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Oh my God that was so good. Stylish, tonally deft, good music, and more twists than you can shake a pig nipple at. Now, last time we spoke the NAT Gals -- Melissa, Shana and Jenna Thing -- had apparently lured the Liars to that Lodge so they could blow them up, while A flew there in a plane (wearing a mask of her own face). The Ghost of Alison rescued everybody from the fire, and the thing we knew they were back on the one street of Rosewood, finding that swamped-out cop car and something terrible in the trunk. What we learn immediately this week is that what is in the trunk is a pig with about a hundred nipples.
As Mona fakes the girls out like a million times -- is she planning their murders, or just out getting coffee? -- they begin to put together a communal toehold on sanity that is immediately disrupted by the body of the actual Detective Wilden (RIP, you beautiful diamond, with just your normal number of nipples) being discovered at the scene... The girls' abandonment of which, of course, turns up on tape and in A's hands at the end of the episode.
In a dizzying montage of disclosure, Mona answers a few leftover questions from past seasons -- Lucas gave Emily the massage, Wilden was one of two Queens of Hearts on the Halloween Train -- A wipes her computer before she can fill them in on everything definitively, like the fact that she says Melissa was the other Queen, but more likely it was Spencer's other sibling (right?).
In an attempt to get her hands on the Lair Van without Mona around, Hanna allows herself to be drawn back into Mona's polymorphously perverse retail web, shopping up a storm but eventually admitting she's only pretending. Mona, like a champ, turns over the cop-car video as promised, exonerating Ashley for her part in Wilden's murder and flipping Hanna's loyalties once again with declarations of love and faithfulness.
Mrs. DiLaurentis is back, that's pretty big news. She seems drunk, because that's her main thing, but the effortless way she needles Hanna on her food issues and appears at Alison's window as if trying to send Spencer back to the loonybin makes me think she's going to be acting every bit as awesome as usual from jump. And speaking of awesome drunk moms, Ashley Marin's still out of town -- but is being weirdly implicated in Wilden's death, post-mortem, in the typical A-Team frame-job way that makes no real sense at all, but is terrifying and involves cell phones inside dead guy caskets.
Aria's story for now has to do with being paranoid for Fitz's safety at his now-permanent job back at Rosewood High. (This expresses itself in a million tearful looks and one mind-blowing fantasy sequence in which she imagines him being arrested for his crimes in the middle of a school day, complete with sexy 8x10s for evidence.) It's Aria, so who cares, but now that most adults know there was at least something between them at some point, her constant perception that she and/or Fitz are in jeopardy is for once justified and interesting.
Emily and Paige have decided to run away to a lesbian college in a lesbian town so they can get a lesbian apartment and learn about lesbian subjects and do lesbian activities all day long. Beyond a hilarious scene in which she threatens to beat the shit out of Mona just for fun, that's about all Emily's up to. Oh, and another menacing run-in with Jenna Thing, who is considering her own mortality in light of the NAT Club bodies stackin' up, and wants somebody to apologize to Toby for the constant raping.
Spencer enjoys the domesticity of having Toby free and clear -- and looking great, by the way -- but has no idea that A still has a hold over him, involving what really happened to his dead mother or the connection his own secret relationship with Alison. In the end, while the girls attend Wilden's funeral (and meet the new authority figure, Sean Faris, investigating their connection to the murder) Toby cries all the way across town, dropping off the A Lair somewhere not even Mona can get to it.
And who's the creepy-veiled Lady In Black that attends the funeral and later adds a mini-Mona to the usual Pretty Little Analogue dollhouse? Dunno, but she's telling the little kids in the trailer park that her name's Alison, and she's wearing Redcoat's Ali mask over her face -- only now, thanks to the Lodge fire, it's burnt all to hell. So to review: Giant black veil, over an Ali mask, which is half burnt up, and meanwhile at the DiLaurentis-St. Germain-DiLaurentis house, mom's building a whole drunk shrine to a dead girl nobody really thinks is dead.
All in all, a powerful contender and one of the best season premieres we've had. Relationships new and old -- not to mention plenty of vectors for the season's arcs -- are firmly defined, the wisecracks have never come faster or harder, and watching Spencer and Hanna renegotiate their individual relationships with Mona is at least as soapy and fun as watching the Liars deal with her as a group.
Week: Mrs. DiLaurentis's drunk ass gives Hanna a parrot that squawks secrets, Aria starts martial arts training, Toby opens up about his mom and Hanna freaks out more about hers. Oh, and A tries to kill Mona. (Or does she, etc.)
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Well! Previously, let's see. Ashley Marin ran Detective Wilden the hell over, and he was rescued -- and then murdered, presumably -- by Redcoat's B-Team, but not before she was caught on tape doing the deed and returning to the scene of the crime, so Hanna and Aria pushed the cop car into a swamp because that is the kind of thing those two would do, without benefit of Spencer and Emily.
