Oh guess who showed up!?! It’s Caleb The Lesbian Man, dressed as Romeo, if Romeo shopped at Structure in 1992.
Mony Mona’s in tow, hogging all the credit for his presence, and thusly Hanna loves the hell out of Mony Mona and thusly Mony Mona comes in her pants.
Spencer wisely observes this noble exchange and hops on the Mony Mona train:
Spencer: “I don’t know why you hide behind that layer of superficial bitch, but you are a great friend to Hanna.”
Mona: “That means more to me than you’ll ever know. Thanks to Allison, I went years without any friends.”
Spencer: “We never stood up to her. I’m sorry for that.”
Mona: “I quit thinking about that stuff a long time ago. It’s funny, today I just couldn’t get her out of my mind.”
Which brings us to a flashback between Dorky Mona (indicated by glasses and a mildly stodgy turtleneckish fisherman-sweater Laney Boggs situation) and Ali/Vivian Darkbloom at That Cute Vintage Shop in Brookhaven, which apparently is open 24/7, has no salesclerks, and is creepier than a deserted Contempo Casuals.
Basically, Vivian/Ali’s hiding from somebody and endears Dorky Mona, who’s salivating like a baby in a stroller wheeling by an ice cream store, to keep it all a super secret. In a move so unlike Dorky Mona that one might question this tale’s veracity, Dorky Mona’s willing to keep her lips sealed but demands something from Victor/Victoria/Vivian/Ali in return.
“I want to be popular,” says Dorky Mona, and Ali’s like, here, and rips up that Lost Woods Resort postcard and writes a phone number on it. It’s probs 1-215-POPULAR.
We return to the present day and Mona recalling: “I left her a message that night, but then she went all MIA on us…”
Anyhow, enough of this rapid plot development — it’s time for Mystery Guest #2!
Ezra: “No matter how hard I try, I can’t stay away from you.”
Okay, firstly: gross. Actually, that’s all I have to say about this: gross.
Meanwhile, Spencer’s in absolute heat over the A-Game and has busted that ball in favor of hauling out to The Lost Forest Woods Spookytown Scareville Resort with Mony Mona, having put two and 800 together and determined that A may in fact LIVE/work at The Lost Forest Woods Spookytown Scareville Resort, or something.
This leaves Dateless Emily alone in a sea of masked schoolmates, fending helplessly for herself in a dress made from The Little Mermaid’s shredded vaginal walls.
Pedo Ezra and Starria dance and say gross things to each other during, I think, a Taylor Swift song, which is not just a feminist nightmare but an overall all-around undeniably cruel nightmare.
Smear to The Lost Forest Woods Spookytown Scareville Resort, where Spencer’s clue-digging and having high tea at 10PM with the weirdo hotel owner and his two desk lamps. This is all part of some plan I forgot about that involves getting into A’s alleged lair in room one or two or 666 or whatever.
Skip on back to the dance, where Dateless Emily suddenly finds a hand upon her shoulder and WHO COULD IT BE?
HEY-O!
It’s Paige! Last time we shacked up with Paige I mentioned that she’d never looked better, but I spoke too soon. She looks even BETTER now.  Paige is doing that cute thing girls sometimes do when they come out wherein she begins to experiment more fluidly with gender and goddamn does she look nice in that suit, bravo. If Emily wasn’t clinging so hard — yet also so ambivalently — to Batshit Maya, then these two would make a smashing pair.
Yet we must flash back to The Lost Forest Woods Spookytown Scareville Resort where Mona and Spencer are creeping into A’s Romantic Hideaway while I yell THERE’S GONNA BE A SHRINE PHOTO SHRINE WITH THE NEWSPAPERS ABOUT BEING MISSING SITUATION SHRINE STALKER SHRINE because I mean, duh, I’ve probably seen 56 episodes of Criminal Minds over the last three months, and I’ve also seen the Naomi Stalker Shrine (Skins), the Maxxie Stalker Shrine (also Skins), the entirety of One Hour Photo, every episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit so duh duh duh to all of this crazy-ass A-ness.
+
+
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So, there’s that.
