Previously: Aria sang in a dark room, while Noel Kahn played guitar. It was weird. Also, Ezrafitz became a Child Predator Superhero.
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Moments Later
Sara: This episode originally aired five months after the previous episode, so I guess we’re all supposed to be like, “OMG DID HANNA DIE?” (Spoiler alert: No.)
Lorraine:
Sara: We open up Moments Later, well, moments later. The person who hit Hanna jumps out of the car and runs away. A has to be killing it with the cardio. Hanna’s mom gets stopped by the police and at first she’s all, “WHAT STOLEN MONEY? I mean, is there something I can help you with, Officer?” There’s good news and bad news. Good news: Nobody knows she stole from Mrs. Moneybags. Bad news: Someone got hit by a car, and it was Hanna.
Dear A, please aim for Aria next time. Love, Sara.
Sweeney: Cosigned, Everyone.
Sara: Hanna is driven away in an ambulance, and the remaining PLLs leave to meet her there. Before Aria turns away, she sees Noel Kahn in a black beanie and black shirt, lurking in the shadows like a damn murderer.
Lor: JFC. Can there be ONE MAN on this show that isn’t a pedo-bear, murderer, rapist or cheatery cheater? I WAS ROOTING FOR YOUR AGE APPROPRIATE LOVE, NOEL KAHN.
Sara: There is no such thing as a decent man in Rosewood. It’s no wonder these girls are paranoid all the time; the men in Rosewood truly are out to get them.
Big Eyes tell you to Shhhhh!
The girls recap the previous episode to random people on their VERIZON SUPPLIED CELLULAR PHONES. MamaMarin comes out to deliver the good news that Hanna is alive; she just has a broken leg. She questions the PLLs about the getting-hit-by-a-car thing, and Spencer declares that Toby Cavanaugh must be involved, because Spencer Hastings always has to have a Suspect. (L: And it’s always Toby.) But it turns out that it couldn’t have been Toby, because of how he was arrested at the end of last episode.
Sweeney: Don’t worry, Spencer. You’re still perfect.
Sara: The three remaining Liars start freaking the hell out. A tried to murder Hanna because she found out who A is. Spencer says that it isn’t just about scaring them – A started with murder, and it makes sense to expect that it might happen again. Emily wants to go to the police (of course), but Spencer replies that they don’t have much to tell the police. And plus the police in Rosewood are probably really busy stalking underage girls.
Lor: I really don’t understand their police-aversion. “WE CAN’T GO TO THE POLICE. THE ONLY THING WE WOULD BE ABLE TO TELL THEM IS THAT SOMEONE IS TRYING TO MURDER US.”
Uh, yeah. Good place to start.
Sara: Maybe they’ve been reading Snark Squad!
When Spencer gets home, she runs into Melissa and bursts into tears about Hanna’s accident. Melissa asks what happened, and they fall into a hug. Melissa has a weird look going on over Spencer’s shoulder, further solidifying my Melissa-is-the-killer run I’m going with this week. Ian is also at the house, because he apparently hooked up with Melissa after their date.
Hanna wakes up in the hospital, and Mama Marin swears to kill the person who hit Hanna, and then sue him, too. Aw. Hanna asks if the PLLs have been by, and MamaMarin confirms that they have, along with Sean and Lucas(!). Hanna insists that she needs to talk to Spencer, and her mother promises to call for her.
Lor: I love that she says Spencer specifically. Because Aria is too dumb to handle “information” and Emily too boring.
Sara: Ezria is standing outside, looking at the writing on his car.
He says he didn’t even see it the night before because of how he was nomming all over his underage student’s face. Aria says that maybe it happened after he got back? And thankfully, Ezrafitz is like LOL little girl. Of course it happened last night, when I was nomming your face off. Ezra is worried about someone catching them the night before, but Aria just wipes off the window and kind of pretends it didn’t happen.
Sweeney: That’s hilarious and I’m glad that’s just a PLL fandom thing. Totally going to use this all the time. “OH, A SERIOUS THING JUST HAPPENED BUT ACKNOWLEDGING IT WOULD INTERFERE WITH MY HAPPINESS? MEH. *ARIA SHRUG.*”
Lor: IT IS FANTASTIC. And the fact that Ezrafitz spends this whole scene going, “ARIA. NO. LISTEN. BE RATIONAL.” is really great. Enjoy your pedo-kisses, Child Predator.
