Previously: Emily killed Nate and Toby vindicated his creeper edit from lo those many episodes ago when he was revealed to be a member of the A-Team.
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This is a Dark Ride
Sweeney: We start off in the asylum on a stormy night with Mona doing some creepy singing about teddy bears having their picnic today. (Pretty singing, though! Do we have a pretty+creepy word in our creepcabulary? It could often be used to describe Mona.) She’s painting a head. (YVONNE LEHEAD?) She draws a big red blob on the lips which are magically perfectly painted a hot second later. Continuity is for people with no imagination. Mona monologues about how she gets to do an art project for Halloween, even though they’re not big on Halloween around those parts. She turns around and we see that she’s talking to a hooded member of the A-Team (Toby?) as she continues about how much she loves Halloween. (You’re making this awkward for me, Mona, because I also love the shit out of Halloween.) “It’s better than Christmas – more makeup.” She promises that this is going to be the best Halloween ever before handing something to this A, adding that she bets somebody’s life on that.
Lorraine: I think betting with other people’s lives is cheating, MONA. Gosh.
Sweeney: Elsewhere in Rosewood, the girls walk through a neighborhood and chat about their Halloween costumes. They’ve resolved to choose people from movies and surprise each other, but the antici…pation is killing them. Aria’s weird ass vertical and horizontal striped outfit complete with stupid newsboy cap looks like she’s already dressed for Halloween. Aria always looks like a walking Halloween costume, though.
They confirm that Emily really wants to go out with them tonight, but she says she needs something big and flashy to mark the end of all that. “Symbols and ceremonies,” offers Spencer.
Lor: So… I killed a man and I want to mark the occasion with a costume? Am I getting this right?
Sara: Isn’t that how everyone celebrates killing a person?
Sweeney: Everyone in polite society, at least.
They walk by a house with hardcore decorations, but in their fake cemetery is a big mock-coffin that reads, “RIP Alison DiLaurentis.” That’s fucked up. Emily’s not taking this shit and goes to pull it down, but then the guy whose house it is pops out wearing a blonde wig. So fucked up.
The girls call him out for being a shithead and leave. He goes back inside.
SHHHH: HALLOWEEN EDITION.
Sara: I LOVE Halloween opening credits. My husband makes fun of me for all the excited squee-ing I do about a simple color change.
Sweeney: IT’S A FAIR REACTION. HERE, I’M SQUEEING WITH YOU OVER THE INTERNET. SQUEE!
Hastings House. Spencer comes home to find Garrett inside, leaving flowers for Mrs. Hastings. He starts to tell her the big “something” he was going to tell her when he was still locked up, but Toby arrives and tells him to GTFO. Toby looks extra murdery now. It’s hard to imagine any real directing taking place on this show, but I assume those were his directions, “Now that you’re A-Team, bring back your Toby Edit murder face.” (L: “More murder!”MORE MURDER! Thaaat’s the ticket.”) Spencer tells Garrett they’ll talk later and he leaves. She explains what Garrett wanted to Toby but he insists that he won’t leave her alone with him. She mocks him being an alpha male, but then it’s all, “LOL it’s cute when you’re controlling.” I’m disappointed in you, Spencer. The dramatic music close up of Toby’s murder face while they’re hugging is PRETTY MUCH WHAT YOU SHOULD EXPECT WHEN YOU TELL YOUR BOYFRIEND IT’S TOTALLY COOL FOR THEM TO BE A CONTROLLING SHITBAG. *COUGH*ANASTASIA STEELE*COUGH*
Hanna and Caleb are making out in a closet somewhere, and the credits tell me Adam Lambert is a special guest on this episode. LOL. Anyway, Hanna and Caleb talk about how much they hate that they’re still being all secretive because nothing’s changed on the A front, in spite of all the shooting in the mid-season finale. They decide to stop talking about it and make out some more. Good plan.
Pedo Pad. Aria’s putting on a green necklace as part of her costume. Pedzra comes home to say that he can’t actually come to the party that night because he’s got a grown up meeting to attend. Aria pouts. But knows he’ll make it up to her. Then they get gross and relationshipy. It’s interrupted by children knocking on his door for candy. Aria sighs, “Night of the living preschoolers,” and I can’t stop laughing. Any mention of children in their pedo scenes overwhelms me as a recapper. THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY JOKES.
