Previously on Pretty Little Liars: all the things. Just everything you could possibly think of. A pair of Lady Gagas. Prison jumpsuits. Liars getting hit by cars. Liars doing hittings with cars. Child pilots. Jars of eyeballs. Barbie doll slasher flicks. Blind girls getting punched in the head. Blind girls not being blind. Raccoon claw earrings. Old people furniture whittled by teenage boys. Hockey sticks. Shovels. Fire pokers. Canes. Every curve-shaped murder weapon under the sun. Pottery. Mausoleum porn. The law firm of Dolce, Gabbana & Liebowitz. Poisoned Icy Hot. Tory Burch boots. Bell towers. Drunkies. Drowning. V-cards getting punched. Glamping. Hobbits. Vampires. Werewolves. Ghosts. Ninjas. Robots. Zombies. Time Traveling. Girls kissing boys. Girls kissing girls. Hugs. Wallops. Live rats. Dead rats. Satan’s fetus. Fax machines. Computer words. And more Lit 101 references that Ezra Fitz has feelings journals.
The most glorious show of our time, is what I am saying.
It’s been a week since Jenna narced out Garrett, turning over the illustrious Page Five of Ali’s autopsy report to the coppers. He’s in the clink and Rosewood News Network is laying all his shit bare: “Though Officer Reynolds, shagger of blind girls and pregnant ladies, was never found in possession of a shovel, police believe he killed Alison DiLaurentis.” Aria chomps down on some FroYo and thanks the stars that they can finally stop worrying about who killed Ali because when a person gets arrested for killing Ali in this town, you know for sure that person is the real culprit. Melissa be-bops her pregnant ass into the room, snatches the ice cream out of Aria’s hand and goes, “Remember when y’all busted up Jenna Marshall’s face with some pyrotechnics? Yeah? Well, this yogurt is delicious!”
The doorbell rings and it’s a courier with some invitations to Rosewood High’s masquerade ball, which is the best thing you could possibly say to me right now. Only the most awesome things ever happen at a TV masquerade balls. The invitations are from “A,” obviously, and she is done dancing around and asking for her phone back. Either they hand it over before midnight or she starts her murder spree anew.
Spencer smirks out the window and her voice goes to that place where if she was like, “Take off your clothes,” you’d get naked so fast, or like, “Jump off this building,” you’d just leap with all your might, or whatever thing. Anything. But instead she says, “This particular situation reminds me of the way I take everything important away from Melissa and either sleep with it or crush it in the palm of my hand. Like even when we were children that’s the kind of stuff I did.”
On the way to school, Aria says that if Melissa is going to kill her, at least she’ll die in her favorite red galoshes. Sometimes I feel like this show is directed around what Aria is wearing. It’s amazing. Like the camera goes, “Will you get a load of this outfit?” And then thirty seconds later: “No, seriously. Those boots.” Spencer is also ready to die today. Or make someone else die today. Whichever. She calls a secret meeting of the Liars, which Mona overhears, and so she comes scampering up like a tiny fox with her whiskers twitching, all, “Secret meeting? Cool, guys. And then we can all go vintage shopping for our masquerade ball gowns.” They blow her off, one-by-one, and she limps back to the shrubbery so she can hide her tears in leaf-shaped handkerchiefs.
The Liars’ new clubhouse is Ezbian’s apartment and as soon as they get settled in, they start ransacking the place like a pack of wild DiLaurentises. Everything in his apartment is trying to out-adorable all the other things in his apartment. He’s got a shelf full of rom-coms, a plush bunny rabbit, photo albums of him as a kid, when he was only just coming to terms with his lesbianism and the megawatt power of his smile. Aria says that this time it’s probably really over between her and Ezra, and do you remember what laugh tracks sound like? That’s what the Liars sound like when she says that. Because when Ezra Fitz says, “I’ll love you until the sun stops shining,” he literally means, “I will love you for five billion years, until I erupt into a tiny white dwarf star.” Settle in, Aria.
While they’re ferreting through Ezbian’s things, the Liars also piece together some clues that point toward the Lost Woods Resort. It’ll be the middle of the night before they can get there, and, hey, nothing bad has ever happened to them in the woods after the sun goes down, so: road trip!
It’s lightning like a mother on the way up the mountain and deer and wolves and bears and centaurs and manticores are just running back and forth across the street to mess with Spencer. She’s swerving and slamming on the breaks and barking, “Did you see that? It had the body of a walrus and the head of a meerkat!” The Lost Woods Resort is everything you could hope for: secluded, decrepit, owned by Norman Bates. He’s been running alongside the car for who knows how long and when Spencer finally stops to assess their chance of death (3:1), he bangs on the window and asks if they’d like a room with a view of hell.
Of course they would.
