Previously: A random hoedown and lots of shrugs.
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Now You See Me, Now You Don’t
Marines: The Liars are gathered in the Hastings House watching the news coverage on the eye witness that has come forward in Wilden’s case. The doorbell rings and Spencer goes to answer it while the remaining girls exposit that Travis is the cute eye witness. Hanna is legit worried that he might withdraw his testimony and Aria offers, “he’s quite the dancer.”
Sweeney: Aria, that is relevant to nothing at all. Your inability to differentiate the pertinence of information is part of why you never definitively solve anything ever.
Mari: Not even, “why dating my teacher is bad.”
Spencer comes back with a package addressed to all of them. Inside the box is four Magic 8 balls with each of their names etched into one. They pick up their corresponding balls and read the message, in four parts, aloud: If she goes free, you’ll hear from me. Kisses, A.
Sweeney: I love how the box was conveniently arranged and positioned such that each girl was standing by her labeled Magic 8 Ball.
Mari: That A is efficient!
Emily says A can bring it, so at least maybe that way she’ll stop coming after their parents. Spencer looks very serious as she says, “or did she just declare world war A?” I… have no idea what that means. It’s stupid. Mostly because I don’t get these threats where A is all, “I’ll bring it.” Like… worse than setting up parents for murder and throwing cars at houses? What even is the threat anymore? IT’S ALREADY HAPPENING.
Also, I’mma let this episode finish, but Angel had the best random appearance of a Magic 8 Ball of all time. (S: TRUE.)
SHHHH.
Ashley stands in a line-up with Travis on the other side of the glass. Maybe it’s because I just saw the latest episode of Gotham, but this actor reminds me a lot of the guy who plays Victor Zsask.
Anyway, Ashley steps forward and Travis says he doesn’t think he can do this.
Ezra’s Classroom. He’s talking about the love-at-first-sight story of The Tempest, all while Aria squirms in her seat. Thankfully, the bell rings. Unfortunately, Ezra calls Aria over to his desk to thank her for coming over when he needed her. She says she did it as a friend and leaves. In the hallway, she gets a call from Jake. She confirms their date plans and pitches going to a poetry reading at Rosewood’s One Coffee Shop for some guy they are calling “a contemporary Poe.” I can just imagine Jake on the other line going, “LOL. NO.” Aria pretends that’s all cool, they can go to dinner and a movie, but her eyes speak the struggles of having a 32-year-old soul while dating a practical baby. This is why she was dating her teacher, y’all. POETRY READINGS.
Sweeney: Poetry readings and being blatantly hit on during class lectures. I’m sorry for all the students in that class who had to sit through that awkward class-meets-tween-love-letter.
Mari: And if Aria is any example, it seems that there is no escaping Pedzra Fitz’s classroom. EVERY ENGLISH CLASS, ALL FOUR YEARS.
Police Station. Ashley thanks Caleb for taking care of Hanna. He returns the good will by telling her she’s handled this fake-murder-charge really gracefully. Just as Hanna complains about how long they are waiting, Travis finally emerges. The District Attorney comes over to tell Ashley that they are officially dropping the charges against her. Hanna and Ashley hug and Caleb throws a nod-of-gratitude Travis’ way.
At school, Paige is happy for Ashley but worried that A is going to make good on her threats. Emily thinks they are close to putting the whole A thing together (HA.) now that they know to be on the lookout for CeCe. Still, Paige invites her to spend the night at her house so she can keep an eye on her. Probably while spooning.
Hastings House. Spencer leaves a message for Toby, saying that she needs to know he’s okay. This isn’t the first call she’s placed. The Magic 8 Balls are still on the counter so she looks at one dramatically.
Marin Manor. Ashley comes down all dressed for a date with Pastor Ted and the Liars compliment her on how incredible she looks. Once Ashley’s gone, the girls go into the kitchen to start in on the, “Congratulations On Not Being a Murderer” sweets people apparently sent to Ashley. Weird, but also, chocolate would be the only thing to send in that case so, fine. Before they can dig in, the doorbell rings. Hanna finds a package outside and brings it in for the girls.
