Previously: Mona was released from Radley and gained everyone’s sympathy with her Youtube videos.
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Mona Mania
Lorraine: Aria is watching a black and white film when her father comes in and PAUSES THE MOVIE. WHO ARE YOU, BYRON MONTGOMERY? What murder are we still trying to figure out? Alison’s? Byron did it. He pauses other people’s movies and is therefore evil.
Really, he wants to talk about the fire someone started at that charity race last episode. Aria says they talked about it enough when Shitbag Montgomery was accusing her and the Liars of setting it. As it turns out, the principal called Byron because they’ve identified the real culprit. Byron’s all, “sorry,” and Aria uses her Big Eyes to give him a death glare. She grabs the control and unpauses the movie. Byron tries to chat about the movie, saying the dude keeps a severed head in a hatbox and Aria looks at him like, “OH MY GOD, DAD. NOW YOU ARE GOING TO SPOIL THE MOVIE?”
What’s next, Byron? Going to grab a glass of milk?
Sara: STRAIGHT EVIL.
Sweeney: My sister and I shouted at the screen for a solid two minutes about all of this nonsense so I’m pleased to see that this atrocity has inspired proper outrage in everyone else.
Lor: Rosewood No Locks On Our Doors High. Hanna, Emily and Spencer are breaking and entering in order to get another look in Creepy Janitor Harold’s office, where Ali’s journal is. Hanna asks why they can’t do that during their eternal lunch hour the next day, but I guess they have less of a chance of being caught if they are breaking and entering. Go with it. Hanna stands guard while Spencer and Emily go into the office.
Sweeney: They also wonder if the basement is only that creepy at night. Girls, all basements are places of Don’t Go In There and are perpetually creepy. Also, murder lighting is apparently a requirement of high school basements and Rosewood does not break with this important tradition.
Lor: Emily says she can’t find the light switch in the office, but they don’t get to look around anyways because Spencer calmly announces that there is someone in the room. That black-hoodie-wearing person stands and bolts from the room. Hanna is at the door, but kind of just steps aside and lets the person leave. She says she didn’t see who it was.
Sara: This is now the second opportunity Hanna has had to unmask the stupid A-team member. I am over your shit, Hanna.
Sweeney: I’m also not clear on how this person got by Emily who was standing right at the door. 2/3 of these girls are athletes and they didn’t even muster up a half-assed step towards this person. I am over all of their shit. It’s almost like they never want to catch A so that this show and their jobs can last forever.
Lor: In related over-this-crap news, Spencer turns the light on because the light switch was right on the freaking wall, near the door, exactly where Emily touched the wall and was all, “I can’t find the light switch.” Creepy Harold’s office is empty. All of Mona’s stuff is gone, save for Alison’s journal tucked away on a shelf. Emily grabs it, under the impression that it’s what they are looking for, but Spencer knows better. She grabs the journal and flips through it. It’s empty until the end, where there is a message from A– “Keep moving ladies. Nothing to see here.”
SHHHHH.
The next morning the girls are grabbing their before school coffee. The greatest mystery of Rosewood continues to be TIME. They all complain about how much no-sleep they got (S: Maybe the 4am coffee dates are the problem, girls.) and share their stress dreams: Aria’s teeth fall out (baby girl, that’s called teething. It happens to fetuses), Hanna has gum in her hair and goes bald, and Spencer wears her underwear on the outside to an academic decathalon. SPEAKING OF! Spencer is running for captain of that team unopposed because the other dude had to drop out of the race, due to a bad bike accident. Did we recently see Toby opposing all kinds of non-car transportation? Suspicious.
Mona joins the girls and commiserates, because she’s losing sleep too. She tells them that Creepy Harold from the Lost Woods Motel followed her all the way to Rosewood Prime Pedo Territory High, because he wanted to take their relationship to inappropriate places. Mona freaked when someone set fire to the shed, thinking it was Creepy Harold targeting her, and told her parents. Creepy Harold has since then disappeared. Mona says she just thought they should know and leaves. The Liars, to their credit, don’t actually believe most of that story.
