Previously: Hanna spent some time in the hospital, Noel Kahn spent some time at the top of the suspect list and Emily came out to her parents.
—
Salt Meets Wound
Lorraine: Aria, Emily and Spencer are walking into Hanna’s house. Hanna is fiddling with a “Humpty Dumpty was pushed” sticker on her cast. She explains that she’s trying to keep it on so she won’t have to see the message A left on her cast.
Aria suggest a new, more mellow sticker, but Spencer defends her choice. “It was either Humpty Dumpty or, ‘Jesus is coming. Look busy.'” I’m questioning the sticker choices at the Rosewood Hospital gift shop.
Sweeney: This feels consistent with the Rosewood we’ve come to know and rage out over.
Lor: Hanna peeks under the sticker and grumbles about A’s message still being there. Spencer tells her to focus on the fact that she’s safe and alive, but Hanna doesn’t seem to be up for positive thinking. She helps us recap by asking if Noel Kahn is A, but Aria just says she’s been avoiding him, which I think is code for “dry humping her English teacher.” Then again, I think everything Aria says is code for “dry humping my English teacher! LOL.”
Hanna says she’s hungry and she wants a Product Placed Pop-Tart because they paid her to say that and also because after all that hospital food, a girl needs a little artificial flavoring.
The rest of the Pretty Little Liars [PLLs] head out to grab the rest of Hanna’s stuff from the car. She wheels herself over to the pantry and uses her crutch to knock down the box of Pop-Tarts. A box of lasagna comes down with it, and it is stuffed with Ashley Marin’s Stolen Little Old Lady Money. Are you kidding me right now, Mama Marin? A LASAGNA BOX IS THE BEST PLACE TO HIDE MONEY YOU STOLE FROM THE BANK?
Sweeney: I STILL CAN’T EVEN HANDLE THIS. THIS GIF TIMES A HUNDRED BECAUSE WHAT WAS THIS BITCH THINKING?
Sara: You put Free Old Lady Money in an empty Pop-Tart box in my house, and I will find it within minutes because POP-TARTS. Also, I wish I had Free Lasagna Money.
Lor: Free Lasagna Money ranks just above Big Bag of Racist Money on the scale of free money I wish I had.
The other PLLs come back inside and Hanna is super twitchy and is also grabbing onto that lasagna box for dear life. She shoos her friends away, saying she needs to nap. They all reluctantly leave. Spencer cutely looks at her friend and tells her she needs to boil the lasagna first. She kisses the top of her head before she leaves. This was so cute, I won’t even make a comment about this shirt she’s wearing.
Credits. Big Eyes. Shhh, don’t tell anyone I’m dry humping my English teacher.
After the credits, Mama Marin is coming home with some body hugging pillow for her daughter. Hanna’s all, “cool story bro. I found your money in a lasagna box.” Shockingly, Mama Marin comes clean about stealing the money from a bank. Huh. Characters talking about things is cool. Mama Marin says she got their mortgage current with a little left over, and she’s going to pay it back to the bank by the end of the year. Hanna wants to know how, but her mom tells her not to worry about it.
Sara: Mhm. I think we all remember the I’m Prostituting Myself For You eyes.
Lor: Good call.
The Fields are having an awkward family breakfast. Papa Fields makes small talk about the sausage and Mama Fields asks Emily if Maya is allergic to anything, then excuses herself from the table. Emily asks her dad if maybe they should cancel dinner, but her dad says it’s fine. Em wonders if Mama Fields is going to poison Maya and he laughs and says, “it won’t work. She’s a vampire and will be 16 forever.” Just kidding. He says that poison isn’t Mama Fields’s style, which isn’t very comforting if you ask me.
Sweeney: But I bet she’d be comforted by your words. Or knowledge that she’s dating KENDRA, DAH VAMPIAH SLAYAH!
Lor: We cut to Alex, the adorable tennis club boy, making out with a bowler hat. WAIT. THIS IS SPENCER. GIRL. I just gave you a pass but I can look the other way no longer.
