So much happened! I am going to leave something out, I just know it. And then there are things -- like a guy dressed up as the corpse of Alison running around his yard just for fun, or Lucas lurking around with an old-timey camera, or a weird face of Jenna at one point -- that might not mean anything yet. Adam Lambert was on the Halloween train, that was interesting. He was a vampire plus Adam Ant plus with a gom jabbar. Very high concept.
Much to Toby's chagrin, Garrett drops by with flowers for Veronica and a promise of many explanations for Spencer. This was one of the more linear* stories, so here's the gist: In fact, Spencer has always been Garrett's favorite of the Liars and in fact he has been trying to save her, but no dice. What happened the night Ali was murdered was, Blind Jenna and Garrett left Ian and Melissa upstairs in Ali's room and went downstairs to talk about how creepy the NAT Club is. Ali surprised them, and got into a shoving match with Jenna which Garrett ended by threatening Alison with the hockey stick. This resulted in Jenna thinking Garrett killed her, although he did not. Later, Garrett saw her arguing with Byron about presumably her blackmailing schemes, and of course sometime after that she was murdered several more times. Also, somebody was buried alive in her yard at some point during that night.
*("Linear" being a relative term, with this show.)
After spilling this absolutely bonkers story to Spencer, Garrett is summarily killed and loaded into a crate with a drugged Aria Montgomery, which multiple members of the A-Team come close to hurling off the train and into the night. Of course, Aria is saved, but a particularly anvilicious moment toward the end of the episode throws all-new and tremendously exciting suspicion on poor old Ezra Fitzgeraldwater.
Caleb, who is recovering nicely and still on the DL with Hanna, dresses up as the Phantom of the Opera and boards the train in secret but -- proving the whole Hanna/Caleb sneak-around plan has always been stupid -- Mona dresses up in the same exact costume except with an Alison DiLaurentis mask under her Phantom mask, and spends the episode seemingly molesting Hanna just for fun before (engaging in any of the other five things going on and) returning to the insane asylum. Weird.
But not as weird as the B story, which was about Ashley and Pastor Ted running into one of the little dead ghost girls from last year's scary story about the twin sisters. Remember that one time the little psychic boy at the scary doll shop turned out to be just another hillbilly? Well, it was like that, but without the comforting part where it's revealed to be a fake ghost situation and/or Alison in a ghost form. Her hair was really weird too, like a wig wearing a wig. Anyway, I guess there's ghosts now.
What else? The main A of this episode, a giant doll-clown, might be a dude with fake press-on nails. Paige now knows the full A story, and also saved Spencer from A. Toby and Spencer both showed momentary worry when Noel Kahn seemed to choke on a peanut, but later Toby pushed Noel Kahn down for being a choad, indirectly revealing that Alison's missing corpse was just chillin' in the beverage cooler the entire time.
It is sad that Garrett is dead -- and he looked very cute tonight, maybe the cutest he has ever looked -- but I never really understood his significance anyway so maybe there are levels to this that I am not getting. Otherwise, it seemed like a major tablet-clearing for a lot of the stuff from the first half of the season, it's always nice to see Toby acting creeperly, and of course there is nothing more exciting than finding out fifty new things that happened on the night of Ali's death. See you in Jan.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Emily and Paige survived Cousin Nate's kidnapping in a somewhat lackadaisical way, though Caleb ended up with a stab through his abdomen. Garrett Reynolds was exonerated and set free, pissing off the Liars for no real reason. Toby is back in Rosewood, dating Spencer, and totally on the A-Team. Aria, nobody ever cares what's going on with Aria. And Mona can apparently bust out of her insane asylum whenever she feels like it, simply by dressing up in strange costumes.
RADLEY
Mona sings the "Teddybear Picnic" song to another member of the A-Team, which is appropriate because it is the scariest song of all time.
Mona: "The way I am getting to make this crude and frightening papier-mâché body double was by saying I wanted to do a project for Halloween. They're cool with doing art, but asked me not to talk about Halloween. This is the kind of mental hospital for the criminally insane where half of the people have Halloween issues, like holiday-themed killing sprees, or their sister has Klinefelter's and they have to kill her, or like they were reinvented by Rob Zombie."
Toby: (No talking, just breathing. Maybe not even Toby.)
Mona: "Don't you love Halloween? Dressing up, being other people, making out with chicks, killing people. Teddybears havin' picnics."
