Previously: A bridal show fundraiser and the DiLaurentis family upped their suspicious activities by 100%.
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A is for Answers
Marines: Apartment somewhere. The Liars are impatiently waiting on something. Behind them, Noel Kahn says he’ll be right back. Apparently, he’s the “what are you doing here? DRAMATIC CUT TO BLACK” from last episode. (J: terrible pay off.) When he leaves, the Liars wonder at the smartness of following Noel Kahn and further wonder why Alison would trust him. They don’t hear the Foley guys given them an extra loud door opening sound, so they all jump up when Alison answers, “because he has secrets too.”
It’s Alison! Four full seasons later and let me check my feelings. Yep. Definitely hate her. Hanna says she doesn’t know whether to hug or slap Ali. Ali says she could use the hug and goes down the line of her friends getting hugs, except for from Spencer. She simply says that she’s glad Spencer’s there because she needs her help. Now that the cops know she isn’t buried, they are going to start looking for her again. And until she finds out who A is, she can’t go back to Rosewood.
The Liars look at her like, “bitch, we’ve been living with non-stop stalking for years! No need to fake your own death about it.” Not really, but maybe!
Jessica: And didn’t her fake death just transfer the A harassment over to them? Thanks a lot, Ali.
Mari: Hanna says they think Mrs. DiLaurentis stole the game (no Snark Lady can remember) from Mona and that she’s A. Alison doesn’t look surprised. She says very vague things about having stuff to tell them but not knowing how to do it. Someone suggests she start from the beginning. (J: Oh god no, we’ll be here forever!) They all have a seat, in preparation for story time, and Alison says she’ll tell them everything. If they don’t figure out the mystery tonight, though, she’ll have to disappear again and for good.
CeCe Drake is in an interrogation room. I honestly didn’t really recognize her at first. I’m so bad at this show. Detective Holbrook walks in, sits down and is all, “maybe you killed Wilden because he was a jerk and it was self-defense nudge-nugde?” CeCe just agrees that Wilden was a jerk. (J: Understatement.) Holbrook says she can play it the hard way because they have an eyewitness who can put her at the scene of the crime. CeCe wants to make some kind of deal. She has information on who killed the girl in Ali’s grave and she has proof that Alison is alive. It’ll be up to Wilden, you know the detective, to figure out how the Ali thing and the Wilden thing are connected.
Back at the Revelations Apartment, Spencer guesses that maybe she didn’t hurt Ali after all. Alison tells her not to get ahead of herself. It all started at Hilton Head. A had been threatening Alison since that Halloween and she went out of town with Ian to take a break from her stalker.
ALIBACK! She’s in a room at Hilton Head and she hears yelling outside. Hey, it’s Ian! Melissa is yelling at Ian because she knows that he came up here with Alison. She seems more upset about the cheating and not that her boyfriend is a statutory rapist. He’s also a really evil milk drinker so Melissa must have no standards.
Alison is hearing all this commotion. She walks over to a camcorder and deletes the recording (ew ew ew ew). (J: So much ew.) Outside Melissa wants to let herself into the room and confront Alison herself, but Ian tells her to let him handle this so they don’t cause a scene. Melissa makes him promise he’ll never see Alison again. Meanwhile, Ali is now deleting a video file from Ian’s computer.
Outside, Ian tells Melissa that she’s the one who wanted a break. He’s just been “killing time” (sleeping with a 14 year old) until she came back to him. Melissa says she never wants to lose him again and Ian says she won’t. They kiss. Back in the room, Alison starts to watch the video of Jenna raping Toby. Next, Alison is removing a USB drive from the laptop and leaving. When Ian enters the room, she’s gone.
Present. Alison tells the Liars that she went to Hilton Head to escape A, but she found the videos that would help her shut A down. She suspected Jenna was A. We ALIBACK to Ali threatening a newly-blind Jenna in the hospital. Ali tells Jenna that if she receives one more threat, or if Jenna comes back to Rosewood, Ali will bury her. She enjoys one second of smug victory but on her way out, A sends her a message. “Bitch can’t see you, but I do. Tonight’s the night I kill you.”
If only there were a working police department in Rosewood, or like, some responsible adult.
And so, Alison was wrong and Jenna wasn’t A.
