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After Ali's reappearance and subsequent re-disappearance, the Liars regroup: Their suspect list for her stalker is at a record low, with everyone on it either dead, on the run, or swiftly going blind. Mona's bought Jenna's car, which even she acknowledges as being impressively creepy, but her big move this week is trying to corner Ezra about his secrets, the better to redeem herself and/or manipulate the girls once again. She's not planning on his sudden twist into crazy -- despite the warning signs of his latest curriculum based on Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde -- and bounces with a quickness once he meets her characteristic intensity with some serious scariness of his own.
Speaking of decisions involving Ezra, Aria puts on her craziest dress in a while and -- as Jake's out of town -- decides to accompany her ex to a mysterious pied-à-terre with a hidey-hole in the floorboards, and they hook up. If this is Aria spinning out, I like it. As much as I like Jake, I like even more the idea of her resuming this dance of death with her eyes pretty much open. Ezra, for his part, seems fairly stuck between honestly loving her and then whatever his deal is with being A, so that ends up being pretty sympathetic too, oddly enough. Frankly he's gonna need all the help he can get if he thinks Mona can't chew up and spit out his entire ass in the time it takes him to do one adorable pushup.
Jessica DiLaurentis is in fine form this week, upgrading her Alison shrine and taking mystic dream messages from her dead daughter's ghost that tell her to get drunk with Ashley Marin and offer her a job selling real estate. (Because obviously Ashley has a real estate license. You should have already guessed that by now.) Hanna's perturbed, of course, but way more affected by Caleb's abrupt arrival and their near-instant breakup so he can go back to Ravenswood. It's epic, actually: First their relief to be together again, then her bonkers attempt to make him stay -- even Ashley's kind of amazed at her determination to straight go down in flames -- but then her eventually graceful acceptance of his secret reasons, and finally Caleb's tearjerking solo breakdown on his way out of town.
Free from the mess of boys at least until that cute cowboy shows back up, Hanna's brain concentrates itself on rocking the hell out, as she pulls massive moves left and right: First, she contacts a quartet of girls in a nearby town whose own version of Alison could very well be the person in Alison's grave. Then she produces a stolen diary that will be driving events for the near future, in which Alison recorded cryptic stories in a code all her own. A bad episode for poor Hanna in some ways, but when even Spencer is marveling at your innovative problem-solving techniques, that makes it pretty good too. While the corpse-double idea is a no-go in terms of solving the mystery, it does provide grist for a couple of other mills, namely:
Emily seems to be carrying the "fuck Alison for not being dead" torch for the group, so she has a tough time of it. While they're all pretty annoyed at her after three and a half seasons of this shit, only Emily has (of course) truly major beef. After she connects with one of the doubles over their shared hatred of the dead girls in the center of their lives, she comes clean to a marvelously supportive Paige about her real deal with Alison. It's pretty heartbreaking, but also super neat to have it all out on the table like that.
Spencer and Toby concentrate on his mother's suicide, eventually producing Wilden's altered report about the incident for the glamorous woman that heads the healthcare company that owns Radley Sanitarium. While Toby just wants justice, Peter -- happy about anything that'll distract his daughter from investigating the latest weirdness out of his erstwhile lover Jessica D. -- pushes them to bring down Radley for good, which sets off all of Spencer's radar like usual. His reasons for wanting to shut the place down are his own, of course, but it's interesting how steadfast she's being, against all advice from the men in her life, about not letting the old place go until she's beaten it.
week: While Spencer investigates the connection between Peter and Jessica -- and presumably his interest in shutting down Radley -- the Liars delve into the diary's secrets. Seems everything in there is encoded, so the stories Alison told, getting more and more intense as they go, could be about anything or anyone. Hopefully Mona and Ezra don't waste any time getting to round two, though, because that shit was spectacular.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
For helping Ashley Marin A kidnapped Mona, leading the Liars to Ravenswood, where Hanna left Caleb to babysit the doomed Miranda Collins -- and Alison and CeCe revealed themselves as dueling Redcoats. Detective Wilden died after blackmailing the B-Team and former NAT Clubbers, and altering the records of Toby's mother's death at Radley Sanitarium. After searching for Alison in the hopes of protecting her from A+ -- "Boardshorts," whom The Grunwald intimated was none other than Ezra himself -- the Liars returned to Alison, to find her standing around and being vague as per usual.
AFTER
Liars: "So I wonder where Alison's been this whole time? Why can't she come back yet? Let's go over the facts. Somebody buried Ali in the ground, The Grunwald dug her up like a carrot, and then she vanished. Why not call the cops?"
Spencer: "Because all the cops in this town are rapists?"
Aria: "Plus she was a thug. Calling the cops is the last thing she would, she hated those motherfuckers."
Emily: "Why am I not happy about Alison being alive? It feels like I'm pissed!"
Liars: "Oh, thank God. I thought it was just me."
Spencer: "Stop talking about feelings. We can parse through our feelings later. Like when we're old and not being stalked by ninjas and ghosts and dolls."
