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It's a Father-Daughter Freakout! While normally the idea of any kind of father-daughter dance in Rosewood would have me clutching at my Purity Balls in terror, this one was actually kind of sweet. It's nice to know that a show so honest about the predatory nastiness that surrounds you can balance that out with some positive male images on occasion, if merely to demonstrate that they're technically possible.
Emily's dad, for example, uses his Patriarchy Power of being in the military and talking to other dudes from the military to help her track down Maya's last known location, although that's a dead end since she probably got into a car with A before she ever left for San Francisco. It's a bittersweet reunion, considering he's shipping out again, but it seems left in the air as to where that puts Pam, moving forward.
Or how about Peter Hastings, who paid a PI that $15 grand to track down Alison so that he could prove Melissa didn't kill her? Yeah, turns out she was only one of the people sending Ali threatening texts, which is why Jonah led us to that law firm. Over the course of the episode, Spencer flips over on whether she killed Ali like a dozen times, but who knows. I still don't trust her, not that Peter's hotness is that trustworthy either... All I know is, A stole his gun and he's probably going to jail whenever A kills whoever is going to die.
Even little Mikey Montgomery gets some time in the sun, first advising Aria to drop Fitz and go back to being normal, and then telling Byron to lay off her and try to figure out where things went wrong. Byron, less amazing, although of course Ella and Ashley rock the house as usual. To throw Ashley off A's trail, Hanna lays waste to yet another phone before Mona suggests that Aria simply confess to being A so Ashley will leave it alone. Ashley doesn't buy it, in an actually very surprising twist, and ends up taking her A story to Ella, who knows exactly how scary A can be and warns her to tread lightly... Which, of course, A overhears.
(Oh, and the most amazing part -- beyond Hanna destroying her phone and the dropping the mic on her mom -- is when, during the dance itself, Toby rides up on a motorcycle and then speeds away into the night, sending Spencer's heart atwitter and crushing my Wren dreams anew.)
As everybody deals with the aftermath of yet another horrible town function, Aria gets another call from Jonah: Apparently there were multiple numbers sending Alison threatening texts and emails -- of course there were -- and he's somehow located the origin of a second one: a completely terrifying doll hospital in nearby Brookhaven. As the girls commiserate on how they once used to actually enjoy dolls, Aria puts on the red coat -- transforming into Vivian and summoning new hottie Duncan into the picture.
Two episodes left! In which... Toby is back in Jenna's thrall, with a cute haircut! A is revealed! And Jenna and possibly Hanna are blown up once again! God, I love this show. Of course the second Jenna gets her sight back they're gonna blow her creepy ass up again. And of course Hanna is going to run into a house that's about to explode. Of course those things. I cannot wait!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Mona gave Hanna gave Ashley gave Wilden the police report from the time that Hanna was caught shoplifting and Ashley used her wiles to get her out of it. Vivian Darkbloom's old friend Jonah proved helpful, despite all his efforts to the contrary. Wild suspicion and paranoia once again landed firmly on the Hastings House after Jason's paternity exposed Melissa and/or Peter Hastings as criminals, murderers, or even A herself or himself. Ella tried to pacify Aria with some pipe dreams after she found out Byron was trying to buy him off. Melissa was in Ali's bedroom at that last fateful meeting of the NAT Club, and the young lady of Rosewood to go missing is Miss Maya St. Germain, formerly of the same address and bedroom where Alison herself used to live...
POST-INTERVIEW
Hanna: "So what did the cops say about Maya?"
Emily: "Not much. I just refused to help them in any way and they left. Kind of disappointed-like. I think maybe she ran away."
Hanna: "What makes you think that?"
Emily: "She told me she was going to run away. And they said they found a note that she was running away and a bag of her stuff was gone. The only weird thing is she hasn't answered any of my calls or texts over what seems like the last hundred episodes she's been missing."
Hanna: "Those are the kind of things you might have told the cops."
Emily: "I don't work for those pigs."
Hanna: "Then I hope she calls you, and hasn't been abducted or brutally murdered. Because you would then have been in a position to help and kind of didn't."
Emily: "Name one fucking person who would care if she died. Honestly, to themselves."
Hanna: "Point taken."
