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Proving that she's a special victim indeed, Ashley finally lets Veronica be her lawyer, because that worked out so well for Garrett Reynolds. Their conversation is like, "Can I talk to you about how I killed Wilden that time?" and Veronica is like, "I would prefer to discuss other shit instead of that." She is the most interesting lawyer!
Hanna's having crazy dreams about Ashley being in jail and missing hair in patches on her head, which is pretty intense, but not so intense that you should take the scarf-wrapped handgun out of mommy's closet and carry it all over town until you are put in jail. Betty Lou, you better get that gun out of your handbag!
She does, she buries it by scooping dirt out of a sorority house's yard with a beer mug. Why? Because she's board. That's literally the only reason, she's like, "I got this gun in my handbag, everybody's so boring at this boring college party, I should probably just go dig in the dirt in the middle of the night and get my weird ass arrested."
But then I guess that's our Hanna, always pushing cars into swamps and burying guns all over town and throwing USB drives into blenders. Why set it on fire like a Hastings, when instead you can ensure the police will come and put you in jail? So they do that, not that it helps, because now all the Marin girls are going to jail. Mainly for being super sketch about crimes they did not do, to the degree that the evidence is now like incontrovertible that they did (even though really they didn't). (Probably.)
Well, after A sends a hive of bees to kill Ella Montgomery, I'm starting to come around to Aria's side of the argument: Maybe living in an Austrian castle and making pastries is the better option, if shit like bees is now on the table. Of course Mikey Montgomery -- "Who? Who is that little boy in our house?" -- does not approve, but that bitch is so basic he doesn't even know that Ezra is the least of our worries these days. Somebody tell Mike that there's BEES now. (On the upside, every time he kills a vampire his tattoo gets bigger, and may one day explode the clothing off his body.)
Oh, and if you were wondering where he was for two years: He was just playing video games, he was just right over there at the edge of your vision. So that's the solution to that mystery.
The body of the strangeness this week, though, comes down to Spencer and Emily, who for different reasons just aren't special enough to be in college today. Spencer because she skipped a few weeks to be in a mental institution I guess, and Emily because that one big swim meet, it turns out, was "the big swim meet" and now her life is over. On the upside, this causes her to call type-A Spencer a "snot rag," which is pretty beautiful. On the other hand, you can't both be Spencer right now, not with Hanna going to jail like she is, because then that brings it all down to Aria. And let's be real about that.
So while Emily is using her passing privilege to make this wicked hot perfect dude think she's not gay so he'll help her get into college instead of Spencer -- a dude called the "Wizard," because he is a wizard, a wizard of getting only one person into college -- Spencer tracks down the magic Tippi-the-Parrot phone, which (after some run-ins with this one hilarious hot douchebag who is like everywhere at once the entire party, fucking everything up in a very realistic non-stop way) is a (Noel Kahnishly barebones) secret room at a sorority house.
(It's so good! At college a hilarious nerd goes, "You got the crazy eyes!" And Spencer goes, "They're not that crazy," and the nerd goes, "They're crazy enough." She's offended, but I like that she is fully aware of what she's bringing to the table. And then they have a fight about the Lannisters from Westeros, of course.)
It looks like the Hatch. It looks like where you have to type the numbers every 42 minutes or whatever. (Which makes total sense, because Alison DiLaurentis obviously would not mind fitting that into her schedule.) But so I guess that whole summer, Ali was just calling whatever sex victim was locked in this room, over and over, and I guess his name was "Boardshorts"?
Dear Boardshorts, are you enjoying being a sex prisoner of this robot Greek house? Too bad we live in Rosewood. I myself am pregnant with a murder. Hang on, I have to call you back, my ghost twin from the future is stalking me again. Ten four, roger dodger, Stranger Danger out.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Only slightly more destructive to Spencer's worldview than learning that she's been rejected from UPenn, we learned that Evil Big Sister Melissa has been "protecting" Spence "since It started," that she believes Ali is alive and that if Spencer doesn't stop investigating Wilden's death, "It will come apart in ways that you cannot even imagine." With no options but to go crazy again with this info, Spencer has decided that only a talking parrot calling a secret York County telephone number can solve whatever mystery we're even talking about.Between Emily's five-minute drug addiction, the continual prying eyes of Family Services, and having screwed up the only swim meet in which she has ever participated, it is not looking great for her collegiate future either. Aria sent her mother to go live in a castle in Austria, and Hanna is pretty sure her mother stole a gun from her ex-husband and killed a cop -- and that the thrillingly wonderful State Police in town fully know it.
