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For a show that is almost entirely a cautionary tale about sex, they sure don't have much sex on this show. I didn't really think about that until tonight, which was an intimacy-palooza. Emily goes on an adorably dorky date with Paige McCullers, which leads to them dating for about five seconds until Paige tries to baby-step her back into the closet because of her insane father and generally gay-related shame. Emily is, of course, not having this, so it's sad; on the other hand, Paige has finally been transformed into the cutest little bug-eyed weirdo this show has ever seen.
Hanna's secret houseguest is finally discovered, so she and Caleb go on the run for a little camping trip where she finally gives up her old v-card. Back home the day, Ashley realizes she's on the verge of losing her daughter altogether, so she flips the script and invites Caleb to live with them for awhile. It's sweet, like genuinely compelling, and it also does the trick: Caleb calls the mysterious person he's been working Hanna for -- disappointing/not terribly surprising -- and calls off their deal. (We'll find out who this person is in the episode, when Caleb comes clean about his agenda, and can I just say it's amazing.)
Aria is horrified to find Jenna and Mr. Fitz working together on a short story she's submitting to a contest which -- paging Dan Humphrey -- is the incredibly true adventure of a girl who got blown up and blinded by a bunch of bitches. Too many secrets and not enough trust leads Aria to dick Ezra around for awhile before Emily gives her permission to explain the Jenna Thing, at which point Ezra assures her he loves her and will always love her no matter how many girls she blows up.
But Spencer! Oh, girl! So she and Toby finally figure out that "214" is a hotel room and, since he's hiding from his creepy sister anyway, check into the room for a couple days. We learn some things, like how Toby is almost as smart as Spencer and has the sickest body on earth, and after spending a chaste night together he finally kisses her, and it's pretty awesome.
Less awesome things we learn: The flute music coming out of 214 is actually an elaborate trick by A and Jenna was never there. Spencer's parents are sending her to therapy for framing Ian all those times, thanks to A's duplicitousness. Ian was in Hilton Head with Melissa, not Alison, which was a secret because they were getting an abortion. (Because it's TV, of course, she suffered a miscarriage on the way to the clinic.) And finally, Spencer's attempts to keep the police up Ian's ass -- and generally acting insane all the time -- have flagged her as a Person of Interest in the investigation of Alison's death.
So it looks like everybody's about five seconds from unraveling, and the hilarious tag kind of says it all: After an "SOS" text, he other Liars come running up to the woods near Spencer's house just in time to see the cops take her away. And A taped the whole thing, and is now watching it over and over... While eating literal popcorn! Nice one, show.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Girl-kissin', werewolf-showerin', flute-playin', bag-switchin', Alison-throttlin', arrested-gettin'.
The Liars tell their stories separately to the cops about what happened on the video, in a literal fashion, and then all of the other facts. As ever, the authorities are like, "Ian was a poster boy for preppies, he wouldn't have dated that horrible Alison." Spencer's like, "Well, he certainly never molested me all over the place." She does this dressed as a toy soldier from that Keanu Reeves movie.
All the Pretty Little Moms -- and Byron -- commiserate about how their daughters have been screwed by A once again, as do the Liars; the girls all agree that Spencer shouldn't have told them about Ian teaching her to golf, and then a cute little cop comes up like Dewey from Scream or Chris Pratt in Jennifer's Body about how he's practically their age, but now he's a cop. This is Garrett, a doe-eyed dude who looks exactly like every other guy on this show, but in a cop uniform.
Grizzled Senior Detective: "You know those girls?"
Garrett: "My parents lived down the street from Emily Fields, just like apparently everybody on this show somehow, so I'm implicated in everything, just like apparently everybody on this show somehow."
Grizz: "Glad to hear it. Let's nail these children to the wall."
Garrett: "Sir."
