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It's Spencer and Toby's anniversary, and Aria's down for the count with her mysterious flu (also, drugged to the eyeballs on Meredith's Klonopin prescription), so it's up to Hanna and Emily to keep up the sleuthin'. But with only two Liars to focus on, the A-Team manages to pull off some of their scariest and saddest bullshit yet. Any confusion about Mona's allegiances can be set aside: She is still A-Team, and very much a willing participant in Red Jacket's plans. And as for Toby? Oh, Toby.
Despite Hanna's orders to the contrary, Emily fails to catch Caleb in the act of planning an anti-A offensive with Paige McCullers. Hanna gets attacked by A at a job interview, which ends up with Spencer getting possession of one of the keys to the new A Lair. Once Toby sees this, he realizes the big plan to drive Hanna and Spencer crazy is happening right on time -- but Spencer's suspicions are confirmed when he breaks into her house to steal the key back. She ends the episode in a ball at his door, begging for answers now that his secret is out, and pretty much losing it completely. It is so sad.
What is not at all sad is Aria's amazing storyline this week, which involves being trapped in her house and drugged by Meredith in order to look for those diary pages that imply Byron killed Alison. Aria gets a visit from the ghost warning her about the plot, but before she can do anything about it, Meredith chases her around the house with a knife and eventually dumps her -- and then Emily and Hanna -- in the basement.
Byron's story is that he was planning on coming clean to Ella about his affair That Night, but got scared once Ali turned up missing; it's compelling enough that Aria burns the pages in grand Spencer style, warming up their homestead atmosphere a great deal. So I guess that's it for Meredith, which is sad but also satisfying because she went so very fucking crazy by the end.
As did everything, basically. What a fabulous episode. Sad and scary and funny and sad. I don't know that I've ever been this excited for the episode of a show. I feel like Twitter right now.
Week: Spencer begins to transform, it seems, into something not unlike a Jenna Thing. Ezra breaks up with Aria, drawing Spence's ire. Hanna and Emily continue to work on solving both mysteries, while Paige and Caleb presumably continue confusing the issue with their own style of justice. I can't imagine that anything would be as exciting as this week's installment, but given the drastic nature of Spencer's downfall in this episode, and the ramping-up of the A-Team's work implied by tonight's multifaceted disaster, it just became a lot easier.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Paige is melting down and Emily is still in shock from the unending tragedies that befall her at all times. Hanna broke up with Mona permanently, which should definitely turn out well for everybody. Toby is busy trying to run over Lucas whenever he gets a chance, and seems to have remembered he used to be friends with Emily. Spencer is consumed with the spirit of war, having been threatened in her intelligence by the return of supergenius Mona. Aria's flu has put her in Meredith's hands, which probably means she is going to be murdered by her this week.
SICK DAY!
Emily: "This tea smells like maybe it is poisoned. Take it from me, my girlfriend and I have roofied one another dozens of times."
Spencer: "Whatever herbal secret remedies Meredith is giving you, they're not helping you look any less ratchet."
Aria: "Noted. And actually, I'm just as beautiful without the flu as any other time."
Hanna: "I brought you these DVDs of a show called Saved By The Bell. It was popular before anything was invented."
Liars: "Isn't there anywhere else you could be instead? Like with Ella, or maybe you could call your dad back? It just seems like this Babysitter Meredith thing is the stupidest possible plan."
Aria: "No, because of reasons. And also Meredith is onboard with helping me figure out if my dad killed our best friend that one Labor Day weekend. If so, that would vastly outweigh the time he made me lie about him sleeping around. A psychic scar that I am still working out for myself."
A'S LAIR (3.0)
Toby rocks in a rocking chair for a while, then stares out a hole in the wall. Mona's hacking into something, some security system. They are both wearing all-black ensembles, and by the end of the scene, they are both wearing A hoodies.
Toby: "Whatever we're doing, I think tomorrow is too soon."
Mona: "Spencer's still not telling you A has been active the entire time you were in Radley? That bitch can keep a secret. One of many things I respect about her."
