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The episode starts with Emily shell-shocked and Hanna crying like mad, but you don't see who the casualty or casualties are really, so it's kind of on your mind the whole time. Ditto this gun Caleb shows up with in the first act, because you know what they say: Never give a werewolf a gun without at least a ten-day waiting period, or it'll go off in the last act. Mostly what Hanna does all episode before whatever happens is, be awesome.
Garrett's trial is about to start for that murder he didn't commit, which means the entire country's journalists only care about Emily, a teenage girl who dated a murder victim for about a minute, in between rehab stints and manic redecorating episodes. Pam is like, "It's so hard being the First Lady of Dead Girls, but are you sure going to some isolated cabin somewhere -- with that guy who is clearly not Maya's cousin -- is a good call? You know, since you're always getting murdered?"
Emily's like, "I don't have any other friends right now, because my friends are bitches who keep reminding me of how my girlfriend keeps trying to murder and/or sexually assault me every day of her life, so yes." And with that, it is done. Of course once she gets there, she remembers what show she's on, and before you know it he's admitting (duh) to being the stalker and to having cooked up some elaborate plan to hurt Emily for taking Maya away from him by stabbing Paige -- whom he just happens to already have tied up in the cabin they came to, together -- to death. He's very scary, it's well done.
Which would come as a surprise to the other Liars, who are up Paige's absent ass the entire episode fully sure that she is the bad guy of each and every scenario going on. Turns out Nate faked an A text so she'd keep quiet and head into her abduction without a word. After a weird phone call threatening what I thought was a bomb but it never blew up, Emily eventually meanders out into the woods and finds herself trapped at the top of a lighthouse, the perfect place to get stabbed all to hell.
Who else. Mona Vanderwaal escapes easily from her mental institution in a Nurse Ratched uniform, visits a recreation of her old A Lair somehow, gets a weird phone call and says a bunch of inscrutable shit about trying to pin Maya's murder on Paige, and... Wait. Everybody else first. I mean, it didn't make sense to me anyway, but there was some crazy in there that can wait. Aria has an awkward run-in with Babymama Maggie at Ezra's house, but agrees to keep the secret of Malcolm for now. That's the extent of what Aria did in this episode of the show she's on: Ate some cake and agreed to cover her own ass as a favor to someone else. Although I must say Ezra looks fetching in a collegiate hoodie. Plus, Spencer and her boyfriend Toby The Most Trustworthy Person In Rosewood finally had sex -- yes, with his shirt off -- and said they loved each other after a camera-whirling, fiercely passionate hug that only signals death and destruction on this show.
So yeah, the big finish. The SHOCKS, they number three: Caleb and the Liars split up to find Emily (Paige's ass they just leave tied up, I guess) so the Liars are just uselessly wandering Pennsylvania, while Emily's accidentally stabbing Nate to death (SHOCK #1) in the lighthouse and then being comforted by Caleb, who finds her just in time to (SHOCK #2) provide Nate with the opportunity to shoot him with his own gun. While they're wheeling the bodies out (series regular Caleb might "not" make it, Garrett is going free) Emily and the Liars hook back up and all is forgiven. Paige still looks busted and crazy and nobody's interested in hugging her, but thus is the life of Paige I guess.
Did I mention Emily fully killed a person tonight? Yeah. But that's not the real shocker, the real SHOCKER #3 is that we finally meet a second member of the A-Team, who ended up having to abandon their whole entire scheme -- and this could be a legitimate, crazy spoiler, assuming it's not all a ruse to "protect" somebody like usual -- and even drops Mona back off wearing his A-Team hoodie? Why, none other than Toby Cavanaugh himself.