Liars: "Is it possible she was A the whole time? Nah. Even for this show that's ridiculous. But then who is she so afraid of?"
Toby: Not actually on the A-Team, just for pretend. Not dead. Mom probs.
Lucas: Not actually on the A-Team, just for like a second. miss u bb.
Mona: Has her own weird deal going on. Possibly we are all figments of her fevered imagination, which is worrisome, but she's not A in any meaningful way.
Shana: Guilty of being a bitch, but that's it. Of her main skills -- swimming, violining, costumery -- only the last would be of use anyway.
Jenna: Never let it be said that she can't go straight to hell, but no.
CeCe: On the run after killing a cop like the snake-stomping OG that she is.
Boardshorts: Wears a size-eleven shoe somehow but has the childlike frame of a Bel Ami twink. Probably A, no longer a babydaddy, definitely a statutory rapist, but nobody we're going to find out about any time soon.
Jason: ...Hey where is Jason?
Hanna: "Well, Caleb says the A-partment in Ravenswood is cleaned out."
Liars: "Maybe Ali contacted somebody else, such as Jason?"
Hanna: "I have a theory."
Spencer: "Oh, do you now."
Hanna: "Ali's not in the box. She's alive somewhere, but somebody is dead. Guessing they were put in the hole she popped out of, after The Grunwald but before the gayzbo."
Spencer: "It's pronounced gazebo."
Hanna: "Whatever, I'm right either way. There's a missing girl, somewhere. Find out who she is and who put her in there, that's a whole new angle on this thing. We're flanking the murderers and whoever covered it up, all at once."
I mean, clearly that was Ali or agents of Ali that did that, right? Who else would want the girls to think it was Ali in there, and willing to fake records and maybe kill a similar girl, for this reason? It's an impressive can of worms, and the Liars give Hanna props on it.
DILAURENTIS
Emily: "Whoa, do you really still change the sheets in here?"
Jessica: "Fresh linen keeps a room from getting musty. Were you raised by animals? And anyway, what's this about Jason."
Emily: "His voicemail's full and I need to talk to him."
Jessica: "Yeah. Listen, he's been under stress. Although I am no longer saying he's in Georgia, I will say that now I picture him driving across the country, possibly to Montana."
Emily: "You mean like another spinoff? Like a haunted horse ranch or something? That sounds awesome, I would watch that."
Jessica: "Is it an emergency?"
Emily: "No. Everybody's dead already. Just tell him Hi if you talk to him, I guess."
MARIN
Hanna googles and instantly learns about approximately a billion hot chicks that got murdered in and around Rosewood in the past year, because that's their main exports: Death and molestation. She shuts the laptop when she hears Ashley coming, though.
Ashley: "Yes, I'm that Ashley Marin... No, I won't bother coming in for the interview. Thank you for nothing."
Hanna: "Do you think the bank is like, actively blacklisting you?"
Ashley: "No, I just think when you go to jail for killing a cop, it sticks with you."
Hanna: "Even if you're cleared?"
Ashley: "Especially if you're cleared. Think about it. Not a lot of capital murder guys out there trying to be loan officers."
Hanna: "Well, if there was any doubt in your mind, be assured I'm not going to Australia with my dad and his shitty new family."
Ashley: "Things are not great here in Rosewood, honey..."
Hanna: "They never are, dear. Besides, the water runs backwards there. No thanks!"
The perplexed, affectionate look that crosses Ashley's face after her daughter says this odd thing and hugs her is eloquent and sweet, as usual.
LIARS
Spencer: "Still changing Ali's sheets? That lady is so nuts. And now she won't tell us where Jason is?"
Hanna: "She just said he needs private time."
Liars: "Huh. Well, as long as we're discussing uncommunicative people, is it weird that we haven't heard anything from either Alison or her ghost?"
Spencer: "Yes, let's dwell on that reprieve... Oh, it's Toby!"
Emily: "Who's that stranger getting out of the truck to hug Spencer? He seems like a nice boy."
Spencer: "Well of course I've just been going mad without you."
Toby: "Yeah, you're always super excited to see me, it's cute."
Spencer: "Any news on your dead mom?"
Toby: "Not really, but don't let that get in the way of us talking about it forever."
Then Mona arrives, in Jenna's time-traveling car, and almost runs them down. It's pretty phenomenal.
Toby: "It's nice knowing she is no longer so crazy that she would just run over us in broad daylight. She honked. That's a good sign."
Spencer: "She's probably just working on her aim."
Nobody points out that she's wearing giant sunglasses that probably came with the car, which to me is the most chilling aspect of all this. I get that Mona is a soul-trader that regularly becomes the most astonishing people, but you do not want to get stuck being Jenna Thing.
SWIM TALK
Paige: "[Endless swim talk. No awareness of how Emily might not want to hear all about this, or in fact that Emily is in another dimension entirely, hating Alison for being alive and dead and then alive again.]"
