That’s a nice, new iPad you’ve got there, Emily. No doubt a gift from your mother who overheard some students talking about how rad they are on her daily afternoon stroll around the Danby U campus. Emily’s new tablet is displaying the suicide note/murder confession of one Ian McPedophile, and she wants to Scooby the s–t out of that thing, but the other Liars aren’t feeling it. Now that Ian’s dead, Hanna wants to think about normal teenage girl things again, like Urban Outfitters and losing her virginity to a vagabond; Aria wants to bring all her mental acuity to bear on the ever-present conundrum “when and where shall I throw my next tantrum on/about Ezra Fitz?”; and Spencer just wants to take her first breath in about two years.
This is a stellar Emily episode. For starters we learn that the other Liars are really only interested in solving Alison’s murder inasmuch as it affects their own safety and happiness. It’s way more personal to Emily, of course, because she love loved Ali (for reasons inexplicable). With Emily it’s been all mercy, mercy, mercy so far, but this week she’s swinging her swift arm of justice. Because – and this is key – she’s forced into it. Spencer’s mere presence presence has always allowed everyone else a bit of a cushion. Aria and Hanna and Emily only ever have to go to, like, a six, seven max, because Spencer operates at eleven at all times. So when Spencer clocks out this week to maybe take a nap for a change, Emily has to go to her dark space. Or, well, as dark as space gets for Emily. So like a light grey.
Officer Garret shows up to “return some evidence” to the school (“That trophy will make for a perfect prop! Mona, be a dear and wipe the blood off with a wet cloth, won’t you?”) and let the Liars know Ian’s body had been decomposing for a week when they found him. Emily’s like, “See? Ian wasn’t texting Melissa at all! It was A! To the Mystery Machine! YOU GUYS. I said, TO THE MYSTERY MACHINE!” But they meh her in unison and bounce up out of there.
“A” texts Emily, all, “Boy, that suicide note looks familiar, huh?”
(Two episodes now have included some apple/forbidden fruit symbolism, I think. Once when Ali chomped into that thing after crashing the Spencer/Em sleepover, and now with a half-eaten apple on top of the her latest murder article in the Rosewood Gazette in the rubbish bin. I dunno, just hang on to it. I think something really bad happened to Alison. Besides her getting murdered, I mean.)
Speaking of zombies, Mrs. Hasting is back from the dead or wherever she’s been these last few weeks while her children were mourning the deaths of their husbands and incubating their devil babies and hocking one another’s jewelry to buy trucks for their boyfriends. It’s a good thing she came back, too, so she could stand around in the kitchen staring at Melissa staring at the wall. She won’t even answer the phone because of reporters, so Spencer picks it up and goes, “Listen, you godd–n pariah, if you don’t stop terrorizing my family, I am going to pump your guts full of lead and feed your beating heart to a pack of – oh, hi, Grandma!” (If there is a God, we’ll get to meet Grandma Hastings one of these days. You know that woman is full of more gin and venom than even CeeCee Rhodes.)
Ian doesn’t have a family, remember, so Spencer suggests they give him a funeral for Melissa’s sake. Mrs. Hastings is like, “It is a well-documented fact that I can only care about one of my children at a time and it is not Melissa’s week to be loved, so probably no on the funeral. But we’ll think about it.”
Hanna’s either got the weirdest freezer/refrigerator in the world, or she doesn’t know what ice is. Caleb has dropped by for his morning gazing, and Hanna can’t find any breakfast ice to offer him. He wants to make sure she’s OK after being ostracized by the town for being a lunatic and then finding a decomposing body in a barn in the middle of the night. Hanna is like, “I’ve been seeing Annabeth Gish, OK? I’m golden.” And then Ashley comes running through the front door to reclaim the Best Mom Ever trophy from Pam Fields. It’s kind of an amazing scene, and I’ve got to think big things (read: Secrets) are in store for Ashley Marin this season.
She flips out on Hanna because she hasn’t been answering her phone, and then just breaks down about how every time Hanna has left the house in the last year, she’s memorized what she was wearing in case she goes missing, like Allison. (That adds some nice retro-depth to her feelings the night Hanna ran away to shag Caleb in that tent in the school parking lot, huh?) And because she’s never seen this show, Hanna tells her mom not to worry, that Ian is dead which means everything’s going to be OK now.
Aria is at Hollis University, in Fitz’s new office, explaining about the headless zombie hunt. As soon as they get themselves into an innocuously compromising position, Jackie Molina busts up in there and drops the most amazing bomb. She works in the Psych department! Which means she knows how to especially f–k with people’s heads! Jackie Molina, welcome to the top of my “A” suspect list! Anyway, Jackie Molina is like, “Aria, I think you almost kicked me in the vagina for showing up on your front porch one time.” And Aria is like, “That is correct.” Fitz introduces Aria as his former student, and when Jackie Molina leaves, Aria’s goes, “Former student?! I think it’s time to start telling people I have seen your bare chest, Ezra! No more hiding our light under a bushel! Or under creepy paper bag faces!”