BARN CHATS
Melissa: "All I did was ditch you at a gastropub and run off with Garrett while lying about it. Why are you acting so weird?"
Spencer: "BECAUSE YOU ARE SKETCHY AND DID ... WHAT YOU JUST SAID."
Melissa: "Okay, here's the deal. Garrett and I are friends now..."
Spencer: "And also from when you were in that video camera cult together in high school?"
Melissa: "...After my husband chased you through a church and then committed suicide -- a year after fucking and murdering your best friend -- I needed a chum, okay? Maybe I shouldn't have told him everything I know about you and your friends and how you're this incredibly insightful pathologist with the mind of a serial killer who is onto him and has evidence linking him and his ex-girlfriend and my dead husband to the murder..."
Spencer: "Yeah, maybe."
Melissa: "The point is, I think our Dad killed Alison DiLaurentis."
Spencer: "Hold up, what?"
Melissa: "After she died, he was really chill. Like, relieved. And he was being blackmailed by her, you said..."
Spencer: "That's crazy."
Melissa: "I'm not finished. I think it maybe also has something to do with the fact that I was sending her crazy psycho texts and emails all the time. You know, like, threatening her life and whatever."
Spencer: "Uh huh. Did you... um, sign them? Like with any letters of the alphabet?"
Melissa: "She knew who they were from. STAY AWAY FROM IAN BITCH -- I mean, how many people..."
Spencer: "Okay, so now we've got Peter protecting at least three people who maybe killed her, but we all say we didn't kill her, but we all seem like we probably killed her. Oh, and we're all related. Great. He's narrowed it down to His Kids that probably did it."
Melissa: "Or he did it. Which case he wouldn't really need to expend much thought on the subject."
MONTGOMERY
Ella: "So your father is coming home from his conference today..."
Aria: "Don't care."
Ella: "...And he's very excited about the Father/Daughter Dance..."
Aria, verbatim: "Yeah? Well the Father/Daughter Dance is a little more irony than I can handle right now."
Ella: "Maybe you should learn to embrace the irony, because there seems to be a lot of it in our lives."
Valid. But then dumb old Aria starts into some deluded thing about how Ella needs to convince Byron that she's allowed to date Ezra -- when ten times in a single conversation Ella told her to hit the brakes on that whole concept and I'll be damned but I knew at the time that not a single word was sinking in -- and still she's like, "What, you haven't convinced him yet?" Like if only the Montgomerys could be more like the Stoddens.
MARIN
Wilden: "Ashley, I need to bother you some more about your daughter in a vague way!"
Ashley: "I haven't been pursued like this since I cheated with my ex-husband all over this house in front of countless teenagers who live here! Why, I haven't felt this desired since I killed that architect impersonator and buried him in the azealeas for asking too many questions."
Wilden: "I just need to know where that police report, which I destroyed when I extorted sex out of you came from..."
Ashley: "Oh, Hello Hanna! I was just on the phone with... the phone."
Hanna: "I don't pay a lot of attention, so you don't even have to try that negligible amount. Meanwhile, I just got off the phone with my dad, and he's missing the Father/Daughter Dance."
Ashley: "Did he say why?"
Hanna: "He hates me? Business? Something about taking Kate instead? I dunno, he's kind of a non-factor."
Ashley: "Would you like me to take you to the Father/Daughter Dance?"
Hanna: "It's not very often that I am smarter than somebody else, so I'm gonna savor this."
Ashley: "No, I mean everybody's divorced these days, so there will be plenty of non-standard Father/Daughter Couples there. Let's be one."
Oh my God, what if Paige and her Star Trek dad are there? And then Emily's dad and him can get into a fight in their uniforms? While Byron sits in the corner sucking on an olive with that face of his?
Or wait, no, what if Ezra Fitz is there as a chaperone and they play "Father Figure" by George Michael and everybody stands perfectly still -- floor cleared, jaws dropped -- as Aria and Ezra Fitz take the blue-lit stage for their first dance as a public couple? Holy moly. That is the best idea. "Put your tiny hand in mine," he'd lip-synch, and then do that embarrassing nose-scrunch thing Patrick Swayze does at the end of Dirty Dancing that people do when they're lip-synching, the head-banging while biting your lip thing, and oh man. What a shitshow that would be. What a tremendous happening.
