Friday, February 5, 2016

'Pretty Little Liars' Rosewood Roundup ("New Guys, New Lies") [Contributor: Megan Mann]



"New Guys, New Lies"
Original Airdate: February 2, 2016

Warm morning sunlight drifts through the window and shines on Spencer and Caleb. Spencer remains in ignorant bliss of last night’s mass text as she makes coffee. She looks around for her phone and her happiness is gone, replaced immediately by panic. She gets ready as quickly as possible and meets the girls at the hotel, claiming that her phone was off.

Emily automatically assumes their tormentor is Sara, and Aria and Spencer don’t disagree. If she was part of A’s team, it would make sense that she was doing it. Hanna doesn’t buy that though, and plays it off like it could be some bored techie trying to mess with them. As if that isn’t one of the single worst conclusions this group has come up with over six seasons. She grabs a phone, texts the number and asks if they know him/her. “Yes,” is the response. And so it begins.

Emily calls Ali to see if she’s okay, but to also see where she is in order to rule her out as a suspect. But is she really ruled out? We know how notorious she is for lying. Meanwhile, Aria won’t let the girls put this on Ezra. If he said he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it. But that’s not enough to quell the girls' concerns. They look over to see Lorenzo giving a press conference about the case. He says they’re narrowing down the list of suspects (see: the Liars) and that they’re confident they know what the murder weapon was. As the girls listen, they notice Aria’s dad walking through the lobby. Before they can even finish the joke about him seeing someone, their phones chime with a picture of a nine iron.

“Does Ezra play golf?”

Aria books it over to The Brew to talk to Ezra... who is no longer answering her calls. Sabrina tells her that Ezra skipped town but that she doesn’t know where he went. This happens fairly often, but he usually resurfaces in a few days. Aria attempts to get into his apartment, but Sabrina isn’t having it. Tough luck on trying to find that nine iron that Ezra... did what with, exactly? Had stored in his pant leg as they walked around Rosewood in the wee small hours of the morning? Had hiding in a bush? Randomly found in a church pew? Seems unrealistic, ladies.

Over at campaign headquarters, Caleb asks why Spencer snuck out. Instead of telling him what really had her scurrying off this morning, she omits the answer altogether and tells him the night was perfect. As Spencer looks over the information about the opposition for her mom's candidacy, she hesitates. If they know this much about them, the opposition has to know just as much about her own family, right? Does that include everything that happened with Mona and then Charlotte? Caleb mentions that he’s going to see Toby and again, Spencer hesitates. Her new beau talking to her first, real love. Strange.

Hanna learns that her fiancé is heading back to Rosewood and Emily asks why, if he’s so perfect, they haven’t set a date yet. After Hanna says that she is finally read to do just that, she quickly changes topics and says that she told Spencer it was okay to be with Caleb.

“You’re really okay with that?” Emily questions.

Again, Hanna repeats that Jordan keeps her grounded in a way that no one ever has. Emily doesn't have time to get into details because her phone chimes and it's Aria, requesting help.

A beer cracks and hisses as Toby hands it to Caleb. He says he’s not building that house alone, that Yvonne has been helping, and out walks the daughter of Veronica’s opposition. Has our Real Rosewood Disney Prince picked up a few of the Liars’ tendencies over time? Because he seems to have left out the fact that she was dating Toby. When Caleb tells Toby that he’s connected with Spencer in a more-than-friendly way, Toby refuses to look at him and seems less than enthusiastic. It makes you wonder if, despite being with Yvonne, he still holds out hope for one day rekindling things with Spencer.

Aria is talking a mile a minute wondering where Ezra has disappeared to. Emily asks her to calm down and tells her that she won’t deceive Sabrina in order to find the key to Ezra’s apartment. Emily’s trying to get her life together; why would she take all of these steps back? Aria explains that if they see that Ezra isn’t missing that club, they can get ahead of the situation. As we know, these girls never get ahead of any cyber stalker.

Pages flutter in the wind as Spencer looks over Yvonne’s file again. She sees that she’s dating Toby and that he plans to propose to her at a family lunch. As she contemplates this major change in her life, the full loss of Toby, she sees a flash out of the corner of her eye. Looking up, she sees a town car parked across the street and more flash bulbs. Could this be Big Bad doing recon?

Without even missing a beat, Hanna admits to Ashley that she erased the security footage but assures her that they didn’t have anything to do with her murder. Ashley reminds her that she’s no longer in high school and doesn’t owe those girls anything. She also tells her that their security company backs up all of their footage onto a hard drive at their farm. A farm? Like the one Ali is supposedly at? Could these two be linked?

Emily decides to comply with Aria’s plan and chats with Sabrina as she slips in and grabs the key. He’s not missing any clubs. Over at the hotel, Spencer is barely listening to the campaign manager as she notices Toby fiddling with an engagement ring box. Her phone chimes with a message: “I guess she is better than you. He will never put a ring on your finger.” Where is this Big Bad hiding? How can they see where she is and how she was looking at Toby?