Oh, also, Ezra used to be called “Z” and Aria used to be called “Pookie Bear.” Ian Harding’s face kind of looks like a Pookie Bear, even in adulthood, actually. You know as soon as he breaks out that PhD-level To Kill a Mockingbird curriculum on his Lit 101 students, a million girls are going to go Hot For Teacher all over him. Professor Pookie Bear is what they’ll call him when they’re writing his name in their notebooks. Professor and Mrs. Ezra Pookie Bear.
Now that Spencer is off the case, Emily’s sleuthing antenna are on red alert. She’s at Rosewood Parcel Service, picking up a package for her mom, who is probably on an overnight visit to Danby. Just checking out the mattresses in the dorms. Taking measurements for window treatments. Emily recognizes the RPS worker, and he recognizes her recognizing him, so he gets awkward and tries to like hide behind the counter. Finally Emily realizes he’s Logan Reed, the guy who brought Ian’s money to the drop-off location when he was trying to buy back his videos from the Liars.
Because it’s her week to be nurtured by her mom, Spencer gets a cup of tea from Mrs. Hastings, who just wanted to take a moment to let her know she’s sorry about calling her a mental basket all those times. She goes, “Spencer, I promise, the next time you tell us we have a murderer living in our barn, wandering around our house chopping vegetables and drinking milk creepily, I will believe you. And probably even kick him out.” And you know this is going to be a problem. Newton’s Law of Motion is the rule of Spencer’s life, so this upswing in maternal affection is going to result in an equal and opposite down-swing of catastrophe.
Emily is at home reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which is no Mockingbird/Gatsby theme-wise, but it’s got some pretty amazing JennaBot overtones. A light bulb goes off over Emily’s head, and it gets very Beautiful Mind-y for a minute while she prints, cuts and pastes text messages from “A” onto a piece of paper, matching them up to Ian’s suicide note. It’s actually creepy as f–k when it’s pieced together, especially when it’s playing out over Trent Dabbs‘s “Follow Suit,” a song so chilling it’s like the soundtrack of your own cold sweat echoing back to you off of someone else’s shadow.
Here:
I killed Alison. I lost my temper because she knew too much. But there’s only so much you can bury. It won’t be that easy, but pain I know how to get rid of the pain. I can’t hide run from the law. Come and find me. — Ian
And here:
Sorry I lost my temper, my bad. —A
She knew too much —A
There’s only so much you can bury, Emily. You’re not done with me yet. — A
I wont be that easy, bitches — A
You know how to get rid of it— A
See if you can run from the law on those legs— A
Camp Mona’s a scavenger hunt and I’m the prize. Come and find me, bitches.— A
Spencer, meanwhile, is shopping online for an engagement ring to replace the one she pawned. She’s frantic and dejected and gorgeously silhouetted, and then “A” texts her, too: “Tell the truth or that ring might come when you least expect it.” Pocket that, ’cause it’s coming back at the end of the episode.
If ever there was a song for Spencer’s psyche, this is it. (The cloth I’m cut from / don’t take too kindly / to being held down in this restraint / It’s under my skin / it’s so unnerving / it kicks around in this tiny cage / Yeah, I got a long list of enemies / what’s another gonna do to me?)
And I’m just going to leave this right here.
Mike, hey – what’s up? Are you all done acting like a petulant a–hole because your parents got separated like half the other kids on earth? No? Still attending Noel Kahn’s School For Mischief and Miscreants? OK, then. Mike tries to break into Jason’s house. How’d he scale that 40-foot barbed wire fence Toby was building, I wonder. Anyway, Jason takes him to the Montgomery place where Aria is, as always, the only person acting older than a middle schooler. She’s like, “He’s never done anything like this before. That I know of. A person in that exact hoodie one time ran over Hanna with a car and then pushed Ian off a bell tower, but probably that wasn’t Mike.” Jason’s like, “It’s cool. Hey, you got any photos of when you used to have pink hair?” And Aria’s like, “Totally. I was just lovingly stroking an entire photo album of them; won’t you come in and join me?”
Rosewood High. Hanna tries to apologize to Caleb for trying to feed him ice for breakfast, and also for having to see Ashley being awesome. He’s like, “No, it’s cool to have someone who loves you. My foster mom exploits me for money and I share a Starship Enterprise bed with Lucas.” Hanna, having never heard of foster care, suggests that Caleb find a better home. And Caleb is all, “I had a better home, Hanna. In the library ventilation system. But you and Aria ruined that.”