Inside is a kid’s coffin with a doll dressed up as Mona. All of their phones chime and the messages says, “Hanna wins so Mona loses. Find her before the cops or they’ll think you killed her. -A.” Maybe they should just march over to the police station and sit in the lobby all, “just gonna sit here for a rock solid alibi!” Or, you know, they could show someone the text message and package.
Sweeney: Nope! Words blocking magic is afoot. Can’t do it.
Mari: After a not!break, the girls are watching the news where they’ve just released a sketch of a suspect in Wilden’s murder. It’s CeCe. Hanna calls Radley, but Mona is no longer a patient there. Spencer says she’ll call Wren to see what she can find out. She sends Emily to school to see if Mona… showed up at French Club? Je ne comprends pas. (S: This is my most favorite sentence in French!) Aria wants to cancel her dinner plans with Jake, but Hanna advises her to keep “Jet Li” as close as possible. Hanna grabs her purse to “go find Mona.” Caleb tells her to slow down, but no.
Spencer goes over to Wren’s place and just finds it empty. As she’s leaving, she notices Jenna’s car parked out front. We see that Shana is hiding inside Wren’s house.
French Club. Emily finds a girl named Jackie who will not speak in English to them. It’s okay, though, because Emily has a French app. She trips her way through asking if Jackie has heard from Mona, but she quickly finds the problem with those kinds of things, or with learning key phrases: YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND THE ANSWER. (S: THIS WAS THE STRUGGLE OF MY YEAR IN PARIS. “WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? THAT’S NOT PART OF THE SCRIPT I PRE-TRANSLATED.) Paige tells her to cut the crap. Jackie admits that Mona called her that morning and was supposed to be there that night, because this was her welcome back party.
Sweeney: LOL. “Welcome back from your latest stint in court-ordered mental lockup for assaulting/murdering people! We missed you, girl!”
Mari: One step up from Congrats You’re Not a Murderer Gift Baskets.
Toby sits alone with a memory box, crying as he looks over a locket and an old card he made for his mother. He ignores another call from Spencer and goes downstairs to the One Coffee Shop. He sees Shana there, filling something out. She leaves and drops a paper on her way. Toby collects it and we see that it’s a shipping form addressed to Wren in London. Toby calls Spencer.
Cut to Hastings House where on the news, we hear that the police have identified the suspect as CeCe Drake. Melissa is in London, so it looks like Wren could be with her, though they don’t know what Shana has to do with any of this.
Sweeney: “Because he’s your ex-pedobear-medical-ethics-violating-boyfriend.” Fixed it!
Mari: Good work!
Toby is being curt so Spencer brings up their confrontation at the Random Hoedown, which was only just last night. Spencer says that while he was silent for less than 24 hours it worried her sick and he can’t “disappear” that way, on account of that one time she thought he was dead. Toby says that he stayed in town for her. And also that she was right because he tried to break into Dr. Palmer’s car and it was a trap. Toby is done following A’s clues.
Montgomery Manse. Jake has fallen asleep while watching an old black and white movie. LOL. I like this guy so much. We must be coming to the end of this tragically brief relationship. Jake wakes up when she turns off the movie and apologizes because he’s just really sleepy. He leaves.
Hanna and Caleb are parked outside Mona’s house. Caleb thinks she’s in there, but Hanna fears something is really wrong. Caleb assures her that even if Mona is trouble, it isn’t Hanna’s fault.
Paige’s room. Emily is a little fidgety, but she’s worried about Mona, not herself. Paige’s dad calls out for her to open the door.
Since her date ended early, Aria goes to One Coffee Shop and of course Ezra was at the faux-Poe reading, which is just wrapping up. Aria gets all Big Eyed, like this means so, so much to her life right now. She asks how it was and Ezra says one of the poems reminded him of a story Aria wrote about a cat titled “Found But Lost.”
I…
Sweeney: This is my favorite episode. It doesn’t even have any Ezra punches/imprisonments and it’s my favorite episode. So much joy to be found around every corner!
Mari: We ride that wave of joy as those two say some other stuff and stare at each other significantly.