Back home, Spencer's parents have finally noticed that she is deranged, and have decided to send her to therapy. You keep framing your brother-in-law for murder all the time, like once a week, people are going to notice. Plus, Melissa knows how to throw a ten-ton shit-fit better than anyone on this show. Spencer shrinks down to the size of a thumb and feels wretched, which is like chum in the water for Melissa to appear out of nowhere and take a few whacks at her head like a piñata, and then blame the whole thing on Spencer's need to have all the attention. I love this, the noir paranoia of this storyline. Every time. It's like Body Snatchers meets Rear Window meets Serial Mom. Except for our strong Spencer weeping desperately, because that, I cannot handle at all.
It used to be that Paige was the one calling Emily all the time, but with her random behavior having activated Emily's Prime Directive -- Thou Shalt Love The Shit Out Of The Craziest People In Town -- the tables have turned and now she's the one avoiding Emily. Emily's like, "Is this because you kissed me in the middle of your ongoing psychotic break?" Paige doesn't even know what a "kissing" is, dude. She tells Emily to forget the whole thing, and Emily's mouth says okay but her fevered brain is like, "Well, now I'm going to be stalking you. So get ready for that."
Spencer checks Toby into that same motel, coincidentally door to room 214, so that he won't get raped by his sister before his parents come back into town. They discuss how his stealing of her futuristic phone will doubtless be the thing that kicks her crazy into overdrive, and as usual the way everybody treats the innocuous blind girl like this is Sleeping With the Enemy does not fail to amuse. They lustily discuss their mutual pact to vindicate each other's ongoing frame-ups, and then on her way out Spencer overhears Jenna's flute playing in the room. The flute stops when she knocks on 214, note, and then through the window she sees that bag Ian gave Jenna last week.
Ashley heads upstairs for her morning shower, so of course Caleb comes out to nuzzle all over on her daughter, so of course Ashley immediately comes tromping back down the stairs. "Even my totally oblivious self-centeredness has its limits, Hanna. My ass keeps falling in the toilet, somebody is going through our groceries like a teenage boy, and I am starting to put it together. Do you have boys in this house? In the No-Boy Zone upstairs?" Hanna lies and truths and lies some more, and Ashley lectures her about how Caleb, being a "tough guy" (which: what) might make you feel safe, but also they are just looking out for themselves, and Hanna's inexorable ruination, and the usual. Hanna sticks up for him, Ashley is disappointed, nothing new going on here. Caleb comes back, they kiss, Hanna gets to be happy for a whole ten seconds.
Who's Ezra talking to? Jenna Thing! Oh, Aria, you better just stand there like a freak while A texts you an omniscient message that makes no sense. Jenna makes five references to their pedophilia love affair and taps her way on out of there -- actually not wearing a black murderer outfit, for once -- and Aria tries and fails to find the words to describe how bottomless is Jenna's creepiness. She tries to make plans for them to nest together forever and ever and eventually grow their skin and bones together into one hideous creature, but Ezra is implacable for once.
Fitz: "So Jenna's written this very excellent short story about how this girl was fucking her brother and got blinded after some bitches blew her up. Isn't that so weird?"
Aria: "It's kind of weird, but also Jenna sucks. I suggest you stop bugging me about this and go back to our neverending ))<==>((."
Spencer: "Turns out being a non-stop one-woman pitchfork mob has cost me some credibility in the public eye."
Liars: "The fact that you are demonstrably a crazy person does not take away from the fact that Ian is going to kill us all one of these days."
Spencer: "I'd rather talk about the mysterious flute music coming from this motel..." (Runs off in the middle of her sentence to further indict herself by begging Officer Garrett to join in her ongoing persecution of everybody, starting with the fact that she lied to the cops after a direct question, and totally dated Ian, and thus looks even more like a maniac.)
Case: Closed.
Lesson: Not at all learned.
Jenna appears out of nowhere to be creepy about Ezra some more, so Aria washes her hands for one million years and eventually gets into a pissing contest with Jenna about whom Ezra loves more. Jenna concedes; not really what you'd call a win.
