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Emily tries to completely out-guest all houseguests that have ever guested a house, predictably, in her new role as Ashley Marin's latest gypsy baby. It's cute and sweet and kind of sexy, because that's how Emily rolls. Hanna has no idea how much she's getting on Emily's nerves just by being herself -- dancing while homeworking, singing while thinking, learning that Caleb used to work for the Mob or something, watching her drunk parents practically do it in the living room -- so she's mostly cool, but man Emily gets annoyed fast at her new, non-Pam environment. And by "annoyed" I mean, of course, "might be committing aggravated assault before you know it."
Byron gets intense with Thieving Mikey after inviting Ezra over for drinks or dinner or something, which only causes Mike -- who has awesomely outfitted his desk with a literal rearview mirror labeled PARENTS, in response to their reckless relationship issues -- to get more intense. If you're wondering how Aria overreacts and geeks out about this Ezra invite, and the house visit that follows, I submit to you that you may not be as familiar with Aria's mess as you may think.
Add Jason DiLaurentis hanging around all the time -- attending dinners, needling Ezra about being a perv, winning her parents over, general snoopy-face -- and you've got Aria being the most interesting she's ever been. Not to mention more flashbacks to how Alison and Jason were constantly trying to murder and out-brood each other.
Ella and Ashley have a conversation about how their daughters keep getting run over by cars and framed for stuff at all times, but have difficulty moving on from their weird feelings or doing anything about it... Until Ashley gives voice to this new plot thread where Spencer's dad is the monsterest of all and probably killed all the people already, and so implemented the whole Therapy Idea to shut everybody up about whatever it is actually happened.
Spencer manages to get her dad involved in Toby's plan to skip childhood and become a highly pursued contractor, so now he's finally given Tobes the okay. Too bad a little yard work immediately turns up a mysterious hockey stick that may have been the fifteenth murder implement that took Alison down, causing Spencer's Dad to act super sketch.
For a hot second it seems like we're being protected from the unbearable truth that Spencer hockeyed Alison the fuck to death, but in the end everybody seems to agree that hiding and destroying the hockeying weapon has more to do with that time Spencer produced a trophy with rat blood on it. I.e., Rosewood PA does not need yet more manufactured proof that Spencer is out of her fucking gourd.
Thanks to Mikey Montgomery's stealsome ways and, oddly, his eye for accent objects, Aria figures out* that Garrett is involved with Jenna "Thing" Cavanaugh and her pottery of doom, and tells Spencer not to involve him in their shit. Of course, this message only arrives as Spencer's staking out the latest red herring in his cop car, which means the Liars all get to stare at various things like they're going to die, the end.
*("You stole from a blind girl!" being the optimum line of dialogue this week, especially if you imagine it spoken in Aria's most horrified possible tones.)
Mostly everybody deals with their new situations and the fact that dead Ian did not kill dead Alison, and yet the only thing anybody wants to believe is that he did. Which is how murders happen, a lot of the time, but in this case it's particularly hardcore because of A hounding those girls at all times forever... When she's not busy poisoning Emily's lotion to hilarious cha-cha music, of course. (No idea whatsoever.)
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Emily was healthy in mind and spirit, because she was not yet being poisoned with intramuscular botulism. Spencer was comfortable in body, although probably not that healthy in mind if we're being completely honest. Hanna took advantage of Pam Fields's inability to live without her huzzzzbin to acquire a live-in lesbian chef, wellness coach and emotional carryall. And Aria? Well, Aria continued to contend with the embarrassment of riches that is having to choose between a drug-addicted murderer and an effete pedophile.
Liars: "Um, why are you guys sharing a bedroom? This is the most beautiful house in the entire universe, surely you can cough up an extra bedroom."
Hanna: "A, none of us like to sleep alone these days due to us being stalked and murdered by ghosts. B, some bullshit about pipes or something."
Liars: "Let's pretend Logan Reed matters, and that Garrett's been trying to find him, so that Garrett's sudden presence in this episode makes sense. Oh, and to remind everybody that it wasn't Ian's money in the first place, but an elaborate scheme probably cooked up by Garrett and Jenna Cavanaugh."
Liars: "You know what makes no sense, actually, is that Garrett still has the ten grand we got out of Ian the night he tried to kill Spencer. Why on earth would that be true?"
