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Hanna and Spencer hide a fake note on Mrs. Reynold's comatose body, inviting A to show up at what turns into a Rummage Sale Shindig at the church. I guess when you have a rummage sale that goes on for weeks and takes up the majority of people's lives, they deserve a party. When Ashley accepts Silver Fox Ted's invitation on a date, Hanna spins an insanely complicated lie involving Toby and fake dates and whatever madness, for no reason at all.
Spencer ignores Toby's endless prattle -- and exploration of different styles of acting -- to investigate "April Rose," but problems with the evidence in Garrett's murder investigation means bringing Jason into the fold, much to their father's consternation, and we learn a little bit more about the workings of the NAT Club. This episode is largely focused on Spencer's past relationship with Ali and present connection with Jason, but you also see how he's become, like, existentially dependent on blaming Garrett for the shambles her entire life totally is.
Predictably enough Ashley spends the entire party -- which is apparently also a dance? --talking about booze; also, because he wasn't hot enough already, the very wholesome and sweet Ted is a pastor, which on this show automatically means he is a closet Satanist molester who will end up doing some kind of monster bonfire spell on them in the woods. Meantime, though, Hanna talks her mom into dating the dude, and it's super sweet, but once Wilden shows up she bounces.
Aria and Ezra act utterly disgusting, and then she finds a shit-ton of cash in his sock drawer and immediately assumes the worst. Everybody has to do something interesting eventually, I guess. Between the microbrews and obscure Western cinema. Admirably, she confronts him about it almost immediately, and he explains that he sold an antique car or something. And once again, we see that a pissed-off Ezra is the most excellent possible Ezra.
Emily somehow ends up stuck in a Hopper painting after another flashback reveals the existence of diners or food or something. Time travel? No, a boy with a rave stamp on his wrist brought her to a diner to sober her up and wrote "I'm sorry I left you" on a placemat, and it's all very mysterious. Emily's life is like Baywatch Nights, just a completely different show that nobody knows about on this show. Not even Emily.
God, can you imagine being on a date with Toby? Can you imagine if that was the better option? Anyway, Dreamboat Holden's at the dance -- so he's still alive, that old ticker's still tockin' -- and he has the same wrist stamp as the boy in Emily's flashback, at which rave he also mentions seeing her "girlfriend" from time to time. She thinks he means Maya, but I sincerely hope he's talking about Paige and at some point we'll get to hear about her taking the brown acid and jumping off a roof into the swimming pool or something.
With Hanna trapped in the dark and abandoned church with a sexy and sinister Officer Josh, who accuses the Liars of conspiring with Garrett, Jason accompanies Spencer to the wildly spooky April Rose Antiques, where they find this random charm anklet that once belonged to Alison and turn it over to the police... Which gets Garrett's case thrown out! Spencer has a complete meltdown at this point, which only gets worse when a sherbet-slurping A texts her to confirm it: Garrett didn't kill either dead girl.
Week: A rents a room, a Ouija board calls Ali back from the dead, and the Liars go yell at Mona some more.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Possibly A put Garrett's mom in a coma so he could visit her in the coma and send messages to A. Possibly Caleb and Hanna broke up, sniff. Jason and Spencer tried to catch up on being siblings rather than just lifetime neighbors who grew up together, but possibly Jason had other stuff going on too. Possibly Emily was kidnapped by Jenna, or else just driven a short distance and dropped off before she was kidnapped by separate people, perhaps multiple or even dozens of times. During which tour of Rosewood she lost her jacket and ended up at Ali's empty grave. And Aria got a job as a photographer's assistant, because most professional photographers could probably use a lot of help and knowledge from Aria Montgomery, the world's best taker of photographs.
HOSPITAL
Spencer and Hanna troll through the hospital at top speed, under the impression that they're being sneaky.
Spencer: "Here's the deal. We are going to expose A by replacing his or her note on the coma lady with one of our own. It will lure him or her into the scariest possible place, and one of us will inevitably end up there alone -- probably you or me -- and get punched in the boob."
Hanna: "I have the perfect place for that. You know that church rummage sale that has somehow been going on for months like that city in Dhalgren?"
Spencer: "Great, so when Lucas shows up..."
Hanna: "It won't be Lucas! Just because he's started roofying everybody..."
Spencer: "And then got violent with Aria when he couldn't get the pills back? That he got from Mona in the insane asylum?"