Not the most exciting episode, I guess, but once you've topped "Hanna Getting Hit By A Car Whilst Glamping" with "Talking Dolls Boss You Around & Your Psychiatrist Has Been Buried Alive" maybe it's better to just spend your time judiciously tying up loose ends. I know I'm glad to have the Maya/Paige/Nate thing over with and answered, even if Toby's just the lame ringer/double agent he most likely is. (Frankly, I'm more shocked at how easily Mona got back in game face -- don't Hanna's awesomeness powers mean anything to you?) I guess we'll figure out what the hell happened -- and see if Caleb survives -- with the 10/23 Halloween Special that looks insane, and don't forget to watch the webisodes from now until then, because I have a feeling they are going to be bonkers too. XOXO, etc.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Minutes after her life was flooded by snakes, Spencer took the time to go through Paige's bag when she wasn't looking and ended up finding Aria's earring from Ali's coffin. Emily doesn't know this, because she is pissed at all of them and not interested in what anybody has to say, whether it's Jenna saying to stay away from Cousin Nate or the way Cousin Nate is constantly saying, "I am a crazy stalker" in pretty clear language. Aria took on yet another alias in order to visit Ezra's baby mama, screwing up his life even more than usual. Both Toby and Caleb stopped being polite about the fact that these girls cannot take a damn step that doesn't end in conflagrations and tragedy, and started getting real about that fact. "It's not because you're girls," they basically said, "It is because you are liars and fuckups."
FLASH FORWARD
Something terrible has happened! Hanna is crying her eyes out, at some location I don't recognize, and Emily has completely lost the plot, just staring into space looking shell-shocked while a million cops ask her if she knew the dead person.
Cop: "Did you know the victim?"
Emily: "Yes."
Cop: "The deceased was a friend of yours?"
Emily: "On this show that is always like the hardest question."
PRE-INTERVENTION
Flash backward to the morning of Garrett's trial for Maya's murder, where the other Liars have gathered to talk about how much Emily hates it when they talk about her.
Liars: "What I don't get is, why does the entire country care that Maya died? She was the worst. And everybody gets raped and murdered in this town anyway -- it's not really news."
Spencer: "As the Garrett on this show, I'd imagine that my boyfriend Toby -- a teenager who did not graduate high school -- has taken a high-profile contracting job in Bucks County to avoid this mess."
Liars: "Nobody cares, Spencer. Nobody cares about Toby."
Aria is wearing an electric blue skirt made out of novelty foil and a long black vest over a red shirt with what seems to be either blue cheetah spots or blue... panda bears floating? It's the skirt that really sets it off. It looks like it would make a sound like Xmas.
Aria: "More importantly, this is about me. I lied to Emily that we were meeting up to apologize to her, not the opposite of apologize to her."
Spencer: "We'll cross that bridge when we burn it, Feathers. The important thing is that we shove these earrings in her face so she knows how wrong she is. And that way, she will always do as instructed from now on."
Hanna, verbatim: "In a successful intervention, the loved one feels safe, not judged."
Aria: "Shut up, Hanna. This is still about me."
Spencer is wearing a dramatic pendant to go with her Jordan almond-mint sweater dress, which by the way has three-quarter sleeves and is covered in tiny tan cows, but it's pretty subtle... until she dramatically turns her back to the camera on her most intense line, revealing on her ass a giant Gothic Loli bow as big as your head tied around her waist in a contrasting pastel pink. Anybody else would look crazy as hell, but for Spencer it's kind of a pulled-together look.
Spencer, rising to reveal her surprise bow: "Great. Right, so we'll start out all warm and fuzzy, and then we just have to hit her. With the truth."
Hanna: "For those at home, let's review. Paige was jealous of Ali and Maya because Ali made her be in love with Emily, and we know she was with Emily on That Night of the abductions, so she could have set us up and then she has the other earring so maybe she has our dead friend's corpse somewhere. But still, I wonder why it is that Paige got roofied at Jenna's zany 'Coffee & Hats' themed birthday party."
Spencer: "Uh, drugging yourself is the best alibi ever. Classic Sharon Stone move. Remember Basic Instinct?"
Liars: "We don't remember any movie made before cell phones. Not because we're stupid teenage girls, but because those movies are no longer relevant. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy would have been five minutes long if they'd just used their cell phones."
Spencer: "Sharon Stone played an insane sociopathic bisexual bitch who smoked cigarettes. She wrote a murder mystery novel to cover up a crime that she was about to commit. It was genius. She was my hero throughout middle school."
Liars: "Okay, so you've decided Paige is A this week. Fine. She's working with Mona?"
Spencer: "Yeah, they both hated Ali, and... I don't know. We never decided if A and Ali's killer were the same person. Maybe one killed her and the other one covered it up."
Liars: "Ultimately, it's about isolating her from us, so Paige can have her all to herself. Or else we've confabulated a ridiculous story to break up our best friend and her girlfriend, like bitches sometimes do for no reason."
INTERVENTION
Emily: "Whatever you've got to say, you have five seconds."