One thing for sure: If they get too quiet and unstirred-up, A is going to get bored and come after them and stomp at them like an anthill so they will run around and wreck shop like usual. One might think that the amazing fashion show debacle might have calmed A down, but if one thought that, one would be ignoring how part of A's whole wonderful thing is how she is totally haphazard and insane.
Liar: "This isn't just about making us look like bitches anymore, is it?"
Liar: "No. It's about how A and the Killer are the same person."
Liar: "For sure?"
Liar: "Um, no. Have you not seen this show before?"
A box of candy arrives from A, with a note thanking Hanna and Emily for moving in together and making it that much more convenient to fuck with them, because they are the weak links in certain ways, because Spencer is engaged 100% with the chaos of her insane mind and Aria is engaged 100% with the full-time project of Being Aria Montgomery.
Hanna: "Pssh. It's not even good candy."
Q: Did you know that her name isn't even Jenna Cavanaugh, but Jenna Marshall? That Toby's dad is Mr. Cavanaugh and obviously Jenna doesn't have the same last name?
A: Honestly, I was not aware of that. But I don't see a compelling reason to stop calling her Jenna Cavanaugh. It's just such a delightful name for Blind Justice. Plus, having different last names makes it easier to remember that they're not actually related, which inhibits the wild hilarity of Jenna's ongoing coercion and rape of her brother.
THE FAST & THE FURIOUS: MONTGOMERY DRIFT
Ella & Byron: "Let's throw a party and pretend we're a family! What a perfect way to show everybody how dangerously dysfunctional we are!"
Mike, rushing out: "I'm going to steal a gun and kill everybody in this family, okay?"
Ella & Byron: "I worry that he is not eating a nutritionally healthy breakfast."
Aria: "Which of these age-inappropriate outfits should I wear to your house party of grown-up intellectuals? Keep in mind that my delusions of precocity will put me front and center for any conversation you attempt to have."
Ella: "You look great in everything, because you're so gorgeous. Which is saying a lot, because you normally dress like something from The Dark Crystal."
True, true and true.
Ella: "It's so funny how all of our grownup friends have names that sound made-up, like they are in Witness Protection."
Byron: "In addition to the Sleestaks, the Wolfriders and Hugo Glen Coco, I'm thinking of inviting Ezra Fitz. Since he's not teaching Aria anymore it's not a conflict of interest to have him at the house... Like we've already done dozens of times."
Aria: "Ezra who? Oh, right. Kinda done with that."
Ella & Byron: "We'll tell him to bring a date! Male or female. Or child."
Aria: "...I cannot wait to invite Jason to this party in a hot second."
THE INVINCIBLE MARIN KITCHEN
Emily: "Man, I love cooking."
Hanna: "Man, I have a complicated relationship with food."
Emily, verbatim/awesome: "My Mom always says not to wait until you're leaving to say thank you."
Hanna: "How's your mom doing?"
Emily: "Being with the male head of her household has done wonders for her sense of existence. She was fading away like an unwatered ficus but now, thanks to the magic powers of his patriarchal phallus, she has sprung to new and vibrant life."
Hanna: "Emily, you seem discomfited. Are you by any chance being secretly poisoned with botulism? Have you been tested for Diseases?"
HASTINGS PUDDING SOCIETY
Spencer is dressed like Stephanie from Newhart, in a one-piece knit dress -- fuchsia and black stripes, thanks for asking -- and big gold belt. She looks like the receptionist for a tanning spa that is actually a front for sex workers.
Spencer: "Dad, here's what you're going to do. Hire Toby, the untested and monumentally creepy underage dude door, to raze the Barn of Death and create a water feature or something in the backyard."
Peter, for no reason: "Okay."
BETTER THAN EZRIA
Aria: "You best not come to this party tonight."
Ezra: "Um, you keep dicking me around about meeting your parents. Also, this is about my career and has nothing to do with you."
Aria: "Well, you better not bring a date. Ha! Now it's about me."
Ezra: "I live in a fantasy land where your parents won't put me in jail for even looking at you. I can't wait to finally declare our love in public and not just abandoned parking lots."
Aria: "Speaking of lot lizards, I'm sort of into Jason DiLaurentis now."
HANNA TAKES THE STARES
Emily: "God, this poison that is slowly killing me makes it really hard to concentrate."
Hanna: "I just want you to know that you shouldn't even consider yourself a guest; you're more like family."