Spencer brings the following things for her sleepover-cum-stakeout with Toby: Scrabble, Madlibs, a lad mag containing an article entitled "Bikes to Die For, Babes to Fight For," and a Veronica Mars phone app that apparently makes you a spy that can see through walls. Then they bribe their way into 214 and find Jenna's scary glasses, as well as the mysterious shopping bag from Ian's House Of Murder, which is empty of all evidence.
Ashley finally surprises Hanna and Caleb playing house, kicks his hobo bag across the kitchen floor, and explains how she put together all the sloppy obvious clues they've been leaving all over the place. Hanna's point, that Caleb is a loner and a rebel, is no match for Ashley's point, which is that they are the Thelma & Louise of single-parent families and that if they start lying to each other, their many crimes -- sexual bribery, old-lady mugging -- will eventually come to light. Hanna beats it and hits the lonely trail, because sometimes parents just don't understand.
Emily drives to the hick bar on the outside of town to meet Paige, who has selected this place for their first date. Emily's only slightly sure that she is on a date, and nearly hits the bricks when the MC starts talking about karaoke.
Paige: "Turns out I'm a lesbian and I'm in love with you. I would like to date you more."
Emily: "Okay. How lesbians date is, let's talk about everything that has ever happened to us and how it makes us feel. This will go on for four hours, and we will convince ourselves that we are soulmates. Then we get a pet."
Paige: "That sounds wretched. You go first."
Emily: "Being a lesbian is sometimes difficult."
Paige: "Try being a lesbian plus a lunatic. Who was your first girlfriend? Maya?"
Emily: "Yes. But before that, I was in love with the worst person in the entire history of the world."
Paige: "Alison was pretty horrible. Come to think of it, Maya was super annoying too."
Emily: "I do have a thing for obnoxious women. And crazy folks."
Paige: "I have an amazing coincidence to report at this time."
Desperate to fool Ezra into thinking she is a grownup, and distract him from Jenna who is practically an actual grownup, Aria dresses like a sitcom housewife and decorates his house like a sitcom house-house and cooks him, like, a brisket. Ezra could get used to this. But what will we talk about? Mostly Jenna some mor
e. Because she is jealous for no reason, but also because too much Jenna Talk will reveal the Jenna Thing, Aria raises her voice. And her eyebrows. It's totally awkward, and also their most realistic conversation.
Hanna constructs a tent in the woods, builds a campfire, kills a stag for their food using only her hands and a stick she's carved into a knife, and then forages for nuts and berries. Caleb watches her, astounded, because she is usually such a princess and the only time she gets dirty is when people are running over her in cars. A bizarre owl-hoot prompts Hanna to be super weird: "Owls do that when they dive for prey!" she says, and he just stares at her because this is a side of Hanna nobody has seen. Finally Hanna comes clean.
Hanna: "I learned survival skills at fat camp, where I went for being fat before I discovered bulimia."
Caleb: "TMI."
Hanna: "I've seen your wang. This is me 'throwing down.'"
Caleb: "Okay, well, my mom disappeared when I was five and still just a werecub. When I was ten, she sent me a birthday card which should have enraged me but instead made me happy. This is why I am obsessed with Flagstaff Arizona."
Hanna: (Determines that she is about to lose her virginity in the woods.)
Emily comes back from the bathroom to see Paige onstage being epically dorky and singing karaoke of P!nk, all of which cannot be satisfactorily described on paper because it is too amazing. Eventually the entirety of the crowd gangs up on Emily, forces her onstage, and they sing together. The equivalent of two lesbian dates. Plus the bonus of it being a P!nk song, because that lady is so gay she went through gay and came out the other side.
