kelly duncan jumps in the fire…
Where to begin… tonight’s episode is one of those rare one’s that brings up far more questions than it answers. Let’s start with an answer. After drugging Aria and essentially kidnapping her and her friends, Meredith seemed to vanish into thin air. Right off the bat, Byron informs Aria that he had spoken to Meredith’s father and, luckily, she is A-Okay. Apparently she’s had a history of craziness and had stopped taking her meds. Whoops. Personally, I’m glad they got her story line finished up. Sure she added a little excitement for an episode, but mostly she was just annoying. It doesn’t say much about a person who is in their twenties, but still insists on threatening a bunch of 16 year old girls.
Moving right along, a huge part of tonight’s episode revolves around Spencer having a serious breakdown over the fact that Toby has been playing her throughout their entire relationship. After everything she’s confided in him and all of the time spent with him, it turns out he was playing for the, A-team. Now, her breakdown is absolutely warranted, but seriously, how could she not tell her friends that Toby has been one of their enemies this whole time. As far as Emily, Aria and Hanna are concerned, Toby is still a friend not a foe, which means, they still trust him and could get into some serious trouble. No lie, I kind of wanted to reach through my TV screen and slap some sense into this girl myself. Feeling hurt and betrayed, before the episode ends, Spencer contacts a private investigator to follow Toby and to find out what the key he lost last week belongs to.
Now, we all know that Aria’s been keeping a big secret herself. Ezra, as it turns out, impregnated his high school girlfriend Maggie, but his family had paid this girl off in order to “take care of it.” As far as Ezra knows, there is no child. However, Aria discovered months back that she actually had a little boy and kept it a secret. A, has known from the beginning and has made many threats to spill the big news, but Aria promised Maggie that she would let her be the one to tell Ezra, when she was ready. I’m pretty sure if I were her, I would have to tell my boyfriend and not worry about keeping secrets for his ex. Tsk- tsk, Ms. Montgomery, tsk-tsk.
This is where things get craaaazy. Aria finally decides that she is going to tell Ezra everything and all of her friends know it. So, she leaves him a voicemail asking if they can meet up to talk. Around the same time that this meeting should be happening, Spencer gets a text from Aria saying that Ezra “totally freaked” and broke up with her. She wants Spencer to meet her in the park. Here we go. Spencer, even though she owns a great big fancy car, rides her bike there only to find none other than Ezra himself typing on his laptop. Not being in a great place relationship-wise herself, she unloads on him telling him what a horrible person he is for ending things with Aria, because duh-duh-duh, it’s not Aria’s fault that Maggie never told him he had a son. Ezra’s jaw, rightfully, drops and has what I would consider a pretty solid reaction to the news. While I cannot relate to the news relayed, I definitely understand the feeling.
While this saga is playing out in the park, Aria’s in the school cafeteria with Emily and Hanna completely oblivious. That is, until Ezra shows up to tell her otherwise. Have no fear, by the end of the episode everything is worked out. Well, sort of. While Ezra tells Aria he doesn’t blame her for keeping the secret, he also tells her he’s leaving town and going to meet his son. With a tear in his eye, he kisses her on the forehead and says goodbye. I don’t know what this means for the future of their relationship, but I have a bad feeling about this Maggie (who just happens to be played by Larisa Oleynik, aka Alex Mack).
So much is happening in this episode it’s hard to keep up. Since, A, shows up in every episode, it can be pretty easy to forget the underlying plot is still, who killed Ali DeLaurentis? Tonight, another clue landed in Emily’s lap. Remember Nate? The crazy who killed Maya, Emily’s old girlfriend, and then told Emily that he was Maya’s cousin in order to get close to Emily? Well, his family had sent Emily a box of Ali’s old things. One of which was a notebook that had a pretty detailed conversational note between Ali and her old friend, CeCe. This note is where we learn that Ali was having a summer fling in, Cape May, NJ with someone only known as “the beach hottie.” Emily hunts down CeCe to find out what she was talking about, and she lets her know that Ali thought she was pregnant, but she couldn’t tell the father, because she was sure he would “kill her.” This just happened to be around the same time that Ali wound up dead.
For once, Emily does the right thing and goes directly the police with her new evidence. Unfortunately, the cop who takes the book is Detective Wilden. The very same one that had blackmailed Hanna’s mother in order to keep Hanna out of trouble for shoplifting, and just happens to always think the girls are up to no good. When Emily goes to get coffee in the police station, where her mother now works, she sees a photo on the wall of Wilden, holding a fish he caught while in none other than, Cape May. So, this begs the question, has he been trying to pin Ali’s murder on the girls all this time, because he’s really the guilty one, or is this just a coincidence? I’m at a loss on this one. Clearly, if anyone is going to be in a position to frame anyone for murder, it’s going to be him. Yet, at the same time, if he was guilty wouldn’t he have just closed the case a long time ago?
You may be wondering, where the hell is Hanna while all of this craziness is going on? Don’t you worry about it. She’s staying busy by following Paige around trying to find out what kind of funny business her and Caleb have been up to. Unfortunately for her, she follows Paige into a lesbian bar where she’s meeting up with another girl. Someone sends Hanna a drink and she takes it, but doesn’t actually drink it. Afraid of being seen by Paige, Hanna starts dancing with the woman who sent her the drink. Sadly, this woman already had a girlfriend, and a jealous one at that. The woman throws a drink at Hanna, which draws attention to her, leading to her being carded and then arrested.
This weeks’ episode was an emotional rollercoaster. I couldn’t possibly relate to Ezra, because it would be impossible for me to have a child and not know about it, but I could definitely feel for him. I sincerely hope things work out with him and Aria, partially because they’re an adorable couple and partially, because if they’re not together there’s no more Mr. Fitz and I just like him too much to say goodbye. Here’s hoping that next week Spencer gets herself together and let’s everyone know what a jerk Toby is.