Hanna: "Fine. Then I'll finish what I started that time in the boat."
Spencer: "Nice callback! Remember how moments ago you were so depressed you couldn't change out of your yoga pants?"
Hanna: "Traded 'em for fatigues."
Hanna produces a heretofore unknown ability to instantly copy anyone's handwriting, and we're good to go.
ROOM 321
Hanna: "Mrs. Reynolds? Are you still in a coma?"
Coma Lady: "Yep."
Hanna: "Okay, I'm just going to slip this note into..."
Every alarm in the room or maybe the entire hospital or every hospital goes off immediately, and Mrs. Reynolds goes into some kind of arrest, because even in a coma you don't want Hanna Marin sneakin' up on ya. A car or a boat could come crashing through the wall at any time.
FITZ
Ezra: "Do you really have to be on the phone right now?"
Aria: "Yes, Ezra Fitz! I have a very important job of telling Melanie Mayron how to drive places."
Fitz: "Why not just drive there with her? Or show her how to work the GPS?"
Aria: "She has a paranoia of driving with strangers, Ezra Fitz! Because of we live in Rosewood Pennsylvania."
Aria gets a text about Spencer and Hanna's plan to get murdered, and how they almost killed an old lady -- "OMG did she die?" the sociopathic Aria responds -- but pretends it's still about Laurel and her vehicle.
Ezra: "Hey, let me take some pictures of you with this Olden Days camera I bought you with my hard-earned money."
Aria: "I am only working as this lady's assistant because you are poor and pathetic, so okay."
He does, they make out, a song plays. It's not romantic if you're not drawing faces on paper bags, guys. Although it will make for some handy evidence in the eventual trial of Ezra Fitz, Statutory Manchild.
HASTINGS
Toby: "[Contractor talk, because he is a child with his own building company.]"
Spencer: "I don't want you to think I don't care, but I haven't been listening to anything you have said."
Toby: "That makes me try out all kinds of new faces and tones of voice."
Spencer: "Fine, let's make out. I just realized randomly Googling April Rose is kind of a foolhardy way of doing research."
Peter Hastings: "Hey, kids! Don't let me interrupt you."
Toby: "Bye everybody!"
Spencer: "Hey, I haven't had a knock-down, drag-out fight with you in what seems like weeks."
Peter: "It's because I haven't been around. What would you like to fight about?"
Spencer: "Mom and her commitment to that retard justice system I hate so much."
Peter: "First of all, don't use that word. Secondly, being a lawyer is what your mother does for a living. And third of all, she's going to get Garrett's entire case thrown out."
Spencer: "Because he's not guilty?"
Peter: "No, because the evidence is maybe tainted. Lawyer stuff."
Spencer: "I am so angry when people do their jobs! If an innocent man doesn't go to jail for a crime he clearly didn't commit, my whole life will shatter into a million pieces!"
It's interesting how her bulldog sensibility and this obsession with first Ian and now Garrett -- like, the ways she'll intentionally avoid thinking about things that don't line up with her decree -- is actually becoming a storyline. Like, what would it take for her to accept the judgment of the courts? Why on Earth would she ever consider anybody else for the killer? And how deeply crazy is she going to go about it?
A: Just wait and see.
BREW
Emily: "How did Spencer's mission to replace the note go?"
Hanna: "Actually, I did it."
Emily: "Wow! But you're so scared of old people."
Of course she is, I love that. Of course Hanna is scared of old people.
Hanna: "Apparently they're scared of me too. The merest touch nearly killed her. Anyway, here's the pick-up location of the bag of junk where I found your jacket from That Night."
Emily: "Oh, that thing we could have been using this whole time? Cool. Where did it come from?"
Hanna: "A place we'll go tomorrow. Tonight, I have rummage sale duty. Tonight, and every night for the rest of all time."
SOME RANDOM STREET SOMEWHERE
Jason: "Hey, Spencer. Not to interrupt you Googling April Rose on this random street where your boyfriend can't find you, but I just wanted to talk to you about the evidence in the Garrett Reynolds case. How it might be thrown out."
Spencer: "Okay, there's clearly another trail of evidence because he's leaving weird notes around his mother's comatose body, so how about you tell me who April Rose is, and then we can go shake her down."
Jason: "You got me there. Do you even care if he did it?"