The music from that scene takes us through a montage of Caleb holding a sleeping Hanna in her car, Paige holding a sleeping Emily in her room and Toby holding Spencer at the Hastings House. We end back at the coffee shop where in the middle of their conversation, Aria launches herself at Ezra for a kiss and we all collectively lose the food we ate today. Red Coat watches this from outside.
Sweeney: Paige & Emily are hanging out on the bed watching a movie with their shoes on. It made me angry. TAKE YOUR FUCKING SHOES OFF.
Mari: Hang onto that joy around ever corner, girl!
The next morning, the girls are sitting around being worried about Mona when… the doorbell rings! Spencer comes back with another package. This time, inside they find a mini-magic box. It appears to be empty but Spencer abra-cadabras its a saw with the message, “watch me make a girl disappear. Kisses -A.” appears. Spencer reads a whole lot into the clue about how A is putting on a magic show and the point of it is to deceive people and they are part of the act. I don’t know, guys. I don’t. Know.
Sweeney: Also have no idea, but more importantly, A’s gift-giving game has gotten a lot more elaborate and I’ve begun to think that A has hired a full-time assistant whose sole job is to purchase/manufacture creepy gifts. I wonder what that job posting looked like.
Mari: Oh, I don’t know. Something like:
Toby has joined Caleb with a coffee for him. Caleb still thinks this could be Mona, jerking them around, in which case he’ll kill her himself. Toby notices that it looks like Mona’s parents are out of town (…while she was being held at Radley?) so maybe they don’t know she’s missing. He sends Caleb off to go catch some sleep and takes the next “watching Mona’s house for some reason” shift.
Sweeney: MORE OF THE SLEUTHY BRO DUO! More corners and more joy!
Mari: Back with the girls, Hanna is playing with the magic box.
Meanwhile, Toby sees Jenna’s car pull out and drive away from Mona’s house and follows. He tells Spencer where he is just as they get to Ravenswood. The color is all muted again, a tall man watches them closely and Mrs. Grunwald is in the audience. The mime-magician on stage singles out Aria to go into the magic box. She tries to say no, but the mime won’t leave her alone, so in she goes. The mime makes her “disappear” and the music gets really tense, but nothing happens. Aria appears again a second later. She rejoins her friends and asks them where Emily went. They get a text at that moment that reads, “leger de main.” Slight of hand. While they were watching Aria, A took Emily.
Emily wakes up in a box to the sound of her phone ringing. She picks it up and Aria promises to find her. She freaks out because she thinks she’s locked in a coffin and she can hear a saw getting closer. Spencer remembers that Grunwald lived on Sawmill Road and finds it on her phone. They are close and promptly run in that direction. They find the saw mill and see that Emily’s in a box on a conveyer belt headed toward a really big saw. The box is locked. Spencer finds a bolt cutter and tries to cut the chains. The girls yell at her to hurry, which can’t be very helpful. Thankfully, Red Coat turns off the machine. Spencer cuts the chain and they see Red Coat walk away. BUT LOOK! Another Red Coat is up on the catwalk above them. There are two! Aria takes off after one and Spencer the other. Hanna finishes freeing Emily.
Aria is up on the catwalk and uses her one martial arts lesson to kick the crap out of Red Coat, eventually kicking away her mask (?) and revealing that she is CeCe. Aria kicking is super cute. Anyway, Cece tries to get away from Aria by climbing over the railing and holding onto a rope? But the rope is old and snaps. Aria grabs CeCe but isn’t strong enough to pull her up. The Red Coat’s sleeve tears and CeCe falls down and I don’t know if this leg thing is supposed to mean she’s dead:
After a not!break, the girls tell Aria it’s not her fault. They are so into hugging each other that they don’t even realize that CeCe GETS UP AND WALKS AWAY. DEAR GOD. WHAT IS THIS SHOW?
Sweeney: Je ne comprends pas. Anything ever.
Mari: Spencer’s all, “no big! Come see what I found.” They follow her as she explains that she thinks the other Red Coat is Ali, who purposefully lead her to… A’s Lair! This would be a really cool and big reveal if we hadn’t found, what? 2? 3? other lairs before this point? Okay, though. Someone watches them from the adjoining wall through a peephole.
The lair includes a timeline for each of them with all their secrets and private moments. Hanna sees some sort of diary and pockets it. They see a bunch of computers that they somehow know is how A is watching them, monitoring the police, etc.