Aria: "Emily, first of all let me just reiterate that this is all about me..."
Emily: "Four."
Spencer: "You know we love you, right? In our greedy, grasping, suffocating way where we treat you like an infant?"
Emily: "Three."
Liars: "Garrett didn't kill Maya! Paige had an earring! Ipso facto!"
Emily: "You went through her purse the last time you dicked up a simple apology, and found an earring? Have you idiots not noticed that we find a piece of evidence in every single episode and it never means anything whatsoever and most of the time it was planted there by A just to mess with us? Or then Spencer burns it, so it still doesn't matter in the long run?"
Liars: "But an earring! She drowned you! She date-raped you! She bicycled!"
Emily: "Peace, assholes."
Liars: "...Well, we tried."
SCHOOL
Hanna: "Surprisingly enough, Emily didn't come to school today. I want to assume it's because of her girlfriend's highly publicized murder, but I also maybe feel like it's because we were being insensitive assholes."
Aria: "Hanna, Hanna, Hanna. Sweet, oblivious Hanna. This is clearly all about me."
Hanna: "Hell you figure, this time?"
Aria: "Easy. I went to Ezra's baby mama's school class under an assumed name. She bore his child, rather than terminating it as specified in the agreement she made with his mother. Therefore, this is about me."
Hanna: "I swear to God you're responding to something I was saying about Hanna, but I'll be damned if I can figure out..."
Aria, verbatim: "I just really feel like I'm about to rattle the cage of a sleeping giant."
Hanna: "Two things. First of all, why do you ever say shit like that. And secondly, I'm starting to think Alison was wrong. Secrets don't keep us close, they tear us apart."
LOCKER HALL
Spencer and Paige stare at each other for a million years until everybody in the entire school evacuates this wing of the school, because this could be it. The big one.
Spencer: "Fuckin' what? What are you lookin' at?"
Paige: "Um, Emily called me in tears because you guys ganged up on her this morning."
Spencer: "We didn't 'gang up,' it was an intervention..."
Paige: "-- Well, that's not really my problem what it was. See, she's my girlfriend, okay, and she was crying. Do you not get how this works? It's like my one valid reason to act out of control and I am not letting that slide."
Spencer: "What do you want from us, you monster?!"
Paige: "Oh my God, she wasn't kidding about you. Look. I will mess you up. Your face. Leave Emily alone. She needs support right now, not weird theories and surprise attacks."
Spencer: "I. Know. Who. You. Are."
Paige slams her locker so hard that a girl's fillings fall out in the classroom upstairs, and it's done. What was accomplished? Well, Paige is now also taking the day off. That's about it.
FIELDS
Curled up in a window seat, just talkin' about Liars.
Emily: "They think they know. Who. You. Are, but they're wrong."
Paige: "I don't get it, why don't they want you dating?"
Emily: "Lord. Look, it's not even really about that, or you. They just don't trust people. If you think about it, it kind of makes sense. What with all of us constantly getting run over or extorted or murdered or creepy-massaged."
Paige: "I would kill for you, Emily. I would commit acts of sedition."
Emily: "Just calm down. I like it when you wrap your arms around me and I know it's because you love me, and not because you're going to alligator-roll me at the bottom of the pool until I stop breathing."
Emily: "Hey, remember that time you date-raped me?"
Paige: "Yep!"
Emily: "Well, later on somebody took a picture of all four of us at Ali's grave..."
Paige: "Oh, shit. Were you holding a shovel?"
Emily: "...Bingo."
Paige: "You're fucked. That's it. Snake eyes. Ya burnt."
Emily: "So they think you're the new A, basically, besides Mona, and that's what they were yelling at me about this morning. They'll work it out eventually -- Spencer does this every episode -- and they'll be really sorry and whatever. But until then, they are going to torture you. And we have to let them."
Paige gets a text that's very mysterious all about how "Meet me at Ali's grave at 10 PM or else [Paige's thumb] gets hurt -- A." In this case, Paige's Thumb probably represents Emily, but it's better this way because you think maybe Paige has been in league with A for who knows how long and is either working with A to save Emily or working against Emily to save somebody else. Neat little moment. She scoots, leaving Emily to be exhausted by every single person in her life some more.
WORSE TO WORSER
Hanna: "Well, things have gone from worse to worser. Paige is also skipping school. Probably she's out there right now, kidnapping Emily or something. And we have to be in school! It's so unfair."
