The next morning the Liars gather up to feel sad and scared about Mona. But before you can say “hey maybe we’d be more comfortable if we sat around in our lingerie” yet another package arrives at the door.
It’s a box. With nothing in it!
That is until Spencer works her magic on it and reveals a big old saw.
The Liars hit the interwebs to see if there’s any magic shop in the area that they forgot about. What they do find is a magic show going on that very afternoon in Ravenswood. Goddamn it, not old gray-scaleville again.
Most importantly, look at the gay-ass shirt/bra combo Emily is wearing!
Back at the Mona House Stakeout ABC Family tries to push more TobAy and Caleb bromance chemistry on us. It’s still not working. Caleb is still a cat obsessed lesbian and TobAy is still Voldemort.
TobAy sends Caleb home and takes over the stakeout. After sitting for a bit, a familiar blue convertible peels out of the driveway with Shana. TobAy tails her.
The Liars show up in Ravenswood which is a dreary and grey as usual. I’m pretty sure that’s not how the outdoors works. The whole lighting scheme doesn’t just change because you go one town over.
The girls follow signs to The Great Charlemagne magician show! Obviously that’s the answer. Go to a creepy town, see a magic show!
The Great Charlemagne is like a creepy mime magician in white and black. Which is good because he matches the weirdly muted people of the town.
He reveals a box and, yup he’s gonna put a girl in it. He picks Aria out of the crowd. She’s not into the idea, because it’s so much better out of the closet, but he insists. This is not consent.
All eyes on Aria while the magician puts her in a box and makes her disappear. The magician gives the box a few spins and oolala Aria reappears.
Spencer and Hanna really enjoyed the big magic performance. Those too really are suckers for a good trick. Too bad they lost Emily while they were distracted. I knew Paige should have come along.
A few Ravenswood and discount furniture commercials later, Emily wakes up in a box. Fortunately her phone still works and she immediately calls Aria.
Emily freaks out, realizing she’s in a coffin. Worse yet, she swears she can hear a saw cutting wood. Getting nearer. Upon hearing that, Spencer  realizes they’re right near Sawmill Road. The three start to run in that direction, but not before catching a glimpse of Red Coat.
The girls follow Red Coat right into a wood workshop where they hear Emily screaming from inside a chained-up coffin headed for a circular saw. It’s right out of a super hero movie.
The Liars try to cut the chains off, but are unable to because the media doesn’t want you to think women are strong. Fortunately, just before the coffin hits the saw, though, Red Coat hits the stop button. Which is weird because A is on the woodshop cat walk. Wait. There are two Red Coats. Hm.
Two A
Red A
Other Red A
Spencer and Aria split up to chase after the Red Coats while Hanna pulls Emily out of the coffin. Obviously Hanna is the most gay for Emily.
Spencer follows Red Coat One outside to a nearby house and up the stairs.
Aria follows the Red Coat Two up the stairs of the mill to some seriously unstable catwalks. Red Coat Two tries to push Aria off, but she’s been taking kick boxing classes. Nice work Aria.
Aria kicks Red Coat Two’s mask off and, yup, it’s Cece. Just as Cece lunges for Aria, Aria moves such that Cece falls over the side of the catwalk. Aria tried to grab onto Cece’s hands but her coat rips and she falls to her possible death. If nothing else, this show should be played years from now to high school students to warn them of the dangers of a bad fall.
Red Coat done in by her red coat. I see what you did there ABC Family.
Spencer reappears from tracking Red Coat One and the four gather around Cece’s body. Aria clearly feels terrible. I feel terrible for Aria. Or at least I would, if Cece didn’t get up and disappear as soon as the Liars turned their backs.
The Liars realize Cece’s gone and decide to get the fuck out of the place full of sharp edges. Probably a good idea.
Spencer leads the Liars back to the house she followed Red Coat One into. She explains that she thinks the Red Coat she was following was actually Ali, and leads them upstairs.
The Liars walk into a room covered in huge pictures of Ali and big huge timelines of all the Liars. Yup, for the millionth bajillionth time, the Liars walked into “A’s Lair.” As far as I’m concerned A’s Lair is basically just a Ke$ha song. It’s technically different each time but really it’s just the same shit over and over again. it just keeps coming back. Same song different chorus.
This A’sLair is also equipped with a super computer monitoring the Police and the Liar’s home security systems. Who knew anyone in Rosewood was practicing any “security.”
It also has a timeline of all the events that the girls have gotten up to. Well thank god someone is keeping track of it.
Elsewhere, Shana gets out of that lovely blue convertible and walks into a B&B where none other that Mona sits on the porch knitting.
TobAy watches from the bushes because he’s creepy like that.
The Liars hang around A’s Lair like it’s area right outside the Hot Topic. Which, if they’re anything like me in middle school, means they meet all their friends and then dye their hair purple in the bathroom. Or maybe they just go through everything. Hanna even tries to break into A’s system with a little phone help from Caleb.
The Liars look at A’s bank statements and realize that A has made recent payments to Cece. The wonder if perhaps A paid Cece to dress up like Red Coat to lure them away from Ali. I wonder how A is rolling in the dough.
