Welcome back to Pretty Little Liars, the only show that gets a participation award just for showing up!

We last left out favorite Liars at Detective Wilden’s funeral where their attendance was both pointless and fabulous. We join the Liars a few days later at The Life Cafe. Hanna’s hair has magically grown long and no one knows where her mother is. Nothing like a missing mother to freak out a gaggle of girls.

No, but seriously, we have to talk about Hanna’s hair. I can not move on until we do. This is how it looked at the begining of the last episode:
And this is how it looked at the end of that episode:
And this is how it looked at the beginning of this episode:

Why on earth should Hanna have grown her hair out so fast? Do we think this is the patriarchy responding to everyone calling her a lesbian for her Obvious Lesbian Tendencies. Is Hanna one of those magical hair growing Barbies from the 90s? Do you guys remember those? I had one until I cut all her hair off just like I did with my other Barbies. Probably my parents should have seen this dyke thing coming.

Regardless, Spencer has taken up food sculpture in order to recreate the architecture of the lodge the night of the fire. No, seriously. I couldn’t make this shit up.

The Liars debate whether or not Alison is back from the grave and who really has ownership of the mozzarella sticks. Again, I couldn’t make this shit up.

Mona drops by and is wicked pissed that she’s still not invited to join the Baby-Sitters Club. Not even as a junior member! She decides to take them to the RV again and let them look through the whole thing on their own. Yes, even her collection of vintage erotica magazines from the 70s.

The Liars roll up to where Mona parked her RV and, surprise surprise, it’s gone. Looks like TobAy went through with his game plan from last episode and stole the RV for Red Coat (or whoever) in order to get the dirt on his mother. What a fucking dickface.

The Liars are unimpressed with the situation and try to bail. When Mona begrudgingly gets in her car, she is suddenly strangled by Alison Mask! You’d think after all these years of fucking with the Liars in their cars Mona would have learned to check the back seat before getting in. Come on, silly!

Also the stills from Mona’s choke out scene make me really uncomfortable because Janell Parrish looks more like she’s moaning than choking. Ugh, Hollywood.

I wasn’t sure if that was okay for me to point out, so I emailed the team about it. They said it was ok.

Mona tries to escape from the Alison Mask, causing Aria and Emily to run over to scope the commotion. Mona flys out of the car onto the ground and, as Aria and Emily help her up, Alison Mask whirls the car around and tries to run them the fuck over. What the hell is up with A running people over with cars? That’s not just a thing you can do!

Mona, Aria and Emily hop out of the way and fall to the ground, but not before Emily hits her shoulder. Hard. There goes her theoretical swim scholarship to Stanford!

The next morning Hanna comes downstairs dressed head to toe in the color I just painted my bedroom! We’re kindred spirits meant to be together. This is real life.

Great news though, Ashley is finally home! Ashley is evasive and awkward and probably really did kill Wilden. She’s not exactly obeying laws these days. I’m okay with that though, because I also sided with the six merry murderesses of Cook County Jail because there is something seriously wrong with me. Or maybe Ashley is just back to nailing Hanna’s father. I could do that again. That was a nice trope while it lasted!

Hanna tries to come to her mother’s boosom and get her mom to open up. Wilden is dead! How should she feel? What should they do? Are they safe? Is she a suspect? Ashley has only the kindest and most loving motherly advice:

Oh and Hanna gives her mom back her cell phone. No one is honest about what happened to it.

Over at the Hastings, Spencer gets a skinny envelope from UPenn. This is not going to be good.

She gets rejected.

I feel her. I got rejected from my top 7 undergrad college choices all in the same night. It was heartbreaking. But then I loved Brandeis and I’m sure Spencer will love Hollis when she (and the rest of the Liars) all inevitably end up there. Still, when you’re 18 and you think you’re only worth what you can perform academically, being rejected from your dream school feels like being told straight to your face that you’re a dumb piece of shit who will never amount to anything or ever get into med school.

