Previously: WE DON’T EVEN KNOW. THINGS HAPPENED. Ali is alive and Ezra is creepy ass hit.
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Grave New World
Marines: It’s kind of weird because episode 13 is generally the Halloween episode but no one has mentioned Halloween. Instead, the Liars are crashing the Ravenswood-party-that-requires-a-costume-and-is-also-in-a-graveyard. The girls are all, “WTF. Who throws a party in a graveyard?” and the answer is apparently, “Ravenswood” and not, “well, who goes to an Adam Lambert murder Halloween train party, GIRLS?” or “who actually attends a party in a graveyard.”
BUT ANY EXCUSE FOR GORGEOUS GIRLS IN COSTUME!
Sweeney: Gorgeous girls in gorgeous, elaborate period costumes. TV teenagers have the best closets.
Mari: Almost worth how sucky the rest of their lives are. The endless closet and the cute boyfriends.
The girls worry a little about finding A before they find Alison and Hanna says she can’t run away from anyone wearing a girdle. Spencer corrects that it’s a corset and Hanna’s all, “whatevs. It sucks.” I don’t actually know why any of this happened. Spencer leads the way into the graveyard, but Emily stops them because she isn’t sure if she’s ready to see Alison. Aria gently reminds her that this stupid, stupid plot has been going on for 4.5 seasons, SO ALL OF THEM HAVE ALREADY SEEN ALISON.
Sweeney: Look at you and your over achieving blogger status!
Mari: We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Caleb rides along on the creepbus. There’s only one other man on there as well.
Aria thinks she sees fingers, but they are just mushrooms and Spencer tells her to get a grip. Hanna gets distracted because she sees two twin girls dressed in long red coats. Aria gets a call from Ezra and she tells him that she can’t talk because she’s in a graveyard in Ravenswood G2G BYE. Ezra tells her to be careful and she promises she will be. Ezra is actually just standing nearby in that vintage soldier costume, like a mega-creep.
And then a special SHHHHHHH that I will also fully gif. It’s cool, though, because I’m pretty sure this show knows that most people just like looking at it:
Mari: Creepbus. Apparently there was someone else on there because a girl is now sitting next to Caleb. I’d go back and see if she was there before, but I’ve already exhausted the effort episode 12 earned with its big reveals. SORRY. (S: She certainly was not and anybody who takes a seat next to a stranger when there are so many empty seats is a creep and the worst and I hate her already.) The girl is being very chatty and Caleb is a little annoyed until she starts sharing about her dead parents and the uncle she never knew existed who lives in Ravenswood. The Wolfy Bad Boy String Quartet starts up (I made up the string quartet part, but it sounds real good) and they bond over foster homes and running away and stuff. (S: Ugh, fine, you’re traumatized and stuff. Whatever – you’re still violating the basic rules of mass transit. Adjacent seats are a last resort. That’s the rule.)
The girls are standing around at the party, wondering why Alison would even show up here, when they spot some guy in a vintage uniform. They ask each other if maybe he’s Board Shorts and Hanna suggest marching right up to him and asking, earning her a sharp reply from her friends. He’s joined by a woman in kind of a bride costume (?) and Spencer says she’s going to get closer to hear their conversation. After she leaves, the girls suddenly realize they are standing in front of a check in table when an older dude asks for their names. Don’t ask me how they only suddenly realized this thing.
I guess that doesn’t matter because the next we see them, the Liars just walk away from the check-in table. I’m so confused. The girls decide to go after Bride, Hanna sees the two Mini-Red-Coats, and Emily runs into Grunwald.
Emily’s big eyes in that last gif are giving Aria’s a run for their money.
Sweeney: “LOOK, I CAN BE YOUR CREDITS GIRL, TOO. PICK ME!” Except I still like to cling to the theory that Aria-as-credits-girl means she’s Big A. Or THE BIGGEST A or what the fuck ever.
Mari: It’s like a kid’s game at this point. “The biggest A in the world!” “NO, THE BIGGEST A IN THE UNIVERSE.”
