PRETTY LITTLE LIARS Recap 2.17: “The Blond Leading the Blind”

Previously on Pretty Little Liars we are reminded that the box of doom Emily used to lure ‘A’ to the greenhouse in the winter premiere didn’t always just contain dust, dirt, and the ghosts of A’s biggest fears. No, at one point it actually contained tangible objects.  For example the doll Alison used to store all the creepy notes that ‘A’ sent her in the past  and possibly some other useful items that the girls just casually tossed aside because they had no idea the items could be helpful. At this point I don’t know how the girls leave anything to chance. I would be suspicious that the dust bunny in the corner was a plot set up by ‘A’ to drive my allergies and therefore me insane. Nothing is a coincidence. NOTHING! However our lovely little liars are more trusting than I and the flashbacks of pertinent information continues. We are reminded that Garret, Jason, and Ian are/were all members of the N.A.T. club. Which stand for Nos  Animadverto Totus ;  We See All. If that’s not creepy enough for you, the guys had vintage looking concert t-shirts made up with the saying on it just, you know, because. The flashback recap quickly reminds us that Holden doesn’t want Aria anymore than Aria wants him and that their fake dating relationship is mutually beneficial to both of them. Spencer loves Toby; and Caleb is a super spy with super hacker skills that Hanna really doesn’t want him to use. That wraps up the recap now on to the show!

The scene opens up with the ladies having another one of their many “secret” meetings in Spencer’s kitchen. Mama Hastings has just left while Hanna was arriving so the sleuthing could begin. The girls gather around Spencer’s laptop to view the most recent video tidbit that Caleb was able to recover from A’s phone. The video shows two members of the N.A.T. club along with the cyborg formerly known as Jenna in Alison’s bedroom plotting the end of the world, as well as revealing that Alison has some videos that they want but she’s not handing over. The group decides to tear apart Alison’s room to find said videos and our little liars start to bicker about whether learning this new bit of information is worth Caleb’s life. Of course Hanna is all Team Caleb, so she wants him off the case. While Spencer is like Caleb? Caleb who? Get me more videos!Next scene Emily and Spencer are in Spencer’s bedroom where she is revealing to Emily that ‘A’ knows she is still with Toby via text message. Our favorite handy man’s ears must have been burning or something because he pulls up in the Hasting’s yard and calls Spencer at the same time she was talking about him. Spencer doesn’t want to speak to him and employs her favorite gal pal Emily to lie to him and try to get him to leave. Toby is no fool and realizes that Spencer is home but doesn’t want to see him.

The next day (presumably) the girls are at school discussing love, loss, and one of the finer aspects of LGBTQ culture, “the beard”. While Emily is giving her lesson on what exactly a “beard” is the beard in question shows up and Aria runs over to chat him up a bit and make sure their arrangement was still on. I have to pause here to say that the main evidence against Holden not being of the lady-loving persuasion was that he had not tried to kiss Aria yet. This alone led our little liars to ring in a chorus of “Gay!” So if you don’t want to kiss Aria you are gay? Got it, great, moving on. After Aria makes sure that their date, but not really a date is all set, she walks off.  However, not before catching Holden catching a glimpse of another female’s student body. So maybe he is not so gay.

Cut to Caleb at a café dutifully hacking away at A’s cellphone. He glances up from his computer to notice the guy on his screen is sitting right in front of him and total panic sets in. He hastily packs up his stuff and attempts to leave, but not before Deputy Garret does his friendly duty of reminding Caleb that he left his keys on the table. Caleb stands there awe struck for a moment then pulls himself together enough to thank the good deputy, grab his keys and be on his way. We won’t discuss the merits of whether hacking into someone’s private phone should be done in a public place on public wifi. We’ll just pretend like this was a good idea and move on.

The girls are now in Aria’s bedroom where Hanna is the only one talking sense. Isn’t it about time these ladies just hand over what they have to the police? Of course not! Then what would we all do with our Monday nights? Crochet? I think not.  Hanna pick’s up Alison’s doll which apparently has been as tight as a bank vault, but is now falling apart at the lightest touch; when the head pops down revealing all the little notes that Alison put in it. The girls read the messages realizing that this all just seems too familiar, when we are welcomed to a flashback of  another Halloween memory. Remember that episode way back in October where the girls wore cute, if not slightly racist (I’m looking at you Emily) costumes, and we were given privy to plots from the past: Jenna, Alison and Noel, dorky Mona, Lucas, and so on? You do? Well great because this week’s flashback goes right along with that episode. In it we find out that one of the notes in the doll was stabbed into a pumpkin on Alison’s porch that fateful Halloween night. The note was signed by ‘A’ and the girls finally realize that ‘A’ has been terrorizing Rosewood long before he/she/it came knocking at their doors.

