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Sweeney: At Rosewood High School for Nervous Breakdowns, Emily, Aria, and Hanna are freaking out because Spencer Hastings is no longer showing up for school. Hanna’s less concerned, though, because she figures that Spencer’s just hurting and lashing out and needs to work through her pain.
As it turns out, Spencer didn’t ditch school: they see her across the cafeteria getting kicked off the Academic Decathlon team because they voted and now she can’t sit with them. They don’t care that sweat pants are all that fit her right now. Spencer asks Mona if there’s anything else she’d like to take away and storms off to her locker. She shrugs off Emily’s attempts to good friend, saying she just can’t deal with any of this. When fleeing from that exchange, she notices that A has vandalized her sunglasses. I hope these girls have asked their parents to insure everything they own because all this vandalism has to be getting expensive. Or this is just a solid case for sticking to Target sunglasses.
Rosewood’s One Coffeeshop. Aria’s trying to come up with ways to help Spencer, but Hanna’s distracted by trying to track down Caleb’s uncle. Aria tells Hanna to back off the whole the-uncle-is-the-father theory, because Aria has the presence of mind to know that learning stuff about her boyfriend before him was bad…if other people do it. Speaking of the pedolationship, Pedzra’s mom calls to track down her younger son, but Aria lies for him.
Lorraine: I like when these girls try to learn lessons. “Guys, no. I kept a secret from my boyfriend once/held onto incriminating evidence/told the police the truth, and it didn’t work” seems to be the little nod to plot progression we’re getting in season 3.
Sweeney: Elsewhere in the coffee shop, Emily continues to trust shady stranger, CeCe, sharing their theory that Detective Wilden was Ali’s baby daddy. CeCe glibly notes that tons of college guys were there that summer, all of whom “wanted to rush Ali,” which is just the grossest because SHE WAS 14. WHAT THE FUCK!? I just want to sit this show’s 14 year old audience down and make sure they understand that the 21 or 22 year old guy making passes at them is a fucking cretin who should be reported immediately. And fuck this bitch CeCe, who’s got no time for trifling concerns like Ali’s probable murderer / definite statutory rapist.
Lor: Seriously, this bitch is basically bred to be a suspect of SOMETHING. Are we still trying to figure out who A is? I can never remember.
Sweeney: I wonder if that’s part of the strategies to throw us off our detective game – it’s very difficult to solve the mysteries if you can’t remember what they are.
Hastings House. Spencer’s making some sort of green smoothie when the guy who told her she was off the team. He’s there because a plot fairy whispered in his ear and told him that if he built it, a story might probably maybe come. He was the swing vote in getting Spencer booted from the team and he voted that way because he thinks internal tension will undo them. Spencer’s certain she’s the stronger world history player and tries to gamble her way back onto the team – they play each other for his vote. He doesn’t take the bait and so she decides that instead they’ll play strip trivia. I may have pulled a muscle craning my neck trying to see off into left field and I still can’t tell you where that came from.
Off in Meddler’s Woods, Hanna went to confront Caleb’s uncle and confirms that the guy is, in fact, Caleb’s dad. His reason for not telling Caleb is basically that he’s got a record and is worried about passing his problems onto Caleb. Hanna’s weirdly surprised by the fact that Caleb’s deadbeat dad did time. She pleads with him to try to meet Caleb halfway.
Hastings House for Substitute Abs. Demonstrating the full extent of Hastings Parental Negligence, Spencer seems to have no qualms about playing this game in their living room, where anybody can walk in unannounced. Swing Vote got a question wrong and loses his shirt, putting him down to his boxers.
Lor: Well, hello. Do all the boys at Rosewood look like that under their shirts? Even the decathalon guy? I’m not sure the whole murder, stalking and pedo thing is worth it, but that’s definitely a pro to Rosewood High.
Sweeney: Most of the student body seems to be spared the murder/stalking, so it might be worth it.
Spencer pulls her bra out from under her shirt and as she’s making eyes at Swing Vote, there’s a knock on the back door. It’s Emily. Swing Vote panics and runs off.
Lor: A+ memories. Crencer has a lot to live up to.
Sweeney: Pedo Pad. Ezra’s brother is packing up his things because Mama Fitz knew he was there hours before she called Aria and did that for no apparent reason. He’s not really sure where he’s going, but he can’t afford to keep changing the locks on his mom. Neither of them have heard from Ezra. This scene is boring and pointless. They’re interrupted by a phone call from CeCe, in last minute need of a photographer, and apparently that one-time hobby of Aria’s is actually sticking around. Continuity! Weird. Aria says she’ll come and bring an assistant.
Marin Manor. Caleb is mad at Hanna for going behind his back (fair) but she reminds him that he went behind her back with the A thing and he’s all, “Shit. Good point.” Except only halfway, because Caleb’s still not interested in going to this meeting with his deadbeat father. He storms out. Mama Marin arrives just as this is happening, I guess because she hasn’t filled her episode order for the season yet.
