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Caleb is back! And for his first trick, he gets Hanna's estranged father to admit that Ashley Marin returned to Rosewood in the middle of her epic NYC trip -- but according to him, it was just for a lasagna loan. "You're still on the edges of this," he warns Caleb, but of course Caleb is working to a completely different tapestry anyway, so it doesn't matter. Meanwhile Hanna tones down the 'tude a smidge and ends up finding Holbrook's giant Wall of Clues for all of the different murders and mysteries and stuff. I'm sure it's full of hilarious and wacky details, but I'm equally sure the internet has my back on that so I don't need to do it myself. In the end, Ashley's acting cagier than ever, but they are at least able to take their snarky bitching down to a level of more silent, sad paranoia.
Spencer takes Toby on a tour of Radley so he can see all the awesome spots like where his mother topped herself and where Spencer found personal identification inside a horse in a room full of cribs and giant dolls, but he immediately decides that the whole thing was stupid and that he returned to the A-Team for no reason because he is a stupidhead. Luckily, Spencer is there to analyze the trajectory of her boyfriend's mother's body -- as she was committing suicide by jumping out a mental institution window -- and determines that actually, unless Marion Cavanaugh was (both really bad and) really good at parkour, she did not in fact kill herself and thus, betraying everyone for A is still sometimes a very cool thing to do.
Ella's coffeeshop-owning boyfriend asks her to come with him to Vienna, where it's just coffee and sausages all the time, and even though those are her two favorite things besides her kids, she can't leave. After Aria sees A taking down everybody's mom over the course of the episode, she decides to send Ella off to Austria after all. Good for Ella, very sad for Aria, unacceptable for Jacob. Unacceptable for Rosewood. Without Ella around to keep everybody in line, that place is going into the shitter. I promise you.
The part where she considers the fact that sending Ella away is safer for her mom, but very sad for her, is one of the most uncomplicatedly sad things that Aria's ever given us, and it was very moving. On the upside, we get to see how Karate Jake deals with 3-5 of Aria's least-appealing personality quirks, and he passes with flying colors. Even Aria's amazed how uninterested he is in her bullshit. It's charming. They make each other seem really great. I hope they stay together forever and ever, lol.
Emily's not out of the woods yet, by the way. A took advantage of Pam's understandable meltdown over last week's oxycontin abuse and called Family Services, so now Army Dad is moving back home again and maybe Pam is going to jail for everything that A ever did to Emily? That would suck. Pam tries harder than any person. (Besides Aria.) But maybe this was just to fit in with the "A dicks with your moms" storyline and won't go too far. I mean, she's only been back on the show for about a minute.
The Liars find a mask in Ali's crap and then inside the mask they find another mask and they take this mask to the maskmaker, across Torch Lake, and his main deal is that he has an amazing face that I couldn't stop looking at. And in turn, he finds Emily's face hard to not look at, and eventually makes a mask of her face. So while he is making a mask of Emily's face, Hanna finds a mask of Melissa's face, but it's not inside any other masks. It's just normal.
Melissa is back in town, throwin' her personal brand of chill over all the proceedings, as though she were wearing a mask of her own face, to do three things: One, warn Spencer to get out of Rosewood if she knows what's good for her, Two, throw more wrenches into the Wilden/B-Team/NAT Club connection, and Three, pose a very interesting question at episode's end. Namely, if Spencer knew what she was asking when she wondered if Melissa would pick Ian over her, it's equally safe to say that Melissa knows Spencer would choose practically anybody (Toby, Liars) over her. And don't lie, so would you.
So it's less a matter of mutually assured destruction, and more like they are in a situation that has nothing to do with love or their occasional warmth toward each other -- and everything to do with The Big Sleep, which is the movie Aria and Jake attempt to enjoy at the episode's beginning, and is all about two sisters and which one of them is really the trainwreck.
