Previously: The girls tried to tell the truth for one hot second. It was close.
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Taking This One to the Grave
Marines: It’s Thanksgiving Day and Aria, Hanna and Emily are sadly standing outside of a house. There are police cars everywhere and some police tape is blocking off the entrance to the house. Ezra is there too, but I try to ignore him as much as possible.
Jessica: A good piece of advice for all of us.
Marines: Gossip Cop (‘member him? You ‘member.)(J: Er…) comes over to tell the girls that it’s time to take their statements. He wants to talk to Hanna first and suggests going over and hanging out behind the police tape…? Right at the scene of the crime? Hanna freaks though because she doesn’t want to see the crime scene again. Another cop calls Gossip Cop away so the girls can be sad some more. Aria tells Ezra that with all the blood they saw, there is no way someone could’ve lived through that. Their phones all chime and Emily reads for us: It’s all your fault. –A
36 hours earlier. An officer straps Ali into a lie detector and explains how it works. It’s all really tense on account of Alison being a lying liar who lies.
SHHHHHHHH.
We pan up a creepy doll collection and then to Mona, sitting in bed reading. Her mom comes in to say she’s got company in a way that suggests this isn’t a common occurrence for her. Mona goes downstairs and to find the Liars looking like they’d rather be in a greenhouse that is raining glass in their hair, or something. Mona asks what’s up and in tandem, they explain that Alison is at the police department and they have no idea what she’s telling them. They want Mona’s help to spy.
Police department. Detector Cop asks Alison who else was in the barn “that night.” Ali names Aria, Hannah and Emily. Detector Cop asks where Ali last saw Spencer and she blinks so damn much the cops probably don’t even need the fancy equipment to detect the upcoming lie.
Jessica: But the lie detector guy did such a good job explaining how it worked to her!
Mari: What a waste.
Mona Lair. Mona doesn’t want to side with the Liars because she’s scared of what Ali would do in retaliation. Mona’s mom comes out with cookies for them, but they say they have to go. It’s sad. For the mom and because turning down cookies is sad. MonaMom offers to pack them up so they can take them home. Mona apologizes to the Liars for taking all her Ali-anger out on them. They look at her like maybe “I’m sorry” isn’t enough to make up for all the attempted murder and all. (J: I mean, multiple cars were thrown at them. Multiple.) The Liars stand, but Hannah hangs back to wait for those cookies.
By the door, Aria asks Spencer if she’s decided what to do with Melissa’s present. Spencer says that Melissa’s confession doesn’t help them. Even though Melissa was the one that buried Bethany alive, Spencer is afraid that confession makes her an accessory to murder. That doesn’t seem logical, but OKAY.
Jessica: Yeeeaah, I also was unclear on how someone else being crazy/breaking the law because of you and without your knowledge makes you an accessory. But I’m not a lawyer, so what do I know?
Mari: Probably a lot, but you aren’t writing a TV show, so.
MonaMom comes up with the cookies and there is a bit of awkward goodbye-ing until Mona heads upstairs. MonaMom stops Hanna before she goes and asks if Alison’s back in action. Hanna says she isn’t friends with Alison anymore, so she doesn’t know what she’s up to, but she does know that Mona is very afraid.
Mona goes back to her room and makes a shady phone call, telling someone they have a Code A on their hands.
Jessica: Gee, I wonder what that code could be referring to?
Mari: Aardvarks.
We cut to Rosewood’s One Coffee Shop. Mona walks in and asks where everyone is. Lucas walks out of the shadows and says that no one else is coming because Alison got to them all, convincing them that Mona is the crazy one. They are calling her Crazy Mona now. Mona looks at her reflection and asks if it’s possible to be crazy without knowing it. Lucas is like, “aw, no girl. Don’t think that,” and Mona snaps that she’s talking about Alison.
Rosewood School for Follow-Up Meetings. Mona and the Liars are in the bathroom. Mona tells them that she found out that Alison was taking a lie detector test. No one seems suspicious that she is sharing this information a few hours after she was like, “can’t! Scared!” Mona jumps to all kinds of conclusions about why Alison is doing it, but it boils down to the fact that Mona thinks that Alison is A now, and she’s not having any fun with it because the Liars won’t be her friendvictims. Mona says that Alison picked a smart one, a loyal one, an admiring one and a compassionate one which makes them the perfect team to torture. It makes them a challenge. Aria thinks it’s time to talk about her now, she she says that she’s always wondered why Ali picked her. Mona says that Ali can’t feel anything, so she picked Aria because she feels a lot (with her big eyes).