Also, how do we know A isn’t just tricking Spencer by stealing her acceptance letter and mailing her a fake rejection letter! That’s totally right up A’s alley! A is such an ass.

Elsewhere, Aria and Hanna dish over the whole Emily’s injury and Ashley’s cell phone situation thingy. The punchline here is that Emily is hurt real bad, Ashley is hiding something and everyone still hates Mona.

The girls wonder who stole the RV and when Hanna wonders aloud if it was Shana, it turns out she’s right behind her! It’s so convenient that there are only three streets in this town.

Hanna does that thing where she marches right up to the A Suspect Of The Week and asks her point blank what the fuck is going on. It’s my favorite thing.

Hanna’s all like, “Listen bitch I know you knew Wilden and that you and Jenna are lady BFFs who dragged his ass out of the road. How the fuck do you like me now?!” It was good.

At school Paige has a fresh new plaid shirt and a computer to boot! She should be interning for this website I know of called Autostraddle.com.

She’s using what I am 99.99% sure is Sims 3 to virtually make a Stanford dorm room for her and Emily!

One time I came home and my two friends who are dating had spent the whole day playing Sims and making themselves and their dream home. I didn’t judge them until I saw that they’d made their last name “Lurv.” As in “love” said like you’re a fucking idiot. They were fantasy U-Hauling, which is almost as bad as actually U-Hauling. Almost. What I’m trying to say is that I am judging the shit out of Paige right now.

Emily identifies Paige as a crazy U-Hauler, but also doesn’t really care. I feel like Pretty Little Liars hired actual lesbians to consult on the writing of this scene. Like, someone on the inside deserves a high five.

Like I said, Paige is in fantasy U-Haul Land and Emily hasn’t even talked to the swim coach yet. Still, besides the obvious plot hole that you can’t paint a dorm room, it’s cute and adorable. I love my teenage TV lezzies.

Paige: Be honest, what would you change?
Emily: Well I would push the beds closer together so we can scissor and not be a married couple from Nick at Night.

Paige reaches over to sly grab Emily’s boob and touches her shoulder. Emily writhes in pain because the electricity is just too hot between them. You know, and because she hurt the shit out of it and now she will never be a teen model or get into med school.

Paige is concerned about this.

Back at the Hastings’ Spencer is still sort of losing her shit. She throws on her favorite horse sweater. Maybe a little sexy schoolgirl librarian chic will help her to feel better. Maybe it’s this baseline level of freaked out that allows her to finally recognize that TobAy is acting like a fucking sketchball again. He’s a bad dude!

Anyways hopefully TobAy and his stupid caveman face is gone for good.

In school, Spencer, Aria, Emily and Hanna watch as Mona panics and Ezra does that thing where he only teaches the very end of a class. Class ends and everyone but Spencer heads out to lunch. Even Mona, who acts like she was invited. It was a good moment.

Ezra asks Spencer if everything is okay and though at first she says yes, she admits to him a minute later that she didn’t get in to UPenn.

I sort of loved it because we get to see Ezra’s attempts at being a person/teacher. He’s pretty okay at it! I appreciate that he seems to get that students like Spencer don’t need someone to tell them they were being unrealistic or that they should have thought ahead. They don’t even need someone to completely just pity them. Ezra tells Spencer they’ll work on her essay over the weekend. It’s really sort of sweet.

We also get to see vulnerable Spencer crying over something other than boys. I wish Taylor Swift would write a song about this. You know, if she wrote music about women’s intellect.

In Cell Phone Land, Hanna and Emily chat about Emily’s shoulder and Paige. FYI the shoulder is still bad and Paige still doesn’t know anything. I get that the Liars aren’t sitting in my living room watching this show and thus they need to be caught up, but I wish they would do it off camera because all of the self-recapping is getting a bit repetitive.

While on the phone Emily and Hanna each make a discovery. Hanna finds her mother’s fancy pants high heels under the sink covered in mud.

Emily finds some painkillers in the bathroom. Ughhh. This is not going to end welllll. Didn’t we already do the Emily gets busted for drugs plot? Didn’t that already happen?