Spencer’s mom (MariskaMom) exits a nearby coffee shop. Spencer says goodbye to Alex and joins her. They recap that Melissa and Ian are on their honeymoon, and Ian had all his stuff moved in from storage. Spencer asks her mom why she isn’t freaking out more about this. MariskaMom says that she doesn’t like this rushed marriage, but it’s done and they should get over it. Spencer presses the issue until her mom snaps that Spencer is a big reason Melissa had a rough year, and so she should just be happy for her sister. STOP IT MARISKA MOM. YOU STOP IT RIGHT NOW.
I promised Sara I would use this gifset the next time someone said something about Spencer kissing her sister’s boyfriends. I didn’t know it would be so soon.
I feel like that’s all we talk about.
Sweeney: TROIAN IS THE BEST FOREVER. My favorite texts and/or gchat messages from Sara are updates on reasons Troian is the best forever. It’s good to have bloggy friends keeping you knowledgeable about important things.
Sara: SHE IS THE ACTUAL BEST EVER. If you haven’t seen Lauren, the web series she’s in on Youtube, please check it out because this girl is phenomenal.
Lor: Anyways. Spencer sees that across the street, Toby has just pulled up to city hall. The tinkly music starts up right away, so we know that even though he’s just literally walking up some stairs, he’s probably murdering each step as he goes. MariskaMom guesses that he’s out on bail.
At school, Emily and Aria are walking together when they come across Maya. Em asks her if she’s still coming over for dinner, and she is. Maya asks what she should wear and Emily says, “anything at all! A dress.” So, like, not anything then, right Emily? Maya jokes that her jeans would be too butch for family dinner, but Emily’s all ixnay on the lesbian jokes-ay. (I think I just did Pig Latin wrong.) Aria has enough of people talking about things that aren’t her, and excuses herself with some sage advice to Maya to at least iron her jeans.
I love when things like this happen. WHO KNEW we would have TWO opportunities to discuss jean ironing on this blog? Last time, I believe we decided that people who iron their jeans are 99% more likely to be evil. ARIA.
Sweeney: I saw that and my first thought was, “ARIA’S A SECRET DEMON!”
Lor: Aria spots Noel Kahn who waves all her all, “hey!” and the music right away starts going dooo-dee-doo-dee-killeeeeer, AND GUYS. HE’S WALKING UP STAIRS WHEN THIS HAPPENS. This can’t be a coincidence, so clearly Toby and Noel are both A. I’m so good at this.
Sweeney: We don’t do PLL favorite comment, but current favorite was when a commenter said that they sometimes wonder if they killed A. All the Traumateers are A!
Lor: Blaming people for killing A is my favorite game.
Maya asks Emily if she still wants the dinner to happen. Emily says that she does, but that her parents have been acting weird and changing the channel when Ellen comes on. Maya says she’s got it, and jokes that she’ll wear her girliest dress and say she sewed it herself. Emily is all, “STOP JOKING. I LOVE ELLEN AND THEY KEEP CHANGING THE FUCKING CHANNEL.” Something like that.
Ezrafitz’s voice over brings us into an actual class! Because apparently school is still a thing. Ezrafitz is talking about Gatsby in generic, TV school terms. When the bell rings, Aria tells the other girl’s to scram and Spencer gives Ezrafitz the best side eye. Which reminds me: earlier, when I searched Google for “evil aria gif” (on an off chance, you know?) I found this:
Sara: THAT IS SO LEGIT. Ezrafitz has been there this whole time, you guys!
Lor: Aria tells Ezrafitz that Noel Kahn was the one who wrote the “I see you” message on his window. Aria says that he’s totally not going to tell anyone though. Ezrafitz is all, “little girl. Why would you think that?” Aria aria-logics that he would’ve told someone already if he were ever going to tell someone. Plus, he totes pinky swore not to tell, and when you are a Gerber Baby, a pinky swear is the end all be all.
Sara: **Aria shrug**
Lor: Ezrafitz says maybe the shouldn’t talk about their illegal love affair at school. Aria asks if she can come over to his place later, and he just exhales and clenches his jaw, like he’s thinking, “great. Now I have to baby proof the house.” Pedo-lationships are high maintenance. (S: +1)
As Spencer is giving Emily sage, surviving-your-coming-out-dinner-advice, Mona bounces up to them to announce that she’s throwing a surprise welcome home party for Hanna. Spencer tells her that she doesn’t think Hanna wants to host a bunch of people one day out of the hospital, but Mona is sticking to her plan.
