Previously: Hanna’s mom stole a bunch of Free Old Lady Money from the bank, Hanna stole Lucas’ heart (on accident), Mama Fields stole Maya from Emily, and Aria just keeps on being Aria.
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Careful What U Wish 4
Sara: The girls watch the extended version of the “I Know You Wanna Kiss Me” video, which has Alison saying that she has to get back to the barn before the PLLs get suspicious. The girls see the end of the video, where the camera is turned around on Ian. The camera is knocked to the ground, and Ali’s hand grabs at the dirt and my closed captions say she groans. Hanna points out that there are things besides pain that make people groan (sex) but Spencer doesn’t seem to think that’s it.
Lorraine: To be fair, she’s grabbing handfuls of dirt in the scene too, which seems like more of a desperation thing than a, “woo! This feels so good!” thing. I mean, unless dirt is your thing. IDK.
Sweeney: It definitely sounds more murder than sex, but this is only episode 14, so it seems unlikely that they’d reveal the killer this soon. Also, I giffed this for Sara, and I eliminated the cut-betweens of the screen and the girls and spotted a majorly sloppy continuity error, which is now the only thing I see in this gif:
Sara: I feel pervy for thinking it looks more sexual than murder-y. Then again, I’ve never been almost murdered before, so I don’t know how my hands would react.
Hanna pauses the video on Ian’s face and says they have to take it to the police. Ian walks in the room, asking what video they’re talking about and the girls all look as suspicious as they possibly could. Ian literally walks all over the kitchen while making small talk with the girls, and he never once sees his face on the computer screen which is right in front of him. Spencer not-so-subtly closes the laptop, and wow, these girls are really, really bad at playing it cool. Luckily, Ian is a moron and doesn’t notice.
Once Ian leaves, Emily reiterates Hanna’s idea that the video needs to be turned in to the police. Ian creepies into the room one more time, just to make sure we get the creepy factor, and we go to the Big Eyed Shhhhh.
This is the interesting ensemble Aria is wearing the next day. I can’t decide how I feel about it:
Lor: I mean. It’s age appropriate?
Sweeney: It’s goofy, but age appropriate goofy. I don’t think this outfit would work on anyone with a high school diploma, but it’s acceptable on kewpie doll Aria.
Sara: The girls are setting up for a charity dance of some sort. Spencer comes in, instantly winning all of my attention for Most Interesting Outfit today:
Spencer is nervous about turning the video in to the police and asks the girls if they’re sure this is the right thing to do. Emily reminds her that Toby could go to jail if they don’t turn the video in. Spencer reminds them that A tried to kill Hanna. The girls won’t budge, so Spencer doesn’t have much of a choice. Aria tells her they’ll drive to the police station at lunch. (Because they can leave school at lunch?)
Lor: I used to be able to at my high school! But then students were dying in car accidents on their way back from picking up value meals and they shut that shit down.
Sara: THANKS A LOT, GUYS.
The girls split up, and Hanna grabs Sean to ask if his mom would hire her back at the dentist’s office. Sean tells her that he’ll ask, but she should probably keep looking because of that one time she threatened a kid with a drill bit. Her defense is that the kid aimed at her for rinse and spit. Fair.
Aria’s mom shows up to say hello and has Simone, Aria’s former babysitter, with her. (AKA Meg Manning from Veronica Mars. You knew you recognized her from somewhere.) (S: I FLAILED.) Simone is there to sub for Aria’s mom’s first period, and Piper Mom brags that Simone has published a book. Aria asks her to come hang out for her English class, too, so she can see the other PLLs.
Piper Mom talks to Ezrafitz for a minute, and she comes back insisting that Simone go have coffee with Ezra. “If you have time for a cup of coffee, I think he’d really like to pick your brain. Say yes. He’s very single and very handsome.” She looks at Aria for confirmation. “Am I wrong?” LOL. It’s like she knows. (S: AND THEN I DIED LAUGHING.)
