kelly duncan is feeling a little dead this week…
I hate to admit it, but this week’s episode, “Dead to Me,” just didn’t work for me. There wasn’t necessarily anything bad about it, but there was nothing overly jaw-dropping either.
We begin with a cup of coffee at, The Rear Window Brew, love that name by the way. Spencer is still in a mood from last week after discovering that Toby was never actually in love with her and is part of, A’s entourage. I get it, you were played and I’d be pissed too, but not letting your friends in on the secret is pretty messed up. Anyway, Jason shows up to let everyone know that Ali’s remains have been released, again, and they will be having another memorial service, but only for family. Jason’s such a swell guy that he actually got his parents to agree to let the girls have some alone time. Spencer declares she wants no part of it. For once, I’m on her side. From what all of the flash-backs tell us, Ali was a pretty terrible person and they’ve already had multiple services for her. Enough is enough.
Skip ahead and we find Emily meeting her mom at work, which happens to be the police station, for lunch. While there she discovers a postcard that was in Ali’s casket is now on her mom’s desk, so of course she swipes it. There is a special message for Emily, basically saying she’s capable of murder, in French. She also discovers the photo of Detective Wilden at Cape May, NJ has been taken off the wall, and it is assumed that he’s found a way to get rid of the notebook that was turned in last week. I know, I know Wilden’s a creeper and he probably had something to do with Ali’s murder. I’d really like to see them actually do something with this character already. So far, he’s merely been a young attractive cop who is so serious all of the time that he makes people uncomfortable.
Still feeling blue about Ezra leaving, Aria decides to spend some time at his place, taking care of the plants and, you know, lying in his bed. This is one of those things that could’ve totally gone the wrong way and made Aria seem pathetic, but it actually came off as sweet. Thank goodness all she did was lay in his bed, if she had started wearing his clothes I’d feel quite differently. While she is in the apartment she hears a key in the door and gets prematurely excited thinking that Ezra has come home. Sadly for her, it is his younger brother, Wes, who as it turns out, has been kicked out of school and is taking advantage of the fact that is his big brother is out of town. On the plus side, Aria gets to bond with Ezra’s baby bro, who is actually quite more appropriate for her to date. So far, Wes has done nothing to really lead me to this conclusion, but I have a feeling he’s going to cause some trouble in the future.
Whether he makes a pass at Aria, or gets mixed up with, A, something is going to happen. I mean, no one on this show can just be a genuinely nice person without an agenda.
Meanwhile, we get to welcome back, Caleb. Completely unrelated to anything else that has happened, Hanna has convinced Caleb to go to his aunt’s old farmhouse and help clean it out before it gets torn down. This is the house he was raised in until he was put into foster care. He has a chip on his shoulder the whole time, because he has no idea why his family had given him up in the first place, and now he’s wasting his day doing free manual labor. I can’t say I blame him. However, the uncle that is there gives Hanna a baby picture of Caleb before they leave. For some reason, he thinks this photo of a 6 month old version of him will make him angry. Hanna thinks that because of the wear on the photo, it had been in his uncle’s wallet, and because the ring in the picture matches the one his uncle was wearing, that maybe just maybe, he isn’t his uncle at all, but actually his father. Caleb begs to differ and walks away from the conversation.
Back in crazy town, Spencer has finally found out where the key with the “A” on it belongs and it isn’t at all what she was hoping for. Clearly she had gotten there a little too late, but it was yet another room set up just to take the girls down. The room had bare walls and minimal furniture. This is about the time where you would think she might finally tell the rest of her friends what is really going on, but no, she just keeps on acting like a nutcase. She flips her lid and heads to the memorial service where she blurts out to Jason that Ali was pregnant when she died. He seems genuinely blown away by this revelation while everyone else is straight up pissed at Spencer for having no respect for the memorial. Jason storms off and everyone else does soon after. On Spencer’s way out, she spots the tomb of Toby’s mother and carves, “Toby,” into it. This scene was, for lack of a better word, weird. I guess it shows just how loony she is becoming, but it just seemed silly to me.
Now, we need to back track for a moment. Emily had gone to Dr. Sullivan, who is re-opening her practice, to talk about the night she killed, Nate. She knows that she did it in self-defense and there was no other option, but that doesn’t change the fact that she killed another person. Fair enough, I can’t imagine I’d be able to get past such a thing either. Anyway, Dr. Sullivan suggests Hypnotherapy to help her make sense of everything. Emily is horrified that when she goes under she has visions of herself killing Ali with a shovel.
Let’s flash-forward again to the memorial. As the girls walk outside, Emily hears a sprinkler in the distance and it triggers a new set of memories. It turns out she had mixed up Ali’s murder and the night Ali’s grave was dug up. She suddenly remembers seeing someone in black doing the digging and a blond in a red coat calling the shots. If only she had seen their faces…
Emily wasn’t the only one to pay the Doc a visit. Mona stopped by just to say hello. It’s super sweet of her considering she had to close the practice, because of Mona in the first place. Anyway, Mona brings her an orchid as an office-warming gift. I sincerely hope that the doctor isn’t stupid enough to put it in the office, or to keep it at all for that matter. I’m sure it’s been bugged or something, but we’ll have to wait at least one more week to find out.