Spencer requests Room #1 at check-in and Bates goes, “In terms of getting bludgeoned to death, that really is your best bet!” Sensing an in, Spencer is all, “Yes, that’s how we found out about this place, actually. Our friend Vivian Darkbloom was assassinated in that very room. Maybe you remember her.” He does not. Usually he’s too busy kissing his mother on the mouth to notice what his guests get up to. Spencer rolls her eyes because she really is an incest magnet, and then leads the troops to their room. Hanna takes a tumble on the way, but the Liars pull her to her feet and keep on running toward doom, like they do.
Last time Spencer was forced to sign a guest log, she discovered that Garrett checked Jenna out of blind camp the day Ali was murdered, so she really wants to get her hands on the Lost Woods log book. She waves some Scooby Snacks in front of Aria’s nose, and Aria yip-yips out the door behind her for some investigating. They crawl through the window of the lobby and land in an Edgar Allan Poe poem. There’s a raven on the mantle, a heart beating under the floorboards, a cyclops cat weaving in and out of their legs, some dwarf armor, a literal oval portrait. The whole place smells like rabies, frankly. Amidst the gothic trinkets and tuberculosis, they find the guest log. Vivian Darkbloom checked in the day before Ali died. How she made it from Hilton Head to Lost Woods to Hilton Head to Rosewood to Philadelphia to Rosewood in the span of 24 hours is just … so Ali.
Hanna decides the best course of action to take in the middle of a tornado in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night in the middle of the hotel where her best friend was chopped up into tiny pieces – just the very safest thing she can do at this moment in time – is to go ahead and have a shower. Emily, who should be familiar with frikkin’ Hitchcock by now, is supposed to be guarding the door, I guess, but her phone rings and Emily rushes out into the night looking for a phone signal. She thinks it’s Maya, but it’s not Maya. It’s “A.”
And if you didn’t know who “A” was at this point, well, I don’t know what to tell you because obviously you have not been paying attention. Of all the people in all the world, which one has been trying with all her might to get naked with Hanna Marin for forever? Come on! Use your noggin! Hanna’s wearing the same color nail polish on her toes that Ali’s corpse is wearing in the opening credits and she’s taking the longest godd–n shower of her life. Just exfoliating and luffa-ing and trimming her cuticles. I mean, fill up the tub with bubbles and have a couple of boxes of wine, Hanna. Who are you, right now? Your mother? “A” creeps on in there and starts stripping down out of her hoodie, thanking the sweet Lord above that she’s finally going to get skin-to-skin with Hanna Marin, when the water goes off and she has to bolt.
Spencer stays up all night studying the guest log and the only information she gleans from it is that Vivian Darkbloom checked into Lost Woods the day before she was murdered and the day she was supposed to meet “A” in Brookhaven. She needs to break back into the office to return the book, so she invokes the name “Team Sparia” to make Aria grin like a nut and keep watch for her.
Having almost been murdered last night and with the threat of being murdered again tonight looming over her head, Hanna’s got one thing on her mind: Her masquerade ball costume. She pouts because Caleb can’t take her and she needs a Romeo, and Emily says, “Duh, I’ll be your Romeo.” Oh, they giggle. And finally it all makes sense: They think it’s romantic to die. No wonder they act like they do.
Spencer, too, must tend to her love life, if only for a moment. Toby is cleaning up all the stuff that got charred in the most recent fire that ensnared his sister. Spencer wonders aloud if he’ll be taking that sister to the dance, followed by coitus. It’s amazing that everyone just assumes Toby is boning Jenna just because he’s helping her around the hallways at school. Mona said something about it earlier, and now Spencer just straight up asks him to his face. He scowls and says, “No.” And then shoos Spencer away before receiving a call from Dr. Annabeth Gish. (Hi, lady!)
Jenna’s eyes are working real good. So good, in fact, that she just takes to the open road in a classic convertible like a regular old Grace Kelly. (Speaking of Hitchcock.) Jenna didn’t just get some new eyeballs, though; Jenna got the most gorgeous eyeballs you have ever looked at with your eyeballs. She sits down on a park bench across from “A,” pulls off her sunglasses, and all the leaves just hide in shame because no matter how good they get at photosynthesis, they can’t compete with the kind of green Jenna’s eyes are right now. Tammin Sursok is so good at her American accent – like she even uses it in interviews and on set and stuff – that it’s easy to forget she’s Australian. But her for real accent comes out in this scene just a little bit at the beginning, and I mean, her eyes and her accent and her diabolical-ness and knowing who she’s talking to right now – it’s the first time in my life I truly understand why a person would go choose evil. Like, if those two asked me to go to the dark side right now, I don’t know that I’d have the power to refuse.
Jenna gives “A” some kind of scarf or something and says, “They’re all going to be at the ball. Strangle them to death with this. I’ll have Toby start digging the holes for their bodies.”
