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“Pretty Little Liars” recap (4.03): Mama Said Knock You Out

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, Jessica DiLaurentis rolled back into town with a literal truckload of Ali’s shit, including a living, breathing parrot that Ali taught to be a bitch and also to whistle Cape May Beach Hottie’s phone number before she died. Paige and Emily made out and made plans to break free from Rosewood. Aria dumped Ezra to save his life and started taking krav maga classes to save her own life. Spencer created a scale model of Thornhill Lodge and Landing Strip out of cucumbers. Hanna came at Ashley from a hundred different angles trying to get her to confess to killing Wilden, even though everyone knows all she did was tap him with her car a little bit. And Mona continued to prove she is worthy of all our worship.

Rear Window Brew. The Liars are digging through a bucket of Ali paraphernalia that Emily lifted from the shrine she’s apparently helping Mrs. D build in Ali’s old room. It’s the usual stuff: journals, disembodied Barbie heads, receipts for storage lockers and poisons and wigs and like aviator goggles and one of those leather flying hats like Snoopy wears. There’s nothing new to report, except that Mona is not around, which makes everyone feel just as weird as they do when she’s all up in their nuts. But the Liars aren’t the only ones enjoying some delicious morning coffees. Also present are:

1) Ella Montgomery, whose man-child boyfriend has gotten himself some kind of donut-making internship in a castle by the sea in Europe. She is a vision of grace as always. In fact, she somehow manages not to slap this guy in his mouth when he says, “Why don’t you take motherhood off the table and come with me across the ocean?” Take motherhood off the table? Take motherhood off the table? I am not the mother of children, but I am the mother of two dogs, and if someone – even a very good-looking someone who had access to unlimited pastries – said that to me, I would throw a firecracker at his eyeballs. Like, “Shelve being a pastry-chef for a second, and-” “I can’t shelve being a pastry chef! I create pastries! It’s who I am!” “Right, and I created two children. Get back to me when you push a seven-pound eclair out of your vagina.

2) Melissa Hastings, who is back from her trip to D.C., boasting of plans to take an internship on the left coast or in London. She and Spencer hate each other and love each other so much. Their body language is amazing: They won’t even fully face one another or make eye contact for longer than a nanosecond. But also, they both kind of agree that it’s time for them to blow this town. And not in the way Ali blew this town (repeatedly and on video). But like in the way where they get the hell out of here because obviously their “parents” are never coming back and Radley and/or prison and/or death is one baby step away for both of them.

Caleb is home from chasing down his dad. He was just living out in the woods. You know, the Hobo Code and all that. Catching fish with his bare hands and eating them raw. He and Caleb bonded over how they’ve very rarely ever had roofs over their heads and then they killed a bear and cooked up some supper and ate canned beans and played their harmonicas. Hanna barely hears him because she’s still so worked up over Ashley acting cagey about her NYC trip. Everyone keeps telling Hanna that Ashley didn’t kill Wilden, but no one is saying the right thing, which is: Who cares if your mom killed Wilden? It was the correct thing to do, whoever did it.

My nephew is six years old and time is still a very abstract concept to him, so you have to explain things in terms of Dora the Explorer episodes. Like, “Driving to the circus will take one and a half Doras.” Or, “You can stay in the pool for the length of three Doras.” I bring that up because Ella is explaining to Aria that if she doesn’t follow her boy toy to Austria, she won’t see him for a year, which amount of time Aria cannot understand unless she converts it to Ezra Hours. When she does that, a year sounds like an eternity to be away from your boyfriend, and she starts thinking maybe she owes her mom a solid. She stayed married to awful Byron for an awfully long time.

Spencer and Toby are sleuthing in their own ways. Spencer, who, by the way, is dressed like Katniss Everdeen’s Prairie Home Companion action figure, is trying to track down the phone number Tippi kept shrieking last week. And Toby is reading his mom’s Radley information over and over again and drowning in despair. Spencer is like, “Honey, here, let me look. I have a lot of experience dissecting what’s inside your family’s therapy files. Did I ever tell you about the time I threw yours into the river…?” She agrees that everything that comes out of Radley is suspect in at least nine ways, and probably they should sneak on over there tonight and have a look-see at the place where his mom supposedly jumped to her death.