Creepbus. The dude in the back seat is asleep and Foster Girl is eyeing his bag of chips. She tries to grab them but he wakes up and he’s got one cloudy eye. Foster Girl runs back up to where Caleb is sitting. The saga of Foster Girl and the bag of chips is riveting, I tell you.
Aria is walking around alone in the graveyard when she hears nefarious twig snapping. Someone grabs her ankle and her (terrible) scream takes us back to the creepbus. Caleb is leaving a message for Hanna. Foster Girl asks who Hanna is and if maybe Caleb is worried she’s hooking up with someone else. Caleb scoffs all, “excuse me, have you seen my wolfy bad boy hotness?” (S: LOL, it’s funny because that really is the read I got on his reaction too.) Foster Girl admits that her uncle doesn’t know she’s coming, but tells Caleb to worry about his own business.
Graveyard. Bride was the one who grabbed Aria because apparently, someone pushed her into an open grave. Probably the graveyard maintenance people should’ve closed all those up before they invited the whole town in. Aria asks if the Vintage Soldier was the one who pushed her. Bride says no. He’s her cousin. He shows up now and asks what happened in the most aggressive, Toby Edited way. Aria’s all, “I helped her up, gosh,” and leaves when things get awkwardly silent.
She and Hanna catch up to Spencer and Emily and it’s clear they are all freaked out by this party. They are talking very loudly about finding Alison as they walk through the graveyard. Just ahead of them they see maybe Alison running away from them. They follow her into a mausoleum, but when they get in there, she’s gone. They figure out that there’s a hidden doorway with a very creepy set of stairs. They go down because they’ve never read our blog before and don’t know how to survive life.
Mari: A few steps down, the concrete slab of a door closes. They freak out but Spencer assures them that they will find another way out. It’s only the Halloween(ish) episode, after all. Can’t die now.
The statues down in the masoleum basement look like they are crying. WEEPING ANGEL OR WHAT? A very strong indoor magical wind starts up so the girls hold hands and back up against a wall. It blows at them for a bit and the lights cut out. After it dies down, Aria turns to Hanna behind her and finds she’s actually holding the hand of a Weeping Angel. They freak out yet again and call around for Hanna who was definitely just behind them.
Foster Girl is brooding on the creepbus so Caleb joins her and apologizes for pressing. He tells her his experience with his Dad Uncle and they talk some more about crappy foster parents and the hope of a better tomorrow. The bus stops and so Caleb and Miranda officially introduce themselves, as she’s thinking of getting off. The Chip Dude with the cloudy eye is at the bus exit though, just staring at Miranda so she decides to sit down and keep riding.
Mausoleum Basement of Don’t Go In There. (Or crypt. Whatever.) Hanna is walking around calling out for her friends when she finds HELP ME in red letters written on a wall. A bat flies over head and Hanna loses her hat, which I mention now because all the girls have lost or taken off their hats in one way or another. I don’t know why, I’m just mentioning it. (S: Gotta let that gorgeous hair flow free, Mari.) Hanna sees a bunch of rats and runs the heck away until she comes across another staircase. She forces the door at the end of them open and finds herself in a room with a dusty, old grand piano. She leaves that room and heads further into the house. Vintage Soldier (presumably the Ezra one) is in the room too, being a mega-creep.
Graveyard. Caleb and Miranda have finally arrived. Miranda tells Caleb to go off and find Hanna because she’ll be fine. She also touches his forehead with her pointer finger because it keeps evil spirits away. Then she LOLs that she just made that up and probably just wanted to touch his wolfy bad boy forehead. They part ways.
Sweeney: This was kind of cute – making that up. I mean, don’t ever touch my forehead, weird girl with bubble-respecting issues, but it was cute.
Mari: Hanna is still walking around whatever house this is. It comes complete with some sort of old-timey phone booth. The phone works so she dials and someone shuts her inside.
Back down in the crypt, the other Liars are still searching for Hanna and come across her hat and the HELP ME.
