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After Mona blows their spot about stealing the A-Lair, Spencer and Toby try to make amends by tracking down The Grunwald from last week's sorority house. This leads them to the strange spin-off town of Ravenswood, which is a beautifully shot hybrid of Silent Hill weirdness, Bioshock religion, and everything I ever wrote about Brookhaven coming true. It is gorgeous. It is the most ideal thing of all things. They are rebuffed by the Grunwald -- Meg Foster, who obviously played Evil-Lyn but I will always remember as the crazy lady from Quantum Leap -- but do spot Shana taking part in Ravenswood's weird municipal rituals.
Emily learns that Shana has taken her place on the Sharks, and can play the violin (which makes for another neat sequence back in Rosewood at the hour's end), and then learns that she's in charge of The Brew's Open Mic Night and also managing its employees. (It's good that she's getting all this extra responsibility, since she'll be working at the Brew for the rest of her life.)
One of these employees, a laxbro named Connor, betrays his friendship with Mikey after telling everybody that he fucked Aria (and that Ezra also fucked Aria). This slut-shaming (and dangerous) gossip causes Aria to shit a brick, but also radically transforms her relationships with both Ezra and Mikey himself, and by episode's end Mikey become a hoodie-wearing vigilante and Ezra is just a-creepin' around for reasons that are unknown but highly guessable, i.e., he remains a little girl inside of his little-boy body.
Tom and Ashley Marin spend the entire episode fighting about the gun and Hanna's weird hobby of burying the gun, and we finally get basically the whole story: Yes, Ashley stole the gun from Tom and yes, she took it to a secret meeting with Wilden, who was, yes, extorting her. But Darren grabbed it from her and she took off, meaning that its appearance in her locked closet is as much a mystery to her as everybody else. At the end of the episode, Tanner and Holbrook get confirmation that it's the gun that killed Wilden (and Ashley's prints on the bullets), so she's in jail now!
Emily's efforts to slip Tanner the cop-car footage ends up actually making her look creepy because the footage is now just a Redcoat wearing an Emily Medusa mask and doing weird A-type stuff.
In the end, Spencer's still on pretty thin ice with the girls -- but between the implication of Emily on the tape, the arrest of Hanna's mother, the fact that Shana sometimes drives Jenna's car to a creepy parallel universe, Aria's serious irritation at Ezra's ways and the ways of unchill laxbros, and the fact that not even Eddie Lamb cares whether Toby's mom killed herself, I think everybody realizes now is the time to stick together, not fall apart.
Week: Caleb and Toby look into the Lodge fire, the B-Team, and A, but come upon info about Redcoat instead. Everybody feels weird about Hanna's situation, especially Hanna, and the Liars come up with (and presumably fuck up) a plan to pin Wilden on somebody else. Mikey Montgomery continues his vigilantism, worrying his new sister-mommy Aria, while Ezra creeps ever forward into his lifelong destiny of being a total stalker of little girls. Oh, and some kind of pun about A "sending everything crashing down around one of the Liars," which I assume has to do with the car that keeps driving into Emily's living room that's been in every ad for the last month.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Hanna done lost her damn mind.
POLICE STATION
The ever-mesmerizing Lieutenant Tanner pours creamer into her coffee, standing under a giant framed photograph of Wilden in his uniform. Maybe this coffeemaker is like, in his honor. What would be the most fitting object to be in Wilden's honor? A commemorative bronzed lasagna box.
Oh my God, remember when Alison had a stump? Commemorative stump.
Tanner: "You won't say why you had the gun, where you got the gun, why you were burying it on a college campus like a freaking lunatic... You want coffee?"
Hanna: "No, just to rip this Styrofoam cup into smaller and smaller pieces."
Tanner: "Fine, here's what I know, here's my information. A .38-caliber revolver with six chambers, but only four bullets in there. Six minus four equals curiosity, as I'm sure you'll agree. Also, you could get seven years for a concealed handgun. What the fuck? Even if you're just covering for somebody, that is insane."
Hanna: "Maybe I was just feeling unsafe, and had a gun, and then I felt safe, so I buried the gun. How is that a crime? I mean, if I'd used a shovel instead of a beer mug, obviously I would deserve the electric chair. But you didn't find me with a shovel, did you? You found me with a gun. And a silk scarf, and a beer stein."
Ashley saves her and then outside in the station, it's like Krazy Kat: Her dad glares at her mom for stealing his gun, her mom glares at her for the same reason, and there's nobody for Hanna to glare at because nobody stole the gun from her. She acted too crazy, too fast, for anybody to have time to do that.
Dad: "They're keeping my gun, Ashley. For testing."
Hanna: "Testing? I am feeling a bit scattered and don't understand things right now."
Tanner: "Uh, testing to see if your dad's gun was used to kill a cop?"
Hanna: "Right, right. Got it."
LOCKER ROOM
Emily: "Even though there is no point in me swimming ever again, I like to keep my stuff in here. Hey, why aren't you at school today? Is it because you arrested with a deadly weapon, or..."
Hanna: "Yeah Emily, I'm taking the day."
Emily: "Yeah, I guess I get that. Listen, what is your worst-case?"
Hanna: "Seven years for concealed carry? Separate count for evidence destruction? Maybe murder of a person?"
Emily: "Ludicrous! The only thing you're murdering is your mother's entire life."
Emily: "A put Ashley's phone in Wilden's casket. A fished his cop car out of the lake. And two days ago, A called the cops on you. Do you see what I'm saying?"
Hanna: "That was only two days ago?"