Caleb: "Ah, the old 'you're like family' speech. Just wait until she finds out you're spying on her for a blind girl and see how far that shit goes."
Hanna: "Speaking of your cybermagical powers, now that we're dating you need to stop hacking people's phones."
Caleb: "Your paternalism irks me even more than before, because I am officially homeless. I can take care of myself! Almost."
Mysterious Person Who Drives KITT Apparently: Stakes out the school's front elevation creepily.
AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT
In an awesome touch, Mikey's home computer, as mentioned in the recaplet, has a rearview mirror from like a Saturn attached to it, through which this conversation takes place. It has been altered to say PARENTS In The Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.
Byron: "Mike, you have to come to this total drag of a party, okay?"
Mike: "I'm going to be stealing mortar shells and napalm from area survivalists for when I blow up the school, but thanks for the invite."
Byron, getting weirdly intense: "Mike, I'm serious. Come to this party or I will devastate your already weak grasp on reality."
Mike, ditto: "Sometimes our family dog tells me to cut off your face and wear it over my face and step through a door of flesh into a new world of complete order and blessed silence."
Byron: "This party is very goddamned important to your mother, Michael."
Theories on Mirror Thing: Maybe it's heartwarming, and Byron loves Mike more than it seems like right now. Maybe it's foreshadowing how Ella and Ashley are getting closer to intuiting the existence of A, and thus in terrible danger just like Therapy Anne and her brown Tory Burches. Maybe it symbolizes that Mike is going to kill everybody in Rosewood and then drive away from their smoking corpses while blaring the Cardigans' "The Boys Are Back In Town." Maybe just like everybody else on this show, Mike is about to get molested by somebody's father.
MAYBE ALL OF THE ABOVE
Spencer: (Jumps out of the woods and into Toby's pants, startling him.)
Toby: "Can I just have a grilled-cheese sandwich instead? Being an emancipated minor who's afraid to go home can be kind of exhausting."
Spencer: "What about this Units dress from 1982 is not turning you on? Look, it turns into overalls with one simple gesture."
Peter: "Oh, I'll give you a grilled-cheese sandwich. Of Menace!"
Spencer: "Now it's culottes! And a matching pink-and-black headband!"
Peter: "Can I see your architectural drawings of how you will landscape our home?"
Spencer: "Now it's a sports bra with matching midi-skirt!"
Peter: "Toby, these landscaper drawings are absurdly complex. I'm impressed enough to overlook the fact that you are a high school dropout and choose to believe that you have an advanced degree in landscaping design. Thanks!"
Spencer, tangled all up in her shit: "Somebody help me out of my predicament!"
COUGAR TOWN HALL MEETING
Aria: "Jason, why are you having a meeting with my mother in my English class? And why are you trying to stare a hole in my face?"
Jason: "I was here offering to help the school guidance counselor talk to kids about the dangers of drugs. I don't know if I've mentioned this ever on this show, but I used to smoke marijuana. If I can keep even one kid from murdering his sister and then getting amnesia, it will be worth it."
Ella: "Hey Jason, Mr. Montgomery and I are having an ill-advised party and apparently we're inviting whoever the fuck appears in front of our faces. Interested?"
Aria: "Why on Earth..."
Ella: "I'm the only person on this show that ever makes sense, don't question me. Jason's been through some tough times, and I know you wrote a pretentious apology note to his mother about the Satanic ritual you accidentally threw for her daughter last week. I thought, why not continue the trend by inviting him to this party full of college professors that will be sure to make his aimless junkie-ass feel great about himself."
Aria: "If this was all about me, I would feel really awkward right about now..."
Ella: "Oh, and your dad says you have to start calling Ezra by his first name."
Aria: "...There it is."
SNAPSHOT: LIFE WITH HANNA
Hanna: "WHERE ARE MY KEYS I LOST MY PHONE PHONE"
Emily: "Could you stop screaming for one second and let me do homework? It's really hard because I'm being slowly poisoned to death."
Hanna: "DJ TURN IT UP UP UP UP UP UP UP UP UP UP UP UP"
Emily: "Bitch I need you to chill down. You've been doing homework wrong this whole time."
Hanna: "BOYS WHO DO GIRLS LIKE THEY'RE BOYS THAT LIKE GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS THAT ARE GIRLS WHO DO GIRLS LIKE THEY'RE BOYS"
Emily: "Hanna, for real. You're killing me. That, and this botulism."