Spencer: "I barely even care if he did it, at this point."
Peter: "Oh MAN! I hate when I see my kids talking to each other on a random street."
RUMMAGE SALE
Silver Fox Ted: "Would you believe I used to wear a pair of Aragorn boots just like these? With a suede fringe vest. I wanted to look like Cat Stevens! Before he was a Muslim, I mean."
Hanna: "Whatever. If I find a hat with a squirrel tail on it, I'll let you know."
Ted: "That's Davy Croc... Wait, I understand what you're talking about. That's scary. This rummage sale has been going on for too long."
Hanna: "Instead of putting myself to use, I have divided the clothing into seasons. Kind of like putting them in random piles and then just moving them around, but with an excuse."
Ted: "I'm really just talking to you because your mom is hot. Is she coming to the party?"
Hanna: "Party? What party?"
Ted: "The one I just announced 15 years ago. It's in this abandoned church, at night."
Hanna: "...And it's tonight, isn't it."
Ted: "You were listening?"
Hanna: "No, I just count on getting fucked over at this point."
NAT CLUB
Beautifully shot, this.
Spencer: "Listen, why don't you just tell me everything about NAT Club, after all this, and we can see if it goes to April Rose that way."
Jason: "We were chest-deep in pussy, so I'm not sure it'll narrow it down, although she sounds like a stripper, which would. Um, the NAT Club was, me and Garrett and Ian would film those girls, right? But I never filmed it, just watched them."
Spencer: "So you're only halfway totally gross? How'd you earn viewing rights?"
Jason: "The whole thing was my idea. I know, gross. But I'll remind you that I was smoking a lot of reefer back then. And as I often tell the students at your school at the drug rallies I'm seemingly leading each and every day, that can lead to things like homosexuality and peeping Tomism."
Spencer: "So if she wasn't a video star...?"
Jason: "Well, in addition to having the help of an outside party -- and possibly working for that outside party also, in later eras of the Club -- Ian and Garrett would also pay girls to set up their friends to get filmed in private moments."
Spencer: "That is the worst thing I have ever heard in my literal entire life. It also makes me miss Alison, for some reason."
Later on, by the way, Ezra will be watching Vengeance Valley, a 1951 movie about a kid who gets jealous when his cattle-baron dad favors a random orphan he took in. At some point, the kid frames the stepbrother as the father of his own illegitimate son, so that he can take over the ranch. I just thought I'd point that out now. No reason.
Peter: Still creepin'.
FITZ
Ezra's in the shower when Aria realizes she needs the perfect man-socks to wear with her flowery Docs, which you know she painted herself, and heads, so she immediately discovers a buttload of cash, like a gallon-bag of rolled-up wads of hundies, under his pauper's holed and self-darned stockings, and instead of just assuming that it's from being a "website editor" or whatever his dumb new 2.0 job is, her giant Shusher eyes get wide and she decides that Ezra is a murderer of women and that she needs to bounce. I'd imagine after all this time with your friends being in constant danger, you'd eventually get jealous and start manufacturing drama, too:
Aria: "Hey Ezra? I'm gonna have to run!"
Ezra: "Right this minute?"
Aria: "Yeah! Until I can't even see this building behind me!"
I'm so sure. That bitch drops red flags like rice at a wedding: "Oh, I just make out with children in bars. Oh, let's put these paper bags on our heads. Oh, let me tutor your lesbian friend." Like this mysterious money is going to do it and Aria's going to realize he's the sketchmaster of all time. Aria, pull it together and just ask him! Like it's even going to be interesting. "I've been posing for a gay furry porn site under the username BabySquirrel420. Quite lucrative."
APRIL ROSE
Hanna: "So wait, you just asked Jason about this clue? How brazen!"
Spencer: "It's totally a dead end, but let's talk about it forever and ever anyway."
Hanna: "Hey, apropos of nothing we were just talking about, do you think Maya found NAT Club tapes in all of Ali's stuff? That Ali put prepackaged into garbage bags and even circled random code letters on the newspapers?"
Spencer: "Shit, I totally forgot that part. This show is bonkers. But to answer your question, maybe. Maybe Garrett wants A to destroy them."
Hanna: "But why would A do what Garrett wants?"
Spencer: "Or maybe Garrett killed Alison and Maya because it's what A wants."