Aria broke up with Ezra Fitz after Spencer kidnapped his kid, but she told the Vice Principle that she never dated him in the first place, so he could work at her school and they could torture each other from close up. Hanna and Emily wove complex webs of protection around their respective significant others that had no real effect at all; ditto Toby, who died and then came back to life once Spencer had lost her damn mind.
In the end, Mona Vanderwaal got all the Liars together at the Lodge so the B-Team could murder them, at Redcoat's behest, but once she was herself endangered she lost it -- "She's everywhere and she's nowhere!" -- and seems to have joined Team Liar. They were rescued by Alison DiLaurentis, a dead person, and returned home just in time to find that darn cop car waiting, with a mystery in the trunk... And assurances from A that she's got them cornered now more than ever.
("YOU'RE MINE") NOW
The ladies stare down into the trunk, plainly horrified, for a few seconds before we see what they're looking at: A huge dead pig, quietly rotting. Nobody knows what to do, so they do their main thing of staring around looking like they're going to barf, and then somebody notices Mona's gone, which rockets them all into action, and they get the hell back in the car.
But Mona's not gone: She's in the car with her A gloves on, making much of getting the car's black-box "chip" out of there, for about a hundred years.
Hanna: "What are you doing?"
Mona: "Uh, saving your mom? Duh?"
It takes a while, and there is much time-ticking suspense coming from somewhere, maybe the music, and then they're off! Take a good look because this is the last time any of them are going to be wearing acceptable apparel. And think also about how A is going to keep taunting them about how this is going to screw them, and how A has cameras everywhere at all times tracking their movements, and yet it's going to take this entire episode for them to add 2 and 2 and come up with 4.
HQ
Spencer: "The news is all about the Lodge. Nothing about a dead pig."
Mona: "Aria, stop mooning at the window. We're clearly fine for now."
Aria: "That may be self-evident, but I am going to flip out on you anyway!"
Emily: "Although it speaks to a larger point, which is that I am going to kick your ass for you."
"I believe you could, Emily. You really were the weakest link -- but look how strong I made you! You should be thanking me."
Right sentiment, wrong time. Oh, Mona.
Hanna: "Relax. We all wanna kick her ass."
Spencer: "First let's play a game called What The Fuck Is Ever Happening On This Show."
Mona: "Buckle up!"
DOWNLOAD
- I only put the car in Hanna's garage -- that was the last time I saw it.
- Shana was in love with Jenna before they even came to Rosewood. They're both afraid of Melissa.
- When CeCe came to Radley I thought she was Ali. I don't remember what we talked about. It was before they changed my meds.
- Lucas gave Emily that massage. He said you were tense.
- I recruited Toby when he got that job in Bucks County.
- I didn't push Ian off the bell tower. I wish I knew who did.
I have spent more time than you think trying to figure out when Toby got that job because I remember thinking and talking about it a lot, but now I can't find it. Somewhere around the beginning of Season Three, I think, but I can't nail it down more than that. It seems like even more than most, he leaves and is always coming back, and it blurs together. (Which is probably why these recaps, much less the internet at large, don't seem to remember exactly when that was.) He left when he fell off that scaffold -- remember, because of the truck? -- and then he left and came back the first time they did it, so... Maybe one of those times? Toby! He's everywhere and he's nowhere.
MORNING
Hanna: "Mona's gone again!"
Aria: "I was so tired after being blown up that I don't even remember falling asleep. Or else the bitch dosed us!"
Spencer: "Honey, not everything is about you getting drugged. It happened once. Meanwhile poor Emily's like Alice in Wonderland over here."
This was, for me, the best part of the entire episode:
Mona: "You silly girls. I was getting coffee! In your car, Emily. Oh, obviously I have my own set of keys to your car. PS."
Obviously she does. Obviously she has no problem telling them that. God, I love her. She loads up everybody with their very specific coffee orders -- supergenius friends who are also stalkers can really come in handy, no? -- and but before she can hand out scones, Hanna gets right up on her.
Hanna: "Gimme the chip, Mona! I want my mom chip!"
Mona: "I wish I could give it to you, but I can't. We are all in this together, now that I've admitted I don't know who Redcoat is, and keeping my leverage is the only way to do that, considering how much you fuck everything up just by doing normal."
Liars: "Then give us everything. Right now."
Mona: "Mi casa es su casa."
Spencer, translating: "She's taking us to her Lair."
THE SCENE
On the way, they drive past the retrieved car, where quite a hubbub is brewing.
Emily: "All this for a muddy cop car and a dead pig?"
Hanna: "Oh, actually it's probably because of Wilden's dead body over there on the ground, suddenly."
