Pretty Little Liars - Episode 3.08 Recap: Maybe they should be trying to find -A's dentist

Has anyone else noticed that –A has a sweet tooth? In this week’s episode as well as last week’s and countless others (like I have time to re-watch them all), he or she ends the episode with a tasty treat in hand. It’s also an interesting coincidence that Maya’s website is www.massugar.com. Anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take this from the top.

At Spencer’s house, our blonde little broken record repeats that she thinks Mona is on their side for the first of a million times this week. Spencer does what she does best, naysaying, while Hanna fills the audience in on the fact that she’s neither given blood nor gotten a block against the court order for her sample. The Rosewood PD sure is patient. Emily enters after talking on the phone with Nate, who she’s promised to meet at the boathouse after telling him how much time she spent there with Maya. She agrees to let the Liars break into the site after she unsuccessfully tries the password.

Source: ABC Family

At the boathouse, Emily and Nate share similar stories of paper and pyrotechnics, and how they both feel Maya’s presence as they go about town. Even though Emily knows that Jenna blew him off, Nate confesses that she sounded as though she was still getting over someone when he called her. He soliloquizes about Garrett and how much he wants to kill him, probably for more reasons than one now that he’s so lovelorn, and Emily gets upset as though he’s ruining her sacred place. Nate wrongfully suspects that her ill feelings are fear towards him, as if we need any more reasons to be suspicious of him.

When Aria arrives at Ezra’s apartment and enters with an awkwardly sexual comment, she finds Ezra waiting for her with his mother. She reveals that Ezra’s true last name is Fitzgerald, which he shortens to separate himself from the famous author, though it wouldn’t surprise me if he was actually related to F. Scott, as we’ll discover that his family is rolling in it. Dianne invites them to a benefit at the art museum and the accept after Aria shows such an interest. She clearly knows that Aria is in high school, but Ezra lied about dating her while he was still working at Rosewood.

Source: ABC Family

Back at the Hastings residence, Spencer and Hanna try to hack into the website with no luck. Spencer suggests that they ask Caleb for help as he’s back in town, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Who is he staying with and why does he keep moving back and forth? Was it ever addressed that he would finish high school in Rosewood even though mommy dearest is in California? Hanna agrees to let Spencer talk to him and then gets a text from Wren. As if there weren’t enough talk about loves and past loves in this scene, Spencer’s soon-to-be ex busts in and demands information about Jason. Spencer sends Hanna upstairs like a misbehaving child and Toby explains that Jason and his car have both vanished without a trace and he wants to know what’s going on. Even though Mona and Garrett are both behind bars, he suspects that someone is still trying to hurt her and her friends. I smell a break up, and it has nothing to do with his constant failure to knock.

We then find Emily at Paige’s house, where she’s inexplicably fixing her bike instead of planning a party while her parents are visiting everyone’s favorite Dunder-Mifflin branch. She does tell Emily that she skipped school, but insists that nothing’s wrong and doesn’t want to talk about what happened at Jenna’s party. However, they agree to discuss the matter after school the next day, which seems to also be when everyone else’s story lines will explode.

At the coffee house, Hanna and Wren discuss Mona’s situation, in which Wren explains to Hanna that the board feels as though Mona would be better treated at another nut house in Saratoga. He also reveals that she hasn’t been taking her crazy pills and has been instead giving them to a visitor. Hanna immediately takes offense but he reassures her that she’s not the only one who’s been seeing Mona. Though he has no pull with such senior physicians, Wren agrees to talk to the board after hearing how much Hanna believes in him. Suddenly their cuddly moment is interrupted when Caleb enters. Hanna approaches him but he’s clearly hurt when he sees Wren and assumes that they’re on a date, leaving without saying a word. Despite being so scorned, he agrees to help Spencer hack into the site because he still cares about Hanna and hates Mona for hurting her.

During her conversation with Caleb, Spencer receives an –A text threatening Hanna, who shares the news about Mona when the Liars reunite that day. For once they come up with an idea before I do (Hello, the password had to be "mayaknew" from Mona's code), as it totally slipped my mind that the Milizopam in Emily’s flask and Lucas’ camera case could have come from Mona. At this point, it’s still up in the air as to whether the website belonged to Maya, or if Mona created it as a cruel joke.

After school, Aria goes to Spencer’s to borrow fancy clothes when they find Mrs. Hastings’ briefcase in the kitchen. Spencer finds Garrett’s oddly tiny case file, and Aria takes photos of the documents with her phone.

Meanwhile, Emily and Paige run in the woods, where Emily’s chasing Paige for a change. When they stop, Paige confesses that she knew Emily was drugged the night that Allison’s corpse was unearthed because she showed up on her porch at eleven and was already out of it. Though Emily doesn’t remember anything, Paige tells her that they kissed and that she bolted the second Paige took her eyes off of her, probably because it was Tuna Surprise night at the McCullers house. I kid. I actually really like Paige, who feels as though she took advantage of the now extremely disturbed Emily. It was just a kiss, for crying out loud!