Hanna: "Let's make a dance video*! Instead of homework!"
Emily: "Let's talk about your supersketch boyfriend, the homeless werewolf."
Hanna: "Girl, you ain't my therapy! Shit."
* When I was a little kid, the only games I ever wanted to play were "War Tribunal" and "Fashion Shoot."
I think that about sums it up, don't you?
EVERY NIGHT'S A SLEEPOVER
...Is how Emily characterizes her time at the Marin's. To be fair, she was warned. Aria notes that Emily is looking slowly poisoned and maybe ungrateful, and Emily assures us that she's totally grateful.
Spencer, in a weird girl voice: "Heeeeeey have you checked in with Garrett yet?"
Emily & Aria: "You're the one that should do that. You're so level-headed and friendly, and you're never frighteningly intense."
Aria: "In other news, all my boyfriends are coming to my house for no reason at all."
Garrett: "Spencer, stop trying to figure out where Logan Reed went. You'll uncover my fucked up conspiracy with the blind girl."
Spencer: "What I think you're saying is that I have to keep looking for him. Because he killed Alison."
Garrett: "...The fuck? Logan Reed barely exists. I hardly think he's the lynchpin of this murder. Which, by the way, you have now solved seven times."
Spencer: "All I know for sure is, Ian did not kill Ali. Now I think it's my dad or Jason DiLaurentis or you or Wayne Gretzky or somebody. Whoever's left."
Garrett: "Whatever keeps you outta my hair, you loon."
PRETTY LITTLE MOMMIES
I'm so sure, first of all, that Ella and Ashley are going to get together in the early afternoon for some day-drinking and amateur detective work. However, out of all the adults on this entire show, they're the only ones I can see actually hanging out. Maybe Spencer's dad and Paige's dad, but only for rough sex or golf or something.
Moms: "Man, it's not like when we were in high school. Bitches used to just say you were 'frigid,' or 'easy,' but now it's like, they run over you with cars and shove you out of clock towers and stage elaborate sinister fashion shows."
Moms: "It's this internet. It's this cyberbullying is what it is."
Moms: "And have you heard about meantweets? They're just like regular tweets, but they're so mean."
Ella: "As the only parent who would actually put this pattern together, and the parent of someone who is about to go batshit crazy, I've been thinking about this. And then you're the only other intelligent person, so I thought you might confirm whether I'm paranoid."
Ashley: "Oh, I don't think you're paranoid. But I mean, I keep my money in my lasagna, so..."
Ella: "More wine, please. I have to go to my wine party in an hour."
Ashley: "My life is a wine party."
Ella: "Maybe the whole therapy and splitting-them-up thing was a bad call."
Ashley: "Peter Hastings is evil. Just putting that out there."
Ella: "Cool, I'm not going to react or respond to that info. Should we talk to the other mommies?"
Ashley: "Um, Pam Fields is resilient and caring and a lot of admirable things, but she also sucks her husband's gym socks. And then you got the Hastingses..."
Ella: "Don't go there, girl!"
(They chortle about how fucked up the Hastings family is.)
Ashley: "Hahaha! But seriously, somebody is trying to murder our daughters right in front of us."
BARNYARD OF DOOM
Spencer's Dad: (Jumps out of the woods and into Toby's pants, startling him.)
Toby: "Hey, I just found this buried piece of a hockey stick covered in blood, isn't that interesting?"
Peter: "No, it's not interesting."
Toby: "But it says HASTINGS on it. Like how your last name is also that."
Peter: "I didn't give you permission to read the murder weapons on my property, Cavanaugh. Don't make me regret giving you this job."
Toby: "But a girl died in your yard, of blunt force trauma..."
Peter: "Your hair has become so alarmingly large that I think it's affecting your judgment."
Dear Toby's Hair: There is no trick you can do that's going to balance out or distract from the Ongoing Surprise Party that is Toby's Face. Stop trying to compensate and just let us enjoy it for what it is.
THE MOST BORING PARTY OF LIFE
Aria: "Mrs. Sleestak, I am an accomplished babysitter, you should hire me!"
The Curiously Familiar-Looking Mrs. Dr. Sleestak: "[Tone-deaf joke about a background check that's meant to convey her strong feelings for her baby but really just foregrounds how the Montgomerys should be pariahs.]"