Hastings House. Mariska Mom is fielding calls from the other Pretty Little Moms (J: A+). The police are at her house collecting evidence and no one has seen the girls since the bridal show party fashion fundraiser. Holbrook tells a cop to put something into evidence but I can’t see what it is. Mariska Mom tells Holbrook that maybe she can help him find whatever he’s looking for. She also wants to know where her daughter is. Holbrook wants to know the same thing. They aren’t really accusing the Liars of anything this time except for knowing the whereabouts of a missing person. Can you get a search warrant to search the house of a person who may know the whereabouts of a missing person? I wish Democracy Diva were here.
Holbrook shows Mariska Mom a picture of the Liars standing in front of a very alive Alison. I don’t know how the hell the police got this photo, but go with it. (J: Right? That’s what I was wondering. Just another A present to the police, I guess.) The door opens and Mariska Mom calls out for Spencer. It’s Melissa, though, looking really awkward.
Revelations Apartment. Alison says that when she got home, A made it clear that she could kill Alison. ALIBACK. Alison is putting on the Yellow Shirt of Almost Death. She turns to her mirror and in lipstick, A has written, “I’m everywhere and soon you’ll be nowhere. -A” In the present, Ali says she wasn’t safe anywhere, but she finally had a weapon to fight back. She had video of everyone she could ever suspect to be A, including the Liars.
J: “Never turn your back on a Hastings” sounds very Game of Thrones. I bet they have that on their coat of arms.
Mari: OF COURE THEY DO!
Mrs. D sends Ali to her room and picks up the ringing phone. She again tells whoever to please send someone because she’s very worried. Alison sneaks back into the room, takes some pills out of her mom’s purse and then sneaks out the door.
The next scene is what we’ve already seen of the Murder Night. Alison scares the girls, they giggle, she makes an undercover gay joke about Emily, she roofies her friends’ drink, she tells them that secrets keeps friends close and encourages more roofie drink drinking. We cut to the Liars all sleeping that night. Alison is awake. She opens the shed door and asks Toby what he wants. We don’t actually see Toby. We haven’t see Toby for a couple of episodes. Maybe we’ll see Toby and his weird face later. Hopefully we’ll see his abs.
What was I doing? Oh. Recapping.
Present. Aria can’t believe that Alison drugged them. I can’t believe it either, girl. Alison says if she got another threat from A that night, she would at least know that her friends weren’t A. Totally justifies the roofs, I’m sure. Emily can’t believe they were even suspects and Alison utters the wonderful understatement, “I wasn’t always the best friend to you guys.” Hahahaha. Yeah, and Rosewood isn’t always the best place for a teen girl to live. And a teacher dating his student isn’t always a good idea. And faking your death isn’t always the best way to deal with bullying. And dragging out a single mystery across four seasons isn’t always the best way to TV.
That got away from me.
Alison leads the Liars upstairs to some sort of coffee shop/lounge where she’s working. It’s empty now. Emily brings up Toby in a way I don’t completely follow, but that’s cool, because it brings us back to the Murder Night. Toby told Alison that he was actually grateful because his time in juvie got him away from Jenna. Apparently Alison saw the truth in his eyes (or something) and that’s how she knew Toby wasn’t A.
On Murder Night, Alison sends a text message for someone to meet her at the kissing rock. A car pulls up and she gets in. She asks the driver if they had a date that she forgot, and hey! It’s everyone’s least favorite character, Pedzra Fitz. (J: Boo! Hiss!) He accuses Alison of lying to him. She makes to get out of the car and he grabs her arm roughly and tells her she’s not going anywhere. (J: Seriously- boooo!)
LOLPD. Holbrook asks about Spencer’s recent mysterious absence (to rehab) and Mariska Mom asks if he’s questioning all the Pretty Little Parents. He says they are just trying to find Spencer, but Mariska Mom is free to leave. However, the outside of the LOLPD is swarming with reporters, so maybe she should wait until the police can clear a path for her. Sneaky, sneaky, Detective Holbrook. Mariska Mom says she wants to call her husband, so Holbrook leaves her in the interrogation room alone. Unfortunately, Mariska Mom isn’t getting any signal.
An officer tells Holbrook that they’ve got the warrant for GPS tracking on the Liars’ phones and Spencer’s car. Holbrook goes into another interrogation room and watches a bit as Melissa tells an officer that she ran into Spencer’s boyfriend in London, who said that Spencer missed her. So she came home. The officer asks if he can record the interview and Melissa wants to consult her mother. Holbrook leaves and enters another interrogation room, and Papa Hastings is there. Holbrook lies and says Mariska Mom is on her way. SNEAKY SNEAKY. Holbrook tries to question Papa Hastings and he’s just like, “STFU and tell me where my daughter is.”