TONIGHT
"AIIEE! STOP MAKING ME SHOOT YOU WITH A STOLEN GUN JUST BECAUSE YOU KEPT RAPING ME AND IMPREGNATED THE GIRL WHO TURNED MY DAUGHTER INTO A BULIMIC AND THEN I RAN OVER YOU BUT STILL YOU DID NOT DIE SO THEN I PRETENDED TO BE ON BROADWAY SO I COULD SHOOT YOU LIKE A HUNDRED TIMES! GAH!"
Hanna: "Mom? Wake up! Mom, is everything okay?"
Ashley: "Don't mix Ambien and wine, I guess, is the moral of this story."
TAKE TWO
Just kidding, I made that up. Actually it was just a dream Hanna had, off a police car going by that turned into her mom screaming and/or being arrested, and woke her up. But Ashley's out on the back porch anyway. Is she moving giant ficuses around at six AM? Sadly, no. But she is nesting in a lawn chair with about a thousand chenille throws wrapped around herself and her head, like a burka, or a cocoon from which she will one day spring, covered in a fine fur.
Ashley: "You look shook up and I'm clearly ready to deal with your problems."
Hanna: "No, it's okay. I'll go back to silently freaking out."
Ashley sits up and her hair is shorn in a radically fucked up fashion, and she's wearing the new black under her throws, and it's fuckin' amazing. They both scream in each other's faces, their variously perfect-coiffed and jacked-up-coiffed faces. That's when you know it's gonna be one of those episodes.
TAKE THREE
Hanna wakes up and Ashley's like, "Wanna talk about it?" And Hanna's like, "Maybe one day, but not today. Your hair looks nice this morning. Keep it like that. Don't shave it off like a Barbie doll experiment or anything."
HASTINGS
Veronica: "Good morning."
Spencer: "What do you mean by that?"
Veronica: "Anyway, Melissa's in London. She says it's beautiful and cold, just like my favorite daughter."
Veronica: "Check out this pamphlet from Brendan McGowan."
Spencer: "To what end? Who on earth is Brendan McGowan, and why does he have a pamphlet?"
Veronica: "Now that Hot Andrew is on ABC Family's other Best Show Of All Time, and nobody's seen Noel Kahn except the State Police Markerboard in quite a while, we needed a new hottie scientifically calibrated to precisely Jacob's needs. Enter Brendan McGowan, a private admissions counselor who gets people into college, even when they are mental patients or whatever your deal is."
Spencer: "I don't have a logical problem with that..."
Veronica: "-- Well that's a surprise, and a relief..."
Spencer: "-- So here are my twenty illogical problems with that."
Veronica: "There it is. There's my girl."
FIELDS
Dad: "I was going to badly make breakfast because I am a man and I don't know how to cook."
Emily: "First of all, why are you wearing a civilian Henley, and second of all, I presume this means Pam crept out under cover of darkness again for the third time this week?"
Dad: "Emmy, being the laughingstock of town for abusing you the second we stopped abusing you has been hard for us all. Don't hold yourself totally responsible for the shame you daily heap on our family merely by existing."
Emily: "I have loads of other things to freak out about. Such as, Hufflepuffs don't go to college without swimming scholarships."
Dad: "Well, don't do drugs, then."
HOMEROOM
Ella: "Please don't embarrass me on your college visits, people. We are not whores at Rosewood High. Merely victims."
Spencer is dressed like Miss Switch, the friendly substitute teacher who can turn into a witch. Emily is wearing a classic "Come To My Window" sleeveless denim vest that smells like Mary Chapin Carpenter. Hanna's ensemble says, "I am going to da club." It is a night look, despite this clearly being the morning -- although the Seattle-darkness lighting of this classroom may have confused her. Everybody leaves so they can talk about A stuff, which is sporting.
Hanna: "Was my dream a premonition of my mother going to jail and/or getting a bad haircut?"
Spencer: "As a person who regularly has prophetic dreams, I don't believe in prophetic dreams. Your mother getting framed is classic us."
