kelly duncan is in hot water…
Tonight’s episode, “Hot Water,” kicks off with after-hours coffee talk at, The Brew. The girls are talking about their crazy night, it picks up right where last weeks’ episode left off, and where Jason could possibly have disappeared to, but they are startled by a loud banging on the front door. Low and behold, it’s good old Det. Wilden (Bryce Johnson). Seriously, nothing makes you look guilty like harassing a small group of girls while they’re drinking coffee. Everyone finds this guy irritating, but good old Hanna is the one to call him out on his relationship with Ali. Whether it’s true or not he looks seriously unsettled by the accusation.
Now, Paige is back and is still trying to do some investigating of her own, you know, to protect Emily. Emily and Hanna just happen to catch her just as she’s about to head to the costume shop where the Queen of Hearts costume was rented for the, Halloween Train. In case you’ve forgotten, someone wearing said costume strangled Spencer and was gunning to take the girls down on that train. They get to the shop, and Emily does some serious snooping through the registers in order to e-mail a copy of the purchase orders. Unfortunately for Shana, costume shop employee/one-time lover of Paige, the e-mail is sent from her account and she gets busted for breaking the rules.
Meanwhile, Aria is going to Ezra’s to check on his apartment and surprise, surprise, guess who’s back in town and forgot to call his girlfriend. While Aria was headed into the apartment she was in the middle of leaving a message for Wes, wanting to talk about — she stops short when she sees Ezra folding his laundry, talk about a close call, just imagine if she took even three more seconds to spot Ezra cleaning. Apparently, his son is great and he’s still in love with Aria. So, besides the fact that Ezra’s mom just won’t stop bugging Aria and making passive aggressive comments to her about the fact that his son, Malcolm will now be the center of his world, Maggie’s back in the picture and Aria’s too young, blah, blah, blah, everything is great. I’m telling you, this girl needs to tell her man the truth about what happened with Wes. Hell, not even the truth, lay all the blame on Wes, because if she doesn’t say something I know someone else who will.
We’re now about halfway through the episode and things are starting to get craaaazy. We all know Wilden’s a creep. Let’s not forget about Wilden blackmailing Hanna’s mom, Ashley, into a relationship way back in Season 1 in order to keep Hanna out of trouble for shoplifting. So, tonight, after hearing Hanna’s accusations, he hunts Ashley down while she’s having a solo working dinner. We can see that she is clearly drinking an iced tea, trust me this is important, and he sends her a glass of wine. She tells the waitress she didn’t order the drink, cue Det. Creeper. Ashley, even though he’s very attractive, is rightfully disgusted by the sight of Wilden and asks him to leave. He tells Ashley about what Hanna said to him, she’s already heard the story from Hanna so she isn’t shocked. However, Wilden is being such an ass she asks him if it’s true, which really pisses him off and he leaves. But, he’s not gone for good.
A little while later, as Ashley is leaving the restaurant we realize Wilden has been waiting for her and he begins to tail her. Wanting to really make sure that she does everything in her power to keep Hanna quiet, he pulls her over for drunk driving, which we all know isn’t legit. After being dragged out of her car and threated, Ashley freaks out and runs back to her car. But, Wilden is still persistent. At this point, he’s screaming at her that she needs to keep Hanna quiet or he’ll rat her out. He begins to reach for his gun, Ashley cracks and hits the gas, and well, runs Wilden over. It was pretty stellar. Terrified she goes home and is sitting in the kitchen when Hanna walks in. She fills her in on what has happened and they go back to the scene of the crime to see if Wilden is still there. What do they find? His car is there, but Wilden is gone. Clearly, A, has had some part in this, whether, A, finished him off or simply removed the body, it seems relatively safe to say that he is out of the picture. Unfortunately, the whole incident was caught on the camera running in his police car.
Now, back in crazy town, Spencer is still moping around and skipping school. This is going to look horrible on her college applications. Her parents have been out of town leaving her alone with big sister, Melissa. They haven’t had what you would call a good relationship in the past. In fact, you could call it awful. For a long time, she was shaping up to be the perfect ,A, candidate, but her name was seemingly cleared. However, as we keep getting bits of back story from Cece, she seems to be working her way back into the picture, in a bad way. Cece claims Melissa is the one who took the photo of Cece, Ali and Wilden on the boat. Melissa was supposedly angry with Ali the night she was murdered. Things just aren’t looking good for her, but we’ll get back to that.
So, Wren shows up again to talk to Spencer and confesses that when he had spoken to her last time, he wasn’t only stopping by because he was worried about her health, but also because he had heard that she had broken up with Toby. Wren and Spencer had a small fling in the past and he was hoping to try dating again. At first she is hesitant, but then she perks up and agrees to dinner with him. I’m still not sure if she’s trying to use him or if she remembered that he’s an incredibly attractive British doctor, and she would be stupid to reject him. Either way, they have dinner and end the night with a make-out session on the sidewalk. When they part ways, Spencer notices the woman in the red coat again. She tried to follow her, but it just didn’t work out.
Back to Melissa. When Spencer gets home from her date, Melissa pretty much tells her that she knows she was with Wren, because she can smell his cologne on her, and of course, Melissa’s the one that bought it for him. Spencer goes from happy to uncomfortable in about two seconds. Deciding she needs to relax a little she goes to take a steam. It must be nice having your very own steam room. Anyway, she closes her eyes to relax, but when she wakes up and tries to turn the steam off, there is a malfunction and the temperature keeps rising, and someone has locked her in. When she clears the steam off the glass she sees a note from, A, written on the mirror. She screams for Melissa, but she never comes. Lucky for her, Aria had let herself in, because of a text Spencer sent earlier.
I’m not sure what about this incident finally did it, but Spencer tells Aria to call Hanna and Emily. She is finally going to tell everyone the truth about Toby. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see everyone’s reaction to the big news.