Hanna: "Or maybe nothing. Or maybe everything. I'm just excited about this clue of a random phrase! And our secret meeting with death tonight in a crowded church! And that jacket, oh man that jacket."
Aria: "Hey, sorry I'm late. My boyfriend's a serial killer with serious bank, so... But you guys are important too."
Hanna: "PS I'm not sharing cheese fries with you. My cheese fries are mine, they belong to me."
Spencer: "Sidebar? When you say things like that, it makes me feel like Melissa feelings, okay, and that makes me want to fuck your cheese fries."
Hanna: "So, slight change of plans. You know that abandoned church I invited A to, that time I tried to kill that old lady? Well, it's not so abandoned tonight. The neverending rummage sale is having its annual Are We Still Having This Rummage Sale Dance."
Spencer: "You like this ointment, Hanna's cheese fries? I'm real sore after all that field hockey..."
Hanna: "Spencer, just get your own cheese fries. It's not that complicated."
Hanna: "Here's the new plan. Emily and I are going to hide behind the organ..."
Aria: "-- Hee, hee --"
Hanna: "Yep, by all means. And then we'll see who is acting sketchy, which will be everybody because it's Rosewood, and then something I don't know, and then we will beat A. A very simple plan, and one with which I think we can all..."
Spencer: "And then we beat their ass, obviously. That's step four. Ass beat."
Hanna: "Okay, but I'm going to be wearing heels."
Aria: "No big deal, just staring out the window until you ask what's wrong."
Spencer: "Fine. What."
Aria: "How much money was Jason's reward that time? With all the flyers?"
Spencer: "Like, fitty large?"
Aria: "Okay. Was it rolled-up hundies in a gallon-sized bag or anything like that? Rather than in a bank? Or a lasagna box?"
Spencer: "Well, we are related. So probably. If it were me, I'd bury that mess in the yard."
Aria: "Would you say that a normal person might do this?"
Spencer: "No, that is strictly Hastings shit. Anybody else did it, I'd assume they were a child-molesting, unemployable psycho killer."
Aria: "Okay, because nothing never mind."
Spencer: "Whatever, fine, like you ever have problems. I'm getting cheese fries. It has been decided. Hanna, I'm getting cheese fries. I said I'm getting my own cheese fries, Hanna."
HASTINGS/DILAURENTIS
Peter: "Hey, could you stop playing along with my insane daughter's insane paranoia?"
Jason: "Nope."
Peter: "Just like, as a favor? She needs to be thinking about college, not all these girls constantly getting murdered."
Jason: "Well, then I hope your wife fails at her job."
Peter: "You're really not being fair to my wife. It's not really her fault she hates you..."
Jason: "I'm fairly certain it is you that she hates. Because of me."
Peter: "She just needs to put this shit behind her. The trial, your sister..."
Jason: "WHICH ONE, BRO?"
Peter: "I know it's hard being a bastard, Jas..."
Jason: "-- Peace!"
RUMMAGE SALE
Hanna: "Thank God you're here. Let's bounce."
Ashley: "Not without some small talk first. Also, we're not leaving actually. You know how this rummage sale has been going on forever? Guess what. Ted's my date to the How Are We Still Having This Rummage Sale Dance."
Hanna: "That goober? He says howdy. He wears roadkill as fashion. Not something everybody can pull off."
Ashley: "Yeah, tell that to Aria. Listen, this is happening. It's going to be fun."
Hanna: "No. Nope. Shut it down."
Ashley: "I'm open for business, and the dude is hot. Listen, we could drive up together..."
Hanna: "I can't do that. Because... Because, um... See, I already have a date."
Ashley: "Anybody I've met?"
Hanna: "Nope. Somebody I haven't actually met. Toby Cavanaugh."
Ashley: "Jesus, girl. Caleb really threw you, huh?"
Hanna: "No! This totally makes sense, I swear. Sometimes kids today ... go to dances with their, um, friend's random boyfriend? It's because of ... the Internet?"
HASTINGS, IMMEDIATELY
Spencer: "What the fuck, Hanna. That doesn't even make sense."
Hanna: "I know! I panicked! I was just saying words!"
Spencer: "We can't have Toby at an A mission. He'll get run over by a car or something."
Hanna: "I get you? Because of how I broke up with Caleb for that exact reason?"
Spencer: "So then why would you put him in the exact same..."