Rosewood Everyone Breaks and Enters High. Hanna finds Lucas lurking in the courtyard and when she asks to speak to him he gets super jittery. Like, more jittery than normal Lucas jittery. As it turns out, Lucas was the one breaking and entering at the SAME TIME they were! There should be a student schedule so that everyone’s breaking and entering doesn’t overlap. Hanna says she won’t tell anyone, but just wants to know what he was doing there. “Looking for something,” he duhs. Lucas tries to run away, saying they shouldn’t be seen together. Hanna follows after and asks by who. Mona, of course. He says everyone else may buy that she’s healed, but he isn’t drinking the Kool-aid. Hanna: No one is sipping her cuckoo juice. She doesn’t trust Mona but doesn’t get why Lucas is so freaked out. Lucas: The question is, why aren’t you? I’M SAYING. Mona could show up with a car at any moment and throw it at someone. That’s a reason to be freaked out, I think.
Sara: Hanna has become my least favorite Liar in the past few episodes for being so damn stupid.
Sweeney: On a related note, my sister just reminded me that I used to complain about how Emily was the most boring Liar who ever boringed. I want to apologize due to how much I love her now but also I’m not sorry because that was definitely the truth.
Lor: It definitely, definitely was. She was being super boring at first so she could make an awesome comeback.
Lucas says he couldn’t stop her and Hanna realizes that he was the one who lit a booth on fire at the charity race. It was his intention to scare Mona, not hurt anyone. Hanna reminds him of the existence of things like, “restraining orders” and “mace.” And while I agree with Lucas that people should be more worried, lighting things on fire is generally not the answer.
Hanna tells him to come to her if he needs help, but he doesn’t think she can help him. Hanna at least asks for a promise that he won’t do any other crazy thing. He offers no such assurance.
CLASSROOM. REPEAT: CLASSROOM. Ah, darn. False alarm. It’s the end of class. Emily calls out to Paige, who says she has to get home right away, no time to talk. Emily asks if she can at least walk her to work and Paige looks worried. Her parents are being really strict after that one time she was kidnapped and almost murdered. Em’s all, “I KNOW, RIGHT? WORST.” Paige asks if she can understand why her parents would be worried post-kidnapping and Em’s all, “yeah BUT.” because the life of a teenaged girl doesn’t stop even if she’s constantly the target of criminal intent. Or, wait, she wants to keep “moving forward.” Thankfully, there is this cool moving forward party in the woods coming up. Emily says it’ll be good to get out. Paige agrees.
Sara: LOL. A “moving forward from kidnapping, murder, almost murder, and stalking” party? Rosewood seems like a real swell place to grow up.
Lor: CLASSROOM. REPEAT: CLASSROOM. No actual class, though. Piper Mom is sitting at her desk. Aria comes in and hands her mom some newspapers she requested for a class assignment. On the front page is a story about Garrett Reynolds being killed. Piper Mom looks it over and says it makes her want to scream, not because of what happened to Garrett, but because people seem to be forgetting that a young girl was killed. (S: PREACH.) Aria uses this as an opening to talk to her mom about the night when Ali died. She remembers Piper Mom and Shitbag Montgomery went to a barbecue. Piper Mom confirms, and apologizes for sleeping in the next morning when Aria needed her. They left the event early and Piper Mom snuck home a bottle of wine in her purse. She reminisces about the warm, lovely night, but Aria reminds her about the storm. At that point, Piper Mom was dead to the world though, because wine. Because all the wine. She even missed Aria’s first call the next morning. Aria has Big Eye this whole time, probably thinking about how her Shitbag father could’ve snuck out to go argue with (or kill!) Alison. Piper Mom drives home the point that Shitbag Montgomery really insisted on that extra glass of wine, and she enjoyed it, all while something terrible was happening.
Outside of the classroom, Meridith walks by and pauses to stare, like a creep.
Academic Decathalon meeting. Spencer is talking to some dude named Andrew about that guy who fell off his bike due to Toby. I mean, they don’t know it was Toby. Andrew blames a faulty nut. Next order of decathalon business is welcoming new member Mona Vanderwall. Spencer is shocked, but Andrew says that joining school activities is part of Mona’s recovery. She comes running in then with a copy of her transcripts along with something else. That leads us to the second item of business, team captain. Running are Spencer and… Mona. Spencer glares at Mona who beams happily.
Sweeney: She literally JUST joined the team minutes ago. This is some bullshit.
Lor: Considering that the other dude running against Spencer was hit by a car by a member of the A-team, more than anyone in that room really realizes.
Mona says she played dumb for a really long time, but this is a chance to show people who she really is. When Spencer starts to question her, Mona says she kept up with her school work while she was “away.” Between rocking herself back and forth and painting doll heads, apparently. Random decathalon dude gives her this look:
Sweeney: That look is the best look and is also how I feel about all of this.
