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“Pretty Little Liars” recap (5.16): Team Spaleb Needs Gloves

Last night’s Pretty Little Liars was particularly gruesome, so let’s hop into our barrels and ride over the falls! We open with the Liars at Ezra’s, where everybody knows your name…that you chose for your underage daughters. Spencer is relaying all the knife pottery drama and the Liars come to the conclusion that they are being framed for Mona’s murder.

Spencer offers to mail Emily’s brown envelope of sadness, filled to the brim with tears, CDs and like, 50 of Paige’s swimming goggles. Paige asked for space (unpossible!) so Emily will not be going to San Francisco to visit over spring break, depriving us all of a truly leztacular travel episode. Hanna asks to borrow Emily’s baseball tee, but she won’t let her, which means that tee must have some significance. We all know Emily would literally give Hanna the shirt off her back otherwise.

After Hanna and Spencer leave, Aria continues to spiral about her tainted Talmadge acceptance, and is desperate to find another school to apply to. Also, she’s wearing earrings bigger than her entire face, as she is wont to do. As Emily prints out her coffee receipt, the machine keeps printing a crazy-long CVS style receipt. But is it full of coupons? NOPE. It’s Aria’s Talmadge letter. Well played, A.

Hanna comes home to find Ashley canoodling with Pastor Ted, who just came back from building marmalade factories in Peru. Hanna demands to know what Ashley got up to with Jason (spoiler alert: it’s sexy times) but Ashley is in no mood and shuts her down.

Back at the Brew 2.0, Talia is all up in Emily’s station trying to give her advice on her cappuccino foam. Emily, who has been making coffee for five seasons now, is in no mood for advice.

Aria comes to tell Ezra about her pretty little college acceptance, but he’s so busy yelling at contractors over the phone that he doesn’t listen.

Over at Casa Hastings, Spencer and Toby stare at her unopened acceptance letters from Montana, New Mexico, and University of Hawaii. Spencer is bitter as fuck because she’s too pale for Hawaii and wants the brick and ivy college of her dreams, but feels forced to run away because of Ali drama/fear of murder. Even from behind bars, Ali is controlling Spencer’s future and she doesn’t like it. Only on this show would going to an island paradise for college be a major tragedy.

Johnny shows up to pay his barn deposit in spare change. He borrows a hammer and goes through the garbage for potential paint supplies. Apparently he traveled all over Italy living life and making garbage paint and Spencer is enthralled. Jeez, you’d think she never met a hobo before!

Spencer goes to grab an egg for Johnny but she drops that shit immediately when she gets a text from one Mona Fucking Vanderwaal. DUN DUN DUN!

Aria gets a message from Holbrook (it’s probably A, right? It’s A-Hol!) to meet him at the grill. Of course he doesn’t show, but she does run into Jason, who has a super awkward lunch with her. Ashley was supposed to lunch with him but she bailed, probably because of the whole sex thing.

Spencer and Hanna meet up at Caleb’s place to figure out the ghost text. Hanna is all, “Ghosts don’t have fingers so they can’t text,” which is logic I cannot argue with. Caleb says that whoever stole the laptop set off some sort of encryption alarm/lo-jack which tracks the laptop to a storage rental unit. It’s time for Team Spaleb Detective Hour!

Back at the Brew, Talia is getting on Emily’s last damn nerve by moving her shit around and suggesting a polo shirt uniform. She tells Emily there’s a hole in her tee, and Emily is like, “shut up bitch, I made this hole with Paige during wrestling foreplay!”

Spaleb shows up at the storage unit but there’s an unbreakable lock on the door. Spencer wants to get her bolt cutters (which she has in her car at all times for recreational trespassing) but they are interrupted by Ms. Horowitz, a Rosewood teacher. She sticks around just long enough to tell them that the unit is being rented by a blonde girl and there’s a seriously funky smell coming from it.