(Alas! RIP, buddy. Loved ya.)
Mona: "I bet that's what the A text meant when she said You're mine now. Like somehow framing us for murder. Not quite as bad as finding a shovel, but still pretty bad."
Liars: "I guess you really are a genius, huh."
DISCLOSURE
While Toby -- who seemed kinda framed for it, for a second? -- digs through the remains of the burnt-out Lodge, the Liars get real into the secrets of the Lair. Not loving it, but going to her fate willingly, Mona keeps an eye on the news, where Wilden will always be alive and young and beautiful and newsworthy.
Liars: "So is this why Ali saved us from that fire? So we could take the fall for this murder?"
Aria: "And also just generally to fuck with us."
Emily: "Stop calling her Alison, everybody but me!"
Liars: "No, we're just saying she's Ali now. Get with it."
Hanna: "Hey, this mask is the same one Caleb wore on the Halloween Train, a thing that is real!"
Mona: "To think, we were this close to our first kiss!"
Aria: "And to getting rid of me for good."
Just think about that for a second.
Mona: "Wasn't me. Here, I took this video when you were already in the box."
Wilden was the Queen of Hearts! But also there was another Queen of Hearts! Two Queens of Hearts! Who was the other one? I thought it was Jason but who knows.
Wilden: "It's not gonna happen! Listen to me, just leave her. Plans have changed. Garrett's going to tell them everything..."
So Garrett was still alive at this point, but Aria was already in the box? She must have been laid out by that roofie. Anyway, Mona says the other one is Melissa Hastings -- the one even the NATs/B-Team bitches are afraid of -- but before she can prove it, the tape cuts out... And then the whole screen goes wild with lipstick kisses, as the hard drive erases itself. You know, I thought Mona's whole "Redcoat is flying a plane but also controlling my 4G service!" line from the Lodge was her being hysterical, but who knows. Who the hell knows.
OUTSIDE
Before they can even really deal with this, they hear creepy voices outside, in the trailer park where the A-Lair lives right now.
Girl: "Alison! Faster!"
Girl: "Come out come out wherever you are!"
Girl: "It's not fair, Aria!"
Girl: "It was Emily's idea..."
They find five mini-me's -- already great, and including at least one tiny actress I've seen before -- but also they are holding five Liars dolls (including Mona)! Given them by someone named "Alison," who "started playing with us right after you moved in." I actually teared up, with how great that is. I betook myself to Twitter. The Aria one is dressed like Aria, holding a doll that looks like pink-stripe Aria. The Mona one has a doll that looks like glasses Mona. (The Hanna one is wearing bright red tights-are-not-pants, foreshadowing horrors yet to occur.) The dolls have little dolls that look just like them that are holding dolls that look just like them holding tiny almost microscopic dolls holding dolls. Everything is everything.
MARIN
Hanna: "Whatever you need. You know how much I love you. Bye."
Emily: "Ooh, was that Caleb? I miss Caleb."
Hanna: "No, it was obviously Mona. She wants my help moving the RV to a creepy farm, now that that bizarre Mouse & His Child recursive-iteration brigade has taken over the trailer park."
Emily: "And then we beat her ass up, right? Because I can't stop thinking about how Mona put her gloves on before she touched Wilden's car, while the rest of us were just acting like idiots as usual."
Hanna: "Not ruling out that she's still messing with us -- and good eye, Fields -- but think about it. She's Hannibal Lecter smart, she probably did that without even thinking about it."
Emily: "Both could be true, lady. But do what you have to, to get that chip."
Hanna: "Exactly. If I've learned anything from my Mom, it's keep your friends close and your enemies closer -- and your fake architects upstairs in a box where nobody will ever find them, and your wine everywhere, so you can always reach it -- and she taught me that sometimes, you have to keep your enemies so close that you run them the fuck over."
Pam: "Ladies, what's up? Let's have a fun afterschool chat about that cop that harassed you for three years and then was found dead in the street."
Emily: "Yeah, it's actually..."
Pam: "-- I was talking to Hanna. Hanna, how are you doing with all of this?"
Emily: "Anyway. Who's that gift basket for? I know he has no survivors."
Pam expresses everything that she thinks about Ali's mom just in the way she says her name, it's so beautiful: "Jessica DiLaurentis. Her drunk ass showed up at the station this morning, she's moving back. To their old house! Where everybody keeps getting murdered over and over. Bless her messy old parrot-owning heart. Guess she finally drank all those painful memories away."
Hanna: "Or maybe she knows Alison's alive. Just like we do."
Emily: "First of all, cut that shit out. And secondly, Occam's Razor agrees with Pam. Mrs. D is most likely merely drunk."