Aria: "You guys, what if we told the cops any of this?"
Liars: "Don't be an asshole, Aria."
Spencer: "Let's tell Pam Fields. That seems like an effective way to handle this."
But before they can, A sends them a text that says, "Stand down, bitches. Play it my way and Emily stays safe!" She doesn't even know why, but right at this second Emily's hands turn into fists because yet again, the entire world is treating her like this. Even A is like, "Oooh, we couldn't possibly hurt fragile alcoholic lesbian Emily, could we?" It really happened about 11 episodes ago now that I'm thinking about it, but definitely at this point Hanna has officially lost the title of Most Justifiably Pissed-Off Liar.
MONA
Is that Florence Nightingale? Barbara Stanwyck? No, silly. It's Mona, dressed like a Red Cross nurse from the Blitz complete with lacy white socks, making her way easily out of Radley and into the Rosewood community in her orthopedic shoes, like she's done it a million times with the Hawk In Paris song "Freaks" playing, which... just go look up the lyrics. They're intriguing, A-Team-wise.
MARIN
Liars: "I can't believe A told us not to tell Emily's parents that her girlfriend is a murderer. That was shitty."
Hanna: "I just hope Emily calls me soon. Even though she won't. Mostly, I can't believe Emily's shit luck with girls."
Spencer: "Paige is just another monster Alison created."
Aria: "That's a very good point. Also, so are we."
A sends them a text to come to Ali's grave at ten and bring Maya's huge hideous purse and also two pictures: One of the Liars flagrantly holding a shovel and then... a picture of the body bag where Alison and vodka live now.
There is a sound! Downstairs! It does not respond to a friendly hello! The girls wig out for awhile, then Hanna grabs a pink fuzzy lamp and of course it is Caleb plugged into his iPod, so they all calm down.
Hanna: "I almost killed you!"
Caleb, verbatim: "With a pink furry lamp, Hanna?"
Liars: "You were on duty watching Emily's house. Go back and do our bidding."
Caleb: "Nah, there's like a dozen reporters on her lawn and her mom is home. She's good where she is."
Spencer: "Look at these mean notes and pictures, Caleb."
Caleb: "Okay, I'm going with you to the grave then."
Caleb's being really involved in this episode, huh? I hope he doesn't tell Hanna he loves her or starts waving a gun around. If he does either of those things, that bitch is getting shot. I know how this show works.
EMILY'S BAD IDEAS WHY NOT
Angie: "Em! You answered your phone! You're there! This is Hanna, I just borrowed one of your coworkers' phones to fool you."
Emily: "Shut up and go away. I'm leaving town with Cousin Nate. He's taking me to someplace called the Lighthouse Rock Inn, where we can be all alone in a deserted cabin out of cell phone range, like the complete strangers we are."
Hanna: "We love you, Emily."
Emily: "Suck a nut, 'Angie.'"
Pam: "Hey, are you sure this makes sense that you would go to a scary death cabin with a person you don't know, who terrifies the scariest person in this whole town?"
Emily: "Yes."
Pam: "Okay, I'm cool with letting you do whatever you want."
Spencer: "So you say she's leaving town with her stalker that keeps pressuring her sexually even though he knows she's gay? And who scares the shit out of Jenna Thing and has publicly attacked her more than once?"
Hanna: "Yeah, apparently they're making a weekend of it."
Spencer: "Good for her."
THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
Toby randomly walks up after Hanna leaves Spencer staring into space, and they run in slow motion at each other and the camera whirls around them while they embrace and it takes forever and ever. Man, I hope Toby doesn't tell Spencer he loves her or anybody mentions one more goddamn time how honest and trustworthy he is or they have gauzy montage-music intercourse, because if any of those things happens, that bitch is gonna turn out to be on the A-Team. I know how this show works.
IN THE LAND OF OUR FITZFATHERS
Ezra is clearly working, and Aria clearly is not interested in letting him work. This verbatim moment kind of says it all:
Aria: "...Hey Ezra?"
Ezra: "Love ya, babe."
Now, you and I know she was about to bring up his baby mama, but he doesn't know that, which means this exchange has already happened, I would say, hundreds of times. This would be because Aria is incredibly needy and because Ezra is... at best, merely a boy. When Maggie knocks on the door, he assumes it's his neighbor who locks herself out once a week -- he even keeps a key by the door -- but what's really maddening about this scene is that somehow over the course of the few seconds, it's going to go from "a thing that sometimes happens" to "a thing that was inevitable." Like, if he had just said, "It's Mrs. Rosenthal door, she called and said she locked herself out again," it would make sense. But instead he just seems crazy and then clairvoyant when she does show up.