Hanna: "It's not 'getting framed' if you actually did it, though. Then it's just 'getting justiced.' And that is not how we roll in my family."
Ella: "Get the fuck out of my classroom, snoozers."
Aria: "She's been acting weird ever since I told her she is nothing to me. I wonder if this is A's doing and now it's all about me and my mom."
Hanna: "Yes, you're very special Aria."
Spencer: "I have to meet Brendan McGowan at the Brew after school, so I can't help chase your nebulous feelings about things."
Emily: "How much does a Brendan McGowan cost?"
Aria: "It's the Hastingses, so, more than you can afford. Because you are poor."
Then they just start saying words. Melissa Smash Party. The Birdnapping of Tippi. Boardshorts, the man who wears shorts. Ian. Garrett. Wilden. People. Places. Phone numbers.
Spencer: "Hey, the area code and prefix of that Tippi phone number match those on campus of one of twelve colleges on this piece of paper that Brendan McGowan gave me. I just noticed that because of how I live in an hyperadrenalized superreality."
Aria: "I guess that number goes to that campus, then. I guess we're going to Cicero College."
Ella: "And you better not act fucking weird while you're there."
(I was going to do the whole Mean Girl Sorority Bitch Letter thing the whole episode, but Joe R beat me to it while I was busy having strep. Which sucks, because I was tremendously excited to talk about that girl, because she is my hero of life. On the other hand, I get to bring out one of my favorite classics graffiti -- forebear to the internet's "stop not liking what I like" -- which let Pompeii know, "You will like Cicero, or you will be whipped.")
MONTGOMERY LADIES
Aria: "Mom, I wanted to have lunch with you but you're running away."
Ella: "I am having lunch with Zack at the Brew. It is to call off the trip."
Aria: "No! You have to go to Austria before the bees attack!"
Ella: "I talked to Mikey and he said he is about to have a total meltdown again, and your dad can't handle his emotional problems because of your Uncle Bananafish, so..."
Aria: "Are we a hundred percent sure that Mike is a real person?"
Ella: "Anyway, I am a mother. I know you don't care or understand, but..."
Aria: "Look over there!"
Ella: "Nice try, Aria. Oh wait, is that a bee? [Smash Party!] Anyway, get out of my car so I can go ruin your whole plan to save my life."
Aria does, and then a million bees fill the car, and Ella -- even Ella -- is too Punk'd by this to get out of the car, so before you know it the car has be(e)come a Syfy Original Feature called Beepocalypse. Aria stares and wonders for a while why her mother is inventing a new dance in her car, until A gives up and texts her that what is obviously going on is, her mother is about to die. Of bees.
THE BREW
Emily: "But is she going to be okay?"
Aria: "Yeah, she's fine, fuck it. This is really about me. Specifically, how do I get her out of town before A unleashes the rest of her Evil Ark."
Emily: "We're doing one-liners now?"
Aria: "Yeah. A gave her 'four-wheel hive.'"
Emily: "Good one. We'll talk later. I got a bomb-ass sex WASP to trick."
Emily: "Excuse me, are you Brendan McGowan? Of the College Admissions McGowans?"
Brendan: "I don't see any other regulation hotties slurping their coffee in here, do you?"
Emily: "Can I steal you from Spencer Hastings? I need to go to college so I can keep being a lesbian."
Brendan: "We need to re-brand your brand. Less swimming, more the million other things you've got going on. Like, I know you've already figured out I don't want to know you're gay, but can we talk about how you're like every race?"
Emily: "Thanks for noticing! It's a big part of why I'm so beautiful. That, and being secretly Canadian. But can any of this help with getting into college?"
Brendan: "Hey, my gaydar's way off. Want to just completely ignore the fact that you're at work and have a seat? We can cheat on Spencer together with this binder of college secrets."
Emily: "She's great at sharing, I'm sure she won't mind."
MOMZ
Ashley: "Would you like some wine? If we drink it out of teacups it doesn't count."
Veronica: "Ashley, why am I here in the middle of the day? Is it because you killed the shit out of Detective Wilden?"
Ashley: "Kind of. But listen, that's only the first of many problems I have."
Veronica: "I will look into this for you, I know everybody at Rosewood PD. But is this as a friend? Or as a lawyer?"