Anyway, I guess the suspicion now is that if Ali is A, she went to the cops to convince them of her innocence and the Liars’ guilt. Mona offers to find out what Ali told the cops so the Liars can get their stories straight. Hanna finally asks why Mona is helping them and Mona says she has to survive senior year and she can’t do it alone. Emily doesn’t want to be Mona’s friend, which is fine. Mona doesn’t want anyone to know she’s helping the Liars. They have to all pretend like everything is normal and they can’t tell anyone. Not even their “bed buddies.”
The bell rings and twins walk into the bathroom. Mona greets them casually while the Liars guiltily scatter. The twins go into two stalls, but when the bathroom is empty, they come out and smile at each other.
In the hallway, Emily drops one of her school books. Paige is on hand to pick it. Things are a little bit awkward and then Paige kisses Emily.
At the end of the hall, Alison is standing with her new posse. (J: They look like a bargain bin version of the Liars. … Sorry, girls.) Mona gives her a bunch of worried looks and Alison returns them with a murderer smile. Then, Ali gets called into the principal’s office.
While her friends are still in school, Aria is at the Pedopartment. I guess this was so much easier for her when she could just go to school and relationship at the same time. Ezra is making a pumpkin pie because he’s been invited to Montgomery Thanksgiving. Aria makes jokes abut her kookie family and how they are all going to be judging Ezra.
Jessica: Meanwhile, we have already judged him. He has been found wanting.
Mari: Hastings House. Spencer is looking at a photo album, back from the happy days when Alison was their friend. (J: -ish?) Toby arrives in his cop uniform and they have a bunch of flirtatious cop/bad girl banter. Tonight is Toby’s police academy graduation and Spencer has a gift for him: a pocket watch inscribed with “you are my once upon a time.” Spencer says she loves Toby and he gets all teary.
Jessica: Meanwhile, my brain is going “you’re being too happy! Cut it out before you get your faces murdered!”
Mari: Rosewood LOLPD. Lucas walks into an office and asks if this is where he can apply for the high school liaison program. The office say he’ll get Lucas an application. Lucas of course takes this opportunity to connect something to the officer’s computer. Mona is waiting in a bathroom stall in the police department and uses her 2 legit hacker skills to start copying all of the officer’s computer contents.
Fields House. Paige is helping Emily decorate their house for Christmas. The Fields are early decorators. Hanna and Caleb are there too and Emily is way into the Christmas spirit.
Caleb goes over to chat with Emily and she explains that she’s so into Christmas, because her father always finds a way to come home for the holiday. After Thanksgiving dinner, Emily and Mama Fields turn on the Christmas lights and they know it won’t be long before they see Papa Fields. That’s sweet. Caleb thinks so too and says he gets why she loves Christmas.
Hanna comes back and Caleb asks her if everything is okay at home. Hanna says her mom just needed cranberries, but that’s a bad lie because apparently Caleb did their grocery shopping and knows there are cranberries in the fridge. Hanna says they need the canned kind because that’s what grandma likes. Emily makes it worse by being like, “but doesn’t your grandma make a cranberry salad…” so Hanna glares at her. Paige calls Emily to come and help her on the roof and Caleb is immediately like, “obviously you are lying.”
We don’t hear her reply because we’re suddenly back at the Hastings House. All the Liars + Mona have gathered to watch Ali’s lie detector video. She answers the questions with such a dead inside air that I’m surprised the officer didn’t just stop the whole charade. Anyway, we hear Ali recount her encounter with Spencer that fateful night. Spencer was angry and possible doped up. She dropped her pills, so that’s how Ali found out she was abusing them. Ali promised not to say anything and they never talked about it again. The officer asks if there is anything else Ali would like to say and she replies that she had nothing to do with Bethany Young’s murder.
