Mona and Mike are at the Apple Rose Grille, and Mike says that he wants Mona to say the big L word. UH WHAT. How long have you guys been dating?! Two episodes?! Slow it down there, champs. To further increase the awkwardness of this scene, Ezra walks in!
Mona talks to him, saying she doesn’t want to be a part of whatever he has going on anymore and he threatens her, telling her that she has to help him. What does he have on her? What are they doing together? Any guesses?
Hanna and Emily are eating pizza at Hanna’s place, talking about Spencer and Aria and their addictions to drugs and love, respectively.
Spencer comes in and gives them the rest of her pills, which is very after-school-special, but I want to believe she’s trying.
I want to believe!
Spence convinces them that they need to figure out how to get A to come to Ambrose Pavilion, which is in the zoo. They need to convince A that Ali will be showing up at Ambrose Pavilion to get the money. Spencer is sure that it will be Ezra showing up.
The next day at the Hastings house, OH MY GOODNESS IT IS MRS HASTINGS. SHE IS ALIVE AND AROUND. Spencer is sleeping a lot, so that’s yayyyy, but she lies to her mom, then Toby, about where she will be that night so she can do the Ambrose Pavilion drop.
Surely lying to two separate people won’t backfire, like the times in high school my best friend and I would say we were staying at each other’s houses and then it’d be 3am and we’d be sleepy and have to camp out in my car in a grocery store parking lot because we couldn’t go home. Just saying.
At Casa de Fitz, Aria and Ezra are hanging out, doin’ some dishes, as you do, and talking about Spencer. Aria tells him about Spencer’s intervention, and almost spills that Spencer thinks Ezra is A. She stops just short of saying that, and Ezra mentions something about Radley, saying that the helmet and a tattoo made her lose it before.
Aria catches him on this, asking him how he knew about the tattoo. He is very obviously caught in this lie, and it’s really unnerving.
This is the first time we see Aria actually considering that Ezra might be A. How scary would that be, for real?
At the Brew, Emily, Spencer, and Hanna have devised a plan that tells Ezra they’ll be at Ambrose Pavilion, where Ezra overhears Emily saying they’re going to give the money to Ali there tonight at closing.
He eavesdrops and writes this down. Interesting!
Spencer is at home, and she’s not doing so great. She’s sweating, and shaking, and generally going through some bad withdrawals. She calls up the doctor’s office pretending to be her mother to refill her prescription. Then, Andrew calls. We kind of have to assume she’s getting her drugs that way.
After Spencer leaves, the doctor calls back and Mrs. Hastings answers. BUSTED.
Aria busts into the cabin, trying every possible literary code word for his security system. Faulkner, Wordsworth, Dickinson… then B26 works, their song on the jukebox. Kinda cute. B26 is also his first published poem, so maybe it’s just self-righteous after all.
She walks in and immediately leaves her keys near the door (my sister starts yelling “The keys! No! Don’t be so fucking stupid!”). Aria is looking for evidence about A, and finds the trap door to his lair. IT IS EMPTY. The A Lair is totally gone.
What the fuck? So he installed a security system and moved his lair for what reason? Did he catch that Aria must be onto him?
While she’s looking around, she finds a manuscript hidden in a hollowed out version of Carnivore’s Delight. The manuscript is a story about Alison, and furthermore, kissing Alison, and even more than that, a ton of fragmented sentences ugh. Here’s the text of the first page:
The first thing Alison ever told me about herself was a lie. Lying was her oxygen. She could do it while she was laughing, she could even do it when she was kissing you.
That’s what’s remarkable about lies. How they can fool you, what they’ll become. Where they can take you. It all starts with one. No matter how simple, no matter how grand, a truly great lie can live on after you’re gone. Surprising even it’s architect with the places it can climb – deep into our hearts, twisting into our souls. The fantastical places it can take you high above this world, far into another. Before ultimately crashing the flames of the fire scorching anyone left in the way.
Such is the case of Alison DiLaurentis. A girl constructed by lies, held together by secrets. A life founded in fiction. Predestined for tragedy as fantasy and reality intertwined, forever blurring the lines of a life cut short. All of it adding to the allure of the girl – suddenly gone.
I often wonder what she thought on that waning summer night, as the shovel came down. Slashing through skin, driving to bone. As the light faded out on her mischievous game she flippantly referred to as life. Was she scared as her body started to waver? As she stared up from the ground, as the sod began to surround her, as her lungs filled with dirt? Was she scared or deep down did she know it was the only way it could have been. An unpleasant finish but a captivating end. Or was it only the beginning…?
I wondered at the time, what would become of those she left behind? To her family and friends. To the ones she’d collected along the way. When the trail for answers went cold, would these hot blooded souls be left to chill______? To the girls who called her their friend which is only to prove they ______Their queen crusader. She’s lead angels to….
Aria is immediately convinced that Ezra is A. Someone pulls up in the driveway: duh, it’s Ezra! Good timing! He had a text from the security system about the wrong passwords being entered. He also has like nine hundred security cameras he stalks constantly, so.
He walks into the cabin and finds Aria’s keys. My sister feels so validated. Aria steals the manuscript and makes a break for it outside, and Ezra chases her through the woods, maximizing on his creepy Ezra face.
He calls her phone and hears it, but she hides fairly well. I’ll be honest, this scene really scared me. Would Ezra hurt Aria? I don’t know!