Emily tries to call Maya at the Gay-Away Camp, but the counselors won’t let her through and Maya’s phone has been programmed to block all incoming calls. She tells Hanna that she doesn’t know what to do, and Hanna offers an idea. She spots a cute long haired wolfy looking boy and says that with some money, he can take care of the phone problem. On her way to track him down, she runs into Lucas and it’s awkward.
Lor: I’m not really sure how working on Emily’s phone will fix the fact that they’ve blocked incoming calls on Maya’s phone. BUT HOKAY. HELLO NEW WOLFY BAD GUY.
Sara: Contrivance is so much better when it involves a cute wolfy bad guy!
When the girls meet up for lunch, Spencer notices that her laptop isn’t in her bag. The only time she didn’t have her bag was during gym when it was in her locker. And of course, the only people who have the locker combinations are the coaches, and that can only point to Ian. Maybe he heard them talking last night, or maybe he just saw what was right the fuck in front of his face?
The next morning, Hanna tries to get a job at a local clothing store, but she gets turned down because her mom owes a lot of money to the store still. When Hanna offers to work it off, the manager basically says that there aren’t enough days in Hanna’s life to pay that shit back. Damn. Mama Marin gets around. When she gets back in the car, defeated, she has a text from A.
Hanna is seriously getting the worst of it from A. Not cool.
Lor: Agreed. At this point, this is hella unbalanced. Spread the life ruining, around man. Or double up on Aria. Whichever.
Sara: Or quadruple up on Aria and leave everyone else alone!
Aria shows up at Ezrafitz’s apartment door with coffee, and he seems surprised and maybe not super happy to see her. He tells her that he was just reading one of Simone’s short stories, because he figures he should read it before he meets her for coffee. Aria passive aggressives that he didn’t mention this before, but yeah, he should probably be seen out in public with someone his own age. Ezra insists that he didn’t have much of a choice because he couldn’t tell Piper Mom he was seeing someone else when she wanted to set him up.
Lor: Why not? It’s called lying. You do it every time you look at your underaged girlfriend’s mother in the eye.
Sara: Aria gets really sad and a little pathetic when she asks if she should just wait at his apartment until he gets done? Do some reading? Maybe clean out his fridge? Or color coordinate his closet? Or steal a bunch of his things to make a life-size Ezra doll? Poor Aria.
Ezra totally dismisses her, walking her to the door and telling her to leave first while he counts to 50 to leave behind her. Aria stands in the hallway, looking super upset, and then walks away.
Lor: I hope I’m not supposed to feel sorry for her because her pedo-lationship is hard.
Sweeney: I don’t, but this does remind of how much I hate Ezra. Aria’s behaving like a hurt 16-year-old. You know, because she is. Ezra insists that he’s so crazy in love with this infant that he’ll keep secretly pedo-dating her and asking her to lie to everyone ever (because regardless of the bullshit they pulled with Noel Kahn it’s his ass on the line if anyone finds out) AND YET, he doesn’t notice that she is now a hurt 16-year-old. So fuck him forever.
Sara: This is one of the many, many moments when Ezra is reminded that he’s dating a teenager, and he obviously does not deal well with that.
Over at the Hastings home, Ian is cutting some vegetables in a VERY! THREATENING! MANNER! The cameraman keeps zooming in on the huge! freaking! knife! just so we are aware that Ian is holding a huge knife and probably he is a murderer and most especially he is probably Ali’s murderer. Spencer asks him if he’s seen her laptop, and he says he hasn’t and hopefully she backs up her files. Ian tells Spencer that he’ll be chaperoning the dance tonight, because there was a shortage of creepy lurking men with big knives on the chaperon list.
Later that night, Spencer and Hanna are in line to go inside the dance. Hanna flashes Spence her flask, and Spencer, ever the WASP, tells her to at least wrap her People magazine around it. (L: I JUST LOVE THESE TWO.)