DiLaurentis Domicile. The cop that’s not Lieutenant Tanner is there, saying that he shouldn’t be there without Lieutenant Tanner, but he wanted to tell Ali something in person. They sit down and we cut away.
Back to the Liars. Emily says that Ali didn’t really say anything that incriminating. Mona says that the video tells them more about that police’s investigation than anything else. The questions seemed very pointed at Spencer, wondering if she was desperate enough. Caleb walks in and finishes the thought: desperate enough to kill Bethany Young. Hanna tells Caleb he was supposed to keep her secret, but Caleb says Mona came to him. Mona knew that Hanna would tell Caleb, so she asked Caleb for help. Emily asks if they can expect anymore helpers. Aria and Spencer both insist they didn’t tell their bed buddies.
Anyway, Caleb found an affidavit sent to the DA by Holbrook (THAT’s his name!) saying that Ali is totes innocent and Spencer is totes guilty. He sent this after being granted access to Bethany Young’s Radley file, meaning that something the cops saw there made them think that Spencer killed Bethany for Alison, so that Alison would keep her pill abuse a secret. That’s rather stretched, but no one is surprised because we are on our 28th A suspect and still trying to figure out a mystery from season 1 and also the LOLPD suck, so let’s just move on.
Spencer knows that an affidavit precedes an arrest warrant. She jumps to call her parents, but Mona slows her down and asks if Spencer doesn’t want to know what was in that file. Spencer says the Liars don’t have to get involved in this and they all circle around her and say they are all in this together. Mona stands awkwardly outside the circle of trust. Spencer thinks about it for a minute and then decides the best thing to do when you are a murder suspect would indeed be to break into a mental health institution.
Jessica: And this is why we can’t have nice things. And by “nice things” I mean any kind of resolution to any mystery on this show ever.
Mari: I heard some of my coworkers talking about season 6 recently and it made me cry a little.
Spencer and Mona are dressed up as nurses. Caleb and Hanna sit in a nearby car. Caleb is hacking into Radley’s security system. Inside, Spencer gets a message from Toby asking if she’s going to make it to the graduation ceremony. Spencer says she has to be there, so Mona tells her to get a move on then.
Jessica: Their codes, again, are quite terrible. Code Go? Code name “H” for Hanna? I mean, they’re not even trying! At least do a Leslie Knope-style “Operation Soaring Falcon” or something!
Mari: Hastings House. Emily is canceling a date with Paige. Then, Ali walks in. She says she was surprised to get a message from Emily. Hanna sends Emily a text asking where A is. Emily responds that A is with her, so clearly Emily is the diversion. Her tactic is to say she doesn’t want to be fighting with Ali anymore, which Ali accepts with a creepy smile. (J: The creepiest.)
Aria is volunteering at Radley. When she sees Spencer and Mona in the hall, she knocks over a paint jar, which distracts the nurse at the front desk long enough that Mona and Spencer can steal her keys and sneak past the front door.
Outside, Caleb and Hanna watch as a cop car pulls up and Holbrook gets out. They freak out in a really endearing way. Hanna sinks in her seat and Caleb scrambles to pull down the sun visor. Real smooth, guys. (J: I would watch a buddy cop movie with these two. Just sayin’.) Hanna tells Mona and Spencer that they’ve got company just as those two reach the file room.
Aria is still cleaning up her paint mess when Holbrook walks up to her and says she’s made a mess of things in a really menacing way. After a not-break, Holbrook asks Aria a bunch of questions about when her volunteering all started. Aria answers his questions until they become more pointedly about Bethany Young and Spencer. Aria asks if she should call her parents and Holbrook says not yet and creeps away like he’s about to grab a really terrifying class of milk. (J: Right??!!)
Hanna leaves a message for Emily to fill her in on Holbrook. In his scramble with the sun visor, a bunch of papers fell out and Caleb asks Hanna what they are about. It’s a list of top colleges and Hanna says that apparently she did really well on the SAT. Caleb looks at her proudly. Hanna Marin got a 1430!
Jessica: Of all of them, I’d say Hanna could be the Buffy of the group. For her keen fashion sense and snarky comebacks. And the 1430, obviously.
Mari: Hanna Marin slays!