Laughter: Forced
Dr. Wolfrider: "Hey, where's your less off-putting child?"
Ella & Byron: "Mikey? Oh, he's become quite a horror lately. We joke that we should have killed him as a kitten! Just kidding. Frankly, we're pretty sure he's going to murder all of us in our beds. More Pinot?"
Ezra: "Professor Montgomery, hello..."
Byron: "Ezra, just call me Magister."
Ezra: "Okay, Magister. I brought you the gross cheap scotch that you like. How did I find that out? I asked the local liquor store owner and he immediately knew which one to give me. What that means is that you are an alcoholic, okay?"
Aria: "Oh no, Jason's arrived! Ezra, don't pay any attention to Jason! Jason, don't pay any attention to Ezra! It's so awkward right now! You guys, isn't it so awkward?! Stop fighting over me! God, this is so weird! Isn't it so weird? I said, 'ISN'T THIS SO WEIRD YOU GUYS?'"
MORE LIKE PENALTY FOX, AM I RIGHT?
Spencer: "A hockey stick?"
Toby: "Yeah. It was all splintered and bloody and weird, like a murder weapon, and then your dad ran off with it like a Labrador."
Spencer: "It's a family trait. We fucking love evidence, what can I say."
Toby: "Oh, and your name was written on it. I probably should have mentioned that upfront."
Flashback Spencer: "Fine, I'll teach you to play field hockey but that doesn't mean I'm your lesbian girlfriend."
Flashback Alison: "Never said you were."
Flashback Spencer: "Because that's the only reason you'd be into this. You're not a frightening thoroughbred like my sister and I. Clearly this is some creepy bisexual scam or plot."
Flashback Alison: "She sounds like she's onto something, doesn't she Emily?"
Flashback Emily: (Crawls inside her own shirt and refuses to deal.)
Spencer: "Aria, do you remember that inconsequential conversation we had two years ago about field hockey?"
Aria: "How on earth do you expect me to remember that when every single episode we misplace entire plotpoints and objects and forget them entirely."
Spencer: "Remember, though? You were wearing that giant pink bow as big as your head?"
Aria: "That's right! Attached to one thigh, gotcha. Yeah, I totally remember... Wait, you're not saying that's the same hockey stick with your name on it that was found in the same yard as that flashback, are you?"
Spencer: "Girl, this is crazy! What is the likelihood of my stuff with my name on it being at my house?"
Aria: "I'd love to join you on this short jaunt into crazy, but all my boyfriends are at my house with my parents and it's getting soo awkward, you wouldn't believe it, I'm like the main character of some movie about a beautiful, precocious girl with 1,000 boyfr..."
Spencer: "-- Just do your flashback already. Jesus."
Flashback Jason: "Alison, put down that hockey stick."
Flashback Alison: "You put down that hockeystick. In your stupid butt."
Flashback Jason: "Stop being a jerk and go see what Mom wants."
Flashback Alison: "You stop being a jerk. You go look up Mom's stupid butt."
Flashback Jason: "Alison, I don't want to hurt you but I will. I will murder you and then so help me God I'll get amnesia about it."
Flashback Alison: "You murder me with this hockey stick and then get amnesia about it. Amnesia of the butt!"
They rake each other's identical faces bloody with their long scary nails and throw each other into walls and down abandoned wells and chimneys and they come at each other with 2x4s that have rusty nails sticking out of them and poison each other with botulism and the whole time, the whole time, the Liars are just watching this shit go down with a sanguinity that is more chilling than the violence itself.
Flashback Jason: Murders his sister and gets amnesia about it.
Murdered Alison: Immediately starts sending mean texts. A tradition which continues to the present day.
Aria: "I'm fairly certain somebody killed Alison, possibly Jason. They certainly wanted to kill each other in a real way we saw and noted was extremely unacceptable."
Spencer: "It was Jason! I am going to fucking kill him."
Aria: "Or it could have been Ian."
Spencer: "Or not!"
Aria: "Update me on the status of the fence Toby's building in your yard."
Spencer: "Work continues apace."
GORGEOUS MARIN KITCHEN: VERBATIM
Hanna: "Em, you don't have to go to the library. It won't bother me if you study here!"
Emily: "All due respect, studying here is like studying at the mall."
Hanna: "I study at the mall all the time!"
Emily: "Yeah, well. I'm different."
Hanna, whispering: "Is this a gay thing?"