Sara: How can you possibly choose just one?!
Sweeney: HALLOWEEN PARTY TIME! A voice announces that the first Ghost Train is about to fill up. Hanna arrives in a Marilyn Monroe costume. She looks fantastic. Aria’s dressed up as Daisy from The Great Gatsby. It’s fitting because Daisy is selfish as fuck. Noel Kahn and NotBlind!Jenna are pirates. Somebody is dressed up in that same murdery baby costume a millionty people were wearing in the flashback Halloween episode. Spencer and Toby arrive, looking fabulously noir. (S: OMG so fabulous.) Spencer ditches her overprotective boyfriend to tell Aria and Hanna that Garrett’s been MIA since she saw him earlier.
And then! Noel Kahn starts choking on his food. Obviously this is unfortunate for him, but also kind of amusing. I know there’s a death in this episode and now I’m curious if we’re going to have a lot of these fake outs in which someone ALMOST dies. SHOULD WE START PLACING CLUE-LIKE BETS? “Noel Kahn in the lobby with his own food,” would’ve been an unlikely guess. Jenna stands by and shouts at people to do something. Toby and Spencer try to help but then… something pops out of his chest, all a big gag. OK.
Emily walks in, looking super hot in her Barbarella costume. (S: Everyone is so gorgeous, I can’t look away.) Paige looks adorable in her suit. Emily joins the girls just in time to see Jason arrive. I had to look up his costume. His red jacket apparently make him James Dean. Sure. Spencer’s about to confront him, but that’s interrupted by everyone being called aboard the Ghost Train.
Marin Manor. Ashley and Pastor Ted are dressed up as a nurse and a doctor and have an adorable little haunted hospital setup going on. It’s cute. ALSO: the kids’ parents go inside with them. These unnamed Rosewood parents aren’t being negligent. Good for you guys! Ashley and Pastor Ted flirt and her happiness is adorable. Clearly it will be destroyed soon enough.
On board the train…ADAM LAMBERT is performing with vampire teeth. LOL. We then get a glorified mini-music video. There’s a lot of awkward shots of everyone dancing. It’s equal parts cute and awkward. This show.
Lor: I didn’t catch his name in the credits. My exact reaction was, “…who is that? Wait, what? ADAM LAMBERT? AHAHAHA-LOL-ETC. I laughed for the whole scene. Good times.
Sara: Was he even relevant when this episode aired? Wasn’t he on American Idol approximately seventeen years ago? Weird.
Sweeney: Art Project Asylum: Mona snuck out and left her creepy cousin of Yvonne LeHead on the bed to trick the negligent nurses.
Adam Lambert Music Video Train. A guy in a Phantom of the Opera costume grabs Hanna and she yells at him, as she should. When we see him walking away it’s clear that he has chin-length wolfy bad boy hair.
Elsewhere on the train, Jenna asks Toby to hand her a drink. She asks about his costume and he says he liked her a lot better “like this,” before placing a hand over the eye not covered by the patch. Shit, Toby. You can’t just openly mock someone’s (former) disability… except also Jenna raped Toby, repeatedly, so he can kind of say whatever the fuck he wants to her.
Sweeney: Remember when we needed Toby Abs to even tolerate his weird face? I’m unsettled by how good murder face looks on him…
Spencer makes her way through the train and eventually finds Jason. He said he was going to stop by her house that day but didn’t because he saw Garrett Reynolds there. It unsettles Jason to see him free because getting out doesn’t really mean he’s innocent. He makes a face at Lucas, who suspiciously scurries out of that car. Jason excuses himself and follows Lucas.
The Adam Lambert music video continues. The other three PLLs are still there dancing.
Marin Manor. Ashley goes in the kitchen and finds a creepy little blond girl waiting in her kitchen. The girl asks to call her mom. She also talks way too much. She doesn’t like scary things. Ashley doesn’t know what to do with this weird little child so she just kind of nods and smiles and hands her the phone.
