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Ezra spends the episode being full-on amazing, whisking Aria away to his murder cabin and then playing her like a fiddle the entire time, until she is brainwashed. It is absolutely excellent. He totally says shit like how it would be normal if he were her only friend and that it's natural for a young woman to turn her back on her age-appropriate peers and only share secrets with her closest pedophile. It's awesome. He also menacingly carries around chickpeas, spies on everybody back in Rosewood, creeps about, puts the fear into Spencer, and finally shows us the full-sized A Lair under the cabin (it is choice). He's got somebody taking pictures of everybody, and even has time for a little moonlight kidnapping...
Which is bad news for Shana, but even worse for Alison: In need of a cash infusion to keep herself on the move, Ali sends Shana to retrieve a stash from behind that fucked-up twin-skull picture in her bedroom, but she can't do it. After a really neat détente in which Shana comes clean about several past storylines, she sends Emily to get the money -- which she immediately hides in a bag of coffee beans, obviously, since the Brew doesn't serve lasagna -- but never shows up to retrieve it. Why? Because A has kidnapped her and scared her so badly that she scraps her phone and disappears into the night, leaving Ali high and dry.
While Shana was a very sympathetic person this time around, it's even more surprising how awful the last scene makes you feel for Ali: On the run, terrified, with no cash and no hope, just sobbing on a bus out of town like the scared little teen she actually is, and always was: I couldn't believe how sad that was! Maybe she'll snap somebody's neck on that bus, or turn them into a bulimic, and the world will right itself again.
Not everything is topsy-turvy this week, though: God knows Aria's continuing to do Aria, wandering from location to location talking about herself and then wandering off in the middle of talking about herself, leaving her confused interlocutors to wonder what fascinating things she'll say about herself. Aw, you know what, I shouldn't be so mean. The manipulation stuff with Ezra was actually really humiliating and I felt bad for her too.
So to recap: I am possibly in love with Ezra Fitz, I have boundless sympathy for Aria Fucking Montgomery, and I'm finding Shana and Alison more pitiable than any of the Liars this week. It's dogs lyin' down with cats over here.
Meanwhile, Spencer's gone AWOLNATION, diving into a bottle of dolls and not coming up until the sun does. Her task: Figure out the Ezra/Boardshorts situation without letting it drag her out into the waves. How does she do? Not great. Enough that Ezra fully offers to destroy her in the middle of the hallway -- after a true shitshow of a drug deal -- and later for Hanna to follow her tweaker ass all the way to Ezra's old apartment. By episode's end, all the Liars but Aria are on board with at least investigating Mr. Fitz's A secrets, but since he has cameras in all of their lives and even in some of their mouths, they're understandably weirded out at the notion. Also, weirded out by Spencer's zombie drug-seeking insanity, but not like to where anybody really comments on it.
I liked it! I couldn't believe Spencer spilled the beans so soon, but Hanna is really on top of her Junior Detective game -- especially with Sean Faris giving her weird Red Reddington clues that don't make any real sense, in that voice of his -- and it was cool to see her actually stay on top of Spence and not get distracted. Emily's ability to forgive and immediately process any emotion is always inspiring. And Aria... I mean.
She's wearing this giant brass eagle necklace the entire time, okay, big as her head, like could protect you from a bullet. She snoozes around the murder cabin while Ezra changes into and out of an infinite number of cute hoodies -- I mean like seventeen cute hoodies over the course of two days, it was mind-blowing -- and every time she starts to notice that he is a creepy molester killer of children who has literally abducted her and is keeping her in a cabin, he just Jedis those fingers right in her face and turns on the sexy Mr. Hyde charm and she just starts ... babbling, and goes in for a smooch. I love her so much right now.
Week: Ezra comes at Spence hard, but considering it's a groovy-looking special black and white episode where she's in a drug haze the entire time, you gotta wonder if she'll even really register it.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Emily's dad keeled over after she was attacked by an entire high school and told to act normal bitch. Hanna's new BFF is Sean Faris, so she's ridin' high -- even after A drank her milkshake all up from inside of her mouth. #MonaIsTheDevil and there's not a damn thing Aria can do about it. And Spencer, between fistfuls of pills, has determined that Ezra Fitz is A. Good thing she's got all that credibility, and never jumps to accuse people, all the time, every day.
THE BREW
In the most Hopper-painting thing all season, we open on Alison in a telephone booth that pops out of the darkness like we're in space, or a hyperreal simulacrum of the real world. I haven't seen a payphone in ten years, much less a phone booth, but in Rosewood and its surrounding towns, it makes sense that this would be happening.
Like did you know there's a phone booth in the Rear Window Brew? Yeah, and guess who's in there is Shana, under the pretty little watchful eyes of some Liars. As always with Alison, we have no idea what she's talking about or why, so here's the convo.
Alison: "I need it. There's no other choice."
(First guess: A snow globe, lunchbox, chessboard, accordion, or some other weird thing containing a secret compartment with a weird thing in it, or maybe a doll version of somebody.)