The dance-a-thon starts and all the girls are together, discussing Ian. They think he brought the laptop with him and locked it in his office so that the girls wouldn’t search for it at home.
Aria is filling out a song request (We’re Ok by the Rescues) when Simone finds her. Aria asks what she’s doing there, and it comes across a little accusatory. Simone tells Aria and Piper Mom that she had a great time with Ezra and wanted to see him again. All of this is so awkward for Aria and so hilarious for us.
Elsewhere at the dance, Caleb is meeting up with Hanna and Emily to give Em her phone back. It’s all so shady and drug-deal like and over the top and ABC Family perfection. Emily walks away, and Hanna gets on to Caleb for charging Emily more. They pick on each other / flirt for a minute and Hanna says that Caleb doesn’t know anything about her. Caleb retorts that Hanna doesn’t know anything about herself. Which is just one of those lines boys say in movies that makes girls swoon when it really doesn’t mean anything at all.
Lor: And it really had no context. “You charged Emily too much money.” “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT YOU.” Okay.
Sweeney: BUT HE, LIKE, KNOWS MY SOUL OR SOMETHING.
Sara: Hanna is obviously going to fall in love with this kid, but right then, she gets another text from A:
A is the absolute worst.
On the dance floor later, Hanna tells Sean that she feels bad for Lucas since no one is asking him to dance. Sean tells her that Lucas is used to being a loser, and he’ll be fine. Hanna insists and heads off to ask Lucas to dance. She gets him to come out, and of course he’s super happy because he loves Hanna and it’s all so sad.
I KNOW I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO, BUT I THINK HE IS SO CUTE.
Spencer walks out to find Emily talking to Maya on the phone. When she hangs up, Em seems upset and Spencer asks what’s wrong. Emily says that Maya seemed distant on the phone and she’s worried that Maya’s moved on. Spencer tries to reassure her, but Em doesn’t seem like she wants to hear it.
Back inside, Simone is asking Ezrafitz about his semester in Prague (of course he did a semester in Prague). Aria awkwardly butts her way between them and Ezra jumps up like he just got caught masturbating. Simone tells a weird story about Aria having a stuffed Cookie Monster that was always between Aria’s legs. (Seriously, what was with that story?) Between all the weirdness, Aria manages to get Ian’s keys out of the coat pocket he checked, so the girls can see if he has Spencer’s laptop.
Sweeney: Because of my deep loathing for Ezria, this whole scene, in which we are reminded that Aria’s former babysitter is the age-appropriate option for Ezrafitz, made LOLFOREVER. But also: you wish you were good enough for Meg-cartoon-birds-probably-braid-her-hair-each-morning-Manning, Ezrapedobearfitz.
Sara: On the dance floor, Hanna is still dancing with Lucas. A slow song comes on, and she asks him to dance to that one, too. This scene is all sorts of tragic. Lucas is looking so happy and smiley over Hanna’s shoulder, but Hanna is looking like she feels like a huge pile of shit over his shoulder.
Sean is staring daggers at Hanna, and she tells Lucas to give her just a minute. When she goes to ask Sean what’s up, he’s like, um, you’ve been dancing with another guy for FIVE SONGS wtf. Which is fair. Hanna tries to excuse her way out of it, but it just isn’t happening. Her phone goes off while they’re talking, and Sean warns her not to answer it. When she does, he walks away.
Spencer has made it to Ian’s office in another part of the school, and is using the stolen keys to dig through his stuff. Caleb catches her in the act, and she asks how much it’ll cost to keep him quiet because Spencer is like a Mafia King.
Lor: Caleb will make a killing in this town if he’s just going to randomly pop in on people doing illegal shit.
Sara: A little while later, Spencer is telling Aria that Caleb didn’t want any money but he said he would stay quiet. Aria looks over and sees Simone flirting with Ezrafitz and gets CrazyFace. “I will kick her back to New York if I have to.” She starts to stomp off, ready to tell Simone off, but Spencer holds her off and tells her that she will seriously regret this moment tomorrow. Think of how much worse it would be if Aria was drunk, too! And by worse, I mean better!