Lor: Andrew calls the vote and half the people vote for Mona, as she explains that she had some time to campaign. It’s a tie, which means they have to have a quiz-off, which Mona knows because she read the by-laws. Spencer’s had enough and Andrew adjourns the meeting. Andrew follows after her and says that Spencer should just put on her Hastings face and spank Mona. I agree with the sentiment but I never agree with spank used in that way. Never.
Sara: Also, people must seriously hate Spencer if they’re willing to vote for a psychotic ATTEMPTED MURDERER over her. Reevaluate how you treat people, girl.
Sweeney: I resent the implication that Spencer is less than flawless and perfect. (Slightly kidding – that’s probably actually super good advice.)
Lor: But also, everyone in Rosewood is crazy.
Spencer receives a text from A telling her to quit while she’s ahead. She looks back to where Mona is buying a soda at the vending machine, phone not in sight.
The next day, Spencer tells them all about the decathalon dramz. Hanna asks if being “captain brainiac” is that important which earns her a Spencer Glare. Emily asks if she knows something they don’t, which is one of those weird jumps in logic you shouldn’t actually think about too hard. GO WITH IT. Hanna says she knows nothing, but she thinks that if Mona is up to her old tricks, like causing someone’s bike accident so she could run for president, they should stay away from her.
Speak of the devil, Mona approaches their lunch table to thank Spencer for being such a good sport about this decathalon thing. Spencer scoffs as Mona says she didn’t want to make it a big deal, which is why she didn’t call or text. Spencer pointedly says that she did get her text, though, meaning the A one. Mona is confused because she doesn’t have a cell phone or Internet as part of the terms of her release from Radley. The girls point out that she posted that apology video just fine and she admits that she has limited, supervised access to the computer lab here at school for “homework.”
Lor: Mona stammers around her explanation that she got New Jason to supervise that particular activity. Hanna asks how they can believe a word she says since they know she was sneaking out of Radley. Instead of acknowledging that at all, Mona goes for the emotional manipulation and starts crying over how hard this has all been. She excuses herself, but only to the next table so she can sit there and cry where they can see her. Aria asks if that was part of her act and again, these girls seem to easily forget the things they themselves JUST BROUGHT UP. MONA WAS SNEAKING OUT OF RADLEY. Spencer says they should go, and they do so to some dramatic music and long, lingering shots on Mona sniffling.
Meredith comes into Piper Mom’s classroom and is all, “I saw you talking to your daughter so I assumed it was about me.” Piper doesn’t say anything, just levels her with a glare that you can almost hear sucking its teeth. Meredith says she won’t be pursuing her Aria-accusation further. Piper Mom reminds her that’s ’cause they already found the culprit. Meredith doesn’t apologize, just says that she jumped to a conclusion and she hopes it won’t make things harder for them. Piper Mom says she’s seeing someone, Byron moved on, and they can keep things professional.
Sweeney: This was really classy. Piper Mom is on point this episode. It almost makes me forget that I hate her for condoning the pedolationship.
Lor: That happens a lot during this show– forgetting to hate people, that is.
Montgomery Manse. Aria tells Emily and Hanna that Spencer questioned Jason and he confirmed– he was just Internet nannying Mona. Hanna notices that Aria is looking a little unwell. She says she feels that way, and then shares with them the story of Piper Mom sleeping through the night Alison was killed. Hanna and Emily take turns making accusatory statements, like how that journal entry says Byron agreed to meet Ali the night she died. Aria is still a bit defensive, and offers to show them the journal page to jog their memory. She grabs one of her boots and fishes around inside but comes up empty handed. The journal page is missing, OF COURSE, because it wouldn’t be evidence if they didn’t FREAKIN’ LOSE IT.
The girls start looking through all of Aria’s shoes when Shitbag Montgomery appears to make suspicious comments like, “lose something?” and then share a story about how Aria used to hide her Halloween candy in her boots (ew?) to keep it from (hey, where the heck is he??) Mike. No one ever thought to look there… He leaves and Aria closes the door behind him. In wide-eyed terror, she tells her friends that he knows.
Sara: I think Possibly A Byron is my favorite version of Byron we’ve seen thus far. He’s definitely been more involved in Aria’s life, at least!
Sweeney: More involved by being a giant freaking creep and standing around saying shady ass things and ruining movies.