(For real. I don't even remember that happening, what they're talking about.)
Emily: "This is a setup. A frame job, courtesy of A."
Hanna: "I know, honey. I get that. You could say that about literally anything that happens to us, and it would be true. In fact it's kind of pointless to even say."
Emily: "I think you need to tell your parents about A."
The universe goes boing-oing-oing for a second because what the fuck did she just say? Hanna gives the universe a helping hand.
Hanna: "Nice try, reality, but no. My mom lied about where she was that night, and she hid a gun in her closet. My mom killing that man has zero to do with A, so there's no reason to tell."
Emily: "But there's also no reason not to tell."
(Boing-oing-oing.)
Emily: "Actually Shana just showed up, so I'ma let you go. This should be awful."
Shana: "Hey! I am on your swim team now. Your place on it, in fact."
Emily: "For real? How does that even work?"
Shana: "Yeah, like you know how people are always transferring to new schools the week before graduation?"
Emily: "Christ I hate you."
Shana: "You should sign up for the Open Mic at the Brew."
Emily: "How dare you say that to me?"
I love how freeform hateful they are with each other. Shana's so creepy and sneaky, and Emily's so ready to pop her one, it's great. "Yeah, I'll go to the Open Mic and read my poem called 'You Go Eat A Butt, Shana.'"
Remember at the Halloween Spooktacular Store when they were looking for whatever they were looking for, and Emily just did not like her and did not mind getting her fired from her job at the Halloween Spooktacular Store? I thought it was so weird because Emily's never like that -- only Spencer Hastings, among all humans both real and fictional, has ever been like that -- but now we see the wisdom: Emily was just ahead of the game. The game of hating Shana so bad. And now she is the winner of it.
MARIN
Dad: "I am so stressed! I am taking it out on you like always!"
Hanna: "I know. It's a real drag."
Dad: "What did you tell the cops?"
Hanna: "Nothing. I gave them this exact glare I'm giving you for being so mean."
Dad: "Why did you steal my gun and take it to college and bury it in a yard? That is fucked-up behavior like a crazy person would do."
Hanna: "No, I would never steal from you because then it would be more scenes like this. More of your daddy-come-lately bullshit? No thank you. I just found it in mom's luggage."
Dad: "That's interesting and I would like to hear more!"
But instead, he abruptly walks out of the room. She gets a weird text or picture message but we don't see it, just her confused face. Either it's from A, or it is a Snapchat of Caleb's nethers and once she figures out what she's looking at she will crack up.
THE BREW
Aria: "I was really expecting to hear that you'd found Boardshorts, not some random shit about Hanna suddenly being in jail for gun-burying. And where is Emily?"
Spencer: "Pissed at me for being rich. (And not caring about her or her life.)"
Aria: "You need to get over yourself and apologize, bitch. Now that A has taken notice of me, I need all you Liars in tip-top shape."
Spencer: "Whatever. That was adorable, but whatever."
Aria: "This coffee tastes like crap. Here, taste it."
Spencer: "No, because you just spit in it."
Aria: "Like it's so gross, though."
Emily: "Can I have that coffee?"
Ladies: "No, there's spit in it and it tastes bad."
Emily: "So uh, Hanna's flippin' right out. They're running tests on the gun."
Aria: "I also don't understand what that means on any level."
Spencer explains ballistics to Aria, starting her lecture with the phrase, "Uh yeah, it's called ballistics?" like Aria is a moron. Which to be fair, everybody knows this about guns. If you don't know this, you deserve to be talked down to a little bit. Little babies fresh to this world know this about guns. It's the main reason I don't commit gun violence all the time, it's because I don't want to deal with a bunch of bullshit about it later.
Emily: "Anyway, our prayers are with Hanna, blah blah blah. Get this shit though, Shana's on the swim team. She took my spot on the swim team. I am apparently no longer on the swim team."
(I didn't know ... any of those things. I just watched that scene like one minute ago and I didn't catch any of that. I got so busy reminiscing about things I barely remember happening in the Halloween Spooktacular Store, I guess that's why.)
Liars: "How weird to think that Shana, who possibly set us on fire and ran over us with a car, costing you your entire future, will now be at our high school."
Emily: "She is always fucking talking about my shoulder, too. I hate that about her. I hate everything about her. I even hate Jenna about her, like, more than I already did."
Liars: "God we hate Jenna."
They do a quick B-Team download, but B-Team stuff is so above my paygrade. I never know what the fuck they're talking about, it's like, Redcoat and Black Widow and Melissa is a double agent and where is Lucas and why did Toby drive at him and maybe they are against Redcoat or maybe she is their leader -- or maybe sometimes Redcoat is Redcoat and other times Redcoat is the opposite of Redcoat, but dressed like Redcoat -- or maybe they are a fifth column within the A-Team that seems like it's working against the A-Team but really is double-agents against themselves, or maybe they are simply three loosely-affiliated bitches.
Aria: "Why does Shana hate us so much? (If she even does.)"
Spencer: "Mona said Shana was in love with Jenna, and the two of them were afraid of Melissa, and all three of them were afraid of Wilden, and all four of those were afraid of somebody else."
Emily: "I think it is that Melissa went to London and so Jenna needed a new spy and that's why Shana is here. In other news, I have to run the Open Mic and our new coffee boy is a disaster."
Aria: "I have this new thing I'm trying where I help people. I'll handle this."
Aria: "You are a failure as a coffee boy, Mikey's (lax)bro Connor."
