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It's been five months since Jenna sent Garrett to jail and Mona was institutionalized. Everybody's been off doing summery things -- Aria spent the summer being pretentious, Spencer was hardcore and uptight, Hanna had zero accountability and Emily has become a mean crazy drunk -- but now they are back, and getting lame A messages like "Show me your boobs." But after Emily is lured out in an Ambien haze and discovered to Alison's open -- and empty -- grave, the whole thing starts up again.
But as the girls scramble to keep this latest Shovel Discovery from ending their lives as usual, we learn they've been keeping secrets too. Emily's distraught over Maya's death and having secret meetings with Toby about it. Aria's parents are finally calling it quits, so she's decided to force her mother to interact with Ezra as much as possible. Spencer's hiding secret calls and a possible alliance with Garrett, and has also set up camp in A's old lair at the Lost Woods Resort.
And Hanna? Well -- beyond her newfound dedication to expanding her vocabulary, with fabulous results -- she's been visiting Mona, with Dr. Wren's encouragement, trying to snap her out of her fugue state. By the end of the episode, she's half-succeeded: Mona's now cognizant enough to be keeping company with Alison's Ghost, if not fully speaking and spelling again. (week, it seems, the Lambs will begin screaming in earnest.)
All these secrets and more come out once the Liars get back on the trail of the Black Swan -- and a very sketchy Lucas -- and realize that Mona was never working alone. (Nevermind that Mona told Spencer this over and over the whole time she was flipping out; you already knew Spence wasn't listening at the time.) Oh, and Emily's memory has begun stuttering again, this time putting her in a convertible That Night she was found hunched over the grave, having borne witness to things too horrible to yet recall.
But while putting together the Lair clues -- everybody in bikinis except Aria, who is of course wearing overalls -- in a nifty way, they receive a bunch of threatening photos of themselves at the latest crime scene and an even more threatening text: "Mona played with dolls, I play with body parts. Game on, bitches. -- A"
So I guess it's all true: Mona and Jenna are both going to end up double or triple agents, and both Red Riding Hood and the Black Swan are still in play. Aria might finally get a visit from the Goon Squad after two seasons, and Toby will continue to take off his shirt. But why does Veronica Hastings keep showing up at random times looking like she's attending the Oscars? When is Jenna Thing coming home? When did Aria decide to give up songwriting, pottery, poetry and the theatre for photography? Whence the Montgomery divorce? What did Emily see That Night? And what of Noel Kahn?
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Mona led our ladies on a merry chase, involving talking dolls and Black Swans and so very much hustle. Byron had trouble dealing with his daughter's inappropriate relationship, while Spencer was working overtime to get cool with her newfound brother Jason -- and the mysterious NAT Club of which he, Jenna Thing and Garrett were members. Garrett went to jail, Mona went to the mental hospital, and Jenna is no longer blind. Mona's troubles were tough on Hanna, but not as tough as Emily took Maya's murder.
FIVE MONTHS LATER
Errbody gettin' tipsy and staring at the Spooky Barn while they fill us in on their summer activities: Emily built Habitats for Humanity and became a full-time alcoholic, Hanna took a cooking class and learned a new word -- girl, I missed you so bad -- while Spencer took a full load at Hollis, and Aria is suddenly a gifted photographer. I guess they didn't have a summer program in Poetry/Singer-Songwriting/Pottery/Fashion-Mishappery, which is really the area where her talents were starting to blossom. That class was full up, so Photography it is.
But then, this whole show being about the torture of being looked at, maybe that's the best thing for her. Like how Serena was able to so swiftly fuck up being Gossip Girl, but with the added frisson of how pretentious/precious/precocious photography can so quickly get. I bet you anything it's just 100 percent Victorian lace and dolls and the occasional nostril, in a sepia tone. "I call it, ophelia on the waterfront i coulda been a contender. This is what's called Mixed Media."
A Text: "Show me your boobs! -- A"
Liars: "We are so over A! But thank God it's just been shit like this. We shudder to think what would happen if we were somehow thrust once more into a glittering web of lies and shame from which there is no escape. Show me your boobs is strictly JV."