Sara: Oh, Aria. It’s a good thing you’re pretty.
Emily is eating breakfast with her parents, and her mom not so casually mentions that everyone in Rosewood feels safer with Toby, the Teenage Terror, locked up. Emily asks what happened to innocent until proven guilty, but her mom is like PSH. Emily’s phone goes off, and it’s MamaMarin texting that Hanna wants company.
The girls are all sitting around Hanna’s hospital bed, and you almost don’t even notice MamaMarin sitting practically on top of her daughter.
Lor: She has been clutching her bag of stolen money all episode. It’s hilarious.
Sara: Hanna dismisses her mom in a nice way, so she can talk secrets with the girls. (Side note: I was just watching that Lifetime movie The Fab Five, about those horrible cheerleaders, and I completely forgot Ashley Benson was in it. She plays a really great bitch.)
Sweeney: She also does a great job as a drugged-out-thieving-James-Franco-loving college student. Who says “spring break” a lot.
Sara: After Aria closes the door, Hanna tells that girls that Noel Kahn is A.
After the Not-Commercial Break, Hanna says that she saw Noel at Mona’s birthday party, writing a message on the back of a car. Emily asks what he wrote and whose car it was, and Hanna looks at Aria. Aria at least has the decency to look a little guilty before admitting that she was the one in the car. Emily asks again whose car it was, and Aria admits that she was with Ezrafitz. Emily just gets this great OH JFC look and says, ‘Aria…’ in a warning tone.
Aria says that she couldn’t tell them about Ezra because it could get him in a lot of trouble. Oh, Aria. Spencer is like, “SKKRT. You just called him Ezra. You guys are dry humping.” Emily gets super freaked out, and the girls start asking lots of questions. Aria tells them that she’s been seeing Ezrafitz since before the school year started. Spencer is shocked that Aria is dating a teacher, and I am very proud of the PLLs right now for telling Aria that this isn’t cool.
Sweeney: I giggled when she was all, “Well, I didn’t just get into his car last night — who do you think I am?” Because the dry humping in a bar bathroom was way klassy. Got it.
Lor: I hate her so much. “I HAVE MORALS WHILE DATING MY ENGLISH TEACHER, GUYS.” Fuck you.
Sara: Aria says that Noel couldn’t have been the one who did it, but Hanna swears that’s what she saw. Right then, someone knocks on the door and of course, it’s Noel Kahn. He asks to see Hanna, but Aria tells him that she fell asleep. Noel asks about Hanna’s health, and Aria is kind of weird because of how he is the new Suspect. Noel tells Aria they need to talk later, and goes to leave. Aria stops him to ask where he was last night, and he says that he was with Sean, which is obviously a lie because we saw his creepy ass lurking in the shadows earlier.
Hanna wakes up in her hospital room, when Mona walks in waving a fancy white bra as a peace sign. She asks to come in and apologizes for getting in that fight with Hanna at her party. Hanna forgives her right away and asks to go back to being friends. Mona looks hard at Hanna’s face and says she looks…. vague. SHUT UP, MONA.
Sweeney: The bra thing was cute, but STFU, Mona.
Sara: Mona gives Hanna a makeover and tells a story about a time when Hanna tried to do a backflip on a trampoline and threw up halfway through. Afterwards, Hanna climbed off, wiped her mouth, and bowed. Mona knew at that moment that she wanted to be Hanna’s friend because chick had balls.
Sweeney: Welp, Spencer, Hanna may have just reclaimed that top spot with this story. I’ll even give points to Mona for the assist.
Sara: Aria, Spencer, and Emily are talking about the Suspect list, and Spence keeps insisting that Noel is to blame. Aria hilariously points out that Spencer was sure the number one Suspect was Toby just 12 hours ago.
Spencer tells Aria that whether Noel is A or not, Aria probably needs to find out what he knows about the banging-your-teacher situation.
In the middle of the night, Lucas stops by Hanna’s hospital room and kisses her on the forehead in a romantic way. After he leaves, Hanna sits up and looks uncomfortable because she was awake for the whole thing. When Hanna wakes up the next morning, she tells MamaMarin that she can be moved to a cheaper room to save on money. MamaMarin tells her that she reached an “accommodation” with the bank. Maybe if I was 16 and my mom said that, I would buy it but LOL WUT.