Connor: "Cool, whatever. OAR. DMB. Vineyard Vines."
Aria: "You are better at lacrosse than at carrying large dishtubs of mugs."
Connor: "Lilly Pulitzer. ADHD medication. Sperrys with mid-calfs."
Aria: "I hear ya."
Emily: "I'm sorry too, Spence. I should have been more up-front about my future-related panicking and..."
Spencer: "How could you? I quote bulldozed over every opportunity that you had. I bulldozed over you, I bulldozed over Hanna when she tried to tell me about the gun, I'm basically a human bulldozer. And now I'm bulldozing over your apology..."
Emily: "I'm really sorry. I mean, that was the most accurate self-assessment anyone has ever done on this show, but still. It's not like we don't know this about you. It's not like anybody doesn't know this about you."
Spencer: "Can't stop won't stop."
Emily: "Don't stop. We'll still love you! That's what friendship is about."
Aria: "So lacrosse, that's the only thing you can discuss? The only topic on which you..."
Connor: "Lacrosse, yes. We have a game on Saturday against Guilford, and I'm rather worried that I will be benched -- our Elocution teacher, Mrs. Welch, has asked me to rewrite an essay and I'm afraid I must receive a B or higher."
Aria: "Yeah, I don't really have problems with ... words ... But I'm sympathetic."
Connor: "So like you'll proofread and edit my essay? Chill! So chill, Mike's Sister."
Aria: "...How did that happen? Oh, you wily laxbros. You get things by acting entitled."
MARIN
Oh this is very interesting. Get this, I wasn't expecting this at all.
Dad: "So Hanna found my gun in your bag, in your closet..."
Ashley: "That's a fucking lie!"
Hanna: "No, so far it's reality. I was looking for your shoes..."
Ashley: "I threw those out! Obviously so they could be used against me!"
Dad: "Talk about shoes later, like when you're having your periods!"
Ashley: "Fine, you know what? I didn't kill anyone and I did not bring a gun into this house."
Hanna: "That is fascinating."
Dad: "Then who did?"
Ashley: "I DON'T KNOW."
I knew it would be interesting and unexpected and it makes actually more sense than most things on this show, but I guess it's a testament to the awesomeness of this show that it straight-up didn't occur to me that Ashley would just be getting gaslighted this entire time. Mm, that's not the word, what's the word? Ensnared. Framed just for the hell of it. They talk about who could be doing this, and Ashley -- having stashed the fake architect upstairs and run Wilden over -- has no enemies these days. It's a fresh, neat revolution to the storyline and so seamless. I just love it. No wonder Ashley was hanging out in the dark drinking wine. I mean, what else is new, but this thing of her just being like, "Fucking now what. Oh, I'm being framed for a murder? That sucks. I guess I should talk to a lawyer or something. Like in a couple weeks or whenever I get around to it."
"Yeah, bitch. And here's the really messed-up part? I'm doing all of this to fuck with you, via them. Solely just to be a jerk, maybe. If you tell anybody about me, then both your parents will go to jail. Is that crazy or what!? -- Kisses, A"
THE BREW
Spencer: "Ugh, here comes Mona. Mo' Mona mo' problems."
Mona: "Spence, we need to talk."
Spencer: "Where the hell have you been? At your job as a temp?"
Mona: "I'm just trying out a more grownup look, don't be a bitch. And trust me when I say, this conversation needs to happen in private."
Spencer: "I prefer doing the opposite of things you tell me."
Mona: "Fine. Did the rest of you know that Toby stole the cArAvAn and gave it back to A and that Spencer knew about it and that she's been covering for him?"
Liars: "We did not."
Mona: "time momma says privately, consider doing what she says."
Liars: "I'm so sure! You could be lying!"
Mona: "First of all, I am never lying. I am awesome. Secondly, quote, I'll take heels over a hoodie any day of the week but just because I'm not A anymore doesn't mean I can't recon your asses when I need to. So yeah, I have proof."
Boom! I missed ya fiercely, girl, but either way that was spectacular (and spooktacular)!
FIELDS
Emily, verbatim: "Mona may not be A, but she's definitely still a B."
Aria: "Word. I'm kinda glad it came from her, though? Because normally we would all turn on Spencer in a heartbeat, but since it was Mona that told us, she kind of seems like the bitch anyway? Do you know what I mean?"
Emily: "One thing we won't be doing is blaming Toby. For anything. Ever."
Aria: "Yeah, yeah. You and Toby, best friends forever and ever. But here's an awkward pivot to an awkward theory out of nowhere that makes no sense, if I may. Do you think the van might contain some kind of proof Ashley didn't kill Detective Wilden?"
Emily: "You can't prove a negative. But the weird way that line was crammed into this scene does give it the ring of eventual truth."
(Ring ring.)
Hanna: "Shut up and listen. A framed my mom. This whole season has been about that, A putting guns in my mom's shit for me to find."
Aria: "Emily keeps saying you should tell them about A, like we always should and never do."
Hanna: "Tell Emily sorry, but A already said our whole family's going down if I do that."
Then Dad picks up the phone and starts dialing somebody that stresses Ashley out -- presumably Veronica Hastings, Esq. -- and then it's time for Hanna to eavesdrop on even more wrinkles of this amazing story.
Ashley: "Fine, dick! Veronica already knows this part anyway. Wilden threatened me, and Hanna, and he wanted money to leave town (because of the NAT Club dying all around him -- or whatever had CeCe so rattled, if Beach Hottie/Boardshorts is a separate thing or things)."