Emily: "I should show some motherfuckers my boobs. Fuck it."
Liars: "We do not comprehend your full and total breakdown, despite how it is obvious."
Hanna: "We support your alcoholism."
Emily: "It makes me bring everybody down and bring up Maya for no reason."
Liars: "Um, a toast to dead Maya. Off to that Old Folks' Home in the sky."
LATER
Everybody is, like usual, asleep on each other's butts. Except the door is hanging open and Emily has taken her plaid-shirt crazy out into the forest, where she is... Oh dear. Apparently Emily has decided to dig up Alison's dead body? Emily, you magnificent nutcase! Said it before, say it again: Always thought Aria would be the first to crack.
Oh, side note: Alison's grave is totally empty.
GOT A SECRET?
The Liars find her somehow, slumped against a cemetery tree, still drunk and Ambien-zombied out of it, and determine that she was not the digger of the hole, due to her still being completely out of it. Like, locked in a barn with a running car out of it. Seems she was merely summoned there to the empty grave by a Blocked Caller, stood around weeping for a while, and then went back to sleep. You coulda figured Emily would lose it after the whole Maya thing, but even so I am very impressed. This is some -level shit to start the season with. We are less than six minutes into the episode and we've already got quite a tangle.
Hot Mess Emily: "I don't remember actually wandering to the cemetery."
Spencer: "And also it says that you got a call from my phone while we were asleep, which means this is a setup because somebody was in my house calling you. So I think we better leave."
Aria: "After wiping Emily's prints off that shovel. You know what a motherfucker shovels can be. And but who would do this?"
Hanna: "One of the many twisted psychos that are all the people we know?"
Aria: "The only twisted psycho we for sure know is locked up at Radley."
Hanna: "That's so awesome in so many ways that the mental institution is called Radley, but also please don't segue into shit-talking Mona every chance you get. I am still ambivalent about that."
BACK AT HASTINGS
Spencer: "Emily, remove absolutely everything you're wearing. All of your clothes."
Emily: "Between this and the Radley thing, I think this show is onto its fanbase."
Spencer: "Okay, who would benefit from Ali's body being missing? Her killer."
Emily: "Also the killer of Maya."
Spencer: "Duh, Emily. So who are the suspects? Garrett's in jail, Jenna put him there so she's no longer on our list. My bitch sister is off in Philadelphia. Must be an unsub."
Emily: "Or literally anyone else on this entire show?"
Spencer: "Shh, I'm expositing. Whilst burning your outfit in my fireplace like a hockey stick."
Meanwhile, Aria and Hanna randomly come across Lucas, who is running around in the middle of the night, so they decide not to follow his car. I'm not entirely sure how this came about, but the girls head back to HQ -- where Spencer has ordered a full-group fall-back to the lakehouse.
AM
Veronica: "Spencer, I exist right now so listen up. I have bad news."
Spencer: "Okay, got it. Were there any witnesses to this thing? I have to tell the Liars now. The missing body has been reported, and we're in the clear."
Emily: "I feel really bad about getting drunkenly tricked into going to that grave..."
Hanna: "Don't worry about it. It never happened."
Aria: "We can tell the cops..."
Hanna: "Tell 'em what?"
Spencer: "Yeah. Let's just make up a lie where we all came to this lakehouse, so we can be each other's alibis. That has never worked for us in the past, but who knows."
EZRIA
Ezra: "Man, you were having a shitty dream, huh? Too bad that friend of yours tried to kill all of you. Anyway, get over it. Everything's okay now. Listen, by the way, the newspaper has broken this hot story about how Maya, a teenager, found some crap belonging to another dead teenager, Alison. It's all over the news."
Aria: "That's interesting. Tell me more factoids."
Ezra: "It was evidence that Garrett killed Alison probably. And then he killed her. Let's talk about this Labor Day weekend. A special date!"
Aria: "The anniversary of my best friend's murder?"
Ezra: "No, silly! It was the anniversary of my statutory rape of you. In a bathroom."
Aria: "That sounds better."
Ezra: "Let's act it out. Doesn't that sound romantic?"