In the Marin’s most perfect kitchen, Hanna tries for the one zillionth time to get Ashley to come clean about her shady-ass New York trip. No, Ashley didn’t go shopping. No, she didn’t go out to eat. No, there are no receipts, no people to corroborate her whereabouts, no CCTV footage of her in Times Square. She sat in a room with no people and no windows and one night she went to see Anything Goes by herself with a ticket she paid for with cash, and no she doesn’t have the ticket stub, so don’t bother asking. Hanna goes, “It’s cool, Mom. I believe you. But if you wouldn’t mind completing this lyric for me: ‘Most guys today that women prize today are just…?'” Ashley storms out in a huff, leaving Hannah alone in the kitchen. Sadly, Hanna whispers to no one: “…are just silly gigolos, Mom. Silly gigolos. Anything goes.”

Aria has invited Garrett’s brother over to eat cake and watch The Big Sleep, but this clown isn’t into it. He says black and white movies makes him think his TV is broken. He probably doesn’t even know who Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are, and when you consider the fact that this episode was written by Joseph Dougherty and directed by Norman Buckley, two absolute champions of film noir, that’s all the commentary you need about Kung Fu Jake. He’s a three-decker toadstool and sauerkraut sandwich, with arsenic sauce. Also, he tells Aria she doesn’t seem like the kind of girl who would be into a relationship where you stay at home and watch old movies and cuddle and talk about your feelings and feel superior to all of your friends who are still out in the scene, and Aria is like, “Ha ha ha. Yeah. I am definitely not into being in a lesbian relationship like that.” (Pretty Little Liar.)

OK, here’s a weird thing: Wren is dead. There is no other way to explain why Rosewood had to recruit another doctor. Wren was competent in all fields of human and veterinary medicine, as well as a trained psychologist and dentist. He required no sleep, could teleport into and out of any building in the greater Philadelphia area, and, most importantly, he could keep his damn mouth shut. Emily’s got a new doctor who doesn’t buy her story about why she doesn’t want to be prescribed any Vicodin for her injured shoulder: “The last time I took it, it made me swim into a wall and crack open my skull. That happened to a friend of mine, I mean. A friend of mine who is a character in a book. A fictional swimmer who smashed her cranium into a fictional wall. I have to go.”

Hanna stops by her mom’s office and digs around in her garbage until she finds a greeting card that’s like, “Sorry you couldn’t make it to New York because you were off doing manslaughter. Love you!” She scowls and shoves the card in Ashley’s face and storms off to school where Caleb explains that innocent people don’t need alibis, and Hanna for real goes, “Man, this blows. I’m going to end up without a mom or a dad.” To the orphan who lived in the school ventilation system and ate cricket sandwiches for like two full seasons, Hanna says that.

After school, the Liars make plans to get together and sort through more of the stuff Emily keeps thieving from the DiLaurentis place, but they don’t get very far into the logistics because Pam arrives and snatches Emily up by her elbow and starts hollering about how when she was doing her daily counting of all the pills in the medicine cabinet – which, let’s be honest, is totally a Pam Fields’ move – she noticed seven missing opiate tablets. Interesting, isn’t it, considering The Other Doctor called just a minute ago to tell Pam he has suspicions that Emily is pill-popping. Pam’s face, man. It’s tortured. Like, here’s a lady who sent Emily’s girlfriend away to drug prison for possessing one half of one joint, but Emily is her baby and she’s an actual angel from the heavens. Emily jerks her arm away from Pam and everyone in the whole schoolyard gawks and gawks. They’ve never, in all their lives, seen someone parent their child. A Tyrannosaurus Rex showing up and ripping up trees by the roots would be less shocking.

As Emily and Pam are driving away, Aria gets a text from A, who is talking like Yoda today: “Suffer, your moms will. Shovels, I will plant on their persons. Rat’s blood, I will smear on their trophies. Worms, I will deposit into their Chinese carryout. Barns, I will lock them inside. Bell towers, I will hurl them from. Masks of their faces, I will use to rob banks and do porns.”