Tom: "So that's why you came begging for money and left with my gun. Either way."
Ashley: "Yeah. And then I headed out there to Torch Lake to not shoot him with it, taking care to create an out-of-town alibi..."
Tom: "Ah, I see why you're wary of sharing this tale now."
Ashley: "Yeah. So then he grabbed the gun away from me, and I ran. I didn't shoot the dude, and I have no idea how the gun ended up in my closet. Which was locked, apparently not by me."
(Bam bam bam! Wolf knocks.)
Hanna: "Caleb, thank goodness."
Caleb: "I am happy to see you, as well."
Marins: "Caleb, leave the house. She is in data quarantine and cannot be comforted to spoken to by anyone."
Caleb: "Just saying, we have limited time left together."
#TOBYSSECRET
This week, Toby's secret is that he somehow looks exactly like Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan. It's kind of uncanny.
Spencer: "Damn that Mona! Now everybody knows that we fucked them over like jerks. It's all her fault! Apparently."
Toby: "But if you fix the situation, I'll never find out what happened to my mom!"
Spencer: "Oh, is that still...? Okay, sure. Yeah. We need to find out about your mom."
Toby: "Well my dad didn't feel like talking about his wife's suicide so I went to Radley and talked to the real Eddie Lamb and asked him about Dr. Palmer with the crazy eyes, and he was like, 'Oh, a mysterious blonde girl might have killed your mother back when everybody -- including the blonde girl -- was just a child? That's very interesting.' But that's all he would say, he clammed up. He Eddie Lambed up."
Spencer: "Okay well, I know your step is going back to A because that's your only move for some reason, so..."
Then she calls the GZX house from last week, apparently because while he was telling that weird story she got bored and decided she needs to smooth things over with the Liars. Seriously, I'm with ya. A reader, though (while we're talking about crazy old Palmer), pointed out that he was holding a familiar red cookie tin when Toby visited him -- similar to the one Mona brought to "Sibyl" when she was visiting Spencer.
A brings cookies, shortbread ones, when A goes to mental hospitals. I like to think that a large part of A's nefarious overall scheme involves being a gracious guest. Brightening up life's darker corners with a little sunshine.
MONTGOMERY
Mikey: "Why are you laxing with my laxbro?"
Aria: "I am just helping him learn to read, Mikey. Where are you going?"
Mikey: "Where am I going? Fuck you, that's where I'm going."
Connor: "Hey, chill. Madras. Rainbow sandals, Bro..."
Mikey: "Don't. Just don't, Connor."
Aria: "That was weird. Anyway, back to being insufferably pedantic."
Connor: "Flow? Not chill."
Aria: "No, it's fine. It's because I beat him up last week for demanding reasons for kicking our mother out of the country. Nothing to do with you."
Connor: "Dank."
MARIN
Emily: "I brought homework to get me past your prison guards."
Hanna: "Thanks! Wait, this is not my homework."
Emily: "Yeah, Hanna. It was merely a ruse."
Hanna: "This is like purgatory, a condition of temporary punishment and suffering from which I may never leave."
Emily: "Yeah, my dad constantly leaving and then coming back was weird for me too."
Hanna: "I also looked up everything I could find on prosecuting minors and state minimums for third-degree federal offenses, before they took away the internet. On the other hand, I haven't gotten any terrifying emails or texts since that happened, so..."
Emily: "The important thing is that you relinquish all hope. Who's to say A can't tamper with ballistics evidence any way she sees fit?"
Emily: "What you are going to do now is hand over the dash cam footage Mona gave you from the cop car."
Hanna: "I can't even think straight. Explain why the hell I would do that."
Emily: "Yes, it does show Ashley hitting Wilden with her car. But then it shows Jenna and Shana saving him, in secret. It could even look like they were taking him away to murder him. At the very least, it complicates the investigation."
Hanna: "I like the idea of wildly subverting justice. But if I talk about A, my dad goes down along with my mom."
Emily: "Maybe A won't mind if I do it instead. A always plays fair, right?"
Hanna: "That's true. A is a very classy psychopath in that way. And it's not like everything we ever do on this show blows up in our face."
Emily goes to a jewelry box which contains a jewelry box with a fake bottom, inside which is a makeup kit containing a makeup kit containing a retinal scan lock inside which is a jewelry box which contains a makeup kit which contains a Mardi Gras mask inside of which is a mask of Alison DiLaurentis behind which is a jewelry box, and then in there is the hard drive Mona pried from the dead man's car. Several beeps and clicks later, Emily is given the tools with which she can do the dumbest thing since Hanna buried a gun.
MONTGOMERY
Connor: "Now we kiss?"
Aria: "Now you go home."
Connor: "Bro."
Aria: "No, kiddo. Go home."
Connor: "Not chill."
MARIN
Tom: "Ashley, you'll burn the house down making pasta while you're distracted like this. Let me be your pasta husband for a moment."
Ashley: "What I can't handle is the waiting. They have shit on me, on you, on Hanna... Seems like they're just waiting to see what the ballistics report says. God, I hate the rational progress of justice."
Tom: "Why don't you just say it was self-defense? Even I would buy that, and I know you."
Ashley: "I feel like sticking to the truth is the best option. Because I don't know about A or how everything is always a trap, I mean."
Tom: "Little pitchers, Ash."
Hanna: "WHAT. I'm just standing here. Jesus."
SCHOOL
Emily: "Here's a note from Hanna. She also wanted me to grab your ass, but let's pretend that already happened."
Caleb: "Her parents still haven't called."
