In a few minutes Spencer and Emily are going to bust up into Ali’s house to demand that Jason dime her out, and while they’re in there, Emily is going to steal Ali’s hairbrush and straight up suggest planting DNA evidence in Mona’s bedroom to link Ali to her murder. It is the most desperate idea she’s ever had, and I think you remember quite clearly the incident with the man who collects faces in the forest.
Spencer: You want us to commit an actual felony to keep me from going to jail for a felony I did not commit?
Emily: Yes.
Spencer: Okay, sounds good! I’ll get the gloves!
At Predator, Ezra tries to ask Mike about Mona.
Ezra: Do you want to talk about Mona?
Mike: No.
Ezra: Do you want to talk about her if I give you a lollipop?
Mike: No.
Ezra: Do you want to talk about her if I read you poetry and tell you what a special grown-up snowflake you are?
Mike: No.
Ezra: How about if I cook you a gourmet vegan meal while we listen to Iron and Wine on vinyl?
Mike: No.
Ezra: This really could not be more interesting. Will you go buy me some chickpeas?
Mike: You have some in the pantry, asshole.
Ezra: Amazing. I need some time to think, Mikey. I’ll be back soon.
The Grunwald has arrived once again in Rosewood, despite its metaphysical constipation, which Hanna says can be remedied with a healthy diet of fiber and hard liquor. The epithet on Mona’s headstone is “The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest,” which is Keats, of course, in one of his letters to Fanny Brawne. People always pull that one out of the collection and publish it separately and call it “Sweetest Fanny.” I think Mona would have had such a laugh about that. It’s such a Mona joke.
The Grunwald sniffs Mona’s empty grave, pets Mona’s stuffed dog, and declares that Mona is stuck between here and the afterlife because she likes dressing up as a spectral ice queen from an ’80s hair band and messing with Ali, because they hated each other, because they were scared to death of each other. Hanna’s like, “Okay, I figured that out on my own, and I don’t even live in a haunted house with vampire in a town full of of soldier ghosts. Do better than that, The Grunwald.”
The Grunwald loves Hanna, you can just tell. What I can’t tell is how she feels about Ali. She stalks Ali down like a deer on the streets and grabs onto Ali’s arm and looks into her soul, but does not reveal her findings.
DiLaurentis Donjon.
Jason: Ali, where were you the night Mona was killed?
Ali: Eat a dick.
Jason: Hey, remember how you and mom never remembered things correctly but me and dad always did?
Ali: Yeah, like the night I was buried alive by our mother in the yard and you were so high you thought you killed me for at least two full years afterwards? You’re a real eidetic, J. A regular old John von Neumann.
Man, it’s so weird when the Liars hang out with each other’s bed buddies. Aria, for example, goes to Caleb’s new apartment to give him some coffee and see how he’s doing with breaking into Mona’s laptop. Just kidding. Obviously Aria goes to Caleb’s apartment to ask him to hack into Oberlin’s admissions database to see if she was rejected based on the fact that she has not attended school in three years or because A tampered with her application. Apparently she poisoned his coffee with some kind of befuddlement potion because he hands Mona’s laptop right on over to her while babbling about fish.
You will be shocked to hear that Aria takes that laptop right on over to Predator where she comes face-to-literal-face with A in a black hoodie and gets stapled to a wall. So, she loses Mona’s laptop, which holds the key to every mystery on this show and probably also houses nuclear launch codes and secret agent identities for every country on earth. And! Even though Aria was staring A right in the face, she did not get a good look at A’s face! She called A “Alison” and when she did that, A stapled her inside some plastic instead of stapling her right in the jugular. Which: I’m just going to assume it was Mikey in that hoodie. He thought about killing Aria, but then he remembered the time he sprained Ella’s wrist and had to go live under Alison’s porch for four seasons, so he dialed it back. He wants Mona’s laptop to read her diary about him, I guess. Or maybe she tasked him with destroying it after she died? Or who knows. Probably she’s got a better gaming setup on that laptop than you can even imagine. Maybe Mike just wants to play Halo and take his mind off of things.
When Spencer and Emily show up at Mona’s to plant Ali’s DNA, they discover that Mona had cameras hidden all over the house. So they skip the felony and rush over to Hanna’s to beg her to tell this news to Mrs. Vanderwaal. Hanna balks, but agrees to it because she is the greatest friend on earth, to both the living and the dead.
So she goes back to Mona’s house, where her mom has just had the best idea: A children’s library built in Mona’s memory and every book has a picture of Mona’s face in it. Mona would have been so in love with that. She and Ali are the only ones who get that fairy tales are all based on horror stories. Having her name on a children’s library would have delighted her to no end! Mrs. V gives Hanna a copy of Henry James’ Terminations, which is perfect because of “Altar of the Dead.” Just perfect. Maybe the perfect PLL literary reference. “Altar of the Dead” is one of James’ best short stories; it’s about this guy who is trying to deal with the fact that all his friends are dying (and also how the love of his life died) and he mourns all of those guys except this one dude that kept being a jerk to him when he was alive, so but while he’s mourning for his friends, he meets this woman who is a ghost and she helps him find a way to forgive that one jerk guy so that both he and that guy’s spirit can be truly at peace. The theme is: Ghost of the girl you loved the most speaks to you from beyond the grave to heal you from the dead people who hurt you so you can truly live.
Obviously, it’s flashback time:
Mona: Here’s a book.
Hanna: Nah, that’s Spencer’s thing.
Mona: You’re smarter than her, and we both know it. Don’t hide your light under a bushel, love. Not forever. The day is coming when you’ll have to be honest with the world about how smart you are.
You know what that reminds me of? That thing Caleb said to Hanna back in season one: “I don’t live in a cave. The rich girls steal, the pretty girls lie, the smart girls play dumb, and the dumb girls spend their days trying to be all of the above.”
And that? Is the whole, heavy truth in a soundbite.
Hanna tells Mrs. V about the cameras, and Mrs. V tells the police.