Ashley: "Hopefully both! I'm not great with boundaries. Or with money. If you want money, you know where it is. Right over there in that pasta cabinet. Just grab whatever."
Veronica: "Okay, well. You sit tight and I will just ask you for zero information at this time even though I came here specifically to hear your side of the story."
Ashley: "Don't you even care if I'm guilty?"
Veronica: "Honey, I really don't. Why does literally nobody understand how defense law works?"
THE BREW
Amazingly, Brendan's first order of business is to bring up how homegirl is every race. That's so awesome! Maybe I should be a freelance college-admissions fixer. Spencer interrupts, because Emily isn't allowed to have anything that Spencer has. Like Melissa with boyfriends, or Emily with Toby.
Spencer: "Emily, stay right here. I got a plan."
Brendan: "Uh, me too. Seconded."
Spencer: "So I know we're meant to be focusing on Ivies and going to Brown and whatever, but I'm gonna need a pass to visit Cicero College. Or you will be whipped."
Brendan: "Are you seriously not even going to pretend to let me do my job? Look, clearly the actual deal here is unclear to you. I have family connections to every department of every college in the entire world, and I can get you in anywhere. This whole thing is a formality. Do you really not get that higher education is entirely a scam intended to consolidate power and cultural capital in the dynasties of people like me? I'm doing you a favor just by being white. That and pretending not to care about the estate tax."
Emily: "I would also like to visit Cicero."
Brendan: "Done."
MONTGOMERY
Aria: "Mike? When did you get home?"
Mike: "Like a minute ago?"
(Rimshot. Nicely done, show.)
Aria: "So how come you talked our mom out of fleeing the bees? It's very selfish to be a child and expect your mother to be around and parent you. Dick move, son."
Mike: "Why are you so into getting rid of her? Is it so you can go back to fucking Ezra Fitz?"
Aria: "WHOA. First of all, rude. Second of all, that's not even the deal right now. Ella is cooler about Fitz than anybody on this show, including me."
Mike: "And yet with the information available to the rest of us not involved in your A-shenanigans, the obvious conclusion. You have no givable reasons for wanting her out, and I have a ton for wanting her to stay. So nothing you're saying makes any sense, which means I have to stick to my guns."
Aria: "...Defeated by beautiful Mikey and common sense, once again. Enjoy my tiny self shoving you a quarter-inch, dick!"
MARIN
Ashley: "Visiting any campuses this weekend? Not that I want you out of the house or..."
Hanna: "No, I'm going to FIT, I don't need that business. Not that I want to stick around and keep an eye on..."
Ashley: "It's good to explore multiple options."
Hanna, awesome: "Look. I really don't like when the tour guides walk backwards. It makes me nauseous. Especially if they're wearing pleated pants."
(Ring ring.)
Ashley: "I'm just going to take this urgent call elsewhere, in a suspicious way."
Hanna: "Cool, I'm just going to listen in on a landline extension, in 2013."
Veronica: "I was just calling to tell you zero information except things are very, very bad. See you in the AM!"
Separate Marins: "Fucking hell."
MONTGOMERY
Hanna: "Your dad's the worst. But would he step up for Ella if she were in trouble?"
Aria: "Hang on, I have to slowly come to the conclusion that this isn't actually about me.... Okay, I'm good."
Hanna: "Caleb thinks I might push my dad further out of our corner if I push, but then also I just really want to push and push."
Aria: "So call Caleb, I don't have time to talk about other people."
Hanna: "It's a full moon, Aria. He's 'camping' with Uncle Dad."
Aria: "This is about the shoes, I bet. Rather than, ya know, the gun she stole..."
Hanna: "Yeah, her closet for shoes and guns is locked! For the first time!"
Aria: "Maybe because there's guns and shoes in there, and you're acting Spencer-twitchy all the time now?"
FIELDS
Dad: "I may not be able to pay for college, but at least here is some money for your campus trip."
Emily: "Why are you handing me money? We're poor. Plus I have all those jobs..."
Dad: "Buy a handbag. Buy Spencer some solid, non-caffeinated food. Anything but drugs, lol."
Emily: "You say you don't want me to be guilty, but everything you do is specifically things that make me feel guilty."
MONTGOMERY
Aria: "Listen, while Mom's all doped up on bee drugs could you talk her into running away with a young hot barista?"