Emily: "Maybe that's good. Maybe it's just happening the way it's supposed to. I mean, since we're actually all innocent this one time."
Caleb: "Sometimes I feel like maybe you're not watching this show."
Spencer: "Emily Emily Emily Emily, look at me Emily."
Emily: "Shut up, Spencer."
Spencer: "Okay but have you heard about the existence of The Gru..."
Emily: "Grunwald. Yes."
Spencer: "And how she would disappear into a secret room..."
Emily: "Yeah. The one you randomly found without even looking for it."
Spencer: "So isn't it clear that Ali was calling her?"
Emily: "I don't see The Grunwald wearing boardshorts. I can't see that in my head."
Spencer: "Whatever, the point is that The Grunwald probably knows who was after Ali, probably A, and that this could help Hanna's mom. Think of it less as a road trip I'm begging you to take with me and Toby to restore our friendship, and more as something we can do for Hanna."
Emily: "Deal with your guilty conscience on your own, I'm too busy hating Shana to go anywhere anyway."
Spencer: "Keep being mad at me, that's fine, but there are levels and details..."
Emily: "I have done plenty of stupid shit to protect Toby myself, trust me. I get it. But this time you dicked us all over. Or maybe you didn't, we have no way of knowing."
Through an open door, Emily sees Shana playing the violin, beautifully. She is dressed like Halloween, with a Spooktacular orange blouse and Spooktacularer black jeans. Never forget. In classic Liar fashion, Emily spits on the ground at this, like, "Playing a violin's what a bitch would do."
Focus moves finally from Emily's many mini-adventures to Aria, who gets a steamin' cup of hostility from Mikey: Turns out she hooked up with Connor last night, a thing she did not know. Aria shoves him aside, sparing Ezra barely a glance, and heads straight for the locker room.
Aria: "Get your hands off each other's dicks and listen up, losers. I didn't hook up with Connor, I would never. Do you know what teenage boys smell like? Smell yourselves, right now, and ask yourself if that's something you would ever want to put your mouth on."
Connor: "Lax, baby. Sorry I fucked you, but after pulling a train with the English department I'd think you'd be cooler about this."
Aria: "FUCKING WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?"
Connor: "Everybody knows about you and Ezra Fitz. We don't talk about the normal level of gossip and bullshit that girls go through very often on this show -- the last time was Noel Kahn on Challenged A, really -- because everybody is always getting murdered, but the rumors about you and Fitz never went away. You'd know this if you weren't so Aria all the time."
Aria: "Wait, so now I not only have to deal with conspiracies and poisoned pain cream and getting boxed up with dead cops, but also regular things like a person would? Fuck that!"
The music is so fucking intense at this time, like it's underscoring the fact that we have gone from Rosewood PA weirdness to regular teen weirdness. Maybe this whole slut-shaming period in Aria's life this week exists to balance out the trip to Ravenswood, like, there is a finite amount of iffy fucked-upness on this show and they had to save it for Spencer and Toby's descent into the Twilight Zone, so it sucked all the weirdness out of Aria's life and just left her with normal "boys are the worst" suckiness life drama.
Ezra: "Miss Montgomery, you shouldn't be in here in this locker room."
Aria: "Oh, because I am such a huge slut? Look around you, mister. These boys are no danger to me. Only to one another. And anyway, how awkward that you just heard all that."
Ezra: "In fairness, our relationship was a bad decision on both our parts."
Aria: "In fuckin' fairness, I have paid the price for that many times over, starting with having to date you in the first place."
EN ROUTE TO RAVENSWOOD
Toby: "[Abashed small talk.]"
Spencer: "[Noncommittal grunting.]"
Toby: "Spencer? I'm really sorry about all this."
Spencer: "I know. Doesn't help."
Toby: "One thing I can't deal with right now is emotional abandonment. I am the most alone person on this entire show."
Spencer: "You're in the car, we're doing a jaunt together, I still love you, stop whining."
STAIRWELL
Lax Text: "What's the prob? Am I not old enough for you?"
Lax Text: "Hey Aria, wanna pull an all-nighter?"
Aria: "I know what they're going to say, and yet I can't stop reading them."
Ezra: "Aria, are you okay? Those dudes are shitty. Don't let rumors..."
Aria: "You are confusing two different problems. Problem one is, those dudes are shitty. I could get over that, I'm good at processing shit quickly. Problem two is, they happened to link it up to my biggest insecurity I have, which is that hooking up with you wasn't the grownup love affair I thought it was."
Ezra: "I refuse to believe you suddenly feel exploited by..."
Aria: "Nah, it's not even that. You are less able to take care of yourself than anyone else I know. It's not a power dynamic. It's just that from the outside, it makes me look like a dumb girl who gets exploited -- which was the exact opposite of the main reason I was attracted to you in the first place, as a non-dumb girl who was so special and mature she deserved a grownup boyfriend."
Ezra: "Can you not, like, unsee that perspective on our relationship?"
Aria: "In time. I mean, part of my feelings for you had to do with how I felt it made me look from the outside because I think my life is a movie, and now that movie looks different. It's silly to expect me to just resolve that, when that's a main aspect of my personality and my approach to life. But either way it's none of your business. Stop boyfriending me, it's a dick move and it'll get us both destroyed."
Ezra: "I can't just randomly stop caring about you."
Aria: "I get that, and I understand that you are reacting to seeing me in pain, but guess what? We're still not together, and that's still the right call. And it's still my call, and it's still hard. So stop pushing the bruise and get the fuck out of my face, because right now is the most predatory you have ever acted."