Shana: "[Yeah but I can't talk to your mom because you told me not to talk to her, when we were sketching out this epic five-year plan back in Georgia.]"
Alison: "I know but you have to get in touch with her. And here's what you say..."
Shana: (Already knows. This is not her first rodeo.)
Alison: "Yeah and but that's it. She can't know I'm alive yet. I'll call you later at this random phone booth from this random phone booth and give you more instructions."
Shana: "Okay, but I have to go. Your bitch friends are givin' me the hairy eyeball."
Alison: "I hate it when you just hang up on me, Shana. It makes me feel like a regular teenage girl who knows how to fly a plane and has been faking her own death for years."
Liars: "God, we hate her. For some reason."
Emily: "No, I'm over it. Alison likes her, so we like her."
Aria: "I would still like to flip her the bird."
Shana leaves, weird looks are looked. Everybody looks weird at everybody else, she's like backing out the door because there are so many weird looks for everybody to serve up to everybody else.
Liars: "What about the part where act normal, bitch, and then killed your dad almost?"
Emily: "A didn't do that, anemia did that. And also she's not A."
Spencer: "Emily's right. A is a guy. More, I cannot say."
Hanna: "Spencer, why do you look like a crackhead and can you sit still?"
Emily: "Why would Shana lead me to Alison and then punish me for trying to help her?"
Liars: "Why did she hook up with your girlfriend and also Jenna and also everybody?"
Spencer: "Remember that time you spotted Shana at Wren's house?"
Liars: "When did that happen?"
Spencer: "I think it was a finale? That time Mona got kidnapped, but not really."
Liars: "Toby was very helpful that time. Then his stupid mom died."
Liars: "Okay, then whom shall we say is A this week?"
Spencer: "The one week I don't wanna play this game. Ummm... A guy. A guy who is involved with the spring play, which still does not have a name."
Emily: "But the only guy involved with that play is Ezra Fitz."
Spencer: "I gotta chill out, man. I gotta focus and drill down and chill out and wiggle my legs and feet all over the place."
Hanna: "Jimmylegs, you're freakin' me out."
Spencer: "Maybe it's Macbeth. You're not supposed to say Macbeth when you talk about Macbeth. So hey did Ezra disappear while you were at the school and you don't know where he was during your attack?"
Emily: "Yeah, but whatever. Why is that notable? I don't get what you're saying."
Spencer: "How about you, Aria? Care to give us a detailed timeline of your dealings lately?"
Aria: "No I mean why would you ask me that? I mean, Jake and I are broken up, sure, that doesn't mean I'm gonna go crawling back to my one true love, I'm like a shark, I keep moving forward, I choose me. Until college, when I probably choose somebody even older than Fitz."
Hanna: "All of you bitches better shut this shit down. Nobody is doing any A-related activities this week. Look at my bleeding mouth with the secret messages inside, it's saying Cool it or else I'm bouncing to Ravenswood while you sort your mess out. See if you can spend one solid weekend not poking the beehive."
Liars: "Absolutely we will not be doing that."
Spencer: "I have seventy-two hours of uninterrupted wakefulness scheduled to do the opposite of that."
Liars: "We are collectively worried about Alison."
Spencer: "Which I fucked up, and I'm sorry. But that was before drugs."
24 HOUR PARTY HASTINGS
An amazing sequence of Spencer googling the shit out of some stuff and taking pills and drinking bottled water and bouncing off the walls and putting together the clues and figuring out what it all means. It goes on for a really long time, not in a bad way -- it's luxurious, and "Sail" is playing, which is funny because this same thing happened on The Good Wife, the song plus the Study Aids, although here there's the added punch of the "maybe it's my ADD" line -- and by the end, when she's hit the bottom of Andrew's bottle, the sun is out.
I think we're meant to understand that Spencer's been treated for ADD in the past, given a school file we see later, but how it plays out is that we're treated to multiple instances of drug-seeking behavior and I never really put together how she was rolling. Like she calls the doctor, impersonating her mother, and then later on she buys street Study Aid, but then claims after that that she's going to the pharmacy, but she doesn't go to the pharmacy. I don't know. Girl, get your ass together. If it's not making you better it's making you worse.
Which I guess is the beautiful point of all this: Her fierce desire to solve this problem by gerrymandering around Aria's feelings, to protect her even from the fact that she's protecting her, is what is driving her. She -- this is so Spencer -- has looked into the mirror of her (negligible) limitations and says, "As long as I don't die, this is the time to go all the way." For all the marbles, as they say: Turn yourself into Mona because it's actually important, deadly important, and because it comes from love instead of just anger or competition, you can't even really talk her down from it.
BETTER LOVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY
Aria: "What? Somebody broke into your cabin? How scary! For you."
Ezra: "I'm not worried about it. They didn't find my evil Lair, so..."
Aria: "Well, that's good that you're not interested in looking into it or anything. Almost like your complacency is a response to knowing good goddamn well who was there."
Ezra: "Actually it's just a pretext to get you up there for the weekend so you can't talk to Spencer."