HEADED HOME
The Liars are walking down the street, and since it's Halloween the way they dress almost seems normal. Hanna is dressed as a space queen of a prison planet, with a breastplate that transforms into a vampire hunting device if necessary. Spencer is dressed as a no-nonsense prairie lawyer, which it's nice that she's still trying to develop that into a style. Emily is dressed as Mary Chapin Carpenter's wife, a Wiccan and devotee to the elimination of food-deserts in historically low-income neighborhoods. And Aria, of course, is dressed as a Batman mime-villain and/or the concept of an art class inside a magical computer realm.
Hanna: "Tell me what you're wearing?"
Liars: "You mean for Halloween?"
Hanna: "No, I mean right now! What the fuck, you guys?"
Aria: "First of all, look at yourself. And second of all, it was your idea to make our costumes a surprise. Considering I spend half the episode obsessing on when and where different people will get to see me in my costume -- spoiler alert, it's not even that interesting -- I am onboard."
Hanna: "I'm just glad Caleb didn't die from the Summer Finale. Spoiler alert, he's a series regular, so."
Aria: "I heard that at this Ghost Train thing they're going to have symbols and ceremonies and mysterious live entertainment."
(Spoiler alert, only one of those things is true.)
Hanna: "I'm just feeling like doing anything other than being home, considering Pastor Ted is still hiding away his sinister nature and things couldn't be going better with my mom, and also because I still for some reason think I have to hide my relationship with Caleb."
Hanna: "I'm just glad Caleb didn't die from the Summer Finale. Spoiler alert, he's a series regular, so."
Aria: "I heard that at this Ghost Train thing they're going to have symbols and ceremonies and mysterious live entertainment."
(Spoiler alert, only one of those things is true.)
Hanna: "I'm just feeling like doing anything other than being home, considering Pastor Ted is still hiding away his sinister nature and things couldn't be going better with my mom, and also because I still for some reason think I have to hide my relationship with Caleb."
A GRAVEYARD SMASH!
Walking past Clifford Yerdley's house -- sure, that's a name a person might have -- they notice a graveyard with the centerpiece of a coffin for Alison DiLaurentis. (Maybe her remains are in there?) The scariest part, of course, is that there are shovels in the display. And you know how the authorities feel about that shit in Rosewood. A dude, this Clifford Yerdley, jumps out of there a scary mask and blonde wig and screams at them.
I get the macabre humor of that in theory, but Clifford Yerdley? When you play that trick on the actual girls who were actually her best friends and actually have been suspected of her murder and actually are being electronically haunted by her from beyond the grave and actually are paying for her sins and actually managed to lose her remains recently, that's the line and you're crossing it. I think anybody would know that, Clifford Yerdley.
Liars: "This is why you get none! Creep!"
He giggles and runs around the yard and it's creepy and then credits, but like: Who? What? He's like that flowerpot that got hurled against the Marins' back door that one time and nobody even registered it or mentioned it or reacted to it in any way.
HASTINGS
Spencer: "Why you creepin' my kitchen with a giant flower arrangement, assface?"
Garrett: "I was bringing them to your mom, for getting me out of jail."
Spencer: "Wait, is my mom in this scene? How exciting it is, when my parents visit."
Garrett: "No dice. You're still stuck alone in this creepy house with only creepy guys to chat with."
Toby: "Make that guy, singular. By bouncing."
Garrett: "Whoa, you are so creepy! Good idea, I'm out."
Spencer: "That was so scary! Thanks, Toby. Standing here in this kitchen with his apologetic, innocent ass was just really freaking me out. Now bring that serial killer face of yours on over here for some lovin'."
Toby: "As long as I can stare past your shoulder Emily Thorne-style, like the utter freak I am."
DENTIST'S OFFICE
Hanna and Caleb make out in the closet of the dentist's office, because unrealistically enough, she has been coming in to get cleanings three times a week or something, because this one closet is the only place they can make out? Like of all Rosewood, this is the one place we know for sure A is not watching them make out. This one closet, of course, plus the urine-smelling alleys they like to bone in.
Caleb: "Can we not maybe just find a place that doesn't involve cramping in this vertical position? Nobody's heard from A since Garrett got out..."
Hanna: "-- Uh, remember the part where your mom was nearly murdered for real?"
Caleb: "Yeah. It just sucks. I wish I could go with you to the Ghost Train."
Hanna: "Just pretend this closet is a Ghost Train, I guess. Considering that's not actually a thing, you really don't have much to compare it to."