Starsweep to the Rosewood dojo where Aria is hunting down Holden. Remember him? Aria’s fake boyfriend who we thought was gay but then he was just into street fighting or something? Aria’s looking to take some self-defense classes, and fast. Smart cookie. Holden’s not in, but some other guy who teaches classe is. In my professional lesbian opinion, he’s tall, conventionally all-American good looking and age inappropriate. He’s perfect for Aria. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to have a name.

Back in Hanna’s dreamland of candy and flowers, Ashley’s home and being all domestic. Hanna’s trying to write a book report, because she’s in 5th grade, but still takes the time to ask Ashley what the fuck is going on with her muddy high heels. Ashley’s still not speaking.

The next day Hanna gets sucked into Stepford Wife Jessica’s Haunted House Of Gardening Doom. How is it that there is endless work to be done on this house? All Jason ever did was work on the house, too. You’d think it would be completely perfect by now. I mean, it’s not like it was abandoned. Also, and maybe this should have occurred to me last week, where the hell is Alison’s dad? I’m fairly certain her parents weren’t divorced last time I checked.

Hanna hears Ali off in the distance.

Hanna asks what that noise was and Jessica rolls her eyes. She takes Hanna to the porch and introduces her to Robot Alison! Yes, a fully functional cyborg-Alison, which has been stalking the Liars for months, praying on their deepest fears and most ashamed secrets. Just kidding, it’s a parrot that Alison spent a lot of time with. But probably a bird that will reveal at least one of Ali’s secrets.

Back at school, Spencer and Ezra review Spencer’s UPenn essay. The prompt is, “Discuss one time you were right and wish you hadn’t been.” It’s so unfair because last year’s college essay prompt was “write about a time your best friend was murdered and you had to prove your innocence.” It just sucks how these things change year to year.

It looks like Spencer took the opportunity to talk about how her friend was murdered and then she had a mental breakdown. Huh. That’s weird. Spencer submitted her application to UPenn in episode 309 when she followed Cece to UPenn to give her application to some admissions guy in person. But her mental breakdown wasn’t until episode 321 when she thought TobAy was murdered. Basically there is no timeline and we’re in a giant black hole.

Regardless, Ezra suggestions Spencer be so not the drama about this and maybe write her essay about the time she thought she hadn’t done well on a test and was correct instead of revealing to every university all the shit she’s been through. I mean, give them the ol’ razzle dazzle you know?

Yeah… Spencer’s not buying it.

Elsewhere, at what I can only assume is some BDSM yoga studio I have yet to learn about, Aria is falling crotch first into Sensei Hot Stuff. Good for her!! I would love to see Aria’s crotch with someone new. Also apparently so would Sensei Hot Stuff because he seems determined to get Aria into a 50 Shades of Gay long term sub-dom relationship.

I’d also like to see Aria get into some light BDSM, but no rush.

Sensei Hot Stuff thinks the two of them should take a little breather but Aria wants to just keep going. I knew she had it in her. It’s interesting, it hasn’t really been explained why Aria is suddenly interested in self defense classes. A has always been after her and she never went before. I wonder if this is connected to the break-up; a fresh start to regain control of her life.

Also Sensei Hot Stuff is the only person in town paying attention.

Ari wants Sensei Hot Stuff to teach her how to defend herself from behind. Hehe. From behind.

I actually kind of dig Sensei Hot Stuff because he seems like the first person in Rosewood to identify one of the Liars’ behavior as abnormal. Yeah sure, the Liars have occasionally been thrown into therapy circumstantially, but I feel like the Liars’ boyfriends and parents rarely seem to notice how scared the Liars are, how paranoid they’ve become. And here’s a guy she’s only know for five minutes and he’s already seeing right through her to her core. He’s the kind of guy she can maybe ope– wait. Wait just a damn minute. Holy shit! This is how they get you! This is how professional TV writers get you to sign on for a new ship before the old one is even dead! I just got slapped with some executive writing realness. I was practically ready to date this guy myself and he’s about two breasts shy of my type!
$Sensei Hot Stuff: blah blah blah feel safe in my own skin
Sly move ABCFamily. Sly move indeed.