Aria: "I can't go away with you this weekend, my mature modern lover. I am a mother now, with a Mikey to care for. I don't want him having any fun or getting ahold of any blind-girl pottery."
Ezra: (Some mysterious wizardry of the mind.)
Aria: "...Okay I will go. But can we drive back at least once to check on him?"
Ezra: "We cannot."
Aria: "...Apparently I'm okay with that too. No more objections."
RWPD
Remember when the cops confiscated all of the Marins' high heels? It was basically the worst thing that has happened to them since Ashley's head was shaved in a dream. Anyway, Hanna's so excited to get her weird pointy black shoes back that she fully kicks off her red pumps in the middle of the street and pops 'em on, chattering at Detective Sean Faris the whole time.
Hanna: "I finally feel like I have feet again!"
Gabriel Holbrook: "I feel like you're slipping backwards. Can we talk about literature? Specifically the thriller genre? Specifically, did you finish the book about the teeth?"
Hanna: "I am never going to the fucking dentist again, so it's no longer like super relevant to my paradigm. Actually, do you want all my books? I am done with books."
Holbrook: "I'm up to my holster in all things CeCe Drake these days..."
Hanna: "-- That's what she said."
Holbrook: "And you know what, [here's some more weird nonsense that will help you figure out what's going on in this episode]."
Hanna: "You're like a younger, hotter James Spader over here."
Holbrook, verbatim: "Funny thing about fugitives, they generate a lot of paperwork. Interviews, official reports, even a false sighting, it's all worth going through with a fine-toothed comb. You get details about habits and routines, personality traits. It's the little things that are infinitely the most important. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said that."
Hanna: "I understand maybe just under 30% of what you say. But I feel ya."
SHANA
Emily: "So was that her on the Brew phone last night?"
Shana: "Her who?"
Emily: "Shut up. I mean, is she okay?"
Shana: "If she wanted to give you an update, she'd reach out. Oh wait, she did, and you biffed it."
Emily: "You get one, Cruz. Now that the unpleasantries are out of the way, let's try to remember that we're both just trying to help our mutual friend."
Shana: "You wanna start a Friends of Ali Club? Make collages? Write fan fiction?"
Emily: "I know you're joking but honestly, both of those are major parts of our investigation."
HANNA ON THE CASE
Hanna: "Hey Aria, can we talk about Spencer's drug addiction?"
Aria: "I won't hear it, and I won't respond to it. We talk about me or we don't talk, you know the rules."
Hanna: "But like I really think she is on drugs. Gabe told me Conan the Barbarian could always spot a drug addict and I started thinking..."
Aria: "Gabe... Holbrook? Are you dating the smoking hot but relatively elderly Sean Faris? I'm not sure I'm comfortable giving up my crown just yet..."
(Her Prius-sized eagle doorknocker necklace transforms into a tiara that has DADDY ISSUES spelled on it in cubic zirconia.)
Hanna: "First of all, Spencer's gone to third with most of the thirty-year-olds we know, so you already lost that one. Secondly, we are not dating. We are book friends, we enjoy the life of the mind."
Aria: "So what, are you planning an intervention or something?"
Hanna: "No, I just want to give her some extra TLC this weekend. Relax her."
Aria: "Stalk her, investigate her, clock her every move?"
Hanna: "Essentially."
Aria: "I'm going away somewhere and I can't tell you where and there's no reception there so don't even try."
Hanna: "Fine, Emily will be into it. She loves being kind and nurturing even more than I do."
Then Aria describes the Mike and Mona situation as "a constant barrage of slow jams and lip balm," and that's how you know that whatever Aria does do this episode, it's going to be amazing. Aria turning out a well-tuned zinger is the same kind of red flag as Emily putting on plaid, or Hanna getting the bouncy ringlets going, or Spencer Hastings, from the moment she wakes up until she goes to sleep which is by the way never.
THIS PLACE ABOUT TO
Andrew's all out of Study Aid and therefore of no use to Spencer anymore. I know his current haircut leaves a little to be desired, but that is no fucking reason to let your priorities get so out of whack. Anyway, she twitches and itches herself on down the hallway of the school, looking like a Soul Asylum video in the middle of the afternoon, until setting eyes on... Brenda.
Let me tell you a little something about Brenda, which is that she is having none of your bullshit.
Spencer: "Hey Brenda, can I grab you for a second?"
Brenda: "Sure, let's do this fast. Over in this alcove."
Spencer: "So my dad's away on business and my Study Aid prescription is in his briefcase and I... Hey wait, you have a Study Aid Rx, do you not? That's so weird, what a coincidence..."
Brenda: "How many you want? Sure you just want two?"
Spencer: "Well, now that is a very good point. Any number of things could go wrong between now and then. Probably you should give me one million of them."
Brenda: "Let's start with five, shall we? And I operate on a cash basis."
Spencer: "WHAT? Is this a DRUG DEAL?"
Brenda: "...Call me when you grow a pair, I don't have time for this amateur bullshit."