It’s Hanna’s turn to do the daily Liar crawl by the police precinct and today’s trip is very fruitful. There’s a murder chart front-and-center, with photos of everyone in town connected by yarn and post-it notes and arrest warrants and who knows what all. Maggie screencapped the chart in glorious HD. I don’t have room to put all the pics here, but you can check them out on her Tumblr. The most interesting things on the murder web: Wren’s photo has a note beside it that says “Dr.” Kingston. (He’s not a real doctor?!) Paige’s name is highlighted on the police report about the night Emily stabbed Lyndon James in the gut. (“State of distress,” it says about her.) There’s a piece of paper taped to Aria’s face that has an arrow pointing up to Spencer’s face with a note that says “Would do anything for her.” (Police are Team Sparia too.)

New Wilden drags Hanna out and tells her not to worry about the fact that everyone she loves is about to be arrested for killing a couple of cops.

For reasons I’m still not clear on, Caleb goes to Mr. Marin’s office and explains that even though Ashley and Hanna probably didn’t kill Wilden, they’re both probably going to take the fall for it, and since they have the kind of relationship where whoever didn’t do it will confess to doing it to keep the other one from going to jail, they’re going to need some legal representation pretty soon. Mr. Marin is like, “I hate both of those bitches so much. Why are you even telling me this?” Caleb doesn’t really know, to be honest. Whittling sticks by the campfire with his dad made him feel good. It confused him.

Emily and Aria plunder more of Ali’s things while trying to make each other feel better about the ever-increasing size of the lies they have to tell. Aria plucks an eyeball out of Ali’s Mardi Gras mask and inside is another mask, which shocks them, even though they have to know by now that Ali’s main fetish in life was anything she could craft into a Russian nesting doll situation. The mask inside the mask is a copy of Ali’s face, of course. They call Hanna – who is happy to get out of her house and away from her mom, who keeps getting angrier and angrier when she finds Hanna pillaging her shit – and she decides they should ride on out to the mask-maker’s cabin in the woods and ask him how many of these Ali masks he made and also ask for a list of people to whom he sold them.

Aria and Emily look at each other skeptically, all: “Han, are you sure we should do a plan without Spencer’s supervision? Or at least her approval? Do you remember what it was like when she was in Radley? We got murdered twice as much without her.” Hanna huffs and puffs and stomps and makes angry fists with her hands and punches at the air and says she’s going to that mask place in the middle of the night and if they don’t come along and get killed with her, she’s never going to forgive them. So they go.

OK, so, first of all, this mask-maker’s cabin is in the middle of the forest on “the other side of Torch Lake” and the Liars go to it at 1:00 in the morning or some ungodly hour like that. A quick rundown of their run-ins with cabins, if you don’t mind indulging me: 1) Lost Woods Resort, the place where Hanna was almost stabbed to death in the shower, Psycho-style, and also the place where Mona kept her first lair. 2) Thornhill Lodge, the place where they very nearly burned to a crisp like a week ago before they were dragged to safety by a zombie. 3) Kahn Kabin, the place that came to life and tried to murder two of them, and also where Maya lived under the floorboards. 4) Lyndon James’ Stalker Shanty, the place where Paige was bound and gagged and almost gutted right in front of Emily’s eyes before she summoned the courage to stab her dead girlfriend’s fake cousin in the ribs with a pocket knife.

So, yeah, girls. Sure thing. Rock up into that mask-maker’s chalet. What could possibly go wrong in a cabin?

Spencer and Toby break into Radley with the override codes Spencer deciphered when she was studying that pirate treasure map Mona created for her during her stay in Radley’s Vanderwaal Wing. They sneak in through the children’s ward. Sadly, there is no time for a slow dance with Ali’s specter tonight. Once they locate the room where Toby’s mom supposedly flung herself from the window, Spencer does some quick physics equations in her head and determines that there’s no way his mom could have leaped from here and hurdled the overhang and then fallen straight down to her death. So probably she was throws from the window by a third party. For some reason, Toby finds great comfort in that theory. Spencer vows to help him find the doctor his mom spoke to the day she jumped/was pushed from the insane asylum window.

The mask-maker in the woods did, in fact, make that mask of Ali. Actually, he made loads of those masks. Soft ones. Hard ones. Ones that fit under other masks. Ones that fit over other masks. Ali masks for performances. Ali masks for ritual sacrifice. But he made functional ones too: Ali masks with built in face shields to protect from bodily fluids. Ali oxygen masks to assist with breathing. Ali surgical masks to prohibit the spread of airborne diseases. Ali fencing masks. Ali Kendo masks. Ali diving masks. Ali paintball masks. Ali visors, Ali football helmets, Ali balaclavas. After reciting this impressive list he says, “I placed an ad on Craigslist, is how I found her. ‘Hermit seeks supple young teenager to be smothered in plaster.’ She answered the ad seconds after I posted it.”

