Previously: Jason disappeared from a hospital after accusing people with very little evidence.
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Hot Water
Lorraine: Rosewood’s One Coffee Shop, after-hours because there is no one around. It’s the same day as the last episode so the beginning exposition (“Any word from Jason while we’ve been together this entire time?”) is especially clunky. Emily has not heard anything from Jason. Hanna wonders if now that the whole National Adolescent Terrorization Club is out of Rosewood, A will retire. Spencer gives the appropriately jaded, “YEAH RIGHT.” response.
Emily redirects the conversation over to Cece lying to them about knowing Wilden. The girls wonder if maybe she’s Red Coat. Spencer is distracted by an incoming text message. Aria asks her what she thinks and she’s all, “maybe Cece is Red Coat!” Aria tells her to pay attention. Hanna spies on Spencer’s phone and sees that the text message is from Wren, asking if they can talk about the day’s events. Hanna asks what happened and Spencer says she had “a moment” with Mona and Wren saw it happen. Aria asks if this “moment” might’ve caused Mona to try and cut Emily in half with an elevator, but Spencer knows it wasn’t Mona; they were in a different county. Aria asks who Spencer thinks did it and the girls all look at her really accusingly and I have no idea why. (S: “OMG SPENCER, KNOWING STUFF IS YOUR JOB.”) The intimidation stares end following a knock on the door.
It’s Wilden, who says he was looking for the girls and Hanna (correctly) interprets that to mean that he’s been following them. She amazingly has her key chain mace in hand. Probably not the level of precaution their lives to this point warrant, but it’s something. Wilden says that Jason’s been spinning some crazy stories about him. Hanna plays dumb and I’m impressed by her general, “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” response but that’s totally destroyed one second later when she tells him to ask Cece Drake. “We know about the little boat ride you two took with Alison,” Hanna accuses. Wilden must know that “boat ride” loosely translates to “baby daddy murderer stalker evil,” or whatever, because Wilden glares at her. He says, “it’s late,” like a threat. He offers to give them a ride, like a threat. He says it isn’t safe this time a night, like a threat. He turns around and from the door tells Hanna he’ll see her around. Like a threat.
SHHHHHH.
Aria gets home to discover Wesley’s stuff still on the couch. We literally just had this scene so that Aria can stare longingly at a book he borrowed.
Sweeney: “SHE LOVES TO READ!” was a favorite feelsy declaration of ours in Dallas. I wish that everyone knew that already so that I didn’t have to ruin my “HE LOVES TO READ!” with that explanation, but here we are.
Lor: “SHE LOVES TO READ!” is directly related to, “WITHOUT YOUR STUFF?”I’m half convinced that this would make an excellent vlog story and half convinced no one would find it funny but us.
The next day, Ashley Marin is asking interested parent questions. I’m distracted by what that questions are because Hanna has this huge ring on her finger. It’s mesmerizing and also more intimidating than key chain mace. I would not want to be punched by anyone wearing that thing. I think the conversation happening behind the ring has something to do with Caleb and his Dead Beat DadUncle.
Wilden is across the street strong arming Cece into his car. He sees Hanna and glares at her three separate times in the span of about 30 seconds, which is a pretty amazing feat if you ask me. Mama Marin asks Hanna why Wilden was just eye-murdering her. Hanna admits that the Liars thought Ali and Wilden had a relationship. Ashley is shocked and tells Hanna they can’t just go around accusing people of such awful things. She doesn’t even know that they are doing it based on a picture on a boat. (S: You mean because then she’d totally understand the solid nature of their evidence, right?) (L: Totally.) Ashley tells her daughter not to associate with Cece Drake anymore. Hanna says she won’t and takes off to meet Emily.
Spencer is still in bed and her friends are already up, dressed, and probably on their 3rd round of before-school-coffee. THINGS ARE REAL BAD. Melissa checks up on Spencer. She’s been covering for Spen with their absentee parents, but if they call again, she’s telling them the truth. Spencer might have a month or two window before they call again, so she should be good!
Rosewood High for Jesus That Ring is Distracting. Emily is shocked that Hanna told her mother actual information! Hanna claims she was distracted by Wilden shoving Cece in his car. They were sure Cece was covering for Wilden, but since all of their thoughts, ideas and assumptions turn out to be wrong, this also appears to be wrong. Emily wants to confront Cece.
The girls chat about a few more things: Emily heard back from Jason who is laying low in Virginia; Emily doesn’t want to tell Paige she was almost murdered again; Hanna thinks they should find out if Paige learned anything useful while investigating Mona; Hanna gave a special $5 to church and later saw the Dead Beat Duncle with it.
Sweeney: -_-
Lor: Rosewood the Entire School is Your Napping Grounds High. Spencer is being miserable in a classroom. She’s past the point of brooding into deep depression territory. Piper Mom finds her. I’ve watched episodes of PLL after I started recapping Charmed, but this was the first time I felt all, “my life has come to this: recapping two shows with Holly Marie Combs.” Piper Mom has heard about Spencer attacking Mona. She’s always known Spencer to be the type of person who bounces back from disappointment. Spencer says people change and Piper Mom gets that. She knows how hard break-ups can be. The bell interrupts this heart to heart and Spencer takes off.
