Previously: Over a year ago, we recapped an episode with a suspicious storage unit.
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Oh, What Hard Luck Stories They All Hand Me
Samantha: Spencer, Emily, and Aria are standing outside the bookstore. Spencer admits that Toby won’t tell her anything about the what was in the barrel (that was found in the storage unit that was in Hanna’s name). She also admits that they are very not okay. He’s being torn apart by his honorable intentions or whatever. Aria spots Spencer’s mom across the street, outside of a courthouse looking building. Turns out Mrs. Hastings is consulting with Ali’s defense attorneys. Which seems like an EXTREME conflict of interest. Like even if everything was normal in Rosewood, that’s her daughters ex-best friend???? Who terrorized her????? Why would you even want her consulting on this? (S: It feels like TV nonsense contriving its way to a mistrial? She was misrepresented because her own lawyers hired the mother of a teenager she harassed? IDK.) Whatever, we’re definitely back in Rosewood. Mrs. Hastings wants to know what they know, such as if the girls will be called to testify.
Spencer spots Hanna and asks for luck before heading off. Aria asks if Ezra is inside and Emily is like “he’s out of town??? Shouldn’t you, his baby girlfriend, know that?” Aria tries to play it off and I cheer at the prospect of an Ezra-less episode!
Marines: I had to skim the previous episode recap because, you know, it’s been a year. I was very happy to see a gifset of a Ezra/Aria break-up.
Sweeney: Takes me back to that time we got to include a gifset of Ezra getting thrown in jail. #memories
Samantha: Spencer approaches Hanna and says that she wants to fix things. Hanna admits that Spencer was right, she shouldn’t have gone back to the storage space. The girls smile at each other and head back to the other Liars. They stupidly say the words “we’re good” so the gods of Rosewood awaken and Holbrook shows up outside the courthouse. They think Ali has brought him back to torture them some more.
SHHHH.
Inside the coffee book shop, gloriously without a pedophile-oh wait there’s Talia. She’s too old to be into Emily right? (M: Seeing as how they are all still in high school, I’m going to say yes.) Figures. Ezra would stock up on adults who are into teenagers. The girls speculate over Holbrook while Emily glances over Talia’s way. Spencer approaches…. Jonny? Is that who this is? The new weirdo who’s living in her barn? (M: Sounds 0% familiar.) He’s got all his paint art craft supplies and is doing a paid commission for Ezra. Hanna hurries over after a phone call with Caleb and says that they need to talk.
Emily approaches Talia who’s working in the back. She asks if she’s feeling better, and Talia clarifies that she wasn’t at work yesterday because she had to take care of something. How mysterious- no, wait, I don’t care.
Hanna tells Aria and Spencer that the police called Caleb asking more questions about the storage unit Hanna broke into. Her phone rings again.
A girl approaches Emily at the counter and asks for Hanna Marin. Emily is immediately suspicious, bless her heart, and the girl clarifies that her name is Lesli. Mrs. Vanderwaal sent her here because she was a friend of Mona’s. Zoomy cameraman gets all up in Emily’s nervous face.
Mari: Because a new character is never good news.
Sweeney: Historically speaking, there is a 100% chance she will either try to frame them or outright murder them.
Samantha: The girls sit with Lesli, who tells them she’s really struggling with Mona being dead. She was with Mona’s mom over Thanksgiving when she got the call that she had to come back to Rosewood. She met Mona a few summers ago at her grandparents place, and she couldn’t attend the memorial service cause she had exams. Ohhhkay. Nothing to see here people, this all sounds really legit and stuff. She’s in town for the weekend to support Mona’s mom and thanks the Liars for being there for Mona. Lol. What. When? I guess they were kinda friends with her again after she threw a car at Hanna but only kinda sorta. Weird.
Mari: Mona was definitely A at one point at or around the time she threw a car at Hanna. Maybe that’s why the Liars are all giving Lesli weird looks.
Sweeney: Right, like, if you are a friend of Mona’s that none of her these girls who knew her for YEARS know about than you are almost certainly a friend of hers from a time when Mona was stalking and harassing said girls.