SCHOOL
Do Mom & Dad know you're watching murder movies? Bet it would kill them to find out! -- A
Aria: "Is A talking about the NAT video?"
Liars: "No, you half-wit. He or she is talking about literally anything else that exists."
Hanna: "So that's cool that your sister is just going to murder our parents now, just like that."
Spencer: "Okay, I know I've been kind of whiplashy about this, but I'm back to thinking Melissa doesn't have anything to do with this."
Aria: "Uh, I seem to remember an abandoned law firm, and a hobo that took me out."
Spencer: "I mean yeah, she was sending Ali psycho emails and texts, but that's not like surprising."
Spence also points out that A pretending to be texting Melissa from Ian's phone while also setting up his corpse in a sick tableau and leaving it there for weeks while she was pregnant with his child, so like, Melissa-as-A is actually more fucked up than if A really is a ghost ninja.
Liars: "Bottom line, she's sharing information with Garrett, first, and secondly we have a video of four people in Alison's bedroom acting murdery. Meanwhile, they have pictures of us wearing disguises and stealing shit from the Morgue regarding an unsolved* murder case."
Spencer: "Just give me a little time to figure out more of what's up."
*(Officially I think, it's still Ian, right? But Wilden doesn't believe that, and it's obviously not the right answer, so "unsolved.")
HASTINGS
Melissa: "Blah blah I'm on this show sometimes and getting spotted sometimes by other characters because my OB/GYN is here because my first six trimesters were when Ian and I were living in this house and had those boxes everywhere all the time."
Spencer: "Only twelve more trimesters to go. Maybe you should get a doctor clos..."
They spy a jewelry box in the kitchen and she opens it: A little pre-date jewelry gift before the Dance. Ugh, the more you treat it like a date the more like a Purity Ball it becomes, you magnificent creep. God, this is why we don't talk to you. This kind of shit.
Melissa: "Jewelry, huh. Nice way to buy you off, shut you up, bribe you if you will. Nice way to overcompensate for killing your friend. Nice that he just lets his guilt do the talking through jewelry. Loving how he has so much to cov..."
Spencer: "Got it, Melissa. We hate Dad. Rah-rah."
Peter: "You got the necklace!"
Spencer: "Yeah. It freaks me out on multiple levels."
Peter: "Oh, I'm so glad!"
Spencer: "Uh, that's not what I... I gotta go. Later."
WILDEN'S CAR/WALKING MONA
Ashley: "For someone who purports to hate these secret meetings, and your sexy presence, I sure do end up in close quarters with you a lot."
Wilden: "I wish you would marry me, because we are both crazy hot. I also wish you would steal Hanna's phone and give it to me, so that I can protect us all from A. Who I probably still think is Hanna."
Ashley: "Hanna's privacy is in sort of a no-bending-only-breaking place with me right now..."
Wilden: "Hope your Mother Of The Year Award brings you comfort when all three of us are broiling on a rotisserie in Hell. This A don't play."
Thanks for meeting me here. I don't want these conversations to be overheard any more than you do. Do you have something? A request. I already told you. I've tried talking to Hanna. She's not giving anything up. But her phone will. You want her phone. I need to know who she's been talking to. Whom she's been texting. Whoever gave her that report is in Hanna's world. She's probably talked to them, and she's definitely talked to her friends about them. I don't think I could do that. Well, think about it again, Ashley. 'Cause if we want answers, then you need to get me that phone.
Caleb's back in Montecito, matriculating cyberwolfishly at any damn institution strikes his fancy. Updates! Meanwhile, Mona has not heard from A, beyond that message-by-apple, but is still paying for her shoplifting with community service. And it has not dulled her tongue, no sir, to wit:
"This community service gig is like the ninth circle of Hell! Today I went from the soup kitchen to the senior center. Shopping carts to walkers. What's , driving the short bus?"
...Wow, Mona. Even Hanna is like, "Whoa." But then Mona -- eerily echoing Alison, long before the Montgomerys ever took their sabbatical abroad -- spots Hanna's mom in a compromising position...
MARIN
Ashley: "Hanna! I was just having some wine. It's been a day."
