Los Liars
I stole this from later in the episode, to show you that a) they mostly look nice, b) Hanna's shirt is hella unflattering on her (and it wasn't just the angle) but it's at least cute in theory; c) Emily is one of those people who makes me wish I could wear vests, which we all know is a blazing lie because not that many people actually can.
Spencer
And Spencer, as usual, has an awesome dress. I hope Troian took that home with her.
Sigh
So, A has sent them each a customized 8-ball. Each girl turns hers over and reads her message, which is about Hanna's mom: "If she goes free" // "You'll hear from me"//"Kisses"//"A."And yes, they all magically knew to read it in the right order. And yes, A apparently has a line on a place where you can get customized Magic 8-Balls in a real big hurry. Maybe, in a meta twist, A will turn out to be the Pretty Little Liars propmaster.
Line-up
The cute blond witness correctly IDs Hanna's mother as the woman he saw running away from Wilden before he was shot. So everyone drops the charges and Sydney gets to go on a date with the reverend. Hanna even makes a horrible joke about how he may be a man of God but he will also want to GET SOME. Hush up, Hanna. Nobody wants to joke about their mother having sex with the local preacher, or at least, not when it's ACTUALLY HAPPENING.
Sigh
And THEN A sends them all a large child-size coffin with a doll in it that they immediately just KNOW is Mona. Except this is clearly Old Mona, and also, it's horrific. So let's recap: Custom Magic 8-Balls, and now a child's coffin and a custom doll? Seriously, A, you have some wicked Google Fu and you must be spending a fortune on rush shipping.
Based on the message, which is about making a girl disappear, the girls deduce that Mona is in trouble -- and then they call Radley, and she's been released, but no one knows where she is. Dun-dun-DUUUUN.
CeCe Drake
This is even dumber: The kid who, in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, claims he saw "a girl" around Wilden after Hanna's mom died? Gives the cops SO MUCH INFORMATION that they create a TOTALLY PERFECT AND ACCURATE SKETCH OF CECE DRAKE. I'll warrant there has NEVER EVER been a police sketch in the HISTORY OF PENCILS that has been this accurate, and certainly not based on the eyewitness account of a teen in the middle of the night who isn't that sure what he saw. WHATEVER.
Toby
We pause for a moment of solemn reflection from Sad Clown, who weeps over his box of maternal memories.
Aha
But THEN Sad Clown goes downstairs and sees Shona leaving the coffee shop. She dropped some forms, and he picks one up and sees that she's sending stuff to Wren, in London, under Melissa's name. HMM. I AM STROKING MY CHIN IN DEEP THOUGHT. Also, Spencer and Toby made up after last week, AND Spencer went to see Wren, but he was gone, and his bags were packed, and -- unbeknownst to her -- Shona was hiding inside. WHAT DOES IT MEEEEEAN. Ten bucks says they're only partly sure themselves.
Zzz
The Borings are so boring that one of them has fallen asleep in the middle of their date. Seriously, Aria is horrible. Earlier, she suggests going to poetry night at the coffee house, and he's not into it, and her face falls with disgust; now, because he nods off during her choice of movie, she's all, "What a freaking Philistine." Aria, honey, not everyone has to want to do the same things you do. And just because people don't want to listen to amateur poets or watch black-and-white movies all the time, it doesn't mean they have no other worthy qualities for you. If you don't like him as a person, fine, but don't get mad because you chose a boring movie. You ARE one of The Borings, after all. It's in your DNA.
Aria
Sigh, but of course she goes to poetry night and sees Ezra, and they talk about writing and it's warm and fuzzy and she abruptly kisses him in the middle of it, and then they go on talking like everything is fine, FORGETTING THAT HE IS CURRENTLY AGAIN INEXPLICABLY YOUR TEACHER AND YOU ARE IN PUBLIC WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.
Presents!
A has sent ANOTHER thing. Couldn't they pull the old, "Hey, someone sent me this gift but there was no card and I don't know who to thank, can you tell me the name on the billing statement" trick? I did that with Amazon once, although for genuine purposes. Also, maybe A's credit card just reads, "A."
Also, that belt is terrible on Aria. Come on, girl. The jacket is fine though. I can hang.
Spencer
However, Spencer's key-patterned shirt is adorable and I want her to take me shopping. Further, she opens this box, which is from A, and is A MAGIC BOX, which only reveals its contents if you open it a special way. (Which she can because she once went to MAGIC CAMP and therefore knows all the secrets of everything UH-HUH THAT IS ONE EXPENSIVE MAGIC CAMP).
I came, I SAW, I threatened
When Spencer triggers it, the box flies open and this saw appears with a scrawled message. Recap again: Magic 8-Balls, tiny coffin, custom Mona doll, magic box, custom tiny saw inside magic box. A is spending a lot of freaking money on this and knows some terribly weird places to shop. I'm rethinking all my gift-giving this Christmas.
Emily
What's with all the bra-flashing this season? This show is into magic. Make them disappear.
Ravenswood
The girls figure out that there's a magic shop in Ravenswood, with a show happening there that day. So they go to Ravenswood and immediately are stripped of their natural color. And freaky people stare at them, and the entire town congregates outside for a special performance.
Aria
AND THERE IS A MAGICIAN MIME. OF COURSE. You can see by Aria's face that SHE can't believe this is happening EITHER. Masks, mimes, A Knowledgeable Bird... I think this show is being written by Vaudevillian carnies.
