Welcome back to my weekly review and recap of Pretty Little Liars. To catch up on the previous episode, click here.
This action-packed episode of Pretty Little Liars featured several intense moments and resolved subplots. We finally saw Spencer come clean to Toby, Mike and Mona reunited, the Charles reveal oh so close, and Aria finally stopping her obsession with creepy dolls.
Emily and Sara: It will be easier to do “this.”
After Emily (Shay Mitchell) and Sara (Dre Davis) decide to take their relationship slowly to figure out what they both want, Emily runs into one of Sara’s old friends, Claire (Skyler Day). Claire was the friend who hated Sara about as much as the liars hated Ali, as she illustrated to Emily in the fourth season episode, “Who’s in the Box?” This naturally makes Emily feel a little awkward when she gets dessert with Sara and Claire.
Sara makes arrangements to live with Claire and her family, and this makes Emily upset. She tells Sara the truth about what Claire said in the past, but Sara says she already knew and the truth was that she didn’t even like who she was back then.
Sara tells Emily that if they are not living together, they can go on a real date where Emily’s mother isn’t chaperoning. She pulls Emily in for a kiss to illustrate that it will be easier to do more of that as well.
Yay! Hanna got a scholarship! Oh wait…
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Ashley (Laura Leighton) is excited to give Hanna (Ashley Benson) some great news. Hanna received a $30,000 scholarship from the Carissimi Group, an organization name Hanna recognizes. After doing some research, she learns that this group shut down Radley and was a favorite charity of the DiLaurentis family. Why would this organization help out the Marin family?
Now the second season finale makes sense!
Lesli finally agrees to talk to the girls about the night Charles and Bethany escaped from Radley but decides against it because she believes the confrontation will impede her from getting better. Instead, they confront Mona (Janel Parrish) about someone talking to her at Radley and stealing the A game from her. Mona says she was on so many drugs that she doesn’t even know who she was talking to. This explains how she talked to A at the end of the second season and told him/her that she did everything he/she asked.
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Mika and Mona: Reunited and it feels so good!
Mike (Cody Christian) tells Aria (Lucy Hale) that he hasn’t seen or spoken to Mona since the girls were rescued from the dollhouse. He finally gets to see her after Mona’s mother lets him in the house. Mona says she didn’t want to see him after he helped her fake her death and it turned out to be for nothing.
Mike tells Mona that what she did was stupid, but all that matters is her being alive. They kiss and decide to give their relationship another shot.
The DiLaurentis’ Family Vacation
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The DiLaurentis family has their share of troubles with the oldest sibling. Kenneth (Jim Abele) drives himself and Ali (Sasha Pieterse) to a hotel in the middle of the night to protect themselves from Charles. While in the car, Ali reads the card Charles sent to her father and figures out her older brother is still alive.
Meanwhile, Jason (Drew Van Acker) gets an invitation to Charles’s birthday party asking him to come alone to 72183 Wallaby Avenue. Later on, Ali informs Spencer (Troian Bellisario) that she is at the hotel and that Jason is alone. Ali asks her father to tell the police about Charles, but since he has lied about Charles for two decades, Kenneth is hesitant. He says he just needs one day to figure things out. This doesn’t prevent Ali from getting what she wants, though. She mixes sleeping pills into his non-caffeinated coffee and uses her father’s drug-induced slumber as an opportunity to escape.
Before confronting A, make sure your Gummi Bears aren’t laced with drugs!
Things start to take a more action-oriented direction when the girls get together at Spencer’s house and decide they need to remove the chips planted into the back of their necks. They intend to leave them behind to trick A. Since Spencer and Hanna are now experts at removing chips after watching videos online, they perform the surgery on each other and their friends. Apparently anything can be learned from the internet these days.
Spencer enlists Toby’s (Keegan Allen) help, since she promised him earlier they weren’t going to keep secrets from each other. After telling him everything she knows about Charles, Toby refuses to let the girls go to Wallaby Avenue alone, and they agree to let him take the fight. Before leaving, Toby takes a bag of Gummi Bears from Spencer, However, little does he know that they are laced with pot, courtesy of Spencer’s friend Sabrina (Lulu Brud), who slipped the package into Spencer’s bag as a little surprise for her.
Toby, already high as a kite, asks Lorenzo (Travis Winfrey) to accompany him to Wallaby Avenue. After not hearing anything from Toby, the girls decide to track him down themselves. Meanwhile, after leaving the hotel, Ali gets in a car with Mona, who feels guilty for everything she put Ali through. Instead of attempting to rescue Jason herself, Ali dials the police and tells them she knows who A is and all of the information about her older brother.
At Wallaby Avenue, Jason sees Charles and tries to speak with him until he is interrupted by Toby and Lorenzo. Toby is close to trapping Charles until he is affected by the drugged Gummi Bears. Meanwhile, several other cops and the girls storm the place, effectively ruining Jason’s chance at a reunion with his brother.
After Wallaby Avenue
Hanna: After Ashley yells at her, Hanna tries to tell her mother they shouldn’t take the scholarship because of where the money came from. Ashley says that after everything the DiLaurentis family put Hanna through, she deserves every last cent from them, which is why Ashley already deposited the check.
Aria: While Aria’s biggest scenes in this episode focused on her getting creeped out by the dolls she once used as muses, the end features her getting some pretty good news—a letter congratulating her for being a Cardillo Arts Fellowship finalist.
Spencer: After she apologizes to Toby for not telling him she was having drug problems again, he shuts Spencer out, telling her to leave before someone comes looking for her and sees him under the influence.
Emily: In a more aggressive statement against Charles, Emily takes one look at the chip A used to stalk her for weeks and smashes it with a book.
Freddie?
As Jason is about to take a drink, he tells Alison that he was going to ask Charles to turn himself in and was even going to drive him to the police station. All of a sudden, they hear a young Charles’ voice coming from upstairs. Ali and Jason race to the attic to see a video playing of a birthday party they attended when they were kids. Their mother took them out of school for an entire day and told them they were going to a second cousin’s birthday party, on the condition that they didn’t tell their father about it.
Toward the end of the clip, their mother calls the “second cousin” over and refers to him as “Freddie.” She asks him if he is having a nice birthday. “Freddie” says he is and was wondering when he has “to go back,” to which she says it won’t be for a long time. Ali and Jason find a note placed by the projector saying, “I wAnted to trust you,” complete with capital As.
Creepy “A” epilogue: A receives a wrapped gift with a note attached saying. “Happy Birthday! – your Friend and Ally.” If Charles is A, he is clearly not working alone! He opens the gift, revealing a family painting of “Freddie’s” birthday party. Also, is there a double meaning behind the word “Ally” in the note?
Current A suspect: Sara. She is the only character who hasn’t been in the same room as A, with the exception of when A supposedly held a knife over her. Now that we know this elusive character isn’t working alone, this seems more likely.
Rating: 9/10
Who do you think A is? Are you happy Aria is no longer obsessed with creepy dolls? And what’s the deal with Charles/ Freddie/A/whatever this person’s name is this week?
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