Lor: I can only hope I’d be this helpful to a creepy ass kid. All signs point to, “HELL NO” though.
Sweeney: Hanna sees herself out of the Adam Lambert music video for some fresh air. Phantom of the Opera appears again and she tells him off once more. With that, he reveals himself to be Caleb and they make out. I wonder if Ashley Benson got to make out with all the Caleb auditionees. That’s basically the part and I also hope it was spelled out in the character description. “Caleb is a high school boy who kisses Hanna a lot. Like a lot a lot.”
Back in the Adam Lambert car, Adam Lambert asks Aria if she’s having fun. They have a weird, kind of pointless conversation. Aria writes her name in the fog on the glass and then Adam Lambert goes back to perform another music video song.
Lor: I’m weirdly spoiled on some things on this show, partly because of ABCFamily promos, and the rest because of Tumblr and my sisters. I remember that when this episode originally aired people were all, “OMG, ARIA IS A BECAUSE THEY WRITE THEIR A’S THE EXACT SAME WAY.” A’s are pretty universal, though. There aren’t a ton of different ways to write them.
And all that is probably way too much though to be giving to Aria writing her name in the fog.
Sweeney: I’m torn, because this show isn’t clever enough for something so elaborate, but that’s also exactly the sort of stupid that propels this show forward.
Someone in a fully-covering red joker-like costume opens up a ring with some sort of white powder and then sneakily drops in Aria’s drink. It’s been a few episodes since we’ve had roofies in Rosewood. ‘Bout that time, I suppose.
(I have a grand dream that one day a whole week will pass in Traumaland without something rapey going on. “One day,” she repeats to herself as she cries into her pillow.)
In some strangely private cabin on the train (it’s a train? how are their empty spaces?) Emily and Paige are making out and discussing how things sometimes work out. LOL, girls. Come on now. Zoomy cameraman shows us a suspicious shadow to confirm the epic jynx.
Spencer’s walking down a very empty hallway. Seriously, what the fuck is with this train? I know you Whovians are all, TARDIS-EVERYTHING, but bigger-on-the-inside transportation will forever and always = Spice World bus for me. NOT SORRY. NEVER SORRY. She’s grabbed, hand over her mouth, by someone in the scary baby costume.
Outside, between cars, it’s Garrett and he’s apologizing to Spencer. (S: Uh, you could have just said, “Hey Spence!” instead of the kidnapping-like grab. WTF.) He says that she was the one he really wanted to keep safe, but he didn’t really know what the game was about. He promises to tell her everything he knows before he disappears, adding that she can’t come looking for him. He rehashes the night of Ali’s murder, starting with the events of the video: Garrett, Jenna, Ian, and Melissa are all in Ali’s room. Then Garrett and Jenna left so that Melissa and Ian could talk. Garrett and Jenna went behind Ali’s house, where the ground was dug up.
ALIBACK TIME! Ali overhears them talking and tells Jenna that she told her what would happen if she came back to town. Jenna starts trying to hit Ali but she’s blind so that doesn’t go so well. Garrett tells her to go away and Ali points out that they’re in her backyard. Ali pushes over Jenna. Womp. Jenna gets up with the field hockey stick Ali borrowed. Garrett grabs it and swings at Ali, but she ducks, so he hits the tree. Ali screams and Garrett hits the tree again. Jenna asks if Ali’s dead. Ali does the finger-to-lips SHHH, and Garrett says he took care of it and runs off, leaving Ali to look longingly at the field hockey stick.
Sara: Shhhh, Lor, don’t worry about the sense making.
Sweeney: On the train, Spencer DAFUQs at the pointlessness of this I-didn’t-do-it confession. Garrett only told her to explain why Jenna thinks he did it. There’s more, though: he returned later and overheard Ali telling someone that they need to pay for their mistakes. That someone steps out from behind the tree and it’s SHITBAG MONTGOMERY. “You say all of these grownup things, but you’re still a child.” He’s close enough that I was genuinely terrified that he was going to kiss her, but this show likes to keep its pedobears nice and dreamy and properly blurry so that young girls can think it’s acceptable when grown ass men hit on them. (S: A+) Shitbag Montgomery isn’t attractive enough for that. Garrett tripped over something and had to get gone because they heard the noise he made.