Emily, actually having fucking had it by this point: "No, it's a brain thing."
Hanna and Caleb make out and laugh about how dumb and gay dumb gay Emily is for being able to read.
THAT KIND OF PARTY
Everybody politely pretends to give a shit what Ezra's been up to.
Byron: "So, why did you pick Ireland?"
Ezra: "I love Joyce and Beckett, I wanted to see where they started."
Byron: "What a horrible fucking thing to say to a person. Have you met my pretentious daughter?"
Jason: "I also ride bikes. I rode mine in Hawaii. See, I don't know if I've mentioned it in the last three milliseconds, but I used to be an addict of this drug called marijuana. So I went to Hawaii, where there are no potheads, and I rode my bike in circles until I became the fascinating person that I am now."
Aria: "Was that the doorbell? But all my boyfriends are already here..."
NOEL KAHN! NOEL KAHN! NOEL KAHN! NOEL KAHN! NOEL KAHN!
Cops: "Hey Aria, we found your little brother stockpiling weaponry in an attempt to kill our entire fucking town. Are you parents home?"
Ella & Byron: "Officers, thanks for coming to our party!"
Cops: "Montgomerys, your son was discovered in front a shrine with about sixty candles in front of it, praying urgently to what he calls the God of Destruction for a swift and vast blackness to consume your family and then our town."
Ella & Byron: "And you should see his Geography grades from this six weeks!"
Aria, grabbing her moment: "Showtime, Pretentiousness!"
Ella & Byron: "Aria, as the most precocious twit that ever lived, do you think you can host this party of your father's tenured coworkers and your many boyfriends?"
Aria: "It's what I was born to do. Take your time."
Ella & Byron: "It shouldn't take too long. We'll get him from the police station, take him out for ice cream, and then your dad will get suddenly and disturbingly violent with him, and we'll be right back. Don't start the party games without us!"
PETER & TOBY, PART II
Peter, once again jumping out of the darkness: "Hey Toby, sorry about how I was totally scary and freakish w/r/t to the hockey stick."
Ibid.: "[One hundred lies.]"
Toby: "I am Toby Cavanaugh. I scarcely noticed your behavior was even odd, until you said that."
Peter: "You didn't tell Spencer about the hockey stick, did you?"
Toby: "Tell my girlfriend that her dad forcibly took a murder weapon away from me in her own yard? Why would I do that?"
Peter: "Did she freak out on you or act like somebody who killed her best friend and then forgot about it?"
Toby: "I mean, she acted like Spencer..."
MONTGOMERY AFTERMATH
Ezra & Jason: "Wow, the party sure emptied out fast once your mortified parents had to leave because their child was in jail."
Aria: "It's their fault for attempting to have lives. Now, I was just about to show you my performance art dance piece Two Feathers For The Fallen, which if you recall was a protest piece regarding our country's treatment of..."
Ezra & Jason: (Begin edging toward the door.)
Aria: "It's just so weird that Mike is still breaking and entering, when just last week he was snarling at me that he'd stop with the robbery as soon as he'd finally assembled his throne of human bones."
Jason: "Um, Aria, doesn't any of this shit concern you?"
Aria: "Now that you mention it, this probably is about me. It's because our parents love me more than him, probably."
Ezra: "Oh my God, Aria's talking to a guy that's just a little too much older than her. Son of a bitch! We're about to have a pedophile throwdown, Prettyboy."
THE MONTGOMERY HOME AWAY FROM HOME, I.E., ROSEWOOD PD
Mikey: "Don't even try with me, Parent Robots! I am too far gone. Into a starless black whirl. What used to be my thoughts is now just a rancid whooshing sound."
Byron: "Boy, I will take this frightening issue with authority and bend it all the way around your head like a steel I-beam until you go on a violent killing spree! Don't push me!"
Ella: "Byron. Pull your shit together."
Byron: "I'm a white male Baby Boomer! I hate nothing more than young men who don't obey me!"
Ella: "Simmer down, bud. Ask yourself how we missed this one. Being such selfless, observant parents and all."
Byron, verbatim: "Well, he's not a criminal [?], so it's gotta be about something else."
Ella, verbatim: "What could he possibly be walking around with that he couldn't talk to us about?"
Grenades? Molotov cocktails? Dufflebags full of plastic explosives? You dumbasses.
AWKWARD PARTY
Jason: "So, I see you're old and delicate of frame."