Rosewood High School for Empty Classrooms. Emily finds Jason sitting alone in an empty classroom and wants to apologize for Spencer’s inappropriately timed revelation. Jason’s not interested, since the timing wouldn’t make it any less true. He’s already decided to call Detective Wilden and start leveling unfounded accusations at him, based on this information and complete lack of proof because Rosewood. Emily tries to backtrack a bit, explaining the source of this information – something CeCe said, coupled with a picture Emily saw of Wilden on a boat. Jason remembers once seeing a photo of Ali on a boat and since the girls are now using possible hallucinations as the foundation of their A theories, it makes just as much sense that photos of people on boats are sufficient paternity tests. Sure. Why not. Beware of being photographed on boats, gentlemen!
Lor:
Sweeney: Hastings House. MELISSA is back. I didn’t think the show remembered that Spencer had family members. She’s just there to make things awkward when Dr. Creep, her ex-fiance, shows up at the door looking for Spencer. He tries to be nonchalant about it, saying they need to catch up and Melissa gives the best, “YEAH! Go fuck yourself,” face. She’s really good at bitch faces.
Anyway, Wren’s really there because somebody called and is worried about her. Spencer initially assumes it was Emily, but it wasn’t one of her besties – it was Mona. Wren says Mona recognizes self-destructive behavior and Spencer rather quickly works out that this was part of a larger master plan. She agrees that it was thoughtful of Mona to reach out and says that all she really needs is to get out of the house. She invites Wren out to dinner and a movie as a “mental health outing.” He’s flattered, rather than disturbed, that a potentially unstable teenage girl has asked a grown ass man out for a date-like evening. Spencer runs upstairs to change.
Lor: Sorry, what was he saying about recognizing self-destructive behavior? Ahem.
Sweeney: Marin Manor. Hanna tries to call Caleb’s dad to tell him not to come, but he doesn’t answer, so Hanna chickens out and says she’ll see him soon. Just as she’s about to go, Caleb shows up, with his wolfy bad boy hair all groomed. It’s an odd look for him, but he’s so sweet and anxious. He’s glad Hanna’s going to come and keep him company.
After a Not Break, they’re at the restaurant and clearly having been stood up by his dad after a lifetime of that. Even as Caleb’s “uncle” he abandoned Caleb with a babysitter until she had to call the cops. Caleb’s ready to give up, but Hanna begs him to wait.
At CeCe’s photo shoot thing, she sends Ezra’s brother off so that she can gossip with Aria about possibly hooking up wit the Age Appropriate Fitz in Pedzra’s absence.
Meanwhile, Hanna’s going to get more drinks just as deadbeat dad shows up. Things are awkward. Hanna has to pee, but can’t because things are awkward. This is a very faithful recap of this whole scene. (L: I’m here to confirm. Yes.)
At the DiLaurentis house, Emily and Jason arrive to find an insane number of bottles blocking his porch. (L: We saw A buying these bottles last episode.) (S: Oh yeah! Good job remembering consecutive episodes!) He’s pissed but just starts cleaning up, accepting that it was probably just a really weird prank, possibly from their local detective? I don’t know, man. As he’s throwing them out, Emily gets an A text.
Medical Ethics Violation Road Trip. Wren is afraid that Spencer is leading him too far away, but loses the thread because he’s too busy perving on her jamming out to sweet, sweet tunes.
CeCe’s Photo Shoot. Aria and Age Appropriate Fitz are trying to get stuff done while CeCe’s off getting dinner. He goes to move something and accidentally kicks over an open bottle of wine that had been precariously placed beside a white rug. They panic and try to clean it up.
I’m not going to go back, but now I think that maybe I was wrong about Jason and Emily being at his house. He says something about leaving Rosewood, but she says “back there.” I DON’T KNOW, MAN. I don’t know. The point is that they’re now in Jason’s dad’s office and it’s filled with boxes. Emily asks who might have played the weird booze bottle prank. Jason says that was a total Ali move, except for the part where she’s dead. Emily thinks it was Mona and Jason corrects that he’s not friends with Mona – he just sees her as a link, someone who probably knows who dug up Ali’s grave.
Marin Manor. Hanna comes home, pleased because things apparently turned around in the off-camera time. Hanna asks if Ashley’s pastor boyfriend still needs someone to fix something at the church, and begs her to see if he’ll hire Caleb’s dad.
Papa DiLaurentis office. They find the big collage of Ali photos that they were looking for, including the photo of Ali suspiciously ON A BOAT. It actually becomes slightly more legit as evidence for something when they pull surrounding photos aside and see that Wilden and CeCe are on either side of Ali – even though CeCe told Emily that she didn’t know Wilden. With this evidence that people were together near a shovel on a boat, Jason goes into an Alipothesis:
It starts as a proper Aliback, with a very far gone Jason stumbling out of his house and to the hose. He thinks he sees Ali talking to Melissa but when he calls out to her, both girls turn and it was actually CeCe and Melissa.
I have no idea what important information this is meant to prove.
