This week on Pretty Little Liars nothing got better and everything got worse. The Liars dug themselves in even deeper and for the most part A stayed out of it and just watched the shit hit the fan.

We open on the starlit town of Rosewood in Spencer’s bedroom, just exactly where we left off last week. Spencer is finally ready to tell the other Liars about TobAy but she doesn’t want to perform without a proper audience. I think this is sort of like how doing karaoke for one person is weird, but doing it for a packed bar is awesome. Spencer manages to wrangle up Emily and Aria, but Hanna is nowhere to be found.

Despite Spencer’s misgivings and overwhelming need for attention, she reveals the big news.

Why isn’t Hanna here for this big moment? Because she’s still dealing with her mom running over Wilden. Speaking of the I Know What You Did Last Summer twins, the two return to their house to make a game plan.

Ashley, because she’s an adult, wants to call the hospital and the police. Hanna, on the other hand, know that the Rosewood Gods need a big juicy secret in order to keep the stars aligned. Somehow Ashley is convinced by her 17 year old daughter that keeping this all a secret is a grand old idea. The a police siren sounds, a dog howls and everything is suspicious and scary.

Back over at Spencer’s, the Liars try to wrap their minds around the news. Aria is pretty signed on from the get-go. I mean, just a few weeks ago she was prepared to believe her dad was A. Aria loves to jump on the A bandwagon.

On the other hand, Emily refuses to believe that TobAy is a bad dude. I mean, why would a man ever hurt someone?! He loves her and nothing says respect and safety like high school love.

The big beautiful sun rises the next day and Emily still isn’t satisfied. At work she calls TobAy and explains she really need to talk to him. Obviously he doesn’t pick up so Emily does what every good lesbian does a just redials over and over again so that when he eventually looks at his phone it say “You have 37 missed calls from Emily.” Classic.

Nothing good can come of this except that TobAy will just convinced Emily that Spencer is insane or something. Fortunately, Emily still has a key to TobAy’s loft in her secret jar of keys. Time to go clue huntin’.

Starsweep to Ezra’s Annex where Aria is still doing that unannounced drop by thing. Guess who’s there? It’s Malcolm, Ezra’s long lost son!

Now that Maggie and Malcolm are getting evicted, Maggie’s decided to try to move the two to Rosewood. I mean, new jobs are just so easy to find these days. Aria tries to excuse herself, because she’s more appropriately aged to be Malcolm’s big sister than his mom, but Ezra insists she stay. Ezra wants to set a good example for his son about age appropriate women.

Starsweep to TobAy’s loft where Emily and Hanna sleuth it out. Well, Emily is sleuthing. Hanna is mostly justing watching TV. Classic Hanna. Hanna is also officially the gayest looking girl in this episode. She’s rocking an outfit she clearly purchased after her foray into the amazing world of dyke night at the gay bar.

Actually, Hanna is only watching the news in case something comes up about Wilden’s death or disappearance. Not because she wants to be informed. Everyone knows being informed is so 2009.

Emily’s pretty ripshit that Hanna isn’t helping. She really just wants to clear TobAy’s name so they can live happily ever after being continuously blackmailed by some unidentified person. I guess she’s torn up because TobAy was apparently such a big part of her coming out. That’s not how I remember it. I remember picture and blackmail being involved. I feel like this is just like how Finn help Santana come out. I want to vomit. Like worse than the time I drank a ton of dirty martinis, ate a bunch of questionable oysters went to sleep and woke up four hours later and boarded a plane. Worse than that time.

Emily finds TobAy’s Radley parking pass, with the name “E. Lamb,” inside a book she gave him. Exactly where A would leave it there for her to find. How are the Liars not getting any better at this?

Back over at Ezra’s, Malcolm, Aria and Ezra are having the best time ever. I mean, who wouldn’t when there are trains involved! Who doesn’t love trains?! Except Taylor.

Just as the trains were reaching maximum fun capacity, Maggie comes home! I’d forgotten that she was Alex Mack and looks exactly the same. Obviously I will henceforth refer to her as Maggie Mack.