Aria: "I am no less horrible than you are, so yes."
MARIN
Hanna puts on the largest necklace in the world, shopping with her mom. Who is on the prowl for a man!
Hanna: "Gross! You intimated that you are a sexual being! That's a word I know! And here are my terms. You can date, but you're not open for business."
Veronica, appearing: "...Ashley, are you opening a business?"
Marins: "How comical!"
Ashley and Veronica chat about how shopping is good for pushing your feelings down, and that probably you have to do a lot of shopping to get over the murder of two young girls and also an open grave.
Ashley: "Wait, so are we sure Garrett did this? Like, got somebody to dig that hole?"
Veronica: "There was actually an order to exhume the body, which hadn't been officially okayed. So probably there is a connection there."
Ashley: "Well, I'm just glad they were getting crunk at that lakehouse of yours."
Veronica: "Yes. I am 100 percent sure that is the truth."
Spencer gets a call from Unknown, ignores it, and tells Hanna that Toby's been living at some kind of loft -- presumably on his Teen Construction Foreman's salary -- but comes over to shower every morning so she can get a look at what his momma gave him.
Hanna notices some Old Bitches gossiping about them, and correctly presumes that this has something to do with the constant onslaught of murders, attempted murders and other mayhem that is constantly happening to and around them.
Old Bitch: "Remember that fashion show that time? Noel Kahn was there, I know that much."
Other Old Bitch: "Remember when that blind girl was in a play? And how the blonde one is constantly running over people in cars or drowning them in boats?"
Old Bitch: "Remember when the lesbian one got hooked on HGH? And told the spooky incest one that his girlfriend was dating an actual grownup doctor, and then he fell off a building?"
Other Old Bitch: "Remember when they hanged that man in a church and then he was found suicided in a barn? Always with the barns. Barns and shovels."
Old Bitch: "Remember when their one friend tried to murder them outside of town while simultaneously murdering their other friend in her own home?"
Other Old Bitch: "Yep, those are some very interesting little girls."
Hanna: "Old Bitches! No we are not!"
Spencer: "Kind of we are. Like how that person called Emily with my phone while we were asleep. Hey, want to ignore the horror of our lives?"
Hanna: "No, I have to go see Therapy Anne. And not tell her anything about this latest thing."
Spencer: "Good to see you've learned your lesson about how therapy works."
Hanna: "Man, I almost stole this necklace just now! I better put that back."
Spencer: "...Okay, maybe you've learned a thing or two."
RADLEY
Hanna: "Just kidding, I am not visiting Dr. Anne. I am going to see the staring mess of Mona Vanderwaal."
Mona: "Braaaaaainzzzz."
Nurse: "She is, let's say, no longer existing in an adrenalized hyperreality. Or else if she is, it is in space."
FIELDS
Emily: "Man, my room is still chock-full of Dead Maya memories. The fishtank she turned my bedroom into, I mean. Here's a picture of me massaging ointment into her bunions. Here I am explaining Aria's clothing to her, and also dubstep. Here I am helping her across the street. That was a close one."
Pam: "So a reporter just came by to ask you about the nonstop monstrosity that is your existence. I told him to beat it! But listen, I'm proud of you for going to Haiti and building Habitats for them. Maya would have liked that too. Because she was a Commie."
Emily: "I don't want to talk politics."
RADLEY
Hanna, verbatim: "Birds, birds, birds. You can't find a top this season without feathers on it."
Aria: Punches the air, elsewhere; does not know why.
Hanna puts down her magazine and tries to make contact with Coma Vanderwaal. Nope.
Hanna: "First of all, your inability to attain wellness is really making my secret trips to see you a hassle. Just say like one bitchy thing. No? Well how about this, I'm only coming to visit you so that I can purge my complicated feelings. This isn't about you. You, sitting there like a brittle stump or a multitude of bracelets. You, silent as a posed Bratz doll in a secret motel room. This is about me getting over the fact you broke my heart. And trying to figure out why. What I did."