FITZWALLACE FITZWILLIAMS FITZFITZATRON
Aria: "Hey! Don't look, don't look at my Halloween costume! My costume! It is a secret!"
Fitz: "Oh my God, not even I am queer enough to be on board with that crap. Listen, you are a nearly -- and it makes me want to puke to say this -- a grown woman. Nobody cares about your stupid costume."
Aria: "So you're saying you don't care about Halloween? The only thing that matters in life for some reason?"
Fitz: "No, and I can't go on the Ghost Train either. I'm meeting 'someone' to 'ghost'-write an autobiography. An interesting person and for a lot of money. I would tell you more, but I already know you don't ca..."
Aria: "But what about my costume!? And the Ghost Train?!"
Fitz: "Listen. You dressing up as a schoolgirl for me is all the sexual stimulation I need. And you do that every day."
Aria: "Those are just my clothes, Ezra."
GHOST TRAIN!
Mikky Ekko's seminal "Who Are You Really?," one of my all-time favorite songs, greets us as we get an education in what a Ghost Train is really all about. You see, it is a train that is also an elementary school Halloween Party, complete with nonalcoholic beverages and cupcakes and Adam Lambert dressed as a gay vampire pirate, or "gampirate." Just like you remember from your youth.
Aria: Daisy Buchanan (a.k.a. Generic Flapper Costume), Not Sexy
Emily: Barbarella?, Sexy
Paige: Stage Magician With Giant Carnation?, Not Sexy
Hanna: Marilyn Monroe (White-Gown Marilyn, a.k.a. Best Marilyn), Sexy
Spencer & Toby: Gangster & Moll, Sexy
Jason DiLaurentis: James Dean (Red-Windbreaker Jimmy, a.k.a. Second-Best Jimmy), Sexy
Caleb: Phantom Of The Opera, Sexy
Other Caleb: Phantom Of The Opera, Sexy
Other Scary Person: Burlap-Bag Creepy Baby Face, Not Sexy
Jenna: Captain Hook, Sexy
Noel Kahn: Timothy the Mouse from Dumbo, Super Sexy
So wait, why is Noel Kahn here? To choke on a peanut. The one thing elephants fear most, defeating the one thing elephants love best.
Bad day for Noel Kahn. Good day for elephants.
Toby: "Oh my God, Noel Kahn!"
Spencer: "Holy shit, we must save him!"
Jenna: "Wait, what's going on? Oh. Yawn."
Three odd responses to Noel Kahn's demise, no? Anyway, it was just a big old joke, and a demon face pops out of Noel Kahn's chest and everybody is like, "Cool joke, bro." It's embarrassing for everybody. Noel Kahn, you don't need to beg for attention like this. You're wonderful just as you are, and you deserve respect. Now go take off that ridiculous getup, put on your slutty cat costume, and twerk it.
MARIN
Pastor Ted: "This pagan holiday is so much fun to celebrate! Thank you for initiating me into your dark world I've only heard about from Chick Tracts. When does the Dungeons & Dragons start? I want to play Harry Potter."
Ashley: "The only role-playing we're going to be doing involves the fact that you're dressed as a Doctor, Sexy, and I'm dressed as the sexiest Nurse, Sexy that ever nursed. Are you a Gynecologist, Sexy like Noel Kahn, Sexy was last year?"
Pastor Ted: "No, why would that be funny? Those won't even exist once Romney gets elected. I'm a Podiatrist, Sexy."
GHOST TRAIN!
Disembodied Voice: "Keep moving forward in the darkness on this train. You're perfectly safe. If you feel yourself getting molested or murdered by people all around you, that's how you know you're in Rosewood."
Aria: "Is this when the 'symbols and ceremonies' start?"
Adam Lambert: "No, it's when my cameo starts!"
He sings his gay vampire pirate song. It's very glamorous. There's a line about shaking off the straitjacket that seems like a pun on "straight" but maybe I'm just putting too much thought into it. The second song he sings is about how drugs induced in him an experience not unlike alien abduction in which cosmic information was downloaded into his brain, I think, so maybe not. He sings the entire song. It takes like a hour.
Meanwhile over at Boo Radley Institute For Dollmaking & Nurse-Dressing, Mona puts her skills to use and heads out into the night. What's she up to? I don't know, because the train is already moving. She'll end up with one of the Phantom masks in the end of the episode, but she's not on that train. Which is sad, because... Hanna keeps getting goosed by the Phantom of the Opera, and it is clearly not an accident, so she threatens to cut off his penis and he phantoms out of there. (But it is Caleb at this time. You can see his girl hair.)