Noel Kahn walks into Ezrafitz’s classroom, wanting to talk about the comments on his paper. Ezra tries to explain that Noel Kahn wasn’t familiar with the material, and Noel starts saying things like, “I know… ENOUGH.” Ezra stands and flat out says that he isn’t changing the grade. Noel threatens to bring the principal into the matter before crossing out the C on his paper and marking it with an A. GET IT? Because A is the letter grade of excellence, but also, because Noel Kahn is probably a lumberjacking, hit and running, murder.
Sweeney: Sounds like Noel could use one of our character business cards!
Lor: Fantastic. I would definitely hire him to bother all the people in my life I don’t like.
After a Not Commercial Break, Aria comes to see Ezra, and talk loudly about her plans to go to his pedo-lair after Hanna’s surprise party. Ezra shoots her down, because of Noel’s threats. Aria wants to know what was said so she can fix it, but she also grabs his hand all romactically, AT SCHOOL BY AN OPEN MOTHER FUCKING WINDOW WITH ALL THE CLASSROOM DOORS OPEN.
THESE TWO PEOPLE ARE TOO STUPID TO LIVE AND THAT IS WHY I HATE THEM MOST OF ALL.
Of course Jenna interrupts them at that moment, with like, actual school business. Aria is just Big Eyeing as Ezra signs Jenna’s absence card, and Jenna is staring at Aria. I know she’s blind, but probably not because I swear, bitch is always staring at people. Before she leaves, Jenna pointedly says, “sorry to interrupt.”
Sweeney: I heard that as, “Sorry to interrupt the conversation you imbeciles shouldn’t have been having at all because INAPPROPRIATE but at least not at school because GETTING CAUGHT BEING INAPPROPRIATE.” That last part was all in the smirk, but it was there.
Sara: I do love that creepy smirk.
Lor: Spencer meets adorable Alex outside of school and he’s glancing over a brochure. She asks about it and he says it’s for a tennis clinic in Sweden. Spencer gets way excited, but Alex shuts it down quickly. See, he’s poor, and has to spend the summer working and saving for college. Spencer is sad.
At the Fields’s Coming Out Dinner, Maya is being super cute and personable, but Mama Fields is really struggling. First, Maya can’t eat a dish because she’s allergic to seafood, which Emily didn’t disclose. Next, Maya says that her parents got married after having her and her brother. Finally, Maya tells the story of how her mother has a tattooed ring instead of an actual engagement ring. It’s like Maya was sent to destroy all of the This Is How Things Are Done ways Mama Fields has ever know. By the time she spots Emily and Maya playing footsies under the table, Mama Fields has to hide in the pantry to cry.
Sara: I have a lot of respect for Mama Fields, even though she isn’t taking this as well as most people would hope. But she sincerely is trying, and this is something that is completely unnatural to her. So I think it’s really sweet that she’s making an effort and inviting Em’s girlfriend over. Good for you, Mama Fields.
Lor: Hanna asks Mona where she’s going since clearly “studying” is not what Mona is dressed for. Mona says she sees a shadow at her door, and when she opens it, Hanna is overcome by a very large crowd of kids yelling, “surprise!”
After a cut, the party is underway. We see Noel Kahn open up the cupboard where the Lasagna Box o’ Money is stored, but he pulls out a can of something or other. That leads us into an Aliback:
Some girl is sitting on Noel’s lap and suddenly declares their relationship over. Noel is shocked and looks over to where the Pretty Little Liars + Alison have witnessed the break-up. He says he hopes they are happy. Aria asks what that was about and this child is wearing pigtails and has pink streaks in her hair. If only Ezra could see her then. What was I saying? Oh, yeah, Alison explains that “they” broke Noel up with his girlfriend for Aria. Spencer is all, “we?” Alison crazies that she only hunts when they need food or when she’s bored. End Aliback.
Lucas finds Hanna and he’s being a total dick to her. Look, dude, I know rejection sucks, but Hanna basically said, “I like you as a friend and you are great, but I have a boyfriend.” There are worse ways to go. Get over it.
Sweeney: Yup. I was rooting for you Lucas! Calm down.