Emily: "Sorry, go on with your riveting story."
Paige: "You're right, I'm being a jerk. What's up with you?"
Emily: "Ugh, nothing. Don't worry about it."
Paige: "I love to worry about you!"
Emily: "I feel like you're drowning me. Metaphorically speaking."
LOCKER HALL
Mona: "WHAT'S UP, MARIN! Let's go driving around in a blind girl's Mustang."
Hanna: "Comin' in hot there, Mona. Plus, how creepy is that?"
Mona: "Well, I'm creepy. This is not new info. Listen, why are you freezing me out?"
Hanna: "Uh, because you're A? And because I have a million things going on?"
Mona: "I went to jail and then was institutionalized on your mother's behalf. Can we ever bygones this?"
Hanna: "To be frank, I'm not entirely sure you even did that for my benefit."
Mona: "What is WITH everybody today?"
For once, their synced-up shitty moods actually make sense: Alison. Bitch won't stay dead. You would think once the dead girl turned up alive the problems would go away, but now they are just worse because nothing makes sense anymore. So yeah, everybody's in a mood. But the most shocking of all, in how they deal with it, is Aria Montgomery of all people. And not just the ways she expresses herself through fashion, for once.
FITZ CLASS
Ezra: "We're studying Jekyll & Hyde this year, because guess why."
Class: "Uh, we probably can."
Ezra: "You think you know the true story but you don't. So ignore what you know, and read the book. Preferably for three days without stopping, just like it was written. Only not on cocaine."
After class he keeps Aria behind, sending all the Liars a-titter. They head into a totally random classroom -- note -- to gossip about it and also talk about the Courtland Liars.
Liars: "Oh my God and he totally knows Karate Jake is in Harrisburg. That old creep won't quit. But at least we know Aria won't hook back up with him, because she is not a crazy person."
Hanna: "Spoiler alert, we are all crazy people right now. Anyway, look at these remarkably similar girls I found whose bitch best friend also died that time and now they are all nuts, just like us."
Liars: "Hanna, how are you doing this? Are you really turning into the Spencer?"
Liars: "I don't remember Alison saying anything about Courtland or weirdly similar groups of people in other towns..."
Spencer: "She also never told us about the psychic doll hospitals of Brookhaven, or taking flying lessons..."
Ha! Nice. Never forget the fact that Alison knew how to fly a plane. Of all the bizarre things, that is the best one.
Spencer: "So what, did you just casually email them to ask if their dead friend might have turned up in our dead friend's grave?"
Hanna: "I'm gettin' real fuckin' sick of your attitude, Hastings. Of course I didn't. I said I wanted to form a temporary support group with them over our shared losses."
Spencer: "...Huh. You are two for two, my friend. I'm in awe of you this week."
Hanna: "I like compliments better when they're not preceded by bullshit. I think you'll find that's true for most people."
Then suddenly an overhead springs to life, playing a hilarious citizenship video from the fifties, but with certain parts of it edited to be scary A-type messages like, Whoever finds Alison gets to keep her. The whole thing is pretty awesome, and tonally very sophisticated and funny and clever. Also because school has not taught these people good citizenship one bit -- except for maybe Emily who was born that way -- and also because school is where you meet fine upstanding citizens like Jenna Thing and Noel Kahn:
School is an important place for every boy and girl. It's where you and your friends come to learn what you'll need to know in order to prepare for life and work. You don't just learn math and history at school, you learn how to be good citizens. And being a good citizen is something you learn not only in the hallways and cafeterias, because being a good citizen is a full-time job [...] into adults. Tell everybody what kind of American you are!
Meanwhile Ezra is telling exactly what he has learned and what kind of American he is:
"No expectations, but I want you to know that I understand how fucked up it was putting you in those weird positions with Malcolm, my fake baby that destroyed our horrible creepy relationship. I thought I could fit everything into one life and I would be the winner, but of course that just made everything suck. It is because I am selfish. But on the other hand, my days are limited here at school where we learn good citizenship, and so are yours. So back-burner me until you are legal."
Aria: "DONE."
Ezra: "I would like to try and be the person you think I am."
Aria: "Whatever. I would like you to be exactly the person I think you are, which is a Ken doll with no other obligations except having G-rated and occasional R-rated fun with me, whenever I personally feel like it."
Ezra: "Black typewriters and cappuccinos. Paper-bag masquerades."
Aria: "Croissants just because. Reading an actual newspaper with smug grins."
Ezra: "God, I could hug you so hard right now."
Aria: "Festina lente, homeboy. We've got time."
HASTINGS
Peter Hastings! Oh, I love you. We haven't seen him in so long.
Peter: "Hell makes you think I know where Jason is?"
Spencer: "Uh, because he is your bastard?"
Peter: "I won't tolerate snippiness, Spencer."
Spencer: "It's the only language we Hastingses know. Jessica won't tell us..."