Jenna, with an eyepatch: "Hey, Toby. Ready to feel weird about some stuff?"
Toby, covering her remaining eye: "You looked better with zero eyes."
Jenna: "No, they're finally, reluctantly getting used to the fact that I have eyeballs."
Jason: "Sistagirl! What you up to?"
Spencer: "Just running around on this train looking almost unbearably beautiful, with a veil and the whole thing, wind in my perfect hair, blue dress setting off my perfect skin. You?"
Jason: "I was just thinking about how I used to smoke marijuana."
Spencer: "Well, I'm glad you're back in town after the whole Cece Drake, hit and run bullshit..."
Jason: "Yeah, I was going to come say hey, but Garrett Reynolds was leaving your house and it was just too weird."
Spencer: "God, I just hate that guy for no reason."
Jason: "Just because he's free doesn't make him innocent."
Lucas: Mysterious look.
Jason: "I have to go."
Jason and Lucas head off into the train to do secret stuff. Spencer barely cares. In the other place, Adam Lambert is still singing. He sings so, so much in this.
MARIN
Little Dead Girl: "Hey, I'm the ghost of a little girl that was murdered by her twin sister. Can I have some candy and also freak you out? I need to call my mom."
Ashley: "Can I drive you to your house where nobody's lived for a hundred years? And there's a hook on my door handle? Or maybe to a hospital that burned down?"
Little Dead Girl: "No, I'll just chill in your house and sneak around if that's okay."
Ashley: "I'm cool with letting you do whatever ghost stuff."
GHOST TRAIN!
Hanna tries to kill the Phantom guy, but finally figures out that it's Caleb. So they make out a lot.
In the dining car, Adam Lambert stops by to say some words to Aria. I guess this is because we all secretly want to be Aria? And so this is like, "What if your fantasy of being Aria became even more amazing because Adam Lambert dropped by to make you feel so super special?" I can't say that would be my fantasy, but I know my sister for just one example would lose her fucking mind if this happened, so I can see why it's happening.
So on the upside, you got Adam Lambert asking you passive-aggressive questions like, "Are you here alone? How sad" -- and fingerpainting her name in the steam on the window, just in case Adam Lambert was wondering how to spell her name -- but then on the other hand she gets roofied while this is happening, and abducted. The person doing this is like a New Orleans red-and-gold queen doll clown, very scary, very reminiscent of the color scheme of A-Prime, a.k.a. the Girl In Red, a.k.a. maybe Cece Drake.
And then in another area, Paige and Emily have the most obnoxious conversation about how great it would be if the Ghost Train never stopped and they could just stay there forever, chugga-chugging into the eternal now where they don't have to deal with problems and where there is no water for Paige to drown her in.
Outside, there is the shadow of either an A-Teamer wearing the Hoodie, or the person who is about to abduct Spencer...
Which is turns out is Garrett, this year's Burlap Babyface, who can't even apologize in a way that is not skin-crawlingly scary. He grabs her face and pulls her out of foot traffic and into the wind so that she can look amazing some more.
Garrett: "Look, Spencer. I just want you to know how sorry I am about everything. You're like the only person in your graduating class who I like. The rest of the Liars are kind of obnoxious, but I like your moxie."
Spencer: "That's a lot of nice things for a monster to say."
Garrett, verbatim: "You were the one I really wanted to keep safe, but I wasn't strong enough. I thought that I had everything under control but I didn't. I didn't even know what the game was truly about..."
Spencer: "You killed Alison, though. Right?"
Garrett: "Shut up and let me tell you one actual thing. This is the only time this has ever happened on the show, so you'll want to pay attention."
THE NIGHT ALI DIED
So the NAT Club was in Ali's bedroom, remember: Jenna, Garrett, Ian. And then Melissa showed up looking a mess, and they all ran away. Garrett took Jenna out into the yard so Melissa and Ian could do whatever unimaginably frightening things they like to do. The yard, we learn, was all dug up because they were going to put in a gazebo or something.
Jenna: "We shouldn't leave those two together, Garrett. We can't trust them."
Garrett: "There's nothing they can do to us without screwing everything up for themselves..."