At first you think it's the party girl, but then later you start to think maybe it's the older sister, because she seems to be in pretty deep with all the gangsters and crumbums they're dealing with looking for the party-sister: She consorts with shadows, on purpose. In a show full of victims but just as full of people who make deals with their eyes open, it's a big thing to think about. Also, that movie is amazing, it was the first black and white movie I ever loved, and Lash Canino still shows up in my nightmares occasionally.
Week: Spencer fixates on Melissa, Aria lets A sabotage her relationship, the Family Services saga of Emily gets underway, Holbrook's partner comes to town, and Hanna continues to act super sketch about the Ashley situation.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Toby gave A back her Lair for a folder of possible evidence on his mother's last days at Radley. A parrot was introduced and then vanished again, leaving only a mysterious phone number. Mona got choked out by A, leading Emily to abuse prescription drugs and Aria to hook up with a hot martial arts instructor. PA state police were called in to figure out why the Liars keep killing the cops of Rosewood, and Hanna is obsessed with the idea that her mom is to blame.
COFFEE
Hanna: "My mother is not connected to the disappearing parrot..."
Liars: "But what we do know is that the bird is connected to Ali, who's connected to Wilden, who's connected to your mom. And to us, and to other stuff we don't know about."
A: "That reminds me of a song about bones I will listen to later. Shazam that shit."
Hanna: "So my mom ran Wilden over, so what? Sometimes you run over people. I've been involved in over eleven counts of vehicular manslaughter. It doesn't mean anything in the long run."
Liars: "Emily, have you recovered from your injury, your destroyed future, and your drug problem?"
Emily: "Mostly. I'm building up quite the tolerance, between getting roofied over and over and poisoned through pain cream and carbon monoxide poisoning."
Emily has been back to see Jessica DiLaurentis and pick up bird supplies for a bird that is no longer with us, plus a bunch of junk, all to cover for the fact that Alison had a weird predilection for writing important clues in the margins of her homework and other people's Biology textbooks and neverending-story journals with boundless empty pages in which janitors and hyperadrenalized ninjas can sketch out their latest plans and dreams and dress patterns.
Aria: "My mom's pretty happy with her barista boyfriend. I remember Ezra Fitz."
Liars: "How is your actual new boyfriend, Karate Jake?"
Aria: "He's fine, but it all feels so healthy and low-effort. I feel like we're doing something wrong that I am not feeling constantly endangered. You start to get off on it."
Liars: "I just like the convenience of everybody being here at this one coffee shop in the middle of the day."
Ella: "Oh, Barista boyfriend, that's so wonderful that you've been invited to a castle on a lake outside of Vienna to make pastries. Literally that is what is going on."
Guy: "Would you like to come with me for just under a year? We can enjoy this experience with the other four Americans who were chosen to make pastries in a castle."
You know, just one of those highly competitive programs you sometimes get to apply for when you own a coffee shop, where you go live in a castle and make pastries. Go ahead, bring your MILF girlfriend, there's plenty of room. After all, it is a castle.
Ella: "I could read the poetry of Byron, sitting by the lake!"
Guy: "Sure, I guess."
Ella: "But I can't. My daughter is a huge mess, you see."
Guy: "No argument here, but I feel like you're making my point."
Liars: "Emily, hide these notebooks and bird supplies. Mona's interest will be piqued."
Aria: "Where is our friend Mona?"
Liars: "Not in this episode, and she didn't come to school. I'm sure it's cool, but admittedly it would be nicer to know where she is, all the time. Just to be sure she isn't planning to constantly murder us, like she is always doing."
They produce a terrifying mask with a mask inside the mask, because this is a box of Ali's crap so obviously there would be at least one of those, like a doll wearing a mask and under the mask is a mask, or a doll. The mask is like Mardi Gras. The mask inside the mask is Ali's face -- because everything in the world is just barely stretched over a mask of Ali's face, or sometimes her actual face -- but they don't know this yet.
Spencer, verbatim: "That ain't no cuttlebone!"