Hanna: "WHY? Why were you in Wilden's car? Were you necking?"
Ashley: "...'Necking'?"br>Hanna: "That's what old people do instead of hooking up, right? Necking?"
Ashley: "No, we have a complicated system of colored bracelets that we use as sexual currency. But no, I was not hooking up with Wilden. We were having a secret meeting about whether or not I should spy on you, my own daughter."
Hanna: "You're right to be concerned, and apparently I can't stop you getting up in my business, but my problem with you at this precise moment is that it was Wilden. He is bad news, Mom! He is the kind of guy who will use his position of authority to extort sex from a girl's mother! For a misdemeanor!"
Ashley: "Takes two to tango, my sweet. It's not like it was his idea."
Hanna: "Uh, but it totally was his idea to throw us all in jail for finding a shovel!"
Ashley: "Yeah, he's pretty obsessed with you. Hence why he makes the perfect ally."
MONTGOMERY
Aria: "Mikey, you're shaving!"
Mikey: "Yeah, I didn't want Dad to know because then he would climb up my butt and pretend to be a father and it's been so horrible watching him do that with you."
Aria: "Yeah, he's pretty revolting. Taking pictures and making memories and being sodden about it."
Mikey: "Remember when you got your period and Byron was all, bought you that rose and told you that you were a wom..."
Aria: "-- Yeah, Mikey. Our dad is to vom."
Mikey: "Anyway, I'm going to DJ at the Father/Daughter Dance. Gavin says it's a great idea, and when I asked him what he meant he just shook his head at me like I'm never going to grow up. Anyway, I'm going. Are you going? You should go."
Aria: "Well, since you said so."
Mikey: "On another topic, since you're doing whatever I say today, I think you should break up with Ezra Fitz. It kind of ruins everything, every part and aspect of what should be a really fun time in your life. Also, for everybody else. Also, it's disgusting. And I think maybe Dad would calm down about protecting your virtue if, you know, you didn't just balls-out keep asking them to be cool with you fucking an adult. Even one as immature and bizarrely self-contained as you are."
Aria, verbatim: "Look, when you love someone, it's worth fighting for! No matter what the odds."
Mikey: "That bullshit right there? Exhibit A, my friend."
FIELDS
Emily: "Dad, I'm so happy you're here for the Father/Daughter Dance! I just wish Mom was here too, for the Mother/Daughter Guilt Trip."
Dad: "I have some awful shit to tell you, but I'm going to spring that on you at a much less convenient time. For now, tell me all about how your girlfriend Maya is gone and missing and dead and is never ever coming back to this show."
Emily: "I wouldn't go that far."
Emily: "What I didn't tell the cops when they asked me is... any of the facts I know relating to her disappearance."
Dad: "That sounds like a smart idea. Go on."
Emily: "I'm pretty sure she ran away to San Francisco."
Dad: "How come?"
Emily: "She told me she was going to run away to San Francisco."
Dad: "I see."
Dad: "Well, I'm guessing she took the Greyhound, and that she'll be staying in a YMCA when she arrives."
Emily: "What makes you say that?"
Dad: "I was a teen runaway once too. I was quote 'lost' in high school. And very, very gay."
HASTINGS
Peter: "Have you noticed your sister is a total bitch? Anyway, want to come to the Country Club and do some Country Club things there?"
Spencer: "I have to study. Thanks for trying to buy my affection with shiny jewelry, though. Sets a real healthy precedent."
Peter: "For our date tonight, I made reservations at your favorite restaurant!"
Spencer: "I just wish I had a mother. How long are you going to be gone?"
Peter: "Just about long enough for you to rifle through my office, skipping the locked drawer but locating a check stub made out to CASH from around the time of Alison's death in the amount of $15 grand."
Moments later...
Melissa: "Spencer, what are you doing tossing Dad's office like some kind of gumshoe?"
Spencer: "Needed a stamp. For mailing something on a piece of paper, like people still do in real life."
Melissa: "I carry those in my purse, as a curiosity..."
Spencer: "Nope, found one! Right to the VHS machine and a slide rule."
GREYHOUND
Emily: "Excuse me, crotchety desk assistant?"
CDE: "What do you want? I have seven jobs!"