Hanna: "Spencer! I've been really on point lately, just cut me a break on this one."
Spencer: "Whatever. Meanwhile I've been at the Rosewood Library, where there's a microfiche."
Hanna: "Bullshit, no there isn't. Come on."
Spencer: "Yeah, it's right to that '40s diner where all the people wear fedoras. Anyway, I came up with this insane folder of police academy rosters, on the extremely unlikely chance that Garrett trained with a stripper named April Rose."
Hanna: "Hey, are you maybe losing it?"
Spencer: "Yeah, girl. When things got really bad I used to fantasize about what my life would be like if I had never met Ali. My biggest concern right now would be where I wanted to go to college."
Hanna: "I've had that fantasy too."
Spencer: "Every time I go down that road, I have to remind myself that if I hadn't met her, then I wouldn't be friends with you. Therefore, you can borrow my boyfriend."
Hanna: "Thanks! I hope your brittle mind survives this latest thing."
Spencer: "I hope so too. I mean, whatever. Don't get killed."
NIGHTHAWKS
Emily sits alone at the '40s bar where they all wear fedoras, to the Rosewood Library with their new microfiche machine, and when she pulls out her cell phone to receive the text from Hanna about this Toby nonsense, everyone in the diner assumes she is a witch. Then she has a flashback of time-travel, that one night when she kept getting kidnapped over and over because of roofies.
SKWAHTHGIN
Emily remembers one time when it was the '40s and they were just discovering nuclear power and the waitress was like, "That skirt's been slipped a mickey," and somebody wrote in girly handwriting, "I'm sorry I left you," and then somebody who is Holden with a rave stamp on his wrist took her by the hand and led her back to the present day.
APRIL ROSE
Jason: "I found April Rose! Googled it."
Spencer: "Who is she?"
Jason: "She is a girl in the form of an antique store, right here in the Yellow Pages. Which I found to the microfiche in that one area of town."
SERIOUSLY HOW WE ARE STILL RUMMAGING DANCE
Toby: "You want some punch?"
Hanna: "No, I don't drink anything that's not sealed or shrinkwrapped."
Toby: "What?"
Hanna: "Well I used to hang out with Andy Warhol back in the day... What do you think, everybody I know is constantly getting roofied. Get on the ball, Cavanaugh."
Toby: "Is part of the lie tonight that you are afraid of a Christian?"
Hanna: "Yeah, I told my mom I was getting Nice Guy'd and I needed your great big sexy body to protect me in case he decided to pledge his troth or attempt to hold my hand."
She waves vaguely in the direction of some Christians, and he fixes them with his insane eyes and even more insane hair, which is going straight up like it's the Secret Life. Ted and Ashley come up, and a striking pair they do make.
Ted: "Lucky man, Toby!"
Hanna: "Uh, no."
Toby: "This hog? Just kidding. I'm Toby! I date whichever one."
Ashley: "I need a fucking drink."
Ted: "Well, we're in a church, so. And not an Episcopalian one. How about root beer?"
Ashley: "I said I need a fuc... Haha, you joke. Fine. I can make it. I can do this."
Hanna: "Toby, let's move. This is about to get real bad."
APRIL ROSE ANTIQUES
Is in Brookhaven, or possibly the Lost Woods, based on the intensely creepin' old lady behind the counter, who rocks back and forth whilst staring into the middle distance.
Jason: "Crazy old lady? Hello? Can you help us with a mystery?"
A random old man pops out from behind some Tiffany lamps and a giant globe like in a some kind of moneybags's wood-paneled smoking room, you know, because it's Brookhaven, and he tells them to leave her crazy old ass alone and get out.
Jason: "Listen, can you be helpful in any way?"
Old: "No sir."
Jason: "Because our friend dropped something off here for us to find later. But we don't know what it is, and we don't know when she did it, and she's dead."
For a second I was really hoping that it was going to be like Return To Oz and all the things were people and they had to touch the right things and turn them into people. I don't remember which Oz book that was in but it was my favorite. I loved retail, and I loved the Royal Family of Ev, and that scene had both. Touch a green thing and say "Oz," boom. Touch a purple thing and say "Ev," boom. Touch a brass thing, say "Tiktok," maybe something happens. And so on. I probably, as a child, made a lot of antique store owners very nervous for this reason.