Lor: I didn’t know we’d have to be specific when we said these parents should be more involved.
Hastings House. Spencer is studying with Toby who makes jokes about going with Spencer to wrap her knuckles and hold her spit bucket between rounds. Spencer says it isn’t a prize fight… but she would like to punch Mona. Out of 42 clubs at Rosewood High for LOL. THIS PLACE DOESN’T REALLY HAVE 42 CLUBS WHO ARE YOU KIDDING?, Mona picked her club to bait her. Anyway, Spencer has to go get ready and Toby has a dinner to go to with his boss. In fact he gets a call from his boss as Spencer blows him a kiss and heads upstairs. He tells probably-not-his-real-boss that he’ll stop somewhere on the way, and lets himself out.
Hanna visits Lucas at his house. She tells him that they upset Mona today and wants to make sure she didn’t take it out on him. Lucas says Mona isn’t his problem anymore because he’s leaving Rosewood for good. Lucas admits that Mona was, and still is, blackmailing him. He got an anonymous text during the masquerade ball to distract Jenna and it continued since then. More recently, he was tasked from bringing an envelope from Jason to Mona. When Lucas told Mona he was done helping her, he was soon almost run over by a black SUV. He didn’t see the driver, but he’s assuming it was Mona. He has to leave school because Mona knows he was selling test answers. He stopped and covered his tracks but now he has to disappear.
Montgomery Manse. Aria is messaging Pedzra Fitz when she hears her father and Meredith fighting. It’s muffled but it sounds like Meredith is saying, “why don’t you tell me what you were doing in her room? I don’t know why you just won’t tell me!” Byron answers, “why would you question? It’s my house. It’s my daughter.” Aria opens the door to her room and sees Meredith walking away from Byron, saying she can’t even look at him right now. He grabs her by the wounded arm and she wriggles out of his grasp. He says he didn’t mean it. Aria calls out to him and asks what’s going on. He says everything is fine and closes her door. Which is weird.
Let’s Forget We Were Almost Murdered Party! Emily and Paige are en route, but Paige starts freaking out about how far out of town they are going. She pulls over and gets out of the car and starts hyperventilating. Emily follows her and she says she can’t go to the party. She can’t do anything since the Nate thing happened. She’s been lying to Emily, saying her parents have been putting restrictions on her, but it isn’t true. She’s just been afraid and didn’t want Emily to know. After Nate was gone, Garrett died and now, all she can think about is when the next bad thing is going to happen. Probably around season finale time, Paige. Sorry for ya.
Somehow, Emily thinks the solution to Paige losing her shit right now is to take a walk in the creepy, dark, deserted woods for some air.
Sara: Now that I don’t hate Paige, I just want her to go find a normal, not-being-almost-murdered-all-the-time girlfriend.
Lor: Quiz-off. Spencer takes a moment to brace herself and then goes into the room. Mona greets her, letting her know that she bought a card for the dude who had a bike accident. Spencer says the whole team already sent him flowers but Mona pointedly says that there isn’t such a thing as too much encouragement when you’re on the mend. They take their places for the quiz-off. Spencer gets the early lead with two correct answers.
Sweeney: I’m digging the really intense music for the Quiz-off.
Lor: Rosewood’s One Coffee Shop. Aria followed Meredith there, which she admits to off the bat. She asks if there is something she should know about, as it sounded like Meredith caught Shitbag Montgomery in her room. Meredith says he was rifling through papers. She also caught him going through her purse, under the assumption that it was Aria’s. He wouldn’t say why. So, Meredith decided to go on a search of her own and she found Alison’s diary pages in his possession. Aria grabs the pages from her and asks if she read them. She did. Meredith knew about the blackmailing back when it was happening. And even though they weren’t together, the night that Ali died, Byron came to see her. He thought she had something to do with the blackmailing, like maybe she was pushing Ali to ask for money. Byron left Meredith’s apartment to go meet with Alison.
Sweeney: And Meredith has known this information for all this time and has only just now become concerned by that sequence of events – which also includes Byron leaving the country shortly after all of this? Something does not add up. Or Meredith’s just an idiot with zero sense of self-preservation.
Lor: Again: Rosewood, so we can’t actually say.
Short montage of the quiz-off. It seems like Mona is messing up a lot, but her score looks pretty on par with Spencer’s.