Peter: "You drop that shit right now. No bothering that woman. Stay untangled from that family, you hear me? Your mother's a lawyer. We cannot piss her off, unless you want to be having this conversation with me in the boondocks."
Spencer: "Why does nobody appreciate how strongly I feel about my brother Jason?"
Peter: "Because it comes off like a huge lie, or like you're trying to solve a murder and don't actually care about him?"
Spencer: "Ugh, it's both. BOTH!"
Peter: "Fine, I will look into it. But you stay the hell away from Jessica DiLaurentis. That woman is a wildcard."
CAVANAUGH APT
While Hanna toys with that mysterious diary she swiped in Ravenswood -- and gets a response back from the Courtland Liars that she's just as ambivalent about -- Toby explains what he's been up to: In the visitor's log at Dr. Palmer's hospital, Toby cross-referenced no less than six former Radley co-workers, most of whom were willing to chat off the record: Turns out the fake-suicide was a known thing, covered up seemingly to protect the Radley corporate parent, a healthcare conglomerate called Declodyne.
Toby: "That's who pays their pensions, so they're very cagey about this."
Spencer: "First, why would an 'accident' be more damaging to a mental hospital than a patient committing suicide? The thing mental hospitals are about not happening? And why bribe a cop to do it?"
Toby: "Head of Legal's named Mainway, I can't get an appointment with her."
Spencer: "Why is everything always Radley?"
Toby: "Because this show is about secrets, and Radley is a mass grave of those. Wilden, Mona, CeCe..."
Spencer: "Me, of course."
Toby: "I mean, yeah. You know I don't really care about that aspect of it, I just want my mom's name cleared."
Spencer: "As if I will stop there. Listen, we have to go after this healthcare company. I mean, it's not like they're above committing mass murder in pursuit of profits or anything, right? We'll be fine. Just two American kids, standing up to the healthcare lobby and hoping to survive the experience."
Toby: "Thank God we're not poor, or they'd already have the Tea Party after us."
Spencer: "Right? With their little hats and flags, talking about how America means killing poor people on purpose or else Jesus will cry."
LIARS
Hanna: "I have made contact with the Courtland Liars, they want to meet up."
Emily: "Thanks for committing us to that bullshit without asking, Marin."
Hanna: "Whoa, what's the story there? Why you being mean about this?"
Emily: "It's like... Ali's alive. The whole show she's been alive. That doesn't make you want to rip her hair out by the roots? Anybody?"
Liars: "Okay yes. We do know what you're talking about."
Hanna: "Sometimes I imagine her wet and scared, in a cardboard box, by some train tracks. And other times I see her in a penthouse, dripping diamonds and laughing at us. But we don't know which one's the truth. None of us do. So we have to bring her back."
Three for three, I'd say. What a lovely summation. If Hanna keeps being the best one, will I have to pick a new favorite? Because while Hanna's been it the longest, they've all been my favorite over the years.
All but one.
THEN CALEB
Caleb comes in and everything stops and they kiss and music plays and all the Liars are happy that they are kissing but confused about why this is happening. Then they discuss their complicated phone and email conversations about whether she could come there or he could come here, and the email a ghost sent her about that, but then rescinded, and whatever, now they are here at the same time, in this coffee shop, kissin'. Love has a short memory sometimes.
Hanna: "Not that I wanted to go to horrible awful Ravenswood, but..."
Caleb: "Trust me, it's way easier this way. I am... Keeping a lot of different promises right now."
Hanna: "That sounds like a clever way of not actually saying anything. How's Miranda?"
Caleb: "In some ways she is great. In other ways, she is a dead person. Don't ask."
Hanna: "Have you fixed her yet? Pretty sure the deal was, you go take care of her because I liked her and it was a random impulse from my pure and loving heart, and then you get your ass back on this show."
Caleb: "I have not entirely fixed the situation in Ravenswood, no. Although I do suddenly have a slightly more cogent understanding of it, as we'll see in my voiceover at the break between our two premieres."
Hanna: "Are you going to say like one thing with any weight to it at all?"
Caleb: "No. Just make out with you and say embarrassing sweet romance things, and then go do you at your house, and then probably..."
Hanna: "Stay forever?"
Caleb: "We'll cross that bridge. Oh hey, speaking of bridges..."
DECLODYNE
Toby: "Are you Ms. Mainway?"
Mainway: "I am certainly glamorous enough to be the head of Legal for an infernal devil machine that profits solely by prolonging the death and misery of those too disenfranchised to complain. You must be Toby. I can tell by how sad and desperate you are."
Spencer: "You seem busy! But not, I think, too busy for some... teen blackmail."
Mainway: "Snipers already in position at your four and eleven o'clock might disagree, but by all means show me what you've got."
LIARPALOOZA!
Tina: "There were four of us. Sara, Claire, Avery, and me Tina. Sara was the Alison, she disappeared. Avery's in a medication coma, having lost her damn mind. Claims to have seen Sara riding her bike the day after Labor Day..."
