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Okay, that was pretty awesome. For the season finale of a show almost entirely about creating twists and turns inside of twists and turns it's fairly satisfying, while also being almost entirely about setting up season... But as a recapper I've come to appreciate when shows don't infodump the entire thing on you in the finale, like, "Now to revisit the entire show." Which I guess this show would have to take its Ritalin for that to even be a possibility, because you sort of had to know at least one of the mysteries was going to involve Cop Garrett, because he was the last dude to show up. You know what I mean?
Ezra Fitz, adorably giddy, has finally quit his job at Rosewood High to accept a position at Hollis College with Byron Montgomery, so you can kind of see some of the storylines from here, but then also guess who else works there? That lady from his "website page," the former fiancée, is a fellow teacher Ezra forgot to mention. So now Aria gets to throw fifty kinds of shits about it and how Ezra's never lied to her before, blah blah. But then you got Noel Kahn lurking in the last five seconds of the episode, looking wonderful, so I'm thinking that's going to be the triangle. So excellent!
Part of the USB drive was a bunch of videos of Jenna molesting Toby and actually telling him she'll cry rape if he doesn't let her fuck him, all of which is gross but on the other hand, they're not actually related so she kind of has a point, and possibly he should have chosen a different reason to claim for not wanting to sleep with her, such as not wanting to sleep with her. Jenna's explanation of all this confirms Alison got the USB drive from Ian in Hilton Head, which means the entire season snaps into a somewhat clear focus nearly immediately: Ian is not a red herring, Ian has been taping these young girls since they were children, and possibly this is all he needed to go crazy and kill Alison.
Except his story -- as he's eventually chasing Spencer through the bell tower of this church and then getting pushed to his hanging death, thanks A, and then having his body disappear in the middle of everything -- doesn't really add up, from what I could tell over the grunting and screaming. I think Ian knocked her out but then somebody else strangled her, and so he died thinking he was a killer of little girls and not just a raper of them. (One assumes Melissa will find a way to make even this Spencer's fault.) Either way, Alison's killer has been found, for now, but even A is like, "You don't really think I'm going to make this easy on you, do you?"
Because also what is going on is, Jenna's secret boyfriend is Garrett the Cop, and his whole friendly act with Spencer and Emily, which seems legit, is also confused by the fact that she was seemingly also working with Ian. This part was confusing, but basically she calls somebody who may or may not be Ian and warns him that they have the USB drive, but then it's Garrett that shows up while she's giving some insane speech about how they're going to fuck everything up.
So we know less about her agenda than we even did before, which is fun, but not as fun as watching those four bitches gang up on her like always, and her doing some insane trainwreck shit like always, but then turning around to make the point that they blinded her and they need to stop being mean to her about it.
Emily's big deal is, her awesome dad wants her and Pam to move to Texas for the year because of his job stuff. Things are just getting exciting with Samara, and also she's solving a murder mystery and being stalked by a global telecommunications conspiracy and constantly running into this one creepy blind girl, so she doesn't really see moving as an option at this time. I think this concern will not signify for long.
Dumbly, Lucas gets all involved in the Caleb/Mona/Hanna Romeo & Juliet scenario, and Mona continues to act odious -- or is possibly obsessed with Hanna, like in an actually obsessive way -- but then all of a sudden Lucas has driven to Arizona and picked up Caleb in the middle of the night, maybe to start a Creepy Stalker Club with their boyband good looks.
At this point Spencer is driving Melissa around town because Ian is too busy getting blackmailed by teenage girls, and what I think happens is that she t-bones or is t-boned by Lucas and Caleb, but then it never comes up again, so maybe I made that part up. Probably the show thought that the idea of Lucas driving cross-country to pick up Caleb on his own initiative was so fucking insane that it didn't need any extra cliffhanger on it. (Also: Toby made it sound like Spencer sent him to distract the Jenna Thang one more time to keep her out of their sting operation, but that's a lot even for this show.)