Paige is searching for the location of the Rosewood Costume Shop in her product placed Bing GPS something or other. Ha ha ha. Bing.
Emily and Hanna creep up on her. She lies that she’s going home, but they clearly see her search result is directing her to the costume shop. Emily thought Paige was all done investigating this stuff. Paige calls this, “following up.” Emily says that they are going with her then.
Apparently school is not out for everyone else, though. Aria sees Spencer in the hallway and Spencer pretty much runs away from her and into the girl’s bathroom. There, she finds Veronica Mars. JUST KIDDING. VERONICA WOULD’VE FIGURED OUT THIS A SHIT 42 EPISODES AGO.
Sweeney: WEIRD. I made an insanely similar comment in my E21 recap. BRAIN SHARE. But also g2g fix that now. Womp.
Lor: Amazing! I swear I didn’t read it, but while we were in Paris, we did have a brief conversation about the construct of VM (solving the main mystery in one season and moving on) compared to PLL (THIS MYSTERY WILL NEVER END). We both had it present in our minds, I guess.
Aria follows Spencer in the bathroom and talks to her through a locked stall.
Costume Shop. Paige’s source, Shana, is pretty snippy with everyone because Emily and Hanna are also there. Shana says that she can’t actually tell them who rented the Queen of Hearts costume (remember this is important because of the Adam Lambert Murder Train). Hanna makes some signals to Emily who asks to use the bathroom. Hanna asks to the see the Queen of Hearts costume and as soon as Shana leads her and Paige away, Emily comes back out of the bathroom. She goes through the shop’s orders and manages to email herself a copy of the Queen of Hearts history before Shana comes back.
Rosewood’s One Coffee Shop. Mama Fitz finds Aria and starts off by thanking her for saying whatever she did to Wesley, who has returned home and is back at his fancy prep school. Aria says she didn’t do or say anything. Mama Fitz sits at the table and continues on about how great Aria was toward her son. Aria, for OBVIOUS reasons thinks they are still thinking about Wes, and explains that offering him a place to stay was the least she could do. Mama Fitz was actually talking about Ezra, though, so things are awkward. She admits that they got off on the wrong foot, but she thinks it’s real nice that Aria is sticking with Ezra now that he has baby momma drama. It’s clear that Mama is just here to shit stir and it works pretty well, because Mama Fitz was graduating with an advanced degree in Shit Stirring while Aria wasn’t even thought of by her parents. (S: A+)
At Marin Manor, Emily wonders if Toby would ever cheat on Spencer, as that’s the only thing that would explain her reaction to their break-up. Hanna doesn’t think so. She also doesn’t think Paige would cheat on her with Shana, despite whatever tension existed at the costume shop.
Ashley is having dinner (lunch? A 3am snack? IDK.) (S: TIME HAS NO MEANING IN ROSEWOOD. IS ROSEWOOD PURGATORY? IS THE PLOT TWIST THAT EVERYONE’S DEAD?) alone and Wilden has invited himself to sit at her table, offering her a glass of wine. He claims he’s there “as a friend.” Mostly, he’s there to say that the Liars’ accusations could ruin him. Ashley asks if there is any truth to it and he insists that there isn’t. She stares at him hard and I guess she sees a little bit of statutory rape in his eyes, or something, because she sends him packing by rejecting his glass of wine.
One Coffee Shop. Spencer is reading. Wren finds her there and wants to talk about their field trip last episode. Spencer apologizes for using him to get to Mona. Wren says it’s okay, because if he’s honest, he showed up at Spencer’s house, less because he was concerned about her mental health and more because HE HEARD THIS TEENAGED GIRL BROKE UP WITH HER BOYFRIEND. And he wanted to swoop in. How am I supposed to even with the rest of this scene? I don’t know. I think they make dinner plans.
Sweeney: This fucking scene. I didn’t think Rosewood was going to outdo Ezra dating his student, but Wren going after a possibly mentally unstable teenager is a new gross creepy low. I don’t have words so much as endless rage.
Lor: Back with the other Liars, Aria is still going on about all of her relationship complications. She says her relationship went from “high school to minivan overnight.” It’s hilarious BECAUSE HER BOYFRIEND ISN’T IN HIGH SCHOOL. HE’S OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE A SIX YEAR OLD. WHY IS MY EPISODE SO MUCH WITH THE INAPPROPRIATE RELATIONSHIPS? How am I supposed to even with the rest of THIS scene?
Spencer and Wren finish off their date, but he has to run off and be a grown ass man somewhere. He leans in for the goodnight kiss, but Spencer flinches. He backs off, but thinking better of it, Spencer leans in herself. They kiss and the camera angle switches so we know they are being watched.
