Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 4 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Antigonish
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 18 | Aired on 02.05.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Aria's dealing with Ezra's absence as well as she might -- mostly by putting on her most ridiculously infantile outfits and lounging around -- when little brother Wesley appears, clearly on the run from prep school. After some sudden violence, we learn the truth: Wesley attempted to sleep with one of his teachers, and got thrown out. The only thing more unbelievable than that? Aria's response, to wit: "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Girl, we know. We have been saying that for three years.
Hanna forces a very shirty Caleb into helping go through old crap from his mean aunt's house -- the one that tossed him into the system -- with help from her brother, the foxy Jamie Doyle. But what Hanna eventually figures out, and Caleb cannot accept, is that Jamie Doyle might well be Caleb's father. For a person with no parents, I gotta say Caleb sure has a shitload of parents.
Now that Alison's body has been found on the Halloween Train, it's time to put her to rest for like the tenth time. This time she's going in a mausoleum, presumably due to some kind of diminishing returns situation where there's probably not a lot of left of her after all this constant molestation of her remains. Jason seems a little miffed that Spencer isn't more interested in her latest memorial, but the other ladies are on board.
Aria and Emily are kind of paranoid about being in receipt of their mementoes (Ouija planchette, those ubiquitous earrings), since it makes them look like graverobbers, but it's actually Emily's that take center stage this week: Apparently she popped 25 postcards in the casket, remembering one beautiful flirty day with Alison when postcards were a thing. Of course, now that means that A has 25 chances to blackmail the ladies, and the first one starts with a message in French reminding Emily that she killed a dude.
Which is all it takes to send her down the rabbit hole. She heads off to Therapy Anne to deal with her murder situation, and while it's eventually good old Pam that fixes the problem, Anne loads Em up with a host of new issues (before receiving a suspicious visit and orchid from Miss Vanderwaal): Namely, some random false memories of that night Roofie Emily did one thousand things. One of those things, turns out, involved helping A and Red Jacket Girl dig up Alison's grave. She muddles the memories, though, and spends most of the episode thinking she was the one that killed Ali, but once they hit the mausoleum she works it all out. And not only that, but the nature of Red Jacket's role as A+ on the A-Team.
Spencer, on the other hand, continues her downward spiral into crazytown, letting little things like Mona's continuing menace and the iffiness of her private investigator send her reeling. When the guy eventually tracks down Lair 3.0, she's somehow got it in her head that Toby might still love her and/or be sticking around, but 3.0 turns up as dry and depressing as the rest of her life, so she somehow goes even more crazy over the course of about five different musical montages. In the end she goes on a rampage through the mausoleum, making all the girls cry and telling Jason about Ali's pregnancy from sleeping with Wilden in Jersey, before finally carving Toby's name on his mother's own gravestone in some kind of firing-blindly act of desperation.
In the end, the Liars focus on the fact that they're losing Spencer, but may have figured out the basics of a third A-Team member -- and that possibly she is Alison DiLaurentis, who not only stalked herself backwards in time but is now also digging up her own grave from the future.
Next week: Spencer flies through the air like the Vampire Queen, burying her teeth in Mona's neck. Aria and Wesley continue to moon about, while Hanna devises some kind of ill-advised scheme to reunite Caleb with yet more of his many parents, which will probably result in their near-deaths also. Emily's therapy reveals more flashbacks to lesbian yearning and/or gravedigging, and she helps Jason figure out the shitstorm Spencer just stirred up.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Ezra's child came to light, with zero consequences, and now -- while Ezra's off making nice in the secret world of Alex Mack -- Aria has one more part of the Babysitter's Club fantasy she calls a life: Her elderly boyfriend's awesome unoccupied studio apartment in the city. (Next up: An Alfa Romeo Spider, just like the Wakefield twins.)
A box of junk from Emily's latest stalker/cousin revealed a Bio notebook (containing 100% Chem notes) and the news that Detective Wilden most likely knocked up Alison DiLaurentis in Cape May the summer she died, so like an idiot Emily immediately walked this evidence over to the RWPD and put it directly in Wilden's hands.
Spencer figured out that Toby is on the A-Team and it has driven her to new heights of madness. Her new obsession: Finding him, so they can talk it out and everything can be okay, which is nuts on its own but because Spencer is a crazy person this takes the form of hiring a private investigator. I guess her theory is that if he stays in town and/or doesn't warn the other As that she's onto them, their love is real? Something bonkers, anyway.
The point of this episode is what you do when somebody moves on, because other people's lives are much larger than just your part in them and this is hard to accept. Some of us go looking for answers, like Spencer's current existential crisis: A story big enough to contain you both. Some of us go about our business, like Hanna, who already had this conversation with Ali's ghost and Mona's shade. Some of us shove it down and repress, like Emily who still hasn't dealt with her murder of Cousin Nate because she's too busy dealing with his murder of her girlfriend Maya. And some of us, like Aria, just roll around in the bed of the departed, waiting for his hot age-appropriate brother to show up.
THE BREW
Aria: "Guys, just so you know, Ezra arrived at the secret world of Alex Mack and has ceased all further communication."