Ezra: "You look like a girl."
Jason: "Did you have Aria?"
Ezra: "WHAT?"
Jason: "In any of your classes, I mean."
Ezra: "All of them. Every classroom. Every desk of every classroom."
Aria: "I probably shouldn't have left my two boyfriends downstairs to drink and stare burns into each other's faces, but I just had this sudden need to go through my brother's weaponry items."
She finds the pottery thing that Jenna made the time that Aria learned it was possible to break a blind girl's heart more than once.
Aria: "Guys, you have to leave. This shit just got bigger than all of us. Mike's been stealing decorative housewares."
Jason & Ezra: "Hmm? Make sense."
Aria: "Uh, did you not hear me? Ceramic candleholder, made to revolve and represent the movement of light on water. Isn't that troubling? I found it under a ten-inch serrated blade crusted with dry brown blood, and a necklace of human ears that I'm probably going to wear to school Monday. Y'all gotta vamoose, so I can once again awkwardly and inappropriately attempt to parent my brother! Who is like, a year my junior!"
Jason & Ezra: "You mean him, right? Not me?"
Aria: "Stop fighting over me, you guys! I mean it!"
Jason & Ezra: "We were just asking, dude."
Aria: "Stop, I'm blushing! Come on, you guys! Act like gentlemen!"
Jason & Ezra: "Oooookaaaaaay, fuck it. Later."
They both try to work her and be like, "Not me, right?" and it's so funny, and the scene is so beautifully done because they don't know about the other one and it doesn't even matter because she's got real shit going on, like, it continues out onto the porch and they're both still trying to be the one that lingers last so Aria can run out like hissing at him. It's amazing, well-acted, and the jewel in the crown of this episode as far as I'm concerned.
MARIN HOUSE OF GETTING REAL
Caleb: "It is so hard for a hacker-grifter in these troubled times."
Hanna: "I have a huge moral issue with you unlocking phones, this episode."
Caleb: "I still don't get that, and it pisses me off, but in any case you should see what I used to do. It was way less legit."
Hanna: "And what was that?"
Caleb: "I can't tell you."
Hanna: "That's not how you get laid, sir."
Caleb: "..."
Hanna, verbatim: "So, where do you come down on the whole natural versus synthetic extensions debate? I mean, does affordability and easy maintenance really outweigh the look and feel of real human hair?"
Caleb: "As if I don't spend twice as long on my hair as you do. But fine, here's the truth. I used to fight in underground cage matches for nihilists and those who had seen it all. Two men enter, one man leaves. I fought Rottweilers, Australians, a flock of endangered jungle parrots. I fought Betty White once, on her 116th birthday, and I barely survived. Once they put me in a giant blender with just the contents of a junkdrawer, which is where I got that scar you noticed that time we did it in the woods. Once I killed a bitchy blonde girl with a hockey stick, and got amnesia. The things I have seen, Hanna."
(Okay, what he actually said was: Actual bad guys in Allentown PA, for whom he hacked into the DMV and "laundered" VIN numbers. And I got so confused trying to figure out what the fuck he was talking about, is that a real phrase, can you really "launder" a VIN number, wouldn't you use another word for that idea, that I just lost track and created the vastly superior Fight Club concept.)
FIRESIDE THEATRE
Spencer, spotting her dad burning the hockey stick, gives him a very firm and beautifully delivered, simple "No."
Dad: "Spencer, go upstairs and let me burn this murder weapon in peace."
Spencer: "I am so OCD about this, you're killing my soul!"
Dad: "Spencer, trust me."
Spencer: Climbs all over his body like a fevered five-year-old who wants one more goddamn popsicle.
Dad: "Spencer, I am cleaning up messes from other messes that I didn't quite clean up. Everything you do creates more bullshit and scarier stuff, and I can't tell you about any of it."
Spencer: "[One unceasing high-pitched scream.]"
Dad: "I'm going to level with you. However obviously this makes it look like you or Melissa murdered Alison and then forgot you did it, this is really about keeping you from going nuts on this new piece of evidence like you always do."
Spencer: "You mean like I'm always right about!"
Dad: "Oh, like that trophy that was covered in the blood of a rat named Spencer?"
Spencer: "That was one time!"
Dad: "Either way, this is happening for two reasons. You are crazy, and I am spooky. Go back to bed."