THE NECROPOLIS RAVENSWOOD
Church bells ringing everywhere, all the cars are from the Fifties like Jenna's time-traveling ride, people mourning at shiny caskets with perfect white roses wearing druid capes in the middle of the damn day, birds everywhere squawking, the light everywhere crepuscular no matter what, colors leached out of everything. Just straight-up beautiful, elegiac. Creepy.
I will be honest with you, I had a strange reaction several months ago when Ravenswood was first announced, and only because Ravenswood is so crazy and creepy is it funny to tell you about this: Around the time we were going to Brookhaven and the little psychic boy was being psychic in the doll store, I had a dream -- like an actual "lying in your bed asleep with the lights out" dream -- that I was called into Marlene King's office to explain the importance of Brookhaven to her, and why I thought a supernatural PLL-type series would fit on ABC Family. I remember because Twisted -- which is great, by the way, Twisted and Fosters are every bit as good, and good for the brand, as this or Switched -- was still called Socio at that point in development, and in the pitch I was like, "Socio sounds great, but what if instead of scary, it was spooky?" (Spooktacular, if you will.)
But then I woke up from the dream and went about my day because in this job, those dreams happen all the time, it's always about the minutiae of rescheduling Good Wife episodes around some bizarre awards ceremony, or moving characters from Bates Motel to Homeland, or whatever. Talking to Ryan Seacrest about whatever I've got going on in my life, getting his perspective on things. The best days are waking up from a dream where I am even more proficient with Excel than I am in real life, and/or can fly.
So when they brought out the news about this show, for a second I thought, "That meeting must have gone better than I imagined at the time," and then remembered that I am not a studio executive at ABC Family and I don't work for Alloy and the whole thing was just a work dream, and then I felt like something had been stolen from my sleep. Which is a hilarious dumb reaction -- like being mad at your boyfriend for something he did in your dream -- but it's banal; I only bring it up because Ravenswood is so mind-bending and reality-shaking that it seems like the one time that might actually have somehow happened. Maybe there are TV wizards out there, accidentally stealing my dreams about sexy teens in a small Pennsylvania town where every day is Halloween. Or maybe that fictional Ravenswood used my dreams to cross itself over into reality. That seems even more likely, tbh. But either way, what I was talking about in the dream does not come close to how beautiful this is, in practice.
Spencer: "They don't even have street signs here. This is like purgatory. Punishment and suffering that claims to be temporary, but never ends. Even the air feels different, transparent, like the world after it rains. Not lighter, just emptier. Everything smells like paper."
Nobody will look in their eyes; a mommy ushers her children away from them, while a man stares at them through the blinds of an old-timey door. Toby gets scared, and then they flat-out run their asses back to the car to get the fuck on out of there. A sudden pricking of the thumb sends dry leaves swirling; the ravens circle overhead in mockery.
QUAD
Emily is wearing a bizarre t-shirt that has a giant lipstick mark ("kiss kiss!") printed on it in leopard and the words WILD KISS!
Emily: "We need to talk, bitch."
Mona: "What is it now?"
Emily: "You tracked the RV, you spilled on Spence and Toby. To me that looks like you're still ahead of the rest of us. I want to know what you know."
Mona: "You can't start holding my genius against me, Emily. I have told you all I know. I was safe, I was keeping us all safe, and then you bitches got paranoid, and now all I have is an empty RV. There are no ways you're fucked that I am not also fucked."
"Everything bad that I've done, everything you've done: A has proof. One wrong move, and we all go up in flames. Maybe this time we don't get out of them."
RAVENSWOOD
Another totally amazing-looking person greets the Away Team, on Sawmill Road: A grizzled groundskeeper with a shock of white hair and goatee, piercing eyes and a way of snip-snipping the roses (all the time, roses, even though this is Ravenswood and not Rosewood) while telling them rather gently to eff off.
Kids: "The Grunwald! Is she here at this mansion?"
Keeper: "There's no one here but me. And I only deal with the master of the house."
Kids: "Uh, okay."
He calls somebody mysterious on his mysterious phone with a mysterious face, and they head back to the horrifying center of town. The Grunwald? The Master of the House? AKA Satan?
Toby: "Well, let's eat something. Maybe some pomegranate seeds."
Spencer: "I can't eat. My stomach is in knots due to us being in Silent Hill."
I remember one time I was at a steakhouse with my friend Anna and it was the weirdest place we had ever been -- totally silent, full of people, forks to mouths and back down to plates -- and I said, "What do you think would happen if I picked up my plate and just slammed it against that wall over there?" And she looked me right in the eye and whispered, "Nothing."
Toby: "No, you need to eat something. I'm not driving all the way back to Rosewood with low-blood sugar Spencer. That's worse than no-caffeine Spencer."
Spencer: "Wow, your girlfriend sounds awesome."
That was great. I like it when their relationship is an actual relationship. Anyway, over there suddenly Spence spots the Grunwald getting her hair did. Those ice-blue eyes, like a crazy person from the woods, or a Guild Navigator. I was pretty sure last week that I recognized her, but forgot to look her up: Yes, it's Meg Foster. Evil-Lyn, but more importantly Laura Fuller from Quantum Leap, the only thing that ever gave me nightmares from that show. I barely even remember one single episode of that show, but I remember the shit out of Laura Fuller.
Spencer: "...She died three summers ago? It was on the news?"
Grunwald: "The only 'news' we get in Ravenswood is the Good News, about He Who Walks Behind the Rows. I didn't know this girl alive, I certainly don't know her dead."