The next day at school Hanna tries to end her lover’s quarrel with Mona by dissing Noel for the jerk that he is and promising to take her BFF for a night out at their favorite restaurant. Little did they know that cyborg 3000 also known as Jenna was in the bathroom stall listening the entire time. Jenna is everywhere. She “sees” all, hears all, knows all! Meanwhile Aria is in an empty classroom leaving a voice mail for Ezra; giving her last plea for them to be together (before he father has him arrested and promptly brought off to jail). She says she knows that if he doesn’t meet her tonight then they are really over. At least that is what she would have said had she not been cut off by the world’s shortest voice mail service.

Amongst all the teen angst I would be remiss not to mention the near death occurrence of our favorite handy man Toby. He fell off the scaffolding due to the anchors being tampered with by ‘A’. Honestly I forgot ‘A’ even messed with the scaffolding. However someone reminded me that I was talking smack about ‘A’ being to use a ratcheting wrench in last weeks episode and that is when said sabotage occurred. Yay, tumblr fandom for being able to remember anything and everything ever related to PLL! While Toby is in the hospital we are reminded that Rosewood is indeed a small town because Dr. Wren Kingston seems to be on every case that comes into the hospital. Dr. Sexy and Spencer exchange a few glances, there is an extremely awkward moment where he mentions formerly being engaged to Melissa, Spencer’s sister, and Toby realizes there is more to this story than Spencer and Dr. Dreamboat are letting on. Somewhere in there we learn that Toby has a broken arm and a concussion. Later that day we find Jenna standing over Toby as he lay in his hospital bed; none the wiser that she is about to suffocate him with his pillow. Just kidding. She is really there to tell him that they will always be together whether he likes it or not, and that he should stay away from Spencer and her friends.

Caleb arrives to Hanna’s house with the latest bit of video he recovered from A’s cell phone stored on  a flash drive. He confronts Hanna about what is really going on and why is it so important to her and her friends that they get the information off the phone. Hanna of course evades and denies all.  Caleb shows us why he gets the status of super spy by putting all the pieces together  and realizing that nothing is just a coincidence. He knows he is being watched by Garret and possibly other people in Rosewood and all of this has something to do with Alison’s murder. Hanna gets all panicky and promptly blends the flash drive in order to protect Caleb. No, seriously guys she put the thing in a blender! Harsh.

Back at the hospital Emily has a run in with with Jenna where she reminds us why she gets the BAMF award this season by threatening to beat Jenna with her own walking stick. Thug Emily takes no prisoners. Not to be outdone Jenna reminds Emily that no one can beat a cyborg and resistance is futile. Spencer arrives just in time to politely hold open the elevator door for our soon to be world overlord. Jenna walks by and greets her with a saccharine “Spencer” and proceeds into the elevator. Yes, Jenna did know you were there although you never said a word and I am pretty sure weren’t breathing as she passed you by Spencer. Maybe it was your perfume, or maybe Jenna can smell your fear. She could be a vampire instead of a cyborg. I could be completely wrong on this.

Over at casa de Montgomery Aria is getting ready for her date-not-date, and Ella is demonstrating what a pseudo-concerned parent would do by speaking with her daughter about her upcoming night. It is apparent that Ella doesn’t completely believe everything Aria is telling her but for some reason decides to let her go out on the date anyway.  But not without reminding  Aria that she will be driving the two youngsters to Philadelphia herself and picking them up. You know, because there is no way Aria could run off to be with her teacher/lover between the hours of 8pm and 11pm if her mother drops her off right?

At the hospital Spencer decides it is time to cut things off for good with Toby, for his own safety. She enlists Emily to help her. Emily lies, Toby almost cries and Spoby (Spencer + Toby) fans across the world collapse on the floor in a fit of inconsolable tears. Ugly, angry, listening  Adele music style cries for everyone.

In Philly Aria and Holden discuss the the morality behind lying and deem it necessary for teen survival. Holden clears up that whole pesky gay thing and says he is indeed not gay. When asked what he was if he was not gay, his reply was ” Late!” as he skirted off into the dark not be seen from again. Or at least until 11pm when Aria’s mom is supposed to pick them up. I just want to say that I think Holden’s sneaky behavior and Maya’s awkward ex-lover situation are somehow connected and I hope poor Emily doesn’t get her heart broken in the process of everyone sneaking around and lying. After Holden runs off, Aria goes to the clock, sits and waits.