So they anonymously text Ian to bring a bunch of money, like trying to get his confession under the guise of blackmail, and they meet Garrett in the woods. But then instead of Ian dropping off the money it's this new cute boy Logan Reed who looks like he does more drugs than Jason DiLaurentis, so they know that Ian is onto them, and then Ian has followed Spencer to this church and he tries to kill her but he doesn't, the end.
Body Count: Ian (thinks he) killed Alison, A (it looked like) killed Ian, Spencer may have killed Lucas and/or Caleb and/or her pregnant sister and/or the baby, Ezra Fitz has left the building, and Noel Kahn is back. Cheers once again to the Short Hiatus, and I'll see you June 14th, Tuesday, when the second season premieres on its new night.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!So what's on that flash drive the girls found in that improbable lunchbox? Videos of all four of them, videos of Jenna and Toby doing it brother-sister style, the whole thing. Whatever is creepy, that's what's on them. The girls all get weirded out by Video Jenna blackmailing Toby into making out with her, but I guess they didn't all officially know the hows and whys. It's super gross, and of course Spencer -- now that she's always been Toby's best friend in the entire universe -- shuts it down immediately, like, just as Jenna's getting his shirt off.
Aria: "Why do you think a person would want videos of young girls changing their clothes in the privacy of their own homes?"
Hanna: "Do you think someone was watching us and getting it off on it?"
Spencer: "Think about that too long and you'll go insane. Since I'm already insane, I have perspective on this. Let's focus on how this can be used to prove my pet theory that Ian killed Alison. We will need Jenna's help."
Hanna: "You mean Jenna the girl we blew up?"
Spencer: "Yeah, it won't be easy."
The last thing that went down with Ezra is that Suddenly Garrett -- the young policeman who is everywhere at once despite never existing until a minute ago -- stopped by his house and saw the stupid paper bags of love and whatnot. So Ezra sent Aria about sixteen terrified-yet-vague text messages and then drifted off to sleep without ever explaining himself, which is why -- when Ella balks at the idea of coming to Byron's faculty mixer at their house tonight -- Aria has no time at all for her mother's shit and just hisses, "Look, Dad cares too much to say this, but: You either love him or you don't. So you should probably figure it out, because it sucks for all of us."
Mother/daughterhood being what it is, we transition over to Hanna and Ashley, who have a sad but sweet little convo about how Caleb left town for reasons Ashley doesn't know and desperately wants to know but doesn't want to pry into, and Hanna just slumps around and feels gross and awkward about it, and in the interests of good momhood Ashley's like, "So, what was in the letter that Mona stole and ripped into a thousand pieces and burned into ashes and stomped on and peed on like a crazy gorilla instead of a little girl?" Hanna blips right over that one and back into her depression: Letter? What letter.
Ian and Melissa are all abuzz about setting up their unborn monster's christening at the church, which Spencer finds premature because of how it is a demon-baby and probably will be born with tentacles and horrors coming out of it, and for some reason Melissa is offended by this. "Humor's subjective," Spencer (literally) tries to explain, but Melissa just goes off in her usual huff. Even Mrs. Hastings is like, "Spencer, that was awful."
Emily's mom comes into her bedroom with the affliction of Ellipsis Disease, where everything you say comes out slow like the Swamp Thing, and of course Emily assumes -- based on what her mother is slowly saying -- that her dad has been killed in Texas. But no, he just wants the family to move there, Pam and Emily, leaving behind Maya and Paige and the ghost of Alison and Jenna Thang and the whole kit and caboodle. Emily is not entirely into this idea, but Pam points out that she is just a child and maybe she should just do what her parents want this like one time. Emily's firm-set mouth has other plans.
Also suffering from Ellipsis Disease is Ezra, who takes about fifty hours to explain -- in the hallway of the school, naturally -- that he just gave his resignation not because Suddenly Garrett hauled him into the station for statutory hand-holding or "website" paging or whatever chaste perversions he and Aria get up to, but in fact because he got the job at Hollis Clown College where Byron works.