Byron: "Even I, Byron Montgomery, have a point about how that's a fucked up request."
Aria: "Just release her. Trust me, it's breaking my heart too."
Byron: "If this means I'm going to have to parent my children, I am not for it."
Aria: "We'll probably all be dead soon anyway. Just do it."
CICERO
While Hanna is picking the lock on mom's gun closet, Emily and Spencer hit campus with Brendan. Today he's wearing a pale blue button-down and lovely beige jacket, recklessly pairing it with some black chinos, to turn his height into the illusion of upper-body breadth. It works perfectly because he is perfect.
Brendan: "At the Regents' Tea, talk about Kierkegaard because the head of Humanities is..."
Emily: "Can I get a sorority scholarship and does it involve pompoms?"
Brendan: "You have your girl things mixed up!"
Emily: "Haha! Not because I'm a lesbian though."
Spencer: "This idiot actually thinks we want to go to this shitty school. Instead of being here on the orders from a bird that has disappeared."
Emily: "But Spencer, I do want to go to..."
Spencer: "So here's the plan. Keep working him because he's in love with you, and then ditch it when he is at his most vulnerable and suspicious. Meet back here, and we'll do spy stuff."
Emily: "But Spencer I actually want to attend a college of some kind and I..."
Spencer: "Real life doesn't matter. Just do these weird things with me and shut up, okay?"
MARIN
Hanna gets into the closet and finds her parents' gun instantly, just as the door downstairs is slamming shut. Is this a dream? No, it is real life. What will she do with the gun? I don't know. Did we ever replace the blender? If not, there's always the garbage disposal.
Hanna: "Spencer, I have real-life things going on! I need advice."
Spencer: "I am busy, I'm about to bully a college nerd in my pursuit of bird knowledge."
Hanna: "Spencer but I was just in my mom's closet and I..."
Spencer: "Leave your poor mother alone! You're already giving her quote a 'Britney Shears' in your sleep, you can't keep doing this. I gotta find Boardshorts in this area code."
Hanna: "But Spencer I found a literal gun in my mom's shit..."
Spencer: "Let no Pretty Little Liar escape the madness of my single-minded pursuit of justice! Click! Now, to shit on Aria somehow so I can call it a day."
Hanna is literally standing in her kitchen, at this point, with the silk scarf-wrapped handgun sitting on the kitchen counter, as more and more doors throughout her house are being opened and closed by forces unknown. (A potted plant flies at the patio door out of nowhere! Crash!)
CICERO
Spencer: "Hey, nerd. How's it going, being such a big nerd? For me, it is going great."
MRA Nerd: "I don't know anything about any unlisted phone numbers, Fake Geek Girl."
Spencer rallies, geeks harder and harder. (Fake Geek Girls are not a real thing. Spencer is the first and only person who has ever appealed to someone's interests in order to get something she wanted. Allowing men to judge you for existing is the pussy way out.) Then dude flips the script, trading a male-written narrative about women's right to exist in consumer space for an even dumber male-written narrative about clingy girlfriends. (Who also are not a real thing and have never existed, except in cases where they do, and then go online to freak out about how they allowed men to judge them for existing instead of blowing them off because they're nerds and don't actually matter.)
MRA Nerd: "Tracking down an ex? I know girls like you. You got the crazy eyes."
Spencer: "They're not that crazy."
MRA Nerd: "Crazy enough."
Spencer turns it up to a million, and the guy finally relents. Can't stop won't stop.
MRA Nerd: "Okay. First three numbers means it's on campus and ... the three numbers means it's on Greek Row. I can't tell you anything else, but I'm praying for the guy."
Spencer: "A Lannister always pays his debts."
MRA Nerd: "You would like the Lannisters."
Spencer: "Bitch, you have no idea. But I've also got entire Targaryen speeches memorized, so now I am three awesome things. Later, boner."
MRA Nerd: "Argh! I still don't like women that much because I am used to having everything I want and so I hate when my toys come to life and act like people! Back to hopelessly idealizing women and then getting pissed when they don't follow my internal imaginary script, I guess. Ho hum. Just another day of white men's oppression."
MONTGOMERY EXES
Byron: "I talked Mikey out of loving you, so everything is great, right?"
Ella: "This is so fucked up. Why are you guys pulling this? I got beestings!"