Maggie Mack and Ezra try to sort out who’s going to be with Malcolm when that evening. When neither is free, Aria offers to help. That’s right, she’s going to be Ezra and Maggie’s high school baby-sitter. I’d also like to point out that if Emily was ever with a woman as old as Maggie Mack there would be worldwide outrage.

At Spencer’s, we finally get to see why A was making a funeral wreath. Looks like it wasn’t for Wilden, but just to threaten Spencer. Remember the good old days where we never found out what A’s final cut scene shenanigans were about? When we would just watch A have coffee in a diner or something? Those were the days.

Spencer responds by calling an official meeting of the Babysitter’s Club at the Life Cafe. Things are tense because Emily still doesn’t believe TobAy is A. This is getting annoying. I hate naive Emily.

Just then, the Liars notice MonA is hanging around. How dare she order a coffee with delightfully wind swept hair. Spencer stomps right up to her and tries to be direct without actually being direct. You know, saying things like “I got your flowers” instead of “MonA knock it the fuck off and stop harassing me and my friends. It’s a fucking pain in the ass.” MonA says some cryptic weird shit about orchids dying and then gives Emily the major sex eyes.

It’s worth noting that Spencer continues to be styled as “sad Spencer” and still looks better than I do most days of the week.

Timejump to later that day when Aria is searching through all her old toys. Ella stops by the house and wants to know if something weird is going on or Aria is just going to a hipster Transformers party. She also mentions that Ezra called about a job for “a friend” named Maggie Mack who is definitely not his baby-mama, just some woman he knows.

Aria immediately starts lying and saying she doesn’t know who Maggie Mack is or why Ezra might have called Ella looking for a job. Ella isn’t really buying it, but then again she’s not exactly one to ask questions. I wonder if she’s still dating that biker guy.

Starsweep down the block where Emily, still on the hunt, shows up at TobAy’s parents’ house. No one is home but she meets some guy outside. He says he’s just filling in for TobAy on his construction job. Emily presses him for details but Builder Boy doesn’t have the details. Still, he’s a guy between the ages of 15 and 40 living in Rosewood so I imagine he’ll be smooching on one of the Liars by the end of the month.

Spencer spends some significant time staring at the funeral wreath in her living room. All of a sudden, she realizes something that no one else in the world would ever see. It took me two watches before I saw it. This, my friends, is how you get a 1600 on your SATs (or whatever that equals in the newfangled grading system).

Spencer invites Emily over, claiming that the wreath proves that TobAy really is bad. The “Deepest Sympathies” banner is entirely shiny, except an “E” and an “M.”

Spencer takes this to mean Emily is is next on A’s list. Emily takes this to mean that TobAy is probably just planning the most elaborate anniversary gift ever.

Starsweep across town where Ashley Marin is still freaking out about maybe killing Wilden.

Just as she is deeply pondering all this, Ashley thinks she sees Wilden across the street. Or maybe not. It could just be one of the many hallucinations experienced by Rosewoodians based on whatever the fuck is in the water. You never know with this show. Actually, I’m pretty sure she did see him and he’s just on the A team now. Or maybe he always was.

As the longest day ever continues, Hanna joins Aria over at Ezra’s Annex for baby-sitting time. Aria fixes Malcolm a snack, because babysitting is literally the easiest shit ever when you just let the kid play videogames the whole time.

Aria and Hanna finally speculate on why TobAy makes sense as A. Hanna notes that TobAy did manage to bring Dr. Sullivan back in just the knick of time. She, of course, ended up diagnosing MonA with a mental illness that resulted in her going to Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane instead of jail. Finally someone thought to put those pieces together.

Gosh this really is a long day.

Emily goes over go her mom’s work aka the police station. I can’t decide if this is a genius plot device or the laziest writing ever. Either way it gets the Liars into the police station more often. Emily gives her mom the G rated version of why she’s looking for TobAy. Pam is the best mom ever and is like, “Jesus Emily let it the fuck go.” We all cheer.

Emily asks to use her mom’s computer to check her email. You may recall from last week’s episode that Emily is now a super sleuth computer hacker. Apparently the police station database of all people ever doesn’t even have a password. This is really convenient as she tries to look up “E. Lamb” on the police records. As though TobAy would have had time since coming home from Juvenile Detention to build up a criminal record and escaped the law all under an assumed name. Just as the face of E. Lamb is about to be revealed, Emily gets a text from TobAy.