Aria again lets herself into the Pedopartment, and this time stops short because Mama Fitz is there. She’s arguing with Ezra who’s basically telling his mom that she’s not the boss of him and also, hiding a son from him was a crappy thing to do. Ezra asks for the key she had made and Mama Fitz leaves. Ezra apologizes to Aria and she kisses him passionately because standing up to moms really turns teenagers on.
Emily and Paige have a moment of being honest with each other. Emily admits that they think Mona is working for someone, someone they briefly thought was Cece, but are no closer to finding answers than S01 E01. (Something like that.) Paige admits that she dated Shana for three weeks while Emily spent the summer in Haiti. She swears it’s over, though, and convinces Emily with kisses and I love yous.
Spencer is walking home post-date and sees Red Coat.
Hanna is listening to music in bed and misses a call from her mother. We cut to Ashley leaving the restaurant and leaving a message for Hanan about the whole Wilden thing. Ashley gets in her car and behind her, Wilden turns on his car SUPER OBVIOUSLY and follows her.
Sweeney: Ashley’s obliviousness to her surroundings is staggering. I am confused by the idea that there are people who don’t have a sixth sense for cop cars and, in response to a sighting, drive at a grandmotherly pace. Just me? OK. Whatever.
Lor: Spencer gets home and Melissa asks what it took to get her out of bed. She lies that she just needed fresh air. Melissa tells her that no company is better than bad company. Spencer plays dumb, but Melissa can smell the cologne she once bought for Wren on her sister.
Pedopartment. Ezra throws away the stuffed animal Mama Fitz bought for Baby Fitz, saying it probably has a tracking device. That’s dumb. A video camera would be smarter and Mama Fitz totally knows that. Baby Fitz doesn’t know that Ezra is his daddy, but they are easing their way into that revelation. Aria says she’ll support him no matter what. Ezra’s phone rings and it’s Maggie freaking out because Mama Fitz owns the condo she’s living in and has decided to sell it. Ezra tries to calm Maggie down and Aria looks concerned.
Wilden pulls Ashley over and DEAR GOD I HATE THIS MAN. He asks if Ashley has been drinking, since he knows that she had a drink at her table. He asks her to get out of the car and she questions him, but he asserts his “officer of the law” authority and she obeys. In his car, we see that the whole exchange is being filmed.
Sweeney: Because even Rosewood PD films shit. #currentevents #exceptwe’retwoyearsbehind #andPLLsaudiencedoesn’tknowstuffabotucurrentevents
Lor: Spencer is in her in-house steam room. Fancy. She’s relaxing and we see an A walk by in the background.
Wilden tells Ashley she has to shut Hanna up and threatens to spill some of her secrets if she doesn’t. Ashley asks how he can live with himself, and I’m saying girl. She walks back to her car and gets in but Wilden won’t budge. “Either you shut Hanna up or I will,” he yells at her. AND ASHLEY RUNS HIM OVER WITH HER CAR. OH MY GOD. ASHLEY JUST THREW A CAR AT WILDEN.
I laughed out loud.
Sweeney: People in Rosewood really like to throw cars at one another.
Lor: Emily goes to Cece’s house and finds her packing in a hurry, desperate to get away from Wilden. Cece yells that she thought Emily could keep a secret. Cece thought Wilden was the one who got Ali pregnant and then killed her, but didn’t report him because he is the police and all. Em asks why she visited Ali the night she died and Cece says that Ali called, freaking out over some tapes. When Cece got there, Melissa Hastings asked her to talk to Ali. She did, Ali left to get the tapes and the next day she was missing. Finally, Em asks who took the picture on the boat: Melissa Hastings.
Spencer is still in the steam room. She tries to turn it off, but it goes haywire and the temperature increases. Spencer tries to get out, but someone has lodged something in the door so she can’t. She wipes at the steam and sees a message for her in the mirror: Steamy with Wren, steamy with me. – A
She freaks out and calls out for her sister, and her breath gets shorter as she falls to her knees. It’s Aria who comes to her rescue and just in time too.
Hanna finds her mom sitting in the dark, probably thinking about that one time, five minutes ago, when she threw a car at Wilden. Ashley tells her daughter that she thinks she killed Wilden.
Aria brings Spencer a cup of water and offers to stay the night with her. Spencer says that the steam room thing was revenge for hooking up with Wren. Aria doesn’t get why Mona would get back at her for that. Spencer tells her to call the rest of the Liars.
Sweeney: I have no idea why the fuck Ashley took Hanna back. I was willing to get past the, “I don’t understand how ‘running over a cop’ seemed like your only solution in that scenario,” but she just killed a cop to protect her daughter AND THEN TOOK HER TO THE MURDER SCENE. This is some next level stupidity.
Lor: A-nonymous. A puts some music on and keeps on with his/her murdery arts and crafts which today includes making a “with deepest sympathy” wreath.
Next time on Pretty Little Liars: Spencer is ready to tell the truth but Emily’s brain probably can’t process things like “truth” in S03 E21 – Out of Sight, Out of Mind.
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.
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