Maggie: "It's me, Maggie!"
Ezra: "Oh, balls. This is my girlfriend Aria. She's a little child."
Aria: "Ezra, I need to speak with you immediately. There's a chance if I come clean in the one second you won't be pis..."
Maggie: "-- Nice to meet you, Aria."
They chat and catch up and whatever, they already talked on the phone but she was "in the neighborhood" so she just dropped by, which, if you think secretly not having the abortion was rude...
Maggie: "It's terrific that you're 'writing,' of course, but what made you give up teaching?"
Ezra, with an admittedly sexy-as-all-hell goofy glance at Aria: "Uh, it's complicated. Do I hear Mrs. Rosenthal?"
And it is Mrs. Rosenthal. And she has some kind of a Bundt cake happening.
Maggie: "Why didn't you tell him about Malcolm yet? What is wrong with you?"
Aria: "I know! And let's not even get into how creepy I am for lying to your face after stalking you at your job with your son standing right there."
Maggie: "Yeah, for some reason your obviously necessary apology for that never comes up in this scene."
Aria: "Anyway, are you going to tell him about Malcolm? I'd really like to be the one that does that. Since it's none of my business and all."
Maggie: "I still need to figure some shit out. Like how I can keep squeezing money out of that bitch Diane Fitzgerald."
Aria: "Sister, I heard you on that one. Fine, I'll do you the favor of covering my own ass."
Ezra: "...Whoooo wants cake?"
Ezra, none the wiser, then feeds Bundt cake to both of his high school girlfriends.
MARIN
Hanna: "Caleb, is that a gun you're putting in your backpack?"
Caleb: "Hanna! I thought you were taking a neck-down shower!"
Hanna: "Neck-up is where most of the time goes, if you think about it. See, check out my flawless makeup and 'unkempt,' perfectly coiffed updo. If I had to tear all this down and start over, we'd never get there by ten. Back to the subject of the gun on my pink ruffly bed and how I'm about to dump your ass."
Caleb: "Fine, I'll stash it in one of your many, many tiny underwear drawers in this Victoria's Secret franchise you call a closet. But I'd like to remind you that, however fun Mona was for you, this new A very nearly killed my mom. So."
Hanna: "I just can't believe we're finally going to solve A, stop Mona and Paige, and finally end this show."
Caleb: "I can tell you right now that at least one of those two names is wrong and also everything else you just said is wrong."
MONA
Back in the hoodie, baby! (Back In Black! Back on track! Beatin' the flack! I don't know what the words of that song mean! But also, her gorgeous face does that androgyny thing again when she wears the hoodie. I don't know how she gets it to do that.) Also, more interestingly than the hoodie even, is that in a second she's somehow in her A Lair again and I don't guess that it's in the Lost Woods anymore, so the only theory that I have to offer is that she is inside Spencer's computer at this time.
Maybe part of being in an adrenalized hyper-reality means you can just go into the internet at will and wear a hoodie in a digital simulacrum -- I don't know how that works or why you would even need the Florence Nightingale outfit if you could do that, maybe it's like the Matrix and she needed to get an outside line -- but everything's back to normal for old Mona. You will not catch me complaining about one single Mona thing, ever.
Her phone rings and Mona is first grimly happy to be back on the case -- "I'm here" -- and then a little scared or upset or worried for just a second -- maybe the part that Hanna gave the makeover to is still partially in play? -- and then she just goes cold, A-Team cold, Vanderwaal cold: "I understand."
What? What do you understand, Mona? Just tell me one thing about you, Mona, just whatever is on your mind. I love you so much.
MONTAGE
Spencer and Toby have sex -- there is one very gorgeous angle where the sun comes in so bright you can barely see them -- and the song pointedly goes:
Nothing goes as planned / Everything will break
People say goodbye / In their own special way
All that you rely on / And all that can you fake
Will leave you in the morning / But find you in the day
Hmm. Elsewhere, Cousin Nate covers up Emily with a blanket in the creepazoid motel where nobody will ever find them and leaves to go kidnap more people. Hanna grabs Maya's hideous purse out of her giant closet. Spencer and Toby keep doing it.