Hanna: "I love living here with you -- and one or the other of your parents at any given time -- but sometimes I just miss my mom so bad. Like when we talk about Wilden. Or alcoholism."
THE BLACK(ENED) LODGE
Toby: "So that's one burnt-up Redcoat, interesting..."
Spencer: "I'm going inside that burned building."
Toby: "It is not structurally sound! I'm telling you this as Rosewood's most successful teenage contractor."
Spencer: "What if it was Ali? What if she's finally ready to come home?"
Toby: "She pulls everybody out and then takes off because it's still not safe?"
Spencer: "It's possible!"
Toby: "Except for how she fully died two years ago. I know a lot has happened since then, but as the main suspect hounded by the entire town -- including your hot ass -- for a lot of that time, I do remember it pretty clearly."
A goes dashing around the house suddenly, so they hit the bricks, and then none of this ever comes up again. Toby looks GREAT. I finally get it.
DILAURENTIS
Emily: "Just what this town needed. More creepy toys from Alison's youth that contained an infinite number of creepy toys."
Jessica: "Emily, is that you? I'm so fucked up right now! Come over here and give me a bear hug!"
Emily: "No. But here's a gift basket from my mom, so she doesn't actually have to talk to you. Hey, is Jason back too?"
Jessica: "He's down south, renovating Grandma D's place. It's lovely, the kind of place you'd learn to fly a plane to visit, but it does smell of old people."
Emily: "Alison hated the smell of old people. Also everything."
Jessica: "Yeah, I miss her too. Want to carry a bunch of shit around?"
Emily: "It's what I do... Hey, are you turning Maya's old bedroom that was Ali's old bedroom into a shrine to Ali? Including all of her psychologically damaging art, like this self portrait of herself as twins that are also half-rotted skulls?"
Jessica: "It's what Ali would have wanted, probably. A whole new chance for you to go through her shit and find precisely one clue every week. Like in this box I'm acting weird about, for example."
I wonder if Spencer still has her virtual A-Lair on her computer matrix. She should give Jessica some tips. How likely is it, do you think, that this whole bedroom-recreating thing will end up with people getting taped in that room reiterating/recontextualizing similar conversations to the ones That Night? I say very likely, but maybe with the people switched around. Like instead of Jenna and Garrett it'll be Paige and Emily, and instead of Melissa running in screaming "Where is that bitch?" it'll be... I don't know. Somebody with a knife, probably.
SOME CREEPY FARM
Hanna: "Hang on, I can't hear you over my hideous shiny red tights."
Emily: "That old lady is building a whole shrine to Alison! What?"
Hanna: "Or she wants her old room back..."
Emily: "I told you to shut that crap up. Listen, I get it. We were the first people to see her, back when she was just showing up occasionally and not on a daily basis."
Hanna: "Anyway, I gotta go. We're locking up the RV at some creepy farm in the middle of nowhere. Toby apparently knows the address, which makes this whole thing pointless."
Mona: "Thanks for helping me."
Hanna: "We're all in this together now, right? Kind of like old times, only not really at all."
Mona: "Let me just lock this gate and put the key in my jacket pocket... There we go."
Hanna: "Is this the best possible place? There's stuff in there that can bring us all down."
Mona: "Hoo boy. I haven't thought about you and me as an 'us' for a long time. Except all the time. Literally it is all I think about."
Hanna: "Not to be rude, but that particular 'us' pretty clearly didn't include you."
Mona: "Whatever. The important thing is that maybe it did."
THAT COFFEE SHOP I CAN NEVER REMEMBER THE NAME OF
Ezra: "Hey, can I get a cappuccino? And your number?"
Barista: "I'm... fifteen..."
Ezra: "That's only two digits. Where the other five at?"
Aria tries to bounce without him seeing her, but since it's just them and the scared little barista, her ruse is unsuccessful.
Aria: "I could pretend I didn't see you, but I don't want to lie. Not when telling the truth is so much sloppier for everyone. How's it been going?"
Ezra: "Over at my house we have a sign that says DAYS SINCE MALCOLM WAS INJURED AND/OR KIDNAPPED and right now that number is only going up."
Aria: "I'm glad that's working out. I am glad we broke up so you and your family will be safe."
Ezra: "Want to get coffee together at this coffee shop?"
Aria: "That is the opposite of what I just said."
Ezra: "Oh hey, I got a permanent job at your school. It will provide health benefits for myself and my son, as well as monetary compensation that will put food in our mouths and a roof over our heads."
Aria: "Sure, but can we talk about how much that sucks for me?"
Ezra: "Never change."
Aria: "I wouldn't know how!"
Ezra: "No, I meant Into a woman."