Spencer: "That's so interesting. I too am being constantly abandoned by the man I love, in various ways. Pay no attention to the fact that I currently look like I'm on bath salts."
Liars: "Anyway, do you think Wilden has read that notebook about how he knocked up and/or killed Ali?"
Aria: "Think about it this way, all we really know is what CeCe Drake thinks happened."
Emily: "I'm going to go take a picture of that picture of Wilden at Cape May, for evidence."
Aria: "Maybe I will take a picture of you taking that picture of a picture, and enter it in an art fair."
PI: "Dear Spencer, I have found evidence of Toby and some other things. Love, PI."
Spencer: "What will happen with that? I bet it will make me crazy."
Jason: "Speaking of, ladies, I am here to tell you that we're burying Alison for the eleventh time, in a mausoleum. You can come if you want."
Spencer: "Fuck that, and fuck you. I am so tired of dead Ali."
Liars: "Spencer! Oh my God, she was our best friend and torturer! Dial it back!"
Spencer: "She's St. Ali now? Are her bones fully relics or something? You dial it back!"
Jason: "Also, the Pennsylvania police think that whoever took the body is keeping your mementoes -- those earrings, the ouija board planchette, etc. -- as a sick trophy. Finding a shovel is nothing compared to the hell of justice that will be visited on whoever has those objects."
Liars: "Huh."
Hanna: "Okay, Aria. The only ones with stuff from that casket are you and me, so let's do the Spencer thing and burn them."
Aria: "Not so fast. I want to hang onto those earrings for no reason."
Hanna: "Because you feel like they're an objective correlative to the destruction of your parents' marriage?"
Aria: "No, because every time Spencer has burned any evidence it has come back to bite us on the very asses at the top of this recap page. I refuse to spend another summer picking up garbage on the side of the road. And don't bother calling me after school, I have an appointment to roll around in Ezra's bed and act morose."
LOCKER HALL
Mona: "Spencer, hi! You look like you're on bath salts. I was just dropping by to give you your hotel and schedule info for the decathlon away trip next week."
Spencer: "Eat me, Vanderwaal."
Mona: "Speaking as Team Captain, I gotta say you've been off your A game lately."
Spencer, so enraged she sounds like she's about to barf: "Nice wordplay, asshole. Listen up, because I want to be very clear. This is not a game to me. At all."
Mona: "Pretending I don't hear you! La-la-la! In other news, Toby will probably be there. I'd hate to see him cheering for me and not you, just because you have gone too crazy to answer trivia questions."
Spencer slams her locker door and stalks away, punching extras in the full-on face without even looking. She is so scary!
COMPUTER LAB
Caleb: "Hey Hanna, I got a text from my mom. A real one, not a lie this time. She's saying Aunt Petunia is moving to Australia and they're selling the house I grew up in."
Hanna: "Isn't that the aunt that put you in foster care? Why do we give a damn about this?"
Caleb: "We don't, actually."
Hanna: "I kinda feel like we do. Welcome to me girlfriending the shit out of you on this one. I feel empowered to force you into this because of this one time I talked to a ghost in a chair. Also, because this episode is about doing this exact thing. So even though you are right, and Aunt Petunia can go to hell, I still feel like it's necessary to force you to relive your entire shameful werewolf childhood."
FITZPARTMENT
Wesley: "Hey, why are you rolling around in my brother's bed?"
Aria: "Don't ask me questions. Why are you here in your brother's apartment?"
Wesley: "For reasons of lies. You're so pathetic, come by anytime."
Aria: "As soon as I figure out how to top this airbrushed-kitten t-shirt and stirrup pants."
PI
PI: "Toby has been buying sandwiches and hydrangeas, mainly. Not the act of a person who is about to close down Lair 3.0 and start it up again somewhere else. So I'm guessing he is still in love with you. Do you want me to find Lair 3.0 and see if he still exists?"
Spencer: "I'll let you know, after a few musical montages of me freaking the hell out."
RWPD
Pam: "Being a businesswoman is stressful! I ate Corn Nuts for lunch. I thought they were a food."
Emily: "Wow, without a man around you really do just completely fall apart."
Pam: "Let's go out to dinner right now. I don't feel like cooking, because I work now."
Emily: "Can you just leave like that?"
Pam: "What are they gonna do, arrest me?"
Emily: "Good one. Hey, where did you get this Eiffel Tower postcard from Ali's casket?"
Pam: "I guess it was slipped into my briefcase that I got for work as a businesswoman. Probably by A, given the red-marker writing on the back with all the letter As pointedly capitalized. Do you know anywhere around here that offers a Businesswomen's special? You know how some places have like a lunch special? For Businesswomen?"
SPENCER CAVE
Emily: "Smells like crazy in here. How you doing?"
Spencer: "Crazy. Show me your evidence so I can decide to burn it."
Emily: "It is one of twenty-five postcards I left in Ali's casket. Which sounds nuts right now, but will make more sense later."
Spencer: "And on it, in my beautiful French, I see it says Stop digging, the cops already know you're capable of murder. So I guess we stop digging."
Emily: "Oh my God, I killed like one guy. A is such a bitch."
Spencer: "Like everyone else on this show, I just want to say that yo