Aria is playing piano in the music room, when Noel comes in and interrupts. She turns around and OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS CHILD WEARING.
Lor: Way to make it real fun for your pedo-bear boyfriend, girl. You look like you just fell out of Justice.
Sara: I honestly look forward to the day when the other PLLs start wearing horrifying things. I’m starting to feel a little bad about Aria winning the Willow Rosenberg button every. single. week.
Aria asks Noel if he saw anything at Mona’s party, and he asks how she knows he was there. She admits that she saw him in the woods, and he covers by saying he was going to play a joke on the girls at the party by scaring them. Noel saw Aria walk off, and he followed her to Ezrafitz’s car. Aria’s face is like RUH ROH, and Noel says that he’ll go to the principal or the police to help Aria tell how Mr. Fitz is taking advantage of her. Aria is like, LOL NO NO IT’S CONSENSUAL. She begs Noel to keep it a secret. He (not very convincingly) promises not to say anything and leaves.
I’m going to interrupt this moment to point out that in this scene, the show is trying to make Noel Kahn look crazy and weird and murder-y, but GUYS. He is doing the right thing! He was being a supportive peer!
Emily is at school and calling the police station to check on Toby. When she hangs up, Blind!Jenna creeps up and says that Toby doesn’t want to see Em, and even if he did, Blind!Jenna would not allow it. Jenna blames Emily for Toby running away and getting arrested, but Emily swears she wasn’t the one who told the police. She asks again to talk to him, and Jenna says she won’t let anyone else come between them. Then Emily becomes SO FREAKING AWESOME and says, “Somebody should have come between you two a long time ago. Maybe a social worker. With a bucket of ice water.”
Sweeney: I DIDN’T KNOW zzzEmily (WHAT UP zzzEnid!) HAD THAT IN HER. Well done, girl.
Lor: Agreed! I’m marginally sorry I called you boring!
Sara: This scene is brought to you by the Sierra Instagram filter. (L: A+) Hanna wakes up in her hospital bed to find Alison standing across the room in a candy striper uniform. Hanna asks Ali what happened to her, where she went after she left the barn. Alison tells her that it’s complicated, and if the girls would all put their information together, they would know.
Sweeney: After I went all “NO YOU DIDN’T” about the Lily Kane comparison, I have to concede how very Lily Kane this scene was.
Sara: I lovelove these scenes were Alison is a decent human being. You can really see her It Girl Factor in these. Also, the lighting + her face is stunning.
She tells her that they remember more of that night than they think they do. Hanna asks Ali who she was seeing that night at the Kissing Rock and Alison says, “It won’t make any difference, darling… You think the truth is some big, shiny disco ball of purity. Go ahead and try it. Be honest. See what it gets you. Telling the truth to the wrong person at the wrong time is how I ended up where I am. Take it from me. You’re always better off with a really good lie.”
Ali says she has to go. She was worried Hanna was going to die, so she risked the danger of coming to see her. Before she leaves, she says, “You know, I really should do something about A. That bitch is genuinely getting on my nerves.” Hanna sees a glass with Ali’s lipstick print on her bed and falls back into a drug-induced sleep.
Lor: This drug-induced-dream is my favorite version of Ali we’ve seen. Telling.
Sara: Aria is still in that ridiculous outfit, sitting alone in Ezrafitz’s classroom. They could at least try to act like they’re attempting to hide this, right? What does it matter if Noel Kahn knows when the whole damn school has to be suspicious? Ezra comes in and says that Aria was right earlier. Someone probably just wrote that on his car because he parked badly. I don’t even know what to say about this, because that is so dumb.
Lor: I SEE YOU! …parking bad and stuff. *cough*
Sweeney: I’m really upset that this incredibly attractive actor has been utterly ruined for me because I hate him so. fucking. much. A thousand times more than Aria.
Sara: When I start to feel the same way, I look at this picture and focus on the adorable. HE IS SO STINKING CUTE.
Aria tells Ezrafitz that there are lots of people around, so they need to be careful. She says all of this with Ezra standing way too close, in his classroom, all alone. He says that they’ve tried being careful in the past (like when they went to a bar together or when Aria used his spare key to get in his apartment or when they made out in the woods at a teenage girl’s birthday party). Aria swears that she’s happy with Ezra.