Toby: "I just don't know about all this."
Mona: "Face front, soldier. It's not up to me, it's up to A+. 'Fear cuts deeper than a sword.'"
Toby: "(...In bed.)"
Mona, verbatim: "They need to understand that She's in charge."
Sounds like some shit might go down in this episode, no?
TOBY'S LUXURIOUS STUDIO APT ABOVE THE BREW
Emily lets herself in, bringing Toby in his cute white Henley a coffee from downstairs. I guess she's going to hang out in his apartment for a while, open the place up for the plumbers, and then later on open the shop? It's like they have these entire lives we don't know about.
Emily: "So they've changed the curriculum at Rosewood and now we get to read a new book. A second book!"
Toby: "I'm guessing it's something super fucked up though, right?"
Emily: "Lord Of The Flies. So far it seems pretty normal. PS, I don't know what normal is. This book reminds me of my life."
Toby: "Because your clique abused and blinded people, or because you pray to a rotting animal head?"
Emily: "More like the PLLs are stuck on this island, and we had the chance to rock out and stick together. Despite what Mona wanted, we survived. Excelled. Shed that which made us weak."
Toby: "You certainly are thick as thieves."
Emily: "She brought us together, trying to tear us apart."
Toby: "So you have that to thank A for, at least."
Emily: "I don't know about that. Seems like we could accomplish being people either way."
Toby: "Well, so Mona's behaving herself? You'd tell me if things started up again, right?"
Emily: "Yes, because we are such good friends."
He leaves, and Em phones Spencer with the dubious message, "Mission accomplished. He's on his way to your house, and I got the keys." I'm sure they're throwing him a surprise party or something. Probably to celebrate how trustworthy and noble he is.
FASHION SHOW!
Caleb, amid faint protest, helps Hanna pick out the perfect outfit for her interview with "Philly's hottest designer," "Corin." That sounds like a promising shitshow. The second she leaves to put on more clothes for his delectation, he gets a mysterious call of his own.
Caleb: "Yeah, I thought a lot about it. I'm in. I'm not gonna let her do anything else to Hanna. We'll talk this afternoon."
Hanna: "What's this now?"
Caleb: "Um, my Mom."
Hanna: "It's 4:30 in the morning in California, ya pretty little liar. That's pretty early for schemes."
Caleb: "She's um, in Chicago. Doing business. Chicago business."
Hanna: "And you were talking about me and Mona because...?"
Caleb: "She is very concerned about bullying?"
Hanna: "Mona ran that lady off the road on the other side of the country. You shouldn't be talking to her -- or anybody -- about Mona. Eat your Soy Flakes."
Caleb: "Um, she ran you over with about eleven cars. And after that shit you pulled last week she's probably going to blow up our entire town anyway. Just let me do whatever White Knight bullshit I need to do that will result in my injury or death. Or that of my mother. Let's see you in some five-inch heels. And you better twerk."
HASTINGS
Toby's running around naked and wet for some reason? Must be Tuesday.
Toby: "I just keep taking showers all the time!"
Spencer: "It's cool. Do not stress about it."
Toby: "Ever since I left home and became a contractor, I find I don't know how to do basic things. Like how change drops out of the holes in my pants pockets, and I never seem to have a shirt on my body."
Spencer: "I can take care of those basic survival things for you no problem. Remember how I made that Mary Queen of Scots costume that one Halloween? Back when your sister could still see? Anyway, I wish that we could hang out later for our anniversary, but they're throwing this dinner for my dad..."
Toby: "You have a dad?"
Veronica: "And a mother too! It is me, Veronica Hastings! Why do you never have a shirt on?"
Toby: "Pretty sure you get it, Mrs. H."
Veronica: "Anyway, sorry you have to go to your dad's dumb dinner, but we're a 'family' and since your sister's up the coast stealing vampire blood, you are it."
Toby, still shirt-free, takes off. The dinner is just a ruse! Peter Hastings is only pretend! Veronica Hastings, smiling for the first time in her life, is even more beautiful than usual.