Sweeney: If nothing else, this is the shiniest A lair they’ve found yet. This is a high ranking A, unlike those low budget A’s stuck in cheap motels and RVs. This is an executive level A.
Mari: Plus, assistant! (Probably.)
Shana arrives at River Valley Bed & Breakfast and finds Mona there, knitting. Shana hands her something, Toby watches.
We cut back to the Lair #32 (approximation) and see the girls trying to hack into A’s computer. Caleb tries to give Hanna instructions over the phone but he finally thinks he should just, you know, go over there.
Spencer finds information for A’s bank account. The clues and assumptions start coming fast and furious now: A formed a corporation and CeCe was on the payroll. A is a dude because there are a bunch of suits in a closet. Wren is not A because A was watching him. Board Shorts could still be A. They find a letter Ali wrote and see that she lied about her age to an older man she was planning on taking on a trip. Aria looks on the other side of the board and sees that there is a timeline for Alison. A was following her too all the way to Ravenswood. Emily asks whose funeral they went to if Ali has been alive this whole time. Aria spots a flyer for some event that night that A must think Alison will be at. Spencer says they have to find her first.
They head outside and Mrs. Grunwald is waiting for them. They try to get away from her but Grunwald says that it’s dangerous for them to chase after Alison. She apologizes for lying to Spencer, but she did it to protect Ali. Grunwald says Alison called her that summer for help because she has a gift of “insight.” The night Ali not-died, Grunwald felt something terrible. We get thrown into an Ali-back: Grunwald walks into Ali’s backyard just as she reaches out of her grave. Grunwald pulls her up.
It’s funny because Sweeney and I met in New York over Halloween weekend and were just talking about why this show frustrates us so much (but these recaps continue to be both of our favorites). Sweeney angrily said how stupid it was that all this time later, we were still trying to figure out if Ali is alive. BUT LOOK SWEENEY. LOOK. SHE IS.
Sweeney: IT’S AMAZING. A THING HAPPENED. A REAL AND LEGITIMATE DEVELOPMENT. The central question of the pilot – “Is Ali alive?” – has finally been resolved, a mere 83 episodes later.
Mari: I KNOW, RIGHT?
Grunwald says that Ali was in shock. She drove her to the hospital and ran in to get help, but when she came back out, Ali was gone. Apparently, Ali’s been hiding this whole time, trying to figure out who she can trust. Or something. Grunwald tells them to get out of Ravenswood because they are being watched and “he” is hoping they will lead him to Alison. Someone laughs maniacally in the background so Grunwald turns and walks away, announcing that he’s here.
Caleb is waiting at the bus stop when some really janky bus shows up. I wouldn’t get on that thing. Apparently, it’s going to take him all the way to the land of ill-fated spinoff series.
The girls try to decide whether to stay or leave but in the end, they really can’t say no to a party with costumes!
We watch a black clad figure walk back to the lair and the camera pans around to reveal… Ezra. So in case you ever thought, “wow, that character could not get creepier.” TA-DA! I’m semi-spoiled on this show thanks to ABC Family commercials which are the most spoilery things of ever, but I’m just going to enjoy this moment right now when we can all think of Ezra as the vilest, most awful villain of this show. He’s all angry because people where in his stalker lair. He slams the closet door like a big baby.
Sweeney: He is the creepiest and also the vilest most awful villain! I’m so delighted. Everything is so magical today, Mari. So magical.
Mari: A-nonymous. I don’t know. Someone dressed like this:
Welp. Things happened! It was the mid-season finale so all these things happening will have to carry us through another 12 episodes.
Sweeney: Mari emailed me when she was done to inform me that stuff happened in this episode and at first I was very concerned that she accidentally watched the wrong show, but it’s true! So many things did happen! And even though this show likes to undo all the Thing Happening that ever occurs, at least one of these things will actually stick. I mean, unless Ali gets murdered again for real, in which case, that’s a whole additional development. A whole new Thing Happening. So probably it won’t.
Next time on Pretty Little Liars: The girls crash a cemetery party to try and find Ali in S04 E13 – Grave New World.
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.