Emily rushes into school to explain to the other Liars about how she watched a Veronica Mars marathon and realized sleuthing didn’t mean what they all thought it meant. “It’s more than tromping around in the woods and looking for disappearing trees and throwing someone’s therapy file in the river and punching a blind girl in the face, OK? You really have to use your brain.” She explains about how Ian’s suicide note is really just a bunch of texts from “A.” And then she skips school, I think, to go deal with Logan Reed.
Now, Emily may be playing the role of Spencer, but she’s doing it in the Emily-est way possible. Like, for starters, Spencer would have ridden into RPS on the back of a lion, blaring Darth Vader’s Imperial March on a boom box and throwing a couple of Molotov cocktails at customers, just to make a point. But Emily shows up with like a dozen roses, all, “I’m trying to solve two to twelve murders, including the highly publicized death of my first love, and if you have a moment to spare, I could really use your help. If you don’t want to talk here, that’s fine; you could come to my house for dinner. There’s only a 50 percent chance my mom will try to poison you.” Her benevolent interrogation techniques work wonders. Logan Reed reveals that he never spoke with Ian about dropping off that satchel of cash; he spoke to a woman who paid him via PO Box and communicated with him solely through Craigslist.
At school, Hanna overhears Caleb’s foster mom berating him because she had to turn off Judge Judy and come down here to do some paperwork. This school and it’s paperwork! Toby doesn’t even go here and he’s gotta be doing some paperwork every other episode! Also, at school, Aria tries to talk to Mike about his burgling ways. She’s like, “You want a real storyline? Do an actual crime. Murder someone. Or almost murder someone. Or look like a murderer and throw bloody bandages all over your front lawn. This breaking into people’s houses and stealing camping equipment and body-checking me at Spencer’s in the middle of the night is going to score you three episodes a season, max.” He’s like, “If you tell Mom and Dad, they’ll get divorced!” That threat and Jackie Molina’s face: Aria’s Achilles heels!
Spencer tries to confess about stealing Melissa’s ring, but she’s thwarted by her mom’s request for her to set the table.
Hanna is trying on dresses for Ian’s funeral, starting with the brashest motherf–ker in her closet. Ashley’s like, “Hanna, gross. No.” And Hanna’s like, “This is my gravedancing, confetti-throwing, boob-bearing best, and I want to wear it to the funeral of the man who murdered and attempted-murdered two of my best friends.” It’s a solid argument, and you think it’s just going to be some more of Hanna’s amazing one-liners, but then s–t gets real. Hanna’s like, “How was grandpa’s funeral?” And Ashley says she didn’t go; she only paid for it for 20 years over four credit cards, because her dad was the worst and 17 was five years too late to leave home. Hanna asks, “Do you regret it” and then she pauses, and I swear to God I thought she was going to say, “… killing him?” But instead she says, “…not going?” Ashley does not regret a godd–n thing.
Funeral. The bell is tolling and Hanna – awesomely – goes, “Who’s ringing it this time?” And I’m going to tell you what: Kate Middleton wishes she could dress like Hanna Marin. That hat and veil. It’s not even outrageous on her. It’s so perfect. Actually, everyone looks amazing. They really want us to look at Troian’s neck this week, huh?
Emily wants to talk about all the new evidence she’s uncovered, but Spencer just shuts her down. She explains how her thing was getting rid of Ian, for everyone’s sake, and now that’s done and last night when she slept – with her eyes closed, for the first time in two years – she dreamed about being an elderly lady, chasing after “A” with a walker. Emily will not be deterred. Neither will Spencer. And finally Spencer punches Emily right in the heart: “Solving Alison’s murder won’t bring her back.”
Ezra shows up at the funeral and Aria’s like, “Yes! Finally! Listen, just get up in the pulpit right now and explain to everyone how we’re together like the most chaste lovers anyone’s ever known. Like TV lesbians from the ’90s.” Ezra’s all, “That plan is not crazy at all. But, listen, I know it was hard for you to see Jackie Molina yesterday, and so I composed a song about the millions of ways you’re better than her. It’s only about 10 verses, a lot less than usual, but I only had about six hours to write it after I finished journaling my Tuesday feelings. I’ve got my guitar in the car if you want me to sing it in front of everyone right now.” He is stopped short, though, by Ella and Byron, who shoo Aria off to the children’s table while the grown-ups have their coffee.
Emily, just at her wits end about how no one will help her, confesses everything to Officer Garret. He’s like, “Thank you for telling me these things. I will tell not tell Jenna all of them.”
The funeral montage is gloriously filmed, like everything else on this show. The way the Liars throw dirt on the grave and wipe their hands clean of Ian. There are times when Pretty Little Liars is as gorgeous as UK Skins, which is the highest praise I know how to give it.