Sara: The “Nice Guy.” -_-
Lor: Back at the Coming Out Dinner, Emily and Maya head outside. Maya wants to bail on Hanna’s party. She admits that she was trying to hold it together at school, but that she was actually too nervous to sleep the night before. They kiss a little before they are interrupted by Mama Fields bringing Maya some leftover to take to her parents. Maya thanks and hugs her and Emily smiles at the picture.
At the party, Spencer and Alex are talking and kissing, but mid-kiss, she spots Noel Kahn and it insta-activates her gag reflex and she pulls away. Aria arrives at the party, and Noel comes right over to chat with her. Aria starts whisper-yelling at him for breaking his pinky promise and black mailing Ezrafitz. Noel plays dumb and says he never demanded a better grade; he just asked Ezra to take another look at his essay. He flips it around and asks what kind of man Ezrafitz is, to lie that way. Aria’s all, “hey, we just saw an Aliback so I thought I’d ask if there is some old grudge you may have against me and my friends.” Clearly she doesn’t say that but what she does say is about that clunky.
Emily is walking to her car, but spots Toby Stoop Kid sitting on his stoop. She walks over to him ans asks if Jenna ever told him she was trying to visit him while he was in jail. She did not. Emily says she wanted to visit to say that she wasn’t the one who gave him over to the police. She tells him she has to go to Hanna’s party. He pouts that he can barely leave his porch as we see that he has a house arrest thing around his ankle. He creepies a little more about not getting more invitations. I wanted to rank his creepy face right now on that handy scale Sara came up with of from 1 to AAAHHHH!!! but I decided the creepiest part about him right now is the fact that a furry animal appears to be living on his head.
Sara: OMG WUT LOL. He looks just like Velma!
Lor: A+
Emily starts to leave but first asks if he believes her about not telling the cops. Toby is all, “funny, I asked you that same question before the cops arrested me and you never answered me.” It’s kind of fair, considering that last time these two were together, he was all, “can we talk?” and she proceeded to run away from him, screaming down hallways. That’s how I remember it. When Em does actually leave, Toby goes back to trying to screw driver his house arrest anklet off.
At the party, Aria is asking Hanna if she can leave early. “Hot faculty party to go to?” Hanna asks because she is my favorite. (S: LOL FOREVER.) Aria cry-babies that it isn’t funny and that she can tell Hanna has a problem with her pedo-lationship. Aria bitches that she should’ve never told them and Hanna corrects that she should’ve told them a long time ago. But see, Ezra made her pinky promise not to, and I’ve already told you about Gerber babies and pinky promises. Hanna’s all, “whatevs. We trusted you.” Aria thinks she’s ruined everything. She isn’t wrong.
Sweeney: Points to Hanna and negative fifty points to the show for continuing to try to pretend that this relationship is sympathetic and everyone else ~*just doesn’t understand*~. Random thought: I wonder if VERIZON realized that they were spending a lot of money to tie their brand to this epic pro-pedophilia campaign?
Lor: Outside, Spencer finds Alex, but he’s being curt with her. She asks what’s up and he’s pissy because he just got electronic confirmation of his application to the tennis thing in Sweden. Spencer says she wasn’t responsible for that, but he makes it into a bigger, “two different worlds/we want different things” thing. He leaves and Spencer is sad. Her phone chirps and it’s a text from A.
Bitch is efficient and also is not above digging in the garbage for tennis brochures. Spencer looks like she might murder the phone.
Sara: The one age-appropriate relationship is crumbling. Figures.
Lor: Inside, Sean is telling a story about Hanna and Lucas is in the background being a dick and insulting Sean. It doesn’t take long before Sean’s all YOU WANNA GO but Noel Kahn quickly holds him back. Hanna asks to speak to Lucas outside.
Hanna asks if Lucas came to welcome her home or pick a fight with Sean, even though, he’s really mad at Hanna. He yells about Hanna cutting him off and it quickly dissolves into a rant about “Alison’s Anointed” and how considering what Ali did to him, he should’ve done something way worse to her. Remember the mud on Lucas’s shoes? Yeah, he destroyed the memorial because a monster like Alison shouldn’t be memorialized. He tells Hanna to call the cops if she must, but she isn’t going to.
Lor: Meh.