Starsweep back to Ezra’s Annex, where Hanna has disappeared but Aria is still baby-sitting. She gives Spencer a call to monologue about herself or something just as Malcolm jumps on Ezra’s bed.

You know that kid is gonna go down and, just as Aria turns to get some juice boxes, he bites it harder than Jennifer Lawrence.

Back over at the Life Cafe, Spencer overhears Mona get a phone call. Then, like the creep-o she’s become she decides to follow her out of the cafe.

At Rosewood’s one and old trusty hospital, Malcolm is getting stitches. Aw, poor kid. Aria and Ezra have one of those couples fights where they both try to act like everything is okay but then everyone gets defensive and then everything is really not okay. It’s complicated because in this situation Aria isn’t just Ezra’s much much much much younger girlfriend, she’s his much much much much younger girlfriend who is now partially responsible for his kid.

After a bit Maggie Mack shows up to the hospital and gives Malcolm some much needed forehead kisses. Like clockwork a nurse enters the room and informs Aria that if she isn’t immediate family she needs to get the fuck out the club. It’s a big moment for metaphors.

Stalker Spencer follows Mona out into the woods. What a truly terrible idea. Mona is clearly leading her astray. That’s how A works. Do none of these girls watch this show?

Hanna gets home and walks around her house alone a little bit for funsies. When she gets into the garage, she notices something amiss. Is it that someone has rearranged the boxes of old Christmas decorations? Did someone borrow the lawn mower? Oh wait, it’s that Wilden’s police car is sitting in the garage.

Oh that. How the fuck did A pull that off without getting seen? I am seriously outrageously impressed. Hanna should keep it. It’s automatic, systematic and hydromatic. WIth some paint this car might just be greased lightening. Either way, the car came complete with a laptop playing the video of Hanna’s mom running Wilden over. I’m furious that this tape shows the date but not the time. What the fuck is the time of year right now? The girls have been in school forever but there’s not snow on the ground.

Elsewhere. Emily arrives at her official TobAy meeting spot and begins to wait. It’s an obnoxiously brief scene. Don’t worry, we’ll get back to her.

Back over in Bad Ideasville, Spencer follows MonA on foot into the woods. MonA leads Spencer right to TobAy’s dead body. Welp he’s dead. I know I was sort of anti-climatic about this but it’s only because I don’t care at all and I think this whole plot line is totally annoying.

Technically speaking it might not even be TobAy. It’s just a body that has a motorcycle helmet on and TobAy’s tatto so we assume it’s TobAy’s body.

It’s not like Mona and TobAy could set this up just by having TobAy lie really still for a while in the woods. Or by using one of their seemingly endless dead bodies they have lying around. I’m not convinced this isn’t Wilden’s body. I’ll believe it’s really TobAy when I see it face and all. And even then, you know, he might have a twin.

Off in the woods we overhead Mona say “He’s dead” which just further supports my theory that TobAy is so not dead. Either way, Spencer freaks out and starts running off into the woods. This climaxes in her collapsing dramatically in a clearing. Again, more dramatic when it happened but dampened here by my tendency to not give a shit.

Aria gets home and explains everything to Ella about Maggie Mack and Ezra and the kid. Sometimes you just gotta unload all your shit onto your mom and hope she responds by making you a steak and doing your laundry. Aria apologizes for lying earlier. Ella isn’t mad, because that was like barely a secret in the grand sceme of Aria’s Secrets, but she feels bad she can’t really help Aria. Isn’t that the worst? When you can’t help your kids. I imagine.

Then Ella gives a chain of amazing advice. She says what we’re all thinking which is that maybe this isn’t a situation Aria wants to be in anymore. I think it’s wonderful that someone just admitted on TV that it’s okay if relationships don’t always work out. It would have been okay if Corey didn’t marry Topanga or Chuck didn’t marry Blaire or if the Red Power Ranger and the Pink Power Ranger didn’t combine their powers to make a Mega Baby Ranger. Only on TV do we think that our first big relationship has to be our last just because, for a time, you really love the person.