Aria shakes Spencer off and temper tantrum stomps right over to Simone and Ezra.
ALL THE CRAZY FACE.
Sweeney: ARIA KILLED ALI.
Sara: I would believe that Aria killed the whole damn town with the levels of crazy going on with that face right now.
Before she has a chance to go on, Spencer interrupts and asks Ezrafitz to dance. After they walk away, Simone laughs about Spencer having a crush on her English teacher and Aria looks like she’s going to throw up.
Hanna catches Emily drinking from the flask outside. Em gives Hanna shit for toying with Lucas’ emotions by dancing with him. She tells her that it’s the same thing Ali did to Emily. She asks Hanna if it makes her feel powerful, and Hanna answers that it’s actually the exact opposite. Before Emily walks away, she tells Hanna that Alison would have been really proud of her which is the ultimate BURN in Pretty Little Liars. And Hanna receives another message from A:
She heads back inside to find Lucas and sees Sean waiting for her. He tells her that he forgives her for everything, and he just wants to dance with her. Hanna begs him not to ask her why, but she HAS to dance with Lucas. Sean doesn’t accept that for an answer and tells her they’re over. She dances the last song with Lucas, as she cries over his shoulder.
Emily is getting unruly drunk, talking loudly about how Ian is a murderer and shouldn’t be chaperoning. Aria and Spencer try to quiet her, but she pushes them off and walks straight up to Ian. “I know what you did. We all know. And you’re not going to get away with it.” Aria pulls Emily away, and Ian grabs Spencer to threateningly dance with her. (L: A dance threat. Who knew?) He asks what Emily was talking about, and Spencer quickly lies that she knows about the Spencer/Ian kiss last summer. He seems to buy it and tells her the girls better keep their mouths shut about it.
Spencer, Emily, and Hanna are heading home and Lucas stops Hanna on the way out. He asks if she needs a ride home, and she tells him that Drunk!Emily kind of needs her help right now. He looks like he’s understanding that Hanna is Just Not That Into Him and it is kind of heartbreaking. Hanna’s face of regret is equally heartbreaking. After he walks away, she pulls something out of her pocket and all the money she earned from dancing with Lucas falls out, too. I wish that happened to me more often.
Aria and Ezrafitz are standing out in the open, next to a bunch of cars, where anyone in the world could see them, discussing their relationship. Aria is saying that Ezra should just go ahead and be with Simone because she’s beautiful and funny and his age and it’s not illegal and Aria can’t compete with that, obviously. Ezra says that he’s only known Simone for one day, which is funny because he was acting like a lovesick puppy after one dryhump at a bar with Aria, so that one day argument is not valid here.
Ezra insists that he’s in love with Aria and she is his soul mate and no one can ever compare to her and my husband is groaning, “ARIA IS SO ANNOYING” in the background while I write this, so even he knows the pain. Ezra moves to kiss Aria, but they hear people coming so they can’t because of how their love is still illegal.
Spencer, Hanna, and Emily make it back to Spencer’s house and Hanna tucks Emily in while Spencer throws away the murder sandwich Ian was making earlier. Hanna notices Spencer’s laptop sitting on the coffee table, and of course, the video has been deleted. (Always back up your computers, girls!) There is, however, a note from A:
Hanna says that it must have been taken the night Ali disappeared, because she’s wearing the yellow top. Hanna thinks the shadow in the picture means someone must have been following Alison, and she asks Spencer if she knows who it could have been. Spencer says no, but she has her Pretty Little LIAR face on, and hey! Spencer is the murderer again.
A-nonymous: The camera is from the point of view of A, as we see him / her picking up the black coat and gloves from Piper Mom. Ooooh, exciting!
Next time on Pretty Little Liars: Hanna gets the opportunity to make the Snark Squad’s dreams come true, in S01E15 – If At First You Don’t Succeed, Lie, Lie Again.
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.
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.