Spencer: "Well, that's a very interesting way to say that, but you're a liar. Maybe you only knew her on the phone? Teen airline pilot, possibly going by the name Vivian? About to be murdered, and looking for help or a safe harbor?"
This whole time Toby is looking at old pictures that might make sense someday: Some old-timey heterosexual wedding, a bunch of people in white linen having a picnic like at Hanging Rock, dudes in suits digging up graves and moving them around Rosewood. There's a scary mannequin head with black Betty Boop lips, wearing a Louise Brooks wig. I hate, and love, everything that Ravenswood is doing.
Spencer: "Look, you old bitch. The GZXes gave you up. They said you disappeared, every day, for hours at a time, and then bam, there you'd be like nothing happened. You were in the robot room, you were on the bird phone. And then one day, you fucking vanished for good. I mean, were you running some kind of business? Like a sorority witch business venture of some kind?"
The Grunwald is so over it that she stalks to one of the hair dryers, pops it over her head, and pretends to meditate until Spencer goes away. She is the first person to think of this defense against the Spencer Effect, and thus Spencer has no way to defeat it.
ARIA
Looks rough as shit in this scene, it's awesome. I mean, of course she's still lovely, but you know. A somewhat brave amount of busted, for this show that is 80 percent about looking at girls who are so pretty it's hypnotic. She ignores a call from Emily -- harsh -- and then ignores Mikey at the bedroom door, until he lets himself and his exceedingly blowdried hair right in.
Aria: "No sir. No thanks, get out. I mean, sorry I slept with your entire lacrosse team, sorry I'm such a whore, sorry I've embarrassed you once again with my whoredom, but I kind of think my current malaise is the proper punishment. The most interesting thing about me has become the most interesting thing about me. I am choking on being interesting, do you understand how painful that is for me? For Aria Montgomery?"
Actually, Mikey was just there to apologize. Actually, Mikey knows better than to assume that Connor is telling the truth about these sorts of things, especially in the locker room. Actually, Mikey is just adjusting to being back in the world after several years in a parallel dimension. Actually, Mikey wanted to just come in here and hold your hand and tell you it is going to be okay.
"I'm your brother. I'm supposed to watch out for you. Stand up for you. I'm gonna make it up to you, okay?"
Which, this is Rosewood, so that means vigilantism in a black hoodie. But also it's Mikey, who the last time we saw him was robbing houses, punching people in the boob, and stole a gun to kill himself. So the fact that he's talking about having convictions or plans of any kind should lead to follow-up questions. But then, Aria deserves to just be here, with her one family member she has left, and feel slightly normal.
MARIN
Dad: "The hell have you been?"
Hanna: "Oh, did you want an absurd level of detail? Fine. I walked down the footpath to the pond behind the Mendez house where you used to take me skating but right now it's dried up, but later it will have water in it again, which may turn to ice depending on climate change, and then other daddies will take other daughters skating there, and one day those daddies will marry whores whose wedding dresses smell like shrimp cocktail barf and whose daughters are horse-riding psychos."
Dad: "So just a stroll?"
Hanna: "Look. Every part of this is my fault. It's my fault Mom hooked up with Wilden, a story you don't need to know. It's my fault the cops found the gun she'd already lost. It's my fault my ideas for fixing things sometimes involves blowing everything up into a shitshow."
Dad: "You could have come to me."
Hanna: "First of all, bullshit. Second of all, based on your secret meetings with Caleb, pretty sure we both know you didn't want that."
Dad: "...True enough."
They sit in the quiet and the warm sunshine of the bottom landing -- lots of stairwell chats today -- and it's actually somehow a nice moment. Like, they aren't looking at each other, and things are maybe worse than they have ever been, but at least they can sit on these stairs for right now and just breathe the same air and wait for something to change.
RAVENSWOOD
Spencer: "She would rather fry the hair off her head than talk to me."
Toby: "As opposed to the other people you're constantly railroading? Look around you, this place is a lot to deal with. Maybe she's telling the truth."
Spencer: "Every bone in my body is telling me otherwise."
Toby: "Or is it that you want Emily to like you again? I mean, this is a clue from a bird. Maybe it was just saying the number because her grandma was friends with The Grunwald from back when they were in the same orphanage for psychic children that later burned down or something."
Spencer: "I might be trusting a bird, but you're trusting A!"
Toby's a growing professional teen contractor, he needs food. So he heads off to do that, and then the town square's public address fires up, broadcasting eerie angelic choir music that sends the whole town ambling, slouching, toward a giant white angel statue in the middle of town. Yeah, that happens. Everybody goes there, wind picking up, and then stands without moving, staring up at the angel. Everybody's there, the groundskeeper is there, maybe you're there, maybe I'm there. Maybe Shana is there... Yes, that's definitely her, holding a strange parcel!
When Spence spots her, she goes stiff and runs back away through the crowd before Shana can see her. Toby sees her running, and without question comes running for her from the other direction.
They get back to the main street just in time to see Shana getting into Jenna's time machine car from the night of the many roofies, and rush to follow her out of the portal and back into the real world, but then a raven drops dead onto the windshield of their car, and a million birds are wheeling overhead, and they just stare at each other because what the fuck is even happening?
OPEN MIC
A blond boy plays the keyboard while everybody nods and approves of him because that's what you do at an Open Mic, which is why you don't go to those. Emily keeps bringing Aria different little treats from the Brew's Austrian-award-winning pastry cooler, and Aria is reluctantly thankful for this, and Connor smirks and swaggers around in his little apron, still thinking he won.