Elsewhere, our favorite lesbian who’s currently acting like an idiot waits around for TobAy until 9:15. That’s approximately 2 hours longer than I would have waited. She’s about to leave when she thinks that she sees Red Ridinghood figure.

Emily ducks inside the nearest building to check out where she might have gone. The building turns out to be a carpentry workshop. Building Boy from earlier wants to know what the fuck Emily is doing there.

Emily tries to get info out of him but all she finds out is that he won’t say anything and somehow he knows her name without being told.

While I think this would have been a good moment to stand her ground and figure out what the fuck that guys deal is, Emily decides to get the fuck out of there. I guess there are a lot of power tools. She returns to her car and to exactly no ones surprise, her car has been broken into. In the driver seat is one of those really convenient envelopes from the US Postal Service where it’s both padded and shiny and sticks closed without tape. I love those.

Inside is a note, potentially written in blood, stating “Toby is no more –A.” Okay, now you know he’s definitely alive. A never reveals when people are dead.

Starsweep back to Rosewood where Aria shows up at Hanna’s. Despite specifically being told to keep her lips zipped, Hanna dishes everything to her. I mean, it’s pretty hard to keep a car blaring a video of her mom hitting a man over and over again a secret. Aria thinks Hanna should wait until Ashley gets home and make a plan together. Hanna thinks they should lie. I mean, that’s worked so well in the past.

Flash to the side of a pond where Aria and Hanna push Wilden’s car in a lake. I guess actually sinking a car wasn’t in the budget because we never get to see it go. There’s this weird moment where it seems to come back up and the siren goes off and bubbles come up, but then that ends. I’m not really sure what that was supposed to be getting at.

This is the kind of shit I’m talking about when I say that the Liars dig themselves in deep. You know? No one forced Hanna to sink a car. What a fucking dumb idea. To make matters worse, when Ashley comes home Hanna pretends like nothing happened. Hanna doesn’t see the point in letting her in on the whole car-lake thing. I mean, why involve her? It’s not like Ashley was literally the person who hit a man with her car. Oh. Right.

The next morning we join Aria in her bedroom where she spends more of her time just lounging amongst dozens and dozens of overstuffed pillows. Ezra gives her a call and the two have a quick little phone chat. Looks like Malcolm is all better, no one is mad at all and everything is perfect in Whoville. Ezra invites her over, but Aria tells Ezra she has to wash her hair tonight and every night for the rest of the week. Seems like Aria is kind of over the whole son thing. Me too.

Out in the woods, the woodland troopers pick up Spencer who somehow has no I.D. or wallet on her. The troopers don’t even think to connect her with the car she abandoned at most two miles away. They sit her in their fancy trooper Jeep and radio it in.

Over in Emily’s bedroom, the three remaining Liars meet up and try to decide if TobAy’s dead. Emily immediately blames herself because she’s totally emotionally damaged. Oh and Emily is completely unimpressed that the two sunk a car.

Aria is the only person with any brains and points out that maybe TobAy just wants them to think he’s dead. Thank you Aria. You get a million gold stars. She also points out that Spencer needs to know what’s going on. She wonders aloud where that rascal is anyways.

We cut to Radley where we’re confronted with the fucked up and offensive idea that police would just drop someone off in psych hospital the same day after finding them during a brief psychotic episode. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. They would probably take Spencer to the ER where they would rehydrate her, fix that cut on her chin and see if they could get her to talk to a staff psychiatrist or social worker. Maybe they would think about calling the schools in the area and seeing if anyone hadn’t shown up for classes. Certainly they wouldn’t lock her up since she hasn’t shown herself to be dangerous at all. Why does Radley look like a prison? This is absurd. I’ve never felt like quitting the show before now. I feel like quitting.

Our final cut scene doesn’t depict A at all. Pity. It’s just an old man who fishes Wilden’s hat out of a lake.

That just about does it for today. My latest prediction is that Wilden is in on some international scheme that involves selling tapes of the the Liars getting messed with. And taking bets. Like that movie Rat Race. Tune in next week where Spencer will continue to have better hair than all of us put together, even as the stylists try to make her look disheveled.

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