Out of Town Coffee Shop. Noel tells Alison that he’s got cash and a passport for her and they need to leave in an hour. The Liars know they have to figure out their mystery if they want Alison to stay put. Aria has a more pressing question: she wants to know if Ezra told her the truth. That’s a super vague question but the general answer is OMG, NO. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? HE’S LIED ABOUT PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING, INCLUDING HIS GOVERNMENT NAME. DAMMIT.
Alison’s answer is that Ezra knew she lied about pretty much everything she said, but he believed her when she said she was CeCe’s roommate at UPenn. Ooooh, because he didn’t know Alison was underaged, so he isn’t a creepy pedobe…. WAIT. YES HE IS. HE KNEW ARIA WAS A MINOR. Cool, I’m glad we can all continue hating him at maximum levels.
J: Yeah, they keep trying to make him back into a good guy, just like we knew they would, but I DON’T BUY IT, SHOW.
Mari: In an Aliback, Ali spots Ezra who is reading at a pub. She orders a gin and tonic with her fake ID and then surreptitiously Googles the book Ezra is reading. She then is all, “tragic book, am I right?” She claims it’s her favorite to read while sunning in the French Riviera and then admits that was a lie because lies are more interesting than the truth. That’s cool, girl, but they are also lies. Jerk.
In the present, Alison keeps the story going, saying Ezra told her she reminded him of Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Ezra said that he wanted to write a story about her. Emily asks if they really need to hear the rest of this, and that’s pretty much how I react to any storyline that involves Ezra. Alison keeps on, saying she thought the whole thing was a compliment, but it turns out Holly was a phony who couldn’t even name her cat. Aria tearfully explains the significance of the unnamed cat and Alison apologizes to her. For what? For everything.
Murder Night. Ezra tells Alison that it’s one thing to lie about what she did during summer break, but quite another to lie and say that she’s 21 when she’s still in high school. Alison thinks it’s no big deal since they didn’t do anything. Ezra, on a one-man flashback-quest to redeem himself, says he actually likes Alison and doesn’t want to see her get hurt. She just kisses him on the cheek and says goodbye. Her parting words to him are, “if you ever get your story published, you better spell my name right.” He did one even better, girl. He spelled your name right and stalked all of your friends! #commitment
And now, I hand it over to Jessica to take us through the rest of the longest freaking night ever.
Jessica: It may be the longest night ever, but apparently it’s still not enough time to give us any answers at all.
Ezra drives away. Sadly, he does not keep driving right out of Rosewood. Ali approaches Ian at the kissing rock. They banter a bit about their last goodbye, when Melissa yelled at Ian for cheating on her with a 14-year-old and Ali stole all Ian’s sex tape files.
Mari: Thank you for recapping, but I’m sure everyone remembers.
J: Ali claims that she’s just using Ian, “killing time waiting for someone better to come along.” Which would be anyone, Ali. ANYONE.
Ian proposes they end this on a positive (implied: sexy) note but Alison just tells him that he and Melissa deserve each other and he’s going to jail. Ian claims he didn’t do anything wrong because he and Alison never had sex. She counters with evidence from all of his home movies, asking if “NAT” stands for “Need A Therapist.”
Ian gets angry and threateny, saying that she’s not going to blackmail him into staying with her. She says it’s not about them, but about the texts and dolls and creepy messages she’s been getting, and that they are going to stop now if it’s him or Melissa or his friends. Ian says showing the tapes will bring everybody down, including her family. He doesn’t deny being A though. He leaves.
Back at the Revelations Lounge. Alison tells Aria that Ezra is still looking for her, not because of the book but for Aria. “He thinks if he saves me, he’ll win you back,” she says.
Mari: “Hey, girl. You know that other girl I stalked your entire life to find? Well, I found her. For you.” NICE TRY EZRA.
J: Meanwhile, Spencer’s trying to get this wrapped up before the writers can leave us with more bullshit nothing ‘answers.’ She asks what happened after Ian left.
ALIBACK. Ali returns to the barn, where Spencer comes up all murder-y and says “I’ve been waiting for you.” Dun dun dun music leads us into a not!commercial break.
LOLPD. Detective Holbrook is questioning Shitbag Hastings, asking why he hired a private detective after Ali went missing. Shitbag claims it was business related, but Holbrook seems to know it was Spencer related, about her drug use and violent outbursts. Shitbag says he’s (finally) calling his attorney.
