Last night's season finale of Pretty Little Liars gave us more answers than we've ever gotten at any one point in the past, but in true PLL fashion, left us with an almost equal amount of questions and another Rosewood death.
The episode began with the girls in an apartment with Noel "Oh, You're Still On This Show?!" Kahn, who was the mysterious voice that met the girls at the end of last week's episode and has apparently been helping Alison this entire time...
He takes their cell phones, escorts Ali in, and heads back to wherever he's been laying dormant these last few seasons (seriously, we don't see him again the entire episode…way to tease us Mar! ).
The girls greet their leader with a mixed bag of emotions, Hanna most eloquently summing them up:
The girls all have a seat as Ali tells them she's FINALLY ready to explain what happened "that night" and we are treated to our first of many flashbacks to come:
Alison was with Ian in Hilton Head the weekend she told the girls she visited her grandmother. She needed time away from the A-ness of it all and thought Ian would offer her a reprieve..and it looked like they were going to have a weekend full of videotaped reprieves… until Melissa showed up.
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When she got back to Rosewood, she headed over to visit Jenna in the hospital and we experienced a bit of flasbackception. This time, however, we saw what happened right after Ali left Jenna's room…she received another -A text. So much for Jenna being -A.
(SN: Did it strike anyone else odd that -A's text at Jenna's hospital almost mirrored Aria's thoughts when the girls found out she could see? I'm not an Aria as -A conspiracy theorist, but if I were that would definitely be added to the pile of evidence against her.)
Back in present day Rosewood, the girls are missing as far as their parents are concerned (although I'm actually surprised any of them noticed the girls were gone at all...keeping up with your teenager requires real parenting!) and the Hastings' are at the center of the investigation. Melissa is back from London after "running into Toby" and Detective Beauty Mark is questioning Mama Hastings, Peter Hastings, Melissa and Cece all separately at the police station.
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| (Because he's LITERALLY the only cop in Rosewood that remotely attempts to do his job) |
Cece, still in custody for the murder of Wilden, is just in a bomb-dropping kind of mood. She told Det. Beauty Mark that she not only knows who killed the missing girl from the next town, but could confirm Alison is alive with photographic evidence, which ended up being from the night the girls saw Ali in Ravenswood.
I worry about Cece…clearly no one ever taught her the oldest rule in the book:
Back at the secret location, Alison continued to recount the events of "that night" to the liars…
When she got home from
As Ali was leaving to meet the girls at the barn, her mother was on the phone with someone speaking cryptically, but obviously worried. She told Alison to stay inside but Ali being Ali not only went out anyway, she stole sedatives from her mom's purse so that she could drug the liars at their sleepover and cross them off of the -A list.
I love how the girls can't believe Ali suspected them AND drugged them, and Ali's just like
Once all of the liars were asleep, she went out and met Toby, who told her he was grateful to her for getting Jenna off of his back. After he thanked her, she crossed him off of the list of suspects as well and went on to meet Ian at the Kissing Rock. On her way, she ran into Ezra who let her know that lying about her age was not cool, told her to be careful because he cared about her and ended their relationship.(Cue the collective Ezria-shipper cheers..this is definitely Step 1 of the writers trying to redeem him, which I'm still firmly against)
After leaving Ezra, Ali met Ian, and this is where his flashback piece of the puzzle fell. They had their final hook-up, then she told him she had the NAT videos. He warned her that she could hurt a lot of people with the videos, including her own family and friends, but at that point, the only thing Ali cared about was figuring out who was threatening her.
After the Ian confrontation, Alison headed back to the barn, where Spencer was still awake. Spence wanted to continue their argument from earlier and picked up the shovel to prove a point, but as she raised it, pills fell out of her pocket and Spence fell apart. Alison promised not to tell anyone about Spence's pill problem. A defeated Spencer then proceeded to do the saddest George Michael Bluth impression I've ever seen all the way back to the barn...