HASTINGS
Spencer: "I can't eat right now, I have to exposit facts! Wilden was shot multiple times, between 10 and midnight, and -- obviously -- not where the body was found. But that's when we were at the Lodge, so we have no alibi. Plus it was clearly arson, so your ass isn't clear yet either. It's so good to have you as my boyfriend again! And coffee as my other one!"
Toby: "But also eat, because I made you breakfast. To celebrate how neither of us are on the A-Team anymore."
A: "Dear Toby, you are back on the A-Team."
Toby: "Dang it."
But since, if we've learned anything from the last two years it's that lying to Spencer's face about the exact thing they were just talking about always works out in the end, he keeps quiet about it. Quiet about being back on the A-Team. Crying inwardly, where we -- for the nonce -- cannot see it.
QUAD
Emily: "Speaking of keeping secrets from people for no reason, do you think I should tell Paige that we didn't kill a cop? Or just keep that to myself?"
Aria: "Who cares? Ezra Fitz exists, and I am going down in flames."
Vice Principal: "Is that Aria girl staring at Ezra Fitz? Why, I'll unleash the hounds."
Aria: "Is he looking? Quick, talk about Steinbeck."
Emily: "Who is that? We've only ever read two books."
Aria: "Just do it. Is he still staring at us?"
Vice Principal: "You bet your ass I am. Why else would I have this job? To even interview for Rosewood High Vice Principal, you have to have at least three years of stalking creeper experience."
ANIME CLUB
Mona: "Girl, you look rough."
Hanna: "First I would dream about Wilden. Then the pig. Then Wilden with the pig face. Then he was cupcakes, with pig faces, that turned into cupcakes with Wilden wearing a Queen of Hearts mask that was a pig, carrying a smaller doll of Wilden dressed as a pig that was itself carrying a pig dressed as the Queen of Hearts. That's when it started getting weird..."
Anime Nerd: "Hey Mona..."
Mona, without looking: "La bride sur le cou!"
Hanna: "This whole thing with you speaking different languages all the time is really symbolic and cool. Remember that time you only spoke in acrostics for like no reason whatsoever? That was awesome."
It's a Brigitte Bardot movie -- English title Please, Not Now! -- but I can't figure out where it derives from. Dropping the reins on a horse? I don't speak that; in fact I just assumed it was Japanese and didn't bother rewinding to listen the first time around. I guess she just wants the dude to go away. Although the movie is interesting: This chick is like, "If my boyfriend leaves me I'm going to kill him," and a cute doctor who is falling for her is like, "I'll help you get him back, then. As opposed to Plan B, killing him."
Hanna: "I don't think we're waiting for this A shoe to drop as much as waiting for it to stomp us."
Mona: "Careful, when you use words like us, my mind goes to this place where I think we could actually be friends again."
Hanna: "And when you do that, my mind goes to this place where I feel like we're going to have sex. Why do you do this thing? Anyway, do you want to go shopping after school just like it's old times, and also I have no other agenda?"
Mona: "Sure. Sure, Hanna. That sounds fun. C'est un rendez-vous. It's a date."
Hanna: "Coco Chanel. It is not a date-date, but fine. Hey, bring those keys you have to that gate where the RV is. And also that chip. Or don't, whatever. nbd."
#POOREZRA #MYASS
Vice Principal: "Aria Montgomery, please report to my office."
Aria: "How come?"
Vice Principal: "Because I have all these pictures of Ezra Fitz fucking you! And now he is getting arrested in front of the whole school! Thanks, A!"
He does, and it's amazing, and that's the end of... Oh, it was just a fantasy.
Aria: "How come?"
Vice Principal: "Because take this paperwork home to your mom and tell her to get better soon."
Aria: "Man, I thought something interesting was gonna happen."
Vice Principal: "Oh, come on."
Wait, did we talk about the clothes? Good Lord. Hanna's wearing a... like a washer-woman kind of a headband, in black, with this chartreuse Top Shop dress where the print looks like it's covered in black lace, with a weird belt that looks like a fishbone. Maybe if it weren't Hanna I wouldn't hate any of these things, but the bar is pretty high and after those goddamn tights I was on high alert. (Also she's wearing a wig, but no points off for that.) Aria's wearing a camouflage jacket because what else would she be wearing; Mona is toning it down but not in a terrible direction... I don't know, nothing really sticks out beyond those two Hanna outfits, and their funeral dresses are gorgeous, but man. It's a lot to come back to.
I'm not a stickler, I don't have many strong opinions, and nine out of ten with this show I'm in the wrong, but I really only have three rules: 1. Tights are not pants. 2. There's nothing wrong with flats. 3. Aria's the only one who's allowed to wear lace. (Sometimes Spencer, but only if she's doing her whole Return To Oz/Little Witch On The Prairie thing.)