Anyway, Spencer sees an ankle bracelet on a mannequin's wrist, and instantly remembers this one time.
FLASHBACK
Alison: "Check me out, not being a bitch."
Spencer: "It's fun to just hang out with you with nobody else around because then we don't have to jockey for power or blind other girls."
Alison: "I got this ankle bracelet from a person but I refuse to say whom."
Spencer: "One of your many gentleman suitors?"
Alison: "No, just a friend."
Alison abruptly bounced.
Spencer: "Um, are we not hanging out right this second? Isn't that what's going on?"
Alison: "It was, now it's not. Rock and roll. I have to go out with a mysterious lady friend, or maybe the same one I was saying before, to get us fake IDs."
Spencer: "But that hurts my feelings!"
Alison: "Deal with it."
Spencer: "Oh, I'll deal with it all right."
APRIL ROSE
Spencer: "Hey, it's a random ankle bracelet. I can tell it was hers, though, because it was a charm bracelet. How many mannequins would have charms like a hockey stick covered in rat blood and a creepy guy with a video camera drinking milk and a snowglobe with a hidden compartment inside of a storage compartment and a bracelet that is a smaller charm bracelet where all the charms are bracelets, bracelets, bracelets?"
Jason: "When did this come to your store and can we buy it?"
Old: "I don't know, and no. Both for the same reason, which is that it's just randomly here."
Jason: "So then it's literally no skin off your ass, huh? That's a very nice bolo tie by the way."
Old: "And yet, I will be obstructive for no reason."
Jason: "Okay, April. How about a hundred bucks?"
Old: "But the mannequin's wrist will get cold!"
Jason: "Please. Four hundred dollars."
Old: "That's enough money to make me stop dicking with you, yes."
Jason: "Cool. Let's make sure you, and I, and Spencer touch it all over before we take it to the cops. Every link, every charm, every surface on that thing."
Spencer: "You're really good at this, bro! Later on I'll show you how to throw it in a fire."
IS THIS IS THIS RUMMAGE SALE STILL GOING ON DANCE STILL GOING ON
In case you hadn't noticed, this is a total Norman Buckley episode. This little scene here is a lift from The Mad Miss Manton (1938), which is one of very few Barbara Stanwyck movies I've never seen, but get this: It's about a quote "vivacious" socialite who finds a body, which then disappears, causing her to be labeled a "prankster," until she proves everybody wrong. Isn't that great? Love that man.
Hanna: "Emily, get here. Toby's creeping me out, Wilden is staring all at everybody, A is on the way to murder me, and I'm wearing heels..."
Toby: "Do you want to dance?"
Hanna: "No, thanks!"
Toby: "All right then."
Ted: "When you reach the summit, all you can hear is the wind whistling through the rocks... The last sound you'll ever hear, if this show runs true to form."
Ashley: "That sounds amazing, are you asking me out? COOL. How about Sunday?"
Ted: "I'm kinda busy. Look around you."
Ashley: "Sunday?"
Ted: "Ashley, I'm the Associate Pastor. I'm booked."
Ashley: "And me a divorcée who keeps my money in my lasagna and pokes cops for blackmail.... Cops like Wilden, who is right there staring at me to make me worry about it. I guess I should just go freak out now. On my daughter, I mean."
Toby: "Hanna, those Christians are scared of their own shadows and sexuality. I doubt any of them is going to give you any trouble. What's really going on? Does it have to do with the same shit that is always, always going on?"
Hanna: "I'm sure there's a simple way to smooth this over, but I'll be damned if I can get there that fast. Plus, I really need to get behind that organ."
Toby: "I'm with Spencer now, Hanna. Is this about Caleb?"
Hanna: "Tangentially! I have to go get yelled at by my mom now!"
Alone in a church among rummagers, Toby makes a call. Does he have some harsh words for old Spencer! I hope she's in a part of town where cell phones exist.
Ashley: "Why didn't you tell me Ted was a pastor?"
Hanna: "He is? I don't listen to that dude when he talks. But it's clear from your flop sweat that you really like him, which is cute."
Ashley: "I wore a dress with cleavage! He's going to know I have breasts! And I kept talking about wine..."
Hanna: "Uh, that cat was coming out the bag immediately, sweetheart."