Byron: "Because we love you! In a way. In a way where you need to leave the country."
Ella: "Won't you get jealous of me stepping on your Worst Parenting banner?"
Byron: "We both know Aria was a mistake. Maybe this is the life you were always meant to lead."
Ella: "Not a mistake, a blessing. We agreed to call her a blessing."
Byron: "You've been offered a second chance. If I could divorce myself from myself, you know I would do it too. Just live your life, gratefully."
CICERO
Spencer: "Up your game, bitch! We gotta flash pictures of Ali at all these frat guys and act super intense and scare everybody! It is the Hastings Way."
Emily: "Okay, listen. You haven't been hearing me, so I'm going to speak slowly. I want to go to college. I think I can get into this college you keep shitting on. This is not about you or Ali right now."
Spencer: "I don't understand what you're saying at all. Is this you not helping me Spencer out? Wait, is that why you're flirting with Brendan?"
Emily: "I am not flirting with anybody. I am being awesome."
Spencer: "From the closet! Oh my God, Emily. This is so sad."
Emily: "Coming from the girl who whipped off her bra to get back on Decathlon..."
Spencer: "That was Hot Andrew! You can't hold me responsible for..."
Emily: "I am not (intentionally/consciously) leading anybody on. Just being charming."
Spencer: "Not from where I'm standing."
Emily: "Like you even know what charming looks like! You've never had to be charming! You get to act like a total snot-rag 'cause mommy and daddy have a safety net of cash to catch your fall!"
Real talk! Damn, ladies. I mean, they both have a point -- has this money stuff ever come up before? -- but now is not the time, for either agenda. Still, a very satisfying scene I think, no matter who you love the most. Emily is exasperated by having to explain what it's like to be a person in the world, and Spencer can't see past her own safety nets to understand why the priorities have shifted, and it's uniformly excellent. But it's also a relief when the sisters of GZX come out to serenade them and they have to stop acting fucking weird.
MARIN
Ashley: "Where are you going with your luggage in the middle of the night?"
Hanna: "Cicero. I realized you're the mom and you know better."
Ashley: "Well, I have no further questions."
Hanna: "Great. Don't get arrested while I'm gone."
Here's one: Do you have a gun in your purse? Because if so, this is the dumbest thing you've done in at least a season or two. How long do you think before Ashley remembers to check if her gun is still in the upstairs lasagna closet? How long until Hanna gets arrested on campus for waving a gun around? And will it be because of a date rape situation? It's so weird how this show ran out of places for men to be creepy -- in Rosewood PA, where everywhere is a place for men to be creepy -- and had to go on a field trip to a place where the entire point is all men being creepy. The only place Rosewoodier than Rosewood is: Any Greek Row anywhere in America.
GZX
Soror: "So anyway [sorority stuff]..."
Emily: "Cool, hey why is there a weird African mask and a huge paddle on the wall?"
Soror: "Because the Greek system is gross. But that particular one belonged to a person called Grunwald, a former House Mother, who legend tells us could predict your moves before you even made them."
Emily: "I know a bitch like that. This Grindelwald, is she still alive?"
Soror: "No, she is a ghost now."
Emily: "That is uncanny."
Spencer: "Put down your red cups and identify this murder victim! NOW!"
All the Bros: "Ugh, fuck off?"
Spencer: "Can't stop won't stop!"
Spencer glares at Emily across the room for being a human and talking to other humans, and then All That Is Brendan McGowan steps up on her, in his civvies: A pinky-red plaid with just enough blue in it to set those eyes off, and a soft cardigan that turns his good-boy side-part into instant sex with the entire 1950s. 10 out of 10 as usual, McGowan. Keep them costume changes poppin'. I am very aware of them.
Brendan: "I'm obviously in my casuals and off-duty. Can this be a date?"
Emily: "Rarely has an ethical dilemma been presented so clearly on this show."
Bro: "Yeah, I saw this girl... In my spank bank!"
Spencer: "You clearly do not understand the gravity of this situation. If only we were at one of the Ivies, where people never act shitty."
Hanna: "Spencer, stop staring at that random old label-maker of a phone number with the area code and prefix we already know to be located here on Greek Row, and watch me flame out!"
Spencer: "Wait, what are you even doing here? As if you're going to college, come on."