In the phone booth, HANNA IS STILL DIALING. I know it is a rotary phone, but damn. The phone starts making weird screeching static noises so she hangs up and finds she is locked in the booth. She sees four lights coming near her. They kind of look like candle lights or else evil werewolf eyes? I think this episode is making me crazy. (S: Possible. Thanks for taking the crazy-making one for me!) (M: Best friend ever.) Anyway, they come near the booth and like, multiply and then cover the whole outside and then disappear. The phone rings. Hanna answers and tries to say she needs help, but all that’s on the other line is old timey music.
Miranda arrives at what appears to be the same house Hanna is stuck in. She calls out, but no one answers. She looks at all the portraits on the wall as Music of Mystery plays. The Zoomy Cameraman focuses on one portrait of a mom in front of twins.
Emily, Aria and Spencer have finally made it up into the mansion. They question having a crypt attached to your mansion. Spencer looks at the sheet music on the old piano (I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier) when something drips on her hand. They look up and see that it looks like blood (“rusty water,” says Emily hopefully). (S: I feel her on that wishful thinking.) They hear a scream and then someone saying that her friends know she’s there. Spencer rushes out and loses Emily and Aria in like 1 second.
Hanna is trying to pick the lock of the booth and hears more banging noises. Alison walks into the room and looks at Hanna through the booth. Vintage Soldier (perhaps Ezra) grabs Alison from behind and then looks in himself. Hanna sees someone coming around the booth and braces herself, but it’s Miranda who opens the door. Hanna is a little suspicious of Miranda but apparently relaxes when Miranda says she’d definitely kill her in a cooler way than a phone booth.
Mari: Hanna tries to explain what she’s doing in the house and tells Miranda to help her find her friends. They are both a little turned around and come across a room with a lot of open coffins. Hanna finds a card for Henchly, Trumble and Collins. Collins is Miranda’s uncle. Hanna wants to leave quickly, but Miranda is busy having a flashback. She’s standing in this very room, remembering her uncle telling her not to try and understand her parent’s death, but know that she’ll always be safe. Out of the flashback, a tearful Miranda tells Hanna what she just remembered. Hanna comforts her by saying they’ll find her uncle and she’ll hold him down while Miranda asks him all her questions. Aw. Hanna is the best. (S: Agreed.) They leave the room and Miranda sees something else of interest. She picks up the little booklet and pockets it.
Emily and Aria come across some sort of make-shift lab? There are a lot of glass bottles on shelves. There is an open window and Emily looks down and decides she can climb down and go for help. The window has a jagged edge that is slowing falling toward the girls are they peer out. Emily starts to go out when they hear a scream and a woman says, “you can’t keep me here.” Emily stands just as the window slides shut. Much big eyes and many heavy breathing.
Spencer is alone and finds a greenhouse. She pricks her hand on a thorn and whiles she’s staring at the blood, Vintage Soldier (my money is on Ezra) sneaks up behind her. Spencer picks up some gardening shears and swipes at him, cutting his hand in the process. Then she whacks him across the back with the shears, knocking him out. She approaches him slowly and goes to pull off his mask, but he stirs and reaches out for Spencer. In her haste to get away, Spencer hits her head against the corner of a table and is now the one who is knocked out. Vintage Soldier stands and does menacing things with the garden shears.
Sweeney: As one does.
Mari: Miranda is standing in the grave again and Caleb sees her. He asks if she’s okay, but she tells him he should probably go check up on Hanna who is just over yonder. Hanna and Caleb hug and she tells him she thinks A has Ali. (S: Whose aliveness he’s not yet aware of? Or did she mention that when she called him to Rosewood?)
Emily and Aria find a passed out Spencer. She stirs as they breathe heavily over her body. They hear a scream again.
Hanna brings Caleb and Miranda into the mausoleum. She tries to push open the secret door, but it’s suddenly not a door anymore. Meanwhile, Miranda has found a grave with her name and a picture of her on it. “That’s me,” she says, though most TV people would’ve gone with, “my ancestor sure did look like me!”