Emily: "Could you look at this annoying picture of my girlfriend making this one face?"
CDE: "I only get five minutes for lunch! People are constantly arriving in and leaving Rosewood PA! As you may have noticed!"
Emily: "Fine, old man."
Emily's Dad suddenly lights up with like his chest thrown out and an American flag waving behind him and over his head it says HERO OF THE BEACH and there's a sound of a blue-blooded American choir and the guy just somehow knows.
CDE: "Fellow penis-owning member of the Armed Forces, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
Dad: "This inconsequential little girl is under my protection, and therefore her interests are my own."
CDE: "Oh, little girl, I had no idea you were here with a man. Your concerns are now valid!"
Emily: "Whatever -- do you know where this girl is?"
CDE: "I don't really notice women except as breeding stock, but that one was notably infirm. She bought a ticket for San Francisco, yes... but then, as I recall, she went out to talk to somebody in a dark-colored car. Blue or black. And then I never saw her again. So I guess maybe she was kidnapped. Ah well. Women are just property anyway."
Dad: "Thank you, Citizen. And thank you for your service to our country in some war or something."
CDE: "Aw, my lunch is up. And I was going to take my meds, too... Ah, well. It was worth it just to serve a healthy younger member of the military in any capacity."
Emily: "Oh, and I'm the gay one? Men! Are! Weird!"
MONTGOMERY
Byron: "That dress looks nice!"
Aria: "Great, you're home."
Byron: "Picking out clothes for tonight?"
Aria: "Yeah, contrary to what you may believe I was actually planning on wearing some."
Byron: "Well, what do you think I should wear?"
Aria: "I don't need a father for this dance. Just a father figure."
(Fitz's ears perk up, miles away.)
Byron: "You're my little girl, et cetera."
(Ella lurks, listens, focuses her will on Aria acting cool for like five seconds... there it is.)
Aria: "Whatever. You can take me to the dance, fine. We'll all probably be dead by morning anyway."
MAYA
Calls, but old Emily is a lot slower now that the swim season's over and she's off the HGH, so she misses the call. She immediately calls back -- the digits of Maya's number now just a faint memory -- but of course it's still the full voice mailbox. As thrilling as this whole subplot is (and it could be if her ass is actually missing and this isn't one of those Rosewood Amnesia things) it's still preferable to actually dealing with her. You know who I miss? Paige is plenty exciting, but I don't really go for exciting.I miss Samara. Good old lesbian-networking, earring-selling, self-esteem raising, boring-ass old Samara.
MARIN
Ashley makes one game try for the phone, before the dance, but Hanna's onto her and still pissed about Wilden, so when Ashley gets hardcore about it, Hanna tosses her phone in with the soapy wet dishes, and then drops the mic, impressively. For all the world like a snotty teenage daughter in a leather jacket, but we know and she knows -- Ashley might even know -- that it's a costume she's putting on while she's terrified about her mother's constant self-endangerment.
Hanna, verbatim: "I'm outta here."
FIELDS
Emily & Dad: (Long talk about Maya, Pam, he's shipping back to Afghanistan, whatever. I mean, they're great together, and I'm sure lots of kids watching have been through this and she's a very compelling actor, but I don't know that there's much to say. The scene exists because it's the scene that logically goes here, and it goes here because this is a Father/Daughter Dance and Emily's relationship with her dad is equally complex, but much kinder, than the other three can claim.)
"Everybody Wants To Rule The World" comes on DJ Mikey's schizoid playlist at this point, which I thought was interesting, given the setup of this episode, for this reason mainly: Everybody does. And half the shit that we pull on each other, half the stuff that men -- on this show or off -- is about making sure that they do. But that's because the real fear, and the truth, is the opposite. The only way men can prove they run things is to force women to let them run things. Which means that men don't run the world at all. Which is not the same as having power or a voice, but I do think it's important to remember in the same way what Noel said at the lock-in was important, that Men are not a monolithic terrifying entity out to victimize you -- you are not a victim -- because sexism is not a person.