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| But at least she didn't "kill" Ali! |
Alison visited Byron Montgomery after her confrontation with Spencer, then went back to the barn to check on the girls. She saw they were all
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| This is the exact moment in the show where all hell broke loose. |
As Alison walked up to her house, she saw her mother in their window. Then the last thing she saw was Mrs. D's shocked face, as she witnessed who hit her.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
Jessica not only witnessed who tried to kill Alison, SHE PROCEEDED TO HELP BURY HER OWN DAUGHTER!
Alison heard her mother repeating "What have you done?" as she was burying her and the next thing Ali remembers, Grunwald pulled her out of the grave, which flashbackceptions with what Grunwald told the girls in Ravenswood.
After Ali ran from the Grunwald, Mona the Psycho-na found her wandering the streets and took her to The Lost Woods Resort to hide out and fix her up directly next door to her original -A lair. Mona gave Alison the idea to fake her death and run, and Ali repaid her in true Ali fashion...with the gift of a make-over.
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| Sure, Alison was more Regina George than Cher Horowitz, but you get my drift. |
Finally, Mona watched Alison as Vivian Darkbloom drive off into the wind, and we finally had some answers about what happened "that night".
At the apartment, Alison told the girls that she decided to stop running when Hanna got hit by the car. Once she saw how far -A was willing to go, she decided to stay one step ahead to protect the girls. She also fessed up to pushing Ian at the bell tower and pulling Hanna from the fire at the cabin, but not knowing who saved the others.
By this time, the police had tracked Spencer's car GPS to Philly, where the girls left the it, while -A has tracked the girls to Alison... and this time, there's a gun involved.
The girls make their escape from -A by running to the roof of the restaurantpartment where they were (of course) trapped. The door opens and Ezra appears out of freaking NOWHERE to save the day( Step 2 of the writers attempting to redeem the character). Ezra wrestles -A for the gun, it goes off, Hanna grabs it after Ezra gets out of -A's grasp and aims at -A. She then proceeds NOT TO SHOOT as they all watch -A Spiderman across buildings n'shit. They basically let -A get away that time.
Ezra collapses after commenting on how beautiful the New York skyline is (because that's where they really are..not Philly) and the girls realize he's been shot ( Step 3 of the writers attempting to redeem the character). They then proceed to runback and forth on the rooftop wailing, like that's really going to help.
Finally, this year's annual finale-death was brought to you by Jessica DiLaurentis:
Odds and Ends:
-Mona has known Ali was alive the entire time. Did Noel? How did he factor into everything?
- Alison never had sex with Ian or Ezra, so neither of them could have been the one she was afraid got her pregnant at Cape May.
- We still don't know how Cece and Ezra know one another. Was it from college? Why are they working together now?
- I feel like Toby could still be hiding some things...I don't buy that he went all the way to London for Melissa. Have they ever even spoken before this?
- Melissa, Peter Hastings and The Corpse Formally Known As Mrs. D,know who "killed" Ali.
- Mona has been batshit since Day 0.
- Ali pushed Ian at the bell tower but DID NOT kill him.
- It looked like Cece was wearing the shirt Ashley Marin found in Ali's room last week. Why would Mrs. D buy her clothes?
- Where the hell is Ali's dad in all this?
-Who saved the girls, minus Hanna, from the fire at the cabin?
- Mr. Hastings and Mrs. D have some sort of understanding...that coupled with the fact that I couldn't see Mrs. D protect anyone from hitting Ali but another child, all arrows seem to be pointing at Jason as Ali's "killer"...but that would be WAY too simple for the PLL-verse.
-If you give a liar a gun, and they threaten to shoot you...it's probably a lie.
So what did you guys think of last night's finale? Will Ezra make it to Season 5?
Thanks so much for sticking with my reviews! You've all been amazing to chat with and the feedback has been more than I could ask for. I can't wait to bring you Season 5 greatness in recap form when Pretty Little Liars returns on June 10th!
Let's have our final Season 4 pretty little chat below!