No answer is forthcoming. She already got her answer. But I support, as always, Hanna's instinctual grasping at wholeness. She is so much further along than everybody else. Even if Emily and Spencer are trading places (and Aria remains dis- and unaffected) I love so much that Hanna gets to hold onto that, because I was really not sure she'd get to, after the Black Swan. The whole "God never gives you more than you can handle" thing is very true, in real life, but not always on TV. I think (if?) when Hanna breaks down again I will be very, very damaged by that happening.
Have we talked about this before? Probably. I identify, for reasons I'd imagine are obvious, with characters that used to be crazy and are no longer crazy. It's a character type that's fairly new, in this medium, but really only exists substantially in this medium because of the way long-form serialized dramas work, post-Whedon: That you can have a fuckface like Meredith Grey or Kara Thrace fucking everything up for everybody all the time and then, over years of hard work and heartbreak, watch her slowly heal herself and become magnificent.
Which is not to say that I wish terrible madness on Aria Montgomery, because there's grace in being well-adjusted too, just that those giant Shusher eyeballs of hers have never seen the darkness. (And it says a lot too, I think, that we can even bear to tell stories about broken women in the first place -- that there are enough women writers in the industry now that it's even allowed, to posit this happening. This new kind of TV human.) It's only to say that I get a lot of personal peace from knowing that fixed is not the same as unbroken, but there's no shame in it either: A broken bone, once healed, is always stronger than it was before.
Dr. Wren (!): "I'll see your primary-striped sweater over a lace-aproned black-velvet Downton Abbey midi-skirt and million straps hanging off your random huge purse raise you a multicolored neon leisure suit that makes me look like a Batman villain, or somebody that knows the secret truth about government loans available to you."
Hanna: "I am not Hanna. I am somebody named Rivers, okay?"
Wren: "I'm here volunteering, as I often do. Quid pro quo."
Hanna: "I don't know what that means, but she was one of the great loves of my life, and she owes me some damn answers."
Wren: "The thing about crazy people is, you are not going to get those."
Wren takes her off to talk about it, and the camera screeches over to the cracked door, where Mona is secretly staring.
HASTINGS
Spencer: "Be naked! It's so great!"
Toby: "Okay, let's make out. My giant crazy face on your face. Wear all my clothes!"
Spencer: "You know how I said we can't have sex? Scratch that."
Toby: "I am going to put clothes on and then you won't want to do me anymore."
Spencer ignores another call from Unknown while Toby tries to talk to her about the lakehouse alibi, and they kiss and are cute. Spencer! What is your creepy secret these days? Who is calling you?
SCHOOL
Hanna: "I can't go to cooking class to learn how to make Dongpo Rou with you. For I have so many visits of therapy."
Caleb: "Okay, just say dong po like a hundred times."
Hanna: "Done."
Aria: "My parents are still weird about the grown adult man I'm dating."
Spencer: "How weird."
Lucas: Slinks off as usual.
Aria: "He really went dark after that Masquerade Ball where we saw him talking to Jenna and the Black Swan."
Hanna: "Yet, Jenna's been gone all summer, looking at things with her special eyes, and he's still acting like Boo."
Aria: "And now he's shadily chatting up one of the million skinny brunettes at this school, all of whom could be the Black Swan."
Spencer: "That seems like an important plotpoint from the finale last season. Let's breeze past it and talk about lipgloss or something."
Hanna: "Or how Emily is probably off drinking in a gutter somewhere."
Emily: "No, I'm just been spooky and sad out in the Quad. Making my tummy face."
Aria goes to the bathroom with her horrible purse and gorgeous blowout, can't lock the stall door, and is immediately menaced by a hoodie. She screams for a while, and then there's nobody there, and then she goes fetal, and the others come running. Apparently Aria has panic attacks now. God, that's so Aria. Of course she does.
Hanna: "Well, it wasn't A. I heard from an unnamed source that she's still comatose."
Spencer: "Bitch crazy, Aria. You heard?"
Hanna, verbatim: "Don't worry, Aria. Someday we will all have jubilation."
It would be asking too much for Spencer and Aria to respect Hanna's newfound love of the English language with a straight face, so they crack up and then congratulate her on her vocabulary and it's so, so excellent. I hope this is an ongoing feature. Group hug.