That’s when Garrett left. He got cleared before he had a chance to reveal that tidbit. Because of reasons. Spencer leaves to get Aria so that he can say all of that to her face.
On the train, Spencer finds Hanna and they go looking for Aria together. They find Aria’s purse left in the seat she was talking to Adam Lambert in. IS ADAM LAMBERT A-TEAM? LOLOLOLOL PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE SAY IT’S TRUE. They look up and see the “ria” smudged out of her name, leaving, “A.” Aria’s phone goes off and the A-text reads, “Guess who won’t be making it to the end of the line?”
Lor: ADAM LAMBERT? Shit, that probably isn’t right.
Sweeney: Aria wakes up somewhere dark, with her mouth taped shut and her arms taped together.
Lor: WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT. Is something bad happening to Aria right now?
Sweeney: IN MY ENTHUSIASM I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT. SOMETHING BAD ACTUALLY HAPPENS TO ARIA IN THIS EPISODE. IT’S CRAZY.
Emily meets up with Spencer and Hanna after looking for Aria. No luck. (Too much episode left.) Spencer fills Emily in on what Garrett told her, and insists that there’s no reason for Garrett to lie to them now. Hanna can think of one: “To mess with us. Everyone’s messing with us. You can get a varsity letter in messing with us.” True, true. Emily decides that they have until the end of the line to find Aria and also maybe A who is clearly on the train. Hanna and Emily go to find/warn their significant others while Spencer’s going to make her way back to Garrett in her search for Aria.
Aria, we now see, is in some sort of large person-sized wooden crate. Someone as small as Aria has a fair bit of room! She tries to knock her way out of there, but only succeeds in toppling the crate.
Hanna finds Caleb, but he just gets handsy with her. She tells him to stop because they have a serious situation, calling him by name. Then she spots actual-Caleb across the very same car she happens to be in (convenient!) and realizes that this isn’t him. She pulls the mask off but there’s only another mask underneath it. She pushes this person off her, and it flees. Hanna realizes that she’s just confirmed Haleb’s continued existence to A. Also that she was just groped by A, which another level of gross to the heavy-duty violation they’ve suffered at A’s hands.
Sara: Also, BITCH WHY COULDN’T YOU PULL THE SECOND MASK OFF WTF.
Sweeney: Marin Manor. Ashley goes back to the kitchen and the girl’s MIA. She asks Pastor Ted about it and he hasn’t seen her. Ashley goes upstairs and finds the little girl sitting in Hanna’s room. Guys, I really don’t understand this whole stupid little girl subplot. Why is this happening? The payoff better be fucking glorious. (L: LOL. Cute. You just wished for a glorious plot payoff in Pretty Little Liars.) I’m so bored each time this little girl opens her mouth. She has a sister who she fights with a lot, including over their dolls. Ashley grabs her hand to comfort her, but she’s freezing cold. Ashley pulls a blanket over her and goes to get Pastor Ted. When they return, the little girl is gone and the blanket is folded up on the bed.
Ghost Train. Spencer gets attacked by Roofie Red who starts choking her and nearly pushes her off the train. Spencer finally manages to push Roofie Red off and run, but Roofie Red isn’t far behind. She once again, nearly gets choked, but is saved by Paige. PAIGE! GOOD JOB, GIRL. Also, it’s sort of the perfect full-circle on Spencer being LOUD AND WRONG to have Paige turn out to be someone of major importance to Spencer, much like Toby. OF COURSE, that means full full circle means she’ll have to join the A-Team soon too. Shit. Anyway, Roofie Red shakes Paige off and runs. Paige asks Spencer if she’s OK and spots one of Roofie Red’s giant fake red nails in Spencer’s hair. (L: Ew. Rude.)
Aria’s Crate. We’re apparently just where we last saw her – just after she knocks the create over. She looks to her side and sees the corpse of Garrett Reynolds. SHIT. That’s a legit intense reveal.
Lor: And it looks super fucking corpse-y considering he was alive like one Adam Lambert music video ago.