After he presents that information to the Liars, he asks if he can rub clay all over Emily’s head, including her breathing holes.

She lets him. He touches her perfect face. I can’t talk about it.

Caleb is strolling along the road by himself when Mr. Marin pulls up and drops some information onto him: He says Ashley came to see him during the time she is claiming she was in New York. She asked for money. He said no. When she left, he thought to himself, “Where’s my gun?” So he went and looked and his gun was gone, so obviously Ashley stole it with an Accio! summoning charm while his back was turned.

By all means, let’s listen to this guy, Caleb. He abandoned his wife and daughter, forced them to live off lasagna dollars for years, came back to town parading his awful new step-daughter who one time alcohol poisoned Hanna and caused her to puke on a wedding dress, cheated on his fiance with Ashley, dropped in and out of Hanna’s life like some kind of Hastings, and what else? Oh! Yeah! He shouted at Mamaw Marin! So, forgive us for not believing a goddamn word you say, Tom.

Mama drama download:

When Emily returns home from letting a creepster make an exact copy of her face, which will certainly not come back to haunt her, literally or otherwise, I’m sure, her mom tells her Child Protective Services called. They want to interview her because of the fight she and Emily had outside of school this afternoon. They called Papa Fields, too, and he’s coming home from Army to get interviewed also. What’s sad is that Emily can’t tell her mom that Child Protective Services isn’t even a real thing in Rosewood, as evidenced by the fact that the Liars and Mona and Jenna and Toby and Caleb and Mike Montgomery aren’t all in foster care, but that Ali’s ghost set up these “interviews” and will be conducting these “interviews” while wearing various masks, and the only thing that’s going to come of it is that Pam’s going to feel shitty for a long, long time, even though all she wants to do is love and protect her daughter.

When Hanna returns home, Ashley is pretending to take a bath but is really just staring at herself in the mirror and feeling freaked out about whatever it is she did – which, again: who cares? Nothing could make us/Hanna stop loving her! She apologizes through the door for yelling at Hanna and Hanna apologizes through the door for snooping around all the time. It’s very sad.

When Aria returns to the Brew, she decides the most selfless thing she can do is to tell Ella to follow her bliss to Austria. Not only will it make her happy to live in that castle and eat that strudel, it’ll keep her safe from the hell that A is putting everyone else’s moms through right now. Ella, amazingly, doesn’t even consult/mention Mike. As soon as Aria gives her the go-ahead, she goes ahead. The other heartbreaking thing about this scene is the way that Aria looks at Kung Fu Jake. It’s very good acting by Lucy. Her whole face, her eyes especially, look at him like he’s Not Ezra. She doesn’t even see him. She just sees he’s not the person she wants sitting across from her. (Although she probably should pay attention to him just a little because I swear he’s seeking some kind of retribution for Garrett.)

And finally, since Spencer doesn’t have a mom, Melissa shakes her down in her bedroom about whether or not she’d ever take the fall for Melissa for doing shady dealings. Two things are crazy: 1) Spencer is hiding a Melissa-shaped mask that Hanna found at the mask-maker’s cabin while Melissa is interrogating her. And 2) Melissa’s like, “Remember when you asked me one time if I’d choose you over somebody I love, if push came to shove? Would you do that for me?” She flat-out tells Spencer she doesn’t love her. It’s amazing.

The Risen Mitten puts on one of the records from her collection of children’s tunes. Tonight it is “The Bone Song,” which she bebops to while looking at the X-Ray Emily got earlier in The Other Doctor’s office. Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s the way my heart is flooded with affection because of today’s Supreme Court rulings, but I’m pretty sure that’s the most beautiful ribcage I’ve ever seen.

Maggie (@margaretrosey), my screencapping partner, works her ass off every week to make these recaps the best they can be. Follow her on Twitter and give her an air-high-five for being the best. And hey, if you’re a PLL creative reading this recap: Those amazing SCOTUS decisions today? You helped changed the conversation in this country about gay women, which means you helped changed the world. Thank you. Seriously. Thank you.

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