Spencer: "Fine, fine. I am new to humiliating myself. Or at least to being aware that I'm doing it."
Brenda: "Great, I don't care. Fifty for five, time's discounted..."
Spencer: "You have a punch card or something? Like at a hoagie shop?"
Brenda: "You don't know me like that, Hastings. Come correct or don't come knockin' at Brenda's door at all."
Spencer: "Yes ma'am."
She scurries away like JT Leroy and bumps right into Ezra Fitz, who already has the sexy thing going on before the shit even hits the fan.
Dr. Jekyll: "First of all, as your English teacher I gotta say you disappoint me. Your essay on Shirley Jackson's short story, which we're also leaving unnamed for some weird reason, is sub-par. I detected some plagiarism even, which is not very Hastings of you."
Spencer: "If my work is slipping what is the point of being on drugs?"
Mr. Hyde: "It's more about what else you're up to. You seem distracted lately."
Spencer: "Nope, just a stressed-out senior, nothing to see here."
Dr. Jekyll: "Because you know that shortcuts never work out..."
Mr. Hyde: "...And I know exactly what you are fucking up to. And you are going to meet with me after school today, and I am going to kill the shit out of you and let Mona Vanderwaal play with your guts like the Harley Quinn of your AP nightmares."
Spencer: "I'll take the grade, actually. And try to do better. I will do more drugs so I can do more investigating of you, and eventually either my brain will turn into a small star inside my skull with its own gravitational field, or you will go to jail and Aria will go back to Jake so we can all look at Jake, but either way I am not interested in getting killed today, so thanks."
"You know, Spencer, sloppy work leads to consequences. I'd hate to see you suffer."
She pushes past him and continues down the hallway, but honestly I don't know how she manages it. Good Lord, Ezra Fitz. You're gonna have to keep working on it if you ever want me to shut up about Noel Kahn, but that was a clutch opening gambit.
GUIDANCE OFFICE
Aria waffles outside Jesse's office for a while. She wants to talk about herself, but also can't say anything about herself without giving up either her boyfriend or her friends. So then what? The best even Alison could come up with is like, codenames and crazy bubble-writing, and Ali was born for this shit.
Jesse: "Oh, Aria Montgomery. Awesome."
Aria: "I may be a little bit angry, but it isn't at Mikey. It is at myself."
Jesse: "Oh, we all saw that coming."
Aria: "I have decided to give you the gift of listening to me talk about myself. Do you have one thousand million hours?"
Ezra watches from several rooms away, and gets so mad because why should another man well into adulthood be guiding or counseling his little B-26? He won't have it. Not only does he have to keep Aria away from Spencer and the Liars, but now he's got to keep her from introspecting altogether? Just another incredibly busy day in a life full of very, very busy days.
STAKEOUT
Hanna: "Get in the car, loser! We're going to Taco Bell."
Spencer: "I'm not at my house. I am also not googling Ezra Fitz and Ezra Fitzgerald to find out if he rented that apartment or any other apartment in Ravenswood."
Hanna: "Get your ass downstairs. I have 87 pairs of shoes in my car and you gotta come over and help me make my closet all neat-freaky."
Spencer: "I would really like to -- even before Study Aids, but definitely now, you have no idea -- but I have to rewrite this essay about that conspicuously unnamed Shirley Jackson short story."
(The Hastings grandfather clock goes off in Hanna's ear, putting the lie to Spencer's lies.)
Hanna: "Okay, I'll leave you alone. PS, actually the opposite. Full-on stalking you now."
THE TALKING CURE
Aria: "[Talks.]"
Jesse: "['Listens.']"
This goes on for some time.
Jesse: "So why would your friends disapprove of this relationship being rekindled?"
Aria: "...Actually I gotta go. [Lying.]"
Jesse: "[Not actually caring.]"
Aria: "[Paranoia spiral; continuing to lie about nothing and for no reason.]"
Jesse: "[Doodling, sighing, napping.]"
Aria: "Anyway so my brother that I have sometimes, he's probably waiting for me..."
Jesse: "Seriously I have said goodbye five times already. I don't know what you're glitching on, but trust me that the niceties have been performed."
STAKEOUT
Emily: "I thought this was fucked up when you suggested it, but now that we're actually surveilling Spencer's house I know I was right."
Hanna: "Why did she lie? Why is she being weird? Why is she on drugs? These are questions that deserve..."
Emily: "-- Shana is coming out of Jessica DiLaurentis's house."
Hanna: "That too! Man, everybody is being interesting today."
Emily: "Last night they're on the phone, and now she's at Ali's mom's house? What does Jessica know? Like whose bones those are, for starters."
Hanna: "Maybe they were they talking about peaches and parasols and Scarlet O'Hara. The usual things people from Georgia discuss. And, depending on how drunk Jessica is, a valid guess. What time in the afternoon is it?"
Emily: "No, I am back to thinking Shana is sketchy. Let's follow her instead of Spencer."
Hanna: "You say that like we're being creepy. We aren't being creepy. And we for sure are not poking into A business right now. Your poor dad. My poor mouth."