Everything will change / Nothing stays the same
Nobody is perfect / But Toby killed your friend
Caleb grabs that gun, obviously. Maggie and Ezra chow on that Bundt cake because they're old and it doesn't matter, and Aria watches from the kitchen wondering how she ended up with these people in her life. Toby and Spencer come downstairs. She's wearing his t-shirt and looks absolutely lovely, and Toby puts a leather jacket on over his best qualities.
Spencer: "Did you get that random job in Bucks County just to get away from me?"
Toby: "No, but you asking me a shitty question like that makes me wish I did. In fact, there is no job in Bucks County and I am on the A-Team. How can you tell? Three little words."
Spencer: "I love you too! For reasons I refuse to explain!"
Toby: "Yep, I'm a murderer."
They embrace one last time, striking chin to striking chin, and over her shoulder his face makes a look of crazy robot murder that is usually reserved for Spencer's face. Good luck finding a boyfriend as wonderful as Teen Contractor Toby Cavanaugh, Spencer Hastings. You just go ahead and try.
LAIR
Mona stands in A's Lair, complete with all the usual things and including a new scary clown mask I don't remember -- maybe it's layering in for October? -- and she tells A there's been a change in plans. I have no idea what she means, but maybe it will make sense later or it already makes sense.
ALI'S GRAVE
Caleb: "[Egregious technobabble nonsense about him 'picking up the feed' from a 'voice-activated' 'app.']"
Liars: "So basically you're just going to leave your phone on, and we're going to leave our phone on?"
Caleb: "Yeah."
Liars: "I mean, is there more to it?"
Caleb: "Not really."
He takes Maya's giant purse with him so he can go voice-activate a feed elsewhere, and they settle in to wait for A. It's enough that you almost feel bad for their dumb asses, because every time, A is like, "Hey, let's just chill and see if we can work out our various differences," and they're all, "That's really mature of you, A, way to be cool," and then A is like, "Sucka! Here's a hailstorm of greenhouse glass in your hair and a punch in the boob!" and they're like, "Man, we did not see that coming."
EMILY
Wakes up from her montage nap to the lighthouse motel's old-timey phone ringing and a distorted A (Toby?) voice saying, "You have one minute. Get out!"
Dude, if somebody says that to you on the phone? You get the fuck out. I don't care if you're tired, I don't care whether you smell gas and I don't care if you think it's a prank: You get the hell out of there. What does Emily do? Mosey the fuck around the entire motel room, touching every object and staring into space, looking at what DVDs there are and what kind of tea is here and do they have the little soaps, for well longer than a minute. So I guess it's lucky Toby wasn't warning her about a bomb, because her dumb self would be in a million wet on-fire pieces.
No, he was warning her about Cousin Nate coming back with a secret something. Not that she cares about that either. Or anything. I thought the dumbest thing Emily would ever do would be deliberately locking herself in an airtight garage with a running automobile, but no. Politely telling Mr. Bomb Threat he has the wrong number is way, way stupider than that. I'm not kidding about the moseying either, there was zero hustle. Zero percent hustle. The last place she was headed was "out." At least, until she sees the paint on his boots, matching boots from one of the pictures of Maya at Noel's Kahbin.
GRAVE/CABIN/CALEB
Liars: "Hey, it's been 45 minutes and nothing's going on. Do you think it's possible -- now hear me out -- do you think just maybe we've been the butt of a practical joke or elaborate hoax of some kind?"
Emily: "Hey, I am going to go for a walk."
Cousin Nate: "The hell you are, bitch. Just kidding!"
Emily: "I'm starting to feel weird about this situation that was so normal before."
Caleb: "There are two Lighthouse Rock Inns nearby. I'm going to one of them, you ladies go to the other one. And no, that's not a gun you hear in my passenger seat."
Hanna: "We're going to the wrong one, and Caleb is going to the right one, and then he's going to be shot in his abdomen. Clear?"
Liars: "Clear! Head out!"
Emily: "Cool. Yeah, I could use some fresh air after that tea kettle screaming and that cat yowling unexpectedly and the flickering of the lights and the strange creaking and the sounds of somebody duct-taped in that closet over there moaning. I'll just be a second, I'm certainly not placing a call to everyone in my phone to come save me."