Emily: "First of all, he's getting fired the second I can come up with something. And you know you have nothing to be ashamed of..."
Aria: "Yeah, Mikey said the same thing. I guess he became wise as well as muscular, during his time off-screen."
Emily: "Well, I'll get him somehow. Until then, laxbro's on garbage duty."
Spencer arrives, contrite, and they do a great job of still being pissed at her while also happy to see her and curious about her adventure. They do not have the necessary information or experiences to understand about Ravenswood, and one hopes they never do.
Spencer: "The Grunwald said she didn't know Ali, but I think Shana got to her."
Emily: "How does that connect?"
Spencer: "She was there, worshiping the angel. With a parcel."
Emily: "Hold up, I think I'm about to be arrested. Jeez."
Tanner: "Emily, can you come with me? I have something weird to show you. And yes, you are in super trouble."
STATION
The dash cam video -- which Tanner knows Emily dropped on her desk, due to Emily's super stealth plan of leaving it on her desk in the middle of the day where everybody could see her -- is not what we thought: In fact, at some point I can't figure out, it became a video of someone in a red hood, wearing the Emily/Medusa mask, holding up a GUILTY placard in front of the Welcome to Rosewood population sign. (7989 souls, including at least 7900 sex murderers.)
Emily: "That is weird. Why are you showing me this?"
Tanner: "Because the note you left with it matches your handwriting on your Mother's Day card for Pam that's on her desk. Also because you are in it, and I thought you'd find that interesting."
Emily: "What an odd thing for a person to do. I mean, why would I leave this on your desk if I knew what it was?"
Tanner: "I'm beginning to see why Wilden was so obsessed with you girls. Nothing ever adds up. It's always weird ghost shit, or strange masks, or those darn shovels."
Horribly, that's exactly when Holbrook calls with the ballistics report, which means Emily just has to stare at the screen of herself -- or Redcoat as herself, or A as Redcoat as herself -- grinning like Guy Fawkes and always one step ahead.
OPEN MIC
Aria: "Well, I guess it's just you and me now. So I guess I will be your friend."
Spencer: "When you say it like that, it seems like you're saying one of us is ."
Aria: "Just explain the Shana thing to me again?"
Spencer: "Very little of what happened to me in that place is describable. She was there, doing rituals with the townspeople, then she got in Jenna's magic car, then she drove away. We tried to follow, but signs and portents got in the way."
Shana starts playing the violin onstage, suddenly, creeping them both out and playing (excellent stuff, this episode is just mind-blowingly stylish) over the several things that happen: Ezra watches them from outside the Brew, his face suddenly jumping out of the dark, while outside a strange vigilante busts every single bustable thing on Connor's car. He brings the garbage out, sees the dude beating the car up and the spray paint on the side that says LIAR BUT NOT A PRETTY OR LITTLE ONE, and then Mike runs off.
MARIN
And suddenly, we're arresting Ashley. Guess that was the ballistics. The whole time Hanna's shouting at everybody, particularly Ashley to just tell the truth, but Tanner finally and not without kindness says, "That gun was used to kill Detective Wilden and your mother's fingerprints are on the bullets." Hanna watches, wretchedly, as they take Ashley away and Tom comforts her, and it's very sad.
So to review: Shana was in Ravenswood and is taking over as the main baddie, the Grunwald is a dead end (for this show, anyway) but the GZX room is still in play, Ashley is the murderer as far as anybody could be expected to tell, Emily is now looking pretty weird in that investigation which won't help her domestic situation at all, Ezra is not as onboard with Aria's breakup as he keeps seeming to be, Mikey is turning into a crazy person to protect his new mommy's honor, Toby's mum is still dead, Caleb is starting up the C-Team again to help from the outside, and we still don't know what the B-Team or Redcoat have to do with the A-Team, A, or even Alison.
A-TAG
A breaks into a car and hotwires it... Wearing Emily's face! It is really unsafe how the A's and Redcoats of the world are always wearing masks over their masks over their faces when they fly planes and drive cars and go to funerals and grab you from the backseat. I mean, you're already doing mayhem, it seems like you would want to limit the variables at that point, but no. Bonzai, here is my mask-face, turn the key, burn it down.
It makes me wonder if maybe they have to, for some reason. Either of just craziness, or due to their faces being a secret (from us), or their faces being jacked up in some way. Like when Emily (I feel like it'll be Emily, but Hanna would work too) finally pulls the mask off (and then the mask or masks that logically will be under the mask), there'll be [whoever the person is, but] yelling, "My face! No!" But you'll be so sad for her because it wasn't even her face, it was just a mask; she just forgot.
WEEK
Ezra Nice Guys himself further into creepiness because Aria is so special and amazing, Caleb and Toby team up to investigate A and what really happened at the Lodge and maybe find out something about Redcoat and then presumably get everybody murdered, everybody worries about Hanna and Mikey because they are both going down in flames, and the Liars continue trying to proliferate as many suspects as possible just in case justice was going to be served. Oh, and a car drives into Emily's living room, which is sad because Pam always keeps such a meticulous house -- like this latest trashy incident is just what she needs -- but I'm personally going to be sad if Hanna's not somehow behind the wheel. That would be so hilarious, you know it would. Although given the new A's general fucked-up approach, it'll probably be Wilden's dead body, with a note around his neck reading, "Kisses!"
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Killing, Pretty Little Liars, Ray Donovan, Mistresses, and True Blood for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.