PRETTY LITTLE LIARS: Recap “Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Inferno”

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, Spoby fans across the world had a breakdown as they watched their favorite couple break up. Trust me, it wasn’t a pretty picture in my house that night. The tears, the sobs, the broken vase against the way while echoes of  “why, why, why?” rung out through the air. Whew. It was pretty bad.

Okay, I wasn’t that bad, but I was really upset. Upset enough to eat half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s half baked ice cream. That was last week. Let’s see what the PLL’s had in store for us this week. The episode started off with a steamy Spoby make out scene (an apology to Spoby shippers for ripping their hearts out last week perhaps?) that went from sweet and sexy to scary fairly quickly (so maybe not an apology). The leather gloves of doom circle in on Spencer’s neck, but she jolts awake to realize the whole thing has just been a terrible nightmare. The camera focuses in on the “A” key and feelings of betrayal and anger toward Toby arise once again.

The next scene Aria and Emily are on the phone discussing whether Melissa is indeed as sketchy as we all originally suspected she was, when Emily’s mom pops in with a lovely package from murderer formally known as Nate. Well more so from his family. The package contains a bunch of things Emily had given to Alison over the years and apparently Maya must have found when she lived in the DiLaurentis’ house. It may be just me but I could have sworn those were chemistry notes in that biology notebook, but hey that could just be my inner nerd seeing things.

In a shocking PLL move over at Marin Manor, Mama Marin is talking to Hanna about what is going on with her at school and her personal life. This may sound benign to a non-PLL watcher, but most PLL fans know that having more than one parent show up per episode is a rarity. Having them show up in back to back scenes in almost unheard of. Mama Marin isn’t buying any of Hanna’s excuses because she knows something is going on with her daughter, but Hanna being Hanna is not letting her in.

If the double parent move wasn’t amazing enough, the triple parent family trifecta almost knocked me off the sofa!  Seriously, when did the parents of the girls finally decide to become a part of the daughter’s lives? I’m so proud of them (and a little worried).  The next scene is the Montgomery household and Byron is admitting to Aria that he is the sucky dad we all know him to be. Turns out his girlfriend Meredith has had a long history of mental instability. I’m not sure there are enough “I’m sorry” in the world to apologize for your former mistress drugging and attacking your daughter, but keep trying Byron this was a good start.

When Spencer Hastings isn’t correcting Hanna Marin you know something is off in the universe. Aria picked up on this as the trio was walking to meet up with Emily at The Brew. Spencer makes some quick excuses then is off before anyone has a chance to question her. So I guess telling her friends her boyfriend is one of the founding members of the “A” wasn’t high on her to-do list that morning. Hanna and Aria meet up with Emily sans Spencer, and they look over Alison’s old notebook. Turns out there are more than bio notes in that notebook as Alison was chatting it up back and forth with someone about Toby as well as some other “beach hottie.”  I don’t know what any of that means, but if Alison was talking about it none of it can be good.

At Rosewood High- you know that place the girls sometimes go to, to check their make up and have meetings in the bathroom- Hanna spies Paige loudly proclaiming her allegiance to all things anti-Mona while on the phone with Caleb. Seriously Paige could you have been any louder? I guess with all the talks of putting brains in lockers, she and Caleb forgot to go over the fine art of whispering. Hanna now realizes that her boo and Emily’s boo are teaming up to form a “Don’t mess with our girlfriends or we’ll stick totally gross stuff in your locker” brigade. I think it has a nice ring to it. Maybe they should ask Toby to jo-  oh wait…

Meanwhile, Emily and Spencer meet up in the girl’s bathroom to discuss why Spencer looks like she’s auditioning for a role to the sequel of Girl Interrupted, and what exactly is the best form of revenge to take on Toby without leaving any evidence that will lead to them. Yea, I wish. What they really talk about is Alison’s notebook and who this “beach hottie” person is. Spencer really doesn’t feel like dealing with Alison and her drama anymore, but Emily insists that reads the notebook anyway. It’s here that we are given a wonderful flashback to when Toby was in juvie and Alison visited him. Why Toby is walking around half dressed with a wave cap on when he clearly isn’t trying to get any waves in his hair, I will never know. Is this his “gangsta” look? Epic fail. The whole point of the flash back is to let us know that Alison thought Toby was the original “A”.