And here's the thing, Ezra has never looked cuter in his life. He's wearing this like bondage-pant heavily tailored lumberjack deconstruction slim-cut red-plaid hipster-fixie waistcoated thing, outfit, costume, something out of Gerard Way's gayest daydream -- imagine if you will that Aria were a dude, how she would dress, or a Canadian superhero -- and it is so fucking cute. I hope Hollis College allows his personal style to remain so free. But it just makes it harder to care about their problems, because an outfit like that solves problems.
Aria's like, "How about you explain the panicked text messages from last night that made me think this was going to be a bad day?" Oh, says Ezra, no big thing. "We're fine. Wasn't about you. It was about Spencer and the trophy and... Props." Pretty sure that's under 140 characters, Chuckles. Anyway, before Aria can call him on this little lapse in phone etiquette, he distracts her with what this means for Their Love. What it means is that he is still an adult and a sexual predator, and she is still a child, but at least he's not her English teacher anymore. They're both over the moon, of course.
Mona blathers at Hanna at length about how she never needed Caleb in the first place, and how poor boys are a hot commodity with diminishing returns, and how who even needs boys, and we should go glamping in each other's underwear, and I want to wear your body like a costume and go door to door being super weird and stalkery. Finally Hanna's like, "You didn't happen to accept a letter from Caleb on my behalf and then read it and then destroy it like a scary insane person, by any chance?" The whole point of this conversation is because Lucas is back in play for some reason, so he needs to overhear about the letter and realize that he's not alone in the Stalking Hanna Marin Club of which he is a founding member and acting secretary.
The four Liars corner Jenna in the bathroom and slowly reveal that all four of them are in there with her and that maybe they are going to beat her to death, but of course she just grins and acts smug and spooky and asks what the fuck they want. They explain the kindest possible way of looking at Jenna's molestation of Toby -- essentially that they weren't actually doing anything wrong, and Toby's problem with it was just Toby's problem; which is not without merit, but also don't coerce sex out of people -- and Jenna's like, "So you can see why I wanted that video where I blackmail my brother into fucking me." Yes, it is understandable that you would hire werewolves to infiltrate people's homes to get ahold of that kind of thing.
Jenna explains that the day before Alison disappeared, aka the day she got back from Hilton Head, Ali came to see her in the hospital. Sweet, right? Like, "Sorry I blew you up and now you're blind forever," right? No, this is Alison. She was there to say, "I know you're blind and all, but you can hear the audio of this video of you blackmailing your brother into fucking you okay. Or hey, can you hear it even better now that you're blind?" Jenna could hear it just fine, thanks.
Seems Alison's whole trip to Hilton Head was actually about getting this footage, including the Jenna Thing, away from the filmer of it and into a safe place. She made sure Jenna knew to stay out of Rosewood forever -- which is why she reappeared the day of the funeral, as the girls will figure out shortly -- and to never, ever accuse the Liars of blinding her that time she got blind, and whatever else. Insurance in every direction.
Which is why the improbable lunchbox doesn't really hit the bullshit detector as high as you might think, because she did leave a trail of clues for the Liars in the event that something happened to her. And if you think about the timeline of her last couple days on earth, something did happen to her. Like a wealth of things happened to her. A nonstop cavalcade of interesting meetings, kissing, videotaping, all kinds of things. All the things that could happen to a person, essentially, found time to happen to her that day; like, for example, she got killed at least three different ways I can think of. So all this planning wasn't exactly overkill, in the final analysis.
While the girls talk about finding a way to keep Emily in Rosewood until graduation, Spencer's been out buying a burner phone so they can text Ian anonymously and offer the footage in exchange for money. By asking for cash, they'll throw him off what is actually an insane quest for vengeance, and then he can show up and say something like, "Here is ten grand for those videos of you I've been taking since you were little girls that somehow prove I killed Alison one of the times she was killed," which Hanna -- being the most subtle Liar and the best under pressure -- will be secretly videotaping, and thus the filmer becomes the filmee, which solves exactly one of these girls' problems because there's still an infinite number of A's out there with sometimes conflicting agendas. Not to mention the other six people that probably also killed Alison that night.