Veronica: "I made this same lasagna for your dad on our first anniversary. And see how well that turned out?"
SICKBED
Aria: "Who's that creepin' around? What time is it?"
Meredith: "I was just hoping you'd be passed out from all the drugging of you I've been up to, so I could look around for those pages of Alison's diary. Hey, where are they?"
Aria: "Not a chance, bitch. Even half blitzed I still know better than that. Do you know what I did with my phone? It was right here by the couch..."
Meredith: "I'll find it for you. And I'll totally get your mom to come see you, since I'm clearly not doing a great job nursing you back to health. Through giving you poison."
Aria: "You're not really going to do those things, are you? Damn, I'm muzzy right now. Thanks for... Whatever."
Meredith: "Where the hell are those pages?"
Aria: "Zzzzzz(ria)."
LADIES WHO LUNCH
Paige: "You made me lunch? With kale in it? We are such lesbians."
Emily: "Wait, it gets even more intense. I want to talk to you about going into therapy."
Paige: "Already found somebody to talk to. We're meeting up this very afternoon."
Emily: "Does she wear Tory Burch boots? Because she will really get what you're going through. Being ancillary to my ghost-stalking experiences eventually destroys everyone around me. You could start a club."
Paige: "Kind of like that, yes."
I gotta say, this new form of crazy is really working for Paige. She looks lovely. I know we like it when dresses like bikers and Prince Valiant or whatever, I'm not trying to take away from that, I'm just saying she looks nice.
Hanna: "Emily, I know you're emotionally processing and I hate to interrupt that particular neverending conversation, you know I do, but Aria is sick and Spencer's anniversary is tonight and I have a meeting with Philly's hottest designer, Corin..."
Emily: "Spy games? Spit it out, lady."
Hanna: "Caleb's doing some secret Mona-related stuff and I need you to run recon."
Emily: "I am like the least stalker person on this entire show. I am not your girl for this."
Hanna: "Just stay far enough away so he doesn't see you, but not so far that you lose him."
Emily: "And if he does?"
Hanna: "Lie to his gorgeous little werewolf face. Listen, it's easy. Ashley used to get drunk and take me out to spy on my dad, like, all the time."
Emily: "Any time one of us seems to have the most fucked up family, a statement like that comes popping out of somebody else's mouth."
SCHOOL
Meredith: "Ella! I was just coming to see you."
Ella: "That's horrible, why would you do that?"
Meredith: "To lie to you about your sick daughter. And rub your face in how I've been caring for her while she's ill. Through poison."
Ella: "I'll give her a call. Thanks for acting human for like one second."
Meredith: "Hey, if she sounds really loopy ask her to leave any diary pages she might have just lying around, okay?"
Ella calls Aria's phone, and you know girlfriend's got that bitch right in her purse, already on silent. Meredith makes the scariest face as she declines the call! She's really growing on me, let's be real. If you're going to be abducting and drugging children, you should at least be like detail-oriented about it. That's what was so dumb about Cousin Nate: Whole lotta ambition, but he didn't cover the fundamentals. You never see the robot house coming. You never know when a werewolf is going to chase you around a lighthouse, or a lesbian is going to stab you through the abdomen. And it's exactly this kind of hyperadrenalized go-power that separates your Merediths from the Nates of the world.
THE CHASE
Caleb has gotten layers or something. Lot less volume these days. It's cute, like a sk8erboi kind of thing instead of the wolf-mop. I don't guess that's what Hanna meant when she sent Emily to spy on him, but it's certainly something to think about. Anyway, Mona comes out of school on his heels, and goes through about six different emotional states of freakiness before joining her buddies for a little afterschool chatting and fun. What do you think they talk about? I say it is a role-playing game club, and she is the gamesmaster of their tabletop adventures. She would be super good at that.
But this is about Caleb, isn't it. Emily gives chase. Worth noting that Caleb's Mercedes still has its Cali plates? Probably.