Back in Rosewood, Ezra has still not listened to Aria’s message and is in his office with a student pretty much poo pooing the whole idea of romance and true love. ” Life isn’t always romantic, sometimes it’s realistic.” Excuse me Mr. Fitz, but your bitterness is showing. The student defends his paper and the idea of romance by throwing around the premise of almost every rom-com (romantic comedy) known in existence. True love saves. Apparently Mr. Fitz has never seen Love Actually, The Notebook, Imagine Me & You, or practically any Julia Robert’s movie. So he’s like bleh, romance, nonsense. Somehow the student is able to get Mr. Fitz to give his paper another chance and closes out their session by saying, “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” Ezra takes this as “listen to your voice mail, then run to your teenage lover”.

There is a musical montage of angst and rain. Aria waiting in Philly, Spencer in her window, Emily looking at Spencer, Ezra in his office, Toby in hospital. Angst, rain, longing, more angst.

On the lighter side of life Hanna and Ma Marin are in the kitchen speaking about what wrong the blender inflicted on Hanna that it is now in the trash can. Hanna reveals that it was not the blender that did the deed but it was Caleb. More so it was what she did to Caleb. This is that awkward moment when a liar feels bad for being a liar. Ma Marin explains to the little one that sometimes you have to lie to protect the ones you love and all becomes right in world of Hanna. She leaves to go out on her BFF date with Mona. When they walk up to the restaurant they see via a large window that Jenna has assimilated another person into the collective. Noel has become another minion willing to do her bidding.

Aria is still sitting on a bench in Philly where everyone apparently drives the same silver sedan, when the silver sedan holding her prince charming pulls up and blocks traffic. The two rush to greet each other and kiss in the rain. Ezria (Ezra + Aria) fans rejoice, I gag. This relationship is so inappropriate I can’t stand to spend another moment on it.

Over at the Hastings, Spencer, Emily and Caleb are meeting in dark in the kitchen. I’m not sure why no one thought to turn a light on but I guess we all keep our energy costs down the best way we can. Caleb tells the girls he has another copy of the files Hanna destroyed with the blender, but he will only give it to them if they keep it a secret from Hanna and they tell him what really is going on. The girls don’t seem too keen on this idea, but they want the files soooo…

Cut to Aria waiting for her mom’s scheduled pick up. Madame Montgomery arrives and Holden is no where to be found. Aria stumbles to explain his absence when he comes running up with frozen yogurt claiming to be late because Aria gave him bad directions to get the delicious desert. None of this seems suspicious or awkward to Madame Montgomery and the three pile into the car to head back to Rosewood. Let’s pause to recognize how wonderful Aria’s hair looks after having just been making out with Ezra in the pouring rain. I don’t know if she found an all night hair salon or what, but the coiffure looks great.

The next day our little gang of mystery solvers sans Hanna are in Spencer’s bedroom about to view the latest thing Caleb’s super hacking skills have uncovered. I don’t like that the girls are keeping secrets from each other. It didn’t work out too well when they kept secrets from each other in the past, I don’t see it going well now. The video shows that Alison was possibly on her way up to her room when Ian reveals to Garret that he has been taping them this entire time. There is a scuffle and the camera is knocked to the ground out of commission. As the girls ponder a life out from under A’s thumb they hear a noise outside and go over to the window. They see Toby’s truck outside and decide to go downstairs to investigate thinking Toby shouldn’t be out of the hospital yet. What they find are the keys to the truck and a note to Spencer. Toby is gone. Spoby fans of the world continue rolling around on the ground sobbing at the demise of their favorite pairing.

Last scene:  ‘A’ clad in those favorite black leather gloves cuts apart pictures of our little liars and their significant others kissing. ‘A’ takes the part with the significant other and burns it in a trash can. Me thinks ‘A’ might be a bit bitter over a love loss.So what did you think of this weeks episode? Is Toby gone for good? Is Jenna now dating Noel? Will the Montgomery’s ever wise up and realize their daughter is still lying to them? Next week it looks like the girls are in for more trouble from ‘A’ as the group begins to fracture and split. Let’s hope the girls can hang in there.  Please leave any thoughts or comments about this week’s episode in the comment section below.