Annnnd back we go to Rosewood High’s Masked Midnight Garden Ball of Good and Evil But Mostly Evil, where Emily and her two facial expressions are chilling in the secret garden, reminiscing about picnics with Paige and the good ol’ days before Batshit Maya returned to scare Emily’s Mom and then vanish into the ether.
Paige: “Sorry about the other night.”
Emily: “It’s okay, forget about it.”
Paige: “That’s the thing, I don’t want to forget about it.”
Me neither! I mean, this masked-murder-mystery mashup stuff is super-suspenseful and interesting, but Paige’s exuding such splendid dapperness this evening and I’d really like them to make this happen, pronto. Surely Emily could use a pick-me-up, considering Pedo Ezra and Caleb The Lesbian Man are getting their jollies all over the fake lagunas and swamplands currently adorning the Rosewood High gymnasium. How about a little lesbian action, you know?
Paige:Â “We have a connection, you can’t deny that.”
Emily: “We did, but I–”
Paige: “I get it. I messed it up.”
Emily: “You weren’t ready, and that’s okay.”
Paige: “I wish I’d fought harder for you.”
Emily: “Sorry, Paige.”
Paige: “I didn’t tell you so you’d be sorry. I just wanna be honest. And I care about you. So I’ll be here for you. For whatever you need.”
Oh good! Let’s start with Emily’s bra! I think it’s too small, b/c her boobs look smashed. Someone should remove that. Also, there’s this body bag situation…
Honestly, we’ve all known what Paige knows now from the second her and Emily split up and Paige rowed into a river that’d lead right into a lake of regret. It’s nice that we’re all here splashing around together now as a family.
Emily: “What I need right now is a friend.”
Paige: “It’s official. We’re friends.”
Emily: “That makes me happy.”
Paige shoots Emily intense sexy eyes that would probably remove my pants via Jedi Lesbian mind force, but Emily’s wearing a dress, so let’s get back to that shrine!
Back at the Allison DeLaurentis Memorial Hideaway, Mony Mona’s got her gay little fingers all over what she determines must be A’s costume…
Mony Mona and Spencer agree that A is at the masked ball dressed as The Black Swan.
Me:Â “What did she just say?”
My girlfriend: “A is the black swan.”
Me: “A is Natalie Portman?”
My girlfriend:Â “Wouldn’t that be funny, if they were like, SURPRISE! It’s Natalie Portman!”
A’s got a multi-faceted curiosity shop going on in there, chock-full of the best stalker shit a girl/boy/gender-variant person can buy:
Spencer’s obviously eating this shit up, as it’s the Mystery jackpot, and there is just so so so much to look at. Â Spencer finds Ali’s diary and it turns out Ali’s true calling was to be a columnist for YM circa 1995:
“Everyone at school is going to be so jealous of me — if they aren’t already. Just wait til I spend the day next week shopping wth my Mom. I will be getting in all the newest trends from all the best stores. It is going to be so much fun rubbing it in everyone’s faces!”
– Alison Dilaurentis
“Aria’s Dad is cheating on her Mom! I LOVE it! I mean, it sucks for Aria, but I’m a sucker for drama.”
– Alison Dilaurentis
Three seconds/minutes/hours ago, Mony Mona had charitably offered Spencer a stick of chewing gum and thus when Spencer discovers the weak and likely rapidly-dissolving gum wrapper currently functioning as a bookmark in the diary, Spencer’s wily mind puts it all together and realizes that Oh My Fucking God, Mony Mona is A.
“You know what, I think I’ll have some of that gum after all,” says Spencer, and, despite oh-so-recently possessing said gum on her person, Mony Mona must dash to the vehicle to fulfill Spencer’s request…
…and back at Rosewood High’s Masked Midnight Garden Ball of Good and Evil But Mostly Evil, the Liarz are perched atop a jungle cruise, hunting for the Black Swan they’ve been informed about via mobile technology, I think. However it’s a crazed sea of masked adolescents and pedophile teachers and the bitch is hard to spot.
Guess who it is? Okay, I’ll tell you: it’s Jenna! Jenna is The Black Swan!
