After last week’s bombshell ending, we return to the season opener of the girls digging up Elliott’s grave. Ali and Hanna are both catatonic. I’m surprised girls this skinny were able to dig as much as they did. After a while, Hanna grabs a shovel in the most threatening way possible and joins them in digging. Aria offers for them to go to the police, which just spirals the girls into another argument. Spencer has determined that they need to make it looks like Elliott left town. Aria isn’t sure about Ali being there and wants to take her back to the psychiatric hospital. Ali creepily kneels next to the grave and grabs Elliott’s access card off his body. Stone cold, Ali. Also, she definitely needs to go back.
Pretty Little Liars or Nightwish album cover?
The girls have somehow managed to secure a car that isn’t the rental Hanna borrowed from Lucas. Good thing Lucas is a gazillionaire, because that blasted open windshield will not be an easy explanation to the rental company. The plan is for Spencer to put Elliott’s cell phone and jacket on a train out of town. Hanna starts freaking out on the girls and is convinced that she’s going to jail. No, honey, you’re going to prison. Meanwhile, Toby is following his Elliott lead from last episode late into the night, leaving his new fiancée home alone in their trailer.
Hanna wearing this blood strip of trauma on her face certainly doesn’t look suspicious at all.
Back with the girls, Hanna has finally showered off the remaining Elliott blood off of her face. This season has not been kind to her—kidnapping, broken engagement, and now vehicular manslaughter! Spencer is frantically trying to clean all the blood off every surface, while Emily tracks mud all over the house. Not helping, Emily! Caleb tries to come in, but Spencer tells Caleb that she can’t have him over right now. Caleb admits to Spencer that he’s an idiot, but he’s probably just thinking that he has nowhere else to sleep if Spencer doesn’t take him back. He starts to tell a story about when they first started hanging out together in DC, but he got a job offer in San Francisco (doing what, exactly? People just call up hackers to offer them jobs?). He talks about this great night they had together then, and how he turned down the offer to be with Spencer. She says she needs more time and kicks him out. Both Hanna and Spencer cry.
You need to stay outside while I finish cleaning the rest of the blood spatter.
Aria breaks into the hospital with Ali. It is disturbingly understaffed. Ali disappears from right under Aria’s nose. In the meantime, Spencer is drinking at Emily’s bar, probably for free. They discuss the rest of the plan: after Spencer leaves the phone and jacket in the train, Emily will pack an overnight bag of his to make it look like he left in a hurry. They are all antsy that Aria hasn’t texted yet. This gives them plenty of time for Spencer to rant about what a backstabber Hanna is for kissing Caleb. Great. I love going over this a million times over.
These olives are the most we’ve ever seen one of the Liars eat on screen.
Aria is still looking for Ali. At this rate, I’m sure she’s boarded a plane out of the country by now. She finally finds her down in some stairs, refusing to go back to her hospital bed. Aria tells her to suck it up, but Ali makes her promise she’ll come back for her. I’m sure this won’t backfire at all. At the bar, some random hot dude orders a drink for Spencer. We don’t to get to find out any more about him because we head back to the hospital. Aria wants to strap Alison down like Elliott did so the nurses will know exactly what happened to her. Ali wonders how Elliott could think that she killed Cece. Aria tells her she suspected her. Ali tells her that she and Cece got into an argument about Elliott, but she left her in the church alive. She points out the Hannibal Lecter mask he put her in and asks Aria to do it.
Ali is ready to be strapped down again.
Spencer tries to leave the bar, but the hot dude from earlier, whose name is Marco and who kinda looks like he could be Caleb’s older brother. Spencer decides to stay at the bar with Marco to solidify her alibi. She tells Marco she was burying a body so he’ll think she’s exaggerating too much to be serious. He laughs. At the same time, Hanna joins Aria in the woods, where they are presumably getting ready to set fire to the car. They make it into their original spot, but the car is gone. Dun Dun DUN! Back at the bar, Spencer sounds like she’s had several more drinks with Marco and has completely neglected her train duties. She is about to leave, but having a named male character interested in her is too much temptation, so she and Marco head to bone town instead, right in the middle of the elevator. Girl, don’t you know your friend’s mom owns this place? Spencer sees her own reflection and stops the whole thing. Good, because that shit was awkward.
How the hell did they find a guy who as a complete mix of Caleb and Toby?
Aria is convinced that Hanna doesn’t know where she left the car. She regrets trusting her dumbest friend on this. Well, at least it wasn’t Emily, I guess. They find tire tracks, which means somebody took the car, someone who knows what happened. Spencer calls Emily to tell her she’s too drunk to fulfill her only job for the night. Back in the woods, the car miraculously returns, driven by Mona, who is the only person outside of Ali who can keep her cool under pressure in this group. It turns out Mona preemptively put a GPS tracker on the car. She also replaced the windshield at her super-secret late night mechanic. She chastises the girls for having a dumbass plan, and asks them where they put Elliott’s burner phone. She gets exasperated when they tell her they have no idea what that is.
I’m just glad Mona’s back so someone will whip these girls into murder cover-up shape!
Emily rescues Spencer and gives her a good yell. Spencer starts crying about how she felt free at one point in her life, but now she’s right back where she started and it’s worse now with super A. Blah blah blah stop whining. You could have just not come back for Cece’s hearing, you know? She apologizes, but Emily is clearly still disappointed. The next morning, the Liars all get together for brunch, because that’s a really great pick-me-up after you’ve buried a dead body with your friends. Mona tells them that the burner phone is the only place Elliott drops his American accent. The girls all look surprised. Spencer is convinced that he is working with Mary Drake. Mona suggests they all find the burner phone so they can figure out exactly who his accomplice is. The girls all hear the sounds of heels and a cane, and you know what that means: Jenna is back. Did we ever find out if she was on the A Team or was she just kind of weird and creepy and angry at being blinded for life?
It’s so perfect that Mona is the only one drinking a Bloody Mary.
Anyway, her bat-like hearing means she know exactly that the girls are all there. The girls all have a sass off. Jenna knows about nearly everything, including how Hanna was engaged. She jokes about visiting Ali at the hospital. Aria is 100% convinced that Jenna is behind the AD team. Yeah, no. This show loves a red herring. Apparently, this hotel has a build your own mimosa bar, because Spencer and Hanna head over there to have a heart to heart about her kiss with Caleb. Hanna tells Spencer that love is more important than trying to evade a murder charge, so she should go patch things up with Caleb.