Samantha: Later, Spencer and Hanna are on the phone talking about the very suspicious Lesli. I’m disproportionately proud of the girls with no sense of self preservation for not trusting her. (M: It only took 5 seasons.) Hanna is at the police station but after that she’s instructed to go check in on Lesli and see if she can find anything out. Spencer spots her mom’s briefcase on the counter and starts going through it. She takes a picture of Ali’s prison visitor log, including a visit from Mike Montgomery, before her mom comes in. Spencer asks about Holbrook but her mom tells Spencer not to worry about him because there are other things to talk about. She pulls out a stack of large envelopes, acceptance letters to colleges she didn’t even know Spence was considering. Spencer admits that she’s been considering not going to college, and Mrs. Hastings is like “Girl, NO” because keeping her out of Ali’s trial requires college, or something.
Mari: If you don’t go to college you’ll go to jail, how mom of her.
Samantha: At the police station, Caleb and Hanna discuss if her mom is going to marry Ted. Then Hanna worries about a video of the two of them that A used against Spencer and Aria. There are so many incriminating videos of these girls, I honestly can’t remember which one she’s referring to. Caleb locked out remote access to their computers and there’s nothing left to tie them to the storage unit. Suddenly Holbrook storms out of a room yelling about how they don’t understand what’s really going on, and they can’t pin it on him. He packs up a box with his stuff and leaves angrily.
Spencer shows Aria Mike’s name on the log. She’s SHOCKED, and we’re reminded that Mona was Mike’s girlfriend which still seems fucked up. She’s gotta find out why he was there.
Sweeney: Taking a long break from recapping means that we get to be horrified about #JustRosewoodThings ALL OVER AGAIN. Like Mike and Mona dating. Which was definitely 100% super fucked up.
Samantha: Hanna tells Emily that Holbrook was suspended for inapropriate behavior. Which minor was he sleeping with? (M: Alison!) (S: Thanks!) Hanna thinks he blames the Liars for what happened to him. She goes to talk to Lesli, while Emily calls the other girls and spies on Talia and Jonny chatting.
Aria finds Mike watching a black and white movie that was apparently on a list of movies that Mona wanted to show him. It’s almost sad/sweet. They talk about how smart Mona was like she didn’t use that brain to try and kill the girls, idk. Aria leaves him to his in memorium.
Mari: He’s more sad over a losing a girlfriend than he is that his girlfriend almost murdered his sister. Rude.
Samantha: Hanna and Lesli are in Mona’s room. Lesli admires a book Mona told her about. Hanna points out that the relationship between the Liars and Mona was hella complicated. Lesli says they were all “very precious” to her. What weird phrasing. Then Hanna says there was more than one Mona inside of her, and Lesli casually girl hates about how most girls can’t keep two thoughts in their head at the same time but Mona was very special. You know regular girls, so dumb.
Mari: Mona was not like other girls! She could pretend to be your friend AND throw a car at you.
Samantha: So talented.
We Mona-back to Hanna and Mona on the bed, Mona reading from the book Lesli was holding. Mona asks Hanna what she’d wish for with 3 wishes. Hanna doesn’t want to play because wishing jus reminds you of what you don’t have. Mona would wish for a stopwatch that stops time so she could have all the control over people and they’d never even know it. Apropos. What’s the saying? “When people tell you who they are, believe them”?
Emily is in a back room working on work stuff and Talia shows up, presses herself against Emily’s back and reaches around her to retie her apron strings. Her hands linger on Emily’s hips, and I am really freaking uncomfortable. Hell, Emily looks uncomfortable, though she could actually be going for sexual tension.
Mari: This show doesn’t know the difference between those two things.
Sweeney: JuSt RoSeWoOd ThInGs!!!~ 🙃
Samantha: Jonny is in the coffee shop working on a bunch of wires??? I thought he was a painter??? I have no idea what Jonny’s schtick is but now he’s doing wiring.