ANNIVERSARY
Scrabble, lasagna, wine. Bitter disappointment on the horizon. A scary poster on Toby's kitchen wall and his orderly's laminate for sneaking in and out of Radley in his desk drawer. Spencer doesn't notice [he wrote, missing out entirely on the subtext here the first time around] but I do wonder if today's the day Spencer figures out about Toby? It seems like it might be, since Marlene co-wrote and directed this one I'm guessing some major shit is going down.
PHILLY
This is a fun little sequence! It just keeps going. Hanna does, in fact, look very fashion-forward: Tailored geometric dress, side-chignon that sticks out in a way that would look semi-crazy on anybody else. The effect is like, one of those scary girls who works at Express and always looks perfect and dates grown businessmen and knows where to score coke. You know those scary girls? Born like twenty and never age thereafter? Caleb's so good at everything. It really makes you think, doesn't it? It has been my assumption that at any given time, there are six to eight feral children living in the walls of Rosewood High School. Given a Mercedes and a futuristic laptop and a nannycam teddybear, what might they, too, accomplish?
Red Jacket watches as Hanna makes her way into Corin's boutique, and calls out her hellos in a room full of terrifying white mannequins, but there is no answer. The lights go out, and -- just as the screen pops up a hilarious hashtag, #FashionVictim -- Toby appears and rampages around the place, knocking mannequins into Hanna at a furious rate until eventually she goes down. He takes off and A texts her ("time you'll be left faceless"), but not before something falls out of his pocket: The key to Lair 3.0. Everybody is so busy today!
WOLF HUNT
Emily follows Caleb, hiding when necessary, to where he finally makes his meet: But who's he meeting? Emily doesn't get to know because Spencer texts her about Hanna's mannequin attack so she has to go running back to HQ. But it would interest her, I think, to know that it's in fact Paige. So, not really a therapist so much as the only other person -- now that Lucas has clarified his A-Team affiliations -- in Paige's position. Slick, McCullers. I see what you did there.
Paige: "I know it's tough, lying to the Liars."
Caleb: "No, this foolhardy plan of ours was something I was going to do anyway."
Paige: "It took so long to make Emily trust me, after all those times I drowned and roofied her. So now it's important to lie to her as much as possible."
Caleb: "I know, right? Hanna and I have broken up at least once every week since we started going out. Things are just now getting to be normal."
Paige: "So let's detonate the shit out of that by locating Lair 3.0."
Caleb: "I mean, it's not like A is keeping tabs on every single one of us, right?"
Paige: "Exactly! I'm still not getting how this show works either."
LIARS CLUB
Emily: "Did you tell Mona you were going in for a job at that place, or what?"
Hanna: "No. But I have no doubt this is about me dumping her. I mean, I saw A in the actual place."
Emily: "I saw her at school at four o'clock. This was the other one."
Spencer: "I hate that she has minions now. Especially ones that own no shirts. Listen, this text message is pretty lurid. Do you think she's going to cut Hanna's face off?"
Emily: "Maybe. Or throw acid at her?"
Hanna: "Oh my God, you guys. I'm sitting right here."
Emily: "This key A dropped, maybe the cops could..."
Spencer: "Are we ready to talk about how A never went away?"
Emily: "I think maybe there's an entire army. An A-Team, if you will."
Spencer: "I'm worried about going to the cops. She still has evidence of us finding a shovel that time you were roofied and time-traveled around to Ali's grave. And we don't know her endgame..."
Hanna: "Apparently cutting my face off is part of it. Thanks for that. No, you know what? I don't care. I say we alert the authorities. I can't deal with another mannequin attack."
Spencer: "Fine. I don't have time for this shit. But we have to ask Aria, it has to be unanimous. And since she's not answering any of our phone calls..."
Emily: "You go do your anniversary crap. Clearly that's the priority here."
Spencer: "Thanks for understanding."
Hanna: "You should wear five-inch heels and nothing else."
Spencer: "Hanna, what on Earth?"
Hanna: "A little wolf told me that's what boys like."
Spencer: "Toby's already going to be half-naked, if history provides any example. I'll see how it goes."
Emily: "Hanna, you scamp."
Hanna: "I am! I am a scamp."