Hanna: "Wait, after Labor Day? This princess may be in another castle."
Tina: "Do you enjoy knowing for certain that your friend is dead and not just gone?"
Emily: "We did. Didn't know it at the time, but yeah. They've recently paved that paradise and put up a parking lot where that bitch is still alive somewhere."
Tina: "Which one of you was gay for her?"
Emily: "Me, technically, but... Kind of all of us?"
Tina: "Yeah, same."
MONAMAZING!
Mona: "Mr. Fitz! Hi, in a general way. Nice book, you book nerd."
Ezra: "[Sexy, scary grumbles. Very sweetly does not mention that Mona is dressed like Lisbeth Salander guest-starring on KIDS Incorporated in the mid-'80s.]"
Mona: "Cool, well I was just ambushing you at this open-air market on our only street in this town. Did you know that Jekyll & Hyde is awesome?"
Ezra: "Awesome, or like, the most relevant novel since Catcher In The Rye?"
Mona: "I'm a picaresque, Mr. Fitz, not a bildungsroman. I just like it because it's fucked up. Like how Jenna was into The Bad Seed, or Spencer likes the murder queens of England."
Ezra: "...I meant to me personally. I am really not even trying to cover up my craziness at this point. Do you think it looks good on me?"
Girl I think it looks freakin' amazing on you, and I am on record as being very hard to convince, Fitz-wise.
Mona: "Speaking of your personal life, can I apply some subtle pressure to you about that real quick? It's going to seem like I'm jealous of the Liars and their fucked-up connections to you, but really that's just a feint."
Ezra: "Just tell me what it is you're trying to do, and I'll decide how scared or angry to get. How Jekyll or Hyde, one might say."
Mona: "Okay well at this point in the chess game let's say I want to call you my mentor. And I'd like that to start right now. Or else."
Ezra: "...Buy you a coffee, Ms. Vanderwaal?"
GANGWAY, MAINWAY
Spencer: "So as you can see, this police officer changed the report, and he died..."
Mainway: "This is quite a yarn, based on one document."
Spencer: "Like I'mma show you all my cards, come on."
Mainway: "What is the endpoint here, what do you want? Mr. Cavanaugh?"
Toby: "I want to clear the record that my mom didn't kill herself."
Mainway: "And I can help with that because...?"
Spencer: "Someone at a sanitarium you own paid Wilden to alter his report? I mean, that's on you. Literally that is on you."
Mainway: "Radley is just one facility in the Declodyne family..."
Spencer: "But one which I am positive causes more trouble than most."
Mainway: "You might be right, but I'm more interested in telling Toby that he is crazy right now. Stuff about grief and closure and..."
Spencer: "You need closure, honey. You do. Preferably before your stockholder meeting. We cannot be the only people up your ass about that accursed place. I doubt we're even the first couple of people to jump you about it this week."
Mainway: "Maybe, but I don't care about shame. Just money."
Spencer: "Do you know what the internet is? Same thing now."
POST-LIARPALOOZA BREAKDOWN
Hanna: "Dates don't work."
Aria: "You mean she didn't die in time?"
Hanna: "Yeah, it sucks... Hang on, drunks in my house I need to investigate."
Ashley: "Wassup, girl!"
Jessica: "You're looking not that fat, honey!"
Ashley: "Jessica just gave me a job!"
Hanna: "I do not like that. This drunk is an entirely different kind of drunk than the kind I like."
Jessica: "Let me give you a hug! Or as much as my arms can circumnavigate dat ass."
Ashley: "I'll just leave you to this monster while I fetch my real estate license I apparently -- and obviously -- have."
Hanna: "My mom's happy, I like that part."
Jessica: "Oh, Alison thought of it! People in this town can be so shitty when you're connected to a murder or a..."
Hanna: "Hold up, what? Alison what?"
Jessica: "No big deal, she comes to me in my dreams and offers human resources suggestions from time to time. A perfectly normal thing that happens to people."
Hanna: "It's like you always have some new incredible way to be fucked up."
Jessica: "Let me teach you how to waltz. You'll need to know that, if boys ever start to notice you. Put your arms up like this. Put your arms up like this."
FACE OFF
Ezra: "Don't sell yourself short, Mona. You masterminded an entire hyperadrenalized superreality that allowed you to travel the spacetime continuum with impunity, you're a gray-hat hacker and you speak eleven languages. Surely Pre-Cal won't be..."
Mona: "-- I've had to be a good student, I had nothing else. I've had quote 'a rather Dickensian life up until now, full of folly and grudges and false imprisonment...'"
Ezra: "There she goes. Shit you are nuts."
Mona: "People -- pay attention -- people thinking I'm one thing, when I know I'm something else...? Eh? Eh?"
Ezra: "Why are you eyebrowing at me?"
Mona: "Because you know what I'm talking about? Eh? Eh?"
Ezra: "Girl, you better face up and sing right now. What are you on about."