Emily: "So it's only okay if we stalk each other? Should we stop by Aria's , dig through her trash?"
Hanna: "Like she ever throws anything away she could just as easily turn into clothing."
NOT THE TEACHERS' LOUNGE
Ezra is pulling Spencer's file -- after noting her old Rx's for Study Aid, I think, although as I said I'm confused as to how this is going to play out over the couple episodes -- so he can go about destroying her when Jesse stumbles into the fileroom, giggling that it's not the teacher's lounge like he thought at his new job, and calling Ezra "Fitz" like a million times so he can remember who he is, and with no idea he is on A's list for daring to be a guidance counselor at the high school where Aria Montgomery matriculates.
Ezra: "I was just pulling a file. I'm having an academic issue with one of my seniors and I wanted some background..."
Jesse: "You just gotta get 'em talking, you know?"
Ezra: "You don't say."
Jesse: "You'd be surprised how much students are willing to reveal about what's going on in their lives, especially when they feel like they have no one else to talk to..."
Ezra: "Look, you're new here and I get that. But normally when people around here say stuff like that, it's a veiled threat."
EMILY
Shana: "Emily, I need your help."
Emily: "Of course. Without further ado."
Shana: "Really?"
Emily: "You still don't get me. I'm Emily Fields. I like helping. Even bitches."
Upstairs, Emily realizes she should demand a quid pro quo, and Shana -- surprisingly, and neatly -- obliges.
Shana: "I'm an open book. Go."
Emily: "Why did you date Paige while I was doing Habitat?"
Shana: "Uh, because she's hot? We met at swim camp, I had no idea it was you she was mooning over. When I got here, I figured it out."
Emily: "Why did you always act like you were trying to break us up?"
Shana, dorkily: "I saw a button and I pushed. It let me know what I needed to know. You're loyal, fiercely protective... Emotional, but not a fool. Just like Alison said."
Emily: "So you were spying on us too, for her."
Shana: "No, just trying to figure shit out. Get the lay of the land."
Emily: "You were spying on Wren, though."
Shana: "Yeah. He placed an ad for quick moving help when he left town, and I took the opportunity."
Shana takes down a snowglobe that contains the memory of some freckles on Alison's back that match a star map that, at certain times of the year, leads you to a storage locker in which can be found a flashlight balanced perfectly upright, still shining after all this time, as well as a lunchbox containing another, smaller snowglobe that contains a key and a rhyming poem that leads you to a hidden spot on the DiLaurentis property where a psychic witch and part-time nanny whose daughter is also her mother and is also her sister and is made out of heat waves once pulled at least one teenage girl out of the...
Shana: "-- From her grandmother in Georgia. I know that. I know everything. Being territorial about your relationship is no way to preserve it. I'm her only friend right now, so stop trying to win this one and concentrate on what I am actually saying."
Emily: "Which is?"
Shana: "First that Ali said it was a gift for someone special. Second, obviously I saw you and Hanna spying on me today at Jessica's. Which is also the reason for my visit. I went in there to retrieve something and Jessica was all over me the whole time..."
Emily: "Yeah, I know what that's like."
Shana: "...So now you gotta get in there and get it. Did you ever notice a poster..."
Emily: "That fucked up horrible one with the twins that are skulls that look like Alison as a skull that is twins? Uh, yeah. I think about it daily."
SEMI-CHARMED KINDA SPENCER
Not even a few dozen quick crunches and some investigation of yet more Website Pages can calm the bucking bronco that is Spencer Hastings' need to get this shit done with. A fully strode up to her in the middle of a drug deal, looked her right in her hooded haunted drug-addict eyes, and said: "I am going to make you suffer."
This whole time Hanna's been afraid of touching off another mine, and Spencer's busily doing just that, and neither one of them knows because they think they're helping. Spencer has a clock ticking that nobody can know about, because of the collateral damage to Aria unless the drugs help her do everything so perfect, and meanwhile Hanna's just increasing the pressure from one more direction by trying to remove the pressure, and it's incredible how much tension these few simple dynamics are creating, webbing out across the entire Rosewood landscape.
Voicemail One: "Hey Aria I know it's early but something's been going on and I really have to tell somebody about it -- I really have to tell you about it -- but if I'm right then that would just break your heart and if I'm wrong then you're gonna hate me forever and that would really really break my heart so if you could just..."
She thinks about rerecording it, but her hummingbird mind has already taken her three steps past this momentary lapse in judgment, so she puts down her phone like it's on fire and then picks it up again and then does a little dance and then says fuck it and decides to break into Ezra Fitz's old apartment.
CABIN
Ezra: "Thanks for making coffee. How long have you been up?"
Aria: "I barely slept. I hate lying. Things are coming to a head. I had to spin so many tales just to come up here, and for what? Your vague wizard spell nothing reasons?"
Ezra: (More of those.)
Aria: "You're right. Lying to my friends is important."