Hanna: “Tall, size 2. I hate her already.”
Beguiled by the masked mobs, the Liarz are unable to know what you and me know (that Jenna is the black swan), and they’re confused even further when Black Swan starts chit-chatting to Lucas. Mouth agog, Hanna mutters —Â “they’re all in this together…”
ANDDDD, we return to the the Alison DeLaurentis Memorial Hideaway, where Spencer’s spookily all like, “You didn’t call Hanna, did you? Because you’re A.” DUM DUM DUM.
 Mona: “Congratulations Spencer, you figured it out.”
Before Spencer can add that accomplishment to her intelligence roster, Mony Mona smacks Spencer in the face and carts her into an SUV for a little midnight ride towards Sketchy Lane with a detour towards Spooky Cove with an ultimate destination of The Dark Dark River.
Back at Rosewood High’s Masked Midnight Garden Ball of Good and Evil But Mostly Evil, Hanna discovers — vis a vis Emily, that wise techno-savy sage — that the phone Mona lent Hanna to use after Hanna threw hers in a bucket of dishwater has been set up to record everything Hanna says, all the time. Nice one, Mony Mona!
BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
So now we’re cutting back and forth between The Liars and Mony Mona’s Torpedo Death Car —
Crazy Mona: “I had to get you out here alone so we could talk.”
Spencer:Â “Just slow down, okay? Let’s talk.”
Crazy Mona:Â “You had to earn it– the right ot be a part of it.”
Spencer:Â “You didn’t see Ali in Brookhaven. She saw you, didn’t she? You just made that story up.”
Mony Mona: “We’re in this together now. I admire you Spencer, that’s why you get to decide how this ends tonight, you can join the a-team or you can disappear.”
— and The Rosewood High Masked Midnight Garden Ball of Good and Evil But Mostly Evil, where The Liarz maniacally dial Spencer and Spencer covertly answers Aria’s call, thus enabling The Liarz to hear Spencer/Mona’s entire convo via the magic of mobile technology.
Spencer: “You … you almost killed Hanna, she’s my friend, I thought she was your friend too.”
Crazy Mona: “It’s easier to forgive an enemy than it is to forgive a friend.”
Spencer:Â “How did you do it? How could you be everywhere? You were always one step ahead of us.”
Hanna: (at the dance, heartbroken)Â “Mona’s “A.”
And Hanna is, you know, a bit tore up over this, likely questioning every decision she’s ever made, but isn’t everybody — I mean, this is the part where you have to rewind and replay everything that happened between back then and right now and that’s a long, troubling, life-scarring process — if any of these girls even have scar tissue left to spare at this point.
Mona:Â “You’re not the only genius in this car. You bitches underestimated me.”
Spencer:Â “You’re never gonna make it to Lookout Point if you don’t slow down.”
Crafty Spencer, dropping the locale for her friends and good news! Aria “Mapquest” Montgomery knows “a shortcut” to Grandmother’s House and also to Lookout Point! Time for a wild goose chase!
Crazy Mona’s taking tight turns, Mr. Toad’s-Wild-Ride-Style, and Spencer is remaining calm and strategic amidst the storm because Spencer is a goddess like that.
Spencer: “Is this some kind of payback? Because we let Ali treat you like that?”
Crazy Mona: “I am so over Ali. I told you. She was never my friend, but Hanna was. And you bitches took her from me.”
Spencer: “This is about betrayal–”
Crazy Mona: “This isn’t about betrayal, Spencer, it’s about revenge!”
Spencer: “What happens if i don’t join the team?”
Crazy Mona:Â “Melissa doesn’t have your dad’s gun. I do. When Ali left, it pulled you guys apart. It’ll be the same if you go away.”
Spencer:Â “No, it won’t.”
So, let’s recap: Mony Mona is A, but Mony Mona isn’t the only A, ’cause there’s an A-Team, and Mony Mona isn’t the black swan, Jenna is the Black Swan, and also not blind, and also in cahoots with Lucas. Also I’m still certain Ali is not dead (and may or may not have an evil twin) because Mony Mona says “when Ali left” instead of “when Ali died,” and also ’cause I’m absofuckinglutely certain it was Real Ali who woke Emily up outside the barn and it was Real Ali who talked to Spencer in Spencer’s living room that one time — last episode, was it?