Mona: "This syllabus, Mr. Fitz. Masks, secret identities... Very revealing, if you know what you're looking for."
Ezra: "Which is fucking what?"
Mona: "What did the Count of Monte Cristo want?"
Ezra: "At this point I can't believe even you feel entitled to revenge. You have had all the revenge. There is no more revenge to be had."
Mona: "Care to see me squeeze blood from a stone?"
Ezra: "Who needs a stone for that? C'mere."
"Let me tell you what I've learned about Rosewood High, Miss Vanderwaal. Fear, I have found, is the #1 motivator. Not love of knowledge, fear. Fear of failure, fear of being discovered, fear of liking the wrong person. You figured that out, and somewhere along the way, you dumped all that fear. And that's what makes you special."
Mona: "Uh, what is this? I feel like you're doing a scary spell on me."
Ezra: "Makes you special, makes you vulnerable. Fear is a fucking great thing, Miss Vanderwaal. It keeps you from underestimating people. Keeps you from making mistakes, thinking you can push harder than you should."
(Mona: "Are you literally threatening my life right now?"
Ezra: "I am literally threatening your life right now.")
Do you remember The Hills? My favorite part of that -- besides anything having to do with Justin Bobby, and of course that last crane shot in the finale -- was this one time Heidi went over to Lauren's, when Lauren said the thing about "I want to forgive you and I want to forget you," which whatever, but: For the first time in her life Heidi took in her surroundings -- LC's liquid eyeliner welling up, ready to spill; Lo in the kitchen, sharpening her knives -- and just abruptly fucking bailed.
Snatched that purse and was halfway to the door, in one fluid motion: "Okay well it was nice talking to you bye" and then just like, a metaphorical barstool spinning under where she just was. Papers slowly floating down, like a Sylvester cartoon. Gorgeous. Sometimes you gotta bail out. I think about doing that, but I don't have the presence of mind to ever do anything other than what I am currently trying to do. I do think about it all the time, even though it was so long ago you may or may not have seen the show.
Anyway, that's what Mona does right now. Ezra has, impossibly, scared the shit out of her -- just by praising her bravery and intelligence in a frightening way. So wonderful, so wonderful. I've never been more into it.
CALEB
Hanna: "So she says she fucking talks to Ali, in her dreams? What is that?"
Caleb: "All of you have done that, no?"
Hanna: "No! I mean, ghosts! Ghosts of a non-dead person I can't talk to you about."
Caleb: "Well, my experience lately says that reality is more pliable than we think. Also ghosts I can't talk about, actually."
Hanna: "You really seem to be playing the It's Complicated card a lot today."
Caleb: "That is because it is. It all is. Sadly."
Hanna: "You're working up to something. What is it?"
Caleb: "I may have to go back to Ravenswood."
Hanna: "You..."
Caleb: "Definitely will be going back to Ravenswood. I made promises."
Hanna: "Complicated ones, no doubt. Shit."
HASTINGS
Toby: "That was amazing, how we -- meaning you -- totally ranked on that lady. You should be a lawyer!"
Spencer: "Not in my worst nightmares. I mean, thank you. Are you going to talk to your dad?"
Toby: "Are you going to talk to yours?"
Spencer: "Ugh. Maybe. One of these days."
Peter: "Somebody say my name? Who's hungry!?"
Toby: "Your daughter is so smart!"
Peter: "Duh, I know that."
Spencer: "Stop it, stop it, stop it. Be a WASP, shove it down, stop talking..."
Toby: "Because now Radley Sanitarium has to admit my mom wasn't a suicide!"
Spencer: "Oh my God, that's even worse..."
Toby: "She took that lady down! They're investigating it!"
Spencer: "I have never told my father about anything in my life. What are you thinking."
Peter: "...You took on Declodyne?"
Spencer: "Yeah. And they're going for it."
Toby: "She got them to blink!"
Peter: "Oh, she's gonna do more than that. Honey, you take those bitches down for good. I will help."
Spencer: "Whoa, whoa. This isn't about that."
Peter: "Yeah, it is. Shut that place down. Do it just for reasons, not because I have my own huge bone to pick with those guys, probably over and above the time they institutionalized my daughter for not finding your dead body."
Toby: "He's right! We should totally do that."
You mean, burn down my house. Not before I win. That place is a graveyard for secrets and I want them all. Until then, it's as much a part of me as you are.
ARIA
Dressed like a clown, waiting on a street corner for... Yep. Mr. Ezra Fitz. Here we go.
Ezra: "I know a secret place, a haunted cabin with a trapdoor in the floor where nobody can hear you scream."
Aria: "Perfect. Hit the gas."
THE BREW
Emily assumes that she is going to be murdered by whoever is out there, so she grabs a carafe of boiling coffee water and prepares to clobber the person... But then it's just Claire, of the Courtland Liars, who feels like she needs to talk about some things.
Emily: "...Want some tea? That's why I have this pot of boiling water in attack position. It is in case of friendship!"