Fields House. Alison tells Emily the other girls won’t let them be friends but Emily says she makes her own decisions. Ali asks for some tea and Emily stands to make it, but when she looks back a second later, Alison has Em’s phone in her hands.
Outside, Paige pulls up with some soup for Emily. She sees the Bathroom Twins parked outside and then Alison comes out of the house. Ali gets into the driver’s seat and Paige runs back to her car and starts to follow them.
Radley. As Spencer and Mona go through the files, Spencer asks about Mona’s early acceptances. It appears that Spencer hasn’t heard back from anyone yet, despite being incredibly smart, talented and rich. But okay. Mona starts to pack up the tapes and files, but Spencer sees something useful. She pulls a tape from August 8th and when they play it, they hear Bethany calling someone a giant liar. It turns out that Mrs. DiLaurentis was having an affair with Bethany Young’s father. Spencer freaks a bit and wonders if Alison knew Bethany Young.
Aria makes it back to the car with Hanna and Caleb and tells them that Holbrook was asking about Spencer. Mona and Spencer find a back way out. Once outside, Spencer calls Toby back, but their reception is crappy. Toby is looking down at his phone while driving, and when he looks up again, a car is coming straight for him. Spencer hears the crash and screams.
We cut back to Thanksgiving Day. Emily is working at Rosewood’s One Coffee Shop. Spencer is feeling real bad about Toby’s crash because he’ll be in a cast for a month. Paige walks up and tells them all about following Ali and the Bathroom Twins out to an abandoned farm. There were at least a dozen cars out there. Alison is assembling an army. They exchange worried looks about that for a second before Holbrook walks in and arrests Spencer for the murder of Bethan Young. Everyone starts freaking out and Spencer is led away.
Mona is going through the Bethany’s files when her mom calls her downstairs. She helps her mom pack up the car and promises to get on the road right after she finishes a report she’s working on. She waves and watches her mom pull away and then starts back towards her house, but she hears suspicious rustling coming from the bushes. Mona rushes into the house as we see a woman in a black hood with a some curls that appear very Alison-like standing in front of Mona’s house.
Montgomery Manse. Ezra brought over pie, even though Thanksgiving is kind of cancelled due to extreme false arrest. Ezra tries to calm Aria down, saying they’ll have Spencer out of there in no time. (J: Shut up Ezra, no one cares what you think.) Mona calls Aria and tells her that Alison lured Bethany to Rosewood because she was jealous and wanted Bethany dead.
A breaks into Mona’s house.
Mona tells Aria that she has proof that Alison is A. Instead of telling her the proof right over the phone, Aria tells Ezra to grab his coat because they are going to Mona’s house.
Jessica: Because apparently it had to be told in person?? Also, standing next to that large an amount of evidence is clearly a very dangerous thing in Rosewood.
Mari: A slowly goes up the stairs. A like to take her time with murder.
Mona tells her reflection that Alison loses.
A floorboard creaks and Mona turns around to see A walk in. She has this unintentionally funny reaction:
Aria, Hanna, Emily and Ezra arrive at Mona’s house to find blood everywhere. We cut outside and hear a shriek.
Then we’re back to the beginning of the episode with everyone being really sad outside of Mona’s house. Holbrook talks to some reporters and tells them that even though there is no body, there is a lot of blood, so they are assuming that Mona was murdered. Apparently, MonaMom got to hear that piece of news along with the reporters and she cries out. The Liars present hug their bed buddies. Alison looks on and smiles like a murderer.
During the (a)epilogue, A visits Emily’s house and grabs baby Jesus from the manger scene and replaces him with a Mona doll. A cradle carries baby Jesus to the their trunk and puts the doll down on top of Mona’s body that looks awful dead.
Jessica: So the point of “no body found” was just for the A-tag non-reveal? Rude.
Marines: Later, A is doing some arts and crafts and makes a pretty little liars snow globe.
I was kind of confused about the show killing off Mona in a random middle of season five episode, but then I remembered they do their season in two halves, so this probably would’ve been the before-Christmas cliffhanger. On the bright side, we made it to season 5.5? Woo.
Next time on Pretty Little Liars: All the Liars want for Christmas is to clear Spencer’s name in S05 E13 – How the A Stole Christmas.
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.