Spencer and Toby have the Scrabble equivalent of sex, and then he tells her to take off her military uniform and let those puppies breathe. (He does this in a totally hipster "j/k not really" way that manages to fall just on the side of cute and not fully weenish.) Luckily, he has brought pajamas for everybody; even luckier, he blasts his insane body in the bathroom for about fifteen times as long as it takes a normal person to change clothes, and Spencer drinks this vision of him like it is vodka, and she is Hanna.
SIMULTANEOUSLY
1. Emily finally plants one on Paige, because in Pennsylvania singing P!nk karaoke is practically a civil ceremony. Miss Kitty Fantastico, your day has arrived!
2. Spencer looks at Toby for a long time, still working that bod even in his sleep, and eventually climbs into the motel bed to him.
3. Caleb and Hanna have themselves, no lie, some extremely sweet -- and hot -- campfire sex. (Presumably, a station wagon is now going to tear through their campsite and take 'em both out. No happiness in Rosewood.)
4. While all of this is happening, a lady sings the most lesbian song: Have you ever fed a lover with just your hands? Closed your eyes and trusted? Just trusted? Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, "I just don't care!"?
Sarah McLachlan: "I gotta hand it to you, lady."
day, Paige texts Emily a misspelled invitation to a "picinic," which she plays off long enough to distract Aria with meaningless questions about Mr. Fitz. Why is she avoiding him, and his unending phone calls this Saturday morning? Well, because of that time we blew up that girl. I can feel secrets welling up in me, and even as the Almighty Shusher I do not know if I can Shush myself this time.
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Emily: "If you love him, you should tell him about how we blew up that girl that time. If you trust him, I trust him. The Emily Fields Savings & Trust is insured by the FDIC to the amount of infinity."
Aria: "Life really is this simple for you, isn't it?"
Emily: "Let me show you pictures of the cat I bought last night and you tell me."
Spencer and Toby wake up, and he is just a kitten in the mornings, but the sweetness is undercut by the smoky coffee taste of Creepy Flautist door. They throw on no clothes whatsoever and run to 214, where Jenna's self-pressed CD of creepy flute music, Songs in the Key of 1,000 Corpses is playing all by itself. On the bed is the mysterious shopping bag, once empty and now containing a visual pun: Ice from the ice machine and a note from A that says, "Getting colder!" or some such. Even Spencer is like, "What the fuck was the point of this whole thing?" Toby wonders who A is, and Spencer tells him to forget it.
Paige and Emily on their picinic, listening to Passion Pit and getting their dream-date hand-holding on. Emily suggests they go see the band in Philly month, and Paige says that she can't do that, or anything else, because if she gets outed the world will end, because being gay is gross. Emily begs her pardon and breaks up with her immediately, because nobody can walk you backwards into shame without your permission. Paige is bummed, but at least you don't hear that ice-tinkle sound of her going even crazier. Well done, Fields. As usual.
Aria shows up at Ezra's house and says the most comforting thing: "I don't want to tell you something, but I'm going to, and then you will hate me." Ezra assures her this is not the case, but privately wonders whether he might end up hating her, despite the fact that she has just insured that he can't without proving her right. The only thing I hate more than "we have to talk" is "don't be mad": Either way, you're setting the stage in a way that removes any and all options for the other person. Their eyes water aggressively at each other. Aria is an emotional blackmailer.
Ashley Marin: (Shitting it because Hanna's still not home.)
Hanna: "I'm home, bitch."
Ashley: "Did you enjoy your night of being homeless with a werewolf?"
Hanna: "Actually we went camping, to make my irrational behavior even more of an adventure. I finally earned my badges for Campfires, Stag-Killing, Tent-Erecting and Berry-Foraging. Also for Fucking."
Ashley: "Well, I'm glad you're home."
Hanna: "Are you kidding me? I live in the forest now."
Hanna: "Allow me to draw a spurious parallel between Caleb's situation as an abused foster-child werewolf, and your situation as a cop-screwing old-lady mugger. At least that old lady had the decency to drop dead, can't you at least give him the guestroom?"