Masquerade ball! Masks! Gowns! Chandeliers! Leona Lewis for some reason! (I liked this song so much better when I thought it opened with, “It’s been a long-ass winter without yoooou…”) The Liars are stunning in their ball gowns, so stunning in fact that I forgive them for this conversation:
Aria: All of these disguises! “A” could be anywhere! Which is different than all the other days “A” walks freely among us because we literally have no idea what she looks like!
Hanna: Well, I’m still hammering the Melissa-is-“A” theory because I’ve never seen a TV show before.
Emily: We have three hours to find out who “A” is.
Aria: It shouldn’t be a problem if we stick together.
Hanna: Four against one has always worked out for us in the past because “A” doesn’t have supernatural abilities and we don’t make dumb decisions. Aria’s right: We must stick together.
Spencer: Agreed. So should we split up and look around?
And they do. Four girls that decided to finally put the buddy system into effect TWO SECONDS AGO wander out of the herd the way zebras do before a crocodile chomps them in half, because they need to look for a person they’ve never seen. Spencer, tell us again how you’re a genius.
Caleb descends from the air conditioning vents and kisses Hanna’s neck and she sighs into his embrace and dances a dance and all thoughts of mayhem just float out of her ears and up into the ether. He says Mona helped him pick out his costume and Mona twirls into the frame and does a little bow and says, “Anything to keep Hanna occupied while I isolate the one foe who is worthy of my intellect.” Enter: Spencer Hastings. She’s like, “Mona, you may seem like a typical selfish, back-stabbing, slut-faced ho-bag, but in reality, you’re so much more than that.” Mona grins and says, “I guess I had that in common with Alison.”
She has her very first Ali flashback (it doesn’t have the same coloring as the Liars’ flashbacks, note), all the way back to Brookhaven, where Ali was wearing her Vivian Darkbloom suit and peeping out a store window. Mona was so excited to see her that she peed on Ali’s leg on accident and Ali huffed in that warning way she had that meant, “Scram or I’ll slit your throat with this dagger.” Mona tried to clean up the piddle puddle with some tissues from her purse, but Ali just swatted at her and shushed her and said she’d do whatever Mona wanted if she’d just go away. Mona’s eyes lit up like Christmas and she said, “I want to be a serial killer. But, like, a popular serial killer.” Ali was impressed despite herself.
Spencer has some kind of epiphany about how “A” wasn’t spying on Ali; Ali was spying on “A.” And Mona is like, “As long as you didn’t make any promises to stick together with your BFFs for safety’s sake, I’d love to accompany you into the deep, dark forest.” Spencer goes, “I did not make any such promises. Let’s go.”
Aria is doing her best to stay focused on aimlessly wandering around looking for clues labeled “clues” when a man with a paper bag mask walks across her line of vision. Aria Montgomery knows that paper bag mask. Aria Montgomery has worn that paper bag mask. Inside is Ezra Fitz. He pulls the sack off his head with a flourish and says, “From now on, our actual faces will be the only profile photo on my website page!” Aria swoons so hard she almost faints, and they proceed to make out in front of the entire student body while my roommate – who is: a) a teacher, but b) completely smitten with Ian Harding – rips off her own head because she can’t settle on a correct emotion when his gorgeous face is being gorgeous, but at an actual school function with a girl who was his student.
Like Hanna, Aria just shelves the whole “body bag” conundrum.
Spencer is positively vibrating with manic energy when she calls Emily to tell her she’s riding into Mordor on a pony named Mona. When she and Aria were looting Bates’ office, she noticed that there was no key for Room #2 and that no one had checked into Room #2 since Ali died. Emily says some nonsense about how Spencer has to be back in two hours before they all turn into pumpkins or whatever and Mona’s just over there smiling to beat the band, tapping her toes and humming a cheery tune.
At the masquerade ball, all of the other Liars have abandoned any pretense of keeping one another from getting killed. Emily’s distraction rockets to eleven when Paige touches her shoulder and reveals herself as a soft butch. She’s like, “Look, Em, I know that every girl you make out with ends up buried under the gazebo at the old DiLaurentis place, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take due to our maddening chemistry.” Emily’s feeling it, to be honest. But she’s still in love with Maya. So she tells Paige to check back in during season three and maybe they can work something out.
Mona helps Spencer break in to Room #2 at Lost Woods and it is A’s f–king batcave, ya’ll. Photos of Ali’s eyeballs are peering at you from every surface. School photos, newspaper photos, Facebook photos, surveillance photos, A’s personal fan-art photos. Those burlap zombie Halloweeen costumes are in there. Dollhouses. The clown face from the fun house where Spencer almost got murdered before Toby chopped down the door. A map with pins in it, locations where the Liars have been tortured probably. A shark tank. A vat of hot oil. A guillotine. Mona goes, “Just so I can make sure we’re on equal footing, brain-wise, what is your estimation of this place?” Spencer’s like, “Murder room.”