Liars: "True. It is a mask. Not ... whatever you just said."
(Apparently a cuttlebone is a toy for a bird, which a mask clearly "ain't.")
Liars: "Well, it either came from her house in Rosewood or the house down south, but either way it is super fucked up."
Melissa walks in, and you can tell before you see her because the temperature drops. Zero at the bone; ice-nine. Spencer is like, "Last time I saw her she was being super sweet to me in a mental hospital because my mother was solving Special Victims and my father was busy being in every video game ever made. I should probably start major shit with her."
Hanna: "I thought she was gone for good once the NATs started dropping and her B-Team plan of blowing us all to hell went awry. Remember how Mona said she and Wilden were both the Queen of Hearts on the Halloween Train?"
Spencer: "But if Mona said it then..."
Hanna: "Just because Mona said it doesn't mean it's not true."
Spencer: "Please don't dick my mind around with rhetoric tricks. It is still recovering."
Spencer: "How was Washington? Where you supposedly were?"
Melissa: "They liked me, I liked them."
Spencer: "Now I know you're lying!"
Melissa: "I will have an internship in San Francisco, London, or Mystic Falls."
Spencer: "Whichever one is farthest away. Oh, unless you're dating somebody, then I got dibs."
Melissa: "So how's it been going since I tried to set all your friends on fire?"
Spencer: "Wilden's dead! Somebody shot him and stuffed him in his own trunk and left him in the middle of town!"
Melissa: "No I meant like, has anything out of the ordinary happened."
Spencer: "Anyway, I hope you leave town and never come back."
Melissa: "That's probably a good idea for both of us."
Spencer: "What a caring thing to say, with such a hateful inflection."
CALEB!
Caleb: "Uncle Dad was living on a lake and fishing every day, I guess for food. I finally found him and told him that I knew the bell-stealing was a setup, but not of whom. Then I told him I should have stuck by him anyway. Not because it's true or even plausible, but because I got the sense he wanted to hear it."
Hanna: "That sounds neat."
Caleb: "Anyway, from your tone of voice I can tell it's time to talk about you instead of me. I don't think your mom killed Wilden."
Hanna: "I mean, I think it's more proper to say we don't hope my mom killed Wilden. Because it seems like she did."
Caleb: "We need to prove she was in NYC at that particular time that he was being murdered."
Hanna: "Even if she wasn't?"
Caleb: "Especially if she wasn't, honey."
MONTGOMERY GIRLS
Aria: "Vienna? In Austria?"
Ella: "For real?"
Aria: "I'm so impressed! That he would be admitted to such a prestigious program like the Come Live In This Viennese Castle & Make Pastries Foundation."
Ella: "Well, I'm not going. You're a hot mess, and your brother is Marty McFlying his way out of this dimension altogether. It's not a great time."
Aria: "You say that like I don't have a perfectly fine other parent. I mean, he hasn't let me be imprisoned and poisoned and clobbered in the head by one of his lovers in weeks."
SNIPPY W/ POOR TOBES
Spencer: "This phone number doesn't exist on the internet!"
Toby: "Do you think maybe it's not a phone number after all?"
Spencer: "It wouldn't ring if it wasn't a phone number, you idiot."
Toby: "I'm still very curious about my mother's suicide."
Spencer: "Should we tell the Liars you burned us?"
Toby: "I would hate for everybody to think I'm sketchy. That would be a new experience."
They agree that A, Mona or not, knows when you're at you're weakest -- but that doesn't mean she isn't helping. "Check the facts," she said.
Toby: "My mom stole a key, unlocked a window at Radley, and jumped."
Spencer: "So those are the facts we check."
Toby: "You would actually go back into Radley?"
Spencer: "Shit yeah! What do I care?"
MARIN
Ashley: "Hanna, stop looking at me like I'm a cop-killer."
Hanna: "Isn't it sad that you got gipped out of a visit to NYC, though? Stuck in a windowless room, no field trips..."