Stupidly Timed Walk. Emily and Paige get back to the car only to find one of their tires slashed. In the trees nearby, there is a hooded figure. Emily takes off running after him and Paige stands there and looks after her like, “ARE YOU FREAKIN’ SERIOUS? WE JUST HAD A TALK ABOUT BAD THINGS AND HOW AFRAID I AM OF LIFE.” But still, after a moment, Paige follows too. Emily loses him, though, and Paige pulls her away from the woods. The camera pulls back to reveal Toby hiding behind something nearby.
STOP IT TOBY. I DISLIKE THIS A LOT.
Quiz-off. At the end of round 2, Spencer is up by three points. Andrew suggests a break and Spencer says she’s fine to keep going. Not to be outdone, Mona says she’s fine too. Andrew insists but Spencer won’t budge and neither will Mona, so on they go. Spencer gets the last question for the win. She calls it easy but gets hung up in the middle of her answer and ends up running out of time. Mona knows it though and Spencer is sad.
Sweeney: Yeah, but, Mona was also interrupting her answer! I declare cheating!
Lor: Montgomery Manse. Aria returns home and Meredith is with her. Byron apologizes for scaring Aria earlier and she leaves without a response.
Quiz-off After Party. Andrew tells Spencer they can appeal the win with the faculty, but Spencer doesn’t want to win that way. Hanna arrives, having received Spencer’s text, and tearfully, Spence explains that she lost and she wants to GTFO of there. Hanna says they’ll leave. Soon. She marches up to Mona and asks to talk. She says she knows Mona is still up to her old A way, manipulating lives and using people’s secrets.
Mona says, “I’m sorry you feel that way,” after a retreating Hanna and turns around with a violent hair flip.
Hastings House. Spencer is sprawled out on the couch with an ice pack on her head. There’s an overnight trip coming up for the decathalon and she doesn’t think she’ll survive it with Mona. Hanna suggests throwing Mona under the bus, in a literal way. Hanna gets a text message from A: Cut Mona off? Big mistake. You’re not the only one who can slice and dice. -A
Hanna is 100% sure it isn’t Lucas. There are more A’s out there. Spencer doesn’t think confronting Mona was the best thing if she’s up to her old tricks, but Hanna doesn’t care because she doesn’t want to live her life in fear. Spencer reminds Hanna of Mona crying in the courtyard the other day. She saw that same weak act at the quiz-off and it made her cocky and competitive, which is why she lost. Hanna asks if Mona is parading this soft side on purpose, and I thought that was the conclusion we already came to? No? Okay.
Sweeney: At least they’ve finally gotten there! A day late and a dollar short, as usual.
Lor: Field’s House. Emily is making up a bed for Paige on the floor. She apologizes for the craziness, but Paige doesn’t blame her. She only marvels at how Emily can be almost killed so many times and keep ignoring the fact that she’s often almost killed. Emily asks Paige to think about seeking professional help. Paige promises her she will and Emily tucks her into bed.
Aria is in bed taking her own temperature. Meredith comes in with a cup of tea for Aria, who says she thought her father being a huge creep was making her gaggy, but as it turns out, she actually has the flu. Meredith makes a big deal about how her powerhouse potion tea works wonders and I’m suddenly scared she’s poisoning Aria. Not like really scared, though, because I don’t actually like Aria. She’s been pretty cool this episode, though, because no Ezra. Anyway, Meredith says Byron doesn’t know they have the journal pages back. Meredith offers to take those pages off her hands and Aria shuts that down. She hid them already. Byron will be gone for a few days, so Meredith says they’ll have a chance to figure out what to do then. Aria can’t believe Meredith is suggesting they should keep “this” a secret. I’m not entirely following what “this” is but I’m so near the end of the episode, and plot is so cheap in this series, I’m not going to think about it for a second longer!
Meredith says that whatever happens next will be rough and Aria should get some sleep. Aria thanks her for the tea and Meredith walks out, pausing by the door to look back like, “drink up, my pretty…”
Byron packs up his stuff at his office and leaves. Mona, in her black hoodie, calls someone and tells them that Byron is leaving. She follows after him.
A-nonymous: Another A is in the woods and we see a sign that says, “campground 3 miles.” We hear a train whistle in the background. This Other A does a shitty job of burying the masks from the Adam Lambert Halloween Train under some leaves. I hope that was on purpose, A.
Next time: Aria is sick and Meredith offers to take care of her in Pretty Little Liars S03 E16 – Misery Loves Company.
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.
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 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.