MONTGOMERY
Alison DiLaurentis goes ahead and lets herself into Aria's room while she's drugged, the better to rifle through all of Aria's shit. She finds Aria's hiding place immediately: A secret compartment with a scary doll in it.
Aria: "Hey, Ali. What's up?"
Ali: "I'm not dead, for starters."
Aria: "You have my attention."
Ali: "It's kind of like Lovely Bones. I see everything. Doesn't help."
Aria: "Do you see A?"
Ali: "Everywhere I look. Spencer should really be more careful."
Aria: "Did you really blackmail my dad?"
Ali: "I needed the money! But I never actually called your mom or anything. And Byron's certainly coming around these days... When the chips were down with Ezra's mom, for example..."
Aria: "Tell me the truth."
Ali, verbatim: "If I tell you the truth, you don't have to believe it."
Aria: "Did my father kill you?"
Ali: "I'm not dead. Also, don't drink that poisoned tea. Meredith's looking for these pages, too. I gotta go."
Aria: "Well, if you gotta go. Who am I to question you at this point. I am high as hell."
Ali: "You know why I picked you, right?"
She winks, she vanishes. Love that girl! When Aria wakes up the doll's where Ali left it, by the bedroom door. She thinks better of drinking her poisoned tea, and quickly figures out that she is locked in her bedroom and that Meredith has trapped her, which I guess takes precedence over the fact that she was just visited by a ghost, who moved her shit around.
CLONAZEPAM IS A CLASS 3 MEDICATION
Emily: "Sorry about your mannequin-related injury. There's a boy on the swim team who is like double-jointed, so if he'd been attacked by mannequins probably it wouldn't have worked out like this."
Hanna: "Emily, your brain works a weird way."
They pass a drugstore just at the time that Meredith is flipping out on the guy.
Meredith: "But I need more Klonopin! It is to calm my nerves!"
Guy: "Clonazepam is a class 3 medication, ma'am. Get your doctor to call in a refill."
Meredith: "BUT MY NERVES."
She stacks up a shitload of OTC allergy meds instead, making the Liars's eyeballs go wide. While Aria tries to break out of her own bedroom, Hanna and Emily use the internet to figure out what Klonopin is for, which is to make Aria very sleepy. She doesn't notice them lurking, which is good.
Over at the Montgomery house, Aria has given up on freedom, and instead smashes a mirror and wraps her hand with a nearby Aria Scarf to create a makeshift shiv. Which is so very wonderful. I can't say I've ever been prouder of the girl. "Oh, feed me poisoned tea? How about a jagged mirror shard to the face, you like that?" That's some Spencer Hastings-quality zero-to-sixty shit right there.
HASTINGS
Toby's big old face he's got appears suddenly at the door, scaring the shit out of Spencer plus everybody. He is there because they can't have their anniversary, due to Veronica's big lie, so he wants to drop off some flowers. Some flowers and some murder! The whole time she's putting them in water, he's making those evil faces he makes, and she spouts so many lies it all just sounds like white noise: He notices the Lair 3.0 key, and Spencer immediately says it belongs to Melissa, blah-blah. It is very sad because they talk about how much they love each other, and he's never looked sweeter or more angelic. She sits around once he's gone, praying it's not what it looks like -- because if he's A, then he knows damn well where that key came from, and everything is only just starting to fall apart.
MONTGOMERY
Meredith wakes Aria up later, with the jagged mirror shard to her throat. Awesome! She has not taken the precaution of wrapping her hand with a nearby scarf, so the whole time she's menacing Aria and barking crazily at her, her hand is just bleeding all over everything.
It is by far the most intensely excellent Aria thing that has ever happened. And yes, I am including that time she sang a duet with Noel Kahn out of the blue.
Meredith: "Quite the clever girl. I've searched every inch of this house!"
Aria: "Are you seriously drugging me in my tea? That is crazy."
Meredith: "Don't be such a fucking drama queen. I am taking care of you. Through poison."
Aria: "Uh, and you locked me in my room. And you're bleeding all over my duvet, which. And I am high, and there are ghosts, and a doll, and it's all just a lot right now."