Ezra: "I mean, it really is. If you 'think' about it. Aria, have you ever thought that maybe this feeling you have of being torn between me and your friends is maybe not such a bad thing?"
Aria: "Keep talking."
Ezra: "I know it feels like you're growing away from them, but maybe this feeling is you and me growing closer. I think we're past the point in our relationship where we have to hide. But if what we have is going to last, you have to start thinking me as the person you're closest to, the person that you want to share everything with."
Aria: "Nope, not sending up any giant flares yet. Continue."
For a second he seems like he wants to tell her he is A, and make her be A with him, like when Spencer and Toby were both A and Not A. (Heh.) But then he flips around in the same breath and says that also he is not trying to put any pressure on her. Then he flips the script again and applies tremendous pressure. Then he says it's no big deal. Then he threatens suicide. Then he tells her he'll drive her ass back to Rosewood if that's what she really wants. Then he makes her think that's her idea. Then he makes her think that it's his idea to make it her idea. Then he turns into a flock of pigeons. Then he goes to take a shower and put on another hoodie on top of the three hoodies he's wearing already. Then he turns back time to a second ago. Then he reaches out of your TV set and turns down the volume for a second so he can say more magic in her face. And they're off, smooching once again.
Damn, baby. If you had this much midichlorians up in you, why waste it on a bunny slope like Aria Montgomery?
(I mean obviously, Alison is no bunny slope, so there you go. It's still pretty fucking impressive. I feel like there were levels he was working on I couldn't even see. You know what it reminded me of was that time Megan Draper freaked out scrubbing the floor in her underwear, with her ass sticking up: "Look at me!/Don't look at me! You're a dirty little boy!/You're a limp-dicked old man! I'm getting all dirty, I'm a dirty girl!/I'm a goddess, worship me!" That was the last time I was this dazzled by such precise, all-in manipulation gymnastics.)
ROSEWOOD AVE
Hanna hip-checks Spencer on the street, after screaming her name a half-dozen times, but old Bleedin' Gums over here is in no mood.
Spencer: "I gotta go. To somewhere. Where? Don't ask. Why? Couldn't tell ya. I have to go to a pharmacy. Or wherever there's drugs. Momma needs a fix."
Hanna: "Yeah, by the way? You look like dogshit. And I mean that in the context of, you always look amazing? But what is wrong with you at the current time?"
Spencer: "I have a toothache? I have to go to Ezra Fitz's place. I mean, I have an inability to study unaided. So I have to go the pharmacy."
Hanna: "Which is the other direction. Seriously, what the fuck?"
Spencer goes APESHIT on her at this point, making all the people at all their little bistro tables wince and turn around and wish there were other restaurants on other streets, and also that there were other streets.
Holbrook: "Shit, was that blur the former Spencer Hastings? Did she hurt you?"
Hanna: "No. I am investigating her details and behaviors like Sir Arthur Murray taught you. And it is going very well."
Holbrook: "I got the impression she was the levelheaded one."
...In what fucking universe? You need to go back to Detecting school, my velvet-voiced friend, if that is the "impression" you have at any point received.
DILAURENTIS
Emily lies to Jessica about having lost an earring in Alison's room, which Jessica pushes back on because A) she is drunk and B) she is in there four hours a day dusting it and getting business advice from her dead daughter, but eventually she swans off into the house, leaving Emily to grab a handy scalpel (just no big dealin' right there on Alison's vanity), slice open the painting's back, snag an envelope inside, and then put it -- regrettably -- back on the wall to entrance and terrify once more.
In the envelope is a wad of Benjamins -- fifty of them, to be exact -- rubber-banded to a piece of loose-leaf with Alison's fucking psycho writing on it, to wit:
BarileVolante@PTmail.com
gye@ertweb.net
(212) 555-0185
Which, I don't know. They say later it's probably contact info for her network of safehouses across the country like how most teenage girls have, already set up in advance just in case they are buried under a gazebo, so we'll go with that.
CABIN
Ezra: "Just staring menacingly at some cans of chickpeas, how 'bout you?"
Aria: "I went around taking pictures of nothing and feeling arty. How 'bout you?"
Ezra, verbatim: "Vegetable tagine minus the actual tagine. And there's no lamb in it. I'm actually using chickpeas."
Aria, verbatim: "Oh, a night in Tunisia. So exotic!"
(Act Normal, Bitch!)
Ezra: "I hate everything about the people we choose to be."
He hides the chickpeas so she will go get more chickpeas and then the chickpeas start to glow with an unearthly glow and strange voices issue from the chickpeas and he takes the chickpeas and heads out ... tell me it's true ... yes, it's happening. He heads to the rug where the trapdoor is, and opens the trapdoor, and then we're in the Lair, and his Ezra legs are coming down the stairs, and another absolutely insane Gary Numan song is playing and then him and his wonderful hoodie are sitting down at a computer, chickpeas whispering softly nearby, as he opens an email from his accomplice full of pictures of everything Rosewood's been up to: Shana and Emily making sneaky plans to be helpful, Tweakenstein Hastings jitterbugging down the road, and so on.
