Spencer and Toby are making out heterosexually. Spencer tells him he’s going to make a good authority figure, and the broader contextual timing makes that an even weirder thing to say. But she really wants to talk about Caleb because he’s looked haunted ever since he came back from Ravenswood, and Toby tells her it’s the look of someone with a short-lived spin-off. No one makes any puns on the word “spirits,” which feels like a gross oversight.
Spencer and Hanna are on the phone not passing the Bechdel test. They’re plotting something to help Caleb, but Hanna is preoccupied by the run-in with Tanner to be too enthused. She tells Spencer that Tanner thinks they killed Bethany Young, which seems like a generous extrapolation to me, but sometimes on this show, you have to just believe what the characters tell you is going on.
A package arrives, and it’s from Melissa! It’s the video Melissa made in the last episode! Ahh!
The facts are these: The night Ali “died,” Melissa saw Spencer fighting with Ali and carrying the shovel. Later, she saw a body but was too afraid to look at her face. Assuming it was Alison and assuming she was dead and in an attempt to save Spencer, Melissa buried the body. It later came to light that the body was actually Bethany Young and that she wasn’t dead after all.
Whoops.
Later, Spencer is looking haunted, but she’s also about to get Intervention Dinner with Caleb, Hanna and Toby, so she’s visibly trying to pull herself together. Hanna is freaking out, and Toby tells her to play it cool, so of course as soon as Caleb walks in the door, Toby verbally pins him to a wall about whatever is wrong with him.
Later, the guys talk amongst themselves while Hanna and Spencer sit at the bar and talk about love.
Spencer: Sometimes people want to tell you things, but they just can’t look you in the eye and say it.
Hanna: Why not?
Spencer: Because they’re afraid of what you’ll think of them.
#spanna
Toby and Caleb talk about Ravenswood, and I have pastel-colored flashbacks to when Buffy would talk about things that happened on Angel even though I wasn’t watching it. Caleb gets frustrated and leaves.
Back at the Brew where Emily apparently still works, Paige is all femmed out and is picking up TWO coffees.
It’s a hard moment for Emily, seeing Paige head out on what’s is most likely a date. Her face is definitely that of someone who’s going to cry about this while watching early Alice/Dana scenes later.
Then we army-crawl over to some sort of theater situation that’s full of people who are very committed to ambiguous, vaguely noir-themed period costumes. Aria has to sit next to Mona, which bums her out, but not as much as her dad’s fedora bums ME out. Neither of those bum me out quite as much as seeing Paige walk in with Professor Umbridge on her arm, though.
Siiiiiiiiiiigh.
The movie starts, and I swear to god I thought Aria was going in for the kiss with Mona?
You guys, this show is so weird. Instead, Aria whispers something to her, which Mona visibly reacts to and has to excuse herself.
Later, Aria goes to check on Mona and finds her crying in the bathroom! Whoops.
Mona says’s always been just trying to protect herself and that everything is grossly unfair and that she should’ve died when she went over that cliff (foreshadowing?) and she really likes Mike even though she knows he deserves better.
Mona: Maybe you won’t believe this, but I’ll say it anyway: When she finishes with me, she’ll come after you and the others. She can’t trust you anymore. Not after Cyrus and not after New York.
I’m gonna be honest, I was surprised when she said that, even though I know I shouldn’t have been.
Meanwhile, Emily and Ezra are meeting to discuss the Mysterious Mystery of Alison DiLamystery, i.e. Ezra did some basic Googling and found some minor dirt on Cyrus. He committed some petty crimes but nothing intense enough that Ali would be able to blackmail him into corroborating her insane kidnapping story. The mysterious mystery continues!
Spencer made it home in one piece and is watching Melissa’s video on repeat. It’s a gut-punch. What can Spencer do now that she knows that the truth is harder to process than the mystery?
She cries, and I wish I could give her a hug.
There is a quick, boring scene where Aria tells her dad that Mike and Mona are just a couple of crazy kids who are gonna make it after all. But then Lieutenant Tanner is at the door to ask Byron some questions. What is Tanner’s home life like, do you think? Do you think she has a cat? She seems like a dog person, but her work hours are maybe too crazy for that.
Tanner comes in and tells Byron she just wants to talk. He’s upset that she keeps “harassing” the girls and accuses her of not doing her job, which is crazy since she’s doing her job right now, in the dead of night. She tells him that homicide cases are supposed to get simpler as they go along, and the fact that this one is getting more complicated means someone is fucking with her. But don’t worry, apparently one of the girls is going to come forward with the whole truth! Aria, who is obviously listening in, is like FUCKING SHIT GOD DAMN IT.
Caleb stumbles into his eternally unlocked apartment to pack some things and probably skip town? Or something? But Hanna, who had been sitting in the dark for an hour so she could have this moment (I love her), flips on the light and busts him. He tells her to fuck off, and she tells him they have to work on trusting each other otherwise he might as well leave.
Caleb’s response is to explain the series finale of Ravenswood, which I still don’t understand. I didn’t watch that show. This scene is confusing and a monument to the failure of Ravenswood as a whole.
All I know is that Caleb feels like he’s fucked up after living through whatever that was, and there is officially a supernatural element in Rosewood. The Ouija Board is real. Rosewood might as well be Bon Temps or Sunnydale, at this point, since introducing the supernatural opens up possibilities that we can’t even guess at.
Later, Aria is talking to Spencer and Emily about what Tanner said, and they all agree that it’s gotta be Ali prepping to tell another giant lie to the cops. Emily shows them the kidnap-story-ruining evidence that Ezra unearthed, and Spencer is like I CAN DO YOU ONE BETTER and shows them Melissa’s tape.
Emily and Aria continue to live in a world of constant surprise and wonder, and the three girls posit theories about how Bethany could’ve ended up wearing Alison’s clothes. Seriously, it’s a little like watching the writer’s room try to figure it out simultaneously. They agree that something weird is going on! Oh man!
And that’s she wrote for this week! Next week is the mid-season finale, so I will be liveblogging it here, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. Apparently someone is going to die, so gird your loins for that party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF27rVV2jtQ