Cousin Nate: "You want to go for a walk in the scary dark night where somebody named Me could rush you with a knife, you go right ahead."
Emily: "Cool, I'll be back soon. Tell your nonexistent parents hi for me."
Cousin Nate: (Immediately gives chase, knife in hand.)
After a struggle, he brings her back to the cabin so they can watch a long boring video of Maya being boring.
"I have wanted to give you this in person, because I want to be there when you watch it. I've said so many wrong things to you, Emily -- this is me taking the time to get it right. I've been staying at Noel Kahn's cabin trying to figure a way out of the mess that I got myself into. And I'm not totally sure, but I think that stalker from Tru North found me. I thought I saw him at a party the other night. This isn't about him, it's about us. I'm coming home, and... if you still want to be with me, if I can still count on us, I know I can get through this."
Cousin Nate: "And yet I still love her."
Emily: "Like as a cousin, or..."
Cousin Nate: "Oh my God, you idiot. No! I am her stalker! I am not her cousin!"
Emily: "Yeah, okay. I get it now."
Cousin Nate: "Now I am going to cut up your girlfriend, like you... wait, hang on. You took Maya away from me! So I will take your girlfriend away from you!"
And with a flourish, he reveals... Paige! All duct-taped up in a closet, just lookin' all a mess. She got that text about keeping Ems safe and thought, "I'm a hoss, surely I can take this A out and save the day and those mean awful girls will stop being mean and awful to me, and I can just finally be normal" and then Cousin Nate was like, "I'm not even A and I totally got you!" Which just lends credence to my idea that if you live in Rosewood, you should just be A whenever you feel like it. Like Anonymous. Nobody will know, it'll be fine. Everybody does what A says all the time, even though it never works out and in fact does the opposite of work out, always.
Caleb, verbatim: "Hanna... I love you."
Hanna: "So your ass is dead, then."
Cousin Nate: "When I finally found you in a vulnerable enough place that you didn't punch me for kissing you, I thought maybe I could delude myself into thinking that you were into me. It's called being a Nice Guy and I pulled the same shit on Maya. Sadly, Nice Guys -- also, often, Crazy People -- are so into their own stuff that they don't really see you at all, just the stuff they're projecting onto you. So vague girls like you -- and flighty artsy girls like Maya -- are the two kinds of person that most often become Dream Girls to us. It doesn't matter if you say no or how hard you Friend-Zone me, because I wasn't listening to you before and I'm certainly not going to listen now, so at the most what you're doing is dicking me around and/or being a bitch. But because I put you on this pedestal, it seems to myself and sometimes even other people that I'm being a feminist, or at least I'm not a misogynist, when the truth is that I am a worse thing, which is a person so consumed by his own self that he honestly thinks women are objects put on this earth to carry his psychological burdens and has never known a person he didn't demonize or divinize in this way. It's kind of like being Neo in The Matrix, except you're the only real person."
Emily: "Oh my God, that's terrible! Are you some kind of horrifying space-age monster?"
Cousin Nate: "No, I am most guys."
Emily: "So you killed Maya because she didn't play along with your weird fantasy that she was in love with you?"
Cousin Nate: "You're not listening. It didn't matter if she was in love with me, because I didn't need a cosigner. I was in love with her. The end."
Emily: "Are you sure this isn't a deep psychological problem specific to you?"
Cousin Nate: "No. I promise you this is how most guys are. Especially under 25. We are socialized to feel entitled to everything -- it makes us feel good when we get things -- and you are socialized to constantly give away everything -- it makes you feel good to give things -- and when you add those things up, it's real easy to see how the Madonna/Whore complex became what it is today."
Emily: "I hate the things I learn on this show."
Cousin Nate: "Well, you won't have long because I'm about to chop you up and Paige too. Unless I randomly fixate on her and start disregarding her wishes and then end up kidnapping her girlfriend, and so on."
MEANWHILE
The Liars have discovered a cabin that is not the cabin. The princess is in another castle. Well done, ladies.
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
Is his real name, which is why it doesn't matter that everybody knows where and with whom Emily was meant to be vacationing. Anyway, eventually Emily just sort of runs out of the room under no pretext at all, like it's edited to seem that he hears the Liars coming and is distracted, when in fact what distracts him is the script so that Emily can mosey on out of there... and all the way up the 400 steps of the lighthouse, a structure known for having no exits and going straight up and illuminating you constantly so that anybody chasing you through the forest will know exactly where you are.