Right: Aria gets put in the box, and she thinks it's A's doing... but while she is part of the trick, and survives, Emily vanishes. It happens in ten seconds. And in that time, she a) disappears without anyone hearing or seeing anything, despite b) being dragged down the street, around the corner, and another block away. AND she has been put into a box and locked inside, and sent along a conveyor belt toward a giant spinning saw. WITHOUT SEEING WHO DID IT. IN TEN SECONDS FLAT. Shit, guys, does A have a time-turner? IS IT HERMIONE GRANGER? She does love As.
CeCe Drake
In the ensuing melee, Emily is freed, but there are TWO Red Coats: One escapes and Spencer follows; the other stops the belt and then tries to run and gets cornered by Aria. They slap-fight -- and she gets to use some of Mr. Boring's special martial-arts moves, so bully for him -- and then CeCe goes over the edge and Aria tries to save her, but can't. And while they weep for their lost nemesis... CeCe gets up and leaves while their backs are turned.
Lair
OTHER Red Coat, meanwhile, made a point of leading Spencer here before SHE vanished, so Spencer goes back and brings the girls. It's an A lair. ANOTHER ONE. And it's full of giant pictures of Alison, and affords us a chance to look at how the superfluous belts are messing up both Aria AND Spencer's outfits. Seriously, they're making things worse. REMOVE, ladies.
Ooooooh
Look closely: There's an eyeball inside that there eyeball! SOMEONE IS WATCHING. But who? Probably Harry, who is about to cast a Patronus on himself.
Stuff
You know I've been married to an editor for a long time when I see this and say, "Why does A have an edit bay?!?" I guess it's actually surveillance equipment. The girls manage to be shocked that A was WATCHING THEM ALL THE TIME, when... how the hell else did they think A knew anything? Did they think A was Voldemort, floating around without body?
These Two
And Mona, it turns out, is just a red herring. Shona takes her something and they have a vague conversation about nothing, which Toby overhears, and I'm kind of mad we even had to bother. I guess it connects Shona and Mona and Wren and Melissa, maybe? Or Jenna? I don't... I'm tapping out.
Another one!!!
MORE EVIDENCE WALLS. I was going to say this is four, but it might still be three -- it's possible THIS is where CeCe was last week, on the phone, but it certainly doesn't look like it's the same exact place. Let's just call it four evidence walls, because even if it IS the same place, there are bajillion different whiteboards in here. Even A has no idea what's going on, y'all. WE'RE NOT ALONE.
Letter
One discovery: A letter from Ali to a boy -- the one they think she was in love with, was supposed to travel with That Summer, etc. They call him Board Shorts. SO WHO IS 'BOARD SHORTS'???????? This is so ridiculous that I feel like I'm trapped in the pages of Pretty Little Liars: Modelland Edition.
Invitation
There is also an invitation to a costume party that night in Ravenswood, which A helpfully noted is expected to include Alison. Thank you, A. The girls deduce that A is trying to get THEM to draw out Alison, and he'll follow them straight to her. Oh, right: A is a 'he' now, because they found a closet full of a man's coats.
Mrs. Grunwald
Meg Foster reappears and tells us: She is a soothsayer. Alison wanted her to soothsay some stuff about who was threatening her (an 'A' harassed her too, remember). She had a bad feeling the night Alison died, went to the house, and found Alison reaching for life out of the ground. She pulled Alison out, took her to the hospital, then RAN INSIDE WITHOUT HER to get help and when she came back, Alison was gone. ... Did no one at the HOSPITAL report the appearance of a lady screaming that a wounded girl was in her car, the same night Alison was murdered? PEOPLE. What did the medics think when they came back out to the car? Did she come back out alone? If she did, then why didn't she bring Alison with her in the first place? What was the point of running inside for help without her? I DON'T. KNOW.
But Meg Foster does say that it's Dangerous and there was a Boy and he was After Her and he was older and thought Alison was eighteen. And she thinks Alison doesn't want to be found, but that the girls' persistence will lead HIM right to Alison. Sure.
Caleb
Meanwhile, this poor kid was coming to help Hanna crack into A's computers, so he got on an Olde Tymey Bus to Ravenswood. I am concerned that when he gets off the bus, he will be trapped in another dimension, and that's how he will leave the show and spin off Ravenswood. And that would blow because I love him and I don't want him stuck in a desaturated nutville.
BOOM
And then EZRA arrives, realizes where he is, and starts smacking the rack of coats and acting angry. The implication is: This is Ezra's lair, and Ezra is either a) A, or b) the guy who hooked up with Alison and thought she was eighteen when she was TOTALLY NOT EVEN CLOSE, and thus has been copycatting the original A because he wants the girls to find Alison and lead him to her because HE TRIED TO KILL HER or something. Or... some combination. There is no way Ezra can possibly have been A from the beginning, right? AND WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CRASHING A CAR INTO EMILY'S HOUSE? Does this make any sense at all? I feel like, they love Ian Harding and they ran out of adorable things for him to do that didn't involve having earnest sex with underage Aria, so they decided to make him shadowy and creepy for REAL, and listen, dude DOES love his jailbait, so hooking up with Alison makes lots of sense for him. But the rest of it... I can't believe that he would be the real A, or at least the original A. Or, we'll find out he set all this up to FIND A to protect Aria. THEORIES. I HAVE THEM.
Button
And the crackfest continues: The button is someone dressed up for the big costume party -- which the girls are also going to, in the hope of finding A -- in a GAS MASK. Or, Ezra wanted to hit up Comic-Con as a character from the Star Wars cantina, and this was the closest he could find.
Slow clap, Pretty Little Liars. You have LOST YOUR DAMN MIND. Which is sometimes a lot more interesting to stick with than a show that makes eminent sense.