I always thought the shittier your day is going, the sharper your look should be just so you can feel good about something. The reason soldiers are so particular about their uniforms is that you have to be at your tippy-top best before going into battle, and ladies? It's time.
"DID YOU HEARD IT FROM PRETTY LITTLE LIARS?"
Paige: "You know how you spent like an entire season stressing out over going to Danby and your scholarship that you lied about and pain cream?"
Emily: "Yeah, I was tense. Lucas said so."
Paige: "What if instead, we both just randomly went to Stanford?"
Emily: "Stanford? That was my safety school in case I couldn't get into Danby."
Paige: "But this way we can be together!"
Emily: "You seem to be making a lot of plans for me."
Paige: "Beyond like Hawaii, you can't find a college that's further away from Rosewood. Further away from A. We'll live together and you can decorate the place however you want. We'll study on the beach. Spend weekends in San Francisco. And how much fun would it be to drive cross-country? You, me, donuts and diners.* We can start over out there. Don't you want to live where you're not afraid of the dark? In a place where I don't always have to be afraid for you?"
Emily: "It would definitely narrow the list of subjects the time you decide to drug or drown me."
*(All of this sounds horrible to me. Just personally, that all sounds terrible. The best part would be waiting for Paige McCullers to go batshit again, but that's true here in Rosewood. You don't have to drive across the country for that action. You don't have to rent the U-Haul.)
So if the premiere is about setting the tone, then, I guess this is the part where Emily tries to recapitulate her mom's mistakes and get married right out of high school? Those are the stakes, but I mean: That makes sense. Both of those girls are just the type to do that. Get in the U-Haul, drive to California, abruptly figure out that they hate each other, buy more and more cats to make up for it, maybe a rabbit hutch, and then it's just cats and resentment and having the same fight all the time until they're just having the fight in front of people because they don't even care anymore, and then: No friends, only cats.
Or maybe, I mean, love is a thing people claim to believe in. So possibly this is her big out, and Paige is the One, and she'll never try to drown her again. But you know it's one or the other.
RETAIL THERAPY
Hanna: "In lieu of letting you in my bedroom today, why don't I pour small glasses of a lemon-lime citrus soda pop into two glasses and then look at you, owl-eyed."
Mona: "You know what you should do the time you are seducing Caleb Rivers?"
Hanna: "I know that I would rather die than hear you talk about that."
Mona: "Here's what you do..."
This weird sexual undercurrent with Mona, that's new. I mean, she's always been clingy and extremely romantic about Hanna, but in the same way Ali was romantic with each of the girls. You know, like in Jennifer's Body: "Sandbox love never dies." Oh, oh! And something I noticed during the recap special last week:
Real Ali Torturing Emily: "Trust me, if I'm kissing you, it's because it's practice for the real thing."
Ghost Ali Dancing With Spencer: "Sometimes practice is better than the real thing."
It all makes sense, at least to me, which is why I feel like this is a new thing, is aggressive and strange and on purpose because every scene they're in together, Mona pulls this shit and she's never done that to anybody before. It's violent, in a way that brings a whole new set of colors into play, especially with the whole Ali/Jenna/Shana thing where lesbian stuff goes dark sometimes.
Mona: "Me, I haven't dated anybody since Noel Khan because what would be the fucking point."
Hanna: "Listen, I had fun today..."
Mona: "No, you didn't. I know you're just pretending. But it was nice, so here's the cop-car chip back, and before you ask, it's the only copy. And just in case, you should not put this in a blender or the garbage disposal. Magnetize and burn it, okay?"
Hanna: "Just like that?"
Mona: "I really loved you, once. And I really was your friend."
Hanna: "Right back atcha, only with my eyes and not out loud."
JENNA THING, SLITHER ON DOWN!
Paige: "That was a fun date! But also fun thinking about how we're going to be married."
Emily: "I'm personally enjoying wondering whether I will be alive tomorrow, but yeah. That too."
Jenna: "You two make a cute couple. Sometimes I'm gay too. Everybody's a little gay. Especially on this show, where literally everybody is a little gay."
Emily, verbatim: "Did you slither on down here to comment on my love life?"
Emily Fields, my goodness how I've missed you. Tonight for her date she is wearing: A football jersey, ripped-up jean shorts... And Ugg boots. Almost, honey. No, actually, okay. It's a cute look, especially because Emily always looks so great when she takes it all the way casual.
Jenna: "I need a favor."
Emily: "FFS, Jenna Thing."
Jenna: "Darren Wilden was a friend of mine. Not surprising, given the way this show works. No doubt the time you see me I'll be carrying CeCe Drake's baby, or turn out to be thirty and college roommates with Melissa Hastings."
Emily: "Yeah, that's too bad for you. Because of he died."
Jenna: "But see, all of us are dying. NAT Club, B-Team... Everybody who saw Ali the night she disappeared..."