Being incredibly rude, Aria stomps over to Emily and Sabrina and says it’s urgent. “I think my dad had something to do with Charlotte’s murder.” Talk about a plot twist. Hanna tells Jordan about the tape and he tells her that her loyalty is one of the many reasons why he loves her. He’s incredibly understanding and says that they can get ahead of it with his family’s connections. Just as he walks off to call his dad, her phone buzzes. “When the pigs come calling you better not squeal about me.” Whoever this new threat is, they’re more meticulous and omnipresent than Mona and Charlotte ever were.

After Spencer talks to Hanna about their new string of texts, she goes to see what Caleb can do. However, she stops short before opening the door and deletes the Toby text first. He takes the phone and he knows, just like the girls know, they haven’t escaped Rosewood and its tainted streets. He starts the hack and is close, but this person being as close as they are, will he/she really slip up and let Caleb find them?

Spencer runs into Toby and Yvonne on the street. Ever the professional, she doesn’t make the situation uncomfortable. She notes that there is no ring on Yvonne’s finger. Yvonne runs off to stop her from getting a ticket and Toby knows she saw him holding the box earlier. She asks why he didn’t propose but Yvonne beckons him over before he can answer. Is he still holding out hope for Spencer and having second thoughts about Yvonne?

A creepy old man stares at Emily through the window and disappears before Aria walks into the room. She calls her dad saying that they need to talk, that it’s important; but he says he’s in a meeting and rushes her off the line. There’s a quick cut to him sitting in the passenger seat of a car. “I think she knows.” Aria knows that something is really wrong because she overheard her parents arguing about Ella going to see Charlotte. Byron was furious that they were going to possibly let Charlotte out. She wonders if he was furious enough to kill her.

Hanna talks to a lawyer about deleting the footage and when she asks if she’s told her everything, Hanna looks at her phone and decides to leave out the text. Tsk Tsk, Hanna. You’ve learned nothing clearly. Spencer goes to visit Toby. He says it was easier to be friends when she wasn’t located in Rosewood. It makes you wonder, for the tenth time this episode, if they’repurposefully leaving something unresolved.

Later that night, she rides in the car next to Caleb. He found the location of where the texts were coming from and Spencer’s disappointed it’s not the hotel as it rules out Sara. He asks her why she deleted the text about Toby. For someone as bright as Spencer, you would have assumed she knew he would have found that regardless of whether she had deleted it. If they wanted a fresh start, it couldn’t get complicated quickly.

At the precinct, Hanna and her lawyer go to talk to Lorenzo. He pulls her lawyer aside and when she comes back, she tells Hanna she’s free to go as the security company lost the Radley backup drive. What could have happened? Who got rid of it? Lorenzo is angry and he’s not going to give up. Neither will Spencer and Caleb who arrive at a storage unit without a lock. They lift the door to find a sole metal garbage can. When Spencer pulls the top off, there’s a black hoodie and a phone that immediately vibrates: “I don’t lurk in the shadows. I hide in plain sight.”

In the spirit of not giving up, Aria searches for the spare keys to her dad’s car. If she’s to believe he was part of the murder, she has to look at the golf clubs in his trunk. She finds the keys and starts to go through the clubs... and notices that one is missing. The nine iron. Could this be what Byron meant when he told whomever he was in the car with that she knows? Did he really kill Charlotte?

Spencer and Yvonne are hitting the trail hard for their parents. The girls, Caleb and Toby all watch on as Hanna breaks into her mom’s computer to see if Ezra is hiding out with Byron. Aria, Emily and Caleb think of who it could be who is doing this to them again. It’s hard to not rule out Sara, but she’s not the best candidate. Caleb throws Ali’s name into the ring and it’s smart that he does. She really is the most manipulative, the biggest liar and has a penchant for revenge. Hanna says Ezra hasn’t been there and that Sara put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on her door two days prior and requested the staff not enter while she’s gone. Seems sketchy.

Toby and Spencer share a tender but tense moment. He asks if she’ll be going back to D.C., and it’s obvious he hopes she does, as that would make it easier on him not to have to see her. Spencer walks toward the girls and asks how she did. They weren’t paying attention to her though, because they were looking at the murder weapon. They notice that the carpet in the photo is the same carpeting as the hotel. Whoever it is that’s doing this is staying in the hotel. Aria’s dad calls and says that he needs to talk to her. Alone.

A bellhop walks by in the background, but it’s not a bellhop. It’s the man who was staring at Emily in Aria’s living room earlier that day. He walks out of the hotel and into a black town car. The car drives off and the person takes off the hat and then the old man mask. Big Bad has been there all this time and they didn’t even know it. But how could they? Instead of a black hoodie, Big Bad is using disguises.

It could be anyone.

0 comments:

Post a Comment