When we come back from the trip to juvie Spencer is breaking down and for a half a second you think she is going to tell Emily what is really going on with Toby. Instead she cops out and just tells Emily that they broke up but she isn’t ready for the other girls to know yet. Come on Spencer! Your friends have a right to know that the one person in the world you didn’t accuse of being “A” is actually “A”, or at least one of A’s minions.

Spencer some how makes her way to class and is currently plotting on the best way to dispose of the bodies of her chatting classmates when she gets a text from Aria asking her to meet up in the park since Ezra broke up with her. All of this seems real suspect but Spencer isn’t exactly in the best frame of mind to question it as she storms out of the classroom, pausing only shortly to tell Ella where exactly she could shove that look of care and concern. At least Ella knew enough to realize something was seriously wrong with Spencer so she let the girl go without threat of punishment or anything.

Spencer rides up guns a blazing where she fires verbal shot after verbal shot at a completely stunned Ezra who was just doing some work and enjoying a nice bite to eat in the park. It’s like watching a car wreck in slow motion you want to look away, you want to stop the people from colliding with each other but you can do neither. You are helpless to stop the carnage that is about to unfold. Spencer spills the beans about Maggie and the kid to a totally confused Ezra, and then Spencer realizing her mistake rides off before any more damage can be done.

Emily’s mom has gotten a job at the police station. This is probably the worst place she could be unless she was working as a spy for the girls trying to find out what the cops know and which ones can be trusted and which ones can’t. Speaking of cops you can’t trust, Detective Wilden saunters over to Pam Fields and offers his services should Emily receive anymore packages or you know, need help being framed for murder or anything. He also gives Pam a talk about how it feels to kill someone even if the law says you are justified. Yea, Det. Wilden isn’t creepy at all. Not at all. RUN PAM, RUN! 

Back at Rosewood High the girls are discussing Spencer’s mysterious disappearance from school when a wild-eyed Ezra barges in demanding know about this kid that has been kept away from him for seven years. As much as I think Aria is wrong for not telling Ezra about his son sooner, I think he needs to lay off of her a bit. He seems to forget he is dating a HIGHSCHOOLER! The whole hidden pregnancy, child lost thing is kind of a lot for anyone to deal with. How does he expect a seventeen year old to make mature decisions in a situation that would trip up most adults. Calm down Ezra! If you wanted someone to make adult decision maybe you should be dating an adult.

Later at the Hastings household Spencer is attacking a microwave meal with a pair of scissors. The first indication that microwave meals are not familiar territory to our usually brainy little liar. Aria comes over expressing genuine concern for Spencer but is met with hostility and accusations. Aria doesn’t blame Spencer for what happened with Ezra because “A” sent her a text just to rub the whole situation in her face. Instead of being happy and relieved her friend isn’t upset over her catastrophic screw up Spencer lashes out at Aria saying that “maybe if we stop telling lies maybe ‘A’ wouldn’t have a reason to keep on exposing them.” Whoa Spencer, time to put down the scissors and take a breather. Granted she is right about the lying, but she is only saying any of this because she thinks Toby is “A” and wants to find a way to reconcile that in her brain somehow. If Mona was the one she caught with the “A” key Spencer would still be blaming “A” for all her troubles.

Emily meets up with CeCe (remember Ali’s wild-child party friend from the first half of this season) to talk about the picture she found in Ali’s notebook of CeCe and Ali at Cape May the year Ali was killed. CeCe takes us on another trip down memory lane where we find out that Alison thought she was pregnant. WHAT?! Not only that but this “beach hottie” person was probably the baby daddy and would kill Alison if he knew she was pregnant. Yikes.

Aria calls Hanna because she probably could really use a friend right now, and Hanna tells her she is super sleuthing it up by stalking Paige. Aria is confused, and Hanna explains that Caleb and Paige are teaming up against Mona so she is going to try and stop them before “A” gets to them. Hanna follows Paige right into a lesbian bar where the ladies appear to take a liking to a slightly oblivious Hanna. This whole scene is hilarious and adorable in ways I can’t quite describe; everything from the girl flirting with Hanna, sending her a “pink drink” to Hanna getting a drink thrown in her face. Btw, poor Hanna you totally didn’t deserve that. The main take away from the bar scene is that Paige is there flirting it up with Shana from Pretty Dirty Secrets (the webseries brought to us by ABC Family during the PLL hiatus). Why is Paige over there flirting with Shana? What does it have to do with Caleb or Mona? And will someone please trip the girl who threw the drink in Hanna’s face? End result Hanna gets carded then arrested for underage drinking. So unfair.