Ashley: "I'm no angel, Hanna. I steal from old ladies, I murder architects and stash them in my bedroom, I boned Wilden that time, also your dad, ruined his wedding that time... Traci Lords made me join a cult, I pushed my blind sister out to sea on her wedding day, I was a hooker for a bit..."
Hanna: "Anyone among us would have done those things, and worse, for Thomas Calabro. That man was a white-hot sexual icon, don't stress about it. Besides, Ted has probably led NA and sex addiction groups with way worse pedigrees than yours."
Emily: "Holden? Didn't you die of a gay drug-addict heart defect?"
Holden: "No, I've just been hanging out. Getting cuter and cuter by the minute."
Emily: "Cool. I'm here with Hanna. And maybe Toby?"
Holden: "Relax, have a cupcake. It isn't poisoned or anything!"
Emily: "That stamp on your wrist. Is it from the '40s?"
Holden: "No, the '90s. Do you know what a 'rave' is?"
Emily: "I wasn't born yet, at that time in history."
Holden: "Well I used to see your girlfriend there..."
Emily: "As a chaperone?"
Ashley: "I guess I can try chilling with you and not be worried about being stoned to death or made to wear a scarlet letter, Pastor Ted. It's not like the actual Olden Days, at least in this part of town."
Wilden: "Hold that thought. Can I get super creepy for a sec?"
Ted: "Officer Josh! So nice to see you. Have you met Ms. Marin?"
Wilden: "Have I."
Ashley: "He's been persecuting my daughter for the better part of two years. Real good cop, this one. He's found Alison DiLaurentis's murder, what, seventeen times? And check out his stats on finding people with shovels, they're incandescent."
Wilden: "Anyway, just wanted to make you feel real gross about yourself. Peace out!"
Ashley: "Well, short of a guy with a beard showing up to turn the root beer into regular style, I should probably go home to my wine now."
Ted: "Let me walk you all the way back to your self-esteem. Or at least your car."
RWPD
Spencer has to walk into the middle of the street to hear Toby's voicemail, because RWPD is in the '40s part of town. It looks like Gotham City.
Toby: "Hey, can you call me? I'm about to leave this church... thing... and I need to know why you and Hanna LIED to me!"
Spencer: "Du-rahma! No thanks. Delete."
Jason: "Whew, those cops really didn't care about our meticulous story we worked out as to how we got that ankle bracelet."
Spencer: "What do we do now?"
Jason: "Um, wait?"
Spencer: "I've never actually brought evidence to the cops. Sometimes I set it on fire or push it off a cliff, sometimes I flush it down the toilet, but not once have I managed to do this very simple thing."
Spencer: "Hey Jay?"
Jason: "Yeah, Spence."
Spencer: "Think I could read those letters? Where you found out you're a bastard?"
Jason, verbatim: "Oh, Spencer. You don't want to do that. It'll just... Hurt."
Spencer: "You are quite different from Alison. I mean, the reason that you don't want me to see them is the very reason that she would want me to."
Jason: "I wonder what kind of person she would have turned into. I mean, I see it with the kids I work with. At first they're all attitude, but you peel back the layers and you usually find a person underneath. Sometimes a marijuana addict, but usually a person."
Spencer: "I know what you mean. But with Ali, it's like you keep peeling, and peeling, and there's always some new, even more horrible layer."
RUMMAGING AROUND THE CHAPEL FOR SOME A
Hanna: "Emily. Why does it take you forever to get anywhere?"
Emily: "I was just chatting with Holden, sorry. It was weird and full of clues."
Hanna: "That dreamboat? What's he got going on?"
Emily: "Maybe something to do with Maya? Samara might go to raves, she seems like the type, but she's in Mystic Falls now too and I don't know that she ever counted. Paige, who the hell knows. She might well be the one throwing the raves, under an alternate personality not even she knows about."
Hanna: "A is in this building right now. We invited him or her. We are about to be murdered. Quit with the endless parade of lesbians for like one second."
Emily: "Oh, and I also remembered time-traveling to the 1940s with Holden That Night. Remember? That Night I kept getting kidnapped by people? So that could also be a clue."
Hanna: "I don't have time for your flashback nonsense. Just guard this door until I am good and dead."
Hanna enters the dark and rustling chapel for her murder, and is chased around for about twenty minutes before her pursuer reveals himself: Officer Josh Wilden! Of the RWPD!
Wilden: "Um, I'm the only person meeting anybody in this chapel tonight."