Ashley: "That makes very little sense, but the tree does not fall far from the apple, and so I will take it into consideration."
Caleb: (Calls Hanna's phone a split second after Hanna's in the shower.)
Ashley: "Hanna's phone. Your Doom speaking."
Toby and Spencer revisit their Scrabble brain-sex and talk about how their homes are both violently inappropriate right now: Toby's because he is alone with Darkness Incarnate, and Spencer because she can't stop ruining her sister's marriage no matter how hard they try to get her to cut it out. Suddenly, they kiss and it's lovely, and Toby manages to be somewhat smooth, which is even more welcome. Emily was like Dumbo's feather, and now he can fly without it. "Fly," in this case, meaning "act normal for a hot minute."
Turns out Ashley did not summon Caleb to the house in order to gut him like a fish over Hanna's campfire, but in fact to feed him food and give him hell -- "Help yourself to a soda, like you've been doing" -- and then abruptly ask him to come live with them, legit-style. Because she identifies with him, a little, but mostly because she knows she's in danger of losing Hanna. Which means that it's so important to Hanna that she's being a better parent by showing she trusts Hanna's judgment than by forbidding (anything, for the first time in Hanna's life).
It is a very sweet scene; so sweet, in fact, that Ashley's numerous death threats should anything go wrong are more than discounted by the sunny, grateful, honest smile and understanding that Caleb shoots back.
Alternately: It is a very sweet scene, which means a station wagon is about to hop a curb and drive onto the Marin lawn and through their living room and into the kitchen and this car will be driven by Fake Nephew with Ian riding shotgun and the house will explode all around them and A can be like, "Hanna, you still have not suffered enough. I have made a savory pimiento loaf out of the burnt-up charred bits of your mother and boyfriend, with a tomato-based gravy containing your tears. You will eat the entire batch in front of the football team, while your father, his business associates and the school counselor are treated to the video I made of you having sex in the forest last night."
Ezra: "Aria, the fact that you blinded a sexually warped young girl, having set her on fire, only makes me love you more."
Ashley: "Caleb, now that we've adopted you, you can call me by my first name. Mrs. Marin makes me feel so old! You don't think I'm old, do you? Does this ass look old to you? Can I get you a beer?"
Caleb: "Goodnight, Mrs. Ashley."
Ashley: "I'm not like a regular mom, I'm a cool mom!"
Caleb: "I got a good thing going on here. Mysterious Interlocutor, I can no longer play this long con on the Marins. They are too awesome. And permissive.
M.I.: "So all that work we did getting you thrown out of foster care and living in the school and getting discovered by the girls and then getting thrown out of the school and then living in the basement and then living in the forest and now living in the guest room -- all of which, apparently, I was able to predict -- was for naught?"
The cops arrive at Spencer's house due to her totally telling Garrett that she lied to the cops and had means, motive and opportunity to frame Ian for whatever. Her parents are just about dunzo at this point. Melissa -- and people are not believing this, but I do believe this -- explains that the big lie about being in Hilton Head was not because of Alison (whom Ian described as being a creepy stalker that summer) but because he and Melissa were pregnant and about to get an abortion -- for which they needed to drive to an island off South Carolina?! -- but then she miscarried like always happens on TV. Mom's just like, "Spencer, you are going totally SVU on us. You are on a drug called Charlie Sheen."
On the way out to the cop car, Spencer texts the Liars a quick SOS, and since everybody lives door to everybody else on this show, the girls instantly come running out of the woods to wonder why this is all happening. A texts everybody: Breaking news, bitches! Spencer Hastings is now a Person Of Interest... IN MY MURDER!
Everybody reads the text aloud and shivers and shakes and then boom: Creeper tag, in which A is playing their reading aloud of her message over and over again, fully with a bowl of popcorn at her side.
The things this show thinks it can get away with are equal only to the fact that it always, always can.
week: All manner of hell breaks loose. Three episodes left before the long cold season of no PLL for awhile.
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