Ashley: "They kept us busy. And Friday night they dragged us to Broadway. Anything Goes."
Hanna: "How was it?"
Ashley: "Anything Went."
Theatre mythology says that the title -- it's about basically Titanic, but Jack wins and nobody dies -- came from a big rewrite session and they're like, "How do we even end the first act?" and one of the producers goes, "At this point, anything goes." A picaresque that pretended to be a bildungsroman.
MONTGOMERY
Aria: "Let the education of my new boyfriend commence."
Lauren Bacall: (Is fierce.)
Jake: "I don't trust her."
Aria: "It's film noir, don't trust anybody."
Jake: "Why are detectives always in black and white?"
Aria: "It's like time-traveling to a more pretentious world where I would be normal."
Jake: "Is it possible the TV is just broken?"
Aria: "You are dumped. I didn't put two years into a relationship with a vastly unsuitable older effete gentleman to answer the questions of a philistine."
Jake: "First of all I was kidding. Second of all, why does it freak you out so much that we might not have everything in common?"
Aria: "Listen, I'm coming off a relationship with basically my doppelganger. Give me a little wiggle room so I don't get the bends."
Jake: "So it's a turn on when I pretend to be uncultured?"
Aria: "Anything that makes me feel superior is a turn on, Jake. Eat your popcorn."
When it came out Time magazine called it "wakeful fare for folks who don't care what is going on, or why, " and said "the plot's crazily mystifying, nightmare blur is an asset, and only one of many." Remind you of anything?
Bacall: Clearly has an itch on her thigh.
Bogart: "Go ahead and scratch."
Bacall: Hides her gratitude; goes ahead and scratches.
DR. VARGAS
Vargas: "So you fell off your bike? And just randomly your shoulder was the only thing."
Emily: "That's my story and I'm sticking to it."
Vargas: "And you're still in pain, huh. Want some hydrocodone? I'm not like a regular doctor, I'm a cool doctor."
Emily: "I have weird reactions to that."
Vargas: "Not according to your file. Where'd you get hydrocodone?"
Emily: "Uh, what I meant was, I heard sometimes you can hit your head in a pool on it."
ASHLEY'S OFC
Hanna: "Brought your car keys!"
Ashley: "Thanks, but here is some attitude. And no, you can't have your own set."
Hanna: "Nice flowers!"
Ashley: "I guess everybody got them that went to the conference."
She leaves Hanna just long enough for Hanna to find the accompanying card in the trash: "You did not attend Anything Goes, like you told your daughter! Love, People At Your Job." Hanna tosses it angrily in the trash, and leaves her mom hanging.
AFTER SCHOOL DOWNLOAD
Aria: "I don't like having Ella in her own apartment, much less her own Europe."
Spencer: "The internet is not helping with this phone number."
Emily: "I am going through Ali's shit still."
Pam: "I just talked to your doctor and apparently you're on drugs. Get in the fucking car."
A Text: "Dear Aria, I am about to make Pam Fields look like an abuser. Love, A."
RIVERS & MARIN
Caleb: "Look, being in denial about your parents' misdeeds is something I am getting good at, and I usually end up being right anyway. All we know is that she wasn't at the play."
Hanna: "Uh, and we also know that she ruined her shoes and was in Rosewood at random hours, and... I am going to end up with no parents! Like some kind of goddamn..."
Caleb: "Watch it. You know, though, you bring up an interesting point. I have just learned about dads and how they exist. Maybe we should talk to your dad about this thing that has literally nothing whatsoever to do with your dad."
Hanna: "Ever since we engineered Sister Kate's meltdown they haven't really been talking. Also, this has nothing at all to do with him."
Caleb: "He's a lawyer, and a person's father. Either of those is good enough for me. Dads!"
RWPD
Hanna's apparently bringing Pam some flowers to calm her down about this latest thing when she comes upon a whole room devoted to a murder board of murder clues for solving murders, and it's excellent.