Hanna and Lesli come in, and Mike storms over all grumpy that Lesli has Mona’s beloved creepy poem book. He yells about how you can’t just take her things and Hanna can’t just make her disappear. Again, I just want to reiterate what a weird dynamic this is since Mona literally tried to kill Hanna. He demands they hand the book over but Hanna insists that they aren’t stealing it, and they’ll put it back where it belongs. Mike leaves and Lesli tells Hanna that the night before she was killed, Mona was ordered off the phone with her by an angry guy. She’s pretty sure that guy was Mike. The music is all “whoa bet you didn’t see that coming!” Has Mike ever been a suspect before? If not, welcome to your first round of the Toby Edit! Congrats, big moment.
Sweeney: I can’t keep all the nothing & everything that happens on this show straight in my head, but I feel like dating Mona had to have made him a suspect? Right???
Samantha: Emily comes upon Caleb studying in the grass.
They talk about how smart Hanna secretly is and how Caleb doesn’t want to get left behind. I would say it’s a cute genuine moment but the last time I did that, Mari told me what lay in the future for Spencer/Caleb and I got the ICK virus.
Mari: Lol, sorry, especially because you remember that moment, and I promptly forgot even telling you.
Sweeney: I don’t know what the past interaction was, but I’m interjecting to let you know that I’m prepared to fight you when we get to that point if that ICK is for Spencer/Caleb. That is all.
Samantha: We’ll put the fight on hold. I am spoiled but haven’t actually seen it in action. Just the general idea of it weirds me out.
Caleb notices Emily gazing at Talia and asks how that’s going. Emily talks about trying to figure out if a girl is flirting with her not and how she both knows what she wants and doesn’t know what she wants. (M: Me, everyday at lunch.)
Hanna and Aria walk around and talk about what Lesli said about Mike. Hanna says that it’s probably nothing, but Aria tells her about Mike visiting Ali in jail. They decide they have to figure out what’s going on. Goooood luck, ladies.
Spencer hangs around Jonny while he works on his Deep White Boy Art Installation. They flirty banter, I guess, and Spencer notices that his sketches are on the back of a missing Ali flyer. He found it while staying in the barn and refers to Ali as Gilgamesh (ancient Sumarian hero). Spencer says she’s more like Vishnu, destroyer of worlds. “Some grim stuff to hang on a pretty girl with a nice smile” says Jonny, the most condescending asshat. Spence, please. You can do so much better.
Hanna and Lesli are back in Mona’s room. Lesli hopes that Mike doesn’t get into trouble, and Hanna says he’s a good guy. Lesli leaves to help Mona’s mom, and Hanna is thrown into the Mona-back again. They’re laying in bed and Hanna wonders if Ali came back, years from now and looked different, would they recognize her? Mona gets angry and says that they are the ones who are unrecognizable. Ali would go insane and get thrown in Radley “and no one gets out of there.” Hanna tells her not to say that so Mona fake smiles and says its just another scary story, like from the book. They have so much eye make up on, I genuinely think I would not be able to fall asleep like that. (S: YES. SAME.) For some reason, in the present, this memory causes Hanna to shake the book and find a small tape hidden in the spine. She rushes out to her car and drives away and is of course followed by another car.
Aria sees Mike leave the house and follows him.
Jonny asks what Spencer thinks of his completed project. It’s a… I’m not sure how to explain it. When someone sits at the desk with their elbows on some buttons they become a tuning fork and can hear what a person speaking into a microphone on the other side of the room is saying. Spencer is blown away. Jonny says the idea is that a person goes to the microphone and records a random secret with the knowledge that someone else is going to sit at the desk and hear it at some point. He was inspired by Rosewood, a town of whispers, and asks Spencer to buy him coffee.
Sweeney: I am confused because on the one hand this is some neat SCIENCE! but on the other hand, this is some impressively elaborate shit for the PLL writer’s room to come up with for a mechanism by which someone will inevitably incriminate themselves at some point. What was this writer’s room even? “Guys a saw YouTube video about a thing. Let’s put it in an episode.”
