Pretty Little Liars Recap: “Bring Down the Hoe”
Spencer’s (Torian Bellisario) shifty behavior regarding Toby finally made the other girls demand what Spencer was hiding. She revealed how A had been leaving clues for Toby about his mother’s apparent murder.
Toby was upset Spencer broke his confidence, and Spencer was upset he seemed to have too much trust in A. In the end, Toby followed all of A’s clues right to Dr. Palmer’s car. When he tried breaking in, the cops showed up. He had to quickly make a run for it.
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Doesn’t this seem like it happens every time? (Resounding answer: Yes). Well, at least Toby got away for once, but he still needed answers. Does A actually have them, or have they just been playing Toby the whole time?
Hanna (Ashley Benson) met a hunky guy named Travis, who was sort of stalking her. It turned out he was a witness to Wilden’s murder. He saw Ashley drive away, before hearing shots fired, and a blonde woman flee the scene. He kept quiet, because there was bad blood between his dad and Wilden. Also, the next day A had left an envelope full of hush money.
Travis couldn’t take the guilt, and anonymously left the money for Hanna. Since he was pretty obvious about it, however, she confronted him. Hanna was able to convince him to go to the police and tell the truth. Will Ashley be released now?
Also, a while back it was announced Caleb would be leaving Rosewood and joining Pretty Little Lairs spinoff, Ravenswood. Could Travis be Hanna’s next love interest?
Spencer, Toby, and Emily (Shay Mitchell) went to the school hoedown together. The little trio reminded me of how much I liked Toby, Emily, and Maya as a threesome back in the day. (Sigh). Emily and Paige were still having problems and hadn’t gone to the dance together.
Emily made a romantic gesture, and by the end of the night, Emily and Paige were smiling and slow dancing together. It was pretty sappy, and I tried not to roll my eyes too much. Maybe it all meant these two kids really will be able to make things work, once Paige leaves for Stanford.
At the hoedown, Emily caught A/Red Coat spying on them, and she and Spencer started to chase A/Red Coat. After an ill-advised attempt at truck stealing, the girls were ultimately only able to get their hands on the discarded red coat, while A or whoever was in the wind.
They confirmed the jacket was missing a button, which meant this person was the one living under the DiLaurentis house. They were likely the one who attacked them earlier as well, when the girls had been digging around for clues in the crawlspace.
Aria (Lucy Hale) took Jake as her date to the dance. She was moving on, and that’s why she kept dodging Ezra’s phone calls. Ezra was depressed, (you could tell because he’d stopped shaving) and blurted out the Malcolm situation to Emily in a moment of despair. He asked her not to tell Aria, but when Aria wouldn’t talk to her former beau, Emily spilled the beans herself.
At the hoedown, Jake saw Ezra gazing longingly at his girlfriend, and privately told him to stop creeping on her. He could understand losing such a great girl, but he had to move on. Due to the chat, Ezra was standoffish when Aria finally came around to talk about Malcolm. Eventually, however, he did let Aria comfort him.
When the camera pulled back, it revealed CeCe, in a black A hoodie spying on the pair. Was she Red Coat? Is that where she ran after the hoedown?
When Jake offered to talk to his lawyer friend into representing Ashley, I immediately got “A vibes.” Was it a trick, or did he really just want to be a helpful boyfriend? If not, it seems like A might have enough ammo to break up the new couple.
The problem with Pretty Little Liars is there are always more and more questions, before there are any definite answers. It’s a story suck. It’s like the girls (and viewers!) are all stuck in a hamster wheel that never leads anywhere. It’s a bummer, because this show was quite juicy in the beginning.
This show has become so tiresome for me to watch, not even Hanna’s quippy one-liners of snarky goodness can save it!
If I was going to fix it, the first thing I’d do is solve Wilden’s murder, and put that storyline to rest. Then, I’d solve the mystery of Team A once and for all, and have him/her/them get sent to an out of state mental hospital. (Radley is the worst).
There’s still the mystery of who killed Alison/did Alison somehow fake her death? I want this show to return to its core, and focus again on our pretty, little liars, and their sordid, little lives. I’m so over having 9,000 red herring recurring characters! It’s the fourth season, and I really want to finally start seeing something different.
Photo Credit: ABC Family