Hanna: "Here is why. A gun. Congratulations, you are no longer the Crazy One."
Spencer: "Seriously though? What the fuck, Hanna?"
Hanna: "I thought, if I give it to my dad then maybe that would create more probs, because what if he got mad that she stole his gun to do crimes with, so I decided to drive here and bury it in this yard during this party. Plus, this way he still doesn't know what happened to his gun, and he won't have to lie to anybody about that."
Spencer: "Oh, you're totally just pulling a normal Hanna! I didn't get it at first but now it makes sense. You are doing what Hanna would do, keep everybody from feeling weird."
Spencer leaves her crazy ass on some ugly loveseat and runs off to find Emily, who is on a pretend date with Brendan that will probably end in murder. So now we have two problems, plus Spencer wandering around in a sorority house: Like, if you spend your whole childhood in just the EPCOT of sexual assault, someday you'll wanna visit France in real life. A natural impulse.
But since it's this show, her instincts draw her inexorably toward an abandoned room -- presumably the Grindelwald Suite -- and once she goes inside, a scary old-timey radio turns on and starts playing scary old-timey music, and the scary bare light bulb begins to swing of its own accord, and she plugs in the old-school Trimline: Instant dial tone. I know she's gonna call one of the other Liars on it to prove her point, but how great would it be if she star-69'd that shit and the person was like, "You've reached the A residence, A speaking."
...AND THEN IT DOES!
Aria: "You've reached the A residence, A speaking."
Spencer: "I'm calling you from the Grindelwald Suite."
Aria: "Is this Tippi the Bird?"
Spencer: "Ugh."
Aria: "Make it quick. We're having family fun night before we kick mom out of the family forever."
Spencer: "Turns out she was making the calls to quote some kind of panic room or bunker or something in the middle of this sorority house. There may be robotics, I don't know. The radio recognized me... that was odd. Anyway, I guess Boardshorts lived in this robot bunker. I gotta go find Hanna."
Aria: "What the hell is Hanna doing there? Like she's going to college."
Spencer: "I know, right? Trust me, it is stupid. Deets later."
Homoerotic beer pongs ponging at her face, Hanna is getting antsy. Antsy with a gun in your purse being, of course, the worst scenario. So while Spencer effs and jeffs around upstairs with thumping bumping people who are not there, in classic Rosewood fashion, she gets a wild hair, grabs a huge beer mug, and heads off somewhere wicked dumb to do something super stupid with it.
MORE BRENDAN = YES
I just met you, and this is crazy, but let me get an African Gray Parrot to give you my number and you can call me from your robot bomb shelter, maybe.
Brendan: "...Anyway, could I fuckin' be more perfect? Let's try it and see..."
Emily: "Actually, my friend Hanna just showed up. Which is odd because like she's going to college. And in other news, you are suddenly holding my hand and I am a lesbian."
Brendan: "Orrrrr are you just at college?"
Emily: "No, this crap started way before we get here."
Brendan: "Aw, man. Well, tell me about your girlfriend. I'm not like a regular guy, I'm a cool guy."
Emily: "You do not have time for that jelly."
Brendan: "Then let's go find your friend or friends, who are both probably acting fucking weird by now."
Emily says no to that, but Brendan maybe says yes. Oh, Brendan. Oh, Brendan McGowan. Go change clothes again, or something useful like that. Do not creep! Do not ruin all that we have.
Cut Spencer and Emily running around the woods nearby, screaming Hanna's name so everybody will notice that Hanna has gone 'round the bend. A dude silly-strings Emily and she just throws him into a tree and keeps going. They meet up, and the whole time Hanna's digging a hole with her beer mug, and they set out to find her. Like they just know she's up to something hilarious...
But it's too late. The cops have found you! With a gun! Hanna, that is the opposite!
A-TAG
A enjoys some honey in her tea, and wipes some dust off an old GZX photo: Why it's Mrs. Grindelwald, looking exactly as crazy as you would think.
WEEK
While Hanna sleeps in the bed her dumb ass just made, Mona "accidentally" interferes with the Liar bond by telling a Spencer Secret, Aria messes with Mike's relationships because that is her fave thing to do lately, Shana won't effing go away, and Spencer takes Toby to Ravenswood, where everybody gets backdoored.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Killing, Pretty Little Liars, Ray Donovan, 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.