It is a force, engineered since the beginning of humanity and continually fine-tuned, and it pushes down on all of us equally, just like bullying. And just like with bullying, the differences between us in this system come in the form of the privileges or the tools we're given to negotiate with that force: White men have some, white women have others; gay men have some, straight women have others. The patriarchy is terrible, actively working against you -- and that's true right up until you're able to use that network to accomplish your needs... say, by getting your military father to pull rank on a Greyhound station employee. And so on.
Another word for privilege is power, and it's something you can master -- Alison lived for that fight -- but the force itself is the same on everybody, like gravity or the pressures of high school and you get no traction or mileage out of comparing them because of the number of variables and expectations and hidden parts of lives it encompasses. Because the second you get yourself buying into an Us vs. Them, you are very close to a Me vs. The World, and that's not how things are designed. That's about you talking about how you would like the world to be for you, instead of meeting and understanding the world on its own terms before you try to change it. Which is a great way of having no power at all, and once you make that decision, whatever happens is on you.
Alison knew that better than anybody: Anything can be a weapon if you hold it right.
Sexuality, dads, pain, shame, the infinite and endless economy between men and women. But you have to know what you're holding and you can't be afraid. When in doubt, just ask yourself what they're trying to bully out of you because that's where your power is. If they weren't scared of your body, your voice, your anger, they wouldn't need you to hate those things so much. How much more powerful would Aria be if she weren't so scared all the time? How much easier would life be for Emily, if she realized just how radically her sexuality exempts her from all of this shit? How much better would Hanna's life be, if she stopped being ashamed of the power her beauty gives her? How much saner would Spencer be, if she realized how much power she truly has. If any of them knew who really runs the world.
MONA'S PLAN
Hanna: "Ashley is hot on the A trail."
Mona: "Meaning?"
Liars: "She found that thing you gave Hanna, because you dolts left it on the kitchen island, and now she's given it to Wilden."
Spencer: "The fuck?"
Hanna: "Um, it was a threat toward our family and Mona's?"
Spencer: "No, I mean why Wilden? He still thinks we killed Ali, for Pete's sake."
Liars: "If they don't stop pushing on this A stuff, they're both going to end up like..."
(Therapy Anne? Ian? Poor Hermie that you tried to murder? Vanished Maya? Alison? Jonah? )
Liars: "Anyway, Mona, we're also keeping all kinds of shit from you, too."
Mona: "Well, I've got a pretty good idea..."
Spencer, hilariously: "Oh, by all means."
Mona: "Which one of you is the best at lying to people that you love?"
Liars: "Aria."
Aria: "Ugh!"
Except yes. Emily can't lie for shit without busting some more ulcers everywhere; Spencer doesn't love anybody except her own craziness and whoever her sister is dating; and Hanna loves everybody so it doesn't count. All that's left is Aria, the girl who was so bad at hiding her teenage love affair that only the machinations of a ghost ninja and a gay one could keep her secret safe.
But yeah, for this particular plan it makes a certain amount of sense. I mean, you can't just use Spencer for every mission, because even the parents are afraid of her at this point, so you put a little english on it. Zig when they think you're gonna zag. Ask Aria to do anything useful, ever, and see what happens.
But if she walks into the police station -- or Ashley's house -- wearing a paper-bag mask with an Aria face drawn on it, I may faint.
HASTINGS
Peter: "If you don't want to slow-dance with the killer of your best friend, I can always quote get the DJ to pump up the jams a little."
Spencer: "Stop, please."
Peter: "Come on! Bust a move with your old man."
Spencer: "First of all, you're not doing your Hottest Dad ranking any favors, and second of all, you had a bastard child and then paid off my best friend for blackmailing you and then murdered her."
Peter: "Well, none of that is really very true."
Spencer: "Look, let's just go home. I've got complicated schemes to deal with anyway."
MONTGOMERY
Aria: "Can we leave? Like right now? I have to go taint my self-righteousness."
Byron: "Sure, let's just hop in the picture booth..."
Aria: "YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT I'M NOT YOUR LITTLE GIRL ANYMORE"
Byron: "I just thought we could take a... I mean, there's nobody in there, and we dressed up..."
Aria: "I'M SORRY BUT I'M JUST NOT"
Byron: "Okay, whatever you want."
