Okay, I finally watched Pretty Little Liars. I must admit, it’s getting better. I mean, it’s not as great as I once thought it was, but it is getting better. So, let me recap and review!
The episode starts with Emily and Hanna discussing how tired they are of playing A’s games, while Aria and Alison are still in it to win, and Spencer just feels super guilty for playing the board game in the first place. After explaining that this is all so ridiculous because they’re not in high school anymore, Emily storms out of the barn. Hanna complains that they’re all supposed to be in this together and Spencer assures her that they are.
Throughout the episode, Emily and Paige are hit with one dramatic play after another as if they were still high school students instead of teachers. While Emily and Paige are discussing Paige’s Alison drama, a young trouble student named, Addison, overhears them. After Paige leaves, Emily finds Addison and confronts her about skipping swim practice the day before. Addison just mouths off at Emily. Later, Emily confronts Addison again in Ali’s classroom and threatens that she will be out of the competition on Friday. Addison mouths off again and leaves Emily and Alison alone. They discuss the A drama, baby drama, and how much worse Addison is than Ali was in high school, not knowing that Addison is listening to them from the hallway and taking pictures of Emily giving Ali a comforting hug. She uses this picture to try to get Paige to believe Emily has been being really inappropriate with her and the other students. Of course, Paige smells the BS from a mile away and takes the info to Emily, telling her that she’ll take care of it. She does this by forwarding “an email from Addison to a friend” to the principal and her parents. Addison 0 Emily and Paige 1.
While leaving Ezra’s apartment above the Brew, Aria is stopped by a journalist asking about Ezra and his reunion with his long lost fiance, Nicole. Furious, Aria sets the record straight and informs the journalist that she is Ezra’s fiance before storming off. “I didn’t realize there were two of you,” the dude shouts after her. Aria meets with Holden to discuss wedding menu plans for her wedding, but instead helps him with a meal that was doubled at the last minute for another wedding. While she helps him, she vents about Nicole and later receives a notification on her phone with pictures and a news article for Ezra and Nicole’s reunion. She plans to confront Nicole, but Holden stops her just in time and they go to eat together.
In the family home, Spencer confronts Veronica again about Mary Drake and Peter Hastings. She mentions how ironic it was that she was placed in Radley so many years after she was born there and asks if Melissa knew. Veronica seems to inform her that Melissa didn’t know enough to know. Later, Spencer tells Veronica that she’s not going to be working with her anymore and she tells Spencer that they’ll be selling the house as soon as possible, because it will be healthy for all of them to sever ties with Rosewood. The following, rather heartbreaking conversation took place next.
With a sad fury in her voice, Spencer said, “Fine. Sell it. It’s just a house.”
“No, it’s not,” Veronica replied. “It’s a home. It’s your home. It’s the only home you’ve ever known.”
To which Spencer says, “It feels different now.”
“Not to me it doesn’t,” Veronica disagreed with a voice full of feeling. “Spencer, it’s not about walls, and a roof, and a staircase. It’s about a family that lived here. A family that I tried to keep together despite all of the lies and losses and the crap that life’s thrown at us. My children made even the worst moments bearable. We got through them together. Not because we have the same blood flowing through our veins, but because we’re a family. All I wanted to do was to make you feel safe and nurtured and… and loved. That’s what made it a home for me.”
Spencer cried, while turned away from Veronica, but quickly wiped her tears and said, “We should go. We’re gonna be late.”
When Mona showed up at Hanna’s place giddy with excitement because Katie really loves all of her work, but really, really loves one dress in particular, Hanna reacts defensively and says that Katie can’t wear that dress. In typical Mona fashion, she won’t take no for an answer and tries to encourage Hanna to reconsider. Later, when Caleb reluctantly admits that he agrees with Mona, Hanna informs him that it’s not only her design, because she took tips and pointers from her former dragon lady of an employer. Caleb tries to remind Hanna how terrible she was and that she had taken enough from Hanna, including their relationship. While discussing the matter with Mona at The Radley, they find Jenna wearing the exact design that they’re discussing. When Mona confronts her about it, Jenna refuses to answer where she got the design.
Spencer calls Marco to come over and he shows up, in his running outfit no less, as soon as he finds her message. After some cooing from Marco, Spencer gets to the point of her call and shows him the letter from Mary, asking him to make finding her his top priority. Of course, he does and she goes down to the station with him. While there, Jenna shows up with a sob story about how Noel told her that CeCe had left a large sum of money for her to get another surgery on her eyes. She claims that Sara was Noel’s first victim and that she was next, so she played along with his game to find the money CeCe left her, so that he wouldn’t kill her. He wanted the money for himself, because his parents cut him off, so he was poor.
Hanna and Emily both receive messages from Spencer about Jenna showing up at the station, while Aria gets some quality Team Sparia time as Spencer recaps in person while Holden is off getting tomatoes for his dish. The two girls discuss the possibility of Spencer getting to know Mary about maybe forgiving her. Unable to get a hold of Spencer, Hanna calls Emily and they discuss the message from Spencer.
While on the phone with Hanna at the Brew, Jenna walks behind Emily with a couple of body guards, so Emily hangs up the phone, telling Hanna she has to go. As Jenna is leaving, Emily catches Jenna sending a message that she hears Addison receive nearby. Tripping over that sketchiness of Addison receiving a message from Jenna, Emily goes to Alison to beg for her spare key to Spencer’s barn so she can try to get answers from A. A makes Emily blackmail Addison with security footage of Addison in a car with her boyfriend behind the Brew when she should have been at practice. After she confronts Addison, Emily receives a text message from A saying to “confront your darkness” and another puzzle piece in her teacher’s mailbox.
Caleb goes with Hanna to spy on Jenna who ends up going to the same place where Hanna is having shoes fixed for Katie to wear with her dress. Hanna wants to confront Jenna, but Caleb does it instead and she basically tells him that her sob story about Noel was a lie. While Caleb is confronting Jenna, Hanna sneaks behind them to go inside the shoe store and of course, she ends up locked in a cage thing that nearly takes her out all thanks to A. Caleb finds her having a panic attack in the cage. Why is that she’s always the one to get trapped, tortured, and threatened nowadays?
When Emily tells the other Liars about her turn with the game and place her puzzle piece where it belongs, Spencer discovers that it’s a map and they realize A is trying to lead them right to him/her. “Game Over.”
Brittany Alexandria 