HASTINGS
Spencer checks out the Black Swan thing online, somehow.
A Very Glamorous Veronica: "Homework. My busy little beaver, take the long weekend off. Not that it means anything to you or would stress you out, at least as far as I'm aware."
Spencer: "Don't you worry about me. Or Melissa either. Hastings Women are not affected by shit."
Spencer ignores the Unknown caller once again, and heads out.
MONTGOMERY
Ella (!): "I remember this picture of you that you gave me on Mother's Day! And also this headline about your friend who was murdered. Let's chat about it."
Aria: "I would rather talk about even more awkward things."
Ella: "Cool. Sorry your dad's such a drag. I just want you to know that I, for my part, do not consider your birth or childhood a complete waste. And your dad's coming around..."
Aria: "Just tell me I'm not to blame for your divorce."
Ella: "No, that has to do with the fact that your father is a dick in a few key ways."
Wait, what? Yeah. It's over. Isn't that a huge deal? Isn't that so interesting and kind of marvelous? Yeah. So let's see how long it takes Aria to make this conversation about herself and her relationship with Ezra.
Aria: "Remember how you always told me to be myself? Thanks for letting me be the version of myself that dates a grown man."
Record time, even for that one. Well done.
SOME COFFEE SHOP
Toby meets Emily, and they compare notes on looking eternally mournful. Turns out Toby's loft is above this coffee shop, and he lives there for free while he renovates the coffee shop and resists the romantic advances of Lex Luthor.
Toby: "Spencer's got a test or something, so I'm allowed to hang out with you."
Emily: "I'd say I'm happy to see you, but that would run counter to my unending misery, so I'm going to ask you about Jenna Thing instead."
Toby: "Jenna? Oh, she's doing great. You know her. Big ball of fun. Hey, how are you feeling about your dead friend getting dug up?"
Emily: "I'm feeling like I need to disclose some information to you about that."
THE LOST WOODS!
Spencer goes to that scary motel with the awesome guy, pulls herself together, and heads into the woods. She is followed! It is scary! Commercial break!
Mona's HQ has been thoroughly cleaned out, down to a bare lightbulb and a spooky table. Spencer pulls out a bunch of stuff, like a laptop -- the laptop, probably -- and gets to work on being paranoid in some new and amazing way.
MARIN
Caleb gets nosy about Hanna's neverending appointments with the woman who is apparently not his mother, and even refers to their relationship as "intimate," before Hanna gets a call from a person named "R.S." She lies and says it's Spencer calling. What is going on! All these Liars are Lying and we don't know exactly why! What a thrill it is, to start a new season. Unreliable narrators abound.
Wren: "Is Miss Rivers available?"
Hanna: "How'd you get this number?"
Wren: "[A dizzying array of codenames and secret identities, which he has decoded but I cannot.]"
Hanna: "Is something wrong with Mona?"
Wren: "Uh, yes."
Hanna: "Ha! No, but seriously."
Wren: "Your visits are apparently helping Mona not be crazy anymore."
Caleb appears; Hanna abruptly breaks into a fake conversation with Spencer about chips and salsa and whatever, and they ring off.
AS-YET-UNNAMED COFFEE SHOP SET
Emily: "I'm just pissed, like, all the time. At all times."
Toby: "I bet you are! You are a composite of like ten people with legitimate beef. Young, female, gay, ethnic. Bereaved. I don't understand how you go a day without starting a riot."
Emily: "I have become a blackout drunk*. It's sort of embarrassing. And I'm letting down the Liars, who are like my family."
Toby: "Friends are better than family. Like how my family rapes me, Hanna would never do that to you. For just one example."
*(Specifically, she mentions one party in particular that she doesn't even remember attending, which may or may not have bearing on a later scene.)
LOST WOODS
Doing her spookiness in a bare room, Spencer finally answers Unknown: "I'm listening."
COPS
Everybody gets called into the station to put forth their alibi about the digging-up situation. Ashley, Ella and Veronica group up outside the station to talk about how their alibi is watertight, and when Ezra comes slumping up in a flattering Henley, Ella sort of waves her hand in his direction and intercepts.