Samantha: Caleb and Hanna play the tape, a recording of Bethany talking to a doctor in Radley. She’s calling someone an evil bitch and how she can get people to do whatever she wants. Bethany says that “she’s” not the only one who can make plans and there there is a thud before it goes quiet. Hanna assumes the she in question is Alison, and Caleb thinks they should listen to the whole thing.
Aria follows Mike to a little bridge on a pond. He stands there a moment before putting a baggie on the railing and leaving. Aria picks up the baggie and finds candy. She tuns around and Mike is standing their ominously. She asks him why he visited Ali but he won’t tell her. She tells him that Ali is dangerous and not to go back, but Mike just says that no one is giving him orders anymore. She asks about the pond candy and he tells her to be careful going home and leaves. I feel like this is all going to be innocent and it’s going to make no sense that he acted like a creepy weirdo.
Mari: Dudes being randomly creepy around food is a ~thing on this show though.
Samantha: THE MILK!!!!
Spencer gets home and Mother Hastings is working in the kitchen. She expresses doubts about Jonny and his squandered potential, and then it shifts to Spencer’s future. Spencer begs her mom to remember what it was like to be young and unsure. Before they can have a genuine moment the phone rings with an update on the case. The blood in the storage space was Alison’s, not Mona’s.
Hanna is driving home when a cop car pulls up behind her with its sirens on. Hanna pulls over and gets her license ready but realizes that there’s no one in the cop car or walking toward her car. She gets out of her car and just. WHY. Hanna. Wait a minute more and then call someone. Or leave and deal with the repercussions later. You do not lead a normal life! (S: SO MANY SEASONS WITH SO LITTLE LEARNING.) She does bring like a crowbar or something with her. (M: Better than not having a crowbar!) She peers into the car and suddenly Holbrook appears and grabs her arm. Where the hell was he? Peeing in the woods?
Hanna wants to know why he still has a cop car when he was suspended, and he creeps that he hasn’t returned it yet. Hanna tries to get him to let go of her, but he won’t cause he has some monologuing to do about how he lost everything because of Alison. Hanna is like “then why did you try to kill Aria, Spencer, and Caleb?” and Holbrook says that he couldn’t have done that because he’s been working with Internal Affairs the last few weeks. He wants to know if Alison told Hanna to kiss him and then gets all touchy on her face and UGH GROSS. Hanna whacks him with the crowbar and tells him that he doesn’t get to play the victim because he’s the grown up police officer in this situation. HELL YEAH. (M: I CHEERED.) (S: ADULTS KIND OF BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE!!!) She takes off.
Emily finds Talia staring at Jonny’s whisper thing after closing. She offers to show Talia how it works so Tali sits down at the desk. Emily goes up to the microphone and tells her that she should have said something that night but she was so surprised and she couldn’t decide anything right then. And that they barely know each other. She walks over to Talia, who tells her that she’s a good judge of a situation and it took all her courage to tell Emily she was interested. She makes to leave but Emily stops her and they kiss.
The other Liars are meeting up and wondering where Emily is. They recap that someone besides Holbrook has been helping Ali and that it might be Mike, though Aria insists it can’t be.
Mari: It’s like she didn’t witness his whole ass Toby Edit at the dock. Like, girl. Be less dense.
Samantha: They wonder what Bethany was talking about on the tape and Spencer surmises that what happened in Ali’s backyard was a trap. The recording of Bethany plays again as we see Mike at the prison, signing in to visit Ali.
A tag: In Mona’s room, A creeps towards the book of creepy tales and tries to find the tape but it’s not there.
Mari: It looks like something was still in there though? And A either smashes it in anger or was angry the tape wasn’t there. As with all the things in this show, it is unclear.
Sweeney: And, as with all things on this show, it probably doesn’t actually matter in the end.
Next time on Pretty Little Liars: The Liars have their eye on Mike after the blood drive in S05 E19 – Out, Damned Spot.
I'm a 28 year old graduated English major and almost librarian. I can often be found singing too loudly (poorly) in the car or spending some time (hours) on Tumblr. I am a lover of Harry Potter, the Spice Girls, and too many other things.
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.
