us girls for example. Mona goes, "I'm having a hard time figuring out who's evil and who's just naughty!" And Ezra just grins and tells her to work it out. Spencer, on the other hand, is totally sure that some people are pure evil.
...Back into the flashback, where Alison appears out of nowhere and they're all drunk off their asses, and Alison laughs when they tell her about the drunk neck girl, "Note to self: Don't drink and dive," and then brashes her way through to the point of getting a ride back to Rosewood from some cops, which scares the girls but she goes, "The bolder the move, the less anyone questions it." Like if you say chillax, like Alison just did, you better fucking own it.
Things are much cooler in the real world. "I think my character's being totally selfish," Mona whines: "I don't even know how to play that." Even with the creepy flute, I think Mona's a nose ahead this week after that line. So awesome. Anyway, Ezra changes the subject to whether Mona's character (the teacher Miss Fern, who pretty much just spends the entire thing calling Rhoda out) is "forgivable," eyeing Aria, because we've changed the subject around entirely and now he's asking if a given teacher, a Mr. Schmitz let's call him, is forgivable. Aria responds that it's unforgivable if she's only thinking of herself, and Ezra dismisses everybody, and they're all grateful to go because of the constant weirdness of them.
PLLs left alone with the practice room, it takes Spencer about three seconds to find a trophy in one of the props, a golf award from Hilton Head the summer of Ali's lying ass, and the bottom of it is totally caked with blood, like from the head* of a girl, if you beat her head in with it. All the Liars run around in circles, screaming and pulling on their own hair, and finally decide to take it to the cops and not fuck around and let it get stolen like usual. Which obviously means A planted it and is fucking with them, or else they'd find a reason to stall and let it get stolen and then accuse Ian of stealing it.
*(Rhoda beat the little boy to death with her tap shoes, resulting in horseshape bruises all over his head and face. This shit won Pulitzers and like Oscars, back in the day. Maybe people really were less nuanced back then.** Like, the whole genetic destiny thing was already disproven by this time, even August Derleth pointed that out, and that dude believed in, like, Chthulu.)
**(On the other hand, speaking of the shocking naïveté of people in the recent past, have you ever seen that movie Bigger Than Life that Nick Ray made before Rebel Without A Cause? It came out the same year as the movie of The Bad Seed, which was only two years after the novel was published in 1954, and it details the Journey Into Madness of one man who is pushed to psychotic break by the new and powerful "miracle drug" ... cortisone. Makes you wonder how they even survived all the way to 1960, doesn't it?)
Leaving the police station they all decide to have yet another sleepover, but then Emily leaves because she feels weird about being the Spencer/Toby third wheel. I think actually a lot of this is because she still feels like she betrayed him in this huge way that she actually didn't, like there's a conscious choosing-Spencer-over-Emily thing going on, and she deserves it, which there ... isn't, and she doesn't:
Spencer is being a pit-bull, and Toby is the most passive person in history. Whatever Spencer decides, yes it is going to be law, but the other side of that is that Spencer doesn't actually know that, because she assumes everybody's got balls and everybody has this dumptruck willpower of hers and could make things happen if they wanted. (If she didn't, it wouldn't irritate and let her down so much when people don't; this is one of the areas where I am not so proud to be coming from the same place as Spencer, because another word for all this is bully.)
Also, Hanna has to run home and do Caleb-related things, and Emily tells Spencer to call Toby about this latest fake evidence, so the "slumber party" basically just means taking Spencer to Aria's so she doesn't have to be in the Hastings house -- once Aria does some quick guess what with guess who. She tells him some shit like, "I don't know if I'm gonna end up in California, or some fishing village in Guam! It doesn't matter, we're both here now, can't we just be happy that we have that?" And he kisses her, la-di-da, and we're right back where we started.
(Except that now he's also kind of also dating her parents. week there'll be a scene where Mike Montgomery's like, "Mr. Fitz, I feel I'm outgrowing Noel Kahn. Perhaps you could tutor me.")
Hanna, back home: "Why are you leaving, Quileute ol' chum?"
Caleb: "Because you are being absolutely monstrous to me, and since this is your house and you basically have my life in your hands, nothing could be more awful."
Hanna: "Sorry I got all weird and rude after that one time you saw me staring at your penis. I don't know if you recall that, but they are connected. See, I wasn't..."
Caleb, verbatim: "...Ready to see that much of me?"
Hanna: "Gnarf. Speeble. Zamfratz."
Caleb, verbatim: "And now you think you have to throw down too?" (...What?)
Hanna: "Schplatz. Flirzl."
Caleb: "Um, whatever you want. It's totally fine if you want to make out, 'throw down,' not make out, not 'throw down,' let me stay here, not let me stay here. I've made it pretty clear that I adore you and I'm not going to push you in any way."
Hanna: "Too much right words. Too much good talking, thanks. Lucky good talk."
Caleb: "But on the other hand, are you like blind? I have been this cute this entire time, especially once you ruined my beanie."
Hanna: "Um..." (Much kissing. Finally. Because is she like blind?)
AM in the Quad, it takes the cops about five seconds to round up all four Liars and take them in to the pokey, because guess what: That was not human blood, it was rat blood, because as A is about to point out, if they rat her out they are going to bleed. (Also, A has four cages with giant white rats in them named after each of the Liars, and it looks like Spencer the Rat paid the price this week.) And not just that, but there wasn't even a golf tournament at Hilton Head that summer. So the whole thing is fake and not from the memorabilia boxes at all, or something.
But also, wasn't she strangled? And didn't we hear her having strangle/sex noises and making strangle/sex movements on the tape? And wasn't Ian clearly horny and not calling her a stalker when they made out on the tape right before he killed her? So many questions this week.
And who even cares, because get this theory, which all of the Liars like psychically come up with at the same time despite not discussing it aloud: Alison was the one that pushed the drunk ho, because Alison was stalking Ian and she got in the way, and maybe Alison blew up Jenna because Jenna was also in the way, and maybe this is all about Ian but not because he killed Alison: Maybe this is all about Ian because Alison was herself the serial killer, which means that her killer and/or A can't even leave a decent trail of breadcrumbs because new Alison Secrets themselves keep getting barfed up on a regular basis.
Listen, I believe it. If there were any way for her to have murdered herself and be A and if there are multiple A's to be each of them, and plus also be a teenage serial killer before she killed herself and went on to blackmail her friends from beyond the grave, I do believe that Alison DiLaurentis would have found it.
week: First of three, with all kinds of shit hitting the fan and hopefully no more room for this fillery red-herring stuff.