After Lucas leaves, Sean comes outside to say Lucas is crazy. Hanna turns this around and says that Noel Kahn is crazy. Sean doesn’t completely follow the connection though and this scene ends with Hanna asking Sean to just tell everyone to go home.
Aria and Spencer are sitting on the stairs. Spencer is showing her the text message from A. Aria says that Spencer should tell Alex but clearly she couldn’t without, you know, telling him about A. Spencer says that maybe she should just tell Noel Kahn to clear this up for her. Aria Big Eyes that they don’t know that Noel is A, and they also don’t know what A wants. Besides, even if they knew that Noel was A, what would they do about it.
Toby is still sitting on the porch trying to break off his anklet. Jenna comes out to sit with him and make even his hair look less creepy by comparison. Toby tells her that she never told him about Emily trying to visit. Em wasn’t the one to turn him in. Jenna already knows this because she turned Toby in. She gets handsy with him as she says that he needs to be home and not running around like a fugitive so he can be safe and they can prove him innocent. Toby grabs her hand and says that he could be chained to the porch, but he’d never touch her like that again. Jenna smacks him and growls a, “who do you think you’re talking to?”
Hanna is cleaning up the party mess when she hears a door open and close inside the house. She wheels towards the noise and sees a creepy shadow. For some reason, she decides that she should turn off the rest of the lights in the house? She’s having a major freak-out when her mom walks in and turns on the lights. Mama Marin is annoyed at the mess and the party, but then she has another thought: the Lasagna Money! She checks the box and of course, all the money is gone.
Sweeney: I can’t even feel all that sorry for you, Mama Marin because what in the actual fuck was that hiding spot?
Lor: Mama Fields is still cleaning up the house when Emily gets home. The chat about the party before Mama Fields says that Papa Fields got a call from his commanding officer. They want him in Texas at the end of the month. The subject changes to Maya. Emily thanks her mom for being okay with it, but Mama Fields assures her she isn’t. She tearily says that the entire thing makes her sick to her stomach. Emily is shocked.
Sara: Yeah… I guess my earlier comment about Mama Fields is dulled a bit by this scene. Womp.
Lor: Spencer gets home too and chats with her dad about all of Ian’s stuff hanging out in their living room. While MariskaMom thinks Ian will be good for Melissa, Papa Hastings says he has a few choice words to describe him. Also, Papa Hastings heard from a friend on the police force and the blood they found on Toby’s sweater was a positive match for Alison. Spencer looks super confused because she’s off the Toby train and is riding on the Noel did it! express.
Just then, Spencer notices some of Ian’s golf clubs. It has a tag for Hilton Head that sends Spencer into an Aliback: Alison is getting out of a cab, and saying she missed all the PLLs. The Liars wonder why she’s so tan, considering she was hiding away with her grandmother in an apartment. Alison asks if one of them can grab her bags, and Spencer goes for them. She notices a tag on the luggage for Hilton Head and asks about it. Ali lies about her grandmother taking her there because she loves golfing. The girls all chat about their plans for that night’s sleepover, so this is the night Alison disappeared. Spencer interjects again, pointing out that Hilton Head is in South Carolina and Alison’s grandmother is in Georgia. Alison’s all, “SHUT UP WITH YOUR QUESTIONS” but a little more subtly than that.
In the present, Mama Marin is telling Hanna not to talk and downs one of her meds to help her sleep. I’m really glad this show is trying to make me feel bad about someone stealing Mama Marin’s stolen money. Hanna opens another pill bottle and inside there is a rolled up $100 bill with a note.
I just hope that Hanna didn’t really need the pills that were originally in that bottle.
Sara: NO! NOT HANNA! Why can’t A stop hitting Hanna with cars and stealing her stolen money and ruining her liiiiiife?!
Lor: Meanwhile, Aria is probably dry humping her English teacher right now.
Anonymous End: A black gloved hand is inserting folded, $100 bills in a hideous clown piggy bank.
Next time on Pretty Little Liars: Ezria is still a terrible freakin’ idea in S01 E13 – Know Your Frenemies.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something with three kids who spends an embarrassing amount of time watching teen television dramas. There's a whole lot of Internet out there, and I plan on reading all of it before I die.