Hanna: "Because you're here to kill me? Good, that's what we were banking on for some reason."
Wilden: "No, because obviously when you tried to kill that old lady, she thrashed around and dropped this note and a nurse found it. So why were you here, and why are you helping Garrett?"
Hanna: "...Huh?"
Wilden: "You wouldn't quit trying to frame Ian, and then he died..."
Hanna: "No, fuck Garrett. God, you don't get it at all."
Wilden: "And now you're slipping him notes, and covering up for him, and I just..."
Hanna: "I can see why this is frustrating, honestly. Everyone on this show thinks we're totally nuts. And if you weren't a super-mega-creep, I would totally help you out. But you can't be trusted either, and I get that you're never going to leave us alone, and nothing I say matters anyway, so..."
She abruptly peaces, with him just yelling about how Garrett will eventually come to justice. Oh, and that her mom is a whore but at least she fixes problems, where Hanna only knows how to create them. He also said something along those lines, lest we forget that no matter how frustrated he is, or how cute, he is also a once-coercer and ongoing-menacer of Ashley, which is certainly not okay.
FITZ
Aria, dropping her keys by the door: "I guess I just live here now."
Fitz, watching Vengeance Valley: "Hey, how did work go?"
Aria: "Shitty. Listen, are you a murderer? And if not, I found a bunch of money in your sock drawer that we need to discuss."
Fitz: "How dare you!"
Aria: "Cut the shit, Ezra Fitz. I wasn't snooping. You are the Pretty Little Liar today."
Fitz: "Okay, I had '67 Jaguar that I sold for cash."
Aria: "Why didn't you tell me this?"
Fitz: "It was embarrassing! I quit my job with no other options, and couldn't move anywhere else to take a job because I am doing a little child, and it was all too much! Six months ago I was a professor and now I'm answering want ads for webzines [WHAT?] and reusing coffee filters!"
I don't even know what to say to that, Ezra Fitz. That is no way to go about things. I mean, when your child bride has a better job -- even if it's just by virtue of being A JOB -- and you're talkin' bout...
Hold up, didn't he totally get a job last week? At Jenna's birthday? Was that a Pretty Little Lie too? I sure hope so. I hope he never calms down or stops telling lies. Pissed-off Ezra has all the cuteness of a baby squirrel, but he breaks just like a full-grown man.
Vengeance Valley: "When you're loyal to a man, Hewie, you're loyal to everything about him... Even his faults..."
HASTINGS
Vengeance Valley: "There are some things, and some people, you can't run away from."
Peter: "Good morning."
Spencer: "Oh, is it?"
Peter: "You're looking relatively stable this morning."
Spencer: "Oh, am I?"
Peter: "No, I was just being nice. Listen, the cops have been looking for that anklet for two years now [Really?] and they didn't even tell the family about it [Really?] and but now you and Jason dropped it off at the station."
Spencer: "Proving once again that I am better at the cops than the cops are..."
Peter: "The anklet had trace amounts of blood on it... Alison's, and someone else's, but not Garrett's."
Spencer: "I am about to lose my shit."
Peter: "It's a mystery person, but not him. The judge threw out the case."
Spencer commences losing her shit, in a fantastic way, screaming into a pillow and writhing and just totally selling it, and when she's finally on her literal knees, A TEXTS HER with confirmation that Garrett didn't kill the girls, hee-hee-hee, and Spencer digs down beneath the rock-bottom she hit a second ago and just... It's breathtaking. A wonderfully performed, wonderfully filmed, existential breakdown caught on tape.
Like you could believe that all this girl has had, for a good long time, is one fact she decided was worth holding onto, and suddenly you just see the weight of the last two years crumble down on her from the sky, and Spencer -- our Spencer, our crazy little fightin' Spencer that could carry all of us on her back -- just breaks down and can't carry it, and it's so sad. So sad!
On the other hand, it's exactly how Hanna got sane.
A-TAG
Eats some rainbow sherbet, reads about Garrett in the paper, and then decides on a rental of some kind. Maybe this A will make a virtual-reality copy of Spencer's room, or all their rooms, and then Season Four can take place in the Matrix of Mona's mind.
WEEK
The Liars visit Mona en masse, which yeah, that shouldn't piss her off at all.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Bunheads, 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, and novelette "The Commonplace Book" will appear on Tor.com in October 2012.