We were dust in a world of grim obsession... / And the songs we sang, what became of us? / We're here waiting for you / We are yours / We're waiting for you / We are yours...
Ezra Fitz, you are full of beans today. Or I mean chickpeas. So exotic!
THE BREW
Emily: "I can't come bring you that life-saving money right now, I have to serve coffee. Can you not come here at my convenience?"
Shana: "Just do you have it?"
Emily: "It's a lot of money!"
Shana: "You should not have looked at it!"
Emily: "Come on."
Shana: "Think hard. Is there anywhere that you can put something for a short period of time where it won't be observed?"
Emily: "I've never had to put anything anywhere. I'm at a loss. It's my first day on Earth."
Shana: "Okay, well the idea is that because it's a bunch of money that will keep our friend from dying -- again -- you want to go ahead and put that somewhere, because people like money and they like to take money and then it's their money. Okay? So what we are trying to do is avoid that, for the duration of your shift where you will be behind the counter of a coffee shop or within line-of-sight of the counter. Oh, and make sure nobody sees you put it there, that's a key part of hiding things. Do you have any questions?"
Emily: "Nope, just a bag of coffee beans. It's no box of lasagna, but it'll do in a pinch. Now, vis-à-vis this money here. Should I leave it out somewhere where anybody could take it, or should I disguise it in some way? I just want to be clear before I let you go."
DET. HANNA
Sneaks into the Hastings home (via phone conversation with a hilariously imaginary Veronica) under the pretext of retrieving some nail polish. I think she's been wearing the same color for a few episodes now, so maybe she really does need nail polish. But guess what, not that's not really why she is sneaking in there. She is doing detecting.
SHANA
Is doing "getting kidnapped," by A, who chokes her right out before she can even get the stash from wherever Emily (hopefully) managed to hide it. Oh, Shana. It was your best episode ever, even though most of your scenes were either yelling or being yelled at over and over, "Do you have it? But do you have it? Where is it, do you have it? Just tell me you have it. Now I have to go!"
FITZGERALD
In the course of her investigation Hanna notices the intense googling that Spencer has been doing for Ezra Fitz and Fitzgerald over in Ravenswood, and is mystified. After noticing a new email from the leasing agent for Ezra's apartment -- where Malcolm hit his head that time, where we met #TheWrongFitz for that all-too-brief a moment, where paper grocery bags were adorned and donned in a twee sex ritual best left forgotten -- and realizing that Spencer is after not one but two Fitz pied-à-terres in the area, Hanna tracks her ass right there. To the one street of Rosewood. It's a short hunt.
Spencer, meanwhile, has jammed every intercom button on that motherfucker, so she can lie to the first possible person that answers that she has a flower delivery. "For me?" says the lonely lady on the third floor. "I've been waiting my whole life."
Hanna grabs her right before she gets inside, and straight up asks if she is on fucking drugs or what is happening, and Spencer fully evades like addicts are wont to do.
"Look one of Alison's stories kept on sticking in my brain and I finally figured it out and I went to the Hart & Huntsman and Ezra was there and he was eating the pie. The pie and the beer, Hanna, from the story, okay, it's called Board Shorts Ale and that's exactly what Fitz ordered when he was there and don't you get it? That's where Alison must have got the nickname!"
While Hanna is resistant at the beginning of this rant, by the end she's got that cockeyed thing where you know she's doing her private, wonderful Hanna math in there and deciding to follow this particular rabbit trail to its conclusion. Even if in this case the white rabbit in question is a Jefferson Airplane song that is not actually about rabbits.
Hanna: "Everything's all jumbled up in Ali's stories, what if you're connecting the wrong dots?"
Spencer: "Well, either way this is happening, so get on board or go home."
She breaks into the apartment with aplomb, but before they go inside she notices Ezra staring at her through a grate in the hallway, where a little camera is sending him back footage of every location in every place on the entire planet where there are little girls.
Ezra, sotto voce: "Walk away, Spencer..."
Spencer: "You know what, we're totally being watched and A is going to murder us and our loved ones if we go in there, so... Let's chalk this up to Study Aids and shake a tailfeather."
Hanna: "Oh, because we're being spied on. Got it. This is why my ass is going to Ravenswood in an hour. This junkie bullshit right here, I can't do it. I would rather take a bath with spiders that literally crawled out of a person's face then break into one more psycho's apartment this week."
CABIN
Aria: "Ezra? Where are you? Are you in your car outside watching little girls from every angle on a tablet computer?"
Ezra: "No, I'm here wearing several hoodies and looking marvelous and like a murderer. I was just doing some light reading."
Aria: "Oh, was it a novel? Or a short story? Or a play?"
Ezra: "Yes but none of them have titles."
Aria: "Why couldn't you sleep? Are you so worried about our love?"
Ezra: "That is exactly why, B-26."
Aria: "Okay, well. Stop making that face like you're about to come out to me."
Ezra: "How brainwashed do you have to get before I can make you be on the A-Team?"
Aria: "At this rate? Give it... Twenty minutes, I'd say? It's been two days and I'm still no closer to realizing I've been kidnapped, if that's any indication."
LIARMOOT
Spencer: "Because landlords don't hide cameras in upskirt position?"
Hanna: "It's true that A does like to do stuff like that. But Mr. Fitz? My head feels like it's quote full of hot ice cubes."
Liars: "Even for you, that was an amazing fucking thing to say right now."
Hanna: "But he was so cool to me when Ashley was in jail, and he helped Emily with whatever thing she had going on, with the various colleges and pain creams..."
Spencer: "Yeah, almost like he was trying to get up in our heads. Almost like he was acting like a total child molester, which we already know he is. Run it back in your head, I'll wait."
The question is, do we tell Aria? Do we not tell Aria? Spencer's whole life right now is just one single razor point about not telling Aria until it is for sure, and not wasting a second before that time because the wolf is already at the door -- hell, the call is coming from inside the house, in a big way -- so we already know what she thinks. Hanna and Emily are like, "Luckily, she lied to us that she's with Byron in Syracuse, so she's safe..."
Cut to: Ezra Fitz in a black hoodie holding a knife over her face in the dark, or whatever. Setting up traps around the house to catch her if she tries to leave. Home Alone-ing cans of chickpeas to swing down and conk her out if she makes one false move. Catching birds in his teeth, to lay bloody at her feet. "The better to accessorize with, my dear."
Emily: "In other news, I have a bag of coffee beans with an interesting story behind it."
Spencer: "Tell us everything! And make us coffee."
Hanna: "Ixnay on the affeine-cay, but do proceed."
Emily: "Well, it's getting-around money for Alison. But if she doesn't have it, then probably she will starve. But TV-show starve, where her hair looks like a million bucks anyway and she is a supermodel in a floating space-telephone booth."
Liars: "So let's give it to that asshole Shana like you were..."
Emily: "Uh, about that. She has vanished."
Hanna: "And Spencer, you said you were staking out his house all day..."
Spencer: "And all night! And forever! I can see it now in my superadrenalized extra senses!"
Hanna: "And he never came home. So probably what he was doing was abducting Shana, I'm thinking, so Shana can lead him to his prey!"
SHANA
Wakes up to a ringing phone: A very young-sounding and -acting, terrified, Alison DiLaurentis, hungry and scared and lonely and pathetic in her little phone booth. Shana takes a good long time coming around to consciousness, thanks to the evils of A, and when she finally does wake up she can't formulate a correct answer for Ali about the money before she sees where he parked her: In front of the Welcome to Rosewood sign, with a scrawled A message warning her to leave town and never come back.
Fantastically, she bails on the conversation with Ali in a perfunctory manner, and then pulls out her SIM card and battery and ditches the phone in her dust as she's leaving. Just tears hell out of there, which is sad, sad for Ali especially, but also pretty bad-ass. Like she came here and worked at the Halloween store (until Emily got her fired) and did all this superspy stuff, so now it's like she's been training her whole life to go instantly bug-out bag on this horrible place, and it's great. Later, babe. You really got me there at the end.
Here's what I think: She's not doing anything weird or hinky to them at all. I think she took a hard look at herself, and the bullshit she did to them, and realized that she had burned every single bridge, and -- in a way -- earned the stalking and horror that came her way. She has no idea how many different ways they've mourned her, or who to trust: Not even Emily, except through a proxy, and even that turned out poorly. And what was the first thing they said about it? "Obviously she is fucking with us, and you're too dumb to notice it." Exactly what her image of them -- resentful, spiteful, callous -- would have done.
Like the Jenna Thing again, from the other side: When they cornered Jenna about why she was always after them, at her wit's end she screamed that it was because they are scary as hell, and she had to get them first.
But this is ten times worse, because the horrible ideas she has about them all are exactly what she was trying to do in the first place: Make them awful and invulnerable, just like her. Dolls to play with, so she could be loved without having to love in return. There is no reason for anybody to forgive Alison, because she can't forgive herself, and so the Liars become just another part of the shadowy Enemy that Rosewood teaches you is made of: Everybody.
So all of that is going on when Ali gives up on the cash, thinks about missing her bus, refuses to sit still and wait for the Hunter, and gets on with what little money she's got left. And all of that is going on when she moves from Hopper space to Hopper space, the floating phonebooth to the dingy neon-lit bus, and heads off into the night, leaning her head exhausted on the window and giving in to sorrow, great sobbing heaps of it. You'd almost think she was a real live girl.
A-TAG
Ezra, down in that little Lair of his -- that little Liar of his upstairs, asleep -- takes a few minutes out of his busy day of whatever the fuck is ever going on to watch Dark Passage, a very twisty Bogie noir that ends up in a crazy twist about obsession and, essentially, shipper assholes ruining any given fandom.
WEEK
If you do enough Adderall eventually you gain the ability to time-travel, but lose the ability to see in color. A well-known side-effect, and in fact the main reason Study Aid is a Schedule II.
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.