Back over at Stepford Wife Jessica’s Haunted House Of Gardening Doom, Hanna starts to pry a bit. She wants to know if Jessica saw Ali’s remains that night. Or what she saw. Jessica only saw the yellow blouse and– cue the pastel flashback! I wish I had flashback music I could play that you guys could hear every time this happens. If I say “dunana dunana dunana dun” do you know what that sounds like?

Jessica sits outside having lunch with Ali some time the summer before the Night She Was In A Million Places And Saw Everyone And Died (Maybe).

Ali wants to stay a few nights alone in Cape May. Her mother says no fucking way because, remember, Ali’s like 14. So Ali claims she wants to have her friends over for a big sleepover at the house, but her mother won’t budge.

So Ali holds her breath. Like a child.

I guess Ali did this a lot because her mother gave in. Which is a shame because for a split second I thought there was someone Ali couldn’t manipulate. Of course, Ali never invited the Liars to Cape May. She just hung around and made the beast with two backs with 30-year-old Wilden. Or Ian. Or that pilot. Or Brittney Griner. I wish.

Hanna reveals that she never got the evite to the big Cape May party, but Jessica doesn’t seem too upset. I suppose once your daughter has been dead for two years it’s hard to get mad at her. Actually, I have no idea. That’s territory I’ve never known.

Just in case you’ve ever wondered if Riese and I are genuinely invested in Pretty Little Liars::

This is the way that we live.

Back over at the dojo, Aria and Sensei Hot Stuff continue to rock some martial arts that, to my untrained eye, looks like some hawt Black Swan shit. Hopefully next we’ll get Aria magically appearing between her own legs.

Then, because she has absolutely no boundaries about authority figures or teachers, Aria kisses Sensei Hot Stuff.

Aria peels out of the dojo parking lot (all the best dojos have free parking, you see) and into downtown Rosewood. There she sees Mona speaking with police. She pulls over and fakes like she’s there to pick Mona up. I can’t tell if this is to try to save Mona’s ass or save her own. Six of one half dozen of the other.

Mona tells Aria she was just chatting up a cop in order to eavesdrop on a different set of cops speaking behind her. Aria points out that if Mona wants to be on Team Liars she needs to realize that she can’t even be chatting up cops because it makes them look like they’re snitches. And snitches get stitches.

Fortunately Mona overheard some good dirt on Wilden’s case. The investigators found Wilden’s shoe prints along side a woman’s.

Starsweep across town where Spencer has finally come to her senses.

TobAy admits he moved the RV for A in order to get the transcript of his mother’s conversations from Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane the night she killed herself.

TobAy feels bad.
Spencer feels annoyed.
Lizz feels bored.

Fortunately at that moment we sweep across town the pool where Emily totally cruises this bathing suit girl.

Emily sneaks over to her locker to take some more pain killers for her insane shoulder injury. Like wait until you see this bruise. It’s out of control. She needs to go see a doctor yesterday.

While she’s there Shana walks in. She claims needs a swim cap, but actually she wants to know why Hanna accused her of knowing Wilden. Shana also tells Emily she knows about Paige’s scholarship and that there’s one spot open.

Apparently on Pretty Little Liars Pennsylvania has all the best swim teams in the country because Stanford is, like, a pretty good Div I swim team. But for reals FYI Pennsylvania is not a huge swimming hub or anything, I looked it up. I know I suspend my disbelief for a lot of things on this show but this was just too tangible not to look up. So humor me.

The punchline here is that Shana is going to nab that scholarship, move to the Gay Area and fingerblast Emily’s girlfriend forever. So take that.

This just gets Emily even more fired up! What does Emily do when she’s all fired up?! She takes more pain killers!