- - Spencer's says "Power Play?" in a million places
- - Mona is called "cyber stalker" and their only question about her shit is "why?"
- - Wilden had a disciplinary hearing in November, I feel like we knew that
- - They wonder if Aria encouraged Mikey to do his stealing, rather than suicidal depression
- - They are still looking for the cemetery's groundskeeper, which is wise because he is bad at his job
- - Melissa is "too smart to get caught" -- and who was her doctor from her fake pregnancy?
- - Dr. Anne Sullivan looking super crazy -- and why did she suddenly stop claiming doctor/patient privilege once Mona went to Radley?
- - They are curious about Jenna's various alibis, and her relationship to Noel Kahn, but no mention of his Robot Murder House
- - Paige's name is highlighted in the incident report about the lighthouse shooting
- - They think Ashley maybe had a relationship with Wilden, and that she was the last person who saw him before he got run over, and they also want to check her NYC mileage
- - Aria would "do anything" for Spencer, and is connected to a "mystery man" (lol)
- - There is no actual record of Hanna's shoplifting arrest
- - Wren is referred to as a "doctor," like maybe he's not actually a doctor?
- - CeCe smirking away
- - A picture of a shovel
Holbrook: "Hey, don't look at all that information about you! You could prove helpful, and that is no bueno."
Hanna: "I'm just here because don't worry about it. Listen, is that all about Wilden?"
Holbrook: "That is all about everything, including Wilden."
Hanna: "Why am I on there?"
Holbrook: "Everybody is on there. It is everybody and everything. Let's say that board represents all the matter and energy in the universe, okay? This is me, this is you, this is Ian and this is CeCe, this is a shovel and over here, this is the Eiffel Tower, right? It's Paris! There is no remainder in the mathematics of Infinity."
Hanna: "I have to go I think."
Holbrook: "No time for infinity? Gotta go piece together a theory?"
Hanna: "No, Melissa Hastings just showed up to meet with you, and I fucking hate her."
CALEB & MR. MARIN
Caleb: "Have we ever even met before on this show?"
Marin: "No, but whatever. Why are you lurking near my car? Are you homeless again?"
Caleb: "Not entirely clear on that situation, actually. But listen, you know that dead cop? Well, he's dead. And Hanna seems to think these State Police are going to pin it on her mom, your wife."
Marin: "Ex-wife. And so?"
Caleb: "Your daughter is going to need her mommy to have a good lawyer, okay? And also she needs a dad. Think you could man up for like one second? While this murder investigation is going on?"
FIELDS
Aria: "So how did it go, fessing up that you stole her pills, which was totally obvious even to her?"
Emily: "Yeah, but I just ended up lying more. About my injury and whatever. It's getting harder and harder to remember what lies I have told to what people."
Aria: "You should always tell the truth."
Emily: "This is nothing compared to the fact that A has video footage of us fucking around with Wilden's car right around the time he was getting murdered, though. That is going to be a pretty impressive lie to lie about."
Aria: "Hey Em, see inside this mask? Another mask."
Emily: "I bet it's Ali's face."
Aria: "Good guess!"
Mona wore the mask when she dressed up as Caleb on the Halloween Train, and she had it under her bed at Radley, where Red Coat would wear it on her visits -- and again, possibly, while saving the Liars from the Lodge fire. It reappeared when Emily and Hanna tried to figure out who the random non-Toby guy was in the morgue, and A wore it to attack Mona in her car. Oh, and the Black Widow wore one under her funeral veil for Wilden's funeral, half-burned presumably from the Lodge fire as well. That is a lot of time we've spent with this mask for something that didn't even exist until Halloween.
Emily: "Maybe that's [she lists all of these times that they know about] and that's why we keep thinking Ali's not dead."
Aria: "Why would Alison have a mask of her own face hidden inside a mask?"