Source: ABC Family

As Aria and Spencer read Maya’s autopsy report upstairs, they discover that she received heavy trauma to the throat as she suffocated and that she died in Emily’s backyard. The report also reads that her purse is still at large and a page of names and addresses lists Bart Comstock as a key witness that’s crucial to yet another Hastings victory. Aria agrees to scope him out since Caleb is coming to help Spencer with the website. When she arrives at the address to find a movie theater, she finds Bart and makes small talk with him until she’s able to swing the conversation in Maya’s direction. It turns out that Bart is quite the fan of lesbians, and told the police that he saw Maya get into a police interceptor, though he doesn’t say that Garrett was driving so it could have been anyone. Wilden, perhaps?

At Radley, Hanna waits for Wren, who enters with bad news, that he couldn’t sway the board into letting Mona stay. All is not lost though, as he feels that Hanna could convince them at the advocacy hearing the next night. At said hearing, Hanna starts her speech from cue cards, but tosses them aside and speaks from the heart. She tells them how she and Mona came out of loserdom together, and that she forgives Mona and understands that she could have snapped just as easily, and Mona would be in her place defending her. The board obviously took her seriously, because Wren finds her later in the hallway to tell her that Mona won’t be leaving, to which Hanna responds with a big smooch, leaving both parties shocked.

As Caleb helps Spencer with the password, she takes it upon herself to comment on how expensive all of his new possessions are. Jealous, much? I’m surprised she didn’t break into song: “Nails done, hair done, everything did…” Anyways, once they get into the site they find a video of Maya reading a book and making comments as though she’s filming a video journal. Spencer immediately calls Aria, who tells her about her conversation with Bart. What I don’t understand is what else Mrs. Hastings needed to know from him, when he seems to have already told the cops everything she’d need to win the case.

Source: ABC Family

At the museum benefit, Aria discovers that the exhibit is a collection that belongs to his grandparents, revealing just how filthy rich his family is. Ezra explains how he cut himself off and that he hides his family because he’s ashamed of them. She quickly forgives him for being so cryptic and Mama Fitz spots them making out. Que classy. To add insult to injury, Dianne later finds Aria sipping a drink through a coffee stirrer like a white trash lunatic, and makes conversation with her. Their talk quickly takes a turn however, when Dianne confesses to digging up dirt on Aria’s family (When was Ella arrested?) and essentially telling her that she’s no good for Ezra. She storms off, watering the nearest plant with her soda, even though she just sets the cup on the first ledge she can find. Ezra catches up with Dianne later and blames her for driving Aria away, harping on her for being cruel and selfish. We later see Aria crying in her bedroom when Byron enters and tells her that she’s an incredible blessing and could never wreck anyone’s life. At least someone’s parents love them.

Later that night, we find Emily at the boathouse again in what looks like the beginning to every slasher movie. She jumps when she hears a noise, but it’s just Nate, the seemingly nice guy who can’t have her and will eventually turn to murder. She tells him that she came back to help her make up her mind about something, then asks him if he thinks it’s possible to act without having a motive. He says no, that even drinking isn’t an excuse because your actions are still your own. He gives her his jacket when she shivers and she’s still wearing it when she gets to Paige’s house. At this point, I’m screaming, “Check the pockets!” but I’m also distracted by my own excitement over Emily and Paige getting back together. Emily admits that deep down, went looking for Paige on purpose that night because she wanted to kiss her, which she proceeds to do again. Yes, I’m holding a shield to protect myself from the fiery darts that will inevitably be thrown at me by the fandom for writing this, but I don’t care. I always thought Maya was bad news for Emily and Paige was a total winner. Clearly I was right and I don’t mind rubbing it in!

While the reunited lovers swim, Spencer, Hanna and Aria are up to their knees in uncomfortable videos on Maya’s website. Spencer’s about to shut down the entire operation when Hanna begs to watch one last video, which is Maya telling the camera that she’s going to face her fear of something. We see police lights flash on her face and can assume that the video was taken just before she got into the police car the night she was murdered. Spencer rings Emily but she can’t be reached.

The final –A scene of the night shows our villain at the bank, either cashing a check or making a withdrawal for a large sum of money, which most likely came from Jason’s reward. He or she then takes a candy from the teller’s stash, pointing to the sweet tooth I mentioned before.


Thanks for reading, Liars! Feel free to check out my previous reviews of PLL and other shows at WatchItRae.com or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, where I post links of my articles when they go live. Stay tuned for a recap of next week's episode, "The Kahn Game."

What did you think of this week's episode?