Aria asks Ezra if he would go back in time and stop himself from meeting her if he could. They both decide that they wouldn’t change anything because they’re so in luuuuurve. What’s especially hilarious is that after they had a conversation literally one minute ago about being careful, they are now sitting alone in Ezrafitz’s classroom like this:
Lucas is at the hospital, serving Hanna all different varieties of pudding. Hanna tells Lucas that he doesn’t have to skip school to sit with her, but that she appreciates what a great friend he’s being. Emphasis on the FRIEND. She goes on that being a friend can sometimes be more important than getting to know someone in a different way. Lucas understands where she’s going with this and admits that he kissed her when he thought she was sleeping.
Hanna thouroughly friend zones Lucas, and it is so sad because I LOVE HIM. She says that she likes Lucas as a friend, but she has a boyfriend. When Lucas says that she should have a better boyfriend, she shuts him down. She just doesn’t feel that way about Lucas, and she doesn’t want to lie to him. He asks her to lie to him, and it is the saddest thing. I’ve always had a thing for the skinny Jewish boy. Lor calls it Seth Cohen Syndrome. (S: 1430 and +1) (L: I know the name, ’cause this syndrome? I has it.)
Emily is on the phone, flirting with Maya, when she sees her dad standing in her bedroom doorway. She hangs up quickly and looks kind of guilty. PapaFields wants to know why Em has been jumpy ever since he got home. He’s worried that Toby is the reason she’s been so stressed out lately. Emily tells him that she isn’t afraid of Toby, and he says that it definitely seems like she’s afraid of something. Finally, Emily says it isn’t Toby she’s afraid of, it’s her mom and dad. She says that she isn’t who her parents think she is. Through tears, she says it. “I’m gay.” Her dad sits on the bed and we cut away.
Lor: Well done, scene. Well done.
Sara: Aria and Spencer are walking through the woods, and Spencer is grilling Aria about EzraFitz. When she tells Spence that they met in a pub, Spencer says, “Part of me thinks this is really self-destructive behavior, but most of me just thinks it’s really hot.” I. Love. Spencer.
Back from the Not-Commercial break, Emily’s parents are talking about their daughter. MamaFields thinks that Maya is the one who is corrupting her daughter, but PapaFields is trying to be open-minded. MamaFields pulls out the pictures of Emily and Maya kissing and asks how they’re going to fix it. MamaFields is worried that Emily is going to throw her life away all because she wants to experiment with girls. She’s mad at PapaFields for ditching all of his values and not agreeing with her. PapaFields doesn’t like it either, but he’s just glad he has a healthy daughter. Emily is listening on the stairs the whole time and looks very sad.
Lor: It’s a tough discussion to listen in on, but again, I think it was pretty well done. I love Papa Fields for his reaction. I would’ve loved for them to both be all, “NO BIG! HIGH FIVE GIRL!” But they are shocked, and Mama Fields is closed minded. That said, Papa Fields’s brand of, “I thought it was drugs or underaged pregnancy! LESBIAN? PHEW.” is great.
Sara: One thing I love about this scene is that it feels more real to me than TV shows that portray everyone as accepting and loving right away. I know that there are certainly people like that out there, but in a lot of cases, there are going to be people who don’t understand, and a lot of times, those people are your parents. I like that teenagers who are watching the show and have had the same circumstances can see this.
Over at Spencer’s house, Spence and Aria arrive and Ian walks in in a suit and tie. He grabs some champagne and asks the girls to come join them to celebrate the occasion. Melissa comes inside in a white dress and announces that they eloped. They’ve been dating for a month, maybe, at the most? Creeps. Spencer looks a little vomity when the newlyweds kiss.
The girls all gather up in Hanna’s hospital room to discuss their Suspect list. Spencer now thinks that A and Alison’s murderer are two separate people, because Spencer is the brains of this operation. In the middle of their conversation, Aria notices a signature on Hanna’s leg cast.
Hanna starts LOSING. HER. SHIT. She’s screaming for them to get the cast off or wipe the words off or something because SHE IS HYPERVENTATING UNDER THAT CAST, Y’ALL.
A-nonymous End: A person in a black hoodie and black gloves throws the remains of the Initial Tree in the fireplace and burn, baby, burn.
Next time on Pretty Little Liars: Hanna is out of the hospital but we’re thinking the girls won’t be able to catch a break in S01 E12 – Salt Meets Wound.
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.
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.
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.
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