Spencer is sitting on her staircase looking scary as ever while texting someone (Toby maybe?) so they can meet up. Spencer, hon, please drink some orange juice and get some rest. You are not looking good.

Aria texts Ezra so they can meet up and she can plead her case, but before any of that can happen Emily pops over with the news of Alison’s baby bump. Aria questions why this didn’t turn up in the autopsy when my spidey sense starts tingling and I think maybe it did. Weren’t there parts of Alison’s autopsy report that went missing? I could be wrong but it’s something to check into while I’m cruising the internet later. Emily says since Ali was buried so long and the pregnancy may have been early on it may not have shown up. Okay, so maybe I made all that stuff about the autopsy report up. Silly me. Emily decides this is all too intense and she has to take the notebook down to the police station because for once the girls are going to try to do the right thing.

Next scene is heart breaking and I don’t want to talk about it. Spencer is crying in a car attempting to pull herself (and her make up) together before she meets up with whomever she was texting earlier.  Ugh! Could this scene have been anymore painful? Rip my heart out Troian Spencer why don’t you?

Emily arrives at the police station to find Hanna there. Hanna explains about getting a drink thrown in her face and the whole underage drinking wrap but conveniently leaves out the part of following Emily’s girlfriend or seeing Emily’s girlfriend getting her flirt on with another girl in a bar. Don’t the PLLs know that when they keep secrets from each other they come back to bite them in the butt harder than anything else? Mr. Creeptastic aka Det. Wilden comes over and Emily gives him Alison’s notebook. Hanna seems horrified by this whole thing and with just cause. Not even a full minute after Emily hands over the notebook to Wilden she and Hanna see a picture of him in Cape May. Could the “beach hottie” be Det. Wilden? It’s starting to look that way.

Spencer has gotten herself together enough to make it out of the car and into a diner to meet up with some sketchy guy. She gives the guy the “A” key and a picture of Toby to help him track down what the key goes too. I don’t know about you but all of this feels familiar. Didn’t something like this happen in a previous season?

Ashley Marin has brought Hanna home and she has bunch of questions for the under-aged offender. Like, “What’s a pink drink? Is that code for something gay?” Hahaha. Oh Ashley, you and your daughter are so much a like and you don’t even know it. Hanna explains that a pink drink is just a pink drink, and she wasn’t at ladies’ night looking for romance she was looking for Caleb. Ashley Marin again tries to reach out to her daughter to try to help her, but again Hanna shuts her down. Ashley resorts to the only help she can give Hanna in this situation, “Use the hot oil treatment on your hair.”

IS THIS THE END OF EZRIA?! Aria goes to Ezra’s apartment building to try to patch things up. She catches him packing his car for a trip out of town to see his son. He’s not at Aria because Maggie explained that she told the pint-sized fashionista to keep quiet. Aria hopes this means things are cool between her and Ezra, but alas they are not. With tears in his eyes, Ezra gives Aria a forehead kiss with the parting words “We’ll talk soon.” Ezria shippers run to arms of Spoby shippers for comfort since both fandoms are bawling into their bowls of unsalted popcorn by now. Remember when things were simple and all they had to worry about was Ezra getting fired and thrown in jail for sleeping with a minor? Well those happy days are over!

The last scene is another notch in a long line of disturbing “A” scenes. A perfectly manicured hand belonging to someone in a redcoat or shirt (I couldn’t really tell from the close cut angle) takes a blow torch to a bobble head doll version of Hanna while the other bobble head dolls look on in horror. I don’t know what is more disturbing the blow torching of the doll or the fact that this person even has a bobble head doll of the PLLs in the first place.

Pretty Little Liars just keeps getting better and better! The previews for next week look completely insane and I have a feeling I may need two pints of Ben & Jerry’s and a bowl of salted popcorn to get through it!

What did you think of this week’s episode? Do you think Ali was really pregnant? Can Det. Wilden be trusted? Is Spencer ever going to tell the rest of the girls the real deal with Toby? Post your comments, questions, or thoughts in the comment section below.

Pretty Little Liars airs at 8pm/7pm cst on ABC Family.