Alison appeared out of nowhere and said some bitchy stuff -- and dropping a reference to what they were up there looking for, presumably footage of some kind, I don't remember now -- and then she and Jenna got into a quick slapfight because of how Jenna came back to Rosewood against Alison's express orders. Then, oddly enough, Garrett attacked a tree with a hockey stick. Alison shrieked like she was having her head bashed in, so Jenna naturally assumed that he was beating the shit out of her, and then he let her think that? So now she thinks that. Man, Jenna is so all about making trouble for people that she takes it to that level of things that never even happened.
Spencer: "That's so stupid. You're so stupid. You already said like a million times that you didn't kill Alison and that didn't make me stop hating you..."
Garrett: "No! I know a secret thing!"
A little later he went back to Alison's yard -- I'm not doing this weird, you guys, the story just makes this little sense, with random people doing random things in her yard all night long, while she was off making sex tapes on various bluffs -- and overheard her having a fight with, are you ready for this, Byron Montgomery.
Ali: "I'm not the one who makes people do these things. If you don't pay for your mistakes, how can you become a better person?"
Byron: "You talk like a grownup, you smell like a grownup, but..."
Ali: "You, of all people, know what the fuck I am capable of."
Spencer: "Wait, what? No, she was blackmailing him about having sex with a different blonde girl. And also how come you didn't tell anybody this huge thing, while you were in jail for killing her?"
Garrett: "I never got around to it! Anyway, he heard me in the bushes and I left. She was still alive at that point. Listen, the second this train stops I'm leaving the show, because of I am very afraid of being murdered on this train. Actually maybe being on this train that won't stop and everybody is wearing masks and killing and molesting each other, maybe that was a mistake. Maybe instead of this train, I should have gone to a field or a brightly lit public area."
Spencer: "I don't care about any of that, but what I will do is go find Aria so you can tell her this from your own adorable mouth. Don't go anywhere or get murdered, like is obviously going to happen."
GHOST TRAIN!
Spencer: "Hey, have you seen Aria? I have really important information I don't feel like sharing with you."
Hanna: "Guess what! I thought I was on this Ghost Train alone but it turns out..."
Spencer: "Hanna, I don't give a shit about your life, you know that. Get out of my way."
A: "I am doing my first thing ever to Aria. It is super fucked up and she is going to die."
Aria is locked in a coffin, in the dark. Maybe with a dead body, or maybe they put the dead body in there later. The dead body, sadly, is Garrett. On his cutest day ever, dead. Bad news for Garrett. Bad news for everybody, except for I guess Spencer, who you and I both know totally loves it when A brutally murders the people who bug her.
WHERE IS ARIA?
Spencer: "Okay, since we can't find Aria, I guess I'll tell you guys about how her dad probably murdered Alison and also maybe secretly boned her. Also, Garrett is pretty sure he is going to get murdered or currently he is being murdered. Which would make him correct."
Liars: "Cool, let's all split up and not stick together, okay?"
Aria: "Being vertical in this enclosed space is so much less scary than it could be. I'd better rock back and forth until it falls over, adding a concussion to my drugging."
Hanna grabs a Phantom of the Opera, who won't quit caressing her face and touching her boobs even as she tries to explain about Garrett and Aria and that things are happening. Finally she spots Caleb across the car, being the other Phantom with a jubilant air, and turns around to rip off the Phantom mask... Revealing an Alison mask! She gasps and runs away from the lady -- who I do think is a lady, I did a neck-check and it looks like a lady-neck -- without trying to see what's under the second mask.
Maybe she just thinks that's a person's scary face and not a mask under the mask. I can see Hanna selling that. Although now that you mention it, Cece Drake did the Alison mask-under-regular mask thing in those webisodes, so maybe she'll be another straight girl like Mona who just can't quit being weird around Hanna. The important thing is that Hanna does nothing to figure out who this person is that keeps sexually assaulting her, even though she can clearly remove the mask from its face, which assertion I am basing on the fact that she just did so a moment ago.
MARIN
Ashley: "Hey, where did that little dead girl go? Pastor Ted, did you see a little dead girl around here?"
Pastor Ted: "The only spirits of little girls I've seen tonight are the visages that haunt me, of all the children I have killed over the years as I move from town to town, posing as a mild-mannered silver fox."
Ashley: "No, this was like a super spooky little dead girl who was killed by her twin sister and wanted to make a phone call to another dimension on our landline. And now she is gone."
She's upstairs, sitting in a bedroom, being creepy.