Meredith: "You're not turning those pages over to the police."
Aria: "It is not your prerogative! Also, my friends totally know about the pages, so whatever you're thinking of doing, it's not gonna..."
Meredith: "Bitch I am not thinking. We are well past thinking."
There is lightning! It shocks Meredith, because the thunder is so loud! So Aria, who is moving with a sprightliness now that she is no longer drinking poison all day, gets her bounce on...
And then immediately Arias the whole situation right up, desperately trying to use the landline instead of running out into the night. So then Meredith just bashes her fucking head in.
This is maybe the best episode of this show that I have personally seen. There are still twenty minutes left and Meredith just chased Aria around her house with a homemade knife and knocked her the hell out, Emily and Hanna are well aware that Annie Wilkes is in the hizz, Paige and Caleb have started a secret Third Faction, Mona's still maybe got some plan on the books for today, and Toby still has yet to challenge Spencer for his Lair key. Plus an attack of mannequins and another Ali visitation from beyond? Pretty Little Liars, I love you so much.
Emily: "Aria! If you are being held hostage in that house, knock your head against something two times!"
Hanna: "I think we should just break in. Or drive a car through a wall, that's always worked for me in the past. Just not load-bearing. I don't think we're going to have an on-call teenage contractor for much longer."
HASTINGS
Toby: "I am on my way home. How is your dad's pretend dinner?"
Spencer, grimly: "It's going well. I can't wait to surprise you when you get home."
Toby, very tobily: "I also plan to surprise you when I get there."
Toby looks really good in this episode. It's like how Garrett's hotness was never entirely apparent until the day he died. It's only on second viewing that you realize how true that is: She knows. She knew. Poor Spencer. Right? Isn't that how this goes? Because if she found the laminate at his house, that would have happened in the first scene. Which means every time we go back to Spencer and her big anniversary plan, she's actually laying a trap?
MONTGOMERY
Em and Hanna case the joint, electricity just as gone as the phone line, but Aria's nowhere to be seen. Hanna calls her for about the millionth time, and Meredith sneaks up on them in the darkness.
Meredith: "Let's all go down to the basement to check on Aria. That sounds safe and fun, right?"
Emily & Hanna: "Sure. I mean, we know for a fact that you're holding her hostage, why wouldn't we let you lock us in the basement?"
Meredith locks them in the basement. They eventually find Aria on the floor, and are amazed that something has happened to her. She will not revive!
You know what's funny about this? Even though Aria's getting like the cumulative knocks she's been avoiding the entire series to date all at once, it still has nothing to do with A. This is just random mayhem! I mean, I guess it was that Spencer carried the "Who Killed Alison" storyline for so long, and then after Maya it was Emily for a while, so now that Byron is officially the prime suspect, it makes sense that A is more concerned with Spencer and Hanna because Aria's dealing with other stuff. But it's still funny. "I can't be arsed to worry about Mona Vanderwaal this week, guys. Too busy getting chased around my house by a substitute teacher with a knife."
LATER
Hanna: "Probably this is going to work out okay."
Aria: "What? I got a bump on my head and I'm still high on drugs. This bitch has lost it."
Emily: "She's pacing around up there, it's freaking me out. How about we give her the pages, and then beat her ass?"
Aria: "Did you not notice how she just singlehandedly took all of us hostage?"
Emily: "I beat Noel Kahn's killer robot house, I can take this chick."
Byron arrives, since clearly now is the time for everything to go even more to hell.
Byron: "Meredith, what are you doing pacing around my house bleeding on everything? Where is my daughter? Why are you staring into the fire? What the hell is going on?"
Meredith: "She has proof about how you killed Ali. And her friends all know it."
Aria: "I'm still gonna say probably my dad is not going to kill all of us."
Hanna: "For real? Because here he comes."
Byron: "Aria, are you okay? Hanna, why are you brandishing that weapon at me? I swear I didn't hurt Alison..."
FLASHBACK
Byron: "We both love Aria, I know you wouldn't hurt her."