Lor: That Jason was thirsty enough to drink from a hose, intoxicated enough to be stumbling around and CeCe may or may not own a yellow tank top. BAM. Best detective ever.
Sweeney: Good job!
Back in the present, Jason says he didn’t tell the cops this because he wasn’t confident that’s what he saw and also admitting to having been awake at all would have made a suspect out of him. Also because it’s not actually useful information.
Medical Ethics Violation Road Trip. They stop at a diner and Spencer sends Wren off to get a table so that she can do something else. I didn’t really understand what was going on, so the reveal was fun: Spencer had Wren take her to the place where the team is practicing for the tournament tomorrow. Spencer insists that she’s just there early to make sure she gets a good seat and to wish the team captain good luck. Spencer thanks Mona for calling Wren and basically calls her a psychopath, which is fair and I still don’t understand why everybody’s so chill with that. Whatever. Anyway, Spencer promises to upload a “case study” online with Mona’s name and picture attached. Spencer says something about not letting Mona take anything else away from her, and Mona asks if Spencer even has any more friends. Spencer snaps and attacks her. Everyone rushes to the rescue and Wren hauls her out of there. DAMN IT, SPENCER.
Lor: Not a smart move but it was kind of like when Hanna slapped Jenna in that I’m wondering why it took so long for SOMEONE to snap.
Sweeney: True – it was very gratifying to see Mona get mauled. Bitch deserves it. That “DAMN IT” was more for Spencer’s own benefit.
CeCe’s Photo Shoot. Age Appropriate Fitz jokes about how he’ll sleep on the stain instead of the backseat of his car. Realizing that he has no place to go, she insists that he come crash at her place. Just then, CeCe calls – from her car – saying that her car was towed and while she can get it back, it’ll be a while so they shouldn’t wait up. They pack up and Aria continues to ignore his protests, insisting that he come stay with her.
Caleb and Hanna are at the church, I guess waiting for Pastor Ted to finish talking to Caleb’s dad. That was really quick turnaround on this job thing. I didn’t realize Hanna meant, “Because he’s in Rosewood right now, at night.” Anyway, Hanna lit a bunch of candles and they make out in the church pews. Mama Marin enternounces herself with an, “Amen!” It’s cute. Also, they’re all going back to the house for pizza and beer, except no beer for the kids because of Ashley’s non-negligent parenting. On their way out, Ashley puts a 5 in the donation box, because she wants to re-up her Jesus points. The 5 has some red dice drawn on it and while I can’t tell you why this might matter, zoomy cameraman seemed interested.
Jason and Emily get back in the elevator to leave and while they’re in it, the elevator breaks. Emily pulls the emergency thing, but it’s a Friday night so it’s not likely to do much good. (L: Is that how emergency elevator buttons work? Shouldn’t they ALWAYS connect to someone…?) (S: It’s not surprising that emergency people in Rosewood are all, “Nah, man, it’s Friday night. Fuck that.”) They bust out their cell phones.
The Medical Ethics Violation Road Trip has turned sour, as such things do, and Spencer’s pouting on their way back to Rosewood. Melissa calls Spencer, who just turns the speaker on so that Wren can answer. He lies that she just got food poisoning and they’re on their way back. I’m not really sure why he had to say anything at all if he wasn’t going to tell her the truth, but that’s because I don’t understand why anybody on this show does anything. (L: Is it me or is that feeling getting worse? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT ANYONE IS DOING.) (S: IT’S NOT JUST YOU. I wanted to write, “X did Y and, yet again, IDGI,” throughout the entire recap.)
Montgomery Manse. Age Appropriate Fitz feels bad about the rug, but Aria tells him not to sweat it. She gets him some blankets while they talk books and he recites poetry. When she hands him pillows he takes that as an invite to kiss her. Aria panics and shoos him downstairs.
Marin Manor. A pizza boy arrives and Deadbeat Dad pays, leaving the guy a nice tip. Hanna sees that he has a five with that same dice doodle on it. MS MR’s “Bones” is playing during all of this, which is all I pay attention to in the closing montage (L: ME TOO.) in which we also see the girls get S. O. S. texts from Emily and Jason in a hospital bed. He’s awake and shirtless, though, which is nice. He’s also confident someone wants him dead aaaaand he miraculously lost the picture of Wilden and CeCe guiltily being on a boat. Weird to see someone else losing evidence!
Emily goes out to update the girls about what’s going on, just as Spencer arrives. It’s awkward at first, but she apologizes. This is interrupted by a nurse coming to ask where the hell Jason went. His bed is now empty. WOMP.
A-nonymous. The two A’s play some sort of weird version of Spin the Bottle with the same brand of whiskey that was left on Jason’s porch (?) with the PLLs faces taped to the bottles. It lands on Emily but they’re all, “NO, SPENCER!” and then they pour themselves some whiskey.
Lor: I’m pretty sure they don’t understand Spin the Bottle. The drinks were admittedly a nice addition, though.
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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