Aria: "WHY AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ME"
EXT ROSEWOOD HIGH
Spencer, catching her breath after all that yellin', sees a bright light zooming directly at her, up the street in front of the school. Is it a UFO? Is it God? Is it the big psychotic break we've all kind of been waiting for? No, it is a faceless Bad Boy in a leather jacket, a Cool Rider. Spencer aches for him immediately; somewhere inside, she knows who it is. Only one person could be cool enough to be this cool, and it burns her, through and through: Toby Cavanaugh. Because when you think dangerous bad-ass on a motorcycle, you think Toby Cavanaugh.
GOODBYE MR HASTINGS
Emily & Dad: (Obligatory sweet, loving, nonjudgmental times. The softest dad is the one in the military; to be a soft dad requires a great deal of toughness.)
MARIN
Aria: "Ms. Marin, I have something to tell you of grave importance."
Ashley: "Good Lord, it's the other one. Hang on, Momma needs a refill."
Aria: "Ms. Marin, it's come to my attention that you came across certain documents that you thought were not longer at issue. Certain... legal documents?"
Ashley: "Yes. What of it?"
Aria: "It was I, Ms. Marin. It was I that left them on your kitchen island, it was I that placed them in Mona's mailbox, and it was I that first falsified them in Photoshop. All I."
Ashley: "That doesn't even make sense, but go on."
Aria: "Hanna -- and it is no pleasure of mine to bear this news -- has once again succumbed to her kleptomania. She's a shoplifter, a cutpurse. A student of the Seven Bells..."
Ashley: "Aria. Wrap it up."
Aria: "I bethought myself to strike the fear of God once more into her heart. As you know, it is a delight of mine to minister to those poorer, in our little hamlet, whether they be lacking in money, or eyeballs like Jenna, or morals like your daughter. I cannot apologize for my concern, but only for the degree to which it seems to have complicated things in your household. For that, Ms. Marin, I do harbor a measure of regret."
Aria: "...For it is I! A is me, as I am A. A for Aria. A for Anonymous. A for..."
Ashley: "Got it! I got it, Aria. You can go."
HASTINGS HM OFC
Peter: "What else did you touch in here? Where are all the things?"
Spencer: "I told you, I just checked out the check ledger. I didn't toss the place like some kind of gumshoe. Why are you being so aggro about this?"
Peter: "Gun. There was a gun. In the locked drawer. Which is now unlocked."
Spencer: "That sounds like the kind of thing I should warn Hanna about."
MONTGOMERY
Byron: "Hey Mike. You don't interest me in any way. Especially now that you're not suicidal like your uncle."
Mikey: "I am cool with that, because you are the worst."
Byron: "Where is your sister?"
Mikey: "Probably hiding from the claustrophobic obsession you've developed with her whereabouts and every waking thought."
Byron: "Yeah, that makes sense."
Mikey: "Maybe you should chill out and act like a human being for once."
Byron: "That doesn't really sound like something I would do."
HASTINGS
Peter: "The cops'll be here soon, so we don't have a lot of time. Let me run through the bullet points as quickly as possible. First, I wrote that check to a private investigator. After she disappeared. Because I was trying to protect -- no, not Jason, although this was around the time I did the hinky stuff with their grandma's will -- but in fact the crazy bitch that you know from personal experience will come right on up after your ass if you mess with her man."
Spencer: "Oh my God, you thought Melissa might have killed Alison for hitting on her man? As a person who has slept with every single one of her boyfriends (except Ian, whom I instead caused to be murdered) that makes a damn load of sense."
Peter: "I'm not saying she killed Alison. We all killed Alison that night. But I think she might have been the one that killed Alison."
(He goes downstairs to tell the cops how a bitchy ghost stole his gun. Spencer is given time to take like half a breath before it all starts up again.)
Melissa: "SPENCER?"
Spencer: "Gah!"
Melissa: "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you -- just sneak up on you. After our house was broken into and our dad told you that I killed your best friend."
Spencer: "Where have you been? And do you know how little I trust you right now?"
Melissa: "In direct contravention of my constant pleas and protestations that I don't want to be here and how I have my own condo in the city, I fell asleep watching TV in our barn earlier."
Spencer: "J'accuse! The TV in the barn is broken!"
Melissa: "Uh, I was watching it on my computer? Like everyone else on earth?"