CABIN OF DOOM
Ezra: "I have this ... friend. Who owns this ... murder cabin. So I come here when he's ... out of the country. To ... write. Where the internet and phone cannot find me. Or help."
Aria: "Just like we always talked about! Totally secluded, with plenty of blunt objects and things to choke me to death with."
Ezra: "I just wish I could go back to before Noel Kahn figured out we were dating. It's been downhill from there."
Aria: "Don't you mean, before you statutory made out with me in a bar?"
Ezra: "No, that part was awesome."
Aria: "I know I came here so you would exactly say these things, but let me apply the brakes. You know that we are under constant surveillance so you won't get fired by the Vice Principal..."
Ezra: "I love how you say that like it's your problem."
Aria: "And I am dating this gorgeous, sweet karate guy as a beard..."
Ezra: "Again, not really selling how you lose here."
Aria: "Lose? What are you talking about? This creepy pining you're doing where you address every lecture to me and pick me up in strange costumes is like, literally the only way my life could get better. And it is!"
She says a very true thing about how sometimes it's hard to remember what's real, and what used to be true or might be true in the future: How you wake up and just lie there for a second, untangling what's real from what's true on the inside. If you do this with reality facts, you are crazy; if you do this with your heart, you are the kind of crazy called love, which is acceptable because it's not going anywhere.
Ezra kisses her, or rather they kiss each other, and he gives her a key to the cabin, and says the creepiest words of all time, the most perfect thing of this perfect show: "It could be our secret." To the only person on Earth probably whose skin wouldn't turn itself inside-out just from hearing those words from her English teacher. Making him A was the smartest thing this show ever did, dude. It takes the unacceptableness of their relationship and doubles down on the badness, thereby rendering the entire thing... acceptable? Yeah. I'm down.
REAR WINDOW
Claire: "Okay, the real reason Avery didn't come to Liarpalooza is, she is in a coma. Not a real coma, but a thing where they are trying to even out her meds."
Emily: "Are you seriously putting even more problems on me right now? Bitch I don't even know you."
Claire: "I just can't stop thinking about Sara -- our Alison -- and how much I wish she was for sure dead."
Emily: "Like you don't even go here. Why aren't you talking to Hanna about this shit?"
Claire: "I mean, is that weird? She was the worst. I am just jealous that yours died. Sara was... Pretty, and poised, and perfect. And everything she gave you, she took two things away. I can't talk to the others about this, they're still under her spell."
Emily: "Okay, this is getting weird. I literally feel this way about my Alison."
Claire: "Well, anyway. I just wanted to unload all over you like I am vomiting, but with feelings instead of vomit. I wished her dead before she disappeared. Bye!"
Emily: "...You know what, actually that made me feel better. Spencer was right, feelings are so weird!"
Do you think there are Alisemily (?) shippers that are like, "How dare you!" I doubt it. People are real nutty about Paige and that's generally a one lightning-rod situation. Also, if your thing is Emily and Alison?, I wouldn't know what to tell you. Plus I like where this goes, so much, where Emily is like:
"Dear young lesbians. Sometimes beautiful girls -- often without even knowing it -- will enjoy the feeling of your feelings more than they care about separating out what is actually what. If you are looking for a fan club to join, and they are looking for a fan club, those things can look like love. Even to each other. There comes a point where one person is saying, I would do anything for you, and the other person is saying I would do anything to KEEP you, and those sentences sound like they mean the same thing but in fact are opposites. But have no fear! Eventually your body will know; it will learn the difference between gay ones and straight ones -- or, the yes ones and no ones, the ones and zeroes -- and you will stop torturing yourself (and torturing them with the ability to torture you with it). Aim for that. Everybody stays honest, and you can both concentrate on being better friends when you stop thinking that just wishing hard enough is going to change a thing you already, in fact, know but don't want to admit."
I mean, there's more wiggle room with ladies and I realize that, but as a gay dude whose life changed utterly when I decided to only hook up with actual other gay dudes from here on out, I can tell you that things are both much simpler and much more complicated than you think. There are a million ways to love and be loved, but only a very few that last, or make you feel better and not worse in the end. The ones that tell you what kind of American you are, we could say.
And by the same token, I realize I can keep saying that for the rest of time and you'll either get it or not -- there's an actual physiological brain change in your twenties that is about accepting consequence and the hard truths of certain things, and there's nothing you can do to hasten that, which is why crazy stupid love is a young kid's game -- so I'm glad the show did it better than I can: I wish somebody'd told me, and I think I worked it out better than most.
HANNA GOES NUTS!
She climbs all over Caleb like a housecat, trying to distract him and then just saying girl things -- "Your watch is broken! Take me with you! I will follow you then!" -- and slams the door every time he opens it, and we finally get down to the plot of things:
Hanna: "Is this about Miranda?"
Caleb: "Not exactly? Not like you think, because the truth is not something you have the capacity to think or understand?"
Hanna: "I GAVE her to you. She is a subset of our thing, not..."
