PRETTY LITTLE LIARS: “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” and Out of Toby

So yeah…that happened. Last night, Pretty Little Liars  killed off another main character. Maybe. Possibly. It sure looked like it, although we never saw the face behind the helmet shield did we. Spencer recognized the tattoo but could that have been staged? A wanted her and Emily to stop looking for Toby, what better way than to stage his death, if not really and truly kill him. I don’t see a valid reason for actually killing Toby though.

In Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Spencer tells the girls that Toby is A. Emily doesn’t believe it. She needs to hear it from him, because they’ve always shared everything, so why not tell her that he is working with Mona and is another A, right? So Emily starts the hunt for Toby all by her onesie.

Hannah learns from her mother about the hit-and-run incident involving Wilden. When Ashley tries to call her lawyer, Hannah talks her out of it. Why Ashley takes advice from a teenager is beyond me. Especially one who’s secrets and cover-ups have never done her any good. I had hopes that Ashley was stronger than that. Hannah says that there’s no body, no police investigation into a missing detective and no reports of Wilden at all, so there’s no reason to call a lawyer in. Except that Wilden was threatening Ashley with bodily harm to her and her daughter. I call that self-defense but clearly I’m wrong.

Things are about to get a lot worse for Hannah and Ashley (shocking, I know) because Ashley sees Wilden standing in a shop’s doorway as she’s out and about. We know that Wilden is alive, of course. Personally, I suspect that he’s working with the A puppetmaster/mistress. We all know what a snake Wilden really is.

Then Hannah comes home to find Wilden’s police car in their garage with the video of the hit-and-run playing in a loop. She convinces Aria to help her get rid of the car in a nearby lake. Smart thinking, said none of us. We all know that this is all going to come back to bite Hannah, Aria and Ashley in the assular area. These girls just keep feeding A ammunition, don’t they.

Meanwhile, Emily is still looking for Toby in spite of the fact that she’s receiving text messages from A telling her to stop. Until she gets a message from “Toby” telling her to meet him. When she goes to the address he gives her, she waits for two hours and he never shows but the blonde in the red coat does. Emily follows her into a factory where there is a worker there who Emily saw at Toby’s house earlier that day. Whoever this guy is, he knew Emily’s name without her telling him and when she called him on it, he played dumb. Emily returns to her car to find an envelope containing a note from A telling her that Toby is “no more”, and a funeral card with his photo on it.

Spencer receives a funeral bouquet at her house and notices what looks like a clue to her as to A’s next target – Emily. She tries to warn Emily, but Em treats her like a child, pats her on the head and basically tells her what she wants to hear. So Spencer begins following Mona around. They end up  in the woods where Spencer finds Toby’s body. Or at least the body of someone she thinks may be Toby, though we never saw who was actually wearing the helmet.

Spencer is later found by the police wondering around in a crazed state, and they take her off to the loony bin. I think at this point we see Spencer hit rock bottom. From here, I believe we’ll start to see her rise up and become something fierce. At least that’s what I’m hoping for or I lose complete faith in this show.

I’m not going to get into the Aria/Ezra story because it’s just not worth my time. It’s completely ridiculous and at this point I could only hope that Ezra takes his little family and leaves Rosewood and Aria. The end.

So this is what I’m taking away from last night’s episode:

• Toby may or may not be dead.
• Hannah and Aria have made the hit-and-run situation ten times worse and it will come back on them.
• Wilden is very likely playing games with Ashley in an attempt to gaslight her.
• Spencer finally comes clean with her BFFs about Toby and Emily turns on her, choosing to believe a delinquent like Toby over her best friend. Bad call.
• This episode was not my favorite and I feel like the writers have completely missed the mark on it and on us. I think PLL fans are so much smarter than this.
• Ezra, just take Malcolm and his mother and go away.
• In one of the final scenes, a fisherman reels in a cap with the words “Rosewood Police” on it.

Next on Pretty Little Liars, Gold Medalist Missy Franklin makes a guest appearance in Will the Circle Be Unbroken, airing March 5 at 8/7c on ABC Family.