Ella: "It's nice that you're here? But the cops don't need another thing to bug her about."
Ezra: "I thought we were past this..."
Ella: The most amazing face. I don't know how to do it justice. It's like she stomps her foot, but with her face. Like something Tinkerbell would do, right before wrecking shop on Wendy's life in some new psycho way. It's adorable and funny and also a little terrifying.
Aria: "Hey, adults. I am unharmed."
Ezra: "We can still make our reservation..."
Ella: "Ugh!"
Ezra: "Or I could go fuck myself..."
Aria: "Or I could really ruin everything and suggest all three of us go to dinner together. And since I'm the injured party here, you both have to say yes. Awkwardness for everybody!"
RADLEY
Hanna, looking stunning: "So, you've been doped up pretty hardcore. You might not remember that I've been visiting for two weeks or so. Remember Wren? Of course you do, you're A. You know all the backstory stuff. Anyway, he said I can keep coming back to see you, if you want. Is that something you want?"
Mona, finally alive, smiles quietly and nods, a bit slowly. And who's that in the corner that she's smiling about? Oh, Ghost Alison. Reading Lolita and urging her on. Hanna looks behind her at the empty chair... I wonder if she knows what Mona's looking at? She's seen that particular chair before, for all intents and purposes. It's how she got fixed. Brilliant. Brilliant!
JAIL
Garrett, with a fetching new haircut: "The cops were really close to pinning this all on you, you have no idea. It could've been you on this side of the glass. Listen, I'm sorry I had to keep calling you like that, and I know you hate me and whatever, but I didn't do it. All this evidence is bogus..."
Spencer: "You said you'd tell me the truth. Tell."
Garrett: "Suffice to say there is a lot you don't know. Most of it truly terrible. I don't know anything about Maya, but I might know who killed Alison. I just need a lawyer. Like a really great one. Like your Mom."
Spencer: "Ha! Fuck you. I'm out."
Garrett, verbatim just in case Spencer ever hears anybody saying this to her out loud and explicitly: "You're not safe, Spencer, and your friends aren't either... It's not over, do you hear me? ...I know who took the body!"
And then he's gone, shuffled off back into the jailhouse.
EMILY
Is on a run when she comes across a powder-blue convertible that causes her to have some kind of repressed memory PTSD about the top opening, at the same time she's getting a mysterious text -- "I bet you remember me" -- and then the car speeds away. What is even going on?
My guess -- which will turn out to be wrong in a second -- is that she was at that blackout party, maybe roofied, sometime before or after Haiti, and something occurred relating to this car, which is now going to be her secret.
The fallibility of your memory has been a problem for some time now, kitten.
BIKINI PARTY!
Hanna Is Wearing: A bikini, like a normal person.
Spencer Is Wearing: Daisy-dukes and a shirt with the tails tied, like a normal person.
Aria Is Wearing: Some overalls.
Emily Is Wearing: A look of pained insanity, as she runs into the back door having scared the Liars to death about what alibi she might have forgotten to give. Turns out they found her at her house last night, and she told them the alibi like they agreed. But she is still freaking out about it.
Emily: "Yesterday I spookily watched you from the Quad, and thought of a new way to blame myself for all the ills of the..."
Spencer: "No, honey. You are to blame for zero things. If we went overboard with shame every time one of us blacked out and woke up holding an implement of death we'd all be going nuts by now. Why are you freaking out?"
Emily: "Okay, I had another patented Emily Memory, like that time with the birthmark that led us to the snow globe that contained a secret compartment that contained a key that led us to the storage locker that contained a lunchbox that contained something I don't even remember what it was, maybe a USB drive, that presumably contained footage of more and more and more people yelling in Alison's bedroom? Maybe?"
THAT NIGHT
Emily was in a convertible.
THAT'S IT?
Aria: "Uh, that's it?"
Emily: "Yes, that is it. It is very important."
Liars: "Is it, though?"
Emily: "I think it is PTSD and I am blocking it out because it's too horrible. You know, like Spencer in the pilot episode and how we never again mentioned that happening."