Aria’s shortcut gets them there in record time and Hanna’s at the wheel, gunning for Mona, who’s stumbled out of the car to massacre Spencer with ten razor blades from her hair. I mean Hanna’s gonna totally run Crazy Mona over but Aria and Emily stop her and everybody’s out of the car.
Cars screech, children scream, giant gowns muddy and fancy shoes clomp clumsily through the wet night ground towards a terrible scene of desperation and horror:
There’s a heated wrestling match in which Crazy Mona tries to kill Spencer, or something, which ultimately results in Crazy Mona dangling perilously off some kind of cliff and Spencer trying to save her but she can’t save her, and her grip loosens and Mona hurtles to (ideally) her death.
Police lights scatter and turn through the night sky as Dr. Sullivan suddenly appears in a beige trench, full of remorse and apologies for skipping town after A threatened her son — (what son?).
So we know it was Mony Mona who interacted with Dr. Sullivan as “A,” as Dr. Sullivan seems fairly confident that this case is closed. Hanna’s still broken into a million little pieces.
Hanna:Â “I can’t believe this. She was my friend.”
Oh and — Mona’s alive, bitches — girlfriend survived that fall and is being shipped off to the madhouse, apparently, which makes zero-to-no-sense as psych wards are in hospitals, not jailhouses (AND TRUST ME I KNOW) but whatever —
Crazy Mona voiceover:Â “They think it’s over. Crazy Mona is going to the nuthouse and those precious liars are going home to sleep with their windows opened and their doors unlocked. Don’t they know that’s exactly what we want?’
Dr. Sullivan: “She was living in an extended state of hyper-reality. The adreline rush that accompanied her feelings of empowerment and her high levels of intellegience enabled Mona to be seemingly all-knowing and omnipresent.”
Dr. Sullivan tells Spencer that if it wasn’t for “her friend,” then Sullivan never would’ve returned to Rosewood. But then Toby xeroxed his face and mailed it to her and said he’d eat her if she didn’t return, so here she is! Thanks Toby!
Toby:Â “Pretending not to love you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Harder than being arrested for a crime you didn’t commit or fending off sexual advances from his psychotic stepsister? Okay! Spencer and Toby will make up/out now:
One day I want the romantic end-of-the-scene kiss to be between a lady and another lady, yannow? Speaking of lady-on-lady and TV tropes often dedicated to lady-on-lady storylines, what happens next is REALLY special!
So, The Liarz decide to spend the evening at Emily’s, ’cause Emily’s Mom is in town and has her house back for this episode, apparently —
— but as they get closer to Emily’s they see more police cars and lights crowding the streets, and they see that a group has gathered behind crime scene tape and Emily calls out for her Mother, who rushes out of the house in a smashing blue velour situation —
and says Emily, they found a body — they think it’s Maya–
— and then Emily’s heart breaks and the weight of everything all at once bears down on her and explodes into tears — violent, heaving, weeping desperate wailing tears — and it’s all her friends can do to just keep her upright.
So, I think it’s safe to say that Maya has likely been dead for weeks, and it was A using Maya’s phone to trick Emily into thinking otherwise. It’s also safe to say that Maya has now secured a spot in the Dead Lesbians Hall of Fame, right between Tara from Buffy and Silvia from Los Hombres De Paco.
Furthermore, Melissa is a sociopath:
And so we return to the High Security Psych Ward, where Crazy Mona’s got a mysterious visitor wearing the legendary red jacket. Clearly it’s the Doyen of the A-Team which now includes at least Mona, probably Jenna in some way, likely also Lucas due to his bemused reaction to Jenna’s not-blindness, whomever is there talking to Crazy Mona and whomever Jenna was talking to at the picnic table (which could be the same person in the red jacket).
Mona: “I did everything you told me to do.”
…and, scene. So what did you think of the episode?!