Emily: "Does that not sound completely like something she would own?"
MARIN
Ashley: "Hey, Hanna, just doing some homework? Listen, you really need to stop spying on me."
Hanna: "I looked over at the garbage can. Having eyeballs is not spying. What about your constant lies?"
Ashley: "You deliberately had eyeballs and I won't have it, Miss Hanna!"
Hanna: "This really isn't about pretending to go to Broadway musicals, Mom. It is a much bigger deal than that, starting with why would you lie about something stupid like that unless you really were here in town, getting yourself into trouble?"
Ashley: "Oh my God, Hanna. I ran over the guy, but that's it. Stop digging!"
Hanna: "I realize it makes you feel persecuted, but trust me. Honesty is the best policy."
Ashley: "Fine. Then just keep your mouth shut about what you know, without lying."
RADLEY
Spencer: "Okay, I have these intense schematics of the entirety of Radley. We go through the Children's Wing, over to the service corridor, up several yards of AC conduit, then rappel down with these grappling hooks..."
Toby: "How do we get in if they changed the door codes?"
Spencer: "No prob, Mona gave me the overrides."
Toby: "That's a true sign of A respect."
Spencer: "Game recognize game, Tobias."
FIELDS
The mask inside which Alison's mask was found leads them to Hector Lime, "dimensional artist," who is played by a person with an amazing face. His creepiness studio is located on the far side of Torch Lake, which: All of a sudden we are talking a lot about Torch Lake, are we not? Did I just overlook this lake before now, or is it a new thing?
Emily: "He makes masks and statues and props for horror films. Ali went there, and he copied her face."
Hanna: "Knowing Ali, he probably had to make a million."
Liars: "I wish Spencer was coming with us. She's good with these dudes."
You know who else is good with these dudes? Mona V. Remember how she got that Norman Bates guy to follow her to high school and become a janitor? That's what is required here. But sure, the dream team of Aria and Hanna can handle it. As long as Emily's there to completely run the mission and tell everybody what to do, of course.
Hanna: "This mask connects us to Ali and the Halloween Train, which connects us to Wilden, which via the RWPD whiteboard connects all of this to my mom, who is already getting pissed at me just for having eyeballs. Move your asses."
HECTOR LIME
Aria: "Ali came out here alone?"
Hanna: "Yeah, she does not historically seem to have given a fuck about much."
Aria: "Is that a mannequin on the porch, or a person? This is getting weird."
Hector: "It is about to get way weird. Get off my porch."
Emily: "Do you recognize this mask you made? Sorry it is the middle of the night."
Hector: "Oh boy. Yeah, you'd better come in. That bitch scared the hell out of me."
RADLEY
Toby: "So this is the window my mom jumped out of, huh? I thought this would be a more cheerful experience than it is turning out to be."
Spencer: "So we good here?"
Toby: "Hang on, I have to climb all over the windowsill and rub the window like a housecat at dinnertime... Oh I just figured out how stupid I am."
Spencer: "Because you gave us up yet again to find out a bunch of BS you already knew?"
HECTOR LIME
Hector: "You peeled the harlequin face off the Alison face. You voided the warranty."
Liars: "That's fine, she's dead anyway. How did you meet Ali and come to make infinite copies of her face which you then hid under random other masks?"
Hector: "I put an ad out for a 'Joan of Arc' model, and Alison was perfect. Because she is a teenage girl who did not ever once give a fuck, and also was mentally insane, just like Joan of Arc."
Emily: "Tell us more information."
Hector: "Only if I get to make a mask of your face. I think you would make a splendid Medusa. Snakes coming out of your hair, just like that time you got drunk at that dance and started tossin' real talk. I'll give you info, and all I ask for is ... your face."
POOR UNFORTUNATE SOULS!
Spencer: "The angle of incidence is such that a person could not commit suicide from this window. What is she, parkour? Tell the truth, was your mom Spider-Man?"
Toby: "No she was just a regular mom."