Emily goes off on a quasi-Anne-sounding explanation of how her repressed memory might be triggered by anything: Sights, sounds, smells.
Spencer: "So basically you saw a car, and it reminded you of how there are cars, and so you ran right over to let everybody know?"
Emily: "Essentially that is what I am saying. But I also got a text from somebody who knows that I don't remember anything. While I was standing there not remembering anything. So there's that, also."
Aria: "Is this It starting again?"
Yes, Aria, it is. Clearly it is. I can see you asking that if you had a hundred pizzas delivered to your house or a sex toy catalog or something, if there was like a grey area, but repressed memories and haunted cars and creepy texts from omnipotent ninja ghosts? Girlfriend, you are looking at It. You are soaking in It. There is not a thing it could be other than It. Cue the talking dolls and Tory Burches.
Although I guess she has no idea that everybody's getting secret calls and making secret friends, or that Spencer has -- creepiest of all -- taken over Mona's Lair as her own personal dungeon of crazy. So really this is just Emily being obnoxious, or drunk, which is a gray area of a different sort but one that would appeal to the Lipgloss Conversation part of the show that Aria loves the best.
And here I was hoping we'd spend an entire Act on Ella grinding Ezra into dust at dinner. That would've been the hotness.
And no, I can't believe I just said I feel cheated out of an Ezria scene, but there it is.
Hanna: "Okay, I maybe should have told you this before, but I've been visiting Mona in secret. Trust me when I say she's still drooling into her pudding."
Liars: "Hanna, sweetie. You remember she tried to kill you?"
Hanna: "Yes, that has nothing to do with this."
Spencer: "Okay, I also have a secret to tell you."
Spence takes the Liars to the Lost Woods and shows them a panoramic of the Lair at its zenith, pointing like augmented reality at where all of Mona's shithouse crazy paraphernalia was stored.
Spencer: "Like over here, it was all the hoodies that A would wear whenever it was time to skulk or have the superpower of a tiny girl with adrenalized hyperreality strength..."
Hanna: "-- Mona. Whenever Mona would wear them."
Spencer: "Uh, sure. So then over here there was a burlap zombie baby, like on Halloween..."
Emily: "So all summer you've been assembling this three-dimensional Matrix of Mona's Lair -- while also taking a full load at Hollis -- for what reason? To what end?"
Spencer: "It's time we told Emily the truth."
Whoa, what?
Emily: "Whoa, what?"
Hanna: "You know how we came back here the morning after Maya died, to ruin the crime scene for no reason?"
Aria: "That's not the whole story. We totally lied to your face so you wouldn't go even more crazy than you ended up going."
Emily: "Fuckin'..."
Spencer: "Everything was gone when we got here. Diaries, the whole thing."
Emily: "That would be the cops."
Aria: "Hanna's mom would be in jail, Ezra would be in jail... I would probably still be wearing overalls. It was not the cops."
Spencer: "You know how you got that creepy massage at the exact same time Mona was ruining Hanna's relationship with her stepsister? Or how even adrenalized hyperstrength couldn't have gotten Ian out of the bell tower that time? Or how Mona said about fifteen times over the course of the finale that she wasn't working alone, and I didn't ever hear her say that because I was too busy trying to make logical sense of this show?"
Aria: "So somebody was helping her?"
Spencer: "Why did the Black Swan run from you guys if she wasn't up to something?"
Outside, the alarm goes off on Spencer's car: All the doors are hanging open, and the inside is covered in pictures of the Liars at Alison's grave That Night. Like a billion pictures. What is it with Rosewood and getting caught with a shovel? Why is this as scary as the time they blew up and blinded a girl? How does that function? I don't care, because it is awesome and then even more so, as everybody gets a text at the same time:
"Mona played with dolls, I play with body parts. Game on, Bitches. -- A"
WEEK
The game gets kicked up a notch; the New A finally comes after Aria; Emily unspools the in what's sure to be a very unhelpful trail of banal memories about like doorknobs or a yo-yo that exists somewhere in the universe; Jenna's back in town; Hanna gets her Clarice on.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps 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.