Then Caleb fashions a lock pick from a soda can, which he must have learned how to do at Hobo MacGyver school. He picks the lock of the next-door unit, and crawls into the air duct to break into A’s hidey hole.

Meanwhile, Hanna meets with Pastor Ted, who asks her permission to propose to Ashley. Ruh-Roh!

Talia figures out that Emily is wearing Paige’s shirt, and talks to her about how hard it is to let go. She tells her about an old beef stew recipe called “old clothes” that sounds disgusting but apparently needs peppers and new flavors to live again and get over it’s ex-girlfriend. IT’S A FOOD BREAK-UP METAPHOR.

Spaleb breaks into the storage unit and finds an organized collection of evidence: bloody clothes, chemicals, Aria-sized plastic wrap, and a big barrel.

Based on the chemicals, Spencer deduces that A-Hol is either making formaldehyde to pickle Mona or acid to turn her into goo. Caleb suggests opening the barrel, which seems like the worst most gross possible thing to do.

While Spaleb is locked in the storage unit of nightmares, Aria is at a fucking flower shop because of course. She gets handed a bouquet and an address to take them to.

At home, Emily mends her shirt and packs it to mail to Paige. At Tumblr, everyone is losing their shit and weeping their face off.

Hanna comes home to warn Ashley of the impending proposal, and tells her to get her house in order because Jason is creepy and Pastor Ted is decent and at least 80% not a serial killer. Ashley tells Hanna to mind her own beeswax. Fair enough.

Back at Caleb’s place, Spencer is worried they left some hair/finger prints/DNA in the storage room. She’s also memorized the definition of “paranoid,” which is the most Spencer-iest thing that ever Spencered. They talk about tipping off Toby to the storage unit, but Spencer wants to wait until they have proof. Also, she and Caleb can’t really talk to Toby anymore because of the whole cop thing.

Aria shows up at Hanna’s house with the flowers, which are from Ashley. They basically say “thanks for the pity bang last night, XOXO Jason,” and Hanna knows it’s just A-Hol fucking with them. She tells Aria she went to visit Ali in prison, and Aria is like, “dude, we made a pact. Not cool.”

Toby and Spencer play Scrabble and talk about Toby’s boring day. Spencer has nothing to share, as her life is 89% criminal activities and 11% memorizing dictionaries, so it makes for a pretty boring date night. Toby wants to talk about their future RE: college and long distance, and says that he doesn’t want to hold Spencer back.

Spencer tells him to come to Hawaii, which is ridiculous because they’re both so pale they’ll never survive. Toby reads her texts and wants to know what she’s up to with Caleb, and she’s all, “I can’t tell you bc it’s illegal OBVS!” and he storms out like an angry police baby.

Over at the Marins, Pastor Ted proposes to Ashley with a giant peanut butter cookie. She freezes and tells him she needs to think about it. Then she storms out leaving Hanna to deal with Ted and it’s AWKward. Hanna assures Ted everything is fine, and then cuddles with Ashley on the stairs.

Emily picks up her paycheck from Ezra, and Talia compliments her on her casual lesbian fashions. She’s all, “You look good,” but then asks Emily what she thinks of Ezra’s cute ass. Emily vomits in her hat and leaves. Metaphorically speaking.

Spencer and Johnny are hanging out talking about college. He says that he didn’t like it and peaced out to go travel, telling Spencer that she doesn’t HAVE to go to college. Does this mean Spencer will go all Kerouac and travel the world making garbage art? That sounds like more of an Aria thing.

Caleb tells Hanna that he looked up the storage rental agreement, and the unit was rented in her name. Also, Mona’s body is maybe/probably in a barrel.

Also, A-Hol breaks into Holbrook’s office, hacks into his computer, and eats his caramels. What a dick move.

So what’s in the barrel?! Is it Mona’s body? I’m betting it’s old beef stew made of Mona dolls and ruined empanadas. Tweet me your guesses @Chelseaprocrast

All of the thanks to @PLLBigA for the stellar screencaps!

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