Last week, Emily let a creepy mask-maker make copies of her gorgeous face — something ‘A’ would certainly never take advantage of — while Spencer helped Toby get closer to discovering the truth about his mother’s death. Aria helped her mom pack her bags for another country because Out of Town is not far enough when ‘A’ is targeting moms. And Hanna continued to search for the truth about her mother’s role in Wilden’s death. In this week’s episode, “Face Time,” Emily, Hanna and Spencer deal with drama on the home-front while Aria wastes away in romantic sub-plots no one cares about. Read on to find out what the Pretty Little Liars writers have in store for us this week.
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Has Emily’s Luck Run Out?
Emily’s dad comes home and the audience breathes a sigh of relief at the reminder that at least one of these girls has a decent father figure. Alas, said relief turns into anxiety because Family Services is looking into Emily’s home life after her shoulder injury and that arm-grabbing incident in front of the school. Emily feels guilty that her lies have landed her parents in hot water and she tries to fix things by explaining herself to the doctor, who is not Wren, but she seems to raise his suspicions even more.
Not-Wren also has some bad news for Em — the damage to her shoulder is serious and could require surgery. It also requires her to give up swimming, potentially forever. Emily is heartbroken by this news, especially since she and Paige were so close to blowing town with dual swim-scholarships and a cozy dorm room to decorate.
Emily’s day gets a little brighter after a pep-talk from Paige, but when Paige escorts Emily home, the police have been called in on a domestic disturbance. Either no one in Emily’s neighborhood has witnessed genuine parenting before or ‘A’ is determined to strip each Liar of her family support system.
The Melissa Trap
With Toby busy on the trail of Dr. Palmer, Spencer can focus all of her attention on Melissa. The girls finally have some leverage over Melissa thanks to that creepy-face mask they found at Hector’s, and Spencer will not waste this opportunity to get some answers. Spencer and Aria set Melissa up to “discover” the mask in the hopes that Melissa will lead them to the person who made it. Their plan works and Team Sparia follows Melissa back to Hector’s mask-shop, where Melissa proceeds to get rid of countless masks. Are they all of her face?
Meanwhile, Aria discovers many Ali masks, more than enough for the whole town to commit endless crimes as a supposedly-dead teenage girl. Hector tells Aria that he saw Ali the summer she disappeared and she was desperate to collect the money he owed her. He also saw Ali with someone else, but did not get a look at the other person’s face.
As Aria questions Hector, Spencer confronts Melissa. Melissa admits to being on the Halloween train and sending Jenna and Shana to spy on the girls, but she claims Wilden was the one responsible for the fire and that she was not working with him. Melissa says she and the others were afraid of Wilden and that Wilden had a partner who called all the shots. Spencer asks Melissa if she killed Wilden, but Melissa is done with the confessions for now and advises Spencer to let this one go because Melissa has apparently never met her sister. Spencer chooses to believe Melissa and Melissa disappears.
Mama Drama
Hanna continues to try and piece together her mother’s involvement in Wilden’s death. This becomes more difficult now that the state police are involved, as they are moderately competent and less prone to bribery than the Rosewood cops. Holbrook and his partner Lt. Tanner stop by Mama Marin’s bank to check out a safety-deposit box Wilden kept there. The box is full of money, passports and a gun with the serial number scratched off. Ashley claims she has never seen the box before but the state police are not satisfied and cause Ashley some strain at her job.
Hanna chats up Lt. Tanner in the hopes of pointing her toward one of the many other people who wanted Wilden dead, but Tanner still has her eye on the Marin women. Hanna does make some progress with her mother, as she finally gets Ashley to stop denying that she was in Rosewood the night Wilden was killed. But with the evidence piling up and the state police asking all the right questions, Hanna finally acknowledges that her mom might indeed be responsible for Wilden’s demise.
In Other Developments…
Toby manages to find Dr. Palmer, but the good doctor is now a patient and no longer coherent about the details of his past. He does remember wanting Toby’s mother to stay away from “that blond girl.” Dr. Palmer thought there was something off about her.
Aria continues to date Jake, but she has about as much interest in him as I have in the mystery of who killed Wilden-the-worst. Jake is nice and uncomplicated and maybe Aria needs that right now, but as Jake points out after hearing the long tale of Aria’s first-and-last love, Aria is not as finished with Ezra as she wants to be.
Meanwhile, Caleb reminds us all of just how much we will miss him when he heads off to Ravenswood by stopping Hanna from getting in deeper with the cops and helping her lie to protect her mother.
And Mona continues to be as MIA as Aria’s long-lost brother, Mike.
What did you think of this week’s episode? Do you think Melissa told Spencer the truth about not working with Wilden? Did Dr. Palmer want Toby’s mother to stay away from Ali or another dangerous blonde? Do Holbrook and Tanner have an ulterior motive for zeroing in on Ashley as Wilden’s killer? Let us know your thoughts and theories in the comments section.
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(Image courtesy of ABC Family)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