Emily: "Wait, Wilden saw Ali that night? Jesus Christ, of course. Of course he did, everybody did, it's still happening, there's a line around the block. And hey, did you burn yourself recently? Is that a bandaged burn?"
Jenna: "Look, the time you see Toby, could you just tell him I'm sorry?"
Emily: "Yeah, that doesn't sound uncomfortable at all. I'll be sure to give him the..."
Jenna: "It's for raping him all the time."
Emily: "No yeah I get it, Jenna."
SPENCER
Feels eyes upon her, like always, but this particular time it's because Jessica DiLaurentis is standing in Alison's exact window, wearing a red top that strikes the eye as something very like a coat. And then of course Spencer's tablet beeps: Wilden's obit, all "Closed caskets keep secrets. His is open and exposes yours. Kisses, Bitches -- A" In case you were wondering whether the funeral was going to be a shitshow.
FUNERAL
A personal favorite, MS MR's "Hurricane" (great video, btw) plays over a fairly evocative sequence: Cops carrying in the casket while the ladies watch, a bizarrely veiled blonde entering on her own, and then finally the Liars entering to find the casket in its private room and do recon.
Liars: "So A put something in there, with his rotting, stinking corpse?"
Spencer, verbatim of course: "Since there's a viewing you can assume that he's been embalmed, and that would suspend decomposition and prevent the mourners from having to deal with the rotting and eventual putrescence of the corpse... There's something in that coffin that's incriminating to us."
Aria: "Are you ... really so sure about everything you're so sure about?"
Spencer: "Yes."
Of course Spencer finds the casket, and of course she's only in there a few seconds before Mona steps out of the shadows, having also received the casket message. It takes them a while to figure out that neither of their phones are ringing, and then -- it would be these two, nobody else could do it -- they crack that bitch open and start digging around in his clothes for his phone.
The calls are blocked, but the third and final number on his phone is that thing again, from Mona's hard drive and then again the obituary: "Kisses." Spencer hits redial, and Hanna's phone rings: "Why are you calling me on my mom's phone?"
So three incidents of "Kisses," and Ashley's connection to Wilden is still in play. Which is funny, since the incriminating video that is now taken care of was him getting run over, and but clearly he has been shot a bunch of times and that's probably what killed him, but this is better: Linking Ashley not with his death, but with his life.
The funeral is as usual, with lots of awesome callbacks to Alison's -- Jenna is escorted carefully in by a hottie, despite no longer being blind -- and Ezra awesomely avoids eye contact with Aria in a way she feels entitled to be aghast about, and also he is there with Malcolm's mom like she is his trophy wife which is also excellent.
Hanna: "The hell? Why would A have her number?"
Nobody: "And why do you have her phone? Why are we always trading phones with our parents, a thing that does not happen in reality?"
Mona: "Hanna, there's no way 'we' are letting A do anything to Mrs. M."
Hanna: "You say that like it's going to earn you points, Eddie Haskell. Shut it."
Jessica DiLaurentis: "You girls! ...All look so pretty!"
Liars: "Hey, Mrs. DiLaurentis. Fancy seeing you at another funeral."
This Bitch: "Ali would be so proud of you, Hanna! You've really kept the weight off!"
Hanna: "...And that is why your daughter is a monster. That shit right there."
It's a beautiful moment. Like you can almost see Hanna thinking about how weird it would be if she just punched her right then. She leads the ladies to a pew right up front, and they file in, and oh... No room for Mona. Man, they are doing so great with this. That is beautiful. What a neat, sad, awful storyline. "Remember A? Now that she's come over to their side, they're Mean Girling her somethin' awful. But like, wouldn't you?"
A SERIES OF TOBES
So how Toby is working for A now is that he is driving the Lair Van from the Creepy Farm to some Other Location, while softly weeping over a text message that says, "I know what happened 2 ur mom. Bring the lair and u'll know 2. Kisses." Which is already ridiculous for some reason, but especially because it's still the Lair Van: Like yeah, you're tearing up because your mom died and you're being blackmailed to screw over the girlfriend you just got back for the eleventh time, but you're doing it surrounded by headless baby dolls and a thousand weird masks and like, cloaks. You know?
FLASHBACK, EVEN
Alison: "So these are your vintage collectibles? Dumb."
Toby: "They're not toys, you don't play with them. Don't touch."
Alison: "I know you wanna kiss me..."
His mom shambles into the room, confused about what time it is and what he's doing home, and he's like, "You are clearly in a bad way," and she just says she's tired and then wanders back out into the house, and that face he's always making is about a thousand times more intense when he's actually making the face. No do-rag for this part, needless to say.
Alison: "The fuck is wrong with your mom?"