Holbrook has CeCe marched through the lobby, still handcuffed, so going where? (M: Awkward bathroom break!) Mrs. DiLaurentis is there, and they learn that the girls are in Philadelphia. Right about then, Shitbag Hastings appears.
“Do we still have an understanding?” he asks Mrs. D in the middle of the police station. However, she’s mostly focused on the fact that she just found out her daughter is still alive.
Melissa approaches her dad and tells him that Toby showed up in London to tell her about Spencer’s drug relapse, which makes zero sense. (M: Telephone call. #learnaboutit) When Shitbag learns that she and Mariska Mom have been questioned separately for an hour already, he freaks out. “Oh god, they know.”
Melissa starts to cry asking if her dad thinks that Spencer killed “that girl.”
Philly Revelations Lounge. Spencer says she remembers bits and pieces from that night, but obviously not enough for this information to be relevant before now.
Ali admits she wanted Spencer to help break Melissa and Ian up, and kept pushing her. Then they fought in the kitchen. FLASHBACK to stormy murder night. Ali walks away and an angry Spencer chases her, saying it’s not over. Spencer picks up a shovel (guilty!) and threatens. She then runs at Ali with the shovel, but trips and her pills fall out of her pocket. Alison picks them up and asks “are you speeding?” Spencer didn’t get drugged by Ali because she was already drugging herself, or something. And since this is TV, it just made her pick up a shovel, rather than have a dangerous chemical reaction.
Mari: Please don’t down play this! Shovels are really dangerous. If you or someone you know is struggling with shovels, please, find help immediately.
J: Spencer walks dejectedly away, trailing the shovel. Ali goes after her. Spencer cries and asks her not to tell anybody about this. Ali agrees to keep it a secret, saying, “That’s what friends are for.” Are they trying to make Alison nice now? Spencer leaves to go sleep it off, still carrying the shovel.
She hangs around the barn a bit, but her drugged out friends are boring, and no more A texts come. She walks home, thinking she’s won. Coming into her yard, she sees her mom standing angrily in the window. Then Mrs. D looks horrified. We hear a thump, a bloody rock falls to the ground and so does Ali. The girls listening look horrified too.
“It wasn’t you Spencer,” Ali says, having waited until now for dramatic plot reasons. Spencer thinks she still could have hurt another girl, but Aria says she couldn’t because she was asleep. Spencer cries in relief. Is this supposed to be a big reveal? Because the music is acting like it is, but … is it? I don’t feel like it is.
But if Mrs. D saw who did it, why didn’t she tell the police, the girls wonder.
Mari: And if this is the SEASON FOUR finale, why isn’t the show telling us, I wonder.
J: And ‘why am I still watching this?’ I might wonder, if not for Snark Squad. Ah, the power of snark, she is a mighty mistress.
FLASHBACK to a shovel throwing dirt onto an unconscious Alison. She opens her eyes briefly, to see her mother is the one shoveling. She doesn’t move, and the dirt covers her completely.
In the present Alison cries, remembering that her mom thought she was dead and she could hear her talking to someone. Alison couldn’t move, couldn’t let them know she was alive. Alison says Mrs. D was hysterical, and kept saying “What have you done?” to the mystery murder person. Spencer realizes Mrs. D was blaming her to cover up for someone else. But they don’t know who.
FLASHBACK. A car pulls up behind Alison, walking down the middle of the road all covered in blood and dirt. It’s nerd!Mona. She takes Alison to the creepy hotel from back when they found Mona’s A lair.
Turns out, it was Mona’s idea for Alison to fake her death and disappear. She tells Alison to go to sleep, that she’ll take care of her, and kisses her forehead. Probably telling someone with a head wound to go to sleep isn’t a great idea, right? (M: It’s okay if you kiss their forehead lovingly. #science)
While Alison sleeps, we segue to to the room next door, where Mona is humming creepily to herself. It’s the A lair room, covered in photos of Alison. Mona hums while she brushes a doll’s hair. It’s unclear whether this is part of Ali’s flashback memory or just random info that we’re getting from the writers.
The next morning, Alison with dark dyed hair tells Mona that she saved her life.
“Thank me by staying gone,” Mona says. “And staying safe,” she adds awkwardly.
Ali brings her over to the mirror and gives some fashion advice on how to make herself over. “You don’t have to be a loser Mona.” Way to thank someone who you think saved your life, Alison! Mona smiles and thanks her, though she looks significantly down at Ali’s purple name bracelet, which she possibly steals.
Alison drives away from the hotel as Mona stands creepily in the background. Scary music screeches as we zoom to a closeup of Mona’s face.