Sweeney: Aria screams. I don’t know when she got the mouth tape off. I wasn’t really paying attention. Now infinitely more horrified, spots a nail in front of her and uses it to start cutting off the hand tape.
Spencer asks Hanna if she’s all right. “What do you think?” Spencer confirms that this means that A knew about Haleb all along. Hanna wants to know if Spencer believes Garrett. She holds up the red nail to Hanna’s hand to verify that Roofie Red is, at the very least, a very big girl. More likely, Spencer thinks, not a girl at all.
Emily and Paige join them. Paige is sent to the front of the train to join Caleb and Toby. The PLLs are making their way to the back. Spencer thanks Paige, who says it was a pleasure. That’s kind of a weird way to put it.
Aria’s Crate. She still trying to get the hand tie loose when she feels the crate get lifted up.
Paige spots Jenna who sasses her a bit. She asks if Jenna has seen Aria, and Jenna jokes that Aira, “has a thing for authority figures, so she’s probably up with the engineer.” LOL. Jenna spots Lucas’s abandoned camera on a table.
Aria’s Crate. We see a door being opened and a flash of Roofie Red (I think) about to push Aria’s Crate off the train.
The PLLs continue to make their way back and reach a locked door with Aria’s necklace on the ground by it. Spencer grabs a fire extinguisher to smash the glass.
We hear a male and female voice bickering as they push Aria’s crate off. Aria finally gets her hand tape off. She grabs a screwdriver conveniently left in there with her and waits until she sees one of the bodies close enough to the crate for her to stab. It was the guy. Just as her crate is about to go flying off the side, the PLLs rush in and save the day. The grab a crowbar and pry it open, seeing Aria and Garrett corpse inside…except Garrett Corpse is TOTALLY MOVING when Aria’s being helped out of the crate and it’s hilarious. He’s also not in the same position when they look back inside. He’s pulled the blanket up over his corpse self! It’s cold being a ghost, you know. Like that creepy little girl.
Lor: And the lesson of the episode is pack some layers for the afterlife everyone!
Sweeney: Marin Manor. Ashley and Pastor Ted are trying to figure out what the fuck happened. Ashley’s deeply unsettled by the whole thing. She asks if Pastor Ted believes in ghosts. He says he’s not supposed to. Ashley wisely decides that they should just drink more wine.
Sara: Good decision is good.
Sweeney: Ghost Train. Most of the named characters sit around in a car answering cop questions about what happened. They all stand up when Aria returns. She insists that Garrett’s a liar and her shitbag father’s totally innocent. The girls don’t question that right now. They agree that A killed Garrett and that helping Garrett get free in order to kill him is what A was guiding them to do all season. (Which, uh, lends a fair bit of weight to what he said.) They realize that Garrett now makes the second member of Creepy Film Club to get murdered. Spencer realizes that everyone on the car they’re currently on has something to do with Garrett. With that, Pedzra shows up. He was going to surprise her at the end of the line, but when she didn’t show and he heard someone got heard he stalked the tracks to find her.
Noel Kahn and Jenna then get into a “YOU SHUT UP!” shouting match with the other three girls. It’s hilariously juvenile. Toby intervenes and pushes Noel and their fight is also comic book stupid. Noel gets pushed into a table, which breaks it. We see ice and a body bag come sliding out. Jason’s horrified eyes suggest that the funeral home listed on the body bag is Ali’s funeral home.
Sara: And they’ve all been filling their punch cups with dead girl ice. Yum.
Sweeney: Art Project Aslyum. We see Mona roll over, back in bed. On the floor beside her bed, however, is the mask that was under the Not-Caleb Phantom of the Opera mask. Are the A-Team members each assigned specific PLLs or something?
A-nonymous: we see the dug up ground behind the DiLaurentis house. A hand reaches through the dirt and waves around frantically for a bit. END CREDITS.
Lor: A hand in the dirt kind of waiving all, “hey girl!” was a great way to end this completely ridiculous episode. I mean, I laughed, but also THIS SHOW.
Next time: PrettyCreepy Mona returns to Rosewood High in Pretty Little Liars S03 E14 – She’s Better Now.
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.
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.
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