Spencer: "Then I am overjoyed to tell you that your mother was murdered."
HECTOR LIME
Hector: "While I'm doing this, you should ask all your questions. But not you, Emily. You just sit there with plaster all over your face making you feel crazed with face claustrophobia."
Liars: "Wait, so you made a mold of Alison's face for Joan of Arc, but then so why are there a million other masks of her everywhere?"
Hector: "That's immortality, my dears. She wanted her friends to look like her."
Hanna: (Goes secretly creepin'.)
Aria: (Picks up a hammer in case he suddenly wigs.)
Hector: "Hard masks, and soft ones... I made 'em, handed 'em over. Broke the mold when I was done, just like God did. And because she told me to."
Just before Hector is done making Emily's face into a mask, Hanna finds... A mask of her own face! Just kidding, Hanna, that's a mirror. But she does find a mask of Melissa Hastings, because why not. Most hilariously, as they're leaving Emily is pulling the plaster out of her hair. I so wanted her to be like, "You guys, I have plaster in my hair!" but she is too busy dealing. Maybe when Pam nails her for going out after being grounded in Robot House for doing drugs, she can say that. "Mom! I have plaster in my hair, tone it down!"
MARIN & RIVERS
Mr. Marin: "Little wolf boy on the side of the road, let's have a frank discussion. But first I gotta know, did Ashley put you up to this?"
Caleb: "First of all, no. Second of all, she shouldn't have to."
Marin: "Okay here's the scoop. Ashley came over to my house that night, around nine. Isabelle was having a party, so I snuck her up to my office over the garage."
Caleb: "You're a whore, dude. Did she talk about any murders she had just done?"
Marin: "She just wanted money and I wouldn't give her any money and then my dumb wife needed me for her party, and then Ashley disappeared."
Caleb: "This is interesting information you could have shared."
Marin: "You're just on the edge of this right now. You could still walk away."
Caleb: "I love your daughter, Mr. Marin."
Marin: "Fine you are no longer on the edge of this right now. You are in the middle of it. Because the point of this scene is, my gun is missing. Presumably has been, since that night when Ashley stole it and used it to shoot Wilden over and over and over."
Caleb: "Again, very interesting info."
FIELDS
Emily: "Hey Mom. Go easy on me, please."
Pam: "No way! You totally snuck out of Robot House! And why is there shit in your hair?"
Emily: "I will answer your questions with zero information, in order to put you at ease."
Pam: "Okay meanwhile, did you know Family Services is up my ass? A reported me for yelling at you outside the school, and somebody who is probably A called me about how you keep ending up in the hospital with broken shoulders and pain cream eating your tummy up and telling Dr. Vargas about your hydrocodone use..."
Emily: "PRISM is nothing compared to A, lady. Don't stress out."
Pam: "I'm going to be weirdly cool about this, okay? Later."
COFFEE SHOP
Jake: "Your decaf nonfat iced mocha, milady. Is that not just chocolate milk?"
Aria: "Here is the entire key to everything about me, Tiger, so you listen up. This drink isn't about coffee, it's about making me feel more grownup. Take that and apply it to everything about me and my entire life, and you will never go wrong. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go briefly make decisions for my mother."
Aria, without prelude: "So you have to go to Vienna with Zack. I order you to follow your bliss."
Ella: "You do realize I'm the best thing going, right?"
Aria: "You are, and you deserve adventure! Mike and I, whoever that is, we're gonna be just fine with Dad. I have scared him out of having girlfriends for at least a year."
Ella: "You're sweet, kid. But this isn't really about you."
Aria: "Then follow your bliss! Your passion! Look at that barista's ass!"
Ella: "...Deal."
Jake: "That seemed intense."
Aria: "I have given my mother permission to run away and join the circus."
Jake: "That was grand of you, and hilariously stated."
Aria: "Thank you and I know."
Jake: "But hey, aren't you going to miss her? She's kinda the best thing going."