“Mona played me like a fool,” Ali says back in the Philadelphia Revelations Lounge. Mona wanted her gone and got what she wanted.
Rosewood LOLPD. Melissa and Shitbag talk about getting a good defense lawyer for Spencer. Melissa confesses “Dad, Spencer didn’t kill that girl” then whispers something into his ear, which makes him stare at her in surprise. Meanwhile, Holbrook tells Mariska Mom the Philly police are almost to the girls.
Revelations Lounge. Spencer says, “I don’t think we’re going to figure this out tonight.” Son of a bitch! She thinks Ali shouldn’t leave, and Emily says they can protect her now that they know everything.
“Yeah, we know everything except who A is,” Ali says. Except that and pretty much everything else, Ali! (M: We don’t even know how time works in Rosewood. We know NOTHING.)
We are all Snows in Rosewood, whether we’ve been watching from the beginning, or since yesterday.
The Liars try to convince her to stay, but she doesn’t want to go back until she knows why her mom was willing to bury her alive, which, legit.
Ali says she did her best to keep the girls safe since the first season. Flashback to Ian in the bell tower. Alison shoved Ian over the edge when he was trying to kill Spencer. Apparently he didn’t die that night either. So there’s still that evil milk drinker running around? Does no one die on this show? Except for Kendra the vampire slayer and the dude Emily stabbed. Turns out Ali didn’t save them from the fire though, and didn’t see who helped them. Alison, your non-reveals are useless!
They hear a noise outside and see the flashing lights from the police. The window they’re standing in front of shatters, and a hooded figure points a gun at them. They run.
They hide behind a door, which the masked person shoots open. They can’t call anyone for help because Noel has their phones, because why? (M: LA LA LA LA.)(J: Dang it, it’s the finale! I have a right to ask these things!) They run out onto the fire escape, still pursued. They get onto the roof, which is not a great plan since the door to the staircase down is locked, so they are trapped. Emily suggests jumping to the next roof, but they’re not all as athletic as her and rule it out.
The staircase door opens and Ezra appears. Then another door opens and the masked person appears and raises the gun. The girls scream and Ezra says “I know who you are and the police are on their way.” The person shoots at Ezra and misses (damn!) then turns the gun on the girls. Ezra charges (whatever, still doesn’t make him a good guy, show) and they grapple. Ezra gets punched in the face! Hanna runs over and grabs the gun. The girls all scream for the person to take off the mask. The person acts like they’re going to, then jumps off the roof. They make it to the other roof and walk away while the girls watch. “There’s no way that’s your mom,” Hanna says to Ali.
Aria approaches Ezra. He seems dazed by the face punch, then looks down where he’s been shot in the stomach. Aria screams as he collapses into her arms. They all scream and cry as he closes his eyes. I want to believe he’s dead, but I just don’t trust this kind of thing anymore.
Mari: Yeah, he’s not gonna die. This is a redemption bullet and those are forgiveness tears Aria is crying and everything is terrible. I’m going to enjoy this moment anyway, though. GUT WOUND FOR EZRA.
J: It’s all about the small victories.
Cut to a scene where Mrs. D is being dragged across the ground, unconscious or dead. She’s put in a grave and dirt is shoveled onto her. And that’s it. End of episode.
So, let’s take a look at what we’ve learned, shall we? We learned Alison is alive, which we already knew. We learned Spencer didn’t kill anybody, which I truly doubt anyone believed anyway. We learned that Melissa knows who killed “that girl.” We learn that Mrs. DiLaurentis knows who tried to kill Ali. We didn’t learn who A is. So basically, we learned that other people know things, but we don’t know what they know. That’s pretty much par for the course. I’d have been surprised if this had turned out any differently. Bring it on, Season Five. Bring it on.
Mari: Because really we know that you will bring very little.
Jessica: It will bring me to the booze cabinet. Does that count?
Next time: Ezra’s in the hospital! We’ll keep dreaming he’ll eventually die in Pretty Little Liars S05 E01 – EscApe From New York.
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.
I'm a chronic book nerd and love storytelling in all forms. I'm particularly excited by the rise of the television show as an art form with long, cinematically beautiful plots and complex character arcs (I also watch cartoons). My travels in the past handful of years have led me through three continents and most recently landed me among the majestic mountains of Colorado. Some day I will compile all my travel journals/blogs into one place. Some day. Until then, you can find me with craft beer in hand, ready at any moment to deeply and passionately discuss survival tactics for the zombie apocalypse.