Melissa: "Dude, I gotta get out of here. You're being weird, I suddenly hate our parents, there's blackmail that was or was not happening that may have caused our father to allegedly kill a little girl -- it's a lot. So I'm going back to my house. Do you want to come?"
Spencer: "As always, it has been a pleasure."
Melissa: "Are you sure? I'm going to stop by the quarry first -- there's plenty of pitch-black night left where anything could happen. At the quarry."
MOTHERS
Did Ashley buy it? Of course not. Being A would be a total Spencer move, they should have just sent her in instead.
Ella: "I know, Aria can't lie for shit. I don't know why they think she's the best liar. It's just that she's the most boring one because she doesn't really care about anything or anybody."
Ashley: "I wish Hanna were more like that. So listen, how are we gonna track down this A?"
Ella: "I don't know, but you better not go to the cops. This A is a pretty bad character. We've had dealings."
Ashley: "Is there anybody A isn't fucking with?"
Ella: "Basically, just my daughter. Everybody else is fair game."
DAUGHTERS
Did their moms buy it? Of course not. Does Aria feel guilty? Of course also not, but she's too Aria to admit it. The plausible deniability of the Mighty Shusher; to be less Liar, and more Pretty. Definitely quite Little.
The Vivian phone rings again -- apparently despite his many protestations to the contrary, Jonah has nothing better to do than issue clues at precisely measured intervals. He and Caleb could form a company, some sort of limited-liability concern, where they just dole out clues reliably at the beginning of every second and fifth act. Breadcrumbz, Inc. Quicksilver & Confusion Systems Mgmt. With Little Haste Decryption & Marching Orders, LLC.
BROOKHAVEN
Sometimes a thing that can happen, if you are a character on this show, is that you can be led by a red duffle coat to a destroyed man who sends you all the way to another town, and in that town there is a location, and near that location there is a... Creepy Doll Hospital. That is like a hundred years old, from that long-ago surge in the popularity of doll injuries. One of those popular places.
And in the window of this place, the dolls are not just resting, rehabilitating, taking the waters, no. They are hanging from their own eyeball holes at crazy angles, they are crouching behind each other with wild-eyed clown smiles, they are armless and legless and upside down. A Cirque du Damned of raucous, unmoving, decade-spanning doll hell. Wheelchairs and leg braces and amputations. Cracked and aging porcelain and filthy rubber. Ipana commercials abutting Chuckies, Bozos hanging all over American Girls, Big Blinking Eyes frolicking with No Eyes At All. Music boxes and xylophones.
The ladies shiver and quiver and think about how dolls used to be good things, like childhood itself, before it got all gross and complicated, and Aria heads back to Spencer's trunk to get the red riding hood coat. I cannot help wondering if perhaps to live in Rosewood is, in some ways, a blessing.
"Yes, all authority figures and all men whether above or below the age of majority will eventually try to roofie you, but at least it's not Brookhaven, where the dead men lost their bones. At least we don't live there."
And Aria turns her back, for one brief second, to put on the coat, and as she does so -- as she becomes Vivian Darkbloom, with hair to match, as it suddenly seems was always the intent -- she hears a fairly young man's voice behind her, belonging to yet another Dramatic Face of the sort common to this show, a mysterious fellow named Duncan: "Vivian?"
A-TAG
A purchases, slowly and terrifyingly, a newspaper blaring about Maya's disappearance, in a pointed way wherein it's almost like she is the new Alison? Like, the girl that lived in that house and disappeared? And we never had to see her, ever again, even in flashbacks, making the obnoxious face that she's making right here on this newspaper? Or else no, because what would the fallout be? She has no friends. She is too awful to be relevant. Not even a vengeful hermaphrodite to knock her stump over.
Jenna returns to Rosewood a one-eyed monster, having entranced Toby into her willing service with her hypnotic gifts -- the mournful flute, the eerie piano, the semiautobiographical short fictions, the tearjerking pottery -- but, as the Fates would have it, she gets blown up again anyway. And all the Queen's Tobys and all the Queen's Wrens will probably put her ass back together again, probably this time as a scary robot with laser eyes just to be even more terrifying.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, Pretty Little Liars and True Blood for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, most recently A Friday Night Lights Companion and Fringe Science.
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