Ashley: "I don't care how young or cute or dead you are, that's inappropriate in a stranger's home."
Little Dead Girl: "I called my mother. She answered the phone, but when I asked her to come and get me she got really upset and started to cry."
Ashley: "That's probably because she spent a long time trying to get over your death and you ruined it with your ghost phone calls. Also rude."
LDG: "I bet my sister told her I ran away. My sister's always telling lies, getting me in trouble. We're sisters, but we fight all the time over everything ... even our dolls. I think she just likes to fight. Do you think she told my mom something bad about me?"
Ashley: "By dolls, you mean my daughter and her friends, don't you? Hang on, I have to get my boyfriend. He's a priest. Well, kind of."
ibid.: "Pastor Ted? Could you get your hot ass on up here right away?"
But the little dead girl is gone! Leaving only a folded chenille throw!
GHOST TRAIN!
The Queen Doll Clown Nightmare Lady chases Spencer all through the train, after strangling her for a while. It's stylish and scary and looks amazing, but also: Just take off the mask, you idiots. This whole show is about how you don't know who the person or persons are that are constantly doing dirt to you, and you finally get the face right in your face? Take off the mask, jeez.
Oh, and Spencer finds the Burlap Babyface before this happens, so obviously Garrett is dead. But will he be On This Show Dead, where maybe he will just show up and we'll pretend like none of this ever happened, or will he be for-real, Ian Thomas, rotting-on-the-church floor dead? (Spoiler alert, the latter. He was lookin' too cute this week for the former.)
Anyway, Queen Doll eventually gets to Spencer and beats the shit out of her, and then Paige shows up and takes care of business. Which is important, you know, because Paige is like the only person Spencer has ever even half-ass apologized to, so she really needs to earn some points to hold over her head. Spencer is a fickle friend, but is even more a fickle enemy. Garrett was all, "You are the only person I harbor affection for in this world, no matter how horrible you have been to me," and Spencer was still like, "I should smack that kind, protective smile right off your beautiful face. How dare you."
They find one of Queen Doll's fake nails in Spence's hair and go, "Queen Doll is a man? Good thing we don't have time to think about anything that is happening in this entire episode" so this, too, goes by practically without comment. As much as this show is always like that, this episode is entirely like that. One giant flowerpot hurled at the French doors of your mind.
Aria gets the duct tape off her mouth at this point, using what seems to be mental powers, and discovers she's locked in there with Garrett. So at some point while she was awake, and already horizontal, the A-Team managed to murder Garrett and put him in there with her, without Aria noticing. Which is just so Aria. Probably still stewing about how Fitz never saw her in her dumb costume.
PRETTY LITTLE DEBRIEF
Hanna: "So, Caleb knows everything. And Toby knows everything..."
Spencer: "And now Paige knows everything. Everybody except Ezra, basically. I wonder if that matters at all. Oh, and also since A dressed up like Caleb..."
Hanna: "Our whole trick of us not dating was no trick at all? Yeah. I'm guessing his mom's going to die soon. Oh well."
Liars: "[Logistics, in an unending flood, all about you go here and I'll go there and you head north and I'll go north by northwest and whatever, yadda yadda.].
Spencer: "Oh, and Paige? Thanks for beating up that Doll Man."
Paige: "Of all the normal things I could say in response, I'm instead going to say It was a pleasure. I'm kind of awkward, you see. In addition to being murderously intense at all time."
Spencer: "I do, I do see that now. Those things make us sisters."
ARIA
Gets her hands free. This takes approximately forever. Somewhere, I guess I would know where if I were paying attention during the conversation above, Jenna and Paige run into each other. Jenna does her usual weird sex thing that she vibes at girls every Halloween. After this turns to bitchiness in a second, she sees an old-timey camera (shades of Fitz) and makes a thinky, sexy, scary face. No idea.
Jenna: "Paige, did you lose your little girlfriend? Maybe you drowned her or roofied her."
Paige: "I don't have to get my kicks that way anymore, bitch. Have you seen Aria?"
Jenna: "Well, the engineer is about seventy-six years old, so she's probably blowing him."
Paige: "That was a good burn."
There are voices of A-Teamers now, moving the Aria coffin around. I am sure we'll find out who they are, and I'm sure it'll make sense, but for this show I'm not... It's not the kind of show where you bust out the voice analysis software to find out what the people in the forest are whispering or whatever. I'm willing to go on the journey with the least amount of effort. Seems like you're going to get to the same place either way.