Mona lets Spencer wander around in the lair for like half an hour, touching things and reading things. Every few minutes, she goes, “Hey, do you think I could be A?” And Spencer’s like, “Nah.” Again and again this happens until Mona realizes she’s going to have to put on the hoodie and knock Spencer ’round the head with a club before she finally gets it. It’s a disappointment to Mona, really. She thought she’d met her match. It isn’t until Spencer finds Mona’s ill-advised sweater sets stuffed in a shopping bag in the corner that she finally gets it. She’s like, “You’re A.” And Mona is like, “Finally. Damn.” Then: knocks her out.
The Liars have regrouped and now have all eyes on Lucas, Jenna, and a mysterious black swan. They have no idea what to do with that information, though, so they decide to call Spencer and get some instructions for putting together clues and also breathing. Hanna whips out her phone and goes, “Huh. This phone Mona gave me has been recording all of my conversations. Weird.”
Spencer wakes up in the passenger seat of a car going ten billion miles an hour. It takes her a second to realize she’s been fully kidnapped by Mona Vanderbeast. Apparently she’s been trained in chatting up terrorists because she starts asking a whole bunch of questions about the whos and whats, but mostly the hows. Because, frankly, Spencer is a little bit turned on by being out-smarted. Mona starts talking like a Gollum: “We did this” and “We did that” and “We haaaaatees you, Preeeeeciiiious for stealing our one frieeeennnd.” You think she’s talking about an actual team of people who hate the Liars, but Marlene King says Mona did all of the “A” things except for two, so really Mona is talking about all the Monas that live in her head. Which is better than anything I could ever have hoped for. MULTIPLE MONAS. MY BODY IS READY FOR THE DARK MARK!
Oh my God, I think I’ve been hit with an Imperius Curse! Fight it off, Hogan! Fight it off!
Anyway, Spencer’s iPhone defaults to FaceTime, luckily, so the Liars see this whole thing happening and are on their way to Lookout Point to thwart Spencer’s murder. Spencer pulls the emergency break on Mona’s car then makes a break for it. Mona chases after her and Hanna almost plows her down AGAIN. Punches get thrown, hair gets pulled, bitches get slapped, and Spencer lifts Mona up over her head and just tosses her over the edge of a cliff. It’s incredible. It’s just so damn incredible.
The Liars are devastated and terrified out of their Pretty Little Heads. It’d be a fine time to talk to their therapist, but that’ll never happen because she left town after – oh, never mind. Here she is. She apologizes for skipping out on them and not giving up the identity of the person who nearly murdered all of them just now. They cry and talk about how “It’s over.” And no sooner are the words out of their mouths than a cop shouts, “She’s alive!”
YES! Er, I mean. Fine. Whatever. It’s not like I’m rooting for the Death Eaters. (Am I? Oh, God. I need to use the upcoming PLL hiatus to sort out my priorities.)
Once they’ve got Mona safely locked up in Rosewood Sanitorum, still looking amazing even after falling off a cliff, Dr. Annabeth Gish explains why Mona was able to do the things she did: “She’s a sociopathic genius with ADHD, a condition that overstimulates the ‘Zeus hormone,’ a specific type of serotonin that infuses the brain and body with god-like superpowers.” No one questions her diagnosis. And why would you? That’s the best explanation I’ve ever heard in my life.
Guess who gave Dr. Annabeth Gish the courage to come back to Rosewood? That rascal Boo Radley. He’s waiting outside, leaning against his pickup truck, quite at his leisure. Spencer rushes up to him and they angry kiss for a minute and it looks like everyone’s going to get their happy ending.
Just kidding!
The Liars walk home arm-in-arm. All the ambulances and police cars that were at Lookout Point are now outside of … I don’t know where they are. These houses are stacked on top of each other in my mind. Everyone lives next door to everyone. Emily goes running, sensing something is wrong, and Pam meets her just as she crosses the police line. She’s like, “Can you believe it? They just dug up another girl you were in love with! Honey, are you sure you’re a lesbian? It seems very dangerous.”
I’ve watched this episode about ten times now because it’s a gem, but I was only able to watch this scene on the first viewing. Shay Mitchell broke my heart into a gazillion pieces. Watching her cry felt like getting punched in the heart. I mean, how far has she come as an actress. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. (For a more serious discussion about Maya’s death, here’s a thing I wrote right after the finale.)
One thing is that when you get locked away for being a homicidal maniac, you get visitors right away. Mona’s got one. There’s no Risen Mitten anymore, but there’s a woman wearing a red coat and Mona looks right at her and says, “I did everything you asked me to do.”
Daaaaaaaaamn!
In all sincerity, your #BooRadleyVanCullen tweets are what make recapping this show so much fun. I can’t wait to do it with you again starting June 5th.