While discussing who she is exactly, Hanna busts open a closet to reveal a whole bunch of suits. Suddenly is seems that A might be a guy. Or a really well dressed butch lesbian.
The Liars agree this must mean that A is Ali’s former fling “Boardshorts.” Whoever Ali was dating that summer. They discuss possible options, maybe Wren, maybe Ian, but I have this sudden overwhelming sense that I know who A is. In fact, I think you’re supposed to know in that moment who A is too. It suddenly becomes so obvious.
Aria walks around the timelines a bit and realizes that A has also been following Ali. Not just before she died but since then too. It seems even that A is planning on tracking Ali to an event in Ravenswood that night.
So once again it’s time to play Find It Before A Does. This time at a period themed party.
The girls walk out of the house and Mrs. Grundle The Old House Mother stops them. She tells them not to go to the party and that they should stop searching for Alison.
Mrs. Grundle says she has a “gift of insight” and that she was using it to help Ali figure out who was threatening her that summer. Wait. Either Mrs. Grundle is a hotline psychic who scammed Ali out of her money, or this shit is about to go supernatural.
Cue the pastel flashback.
Mrs. Grundle said that the night Alison went missing she “felt something terrible” and drove to Alison’s house. In the backyard she saw Alison’s hand, helped pull her out of the ground and drove her to the hospital. While Mrs. Grundle went inside to get help, Alison disappeared into the night.
In other words, Alison is alive.
Mrs. Grundle tells the Liars, however, to get the fuck out of Ravenswood. Basically she says that A is there and is hoping the Liars will lead him to Alison. I’m sort of hoping that too because this shit has been dragged out long enough.
Despite Mrs. Grundle’s warnings, the Liars decide to grab some costumes and crash the party.
Elsewhere, Caleb boards the most old-timey bus ever to Ravenswood. I feel like he’s not coming back.
We won’t get to see that party though, not until a two hour Halloween special in October.
We will, however, get to see a man who has followed the Liars to Ravenswood. One who heads directly upstairs into A’s Lair and freaks the fuck out when he realizes it’s been broken into.
It’s Ezra.
Holy crap. 
I fucking knew it.
I know I can’t prove to you guys that I knew it, but I totally did. When I was in high school I had a boyfriend (these were different times) who used to always get mad at me for trying to guess the ending in the middle of movies. He told me, one day you’re gonna get it right and ruin a really good plot twist for yourself. So that happened.
But it was just all so heavy handed. First of all, basically nothing bad has happened to Aria in ages. But also, when the Liars rule out Wren as Ali’s Board Shorts Guy and then also decide that Board Shorts Guy is A, it’s like who’s left? We know it isn’t Wren or Ian because they’re dead. We know it isn’t TobAy because they already did that. We even know it isn’t Caleb because he’s going off to his own TV show. There really aren’t any men left on the show.
And let’s address the big age-inappropriate elephant in the room: Ezra is clearly into younger girls.
So here’s my theory.
The summer before Ali went missing Ali was dating Ezra and also Ian. Cece was dating Wilden. When Cece was done with Wilden she asked Ali to break it off with him for her. Ali did this but Wilden freaked out and hit her, knocking her unconscious. He thought she was dead, buries her and then later Mrs. Grundle dug her out.
Things that Ali put into motion before she “died” eventually get Cece kicked out of college, Cece gets back at her by telling Ezra she lied about her age and that she was cheating on him. Ezra was mad but, what can you do, she was dead. Cece left town thinking Wilden had killed Ali and that she was going to get sucked in. And Wilden started trying to figure out how to frame someone else.
Now Mona was A in the first two seasons. Everything we saw, all the black mailing and texts. That was all MonA with intel from Ali during the summer. Ali gave MonA the dirt on the Liars thinking that Mona could use it to get popular with her friends. She didn’t realize Mona would end up fucking with them. At some point, I think, A/MonA was threatening Ezra. My guess is he was buying videos from the NAT club or something. Something that would get him super fired.
When “Ali’s body was found” people like Ezra, Garret and Cece started to get squirrelly. They realized other people knew about NAT/Ali/some other shit yet to be learned. I think at this point Ezra learned that Ali was alive, and maybe wanted to track her down because she was pregnant with his kid or something. Ezra was particularly pissed at MonA because she kept trying to bust him and Aria. So EzrA became Big A and hired Cece to get MonA back in the game and eventually turn on her and screw her over.
Once Ali started popping up, EzrA used Cece to run around in a Red Coat to confuse the Liars but also get them searching for Ali. Unfortunately, Cece was a bit of a loose cannon. As were other people EzrA hired because he needed, like TobAy, LucAs and WrAn. In the process he ended up hurting the Liars a lot more than he meant to. Either that or he had reasons for hating the Liars that we just don’t know.
Or something. Wait… did that make sense? I think I just confused myself.
Oh well. If any of this turns out to be true I’ll be here singing and dancing a big old Told You So dance when the show comes back October 22.Â
Oh wait! Before I go I should tell you about the last scene! It was this guy:
Because that DEFINITELY isn’t going to give me nightmares.