Ian gets the text and goes stonefaced and they all feel kind of gross about how it's all coming true, even Spencer's like, "I've been so wrong so very often that I kind of got used to it," and then Mona comes running up to act all psycho and climb inside Hanna's sweater with her some more, so the girls all bounce immediately. Hanna leaves her phone, coincidentally (1), and Caleb immediately calls, coincidentally (2), so Lucas walks up, coincidentally (3), just in time to hear Mona hissing at Caleb something along the lines of, "Yeah, I read that letter and destroyed it while Hanna's back was turned, and I'd fucking do it again," of course. Whatever Lucas needs to put the story together on his own, that's what she says into the phone.
So Lucas tries to guilt Mona out of being Mona -- "You act like such a terrible person, but I always thought some of it was just an act" -- and Mona just goes into a thing about how she's being a good friend, and hey pal we both love Hanna, and "we" have to protect her, and sorry I keep referring to your hermaphroditism, and then she lays down this epically insane ultimatum: "If you forget about the stupid letter, I'll make it up to you. I'll help you transform from Hermie to Her Man. This is your chance, Lucas. Are you gonna man up or not?"
Which is a storyline I would love to see, like a Can't Buy Me Love Don't Cost A He's All That montage where everybody is obsessed with Hanna, Mona like forcing Lucas to jog up and down the stadium steps in a hoodie or clapping her hands doubletime screaming about "get those knees up," but surely there's an even more ludicrous thing that can happen here, and in case you forgot what show you're watching: Hold your horses because something fifty times more ludicrous is about to unfold.
In the dusty scary room of snowglobes, Jenna's phone rings and she answers in this way: "They found the video. And they've seen it." Also on a phone, probably but not necessarily in the same conversation, Ian has a bag of ten grand and he says into his phone, "You don't need to worry. I'm taking care of it, and I'll be there soon." So what it seems like here is that Jenna and Ian's mysterious friendship was born of their shared vulnerability to Alison's insurance strategy.
Which again, Jenna is the most interesting person, because like, we know now she wasn't hooking up with him -- her mysterious lace-loving boyfriend is still in play -- but they sure did seem friendly. So like how much personal inventory do you have to take before you can be like, "The important thing isn't that I sexually violated my brother -- or that you secretly filmed, and masturbated to, video of this -- but that we're friends now."
Suddenly Garrett shows up off the clock to... Invite Emily to watch Dancing With The Stars with his family? It's never really clear why he stops her to say hello, but the gist of their conversation is that he knows Spencer wouldn't have actually hurt Alison and that he wants to be their guy on the inside. Which is like total confirmation that he's got some other agenda, and will probably end up killing everybody someday. Anyway, Emily is charmed by him because she likes the idea of there being like one authority figure or male person in Rosewood that actually doesn't totally suck, and because she's going to end up calling him for help during the Sting.
Hanna's chilling on her doorstep, which is good because Lucas gave Emily Hanna's phone, and they talk about Texas and how Emily can learn to like big-haired beauty queens eventually, and then they hug quietly, and somewhere Mona's probably digging her nails into her palms. Nearby, Toby and Spencer are being super cute in Spencer's room, pretending to study while secretly staring, and Spencer's nervous about the Sting also, so Toby makes her come and sit with him in that red leather club chair that I always wanted them to cuddle in, because this show knows what is up. How crazy is that?
(And does it mean Noel Kahn is coming back soon? Sure does! What shall I wish for , is the question.)
So again verbatim -- because honestly I feel like I'm getting some things confused here -- you have Jenna still hanging out in the creepy snowglobe room and she goes, "Alison's so cunning. She's still taunting us from the grave. If this video gets out, we will lose everything." And you think she's talking to Ian -- or just being creepy Jenna and there's nobody there, maybe -- but then it's totally not Ian, it's Suddenly Garrett. Well done, Cavanaugh.
Garrett goes, "I won't let that happen. I promise you." And then they make out. So I guess if Garrett gets invited to the Sting -- which now all three of them creeps know about? -- he can somehow mess it up or otherwise work with Ian to keep them from... Nope, lost it. I have no idea what is going on.