Spencer, Emily and Aria are still running around the house when they hear more screaming. They come into a room and find that the screaming is playing on a record. Grunwald finds them in that room and tells them that they shouldn’t be in there. After a not!break, Grunwald guesses that they found the tunnel. This house is her home, but it doesn’t belong to her. She’s the caretaker. Probably she should clean it more often and invest in better lighting and less ways to die. The tape that was playing was of one of her sessions with Alison. But that tape was stolen 6 months ago. Grunwald does something that makes Emily guess she’s “seeing” something. Grunwald says it’s more about what she feels: one of them has been touched by the one Alison feared the most. If she means Ezra, “touched” is kind of a mild word for it, AM I RIGHT ARIA?
Sweeney:
Mari: Sorry.
Back in the graveyard, Miranda shows Caleb the funeral program she found and it’s for Chip Dude with the cloudy eye. Hanna is finally able to reach the other Liars on the phone and agrees to meet them at the car. Hanna tells Caleb they are all okay, but they lost Ali again.
At the car, the girls find they have a flat tire.
Mari: Miranda says she’s going to stick around Ravenswood, even after Hanna invites her down to Rosewood. Caleb relates to Miranda’s need for answers. He and Hanna leave her, but Hannafeels real bad, and doesn’t think she should stick around this crazy town alone. Hanna makes out with Caleb’s face and tells him the kiss was for being the kind of guy she can ask to stick around a crazy town and help a pretty girl. Caleb doesn’t say no because this is his chance for a spinoff y’all! He tells Hanna he loves her and rejoins Miranda.
Hanna is walking alone when she notices that she’s being followed by the Red Coat Twins. Except it’s really a child and a little person. Um. I feel a little bit awkward for assuming they were twins so I’m just going to move on now.
Spencer discovers that she doesn’t have a spare tire. Hanna joins them just as a car pulls up. It’s Ezra, who says he was calling Aria and got worried when she didn’t pick up. No one asks the, “…so you drove all the way to Ravenswood???” thing and everyone just goes with it and accepts a ride back with Ezra. (S: Who is very dedicated to keeping his right hand – which Spencer probs sliced open – in his pocket.) We cut to him dropping the girls off and just as he drives away, they see Alison in some trees nearby. They run after her and finally catch up to her.
Sweeney: Cosign, but also this girl can actually act! I never noticed that because she’s always playing this crazy sociopath, but that was a neat little discovery. Or maybe it just seems that way because Troian Bellisario is the only other person on this show who can? Unclear.
Mari: Alison says she doesn’t have much time because it still isn’t safe for her. Maybe if she’s trying to remain unseen, she should stop always wearing the same coat. She asks if Hanna remembers what she told her at the hospital. The girls all hear something and turn to see Ezra. He approaches them in slow motion, thunder cracking and lightning lightening him in eerie shades. He takes his hand out of his pocket slowly… She forgot her cell phone. THANKS FOR SAYING THAT IN THE MOST MURDERTASTIC WAY POSSIBLE. More lightening and when the girls turn around, Alison is gone.
Sweeney: Also, still using his left hand. Still keeping that other hand tucked away where Spencer can’t see it and go, “Hey, I just fought Executive A and gave him a similar injury.”
Mari: But would she? These girls are bad at evidence, who who knows.
Miranda and Caleb are walking along as he asks if she noticed how many kids are buried in the cemetery. She’s busy looking at something else. She asks what his last name is and he looks down. It’s a gravestone that has Caleb Rivers on it. He lifts the fancy little locket-on-a-grave thing and reveals a old timey picture of himself. DUN DUN DUN music plays as they do that thing where they look around, like maybe the answer to this mystery is over their shoulder and all they have to do is look around a bit to find it. That seriously goes on for like 20 seconds.
End.
This stupid episode. “How do we follow up actually revealing things, guys?” “I KNOW. COSTUMES AND RUNNING AROUND DOING MOSTLY NOTHING!” Excellent, yes, great. Most of it was set-up for Ravenswood. I’ve got to admit that even with our experience with Angel, my faux-CD prickles a bit at not covering Ravenswood. As I was watching this, though, I told my faux-CD to shut it because nothing about Miranda made me want to watch a show about her. Nothing about Ravenswood makes me want to watch a show based there.
Next time on Pretty Little Liars: The Liars start looking into who might’ve been buried in Ali’s grave in S04 E14 – Who’s in the Box?
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 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.