Ezra tries to talk to Aria after the funeral and she dares him to full-body hug her in public. He does not. So she goes over to Jason, who’s been watching around the edges, to see if he can talk about anything besides all the times he got high. He cannot. Weed is to Jason as Ezra is to Aria. They can’t shut up about it. Here’s a bombshell, though: Jason thought maybe he killed Alison. He was so strung out, he seriously wondered if he could have murdered his sister and buried her under the gazebo and then just forgotten about it. He woke up with a note in his pocket talking about, “I know what you did.” So he’s as glad as anyone that Ian confessed and died.
Hanna is at school, for some reason. Actually, she’s probably at school to show off her gonzagas in that dress. She convinced Ashley to take her to “pick up some homework,” but really she’s just hanging around in the hallway until the bell rings. Caleb’s foster mom, Janet, is there. More effing paperwork! And Hanna stops her to explain how she knows about the foster checks she’s withholding from Caleb. This is an actual, literal thing that happens. Hanna points to her mom and says, “See that woman out there? She’s my mom, and she’s a partner at the law firm of Dolce, Gabbana & Liebowitz, so give Caleb his money, or you’ll end up in the clink!”
I get the sense that the PLL writers room sets aside the most high-energy time of the day to write Hanna’s lines. Like, after they get settled in and have one and a half cups of coffee – enough to make them super-alert, but not jittery – they come together and brainstorm their very best for Hanna’s dialogue. Then, after eight cups of coffee and a bag of espresso beans and two Red Bulls each, they start writing for Spencer.
At home, Spencer tries to confess, again, about stealing Melissa’s engagement ring. But a suddenly lucid Melissa crawls all over Spencer with the very first inkling of sisterly affection we’ve ever seen. She’s so sorry she chose a murdering, statutory rapist over Spencer, and she’s sorry for all the lies and deceit and Hilton Head-ing, and she’s just about to make some kind of enormous confession when – Hey, remember this? “Tell the truth or that ring might come when you least expect it” – Spencer’s phone rings. Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Only, guess what? It’s not Spencer’s phone. It’s Ian’s phone. The one “A” put in Spencer’s purse last week. And Melissa just goes goes berserk, accuses Spencer of sending all those texts to f–k with her head and says she’ll never forgive her, never forgive her, never forgive her. I kind of thought she was going to pick up the coffee table and sling it across the room. I wish she would have. I want to see Melissa Hulk-out.
Mike’s headed out in his favorite black sweats – and maybe he’s got an pojector and a DVD player and a three-mile extension cord under that hoode, who knows? – but Ella and Byron couldn’t give a s–t. They want to drink their absinthe in peace and then go screw around in the school library like normal.
Garrett pays off Logan Reed, of course, and he crosses his fingers that town he winds up in will also be filled with bags and bags of cash, just waiting to be spent on night time deliveries.
Caleb brings Hanna some ice because of how befuddled she is by the concept of frozen water. He bought it with his foster earnings, which Hanna bullied Janet into giving him. They kiss. It’s very sweet.
OK, so, this is the creepiest f–king thing right here. Hold someone’s hand. Emily makes a connection between the Rosewood town map and Rosewood Cemetery map, which leads her to the conclusion that they need to go to Ali’s grave. Ali’s tombstone is, of course, the scariest one in the whole place: “Beloved Daughter, Trusted Friend: Tis A Fearful Thing To Love What Death Can Touch.” While they’re standing over her grave, a projection appears on a mausoleum. It’s Alison’s death video, except it plays all the way though this time, and just as Hanna posited so long ago, it is actually a sex video. Ian and Ali do it, he kisses her goodbye, and the projection goes black.
Which means that Alison had the busiest death day of any person ever. She: drove home from South Carolina; rented a storage locker, into which she deposited a flash drive inside a lunch box; visited Emily for some mild flirting and to give her a snow globe containing a hidden key to said storage locker; visited JennaBot in the hospital to give her a bus ticket to blind camp; hosted a sleepover in Spencer’s barn, where she threatened to tell Melissa about Spencer kissing Ian, and also accused Emily of liking Beyonce too much; borrowed Toby’s sweater; rubbed Spencer’s fibers all over her personalized friendship bracelet; made a sex tape with Ian; and then got herself axe-murdered.
Alison was a time-traveling wizard ninja; you mark my words.
The Liars finally agree that Emily has been right all day. Ian’s dead, so that’s one in the victory column. But now there are two murderers on the loose: The person who murdered Alison, and the person who murdered Ian. Presumably, A is one of those persons. What are the Liars going to do, you guys? WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO?
They’re going to have a fashion show.
Oh, how I love your #BooRadletVanCullen Tweets!