The mysterious Florentine Fiancée from Ezra Fitz's "website page" shows up at the faculty mixer, because guess where Jackie Molina secretly works? That's right, at Hollis College for the Chinless, along with the rest of Aria's oppressors. Aria totally goes, "The fuck are you doing here?" and Jackie's like, "Stop being a rude little girl?" so Aria goes zooming through the whole house like knocking down cats and throwing old books around and flicking the bottom of people's plastic wine glasses and generally acting the fool.
I mean, Ezra should have told her that the woman she so recently stalked/thought about murdering for no reason -- which, retroactively that was a much better story than we thought at the time, since it was leading up to season's presumable love triangle and wasn't just Aria being particularly retarded -- is on the faculty at his new job, but also: This is why he didn't. The life of a pedophile is one of such stresses, I suppose.
Spencer eventually has to pull out from cuddletime with Dharma Bums-reading Toby because Ian is too busy being involved in a Sting operation run by little girls to take his pregnant wife to the church. But since Spencer is a major part of this same thing... Whatever, I'm still kind of in the weeds. And apparently Toby's agreed to "keep Jenna busy" during this whole thing, which I have zero interest in really knowing what that means, but you think about how ruthless Spencer is -- her just total lack of ruth -- and it's like, maybe she meant fuck his sister. Maybe that's Spencer's plan: "Go fuck your sister so she doesn't wander blindly into the forest at an inopportune time and queer my extortion bid. You're a really good boyfriend."
Ezra and Aria, who cares, this is how the conversation ends: "Until today... You were the one guy who had never lied to me." Shit like that. At least she's consistent. You can actually see the pain in his eyes of going, "I'm dating you because you're a child but then like why do you constantly act like a child?" A maze from which he will never be free. Unless somehow counseling is eventually court-ordered.
Speaking of absolutely ridiculous people, I do believe that Lucas has spent the middle portion of this episode driving to Flagstaff Arizona, locating Caleb in whatever trailer park or roadside wigwam, and bringing him back to Rosewood, because quote "Hanna deserves to be happy." I think that's actually what has fucking happened there.
Melissa bitches out on Spencer about how she can't find Ian because he's too busy getting Stung, and Spencer shows her like the slightest compassion which is mindblowing because it's Spencer, and they realize Melissa left her phone at the church, so they turn around, but then I guess they run into Lucas and Caleb and have a big accident. For once, Hanna's not in the car. Well, spiritually she is in Caleb and Lucas's car, so I'm going to blame this accident on her, as usual.
I mean, they never show Lucas and Caleb in the other car, or mention this at all, but there's literally no other reason to have the paragraph preceding this one even exist. Show four characters in two cars in the same basic area of town, and then a collision, it really just makes sense those scenes are connected somehow, Truffaut. So it's either sloppy or it's super sloppy, but either way thanks a lot, Hanna. Caleb and Lucas looked like they were about ten seconds from making out and you ruined it.
Out in the forest the Liars are worried about Spencer, because she's not answering the phone and the sun is going down and the beast can't live without its head. If Hanna's going to be masterminding this operation you know they'll all end up somehow stuck in the trees with wolves nipping at their heels, or driving a car into a lake. If Emily takes point there'll be a group hug, Ian's "heart" will grow three sizes, and they'll end up buying him dinner. And if Aria's in charge, somehow this will become about Jackie Molina and we'll just completely forget about Ian and Alison altogether: "Guys, I really think Jackie Molina might be A. It all fits. Think about it!"
Melissa: Stable but not great. Baby: Possibly in real danger. Mrs. Hastings: Actually comforting Spencer at the hospital. I love how she's discovered parenting lately, and how Spencer only had to go bugshit insane in like four different ways before she noticed. Right around the fake golfing trophy covered in rat blood old Mrs. Hastings was like, "My daughter may be in need of some TLC."
Here's a cute little scene in the forest where, as usual, Hanna gets it on a level nobody else does:
A: "Buckle up, bitches. Nothing is as it seems!"