She acts like he's just put her puppy in the fireplace, rather than a hockey stick, goes running up and down the stairs wailing, cuts off all her hair, puts out cigarettes on her skin, does cartwheels through traffic. (Actually, this scene is incredibly well-acted and I am even more excited about Creepy Mr. Hastings because they're so good together. Like you really feel alongside her that burning this hockey stick equals killing Alison all over again. Second best scene.)
Toby: "Sorry. I told him you wouldn't care about the hockey stick."
Spencer: "...Yeah, I think the jig is up on that one."
Spencer: "I thought for a sec that he thought I killed Alison..."
Toby, and also the music: "DON'T BE RIDICULOUS. THAT IS RIDICULOUS."
Spencer: "Let's review every detail of Alison's death and cry about how my dad thinks I'm a drama queen."
Toby: "Fuck Tha Police, also. They will dick you around, trust me."
THOSE MARAUDIN' MARIN MISFITS
Emily: "That's so interesting about Caleb being in that werewolf Fight Club. I guess he must really love you."
Hanna: "Is that what that means? I just thought it was a vast overcorrection for the fact that he'd been 100% woobified. I like your one better."
Tom & Ashley, coming home drunk at all hours: "It's so much fun fucking since we're not married anymore! And I'm glad no children live here that might be traumatized by what we're about to do all over the place!"
Emily: "Your house is ... Not like my house."
Hanna: "Great, right?"
Emily: "I mean, I'm guessing I could carry on an affair with like a Douglas Fir and your mom wouldn't notice, whereas my mother can psychically tell if I even think about boobs. On the other hand..."
Hanna: "-- Listen! They're doing it on the stairs! It's just like Christmas! Everything is going to be okay!"
Emily: "...Um. Can I borrow your iPod? And your night mask? And some of that Rosewood Amnesia that's going around?"
MIKE MONTGOMERY, MINOR MISCREANT
Aria: "Mike, you said you were going to stop robbing houses of their weaponry and decorative accents."
Mike: "The holy conflagration of my rage has only begun."
Aria: "You punched me in the boob! You stole sleeping bags!"
Mike: "Your boob asked for it! And I like sleeping!"
Aria, verbatim: "You stole from a blind girl!"
Mike: "No, from her boyfriend the cop. Along with a camera and GPS system that will provide you with clues in an upcoming episode, presumably. See, I was in there looking for a gun so I could take you out in your bed, followed by our parents, one night very soon, and..."
Aria: "-- Hold that thought. I have to call my best friend about the origin of this knickknack."
Spencer: "God, I love driving around with you getting absolutely nothing done, Garrett. It's almost like I'm a real cop!"
Garrett: "Fortunately for everyone, you will never be a real cop because your rap sheet is longer than everybody in the contiguous US besides Charlie Manson."
Spencer: "That dude? Amateur."
Mike Montgomery: "Oh, you're telling me."
Aria: "Spencer, I hope you're not hanging out with Garrett Reynolds, because he killed Alison and is fucking your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend/sister."
Spencer: "Garrett, can you take me home? All this terrified staring I'm doing has really tuckered me out. And apparently you're A or something."
Garrett peels back the zipper on his head to reveal a clown's face. No, a hockey stick. No, a decorative candleholder.
...THE END?
A-Tag: A puts some kind of Emily-killing poison into Emily's shit, slowly poisoning her and more importantly leaching away her ability to deal with Hanna's ten miles of bullshit all the time.
week: Spencer bludgeons Garrett to death with whatever's handy in a cop car, but immediately forgets she did that. Hanna walks in on her parents doing it, Emily walks in on Hanna and Caleb doing it, Pam somehow psychically knows when Emily and Samara are doing it, everybody is doing it. Jason and Ezra get some complex stuff going on between them, but when Aria walks in on them doing it, she assumes they're fighting over her and runs off to sulk and wait for them to chase her, and they never do, and she ends up starving to death waiting for this moment, under the stairs or wherever.
Emily loses her vision for a short time, thanks to being poisoned; she tries to make pottery friends with Jenna but Jenna calls her a wannabe hipster who's just going blind to seem cool. Mike Montgomery blows absolutely everybody to Hell and everybody loses their office pool because 80% of everybody assumed it would be Lucas that ended up gunning everybody down and the rest assumed it would be Mona Vanderwaal. Including, it must be said, Mona Vanderwaal.