Toby: "Something serious, I think. I cry about it all the time."
Alison: "Yeah, I think it's called 'lazy much?'"
Toby: "Maybe you should leave."
And I guess she did, spitting and hissing all the way, but soon Marion Cavanaugh was dead, and her husband grieved and moved on, and before you know it Toby had a new mom and a new sister, and that's when everything went to hell. I have no idea where this is going and on paper I'm not in love with the idea of "More about the fascinating Toby Cavanaugh!" but it turns out I am, actually. Fascinated.
I guess with Caleb leaving for Ravenswood they were like, "Somebody should have something going on, and Paige already has all the things going on that there are, so who else? No, not Lucas. Certainly not Noel Kahn, and who even remembers Hot Nerd Andrew except Jacob, dreaming about him every night as he does, so I guess ... More about Toby? I guess we do that, times a thousand. Picture this, Toby Cavanaugh driving a carnival van into the woods, crying. Nailed it, first try." And they did.
HOLBROOK
Outside, the Liars are surprised by Sean Faris. (I loooove Sean Faris; he's always seemed like a neat guy and has always reminded me so much of my brother John. Plus the way he talks is mesmerizing. Man, when you look back, Life As We Know It had a really good cast.) Anyway, Officer Holbrook is here -- Pennsylvania State Police -- to investigate the murders of Garrett and Wilden, and also all the crimes ever, because Rosewood PD is not cuttin' it.
Liars: "We already gave a statement about Garrett, and got nothing to say about Wilden."
Holbrook: "Really because from his files it seems like Wilden was in your faces like all the time."
Liars: "That is true. He was truly up in our faces. It was pretty gross."
Holbrook: "We were both on Undressed, a show you probably don't remember because it was made before any of you were born. It was good at the time, but even more progressive and admirable in retrospect. Anyway I agree with you. The deceased was not very professional in his Liar-related conduct."
Liars: "Which it's just now occurring to us was a mixed blessing, because clearly you are not fucking around."
Holbrook: "Prepare your business. For I will be all up in it soon."
Everybody looks so beautiful! Aria's makeup is like, I would watch a YouTube tutorial on that shit. I first noticed the change during one of the scenes where Spencer was skulking around the church looking just dramatically beautiful, but it's all of them. Why save your entire game for this shitty funeral for this dude? I mean, I get why the fashion part is so unequal -- those awesome black dresses were not fucking cheap -- but the entire styling is like, an entire letter-grade higher than the rest of the episode. Understand that none of them ever look bad, how could they, but generally I get this excited about three times an episode, spread out, instead of times five and all at once.
A: "The truth won't set you free, bitches. I'm going to bury you with it. Kisses!"
And of course -- the Lady In Black having vanished while Sean Faris was mesmerizing them with his terrifying competence -- a video of them dicking around with Wilden's car, from an angle where you can't see the pig, the conspicuous lack of Dead Wilden... But you do get to see Mona, which was an obscure relief because you know if she wasn't in the video those gals would never let it drop.
Liars: "Oh my God, she was taping us! This one incriminating moment! I don't believe it!"
...Really? You don't believe it? I mean, first of all yes of course she was, she always is, she's everywhere and she's nowhere, but also did the bitch not send you approximately eighteen messages on various media devices throughout the entire episode saying, "I clearly taped you fucking with the dead man's car and will be framing you for his murder fairly soon"? Starting with as it was happening? Because that's how I remember it.
A-TAG
Safe at home in the Lair Van, the Lady In Black raises her veil to reveal... A mask of Alison's face! Sure, yeah. Ten-four, I feel that. I absolutely feel that. What else would be going on in that van besides a ghost ninja in a body-con dress lifting up her waist-length mourning veil to reveal that she's been wearing a mask of her own face all day, while staring into a mirror surrounded by a collage of millions of pictures of her own face with the eyeholes poked out?
WEEK
Jessica drunkenly gives Hanna the DiLaurentis Family Parrot -- which surprise, squawks weird clues about Alison's death, although I guess a parrot would remember out-of-the-ordinary things like, if a teenage girl managed to warp time and space around herself and fly planes back and forth across the Eastern Seaboard while blackmailing about a hundred grownups and then become her own twin and climb out of the ground and have eighteen last conversations all over town on video and die several times in a row and still not be dead, a parrot would probably think that was all pretty interesting -- while Toby tells Spencer some, maybe all, of the truth about his horrible family and dead mom; Ashley Marin continues to be further imperiled, which is no joke; and A literally tries to murder Mona.
Meanwhile, Aria meets a cute karate instructor. Just sayin'.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Killing, Pretty Little Liars, Mistresses, and Defiance for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love. A new short story, "This Is Why We Jump," appeared in this month's Clarkesworld Magazine.