Emily: "Does A know we're here?"
Hanna: "Pssh. A knows everything."
Nobody can find Ian, so Spencer offers to go check the church for Melissa's phone and "see if he's there," even though she knows where he is, but just then the cops bring her phone from the accident, so she sees all the texts from Aria and calls to update the Liars on her latest disaster. They tell her to hang tough, and then Ian drives up. But it's not Ian yet, it's Garrett, because Emily called him without telling anybody (I think) so they all act suspicious and Hanna once again rocks the mic:
Garrett: "So, no one else knows you're here but me?"
Hanna: "Well, I left a note for my mom in case anything happened to us."
Aria: "Did you really leave a note for your mom?"
Hanna: "Yeah. Dear Mommy, I went to the woods to trap a killer."
Because they have apparently switched bodies, Spencer is now the Hanna and Hanna is now the Spencer, because what Spencer is doing is wandering into the creepy empty church and calling out into the echoes and scariness and generally just looking to get beaten to death by the killer or Ian or whoever.
Meanwhile, in the forest, Ian shows up and Garrett pulls a gun on him, but it's not Ian again, it's the new character that the fans voted to name Logan Reed. (No, I am not kidding, there was a poll and "Logan Reed" won, despite sounding like everybody who ever raped a nurse on General Hospital in the 1970s). So this second non-Ian was just and only paid by Ian to bring the money to them so that he could be free to go kill Spencer in the church. Which is totally what he's doing!
Spencer: "Oh hey, Ian. I just got in a massive car accident with your wife and baby."
Ian: "Yeah, I know."
Spencer: "Really? Because I thought maybe you'd want to be there. At least until you find out if your baby is okay."
Ian: "No, I was just waiting for you to leave the hospital so I could come and kill you."
Spencer: "See, problem right there."
Ian: "No, Melissa would want me to kill you, trust me."
Spencer: "Like you killed Alison?"
She throws the USB drive through the air -- still possessed by Hanna, I see -- and then runs through the church and screams and where is he, there he is, very scary, bell tower. She calls the Liars so they can hear this part, and this is verbatim what they hear, because this is intriguing:
Ian: "Picked a perfect place for your suicide. You didn't mean to hurt Alison. It was an accident. You pushed her and she fell."
Spencer: "Is that what happened?"
Ian: "She just hit her head and she never woke up."
Spencer: "Alison died of suffocation."
Ian: "Yeah, the letter that I wrote on your computer won't answer all the questions, but it will answer enough. The guilt was just too much for you."
Spencer: "If you love my sister, you won't do this."
Ian: "I'm doing it because I love her."
There's a long scuffle and Spencer's eyes are just bugging out of her head and you can hear Spencer is very close to getting murdered, plus he's been beating the shit out of her this entire time, but then who appears but a person in a black hoodie, and Ian goes, "What are you doing here?" and then boom: He goes sailing over the edge, into the well of the bell tower, and there he is hung until dead, just hanging from the ropes and going the bell grimly back and forth while the Liars all converge on Spencer and she fills them in on how freaked out she is and how probably A killed Ian.
Minutes later the four shellshocked ladies are outside the church, and some cop comes running up to yell at them because, yet again, there is no body. Ella and Byron sort of jump into each other's arms a little bit, and there's Noel Kahn out in the crowd wearing not exactly a black hoodie, and everybody is like, "Those girls are so pretty, but are they lying?" and even Florence + the Machine are singing about liars, and A sends one last text: "It's not over until I say it is. Sleep tight while you still can, bitches."
So what happened? No idea. Ian maybe killed Ali, but definitely he was a stalker and masturbator. Ian maybe died, but also there's no body now. Ali might also not be dead, or she might have died in several different ways. A's interest in the girls goes beyond Ian, Melissa continues to be the reason but I don't think the inventor of Ian's insanity, and most importantly Noel Kahn is back. See you in 85 days, when the show heads to Tuesday nights (6/14) and we find out where Emily's going to live, what Jenna's new role could possibly be, and what Noel's been up to. XOXO, as they say.