Boy: "...Lied to me. Can't do this..."
That seems like the kind of thing Lucas is eternally saying, but his only real stuff this episode -- besides being a reluctant or possibly former A-Teamer -- has to do with Jason, which has me thinking it's a money thing since that's all Jason or Lucas has really talked about in the last year. I just can't imagine very many people being onboard with the idea of "Let's kill Garrett and put his body in a crate with Aria, very much alive, and then do further shenanigans." Like who would sign off on that?
So they're gearing up to shove the crate off the train entirely, resulting in a box of dead boy and injured or dead Aria being found by hobos, which should rouse little to no suspicion, but then Aria locates a giant knitting needle (?) in the box with her, and stabs the boy member of the A-Team through the hand. They bounce without offloading the cargo, just as Hanna's bashing through the doors to get the Liars in there to save Aria. She is, needless to say, a total basketcase at this point. I mean, who knew this was the kind of show where stuff like this could happen to you? Everybody but you, baby.
MARIN
Pastor Ted: "No little blonde girls around, I checked the whole block even. Did you recognize that little girl?"
Ashley: "She wasn't from the neighborhood. Or our time period. I just can't figure out how she got upstairs to begin with. Or why, when I touched her skin, it was cold as ice."
Pastor Ted: "This is a bit much."
Ashley: "Pastor Ted, do you believe in ghosts?"
Pastor Ted: "If you're asking whether I believe in the eternal soul that will live in peace with our Heavenly Father for all time, the answer is yes. If you're asking whether I believe in the occult, the answer is that like most Christians I am obsessed with it and all I do is think about it all the time, even though it is a made-up urban legend."
THE END OF THE GHOST TRAIN
Liars: "So. Dead body, guys beating us up, the cops are here now..."
Spencer: "Nobody talks to anybody about anything. This is my decree."
Liars: "Everybody, is everybody all right?"
Aria: "More importantly, I can't believe the impertinence of Garrett Reynolds, to suggest that my known-to-be-sketchy father was deserving of Alison's righteous punishment."
Liars: "If the whole plan was to kill Garrett, then A had to get him out of jail. So basically the whole summer season, which seemed to be about Maya and pretending to care that she was dead, was secretly about getting him out of jail so that he could be murdered."
Spencer: "That's so crazy! At the time we thought we were fucking with him, which was good. But then he went free, which was bad. But then he just got murdered, which is good again. Isn't that funny? You could draw a diagram. Or make a spreadsheet."
Liars: "Two members of the NAT Club, dead. Maya and Alison, of course, are dead -- but this NAT Club thing is interesting. They were all in that room, the night that Ali died. That means Jenna and Melissa are probably in danger. I mean, look around. Everybody in this entire train car has something to do with Garrett Reynolds."
Immediately, Ezra Fitz appears. Hmm.
Ezra: "Honey [ugh]! Are you okay?"
Aria: "I'm just happy you got to see me in my costume."
Ezra: "I went to the end of the line of the Ghost Train to meet you and surprise you -- yes, and see you in your costume, for fuck's sake -- and they said there was trouble so I drove back along the tracks until I found you!"
Aria: "That's a pretty complicated explanation, for something nobody asked for."
Noel Kahn: "[Bitchy, awesome.]"
Hanna: "Shut up, Noel Kahn."
Jenna: "You shut up, Hanna!"
Noel Kahn: "Everybody shut up. How come you guys are constantly starting these murder sprees and finding shovels and whatnot, getting chased through churches and lighthouses, and then everybody else has to deal with it? With your mess? How come every time anything horrible happens, I'm standing around in the crowd? It's so annoying how things are constantly happening to and around you."
Toby: "How dare you!?"
They tussle, and knock over the beverage cooler, which turns out to contain Alison DiLaurentis's dead body because why not?
THE PAST
Somebody was buried in the gazebo plot the night that Alison DiLaurentis died. But they weren't dead, so a hand comes shoving out of the ground Carrie style. What does it mean? My assumption is that it means not only did Alison do literally five hundred and sixty-seven things that day, but at least fifteen of those things were instances of her dying separate times, in separate instances, all over town.
IN JANUARY
Look out for Ezra's secrets, for an A-Teamer with an injured hand, and -- from what I hear -- for Mona to come back in a big, big way. Miss you 'til then.
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 a novelette, "The Commonplace Book" is currently available at Tor.com.