Ali: "I am totally the worst, sir. This is your last shot to save yourself."
Byron: "Yes. To save my own soul, I mean."
Melissa came out onto her porch, grousing at Garrett on the phone, and Byron just smugly walked away. Seems his plan was to tell Ella about the affair so Alison wouldn't have anything on him, but then once she disappeared, it just got to a point where it would be weird. That is so Byron. But I guess this is his comeuppance, because now he's got three wild girls in the basement and Meredith having gone fully bonks upstairs.
HASTINGS
Spencer, waiting in the dark for her anniversary dinner to begin, surprises A with the Lair 3.0 key. Oh, honey. Toby just stands there in her kitchen looking shocked. I kind of don't want to see what happens .
WHAT HAPPENS
Spencer tosses the key aside and sniffles, and he turns around in his hoodie looking insane as usual. She gets a damn good right hook in, and he just stares.
Toby: "How long have you known?"
Spencer: "Since I ganked this Radley laminate from your house earlier."
Veronica comes in, and Toby vanishes. Spencer falls into her mom's arms and just starts sobbing. Everything is so intense! What an utterly shitty night. You know if you're going to Veronica Hastings for comfort that you are at your lowest possible point.
MONTGOMERY
Byron: "...Well, Meredith has vanished from Rosewood sometime in the last ten minutes, according to the cops. That checks out, right?"
Aria: "So if you told us about the affair, why keep this stuff a secret?"
Byron: "There were no suspects when her death was ruled a murder. It would look weird."
Aria: "Um, it does look weird. Check out these diary pages."
Byron: "Why didn't you talk to me about it?"
Aria: "Meredith kind of made me feel like you were a killer of little girls."
Byron: "Do you even partially think I did this? Because if so, I am even more of a royal fuckup as a parent then I thought. You know what, I'm turning myself in."
Aria: "Going to the police? What an outlandish thing to do, according to me and my friends."
Still looking amazing and makeup-free, Aria tosses the diary pages in the fire. He's proved his point. Or has proved that Aria is even more of a sucka than we thought, which is kinda Herculean as a task in its own right.
ABOVE THE BREW
Spencer goes to Toby's apartment, I guess to just feel more awful, and can't get in. She breaks down outside the door, begging him to tell her there's more to it than how it looks. It is absolutely wretched to watch. Also mesmerizing.
"I know you're in there. Will you... Will you just tell me that what I saw tonight wasn't real? Please, just tell me that there's more to this story. That there's something that I don't know. Please. Please, Toby... Please, Toby."
She falls down on her knees outside the apartment, having fully lost her shit, and it's incredibly sad. This girl who trusts nobody, this girl who's smarter than everybody, played for a fool. It's just vicious. And her existential crisis about it -- the sick idea that there's still a way this can be okay -- is somehow the worst part. Like that's how stretched out her brain is, by this. That she could find a way to forgive him, if he'd just open the door.
And meanwhile over at Spencer's house, Mona helps herself to some anniversary wine, grinning sickly to herself. Challenge accepted. Will they try to turn her, do you think? Mona's always wanted her on the Team, which means Red Jacket probably does, too. Spencer's always had the greatest capacity for darkness, out of all of them, and this might do it. Or, alternately, Melissa could show up with a new boyfriend, and Spencer can just focus on sleeping with him. Take the edge off.
WEEK
Astounding! So fantastic! Everything has happened! It was magnificent and heartbreaking and stuffed full of stuff happening! Everybody's Halloween costumes have finally come true! What form will Spencer's madness take this time? I say she goes fully dark. That girl never zigs when you think she's going to, and from the scenes it looks like she's turning into a kind of Jenna Thing. Ezra dumps Aria probably for a baby-related reason, making himself a lightning rod for Spencer's conflicted craziness. Some Pretty Little Bobbleheads pay the ultimate price, Emily and Hanna feel weird about going to the cops, and Aria possibly finds a shovel.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Deception, and Pretty Little Liars for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of critical anthologies, and a novelette, "The Commonplace Book," appeared this fall on Tor.com.