Did I say that was the stupidest thing, before? Hmm. So what happens, anyway, is that she finally gets a signal at the top of the tower -- ah, got it, sorry -- and he comes running up after her, they tussle with the knife, Emily stabs him through the gut, he falls down bleeding out and dying, Caleb comes running up with his gun, which he places gently within Lyndon's reach so he can give Emily a comforting hug and then his dumb ass gets shot through the abdomen. And I hate to say he was asking for it, because I do love my Caleb, but Jesus F. Christ with these people.
LATER, BUT ALSO EARLIER
Hanna screams Caleb's name about a thousand times, filling in the blanks now that we know, and the poignant "was he your friend" thing comes back around full force. Was Nate St. Germaine Emily's friend? Definitely. Was Lyndon James? Well, how about Mona?
How about Alison?
But when Emily shouts, "Just let me talk to my friend!" You know who she's talking about. And so does Paige. So when Emily goes running into Hanna's arms, she and Spencer spare a look every bit as painful, and as beautiful, as the time they sent the whole school running. It was about how much they loved Emily. A whole fight, a whole war -- not unlike the one Alison started with her, really -- about who loved Emily more, who was allowed to love her more.
I could look you right in the eyes and tell you I loved you: Some days you'd believe me, some days it would go right past your head and you'd think I was joking. It's not even that secrets tear us apart, usually: It's that they're all we have. The people who love you can hurt you and still love you, which is at least two times more complicated than most of us are prepared to deal with.
HOSPITAL
Caleb's still in surgery when Aria brings Hanna coffee she won't touch. Somebody distorted, voice twisted -- Toby? -- calls all four of the girls to thank Emily for taking Nate off the board. Emily's killed Maya's killer, they're saying out there. Justice served, they're saying. Even Veronica Hastings, who's brought the newly free Garrett Reynolds to the hospital, to see his mother once again. And even as he's smiling their way, promising secrets to come, Veronica's telling Emily there's at least one good thing about tonight's ordeal.
RADLEY
A walks Mona back to Radley, in costume, so she can slip by the desk clerk once again.
Mona: "If I knew Nate was gonna get Garrett out, I would have stayed in tonight! You have to get Maya's cell phone back. That shouldn't be too difficult... Paige doesn't even know she has it. Sucks we didn't get to make that phone call. Ring ring, What's Paige doing with Maya's cell phone? OMG, she must be the killer! Oh well. Even the best laid plans go awry."
She tells A goodbye, and just when you think we're getting another fakeout, we see the real beytrAyal -- wearing the team colors is none other than Toby Cavanaugh himself.
I could look you right in the eyes and tell you I loved you.
A-TAG
Per the closed captioning, it is indeed Toby -- not just our usual "A" who could be Absolutely Anybody thAt's ever been seen or mentioned on the show -- who calls up the ticketsellers for the Halloween Train and asks for two tickets.
Train: "Is this for a Mr. Bane?"
Toby: "No, because you could understand what I was saying."
Train: "Why are you talking like that? Am I in a sick serial killer game? Can you see me picking my nose right now?"
Toby: "No, I am just weird. I might be in the Matrix in Spencer's computer, you don't know."
Train: "Fine. Visa or MasterCard?"
23 OCT
Halloween! Adam Lambert! Yes, I said "Adam Lambert"! A scary Harlequin with a pineapple head and Queen of Hearts color-blocking! Aria possibly being tied to the tracks or something! Toby and Spencer dressed as a gangster and moll, or maybe the Black Dahlia? A person wearing a mask wearing a mask! Hanna dressed as Marilyn in her White Goddess mode, Caleb-free but smiling and dancing! Emily as maybe Sacheen Littlefeather? Halloween on a scary train that A might blow up! Amazing!
TIL THEN
The Pretty Dirty Secrets webisodes starring Cece Drake, Noel Kahn, Lucas, Jason and Garrett, the girl they call Shana and gosh knows who else. I'm kind of excited about these, if I'm being honest. They take place in a Halloween store, which is already the most desperate place in the universe besides like Comedy Driving School, and Shana works there! The weirdest job! All the social cachet of being a carny, but ou only work for six weeks out of the year! What are their ways?
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife and Homeland 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, his novel The Urges, and novelette "The Commonplace Book" will appear on Tor.com in October 2012.
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