Aria: "...Oh shit."
It's really sad, like she was so into the theoreticals of it and the Safety Zone of getting Ella away from A -- now that everybody's moms are in danger -- that she didn't even think about how her mommy would go away for a year. You can see it fall on her, like bricks: Not all at once, just a deafening series of thuds that slowly bury her. Oh girl.
MARIN
Hanna drops off the Melissa mask with Spencer -- "Did Melissa follow Ali there, or did Ali follow Melissa? Or did they go together?" -- and then knocks on the upstairs bathroom door at her house, where Ashley is running a bath she is not interested in taking. She's just straight-up hiding at this point, and it's so sad! In your own house. Hanna's like, "I love you okay and I am sorry okay and I am home and safe and so are you okay" and Ashley's just like, "Go to bed, honey."
HASTINGS
But lest ye think everything is all touching moving yearning love for family this week, between Pam's parenting under the microscope, and Hanna desperately trying to simultaneously look her mother in the eye and not look her in the eye, and Aria doing her whole amazing deal...
Melissa: "I'm coming in, bitch. Why was Hanna at the RWPD?"
Spencer: "Why were you?"
Melissa: "Holbrook wanted to discuss Wilden. Which I mean, I hardly knew him..."
Spencer: "You were in high school and NAT Club together, you're both B-Team, you both knocked up Ali at the shore..."
Melissa: "Yeah but that was all a long time ago. I am one fake pregnancy, one dead husband, one texting ghost husband, one Black Swan, a Lodge fire and a London internship past that now."
Spencer -- as you've been wanting her to do the entire scene, major suspencer -- nudges a throw blanket over the Melissa mask. By the way, Melissa is wearing a dark jacket with lime-green piping that makes her look like she's in The Prisoner.
Melissa: "As if this could just be asked casually in any tone at all, but do you ever think about how all my friends are dying and why? Like, what does it all mean?"
Spencer: "On the off chance you're being sincere, that is a pretty big question full of things we can't talk about."
Melissa: "Maybe we hate each other because we're so much alike. Just like in that movie Aria was watching with Jake, only I'm the one that is actually connected to the conspiracy and it only looks like you're the fucked up one."
Spencer: "Maybe. I always thought I just hated you because fuck you."
Melissa: "You asked me once if I would choose you over Ian, if it came down to protecting you over somebody I loved, what I would do."
Spencer: "It was pretty rhetorical, I thought."
Melissa: "Well, what would you answer now, if I asked you?"
Spencer: "You really couldn't be less vague if you tried, sister dear."
Melissa: "All we know for sure is, I am sketchy as hell. Even though I never end up having done anything wrong, I seem to work overtime to make it look like I have."
FIELDS
Pam: "Don't be alarmed, I just came to rouse you out of a sound sleep to let you know that your dad is coming home from Texas because Family Services is going to put us all in jail and you are going to be homeless and living on the streets and Paige is going to Stanford and you are never going to see her again and everything is over because nobody even knows if this is actually Family Services or just A at the top of her game."
Emily: "Cool, goodnight."
A-TAG
A loves vinyl, of course, because A is evil. She puts on -- speaking of The Prisoner actually -- the song about how the bones are connected to the other bones, to provide mood music while she looks at an x-ray of I guess Emily's upper torso. Because of all the things you would have in your A-Lair, an x-ray lightbox is right under "Bratz dolls that look like everybody you know."
WEEK
Spencer decides to hyperfocus on Melissa, which makes sense because why else would she be on the show. The Fields are majorly inconvenienced by this whole abuse investigation. Hanna stresses about her mom some more, turning her shitty attitude on Caleb at last. Toby's mom is still dead, Aria has "an uncomfortable encounter while out with Jake" that is probably her fault entirely, and Holbrook and his partner step it up (2 the streets?).
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Killing, Pretty Little Liars, Mistresses, True Blood, 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.