TobAy and Spencer sit in Spencer’s kitchen reading his mother’s case file. Spencer reads it aloud because anything that is sad and dramatic can only be made more sad and dramatic by a slow and gentle reading aloud. Anything. The transcript of TobAy’s mom’s last therapy session sounds upbeat and hopeful. She wants to leave and see her family to make up for lost time. TobAy thinks this means she was murdered. It’s all very dramatic and depressing. I’m skipping the rest of the scene.

At the swim meet Emily is all fucked up on pain killers but jumps into the water and starts the race anyways. She swims okay at first but then hits her head and has to get rushed to the hospital! I just figured they’d have her false start or something! I didn’t know she was going to get hurt!

My sweet Emily! It happened so fast! I did have time to process! They won’t let Paige go to the hospital with Emily! Are we being discriminated against?! I’m not sure, it all happened too fast to tell! I don’t know what’s going on here! I have so many feeling!

Aria walks in just as TobAy walks out. She’s hilarious and maybe also jumping on the bandwagon and trying out being a U-Hauling lesbian. I mean, hey, it’s working for everyone else!

Just then, Hanna busts in with Jessica’s bird. She’s just convinced it’s going to spill all of Ali’s secrets. Plus it keeps singing the same song which will potentially be the death of us all.

Hanna points out that if Wilden had his own boat, then why would he need to stay at Ali’s parents’ house? Clearly something is amiss.

Later that night, the Liars dig into some research at their respective homes.

---

Hanna plays the Super Sleuth At Home Game which, in Rosewood, generally just amounts to asking your parents questions. She asks her mother point blank if she came back to Rosewood to duke it out with Wilden. Ashley sort of gives an answer.

Spencer reads up on TobAy’s mom while the obnoxious bird sings over and over again. Fortunately Spencer realizes that he’s not singing a song, he’s singing a phone number! I swear I realized it was a phone number just a minute before Spencer did and the really fucked up part of my self-involved brain wanted Pretty Little Liars to not reveal it until next week so I could tell everyone my theory! Womp womp.

Aria sits in her living room reading when she hears creeping outside. Good thing she had that self-defense class.

The doorbell rings and, who’s at the door?

It’s Sensei Hot Stuff!

He wants to talk about the kiss because nothing makes an inappropriately timed kiss even less appropriate than showing up at someone’s house unannounced in the middle of the night. But just FYI Sensei Hot Stuff wants ON.

But like so does Aria. So she signs his sub-dom BDSM contract and they agree to bone off into the sunset together. Or something… I got up to make popcorn.

Across the neighborhood, Emily sits at home with Paige on the magical bed of no sex. An enchanted lesbian bed where no sex ever takes place, just feelings.

Emily admits everything to Paige. About the pain killers, about her shoulder and about how Ali Mask tried to mow her over with a car. It’s pretty cute. Then they kiss making, it the third lezzie kiss of Pretty Little Liars season four! Nice work guys! If we had one kiss in episode one two kisses in episode two does that mean we get three kisses in episode three?! I can’t wait for episode 24!

Ironically I immediately found myself wondering where Caleb was. I miss that little dyke.

Instead of checking in on Caleb, we flash back to the other three Liars who’ve convened at Spencers. They try out the bird phone number. It’s a business and no one picks up.

Hanna and Aria think Spencer fucked up the number, because um this is the hardest idea ever, and go upstairs to record the number from the bird. When they get up there, however, no bird. No fucking bird.

Across the street, Ashley Marin wraps up her muddy pumps in dirt and puts them in a garbage bag. Honestly they should have switch this scene with the last one because, I’ll tell you what, it was way less dramatic than the bird moment.

In our final A scene, A is enjoying some chicken. At first I think A’s cooked the parrot and I’m totally disgusted.

Then it’s revealed that A is feeding the chicken to the parrot. Well… I guess we eat other mammals… but still, I think I’m a vegan now.

That’s it for this week. I wanted to give you guys another round of Shit We Learned This Week but unfortunately we didn’t really learn anything too tangible. Better luck next week where we’ll see if PLL goes for three lezzie kisses! –L

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