Caleb: "That's true! This is still part of that!"
Hanna: "Fucking A."
Caleb: "Stop slamming the door, it's making you look crazy."
Hanna: "I am crazy! I live in a strange weird world where nothing is as it seems. I can count on my mom -- most of the time -- and my girls -- most of the time -- and you. That's it. Everything else moves around. And now you're telling me that the truth is not something you can tell me. On the worst day for you to pull that shit. I will keep slamming it, and be the most annoying girlfriend of all time, and force you to scream at me, and act a mess. Not because it's flattering or super cool, but because it is the option I have."
Caleb: "You are not stupid or crazy and everything that you're saying feels true but is not technically true because what is happening, I literally can't tell you. No fun for me either. It is possibly worse, actually, not that that helps."
It does not, but we have the benefit of not being Hanna. Frankly Hanna has that benefit too, because I've never seen homegirl pull this shit in my life. I realize that part of it is, she has to do something new -- show a new set of colors -- in order to drive home how fucked up this is and earn the fact that we're spinning off the best relationship on the show. But also, they did a great job with that, because I have never once thought of her as clingy or irritating or... God, that "your watch is broken" bullshit just broke my heart. How embarrassing!
Ashley finally comes down the stairs, to see what has gone so terribly wrong in her daughter's brain suddenly, and then just holds onto her for the ride, thinking, This is the first and the worst time but it won't be the last:
"Is this how it works? They just leave? It's not you, it's me, and then... They're just out the door."
She says no but she means yes.
HASTINGS
Spencer: "Don't bullshit a bullshitter, Papa. Stop helping with this Radley thing."
Peter: "Nope, I'm doing it. Closing that shitty place down. Just like you started."
Spencer: "And now what, you're just like on fire with the public interest?"
Peter: "I saw you in that place, Spence. You can't tell me you wouldn't like to see it taken apart, brick by brick."
Spencer: "Yes. Very caring. Very touching."
Peter: "That's what I do for my family. Consider this the latest lacrosse stick I am tasked with prying from your insane hands. And watch it burn."
WITHOUT PRETEXT OR PRELUDE
Emily: "So Ali let me kiss her once."
Paige: "Uh..."
Emily: "Shh. I thought it was something wonderful, that she was giving me something kind, or... It wasn't a gift. I don't think she knew how to love. I don't think that was a grace she was allowed. She never gave without taking two things back. She was a collector. She collected people, love from people, and..."
Paige: "And after all this time, you're still thinking about her."
Emily: "For reasons you don't need to know about, but mostly for this. She broke my heart. With an audible snap. That sticks around."
Paige: "I hate her for doing that to you. With you, to you. For helping you be tortured, because it served her. I hate her for being complicit in it."
Emily: "Cruel would mean she cared what she was doing. I don't think she did. We hold onto the pain people give us sometimes as a memento. But a gift doesn't mean anything if it's disposable to them. Then it's just trash. So."
Paige: "So this is how you say goodbye?"
Emily: "It's a start."
SPEAKING OF GOODBYE
Ezra and Aria, somewhere around here, do it in a haunted cabin. She stares out the window, and he watches her from the bed, and it's weirdly hot. I guess I'm going to have to unpack that at some point -- why now, after three and a half seasons, do I suddenly get it? -- but not today, because: A very sad thing, in which Hanna meets Caleb at his car out of town, by way of apology, to act normal.
She's brought coffee. They speak, a bit, and she's respectable and so lovely, and so poised and wise like usual -- but none of that really matters, what they say or why. What matters is how he looks at her, when she hands his coffee through the window, and assures her he won't forget anything. What matters is how far he gets -- less than a block around the corner -- before he coasts to the side of the street, and falls apart.
BACK TO MAUSOLEUM
That was a good way to end the episode; these are both just tags. In the first, Hanna finally comes clean to the Liars about Ali's diary she found in A's Ravenswood Lair, which is what 4B is going to be about -- and why she kept it quiet: "Because of what's in it, because of what she said about us. All of us." She's been keeping more secrets this week than we even knew; maybe the Courtland Liars were just a distraction all along. I mean, we know they only existed (so far) as a way of getting Emily to recontextualize this latest thing, but the others will have to follow, either way. So it's cool that Hanna is suddenly the anti-Spencer: All answers, instead of all questions. Not that the answers will help, of course.
In the second tag, A (in full hoodie) steals into Ezra's Cabin, and opens up that conspicuous trapdoor, and looks inside. I don't want to know. Even more than usual I do not want to know.
WEEK
Coded stories in the diary lead the Liars on some harrowing personal journeys, and eventually to a scary shack -- Ezra's? -- where presumably terrible things happen. Spencer goes after her dad's secrets, regarding both Mrs. D and his quest to shut down Radley. Emily continues to freak out about Alison's return. Aria makes some more good choices.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, True Detective, The Blacklist, Ravenswood, and Pretty Little Liars for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook.