This week on Pretty Little Liars we set ourselves up for the big season finale. Let’s build all the tension!
We open on the grim sad grey walls of Radley where the Liars are finally visiting Spencer. Honey Badger, aka Spencer, don’t give a shit.
The girls aren’t just here for chit-chat and feel betters, they actually have big news. The police found a body out in the woods! Except it wasn’t TobAy’s body. It was some other bro. Probably because TobAy is definitely not dead and this is just the most obnoxious ploy ever.
The Liara want Spencer to come home but she’s so super not ready. I feel like this complete personality change doesn’t make any sense, even in light of the TobAy break-up freakout. Old Spencer would be shitting her pants at the lost college application time.
Back in her room, Spencer has something under her pillow. Is it a knife? A bow and arrow? A huge dildo? An illogical yet effective lesbian plot line for this show? Those all sound pretty impossible. Regardless, we won’t find out yet.
Back at Emily’s house, she and Hanna act all Odd Couple, as though they’ve never had a sleepover. Which is off since they lived together last season for some long but ultimately undetermined amount of time.
Hanna is still wicked worried that Wilden is hot on her tail what with her sinking his car and all. Emily, on the other hand, thinks there’s nothing to worry about because, contrary to popular belief and the movie Cars, Honda Civics don’t just un-sink themselves.
Pam rocks up so that she and Emily can marvel at what a disgusting slob Hanna is. Why are the pretty, put together ones also the messiest? Is that a thing? Then Pam dishes out more of that awesome parenting advice that she and Ella both read in Rosewood Parenting Monthly (subscriptions now only $19.99 per year).
Over at Le Petite Cafe Petite, Aria and Ezra share a Krispie Kreme donut. The two discuss going back in the Inappropriate Age Closet. Aria thinks they should be on the DL as long as Ezra is teaching again. Ezra, on the other hand wants them to be here, queer and for corporate sponsors to get the hell used to it.
Just then, Ezra gets a call from Maggie. She needs Ezra to pick up Malcolm at Karate the following day. I’m starting to hate that kid Malcolm, but only really because I misspelled his name “Malcome” fourteen times before realizing it. Unfortunately, Ezra has a second interview for a substitute teaching job, which is funny because last time I checked the only credentials you needed to sub were a pulse and to not be currently fucking a high school student. Oh.
Aria volunteers to babysit Malcolm and Ezra agrees even though the last time she babysat Malcolm literally busted his face place.
Outside the school, Hanna and Caleb do more of that lesbian shit where they talk about all of their feelings about Caleb’s dad.
Starsweep to the locker set of Rosewood High, Emily is getting text messages from Shana. And Paige is out of town. Aria immediately identifies this as sexy time crush texting and Emily can barely deny it without her ovaries bursting forth with lesbionic love waves. I know we all love Paige now and forever, but this is one step closer to seeing Emily hug Shana with her legs in friendship. I wouldn’t say no to that.
Hanna meets up with the other two and Emily convinces her and Aria to come check out the body at the morgue. Hanna doesn’t have anything important to contribute, but she does drop this little gem.
Back over at Radley, the only doctor in town shows up. That’s right, Wren hits the scene! Just in time to because Lamb the Orderly has just given Spencer some complicated MonA board game.
Wren peaces out and Spencer takes a better look at MonA’s board game. She realizes it’s actually a map. A map for sneaking out of Radley through a window. I would be a hell of a lot more excited about this if abcFamily would stop telling me to tweet #MonasMap. I know what a map is, abcFamily, I saw Treasure Planet.
Over in Ella’s Classroom of Language and Love, Ella pulls Hanna aside. Ella can’t get ahold of Ashley because she’s out of town and everyone knows cell phones don’t work in New York City. Ella goes against the logic any parent might use ever and tells Hanna that Jamie potentially stole a church bell and replaced it with a cheap knock-off. To the tune of one hundreds thousand million billion dollars. Why is a church spending so much on a bell anyways? Aren’t there underserved who need serving in Rosewood?
Hanna and Caleb have dinner with Jamie which would be super nice if we didn’t know that Ella thinks Jamie is a snake who tried to sell the city of Rosewood on a monorail and a bunch of invisible instruments.
Jamie even gives Hanna a thank you necklace which would also be super nice if it wasn’t clear that this is not a girl who lets middle age men pick out her accessories. Jamie gets a phone call and leaves the dinner table. You can see the metaphorical shit launching into the air towards a window fan on the other side of the room.
When Jamie returns to the dinner table he has horrible but predictable news. He’s been fired for potential theft!
Meanwhile, Mama Hastings shows up at Radley to try to bring Spencer home. Spencer is sort of not really okay at all and wants to stay. All of the Pretty Little Liars usually crazy Spencer schtick aside, it’s actually a good scene. I can’t help but think of how many times overbearing mothers have tried to drag their type A, high-achieving, over-extended, bursting at the seams daughters out of mental hospital.
Mama Hastings presses Spencer to tell her what in grape juice’s name is going on with her. She remarks that the last time she saw someone “hold on to secret so tightly” it was Ali. Before she DIED. Obviously.
Cue the fuzzy pastel flashback.
We zoom in on Mama Hastings up for a little wake and bake when Alison shows up at the door with a bloody lip.
She was supposed to be in Spencers bedroom but she had snuck out momentarily. Ali begged Mama Hastings not to say anything and keep the whole encounter a secret. And then she DIED. That’s right kids, the moral of the story is that lying gets you dead. Wait. I think I just figured out this TV show.
Timewarp into the night where the Liars are back in their candy striper outfits. Why? To please us, I think. And to track down the John Doe found out in the woods!
The Liars have snuck into the morgue using their Mary-Kate and Ashley detective kits and a stolen medical ID. At least I assume so since the the whole hospital/morgue break-in took place off screen. Someone please inform the PLL writers that you need about a million ID clearance swipes to get to a morgue. Or into a hospital.
Hanna, scared that the body might be actually be TobAy’s, suggests they just look for his tattoo. Because there is only one of every tatto and there’s no way to give a tatto to a dead person. Anyways the girls get nervous that someone is coming and finally just unzip the bag and it’s Alison!
Just kidding it’s one of those freaky Alison masks. They pull it off and I think it’s not TobAy based on the Liars reactions, but I can’t be sure because all white guys look the same to me.
The sun rises on Radley, home of the best metal healthcare in Pennsylvania. Lamb shows up again and Spencer brings up the board game and Wren. Lamb is pretty tight lipped. He won’t give Spencer any details on the game. He pretty much hates Wren and thinks he’s a bad dude. That being said, I still think Lamb is probably drugging Spencer with all those pills. Or is he?!
Good thing Spencer is cheeking her pills!
Outside school, Hanna and Caleb have a little heart to heart. Well Caleb wants to talk about all of his feelings but Hanna wants to study and ignore them. C’mon Hanna, Caleb needs to talk about this!!
Caleb feels like the church committee is fucking with his dad for no good reason. Hanna feels like if he stole that dice dice baby dollar from the church collection box there must be more theft afoot. Caleb has a lot of feelings about it.
At Malcolm’s Karate class, Aria shows up to play Mommy Pick-up. The Karate instructor informs her that Malcolm has already been picked up. By Aria Montgomery. Oh fuck that’s Aria! Obviously this means Malcolm is with A. The annoying thing is that Malcolm knows who Aria is. She’s his babysitter. You would think he would have said something. Unless Aria has a secret evil twin we don’t know about!
According to a flyer in his cubby, A took Malcolm to a carnival. Did I say a carnival? Because I mean the creepiest carnival ever. Lets take a minute to explore the things Aria encountered as she approached my worse nightmare ever.
Aria runs all over the fairgrounds looking for Malcolm, but surprisingly, runs into her mother. This is never explained or rationalized. Unless it’s cleared up in the next episode I’m going to assume Holly Marie Combs had an extra 3 minutes of screen time in her contract to kill.
Elsewhere, Orderly Lamb and Dr. Wren have a run-in outside Spencer’s room. Lamb wants to give Spencer a book but Wren is like, “Bro, back off, there’s only room in Spencer life for one age inappropriate man and that’s me.”
Wren: We’re not having the same problem, are we?
Sounds to me like Orderly Lamb and MonA were getting down with their bad selves mental hospital style.
Caleb’s dad comes by Hanna’s house for god knows what reason. He says he’s been running all over the place trying to figure out where the real bell went. Odd isn’t, that the good people of Rosewood would jump to firing the contractors before anyone’s made a single call to the shop.
Caleb confronts him about the dice dollars and Jamie explains that he was given that as a cash upfront for his service and the both laugh the whole thing off. Just kidding, Caleb just blows up at his dad without explanation. He also cries a bunch and brings up a few very valid points about how being a good father tends to include not abandoning your kid.
Adults in Rosewood are unable to control their own emotions or act like grown-ups and Jamie stomps out. Why is this plot line taking so long?
At the carnival, Malcolm is, yup, still missing. If only they’d installed a tracking device in this kid. Aria decides she’s going to go to the police. A doesn’t much like police, so just then Aria notices a puppet show.
She walks in and Malcolm is sitting alone claiming that the next show is about to start. Aria is confused as to why Malcolm didn’t wait for her, but he’s all like, “Nah, this shit is NBD. I go with strangers all the time.” He is literally the most docile kid ever. Which is weird because last episode he was bouncing off the walls and right into the hospital. Then again, earlier this season he was played by a totally different actor. So.
This would be a really good time to bust out your cell phone and show Malcolm pictures of the people you know and ask him which person picked him up. Or ask the Karate instructor. Wait. What the fuck was Ella doing there? Could Ella be A?! Nah, Piper would never do that to us.
Emily shows up to the police station in a super fresh leather jacket. Aria texts in the knick of time that Malcolm is A-OK so Emily is left without a good reason for being there. Pam is unimpressed. She’s trying to cultivate a high powered career here Emily! She can’t have her teen dramarama daughter showing up all the time!
Spencer sneaks out of her room in a babydoll nighty. I’m not sure if Radley is supplying the most inappropriate nightgowns ever or if Spencer has just been ordering her clothes from the American Girl Catalogue.
Spencer follows Mona’s map downstairs to that room where MonA lead the Liars a million billion years ago during her stint at Radley. Spencer finds Ali going through old records. I love how seeing Ali isn’t even surprising anymore. Whether she’s an illusion or a twin or not dead, this Ali seem to be an incarnation of our favorite version of Ali, Gay-Ali. They slow dance, I assume to KC and Jo-Jo’s I’ll Make Love to You. This is high school after all.
Ali leads Spencer to a rocking horse. The horse has a detachable head (a mighty fine feature if I do say so myself) and it’s filled with MonA’s old ID badges and visitor passes for sneaking people in and out. Just then Wren walks in.
Aria and Ezra meet up for dinner. Aria looks like she needs a huge glass of wine. Why? Because she almost got Ezra’s kid killed. Ezra doesn’t care though. Malcolm reported all’s clear in the atmosphere. Aria tries to break things off with Ezra and he’s like “Nah, we got this.” Except Aria is actually totally serious and wants out. I wonder how long until she shacks up with Wesleywolf.
This is how his face goes.
Back in Spookyville, Spencer freaks out at Wren, pointing out that he signed a vistors pass for Cece to enjoy a conjugal visit with MonA. Wren explains that Ali got Cece kicked out of college for “some stunt she pulled at a frat party.” I’m going to assume this is referring to the time Alison pushed some girl down the stairs at one of Ian’s parties. Wren thought Cece could help MonA heal her pain. Clearly, Wren thought wrong.
Pam pulls Emily aside and tells her that she knows something that Emily can’t tell her friends. Like Pam will lose her job level can’t tell her friends. Which is dumb because Pam knows Hanna will be back soon. Adults on this show need to stop telling teenagers not to tell their friends stuff. That’s just not how teenagers work.
Either way, Pam tells Emily they found another body out in the woods. One with “significant damage to the body” which I’m pretty sure means no nose. Gross. Anyways they won’t know more until the morning even though they’ve already had a report that TobAy’s been murdered and they have his prints on file. Rosewood literally has the most incompetent police of all time.
Hanna and Caleb follow everyone else in town to the carnival. I mean, they don’t go into the carnival, that would mean potentially making new friends and these two have some episodes of True Blood to Netflix and a serious knitting project to work on when they get home. They’re just stopping for a coffee nearby.
Caleb is upset and feels stupid for giving his dad a second chance. I’m pretty furious his dad isn’t even calling to try to explain himself. Just then, of course, A texts Hanna revealing that she was behind it all along. Yup, this plot line of shit continued its journey across the living room over the coffee table and finally collided with the fan we spotted like four episodes ago.
Caleb goes off to chase down his dad and Hanna meets up with Aria to commiserate. What bad luck they’ve been having. It’s almost like someone is plotting against them.
Emily, doing the opposite of what her mom said, runs over and tells her friends that they found another body. Great, now they think TobAy is dead too. Guys. He’s fucking faking it. Clearly.
Back in her room at Radley, Spencer eyes her little baggie of pills. For a terrifying second I thought she was going to take them all, but she doesn’t. Instead she reaches in her pillowcase again and pulls something else out. Oh, and a black hoodie and tickets to a puppet show. Because, according to a voice over, Spencer’s officially on the A team.
Wait. Was Spencer giving her pills to Malcolm?! Did they drug the little kid? Bold move A-Team. Bold move. Letting someone see you and know you’re A. Someone who’s unpredictable and hard to control like a kid? That’s like asking to get caught.
In fact, I think that’s entirely what’s going on here. I think the A-Team isn’t really letting Spencer in. If they did she wouldn’t still have questions for Wren. Plus then she would know that TobAy isn’t really dead. So the A-Team is just playing Spencer for a fool, trying to get her caught by the other Liars so that they can’t even trust each other anymore.
This makes perfect sense as a set-up for next episode. First the Liars will bust Spencer for helping the A-Team. I. Marlene King promised Red Coat and potentially also another A would get revealed next episode, but even if Spencer figures it out, the other Liars won’t believe her.
Top contenders for the A-Team?
1. Ali’s Evil Twin
2. Cece
3. That guy who knew Emily’s name who will turn out to be someone’s secret love child.
4. Lamb
5. Wren
I’ve specifically left Shana and Paige of this list in hopes that the Gay TV Gods supply us with a rockin’ lezzie threesome.
In our final cut scene it’s revealed that whoever Spencer saw out there may have had TobAy’s tattoo, but it was a lick and stick. Obviously. Because TobAy is totally totally totally still alive.
Tune in next week for the season finale when everything I’ve predicted all season long will turn out to be true and I will reign supreme, shouting “I told you so” from the rooftops.
Re “PLEASE DON’T TELL ANYONE I’M ALMOST THIRTY AND STILL TRYING TO PLAY A NINTH-GRADER,” that would be true of almost all of the other actors playing teenagers on this show, but Sasha Pieterse, who plays Alison, only turned 17 last month!
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, that means she has another 15 years of playing a ninth grader still in her.
What?!?! How did I miss this. I guess she can play Ali forever then.
Yeah, I think only Troian is pushing 30. The other girls seem to be <25.
I hope “best metal healthcare” was intentional
Re: the most hardcore music healthcare ever.
Re-cap lesbian Caleb is probably my favorite character…ever.
Sometimes I’m not even sure anymore if he’s actually as lesbian as I think he is or if I’m just seeing him that way.
This was a convoluting episode, again, but I like the boldness of Spencer kidnapping Malcolm. And I cheered when Aria told Ezra that it’s over.
(p.s. Cro-Magnon refers to Anatomically Modern Humans, so, congrats, you said that Toby looks human)
I thought it sort of referred to Early Modern Humans. He’s not a neanderthal, just a good old fashioned caveman.
Ahh, that makes sense. Sorry for assuming you were going with the outdated insult of calling someone a Neanderthal.
I love whenever Pam is on. Nia Peeples is still one fine looking woman. The Fields really are the hottest family in Rosewood.
Pretty sure Shana is on the A-Team or A-team adjacent because of her role on the official “Pretty Dirty Secrets” webshow that ran before the Halloween episode. It stared Shana and she was constantly making sketch phone calls and sent text pics of each of the girls’ costumes to someone. I hope not, but it seems like that’s what’s going on.
Also pretty sure CeeCee is red coat and Wren is A-Team. I want to trust Lamb over the guy hitting on an underage girl.
You’re probably right regarding Shana and the A-Team, but I’m really hoping for leg hugging anyways.
Pretty sure the random dead guy wearing the Ali mask was actually Spencer’s private investigator – the one she hired to trail Toby, and who we haven’t seen for a few episodes now.
If Spencer is on the A team, it’s obviously not to betray her friends, but to gather information and bring the A team down from the inside. Mona is obviously way to smart to allow that to happen. I think you’re right that she’s not letting Spencer all the way in – she’s invited Spencer to join the A team as a way to divide and conquer the liars, and Spencer kidnapping Malcolm was just an initiation. Aria’s going to find out from Malcolm that it was Spencer who picked him up at karate, and that’s why the freakout about Spencer being on the A team. Spencer will eventually let the liars in on what she’s doing.
If you really want to wander freely around a hospital (or almost anywhere really), put on some cargo pants, grab a computer tower and some cables, and go on your way.
I work in IT, and I’ve almost never been asked what I’m doing anywhere. Everyone sees the cables, and assumes I am where I should be. (Which I am, because I’m not a criminal)
Boys II Men sing “I’ll Make Love to You.” K-Ci and JoJo sing “All My Life.” I am not sure why I know this, but it may or may not stem from the fact that both of them are on my iPod.
I think Spencer is Big A in some weird twist…I’m rewatching Season 1 and she acts so weird the night Allison disappears, and then in episode 3 she knows all about the trees and how many steps to the shed…
ARIA IS TOTALLY BIG A, PLACING BETS NOW.
(I too love recap lesbian Caleb.)
By the end of the episode I was cheering for Caleb as my favorite (even over Emily) Lesbian on the show. Then I remembered Emily’s mad crush on Ali and the fact that Emily, despite her pretty lame tactics, always seems to be ready to do some investigating into Ali’s death. So, Emily still wins, but Hannah and Caleb are gayer than the majority of my current gay couple friends and I love it.
As for A and the whole plot, wherever it is leading. I’m going to bank on Ali’s twin being revealed. SHe’s not A though, she’s on a seperate anti-A team that Mona has been “helping,” with even though Mona doesn’t really want to. So I don’t think there will be an evil twin Ali, but a nice one OR Ali is still alive and her twin was the one that was killed.
Mellisa Hastings may have something to do with the nice A team, she’s been in too many easy to get the girls situations to be on the real A team I think, but then again she could be since she has pretty good reasons to dislike Ali, her sister, and anyone involved, especially Wren.
Spencer obvs won’t go totally bad though I really wish she would, I don’t know why, but I wish she would. IF it ended up that Spencer was indeed affected by mental issues and blocked out that she was the one that killed Ali, and had been doing all sorts of crazy A stuff, that would be fine with me.
I stopped watching this show in November, but sometimes still enjoy reading these. What does everyone think, should I tune back in and get myself caught up? :)
Yes I would definately tune in to watch it is totally worth it!
I vote yes but clearly I’m skewed!
I work in a hospital and it is actually surprisingly easy to get everywhere, including the morgue. I am pretty sure if you are wearing scrubs and look unassuming, you would have zero problem getting in.
Believe it or not, the girl who plays Alison is a teenager?